A Quilt for Lil' Miss

I finally got around to picking out fabrics for Lil' Miss to have her very own quilt.  Since I already made one for Destructo-boy she needed one too, plus her bedding is getting kind of sad looking and needs to be freshened up.  I found a great collection of prints from Michael Miller Fabrics called 'It's a girl thing" that called out to me.  I wasn't sure at first if it was too sophisticated for her but after consulting with a few friends at our Memorial weekend bbq I was convinced that it was something she would enjoy now and could grow into.  Because who really wants to make a quilt that after a few years the child says 'But Mom, princess ballerinas are for babies!', yeah, not me so more grown up fabrics it is for this quilt.

I wasn't even sure what kind of quilt pattern to make at first, I wanted something interesting but not too complicated for a novice quilter like myself.  I've done 2 quilts now that are essentially large squares with other fabrics used as sashing around them and want to move on and work with some piecing in the squares.  I searched for some nine patch quilt tutorials (we read the Little House books together and there were several times she wrote about them working on their  nine patch quilts) and came across this great tutorial on the blog Oh, Fransson! for a crazy nine patch lattice quilt.  Yes, it is for a baby quilt, but doubling the size of the quilt results in finished measurements really close to a full size quilt so I'll be doing this one doubled.  I am pretty excited and can't wait for the fabrics to arrive so I can start cutting out and sewing them up.

Surviving

That about sums up what I am doing right now when it comes to these kids.  I cannot even begin to count the number of arguments I had to break up yesterday.  With Lil' Miss being in school all day and therefore getting a break from Destructo Boy every day I kind of forgot how they often don't get along.

So I am really trying my hardest to not completely lose it and grab their little heads to bang together.  I think we may end up taking daily walks to get some of their energy out and just to give them a view other than the house.  Having said that I should note it's not like we sit all day around the house!  I try to make sure we get out of the house at least once a day, if not to a summer class for one of the kids than on an errand or at least to the park.  Even with an outing they still seem to get rather sick of each other pretty quick and end up in some form of an argument, and I only have so much patience for breaking up these daily fights.

One of my tricks to get a little break is to have them watch a movie in their room (yes, I am one of those bad mom's who put a tv in her kids room but at least they don't get cable in there!) while I get to do whatever I want in another room, usually watching a non-child friendly movie myself.  Even with that they have still been arguing, over who is on who's bed, over being hit either on purpose or accidentally, it never seems to end.  So for now I feel like I am just surviving while I figure out how to keep them happy and busy but not fighting constantly this summer.

School's out!

I can hardly believe that it has already come to an end!  It seems like just yesterday that I was walking Lil' Miss to school for the first time and holding back tears as I walked away without her.  It has been a truly amazing year, the amount she has learned and grown is mind-blowing.  I remember Kindergarten as being essentially arts and crafts time, and maybe we learned to spell our names but it is completely different now.  Lil' Miss went in knowing her alphabet, knowing her numbers up to about 20, and could spell her name.  Now that school is over she is capable of writing complete sentences, can read at 2nd grade level, can do addition and subtraction of single digit numbers and a whole lot of other things I can't list out here. 

Saying goodbye will be especially hard since her two closest friends are transferring out to a different school.  We also struggled with the idea of transferring, as I blogged about another time, but our decision was made to keep Lil' Miss in our neighborhood school.  Since she has had such a good experience and is doing so well it seems a little silly to transfer her out just because the school test score averages are relatively low.  Happily her best friend Miss E lives around the corner and we moms have already been discussing ways to keep the girls close.  Such as continuing the Friday play-dates and arranging to be in the same Girl Scout troop if both want to participate.  Nonetheless, it will still be sad to not see them at school everyday (and not just for Lil' Miss, I'll miss seeing them too!).

Lil' Miss is having an awful time with saying goodbye to her teacher Ms. W.  I think she has burst into sobbing tears daily all week.  We had thought she might get to stay with the same teacher for next year in a Kindergarten-1st grade split class, but luckily for the school enrollment has gone up for the Kindergarten and it seems that they won't need a split class.  Happily our school has some of the best 1st grade teachers in the district so whoever teaches her next year will be great, but Lil' Miss still wants her current teacher. It was heartbreaking to leave the school with my poor little one sobbing the entire way to the car.  I tried to tell her that she can visit her teacher next year, and that she is going to try to get the class together over the summer at the park but it's still not the same as having Ms. W as her everyday teacher.  I can kind of understand since it just hit me I won't get to see the kids in her class on my volunteer days anymore, I am going to miss seeing those kids every week myself!

