As requested . . .

An undisclosed amount of money was paid for this exclusive photo of one Erin Tabler preparing for The Big Dance.

A totally pirated post . . .

Martha Beck, Life Coach, is a regular contributor on the Oprah Show, and O Magazine. (most of you know how I feel about Oprah - - I think she is brilliant, a visionary, and one of my heroes!) I also LOVE Martha Beck. I think she is so fascinating and smart. Whenever I read something of hers I think, "Aha! That's it!" She's a little quirky, a bit off the wall, but I love that! I am on this email list of hers, and this came through my inbox today. I decided to post it here in hopes that it might get other people hooked on her too! Just pretend that I wrote this one, okay? Thanks Martha!

Insight from Martha - The Truth about True Love
When I was 20, I got a fellowship to travel mainland China gathering folktales for my undergraduate thesis at Harvard. I was expecting the kind of stories I'd seen animated in Disney films: handsome prince and beautiful maiden overcome evil and unite in a happy-ending marriage. To my astonishment I found that this archetype is incredibly rare in Chinese folktales--they always ended with the protagonist getting rich.This was the first time I realized that my experience of romantic love was just one more set of socialized beliefs. Some of them made me very happy, and still do. The presence of a beloved companion is certainly one of the most precious things human life has to offer. But other cultural assumptions about romantic love create untold pain for my American clients. I see them in my friends, in the movies, in every TV drama from Gray's Anatomy to The Bachelor.

Here is a list of cultural assumptions that in my view bring pain instead of joy:
Myth: The right partner will make me happy.
Reality: Your happiness is no one's business but your own. As Terry DeMeo points out in our currently featured teleclass, How to Love the One You're Always With-Yourself, being loved is all about loving yourself. You have the power to embrace or reject the magic we associate with "being in love" no matter who is around or how they feel about you. Successful love relationships come from happiness not vice versa. Myth: You need your partner.Reality: Believing you need your partner turns love into craving and leaves little room for genuine love in which there is no wanting or needing whatsoever. If you think it is romantic to tell your love "I need you" try this: "I choose you and I need nothing at all from you." This may feel odd but watch your partner relax as the shackles come off.
Myth: You need to find the right mate to be complete.
Reality: You need to be complete to find your mate. If I told you to go find the mate to my favorite shoe but I never show you the shoe, how on earth could you find the mate? The biggest error I see my clients make is looking for completion in another person when what they actually need is a clear picture of the complete self that is already present at their cores. Find the essential self and identifying the mate suddenly becomes possible, even easy. No one is incomplete and if you see yourself as incomplete you will never find your mate.Our cultural view of love, our fairy tales are based on the convention of "courtly love' that originated in medieval Europe. It is a wonderful archetype but it is a poor and misguiding excuse for reality. Your real source of love-your true self-will breathe much easier when you open your mind to all possibilities. You will find that contrary to your painful beliefs you have been in Love all along.

Geez it's been awhile! It doesn't seem like it has been as long as it has been, but that is the story of my life.

We weathered the weather here very well. Our power never went out, we only lost phone and internet for about a day. I'm not sure why we were so lucky, but I am very very glad. Mark's parents were here for a few days waiting for their power to come back on and we had a lot of fun together! Of course the girls loved having them here, and I did too. They are so fantastic.

But now it is back to normal - whatever that means. And I am up to my neck in trying to make it work! I need to figure out how to dedicate certain times to each business - the preschool and my training business - and then also set aside some time each week for working out and/or yoga. This all then needs to plug in to the girls' schedules of ballet, music and school (and I think soccer is starting soon, which I am now writing myself a note to check on.) And I can't give up our time together just playing and reading and laughing - those times are actually top on the list. It just seems like there is a perfect answer on how to do this, I just need to find it. I am certainly closer than I ever have been; just not quite there yet. And as soon as I do get there, something will change, so I think my best bet is to not look for consistency but just get used to getting things done without structure!

