Category: the boy

Fashion

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Outfit rules in our house for the girl:

1) Must be weather appropriate

2)Must sort of kind of fit (lots of wiggle room with this one)

3)Must wear leggings/bike shorts under dresses or skirts so that hanging upside down on the playground is easily done.

aaaaaand, that’s about it.  (Special occasions are, of course, slightly different.  For that there is only one rule and it is this: 1) You will wear 1 of 2 outfits I have chosen.)

Clothes are often inside out, backwards, and more often than not both. Socks never, ever match. The boy, incidentally, is quite traditionally stylish and puts together outfits often complete with accessories, Remember, he’s the kid who wore a 3 piece suit nearly every day for almost a year.

Here’s a typical one:

That is, of course

if I can get her to keep anything on at all.

Xmas Half Pint X-games

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Our new (as of last year) Christmas day tradition is to go skiing.  Last year poor little girl had to sit in daycare while the rest of us had fun, but this year she is old enough to start skiing! I was a little apprehensive but she has such a little go-getter personality that I thought she would be just fine.

I prepped both kids by showing them kids ski videos on youtube.  Some of those kids are a-mazing, like this one little girl who’s been skiing since she was 16 months old and competed in slalom races at the age of 6.

We dropped both kids off at ski school–don’t they look perfectly ready for the mountain?

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Eric, Sapana and I took off to enjoy the mountain for the day.  Even though there hasn’t been a ton of snow, there were still some great runs to be had and it was probably one of my most fun days on a mountain, ever. I kept waiting for my phone to ring, telling me that the girl was cold/tired/hungry/bored and I needed to come pick her up.

It never did! She LOVES skiing! As soon as I picked her up at the end of the day, she asked me, “We come back ’keeing tomorrow?” with a big, big smile on her face. I asked if she’d take one last run to show me how she did. She got very excited, and pointing to the magic carpet told me, “Mommy, dat wug moooves!” (“Mommy, that rug moves!” for those of you that don’t speak her language.) Up she went, and here she is rocking it down the mountain:

Not to shortchange the boy, he had a great day also:

Here’s hoping you all also had a fun holiday this year, filled with family, laughter, and good food! 🙂

Giving Thanks

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It was a rough Sunday with the boy a few weeks ago. I’m not entirely sure why.  Perhaps he was underfed, but it was still a day of much screaming and stomping and not listening.  I was left with no recourse but to take away his legos.  Yes, his LEGOS.

In the afternoon, we sat down and had him write out his thank you notes from his party from a few months ago.  (I know, I know, it’s a bit late. We love all the gifts we receive but I am terrible about getting the notes out in a reasonable amount of time.) Amazingly, he remembered exactly what everyone had given him, which I am thankful for since the scrap of paper on which I had had that information written down was lost long ago. I know there’s mixed opinions, but I like using the prefilled thank you cards for this age.  It’s still a lot of effort for him to write out everyone’s name and their present, but would be too much for him to write out a full note for everyone. Besides, the spelling can be fun to watch.

After the note writing, he’d been sent to his room for the 10th time that day (I think for screaming into my ear that time). Shortly afterwards, he emerged, and thrust a note into my hands, grumbling, “You know where to mail this one.”

And my heart melted just a little bit, and we gave each other a big hug, and the rest of the day got a little better.

(“Litsavr,” by the way, refers to the lightsaber that I got him for his birthday. See what I mean about the spelling?)

Log Cabin Blanket

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See how, at the top of this page, it says that this is partly a knitting blog? I mean, that’s even what the title refers to.  Not that you’d know it since I haven’t had a knitting post for, oh, MONTHS.

Here’s why:

Way back in January, I thought, oh, I’ll knit a blanket for my friend Irene for her wedding.  She’s getting married in July.  That’ll give me PLENTY of time to finish.

*snort*

I’ve learned that it takes a long time to knit a blanket out of worsted weight wool. A looong time. I suppose if I was one of those people that was able to devote 2-3 hours daily to knitting then I could finish one in less time than it takes for Congress to accomplish anything. (What, you say that still hasn’t happened? Nice to know that I’m finishing something faster than someone out there. )

I first started this blanket with these colors because Irene mentioned that the walls in her family room had recently been painted a copper color. I wasn’t sure if it looked that pretty, so I took a picture and sent it to my sister, who promptly replied that it looked like a 70s bathmat. I think that was her way of trying to be diplomatic instead of just screaming in horror. Sadly, she was right and I had to start over, this time substituting ivory for the dark brown and rearranging the colors.

The technique is adapted from quilting, and is the log cabin technique and specifically the courthouse steps or bricklayer. Many of the famous Gee’s Bend Quilts use this technique.  A few years ago the exhibition came to the Denver Art Museum–if you ever have a chance to see them in person, they are so beautiful as is the history around the quilts.