Knitting for Lil' Miss

Jiminy Christmas it's been awhile since I've chatted about knitting! I recently finished up two items for Lil' Miss and I didn't even have a chance to wash them before she snatched them fresh off my needles and put them on.  Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, I mean who complains about someone who is so delighted to wear items knit for them?  There were 2 projects I was working on for her, a pair of rainbow knee high socks I talked about earlier in this post and a summery cotton top, Sourpatch published in Petite Purls last summer.

I had fallen in love with the top as soon as I saw it but didn't get to it until last month.  I seem to have trouble knitting a season ahead, which is probably what I should be doing but I just don't want to deal with wool in summer or little cotton tops in winter.  Anyway, I used Knit Picks shine for this top and the colors and sheen of the yarn are perfect for the design, of course Lil' Miss helped to pick out the colors for the top and had great fun doing so..  In spite of  the original being done in wool I chose cotton as the wool seemed a little counter-intuitive to me, I mean, who wants to wear wool in the summer?    I had a devil of a time getting gauge and now that it's done I think I should have gone down a needle size for the color stripes as I did for the stockinette portion.  The biggest hiccup occurred because I didn't fully read the pattern, for all larger sizes there are more color stripes and I just looked at the picture and bought according to that, oops!  So I got knit up to the last strip with the yarn I had and set it aside while I waited for the final color to arrive.  Once it did the knitting went fairly quickly, if rather repetitive once I hit the stockinette portion, knitting only knit stitches endlessly in a loop can get, well, hellishly boring!  I did enjoy a few movies while doing that part I must say.

After the rough start with her rainbow knee highs they went pretty quickly the final time, taking about 2 weeks to complete from start to finish after the third cast on.  It is so much fun to watch the color changes as you knit, really alleviates some of the boredom with doing endless rows of ribbing.  I'll say it now, her next socks will not be knee highs (I'm thinking of either Hermione socks or Socks for Little Witches out of some felici in tiki I couldn't help but buy) and it will probably be awhile before she gets another pair of knee high socks!

The sourpatch top I knit for her fared better than the socks without being washed before wearing.  The only issue with it is that it turned out a bit on the large side and since I thought a shirt that falls off one or both shoulders probably isn't too appropriate for school I wove a narrow pink ribbon through the top just below the cable cast on to nip it in.  Although not part of the design the little ribbon and bow look totally adorable and make me even happier with my result!  As for the socks, well, I felt kind of bad for her when I picked her up at school the day she wore them for the first time as they were sadly around her ankles.  Hopefully that won't happen again as they have now been properly washed however if it does I think I may need to run some elastic thread around the tops to help keep them in place, at least I will if it bothers her enough!

School questions

Parenthood is not for sissies!  The most unexpected issues crop up and cause stress/anxiety where you never imagined it would, like where to send your kid to school when they are already in school.

I just found out this morning that the two little girls we walk to school with are transferring out to other schools next year and Lil' Misses best friend Miss E is also transferring out, as are the majority of the kids in her little group in class.  I had decided with Mister Vonkysmeed to keep her in our neighborhood school in spite of it's problems because well, it is our neighborhood school.  But now with hearing about all these other kids transferring out I am second guessing myself, am I really making the right decision?

I'm feeling like maybe I am being lazy since I really don't want to have to drive her to another school instead of walking to this one.  However we have had a very positive experience so why change?   Lil' Miss is doing well, very well in fact, and we have been beyond happy with her teacher.  'The other parents are understandably concerned since our school is a Title 1 school (meaning at least half the students qualify for a free lunch-meaning they are poor, and mostly Spanish speaking) and is currently earmarked for Program Improvement (meaning their test scores have fallen-in my opinion due to the large percentage of ESL kids whose parents do not provide any kind of help to their kids at home).  For these reasons they are getting their kids into other schools in the district that are higher performing schools.  In spite of our schools problems Lil' Miss has a fantastic Kindergarten teacher and I know the first grade teachers are also very good but I still wonder if this is the right decision. 

This is not a dilemma I ever thought I would have to deal with, I just assumed we would go to the neighborhood school and all would be fine.  I never thought it would become an issue of whether to stay in our school or not.  However I didn't realize we were not in the school district I thought we would be in when we bought the house, whoops!  Maybe I should talk to Lil' Misses current teacher for some much needed reassurance that I am making the right decision. In other words, please don't let me screw up my kid!

Playdate DRAMA...

Who knew there could be drama involved in playdates?  Let me take you to the beginning to understand the current state of affairs.  Lil' Miss made her first special friend, Miss E, in Kindergarten and withn a few weeks we saw them walking home and realized they lived literally around the corner from us.  So the new friends mommy, Missus Sweden and I started talking and set up playdates for the girls.  It was kind of funny as we had no experience doing this and both admitted it to each other, but I told her that I felt we should for lack of a better word, 'inspect' each others' homes to make sure we were comfortable with the girls playing there and make sure we had contact info for each other and all should be fine.  She agreed and we had a new routine on Fridays.