just a little more

I have started to feel a little guilty about my last post - - I don't want to come off holier-than-thou and I am afraid I did. My issue is not only the specific examples, but the broader issue they illustrate. You can hardly go a few days without hearing how children just don't have the respect they used to have, or the attention spans they had a few decades ago. Well where in the world do children learn these things? How do children learn to have conversations? By having real, meaningful conversations. How do children learn to mitigate difficult social situations? By observing appropriate social behavior in the adults around them. How do children learn to persist at tasks, learn new vocabulary, use imagination? Believe it or not the answer is not video games. The research is so prevalent I cannot even begin to list it, and I am sure that is not what people are coming to my blog for. (If you are, let me know! I'm on it!)
I make many many mistakes every day as a parent. I never claim to be perfect or have all the answers. I hope that is not the message I sent!
Now I am putting my soapbox away (for now). . .my phone is ringing.

I'm not judging - really, I'm not

Ok - I guess really I am. But I just cannot let this go another day. I don't know if I just don't get out much and this has been going on for some time, or it is a new phenomenon. Maybe it has something to do with what people got for Christmas. But in the last few weeks I have been absolutely blown away by the number of times I have seen parents sitting at the table of a restaurant with their children (or out other places with their children) and not interacting at all with them. Can you take a wild guess what those parents are doing? They are on their Blackberry-IPhone-Smartphone-Human Substitute. When it really kills me is when the kids are also on their Nintendo DS (or whatever), so there are three or four people a a table 'together' and totally plugged in to some virtual, electronic world somewhere else. Now granted, I have no idea what these people's lives are like outside of the little window of time that I have stalked them at Chick-Fil-A or Tumbleweed. They very well could have planted a winter garden together, played family board games all afternoon and then ran out for a quick bite to eat where they spent their once-per-week electronic time. Maybe.
But for the purpose of this post I am going to go with my gut and assume that what I have observed is mostly typical behavior for the numerous families I have seen this way in the last few weeks. Here is an extreme example that illustrates my point: A family of three was waiting next to us for a table at Tumbleweed at abut 7 PM. (Our wait was about 30 minutes, they were there before us.) None of them were talking to each other. The mom was on her Blackberry about 75% of the time. The little girl got impatient and wanted to look through her mom's purse, her mom said no, and the girls started to cry. The dad angrily but quietly told her to quit crying, and just sit there. Both parents told her to dry her eyes several times. I then got a quick glimpse of the little girl, who couldn't have been more then three years old. They gave her a pacifier and then both parents got out Blackberrys and stayed on them until their table was ready.
During this scenario, another family of five walked in - mom, dad and three older kids. They sat across from us while they waited for their table, and both parents stayed on their Blackberrys the entire time we sat there. The mom did speak to one of her sons about what she was doing on the Blackberry, but the father did not speak to the rest of his family once.
Seriously I could describe at least four more similar examples in the past two weeks. What are people doing that is so important? I must really be missing something big.

Because I don't have enough jobs

So as anyone who reads this blog knows, I have a lot of jobs. I do the doula thing a bit - - a birth every other month or so, or more often if it works out. I conduct early childhood training workshops, although work has been awfully scarce lately. And oh yeah - I am a mommy too - the biggest, most important job with the longest hours and the worst pay but the job that has made me the richest.

Well, a few weeks ago, I was offered another job for 2009. The church where we work decided they would like to start a part-time preschool, and they asked me to start it and be the director. Now I should preface this by saying I made the decision in the summer to stop contracting for the early childhood workshops and go out on my own to start my own business. I am doing that, although I have taken longer than I initially planned. But I am doing it. Anyway, that being said, the timing on this church thing is pretty ridiculous. Otherwise I couldn't ask for a better situation - the church is extremely supportive, with a beautiful space. The slate is totally clean there. I will be writing all the policies, choosing/creating the curriculum, making all decisions, hiring, etc etc etc . . .I have the chance to do things the way I think they should be done. And all of you know how much I love that. It is very unusual to be in that position. And the reason that it is wonderful is the reason that it INSANE!! It is going to be an incredible amount of work - physical and mental - to get this off the ground! And I am not ready to put my own business idea aside.

