And another month goes by...

Golly - I hadn't realised it was over a month since I blogged AGAIN. Where did April go? When I began this blog I was a stay at home full time mother, and despite the demands of playgroup, kindergarten, housework and children I had so much free time on my hands. Two of my friends who are stay at home mothers have recently started blogs and I think it's an interesting way of staying sane when your most of your daily conversations tend to only be with people under four foot high.

Now, of course, I'm working full time, and blogging slides down the list of things to do. Add to which, my darling Katie has discovered the fine art of emotional blackmail: she stands in front of me with her five year old fists on her hips and says "What's more important? Your girls or your [knitting, computer, book, bath, etc]?" She's good! It works every time.

Despite that I have been knitting (mostly in the car when I should be working). But I have no finished objects to show because I'm just playing - having finally conquered the evil dpns, I decided that I was brave enough to have a go at magic loop knitting.

Well, for heaven's sake. Why did no-one ever tell me how easy and fun this was? All those YEARS I wasted coming to terms with dpns (okay, maybe not years but it sure felt like it) and I needn't have bothered. So I've been starting socks with different cast-ons and whizzing through a few rounds and then frogging them and starting again with a different cast-on, and so on and so on. Just because it's such fun!

So far I have two odd socks finished (both toe-up) and half a mitten (cuff down) and I'm planning another sock. I realise I should be doing the second socks but what the hell... life's too short and I'm thinking of this as a learning exercise rather than a serious sock production line.

In between the magic looping, I'm very slowly working on a lace shawl in that bamboo that's been lurking around for a while now. It's slow because I daren't take it to work with me (my car is such a tip that my knitting tends to get tangled around the junk) and I can't do it when the girls are awake because I wind up going "Shut up shut up shut up shut up I'm counting" which is not great attentive parenting, and leads to the whole hands on hips thing.

I do have one finished object - belatedly. Turns out that the baby's name is James (glad I hadn't totally lost my mind - did I mention that I'd had a serious moment of panic and decided he might be called something else?) and it fits (more or less). I rushed the seaming and it's pretty dodgy but I figure it's not an heirloom - it's a jumper that'll be worn and sicked on and dribbled on and have playdough rubbed into (you all know) so what the hell.. (Also, and this probably doesn't need reiterating, I'm very lazy.)



Now I have to go and prepare for a day of being the willing slave to my two bossy britches - I'm hanging onto the thought that you don't get strong, assertive, confident young women by having quiet, obedient, docile children - and I do want stroppy young women!

It's lucky for her she's so cute

Okay, I'm speaking to the baby again. Yes, she frogged the third neckwarmer, the baby thingy and the stole I'd started for my mother-in-law. But she was was so proud of herself, and so pleased to show me what she'd done that I couldn't get truly cross. Although there was a moment there when I wondered if the recent banning of smacking in New Zealand also applied to stabbing your child with a knitting needle.

Anyway... Since I had nothing else to do I've started the second sock. The test now will be to try and get a pair since I didn't bother making any notes about how many rounds I knitted at any point - I never actually believed I'd finish up with a sock until I got to the grafting.

House guest at the door!

Anyone have a bell, book and candle?

I have no WIPs.

Jess has a pile of wool and a collection of needles under her bed.

When children meet lip gloss

Aren't they just...

I don't even wear makeup (apart from concealer generously applied to the full set of matched luggage that turns up under my eyes many many mornings) and yet Katie has developed an obsession with lipgloss and nail polish and who knows what else. I think she gets it from other kids at kindy.
A while ago - back when K was only three - our teenaged next-door-neighbour gave me a bag of lip gloss, stick on tattoos, eye shadow etc for Katie. I said thank you nicely and hid it at the back of a drawer and went and had a quiet rant about the premature sexualisation of girls, the anti-feminist marketing practices of cosmetic companies - the usual stuff, I'm betting I even threw in the word patriarchy - and then I forgot about it. Well look who found it! And I have to say it made me giggle a lot - but oh what this society does to little girls. So long as they keep thinking that the nose is a great place for lip gloss I'm not going to get my knickers in a twist though!

On a completely unrelated topic... I finally found the blog of the one and only person who ever commented here and I think I'm in love - go read Mad Hair Day because I said so (it's the mother in me - I can't help it). On one of her wonderful posts she wrote:

I write a post for this blog every day, you know. In my head while I'm in the shower I compose great reams of waffle and you can all be awfully glad that I am blessed with an appalling memory and absolutely no free time in which to write it all down.

Which is exactly what I do. Only I do it on the bus and sometimes it doesn't stay just in my head and people look at me strangely...