So this was the state of affairs for a few months, every Friday we would have the girls play together for a few hours after school, alternating homes.  it was working really well, and then The Third Wheel was introduced over winter break.  She was the child of divorced parents and Missus Sweden felt kind of sorry for her so invited her to a playdate we had set up to have at her house.  It seemed to work out alright, but you know how threesomes turn out, generally not too well.

The next playdate was scheduled at my house and instead of talking to me directly TTW's mother asked Missus Sweden if she could come to the playdate.  So here I was with this child I hadn't really invited, whose mother had no idea how to contact me and who didn't even know where I lived, talk about poor judgment (please excuse me why I shimmy into my judgey pants!).  So we continued on this way, alternating between our house and Miss E's house with TTW added in for spice.  Then TTW's mom wanted to have a playdate at her home, um, NO!  Why no?  I had serious problems with her judgment, after letting her kid come to a home she had no contact info for, let alone had never seen, as well as her not being within walking distance, and the fact that she currently had a brother residing with her who until that time was a homeless drug user.  But how to bow out gracefully?  Thankfully The Child Whisperer came to my rescue with the perfect excuse, #1, Lil' Miss is not ready to be that far away from home (yup, blame it on the kid!), and #2, neither am I.  TTW's mom seemed to asccept this, although she was clearly not happy.

So things continued on but there were starting to be problems, Miss E and TTW were starting to have some issues with getting along.  TTW is a rather bossy child who is sadly lacking in manners (and I'll admit it, I don't much care for her) and Miss E had had enough of being told what to do constantly.  So every week now instead of Missus Sweden and I getting to watch the girls play nicely and hae some fun with them, we were having to intervene to stop the fighting.  Eventually Missus Sweden called up TTW's mom and apprised her of the problem, although she never pointed fingers or placed the blame on TTW, her mom went ballistic.  Apparently we were the mean stay at home moms who were 'cliqueish' and didn't like her.  She refused to accept that it just wasn't working because the kids weren't getting along, it was us evil moms that were the problem.  Sigh, really?  Didn't we leave this kind of crap back in high school, apparently not.

So currently we are back down to two very happy little girls going from one house to another on Fridays and having a fantastic time playing together.  It really amazes me how well these two get along, when they have a conflict I will inevitably hear them saying "Eeny, meeny, minny, moe..." to pick who gets to choose.  The truly amazing thing is that they did this all by themselves, no one directed them to resolve their conflicts this way.  Oh, and although they still play with TTW at school and seem to be getting along much better, her mom hasn't even said hello to either of us since then.  Hold a grudge much?!

Veggies!

Yessirree, we are planting our first vegetable garden.  I am a complete novice at this so it will definitely be a learning experience to see what will thrive and what won't.  The idea first came to me last summer when the kids and I went along with The Child Whisperer as she needed to water a community garden she was part of.  It seemed like such a neat idea for the kids to see where food came from that I thought it might be nice to do it in our own yard.

There isn't much space left to put in planters for veggies so we are giving it a go in the side yard, it is a bit shady on one side due to the angle of the sun, but as the season progresses it will be less shady.  So Mister Vonkysmeed purchased a set of raised garden planters for us to start up our new garden in.  I requested assistance via Facebook from my friends and got the most responses (21) to a status update ever I think!  Everyone seemed to think squash, zucchini, various beans, and tomatoes were good bets.  I also had a few suggestions to check out Square Foot Gardening to make the most produce out of the least amount of space.

We ended up choosing broccoli, radishes, zucchini, carrots, green onion, cabbage, lettuce, mesclun (a variety of lettuces), chives, and green peppers for our garden.  the radishes had already been started from seed by Lil' Miss following her school field trip to a farm, but everything else we are trying to start directly from seed.  Since we don't have to worry about frost here is a Southern California beach city I am hoping they will be okay and we will see them sprouting in a few days, hopefully.

We are currently using white plastic knives for our plant markers (aren't they quite snazzy looking?) but will be upgrading to some kid painted cuter ones soon.  Mister Vonkysmeed will be making a few trips by the paint department of Home Depot to pick up paint stirrers, they should work perfectly!  Wish us luck as we start our own Victory Garden!

Rainbow knee socks, third times the charm?

why yes, I am enjoying my ipod!

Yup, I have started these suckers three times already.  I am so hoping that this time they come out the right size.  In case you were wondering, these are for Lil' Miss, not for me, I'm not really a 'rainbow' type person.  When the new colors of felici were released last month I knew she would love the color so bought 2 skeins to make her some knee high socks (cause doesn't even fashionable Kindergartener need some snazzy knee hi's?).  It is a really nice yarn base to work with, washable merino wool that is nice and smooshy, and it can being handle ripped out three times and re-knit!