You start by knitting a center block, then picking up and adding on a strip to each side, then picking up along the newly created long sides, and so on and so forth until you have a big cushy blanket, just perfect for wrapping up in. I finished with a two rows of single crochet around the entire blanket, which gives it a more finished look.

The blanket is gifted and onto a new home–all the happiness to the newlyweds, and many warm and cozy nights.

Patches

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My parents hate torn jeans.  When I was in high school, it was the heyday of grunge fashion and torn jeans were cool. You could, with torn jeans, pretend like you didn’t live in one of the more affluent neighborhoods of Fremont.  More likely, you paid good money for jeans that were already pre-torn in delicately artful ways.

My parents just thought torn jeans looked like you were poor. Of course, my parents’ disapproval only made me desperately wanted to wear them.  I never quite made it out of the house with torn jeans, and they ended up just getting tossed.

Now of course, I have a 6 year old boy, and 6 year old boys cannot seemingly live in the same universe with an intact pair of jeans. I swear, as soon as we get a pair of jeans it seems that they have holes. I have to say, I don’t particularly care if my kid wears torn jeans, but winters here are cold and it just doesn’t work to have jeans with holes. We also get a bunch of hand me down jeans that were previously worn by a 6 year old boy and thus suffer from the same problem. The thought of forking over $12-15 (at a minimum) each for 8 pairs of jeans was more than I could bear.

So I figured I’d patch them, but add a little flair, too. Mind you, this takes some dedication. I HATE sewing. Mostly because I’m incredibly bad at it, and I don’t like to be bad at things. I got some of those iron-on patches, thread in a few colors, and a few fabric scraps.  Incidentally, it’s not that easy finding masculine fabrics–there’s lots of pink and ladybugs and purple chickens and tulips but not too may boy-friendly fabrics.

They turned out pretty nice!

The felt patch on the right hand one is already a bit frayed–I’m sure there’s some smart way to deal with that fabric that I’m unaware of. My favorite, though is the green car fabric that I found:

I wonder how long it will take for him to wear his way through these. I’m hoping it’s more than a week or two.

Young Love

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On the way home from school a few weeks ago:

Me: How was school today?

Boy: Good. Elliott has a girlfriend. (Elliott is 6, fyi.)

Me: Oh…what’s her name?

Boy: Lucy.

Me: Huh. Does anyone else have a girlfriend?

Boy: Aaron. His girlfriend is Ruby.

At this point, a big Price-is-Right-like wheel of possible responses is turning in my head.  The pointer finally stops on:

Me: So, what does it mean to have a girlfriend?

Boy: Well, it means you really really really like a girl and want to marry her when you grow up.

Me: Oh, okay. <beat> Do you have a girlfriend?

Boy (in an exasperated, eye-rolling, i-can’t-believe-you’re-so-dumb voice): Mo-om! Amalia???

Really, I thought I’d be spared that tone of voice for a few years yet. Sigh.

Arr Mateys!

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The boy had another birthday, bringing the total to 6.  I suppose if you want to be technical he’s had 7 if you count his birth day, but that’s not how it’s done, I’m told.

This year, we went for pirates, fitting since he is born on International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I even found a pirate to come celebrate with us.

There was swashbucklin’

and treasure huntin’

and cupcake eatin’

and…well..picture takin’, another common pirate activity.

A splendid time was had by all, including the pirate. Happy Birthday, little guy!

(The girl now tells me she wants a T-rex party, with a real T-rex. If you know where I can find one, let me know.)

What the Hell do I do with all this Chard?

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If you planted chard, chances are pretty good that you’re asking yourself this question.  There is only so much chard risotto and sauteed chard one can possibly stomach, and that tends to be the end of my repertoire of chard recipes, until this summer when I saw my friend Rebecca make some crispy kale chips that we gobbled up before dinner was even done.  Since kale and chard are often interchangeable, I thought, why not try it with chard?

First of all, gather chard.  I’m getting about this much chard twice a WEEK.

Next, wash and dry the leaves thoroughly. A helper makes this job much easier.

Next, remove the thick center ribs and then slice into one inch strips. I find that folding the leaves in half makes this much easier. You can save and sautee the stems for later, though I’m so sick of chard stems that I just put them into the compost.

Next, mix with olive oil, salt, and fresh pepper. Go easy on the olive oil. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast at 425 for 7-10 minutes. If they’re too thickly layered, you end up with steamed chard. When done, you want some of the edges to be dark brown and almost slightly burnt.

All of that chard? Roasted nicely down into a more manageable bowl of crispy tastiness. It’s like potato chips, but healthier.

Then gobble away!