If it isn't yet obvious I accepted the offer. We are not in a financial position where I can be turning down a job in my field with the flexibility and opportunity they were offering. So for 2009 I will be starting two brand new businesses from the ground up. I am at once nervous and excited about it all!! Stay tuned for more about my training business - the web site is almost ready for publishing! And as soon as we have a name for the preschool program I'll let ya' know. It will be very interesting to see where we are this time 2009. It is a little ironic that I have started now to really make an effort to live in the moment, try to be present. Glutton for punishment, did I hear? Or maybe just up for the challenge. Guess that is to be seen!

What Makes a Jillian?

(no no no - - I know what made Jillian, although when we announced we were pregnant the second time and Erin was only 6 months old, some probably wondered . . .)

But as we celebrated Jillian's third birthday today, I kept thinking about what an amazing little creature she is! So I hope you'll induldge me a bit and let me tell you what came to mind about my little girl who is no longer a baby.

Jillian Abigail . . .
* the baby that totally threw us for a loop (and frankly, continues to do so every single day!)
* the newborn who nursed every 45 minutes round the clock for many many weeks, who did not sleep through the night until . . .oh wait, she rarely sleeps through the night now!
* the baby who for about 8 weeks only pooped at 11:oo am on Tuesdays. I swear.
* the baby who never once used her legs to crawl (think G.I. Joe/army crawl)
* the toddler with all the spunk and extroversion a child can muster, yet who was until recently petrified of the vacuum and raindrops. Not storms, drops.
* the toddler who could, when learning how to talk, make noises and combinations of sounds that didn't seem humanly possible, and who now adds an extra syllable in between almost every syllable of every word (eg. baby = ba-ya-bee)
* the two-year old who could make you break a sweat getting her dressed, who could throw a tantrum like nobody's business, and who could cuddle until she melted you into a big puddle of goo (all of which continue to be true.)
* the now three-year old with a sense of humor that continuously amazes us, that is on a level unlike anyone else's! Today, she asked Mark, "Daddy, how many days 'till Christmas?" Mark said, "Four." Jillian responded, "I beat Jesus, I beat Jesus!"
* Erin's best friend in the world, who truly cares about Erin's happiness and absolutely loves her sister.

Happy Birthday my dear Jillian! I love you bigger than the whole world.

Two in one day!

I need to use my blog for advertising today - - probably not the last time, but it won't happen often I swear. I now sell Barefoot Books. This is an amazing children's book publisher with an emphasis on creativity, diversity and an acceptance of the world's many traditions. Products are printed on forest-friendly paper and with earth-friendly processes. I am NOT a sales person - I hate the whole idea. But when I heard about this company and now that I have sampled the books I could not resist the chance to spread the word. The books are FANTASTIC. The artwork is beautiful and stories are completely unlike any others we have seen - and as most of you know, we have seen our share of children's books!

I swear this is not why I started my blog again! But I just found a way to post buttons and there is free shipping until Tuesday so I thought I would throw it out there. Visit my site and check it out - you will LOVE it!!

You thought I'd already given up, didn't you??

I swore that even though I waited a year to post again I wouldn't rehash an enitre year of funny stories and unfinished knitting projects. And don't worry, I won't. There are plenty of each to share and I am sure there will be a sprinkling here and there. But by popular request I have to post the following photos to document our annual Black Friday shopping trip.

We - some combination of mothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and children, depending on the year - have gone shopping the day after Thanksgiving every year since 2003. We scope out the ads during Thanksgiving and make our plan, which usually consists of meeting at Michael's Crafts at 6am and just winging it from there. Since the girls have been born, Mark stays home and calls me when they are awake and we pick them up to join the fun. They have gone every year of their little lives. Erin is all about it; this year when it was 6:45 pm and we'd been going all day, she was crying when we decided to call it quits because she wanted to go to another store. Jillian can't quite make it through a whole day yet - she is much more of a napper and consequently much less pleasant if naptime gets skipped. Regardless it is fun and will be a tradition for years to come.