The pattern I finally settled on was Riblet (Ravelry link) socks by Katt Walker designed to fit a wide range of young'uns.  All would have been great if I hadn't decided to do them up to the knee (they aren't designed as knee socks), it is a really well thought design of ribbing all the way down the sock to ensure a comfortable fit on many different foot sizes.  However I decided to just cast on and go for it after some reassurance from a fellow Raveler without doing any kind of gauge swatch to check my gauge against Lil' Misses calf circumference (I need to re-read my own goals list on the left bar don't I!).  So after about 2 weeks of knitting I tried them on her again and this time she said they "didn't feel so good."  Sigh, you know what that means!  I frogged them and started over. 

Funny aside here, a non-knitter friend was sitting in the room with me and some knitters when I began ripping them out.  The poor thing was literally squirming in her chair watching me do it, I think she was just about ready to leave rather than continue to watch in growing horrified fascination.  Everyone else understood my problem, yes I could just finish them, but they wouldn't fit and would never be worn so it was better to rip out 2 weeks of work rather than continue on with a doomed project. 

I cast on for the second time with 70 stitches instead of 55 and of course after being too small this time they were turning out too big, so frog again.  For my third attempt I cast on with 60 stitches and am keeping my fingers crossed that it will work out this time.  My gauge seems to have relaxed some too, for some reason when I started these I think I was attempting to choke the life out of the poor yarn.  Now that I have gotten used to working with it I seem to be having an easier time of it.  Hopefully I'll get them done before she grows out of them, I just have to keep plugging away now that they seem to be the right circumference for her leg.

I DO like green aggs & ham!

Isn't reading great?  Especially when you get rewarded for reading the classic by Dr. Suess, Green Eggs & Ham.  Yes, to reward Lil' Miss for reading through the entire book all by herself (and it's a whopping 62 pages long!) I made green eggs and ham for breakfast this weekend.  I realize it's not a ham steak, but I thought since sausage comes from pigs it qualifies as ham, right?

Just in case you feel like doing this for your child, or maybe for yourself just because, let me be the first to tell you that just adding blue food coloring does not work.  You'd think it would too.  Normally when you add blue to yellow you get green, but with eggs you just get blue, so go for the green food coloring.  If there is anything more revolting looking than green eggs, it's blue eggs.  I think ours were a tad on the minty green side because I had already added the blue.  I suppose it works for it being the month of March too, you know, like shamrock shakes, except it's shamrock eggs!

I can't say I enjoyed the treat quite as much as Lil' Miss did, even Destructo Boy ate his green eggs with gusto.  Mister Vonkysmeed doesn't care for eggs even when they are the more traditional color so he escaped this mornings breakfast.  I actually had to close my eyes for the first few bites, I know they are the same but that color leaves something to be desired.  In spite of my lack of enthusiasm for green eggs I know I will have to do this at least one more time, when Destructo Boy reads Green Eggs & Ham by himself for the first time.  When he does that he'll get rewarded too, with his own special breakfast.

Wednesday is for kids

At least in our house it is!  We have allowed Lil' Miss to choose the dinner menu for a few months now, within reason of course.  Her favorite so far has been fish of some variety, usually catfish (a five year old choosing fish, weird I know!) with rice and broccoli, interspersed with the request for my made from scratch mac and cheese.  At some point I will hand over the dinner preparation to her to help her with learning to plan and prepare meals.  Of course she will have to share the choosing with Destructo Boy once he gets a bit older and more verbal.

With the new year we have also added in games after dinner, after everyone is finished eating we all sit down and play games or puzzles together.  Lil' Miss has been loving this new part of our routine and gets so excited when I tell her it's tie to go pick out a game to play.  Mister Vonkysmeed is usually less than enthused with the choices (I'm not exactly doing backflips over them either to tell the truth) but she is only 5, so the games are of necessity a little on the simple side.  Think Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, Hi Ho Cherry-O and youget the idea.  Maybe some nights we'll turn to the Wii for something a little different. She is learning to handle disappointment with this though, not an easy thing for a 5 year old.  Some nights are a little rougher than others but it's getting better.

My hope is that by establishing a family routine now, when they get older the kids will still want to spend time with us old fogies, and it gives wonderful opportunities for open and honest communication with each other.  I know that if I blink too long they will be all grown up and out of the house so I've got to enjoy my little anklebiters in all their frustration causing glory now!

Trains, trains, trains

Lil' Misses latest setup, pretty good for a 5 year old!