Aaaaaaaaaaagh

It's been one of those weeks where I am constantly asking myself why I decided to have children (and I did decide, it was just the timing that came down to my really poor grasp of basic maths! You know, 'oh, it's twenty-eight days, d'oh!'). Anyway, I keep asking myself why, and some evil mean nasty part of my brain keeps answering 'it was a HUGE mistake. Kill them now!'.

On Tuesday the little darlings (including one extra 4 year old):

• Got the collage material box off the shelf I thought they couldn't reach and made a 'magic garden' of sequins, glitter, felt shapes, etc, all over the dining room floor. Easy to sweep up but they...
• Poured water all over the 'magic garden' TM so that they could play mermaids. Then while I was cleaning that up they
• Crumbled a polystyrene box (also from a shelf I thought they couldn't reach) all over their bedroom carpet to make snow (as you do), and while I was cleaning that up they
• Got the rack of cooling cupcakes intended for Jess's birthday off the bench and covered the kitchen floor in crumbs and cupcake wrappers, and while I was cleaning that up, they
• Found a pot of barrier cream and painted Jessie head to toe. You know that stuff really is water resistant.

Jess on her own, and all on the same day mind you:

• Pulled out the kitchen drawers and climbed up them until she could stand on the kitchen bench and reach the really high shelf where we keep all the fun poisonous and deadly things, then proceeded to spray Katie in the face with shower cleaner (first time it's been used this year)
• Spent a lovely quiet (always a danger sign) quarter of an hour in the bathroom, dunking toilet paper in the toilet and eating it (I swear she's not mine!)
• Emptied every plant pot on the back deck onto the back deck, then made mud pies with potting mix and bubble mixture (and probably shower cleaner and toilet paper for all I know).

And all of this happened while I was trying to get the house looking nice for Jess's birthday tea on Wednesday.

Anyway, I didn't kill them, which is probably a good thing, and Jess had a very nice birthday, and no-one was rude enough to point out the sequins I'd missed or the fact that Jess still had barrier cream in her hair.

Not a lot of knitting has been done.

Ooooh, but I'm all excited... look to the right and you'll see a nifty little percent bar that shows how far I've got on the green lacy jersey (which I've called Spring Leaf because I am tired and uninspired and totally devoid of creative or original thought). Isn't it cool! God I love doodads and nicknackery like that :) It's from Yarn Tomato and it was really easy! Go get one!

And... I thought I'd freaked out badly when someone left a comment a while ago (Who are you? Why did you do that? Why are you reading this? Go away and read Yarn Harlot or Crazy Aunt Laurie or any real blog!) but I just discovered that Andi at Knitstant Gratification has put a link to here on her blog (which is a wonderful blog - go read it). You know, I have started diaries thirty seven million times in my life, and never lasted more than a week or two. The only thing that keeps you writing a blog is the thought that someone might be reading it - but when you realise that someone is reading it it's very disconcerting. In a good way. Possibly. All very strange, and I have more sequins to chase...

Happy Mother's Day

Here's a little question in honour of Mother's Day, which I believe was supposed to be yesterday...

Q: What's worse than waking at 1am to a little voice saying, 'Mummy, I wet the bed'?

A: Realising that it's your bed she's talking about.

Oh the joys of motherhood are never ending.

Anyway, I haven't been blogging about knitting this week - I've been knitting instead. And... ta da! One cotton dress for the girls' cousin in London. Spotlight had this lovely cotton on sale (which is how I make all my decisions about what to knit) and since it's not cotton season here, Olivia got lucky. Jess was very happy to be the model but I think she thinks it's her dress so there could be tears before bedtime. But then, when are there not tears before bedtime? I'm so pleased with how this turned out that if I get my act together (cue uproarious laughter) I think I'll write the pattern out nicely and post it for the delight and delectation of anyone else who got their hands on some Spotlight cotton.

I DO love my children I DO love my children

It's been one of those days...

Katie and I have been battling about her hair for the last year and a half; she adamantly refusing to have it cut, me threatening to hack it all off every time I have to comb it. It now reaches just about to her waist which is ridiculous on a four year old. So today she decides that it would be nicer shorter and starts cutting it herself... Part of me is shouting 'Yippee! Get rid of it ALL!', part of me is shrieking 'Aaaah - step away from the scissors now!' and the rest of me is rolling on the floor laughing because she looks so funny :-) I am not cruel enough to provide a photo.

As for the smallest one...


She decided to do a spot of redecorating in the kitchen with a permanent marker.

I'm opening the gin...