The point of bringing this up to is post the following pictures of Erin at Old Navy, our last stop this year. She staged these completely on her own and requested that the pictures be taken. (Can I reiterate that this was completely on her own?!) She really likes staging pictures - with people, stuffed animals, Fisher Price Little People, whatever. Apparently headless Old Navy manequins fit the bill as well.

But here's the kicker folks. We were in line to pay and my mom says, "You have to come here." So Mimi and Beth and I went to the display, and found this:

Here were my thoughts: Oh Erin, you can't take the stuffed animals out of the maniquins hands. Wait, she wasn't wearing those clothes. We don't own those clothes. Wait, those aren't Erin's hands! She totally posed herself to be this maniquin's head! You cannot see her legs at all!

In all my research in child development and stuff, I have never looked into the development of a sense of humor. I don't know where it comes from or how it develops - maybe I need to write a workshop on that. It would be interesting. All I know is that I think this is pretty darn funny for a 4 year old - I almost wet my pants when I saw it.

Right Now

So here I sit, with a million and one things on the list to be working on. But I have chosen to take a moment to relish in the amazingness (yep, that's a word, atleast on my blog) that is my life. Jillian and Erin are coloring together in the kitchen - which they do about 75% of their waking hours. Mark is working on dinner (which he probably feels like he does 75% of his waking hours). My little house is a wreck, laundry needs to be folded, my business is waiting to be launched, knitting is sitting in the rocking chair hoping to be cast off before Christmas Day.

And as crazy as it feels most of the time, and as much as I would like for a lot of it to come together a little better, I feel so grateful for what this moment is. It is exactly what it is supposed to be. It is here for all of us to experience what it has to offer - the joy of coloring (and the cooperation of doing it together!), the simpleness and sweetness of being together, the innocence conversation between a 2 y/o and 4 y/o. Oh my - how could I wish for something to be different than this?

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star. Nietzsche

Three Comments - Are you Kidding??

Well Blog Rolls Rock! How fun is that?
It is weird that once I started a blog, I started constantly thinking in blog posts. When things happened throughout the day, I would write a blog post in my head about them. (Now I think in Facebook statuses too). Shamefully they never made it to the blog, but whatever. I am working on it.
Now that I am here again maybe I can try harder. I wanted to update pictures right now but as is typical when I want to do something with it I can't seem to locate my camera. Figures. I did promise myself that my blog does not have to be perfect to be used, though, so my imperfection (as much as I hate it) is not going to stop me from posting. Maybe next time!
Today at church was as Intergeneration Church School Hour, which sounds a bit more grandiose than it was. It was, however, really really fun. Families who braved the icky cold rain on a holiday weekend to actually come to church got spend the Sunday School hour together rather than in separate classes. First we played Name that Tune with Christmas Carols. Then we decorated living Christmas Trees - not trees at all, but people at each table who agreed to be trees decoated by random found items in boxes at each table. Mark was our tree and he rocked! After a parade of all the trees, there was a story and some children unwrapped a gift of the manger. Then St. Nicholas came for family pictures. It was a really fun event. Are you looking for pictures? yeah - me too. Had I known it was all going to be so camera-worthy, I'd have located my camera before church. I just didn't know. grrr. . . . Thankfully there is someone who takes LOTS of pictures for the church web site who was there, and he even had his camera with him! As soon as they are posted to the church site I will link to them.

12/8/08 Here are the best of the photos - You can imagine from these how fun the morning was!

Mark checking out his tree competition.

All the Living Trees (Wonder which of these has the most rings??)

Jillian usually refuses to do anything like this so I was shocked that she agreed at all. Erin (you know, the shy one) is all about it, and is of course reassuring Jillian that St. Nicholas is our friend.