 It was Christmas of the year 2007 that we were introduced to GeoTrax.  From cruising around the 'net I quickly realized that these toys can become an addiction (well at least more for the parents if not the kids!).  I think everyone bought a little something for Lil' Miss that year to add to the GeoTrax set, this happened even though she didn't quite "get" what to do with it all and certainly couldn't build herself a track yet!  So, in spite of the somewhat uncomprehending 2 year old, the collection grew exponentially at first (mommy & daddy needed all those extras to build an interesting track!) with extra track packs, bridges, and assorted buildings.  She did however rather quickly understand that the controller for the R/C train was important (still didn't know exactly what to do with it) and refused to give it up.  So what did Mister Vonkysmeed do?  If you guessed he went out and bought another R/C train for his own use, give the lady a prize, you're a winner!

We are not lucky enough to have a basement, finished or not, as they do in other parts of the country in which to put a playroom for the kids.  We also have a fairly small home (Destructo-boy & Lil' Miss currently share a room, sorry kids but the planned addition will cost about 200K, gotta wait a few more years!) so our family room where the tv and my laptop reside also house most of the toys.  Of course, fairly quickly the family room was being completely taken over by train tracks.  We adults were getting ambitious with our constructions and every time someone wanted to sit down on a couch they quite literally had to step over various parts of the layout to get there.  So I decided that the trains did not need to be out all of the time.  But what to do with all those trains?  Target (pronounce it tar-jhey so it feels fancier somehow) gave me my affordable solution of two Rubbermaid plastic totes.  They fit ever so nicely behind the end table out of sight, keeping me happy and all the parts together when not in use.

Enter child #2 to the trains and what first started as a spot on imitation of Stitch in the "Ooh, SanFrancisco!" scene starring Destructo-boy as Stitch, has evolved into more interest in actually playing with the trains instead of tearing the tracks apart and flinging them all over the family room (yes, this resulted in Lil' Miss screaming and crying trying desperately to both stop him from pulling up more tracks and recover the pieces already flung across the room which would've been much funnier if I didn't have to physically pull them apart).  He is finally starting to 'get' how to use the trains on the tracks, placing them correctly and running them back and forth with his little hands, he even got an R/C train of his very own this past Christmas.

 I love to watch them when Lil' Miss is using the R/C train and Destructo-boy is madly running back and forth to keep up with the trains progress, squealing all the while, jumping up and down, pointing and yelling "Ack-Ack" (didn't know he had watched Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!).  They have gotten a whole room of adults to sit watching them play with the trains this way, quite entertaining (or are we just easily amused, hmmm).  He is absolutely fascinated with watching it go round and round, particularly when the track has been set up with lots of elevation changes, a roller coaster track as Lil' Miss calls it.  I love it when a toy entertains the children and adult equally, talk about value for the money!

Growing Pains

They are more than just physical aches.  My lovely neighbor, The Child Whisperer, clued me into the simple fact that when a child is going through a growth spurt they start acting out at the same time.  I just realized after seeing how Lil' Miss has almost outgrown her leggings purchased for her at the start of summer that the major attitude problems we were experiencing over the past two weeks must have been due to a little growth spurt. 

In spite of realizing the why, the simple existence of the 'tude is beyond aggravating.  Ever have a cute little blonde blue eyed 5 year old talk back at you?  Doesn't matter how cute that child may be, you still want to grab them by the scruff of the neck and pitch them out the nearest window.  The fun is multiplied when you realize that elements of the 'tude are your own annoying habits being reflected back at you (yes, I really regret some of the choice phrases I have popped out with now that it's too late!).  Thankfully it only last a few weeks and then she gets back to her normal self, but nw we get the fun new tricks she is learning from her friends at school to deal with!

Not to be left out Destucto-boy has entered the terrible twos.  Lil' Miss didn't get there until she turned three, but the boy is already there.  It is completely normal for the age, but sometimes it is just so incredibly tiresome, especially when you are trying to get somewhere and he insists on doing everything himself.  Then when he doesn't get his way he starts screaming at such a volume as to put a Howler monkey to shame.  Some days I wonder why it ever occurred to me that having children was a good idea, then one of them gives me a hug or kiss and I remember.

Mister Vonkysmeed and I are not looking forward to the teen years, I don't know how we will survive!

Starting school

For us it's not so much Back to School, as it is starting school.  Lil' Miss has begun Kindergarten and boy do I miss her during her time at school.  I managed to not cry the first day though, yea me!  She was perfectly fine with it all, telling me to go watch her from behind the fence to the Kindergarten recess yard rather than wait next to her for the teacher to take them into their classroom.  Such a self-confident little person, amazing!  We did go to the orientation the day before school started so knew where to go and the basics of what her room looked like and who her teacher was going to be, so that may have added to the confidence of Lil' Miss.  Apparently our school has had a little surge in enrollment as they had to hire on a teacher just four days before school started due to needing three classes for Kindergarten instead of two.   Guess which teacher we got?  I don't mind getting the new teacher, I am not such a fan of Lil' Miss being in the portable classroom though, it would be a bit nicer to be in a permanent room.

