More of what I’ve recently knit. I’m using a wool/silk blend that is lovely to touch and looks as though it glows. Note how the hat has a kind of pooling/striping effect. It’s the same yarn as the first pair of fingerless gloves!
I adjusted the pattern for Claire’s small hands These are more her size.
My first pair. They’re toddler size. Because they were my pilot pair, I’m going to donate them to charity, and then knit a pair for Claire.
I NEED TO KNOW, she wrote, using capital letters for emphasis. ARE YOU SANTA? TELL ME THE TRUTH.
What do you do when your kid asks for the truth? You tell it, of course, doing your best to figure out a way that keeps at least some of the magic intact.
Read the entire post for the sweet beauty of her answer.
This lap robe is about 2000 yards of wool yarn. Very cozy. I just finished it this morning.
On this gray, rainy day, I decided to play a little with the camera. The Christmas tree is an important feature in my holiday traditions. It’s the centerpiece of our celebration. I have more ornaments than I can put on our tree, so each year I get to choose which ones I’d like to enjoy. This straw maiden ornament was given me by my mother many years ago.
I made the peanut elf ornament (below) when I was a Brownie scout, so that means I’ve carried this with me for 40 years!! I even have a construction paper stocking I made in kindergarten, and a construction paper flame ornament from first grade, but this year I didn’t put them on the tree.
I’m looking forward to Claire’s accrual of ornaments over the years, especially the ones she makes. Someday, I hope, she’ll have her own special tree.
In the spirit of incorporating my Husband’s family traditions as well as mine, I tried a new recipe. He grew up making thumbprint cookies with apricot jam, orange marmalade, and mint jelly. Not having those on hand, I used grape jam. Claire didn’t actually help this year, but when she’s older I’ll have her do the thumbprint part (and more, if she wants).
The recipe is here. It’s a fine, fine confection!
I’m having an ego moment. Cruising the Internet, I find so many sites by people — especially women — who are creative and generating a living (or at least some income) from it. Friends are making and selling their art. Friends are designing clothing and selling the patterns, and knitting up gorgeous garments. A friend is starting fitness accessory business. Friends write books and hold retreats. Acquaintances are life coaches, writers, have award-winning blogs, make and sell jewelry, and so on.
And I’m here in my little corner of the world, dabbling away. I suspect I’ve always been a dilettante. I walked away from a fledgling career as a professional counselor with her own practice to move here with Husband. (To get licensed here would require almost going through the whole process again — at a cost in money and time that I just won’t spare.) Sometimes I think about setting up a life coaching practice, but what is that, anyway? Everyone seems to be doing it; Google produced 42 million hits for the term. Plus, I’ve been out of the work world long enough that I feel rough and rusty.
One reason I go through sporadic periods of creating is that once I’ve got something made, the question arises of what to do with it. I’ve got knitted stuff stored in my drawers. Art I’ve made sits in a portfolio. Space is limited, so I create less often, and it depresses me to create only to have it sit in the dark. Yes, I could knit for charity — and I do. But there is something satisfying in being compensated monetarily for one’s efforts, and it is validating and heartening to be recognized for one’s work.
I’m not complaining so much as I am musing aloud whether I could be doing more, if I am wasting precious skill and talent by not generating income in some way with all this creativity.
And I’m wondering where these women get the energy. Some of them, in addition to being mothers, work outside jobs, and yet still find a way to create, often at the expense of their sleep and perhaps health. Maybe they can actually function this way. I did it for years in my 20s and 30s, but I’ve found that I’m a crappy mother if I’m exhausted and sick, and I want to be a good mother. I don’t enjoy life when I’m barely able to move or think. There are no sick days available.
So I struggle a bit with… envy? Or maybe it’s worry… a fear that I have retreated into a passive state, almost infantile, in that I don’t generate income, especially from all the dabbling I do. I’m getting to play, while Husband is out there bringing home cash. I don’t have currency in a world where the question, “What do you do for a living?” is unanswerable because I don’t make an income. There was no place on the U.S. Census form that I filled out for our household for me to write that my current job is Homemaker and Mother and that no, I wasn’t laid off and seeking work. It — I — just didn’t count.
I know, wah wah wah. But I do wonder.
Here’s a craft we did tonight. After dinner Claire said, “I want to do a craft project,” and I happened to have the supplies handy. I love the site No Time For Flashcards; it offers great and simple ideas. Here is Claire’s Indian corn.
When we moved here five years ago, I bought a little Meyer lemon tree and put it in a container. Meyer lemons are thought to be a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange, and they are sweeter and lighter tasting than regular lemons. The tree yielded meagerly until this year. Yesterday I picked two dozen lemons off the tree, and more are coming. Mind you, this tree only stands four feed high!
What to do with all these luscious lemons? I zested and squeezed them, and put it in the freezer. I have a total of three cups of lemon juice, which I am freezing in ice cube trays. There’s a cup of zest. This is all great for baking and cooking. The next task (probably tomorrow), is to roast the little pie pumpkins we bought and puree them. Claire still loves to eat plain pureed pumpkin, and it will be great for pumpkin bread and pie. And again, I freeze it in ice cube trays to make just-right serving sizes for Claire.
Since Claire has a small mouth and is still learning to chew, she doesn’t gobble up cookies with chocolate chips or M&Ms in them. She’ll even turn them down. (Horrors!) So I searched for a simple cookie and came across a Snickerdoodle recipe. I made it. Oh my, oh my! They make petite little rounds of cinnamon sugar goodness. I used this recipe here.