Here are the Tablers and Nana with St. Nicholas.

Happy New Year!

So in response to the millions (or four) people who have told me they look at my blog every day waiting for me to post some breath taking, heart stopping story, I decided to make my annual visit to the blog. I am calling your bluff. Who of you out there really still looks at my blog every day? This shall be the ultimate test. This first person to comment on this post will win a prize. You think I joke but I do not - there is a prize for my most loyal friend. (Mark already knew I was doing this so he doesn't count, and Lord knows he must be the most loyal becuase he puts up with me everyday!)
Why the resurge in blogness? Well, for some reason Facebook has sucked me in, and that has made me online more regularly for that kind of thing. (instead of work-related stuff) The girls spend a little more time at school, which gives me a little more time to get some things done. And really I just thought it would be fun to see who would comment on this first. We'll see - no promises. But I do want to try again. Third time's a charm, right? And hey, if Grandpa can do it . . .

So now I wait.

And you doubted me . . .

DSC01033
Originally uploaded by KimKnits

I know I talk a lot about knitting, and it seems there is rarely anything to show for it! But I occassionally do finish projects. And I occassionally finish projects worth blogging about.
This is Erin's pinwheel sweater! I found the pattern on Ravelry and immediately cast on. I worked at a (relatively) feverish pace and finished in only a few days. I love it! And I have already cast on for Jillian's! (Understand that there is a lot of Christmas gift knitting goin on right now, so I may not have Jillian's sweater done before the end of the year. But shortly thereafter, Jillian will have a pinwheel sweater too!)
There more photos on flickr if you are interested . . .

Happy birthday to Jack!!

Valerie's youngest son is one today!!!! I thought that deserved it's own post. Not only did Jack make it through his first year, but so did Valerie!! Congratulations to both of you!


Val is excellent at keeping up her blog so you can check it out to see photos of some of the cutest boys I've ever seen! (see link at right)

The Story of the Chicken

Thanks for reminding me, Valerie, that the chicken needs a bit of an explanation. Erin had first insisted she was going to be a ladybug (maybe because she saw pics of Jillian last year??) I was at Target one day and they had no more ladybugs. So I asked her about a bumblebee, and she liked the idea. I bought that, but when we tried it on at home it was WAY too small. So I took it back, and she came with me, so that I could see what would fit her. It was this trip to Target when she fell in love with the chicken. She pulled it off the rack and said, "Is this too pall (ie - small) for me?" I told her it was her size, and she was very very excited. She could not consider any of the other costumes; she was absolutely going to be a chicken. And now I will say what everyone else is thinking - - she is, after all, Mark's daughter, right?

The first time Mark asked Jillian what she was going to be for Halloween, he really had no expectations that she would actually even answer him. We didn't even really know she knew what Halloween was. But she immediately answered, "Pumpin!!" And so there you have it!

Halloween Wrap Up

Trick or treating was in Helga's neighborhood with the gang.Because our children are painfully slow (and I can't really emphasize that enough) we went to about 5 houses and had to turn around. Trick-or-treating until December is usually frowned upon. The girls don't know any different, though, and had a fantastic time. As I am sure you could predict, Erin said neither Trick or Treat or thank you. Jillian, however, caught on right away and was pretty much ready to enter anyone's home who opened their door. She said thank you (verbally and with her sign) as she climbed down porch steps on her bottom, because proch steps are generally as tall as her knees. It was a very fun evening with friends and a pretty cute pumpkin and chicken.

Most of the time Jillian pushed the stroller herself, which contributed to our lightening fast pace. But toward the end she was content to let Erin push her.

When we got back, the girls of course were inspecting the stash. I thought it was very interesting how their sorting methods perfectly illustrated their personalities.

But when Jillian saw what Erin was doing, she (of course) had to follow suite. (Again, very telling.)

I have more to post - - Mark the soccer coach, making Halloween treats, and Erin wore a handknit sweater to school today!