We are now into our second week and in spite of any reservations that I may have she is loving school so far.  She enjoys getting up to get ready for school and eagerly tells me about her day on the way home.  Luckily enough we live close enough to the school that it's an easy walk there and back for everyone.  We are even starting to see friends on their way home so are learning where in the neighborhood her new friends live.  We'll see how well our walk goes once it starts to rain though!  I plan on investing in some rain boots and rain jackets for both rugrats to keep them dry for that walk back and forth, we'll see if I need some rain boots too after the first couple of times walking in the rain.

I am still trying to figure out what to do with myself, how to rearrange my schedule with this change.  I am a bit of a creature of habit so will be much happier once I get it figured out and know what I am doing and when.  On the plus side, since I have to be up and ready earlier than I have gotten used to I am already adding in one good routine to my day, Destructo-boy and I are taking the looong way home from school so I can get in a little exercise every day.  Then once we get home I do my daily cleaning and then do my consultant work, and before lunch I have cleared all my "must do's" from the days schedule.  It is truly strange to have all afternoon to knit/scrapbook/sew before heading back out to pick up Lil'Miss at the end of the day.  I am sure we will all get comfortable once we settle in our new routine and I can only hope Lil' Miss continues to love school as much as she does now.  I still miss her every day though!

Tiny Dancer

What is it about little girls and ballet?  Like many little girls her age Lil' Miss loves ballerinas, in fact at her preschool graduation being a ballerina is what she proclaimed was her future profession.  I think it may have started with the Angelina Ballerina cartoons that air on PBS.  We watched them every day for at least 2 years, and there aren't that many episodes, only 39 fifteen minute episodes according to Wikipedia.  Yes dear reader, I know most of them by heart as does Lil' Miss of course!  She may have moved on in her viewing choices but she still loves ballet.

Her summer ballet class at the community center just ended and all the parents were invited to watch the final class.  This class is not a parent participation class (like the one we took while I was pregnant with Destructo-boy, nothing like a heavily pregnant woman dancing ballet let me tell you!), we adults get the fun of waiting in the lobby while the girls dance except for the final day.  They were unbelievably cute, about 18 little girls in leotards and tights, almost every one had on some sort of flowy skirt, a few with tulle skirts, and all running around like little terriers hopped up on espresso.  It was quite a sight to see, and damn if my camera battery didn't die after 5 minutes!

They all showed us they had learned how to do first position, and displayed some other basic moves.  I love how the teacher, Miss Kim, gets them to do some of the basic ballet movements including running, jumping, galloping, (don't know the proper terms, I never got to take ballet) by turning it into something fun.  All the girls in the class had so much fun showing off what they had learned for their parents, and the paparazzi were in full force as they did so.  The best part was at the end of the class when each dancer was given a chiffon scarf to dance with and they all went running around the room waving their scarves in the air.  Amazingly there was only one crash accompanied by tears, it wasn't the only crash, a few others made impact but they got up and just kept on running.  I didn't notice if anyone other parents were quite as amused as I, but I chuckled away through the whole song.

I think we really lucked out in finding Miss Kim, and best of all she actually owns a local studio that teaches dancers up to the high school level so if Lil' Misses interest continues we have someplace local with a supportive environment for her to go.  As long as she has an interest I will find a way to pay for her lessons, she deserves nothing less.  Plus something about seeing her all dressed for class with her hair pulled up in a sweet little bun just pulls on my heartstrings, I actually teared up the first time I got her ready for her class.  Good gracious, when did I become such a softie!?

Cuddling with such sweet sorrow

I love cuddling with my kids, doesn't matter to me which one it is, either will do just fine by me.  I know the days are limited when my little ones will want to be held in my arms, so I try to remind myself to enjoy this too brief period of time while I can.  Some days it's hard to remember with that pile of laundry to do, furniture to dust, projects to finish, etc.

Lil' Miss is the far more cuddly of the two, willing to lie with myself or Mister Vonkysmeed for long stretches at a time (especially in her 'nest' between our legs and the back of the couch when we are stretched out in full relaxation mode).  She was always like this though, even as little baby she was perfectly happy to snuggle in with her favorite people, especially when a book was involved!

On the other hand, Destructo-Boy is not quite so willing.  Oh, he enjoys coming up and placing his head on a knee, arm, hand, whatever he can get to in order to show his affection (what's up with that? is he part tomcat?!) but he is a little mover and shaker never staying still for very long.  No sooner will he climb up on my lap then he wriggles off to go race away and get into something that he probably isn't supposed to be into. 