I had intended forgo the large pumpkin this year, but when Claire and I were at the grocery this one caught my eye. It was so round and such an appealing shade of orange. So it came home with us. I still doubt I will carve it for Halloween (famous last words!), but we decorated it with stickers (mostly I peeled and she stuck). I plan to cut the top open and scoop out the seeds to roast. Claire can have a classic taste of fall.
When we went to the pumpkin farm a couple weeks ago, I decided not to buy big pumpkins. Claire picked out a teeny one for herself. Since literally no one comes to trick-or-treat at our house in this town home complex, I haven’t carved a pumpkin — especially since my last attempt (in 2007) ended up with a slashed thumb due to my overtired condition.
I want Claire to have the fun of pumpkin carving and lighting, but I’m not sure I’m “up” for it yet; besides, she’s still young. The other day I saw pie pumpkins on sale, so I bought four for Claire to paint. It’s washable paint, which means after Halloween I can wash, bake, and puree them for pie (and for Claire, who really likes to eat plain pureed pumpkin).
She is still a little under the weather — she got an ear infection in the past week — so she spent the day in jammies and stayed inside. Here are the results:
Once you have a child (or children), you find yourself going to a lot of birthday parties. Buying gifts can get pricey, so I want to conserve a bit where I can. Starting with 2010, to keep track of who gets what and keep from going insane, I’ve decided to select a “book of the year” as the birthday gift for every child we celebrate. I’ll choose a book that is less common than some so as to (hopefully) not give a duplicate. Then I’ll buy the books in bulk and save some money. I like that idea very much.
When I was pregnant, I bought a huge roll of butcher paper for future crafts. I assumed I’d be going through a lot of paper in the next five years. I was right. Now, what does a mom do with the swaths of painted and colored paper? I decided they would make excellent gift wrap, thus saving me money on wrapping paper. Until Claire is actually painting a picture of something that she might want to keep, we’ll make use of her creative endeavors this way. (Except for Christmas, in part because I have a ton of holiday paper, and in part because I don’t want Claire to receive gifts in paper she wrapped; it seems a little Oliver Twist to me.) Here’s a photo of just-wrapped gifts:
OMG, life with Claire has been intense the past week. It’s as though we’ve gone into overdrive. Right after her aunt left, she began clinging to me more, wanting just to hug and be held. After preschool (she loves it) one day we experienced a tantrum that shook the rafters. She had not eaten much snack because she didn’t like it, and in the car she refused her standard travel snack, so by the time we got home she was so hungry she was over the edge. To make her lunch required having her stand next to me screaming to be held and hugged (and I was hungry too!). It got to the point where she rolled on the floor kicking. In the end, she ended up clutching me with her head on my shoulder and fed herself from her plate at the dining table. She says, “Mommy hugging Claire.”
At the same time, she is openly defying rules. She puts something in her mouth that she knows she shouldn’t. I remind her gently. She takes it out, puts it back in, looking at me. I warn her that if she can’t keep the item out of her mouth I’ll take it away. She takes it out of her mouth, only to put it back in a few moments later — she’s either forgotten or is resisting. So I then take it away, and she cries. She says, “You took it awaaaaaaaaay!!!!!” And I tell her yes, I did, and she can have it back later when she can keep it out of her mouth. Then she says, “Hug! I need a hug!” and throws herself in my arms.
She is also asking, “What is the [fill in the blank] doing?” She will ask this question about the same item over and over, e.g., “What is the sandwich doing?” (I answer with several variations that it’s sitting on the counter thinking how delicious it is, wishing for Claire to eat it.) She also asks, “What is a [fill in the blank]?” “What is a duck?” (A bird that goes quack and swims in water.) “What is a baby duck?” (A Mommy duck’s baby that goes quack.) “What is a helicopter?” (A machine that flies with blades that spin on top and its tail.) “What is a cat?” (A furry animal that has four legs and says meow.) The questions are endless. And if there are two things, the larger one is the Mommy: Mommy stick and baby stick, Mommy fork and baby fork, etc. Multiple items are usually Mommy, Daddy, baby, and Grandma/Grandpa/Aunt/Uncle/sister (no brother, go figure).
She woke an hour into nap yesterday crying for me at the top of her lungs. I went in and scooped her up. Her diaper had leaked urine onto the bed and the diaper was soaked, but she was glued to me. So I held and rocked with her for 45 minutes. She would look around the room at the decorations on her wall, and then she would look at me, staring in my eyes. I sense a new level of consciousness in her. I talked quietly to her, stroked her head, told her she was my Hugabug and that I love her, until she said, “Let’s go downstairs.” And yes, I had pee-pee pants. But the cuddle was worth it.
So what is happening, I sense, is that she is in turmoil. She wants to do things on her own and is testing where the limits are, and at the same time she’s terrified and needs/wants me for security. I understand this, but boy, living it hour after hour, day after day, can be draining. And her nap has moved to 2:00-4:00 p.m., which makes the mornings very long. By the end of the day (bedtime at 8:30), I feel completely used up — a mere shell of myself. I find myself going to bed at 9:30 or 10:00, and the to-do list (of things I want to do and things that need doing) grows longer; the rate at which things get crossed off is slower than the rate of addition.
And we are approaching the season of increasing darkness, a time that pulls me not toward depression but toward hibernation mode. I’m glad that there are several upcoming holidays to focus energies toward.