But I have to vote, and Blogger is unbelievably slow at uploading pictures right now. So I will save it for this evening.

Shhh . . . .Listen. Can you hear that??

Nothing! There's no one in my house but me!

Because we have the absolute best Mimi and Grandpa in the whole world, I slept until 8:00 this morning. And then I at pumpkin muffin bread from Huber's and drank hot chocolate, in my bed! (don't tell Mark.) I should be working, but I told myself that I am not going to do it today. While the girls are making cherry pie with Grandpa, I will be knitting and drinking hot chocolate. All day! (ok, so maybe I will go to Target in a little while, but it will be by myself and I will get hot chocolate while I shop.)

Last weekend, Mark and I went to a dinner for the 6th anniversary of Birth Care Network, the organization which, among many other things, acts as a referral list for childbirth educators, doulas, etc. Without him knowing it, I had nominated Mark for the Seahorse Award, which is given to the most supportive partner/spouse. The winner was the husband of a doula who has 7 children, and who does 7 - 8 births a month. So basically he won because she is insane! But I wanted to be sure that the billions of people who read my blog know that Mark is by far the best dinner maker, baby bather, kitchen cleaner, daddy and husband that this doula could even dream of.

I cannot close without mentioning girl band retreat a few weeks ago. Jenny and Candy dutifully went straight to their blogs after the weekend and chronicled our adventures of too much pizza, ice cream and crafting. So there's not much more to be said except we are totally doing it again! Girl Band Rocks!

I am sure there will be myraid pictures to post after Wednseday, when my little punkin' and chicken (yes, I said chicken) get to go trick-or-treating. Oh yes, and believe it or not there will be a completed sweater (SWEATER!) in the very near future. Stay tuned!

Where does the time go???

I had no idea how long it has been since I've posted. I don't have a whole lot of exciting things to say . . .

Here are the things I learned last week:
1. 28 hours is a long time to doula.
2. 41 hours is a long time to be awake.
3. The lights in the Festiva do not go off automatically (unless you leave them on for about 28 hours. Then I guess it's not so much automatic as inevitable.)
4. If the doors at Clark Memorial Hospital are locked, it's a long walk back to the security desk. They do have jumper cables, however.
5. Helga is a really good back up for when Client B calls while I am in about hour 20 of Client A's birth.

I am trying to figure out how to balance the doula-ing and teaching workshops (oh, yeah . . . and those darn children) without totally freaking out wondering if a client will call while I am in the middle of a class. Or worse, really, would be if I am with a client and we are, say, at the pushing stage and I have a class starting in 20 minutes. Neither of these situations have ever happened, but I am just tempting the doula godesses by continuing the way I am now. I have no October clients because I thought I would be teaching every weekend. So I have a little while to think about how to proceed.

Ravelry (that knitting/crocheting web site) rocks and I wish I had thought of it myself. I have started getting photos and making places for photos, so when I actually get them on there I will be sure to post here in case anyone is interested. Only 4 people signed up for my class for today, so I had some extra knitting time. I really have knitter's ADD - - I cannot stop starting new projects, even though I haven't totally finished any of them. There's so many things I want to work on! I thought maybe Ravelry would help me organize the chaos, but it is really making it worse because now I am seeing even more things I want to work on! Anyway, that's just where I am in my knitting journey and I will have to get through this phase in order to move on to the next.

Only 6 more days till GIRL BAND RETREAT!!! The girls from band will be retreating Friday night for a fun-filled, childless night of some kind of ice cream, some kind of cheese fries and crafting in a hotel room. As pitiful as that sounds, I am so excited! That's the biggest news around here!

Girls are wonderful, Mark is fabulous . . . I really can't complain! (Can you believe it?)

A word about being shy

(Forgot I was going to post this - Guess I was not quite done.)
Let me preface this by a quick story from one of our music classes. This was about a year ago, and a mom of an older child asked me, somehwat hesitantly, "Now, is Erin talking yet?" She was almost concerned, like, "You can have that tested, you know." Anyway, I responded that she talked all the time at home but that she was just really really shy. The mom said, "Oh, don't worry. She'll be ok." ! ! ! ! ! I know she meant well, but I thought to myself, "Wait a minute!!! She is OK right now!"