Which makes it all the more bittersweet with him being sick this past weekend.  When he gets sick his preferences change entirely, wanting to be cuddled by someone all the time.  He is rather particular on who that someone is too, if you are the chosen person forget about it if you are trying to knit or read or anything besides holding him!  Destructo will stand at your knee and cry pitifully (and there is nothing quite as pitiful as a tow-headed 20 month old with a fever) until you put down your distraction and snuggle him.  Both Mister Vonkysmeed and I have commented to each other during his illness that we missed being able to cuddle him as we used to (when he wasn't mobile and couldn't escape from us).  Although I'm not happy that he's sick, I will admit to relishing being able to cuddle our beloved little boy.  Gotta grab those opportunities while you can, for all too soon they will be gone.

Five already!?

As I sit here planning for her birthday party I am left wondering where the time went.  She is five.  Five years gone by in the blink of an eye.  I remember so clearly when I had just started my maternity leave, I used to lie down on this very couch and nap while awaiting her arrival.  How did we get from there to here?  And why do I feel like I missed out on something?  No matter that I have been lucky enough to have been a full time mom since she was 18 months old I still feel like I have lost.  That I have been so busy with the minutiae of life, all those little things that make up the routine of each day that I somehow missed her growing up from a baby to this delightful little girl I get to spend every day with.

Logically I know it's not true, I was there every step of the way and have missed out on nothing, but that feeling is still there, niggling at the back of my mind.  I adore her just as she is now, my precious one and only daughter and I wouldn't trade her for anything, she is a treasure to me, tantrums and all.  That said, I miss my baby, my toddler, and soon I will miss my preschooler too.  I now understand what The Momster meant when she said she missed her babies, I am right there with her now in missing mine.  Lil' Miss is growing up much too fast for me to cope with at times, but I am so proud of the person she is becoming.  So happy fifth birthday and congratulations on your graduation from preschool little one, your Mommy will treasure these memories of you forever.

Shoes, shoes, shoes!

Shoe obsessed?  Not me, just the rest of my family.  Don't get me wrong, I can admire a beautiful pair of shoes almost as much as the next girl, but comfort overrules fashion and I cannot stomach the thought of dropping a whole paycheck on one pair.  When it comes to my shoes I love my slides and prefer flats over heels, although I still have a collection of heels from my working days but rarely wear them.  I prefer running around barefoot the majority of the time, this is So Cal after all!  The rest of the family however, well, they love shoes enough to make up for me.

Mister Vonkysmeed seems to always be buying new shoes although some of that may be due to the fact that he is incredibly tough on them.  He does have quite a bit more pairs than I do and I am constantly tripping over a variety of shoes that have been left out.  Once they are all worn out and tired looking it is like pulling teeth to get him to part with them.  Often they go to the garage to serve as footgear whilst doing home or car repair before finally making their way to the landfill in the sky.  I honestly don't understand the attachment!  The Momster-in-Law told me a story once about a certain pair of red high heels of hers that he loved so much he hid them in his hamper, repeatedly.  Fortunately for me he seems to have outgrown this  particular attraction to women's shoes!

Our Lil' Miss and Destructo-boy take after their daddy in this regard, both are just as crazy about shoes as he is.  Lil' Miss loves to pick out her shoes each day, often making the most imaginative sock/shoe/clothing combinations (I swear that kid is a walking rainbow of clashing shades some days!).  And boy does she love to shop for shoes!  It started pretty young, around 18 months if I had to guess, whenever we went out to get her new shoes we had to leave the new pair on her feet or else she would protest loudly at their removal, just let it be, after all they were being purchased for her!  Nowadays the crying has given way to whining, especially when we decide against a pair of shoes.  Now if I could just get her to take better care of the shoes she has as she is almost as tough on them as her daddy!  Destructo-boy, well, he is another story altogether...

If you make the mistake of entering our home and removing your shoes don't expect them to be there when you go to leave.  Destructo-boy loves shoes, all kinds of shoes be they big, little, men's, women's it doesn't matter to my boy.  He'll put them on wherever he finds them and then go running waddling off with them barely on his feet.  Both Lil' Miss and I have to remember to always close our closet doors or else return to find our shoes scattered all over the house;  although it seems to be more of a problem with hers than with mine, especially the silver sparkly ones she wore for the holidays.  I can always hear when I have forgotten to close my closet door as click-clack he goes down the hall of wood flooring on a raised foundation in his latest high heeled capture! (and I thought a herd of elephants was loud, my kids put them to shame with their racket from running up and down the hall!)  I don't know what we'll do when he discovers that Mister Vonkysmeed stores his ever growing collection under the bed within easy reach, I guess we'll have to be even more careful about keeping the bedroom door closed.

Although I prefer barefoot to shoes, maybe once I overcome my phobia and start knitting socks I'll change my mind (those teeny tiny needles and fine weight yarns are scary!).  Lil' Miss has already put in her request for me to make some handknit socks for her.  I'll have to get started on some for her soon and perhaps then I'll want to make some for myself.  I can see it now, an array of rainbow hued handknit sockies for me to slip on before I put on my slippers or my slides.  Ooh, then I'll need to buy myself some new shoes to show off the handknit socks!

Quiet Time, not just for toddlers

Truly, it's not so much for the kids anymore as it is for me.  Without that hour or two of quiet every day Mister Vonkysmeed might come home from work one day to find one or both of the munchkins dangling by their ankles from the pergola over the back patio.  A few years ago Lil' Miss outgrew her naps but I had not outgrown the need for some quiet time for myself and I need it even more since Destructo-boy arrived on the scene.  Even though she wouldn't sleep anymore during naptime, her body still needed the down time of some rest in the middle of the day (or so I told her).  So I stole an idea from my lovely neighbor and instead let her choose a movie out of our rather large children's/family collection of DVD's to watch while relaxing on her bed in her darkened room.  Yes, my munchkins have both a television and a DVD player in their room.  In my defense, there is no cable in there, nor will there ever be while children reside in there; also the components are located on a high shelf so she cannot access them other than to turn the television on and off.  Thus, the tv only gets used for an hour or two of quiet time each day (see, I'm not such a terrible mom, so there ttthhhppptt!).

Right now she is on a Looney Tunes kick, we have a few of their DVD collections and she has chosen one of them every day this week.  At least the kid has good taste, and Mister Vonkysmeed is very pleased as they were originally his DVD's!  It seems to go in cycles, she gets hooked on a movie or a series of movies and watches them multiple times (must get it from her daddy, at last count he had watched The Fifth Element about 65,488 times), I would go crazy doing that!  Last week it was the Ice Age movies that kept getting pulled out, and it was Wallace & Gromit or Shaun the Sheep the week before that.  But lets be honest here, as long as it is at least an hour and half long I really don't care what she chooses (thank gawd I don't allow the purple dinosaur in the house, that I couldn't handle!).

What I love about this arrangement beyond the quiet I get (no Mommy do this, Mommy I need that, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy for a little bit!), is that I get to catch up on tv shows I can't watch with the munchkins, well at least the elder one, around.  After the first time Lil' Miss, at age 2, described an autopsy while asking a question I informed Mister Vonkysmeed there would be no more crime shows on while she was in the room such as our favorites CSI, NCIS, Castle, Lost, or V.  During their quiet time I sometimes even get a chance to lay down for a little bit of a nap myself (gasp!), but usually I'm working on the computer, knitting, cruising the internet or blogging, while the tv is simply providing background noise.  Unfortunately quiet time is always over much too soon with Lil' Miss bounding out of her room asking if she can have her afternoon snack now.  Oh well, there is always her computer time!

My mini-me, aka Lil' Miss

It was clear to us as soon as we saw her in profile during an ultrasound, Lil' Miss is a tiny little version of me.  Some days it is truly frightening to see a miniature version of yourself running around, all the good is just fine it's the bad stuff that's not so terrific.  Grumpy has stated that not only did the apple not fall far from the tree, it simply fell straight down, thud, no rolling away, nothing.  This isn't just the striking physical resemblance between us either, it's that she often acts just like me, the same turns of phrase, the same gestures and mannerisms, yikes!

To give you an idea of just how much she looks like me, one day Mister Vonkysmeed was looking at old pictures on the computer (don't ask me why) he came across one of me when I was the same age as Lil' Miss, about 4 years old.  He was immediately struck by the strong resemblance between us, exacerbated by the fact it was a black and white picture.  When she came into the room and was asked who was in the photo she immediately replied that it was her.  Then she realized that she didn't know the other two people in the picture and had never owned that dress, hmm, does not compute!  We explained that it was actually Mommy in the picture and she still looked a little confused than just accepted it and went on with her day. Which goes to show she is definitely her own person in spite of looking like me, I would never just accept something so cavalierly, I must have full disclosure to be truly happy!

Huntin' Easter eggs

It never changes, every Easter that dang rabbit comes hopping around leaving eggs everywhere.  Why couldn't he just leave the basket of goodies next to my bed but no, he had to leave an egg with a hint leading to another egg, which would lead to another and so on.  Oh, I guess it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun without the hunting part would it?  Oh all right, it would have been kind of boring to not have to hunt around for it.

The Momster (yes, I now know it was her and not some demented furry creature) would spend hours working out clues for me and older brother Grumpy to track down Easter morning.  After our 5 minutes of racing around the house from egg to egg she would complain about how quickly we went through the egg-clues and got to our baskets.  Granted, we worked it out pretty quickly, but do you think maybe there are more hiding places for an Easter basket than the dishwasher, the clothes dryer, or the tv cabinet?  We cottoned onto that ploy pretty quickly so there were several times we actually discovered the basket before we were supposed to by 'mis-interpreting' a clue.