I teach this class on how adult temperaments affect children in the classroom. Participants take an adult personality inventory and then we discuss what they come up with and how they think what their tendencies are might affect the kids they work with. As part of my general points to make about introversion vs. extroversion, I have always made the point that extroversion is really valued in our society. Look how many books are in the parenting section of a bookstore about how to 'fix' your shy child! There is nothing about how to fix an extroverted child! The tendency is to want to help a shy child change into a not-shy child.
I think there is value in being a child who wants to stand back and take things in before jumping in. The difference is when a child is acting shy but really really wishes he could not be shy. Then it makes sense to help him learn coping mechanisms for what to do when fear takes over. But being shy is not something that inherently has to be fixed. It would probably do me some good to be shy every once in awhile!

Anyway, the whole point of me posting this is that I didn't want to sound like I was relieved that Erin was finally not shy! Surprised, definitely! But certainly not relieved! All I want for her is to be cofmortable in her own skin, whatever that means for her.
All of you who posted your comments are so wonderful! Thank you (even you, smart a** David) for being so supportive! I am learning to be a good enough parent!

What's that you say? A free Saturday?

(I would finish that like a Dr. Suess poem, if I were Mark. I am not.)

Let me start with the soccer, because Erin is so excited about it! She plays on Sundays, and last week was her first practice/game. She can't wait until this week's game. She was also very excited that her team has yellow (her favorite color) shirts. ("How did they know?", she said when she got her shirt at the orientation meeting.)

Erin has not done anything like this before, so she's got no idea about being on a team or kicking a goal or anything else related. She does kick pretty well when she's on her own, but is not much past that yet. Luckily she is on a 3 y/o team so no one else is either. She told me she likes her coach, and when I asked her what he said to the team, she said, "He says 'Come here' a lot!" That is th gist of it so far. And of course there are pics.

Jillian!

Oh yes, and Jillian. She continues to be such a toddler. She now has decided that everything - everything - is worth at least a shot at a tantrum. Completely going limp, throwing herself on the floor, and screaming, are he modes of operation. No matter what it we are doing, she figures she might as well try. I have done my best to just walk away, and usually she stops in about 10 minutes. Luckily this has not happened in public, but I refuse to talk about that possibility (probability?) any more.

She is still darn cute, and when not in freak out mode, awfully sweet. She misses Erin when Erin is at school ("Ain, cooool?" translated - Erin, school?) but has enjoyed a little Mommy time by herself. We've mostly either gone to the park or to the grocery. She talks like crazy, but in this funny psuedo-language. She has this knack for being able to make the sounds of a word without ever actually saying the word. Anyway, I have told doula clients this many times and now I am remembering my words - Even though I have already been a mom to a 20 month old, I am a first time mom to Jillian. I have to be sure to remember that!

And the knitting . . .

I have been introduced to this great site - Ravelry - that is really a knitters dream. I won't go into it here, because those of you who are interested already know about it, and if you don't know about it you probably don't care! You know my promises to actually catalog my works in progress and finished objects on Flickr? That is what I will be working on on my free Saturday! But it will be even better through this new site. I'll still post some knitting things here, but will really be using Ravelry for the details.

I will post here that I have decided to completely frog the Mystery Stole yet another time. It was coming along swimmingly, until I made some really glaring mistakes. I was going to just move on and overlook them (you know, in an effort to NOT be a perfectionist.) But I set it aside for awhile and now every time I look at it I want to start over. I am not giving up - it will be done! I am just succumbing to my perfectionist tendencies. Or maybe it's just that I want to be proud of it when it's done, and I don't think I really would be if I continued from here.

I have pictures of the mistakes, but I can't seem to find them right this minute. I will post when I run across them.

That's it for now!