Friends

Jayce has just started his spring break today, which is a staggering 17 days long.  Wha?!  I know.  Unfortunately, the kids don't play well together, as I've mentioned before.  Jayce likes things just so, Hannah is a human wrecking ball, and it's not a good combination.

But I might have found a plan that is a winner.  Take them on a walk, take the small stroller, let Jayce "stroll" Hannah, as he calls it.  He ran behind the stroller and then stopped about every 20 seconds, peeked around at her and said, "Was that fun Hannah?"  Then he started again.  She even got a kiss one time.

But smiles from both?  This is success.1 day down, 16 to go.  I need all of the tricks that I can get.

If anyone has "happy sibling activity suggestions," I'll gladly welcome them! :)

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The Shower and Mean Parents

Hannah has this new thing that she loves, it's called our shower.

Actually, she hates to take a shower.  Both kids do.  They prefer baths, with their bubbles/boats/tea party capabilities, and that's fine with me.  

But Hannah likes to climb into our shower, shut the door, sit down and hang out in there.  She lines up the shampoo and soap bottles and then she rearranges them.She opens the door to peer out at us and then slams it shut, looking startled and delighted at the same time.  Chris bikes home from work almost every day, so he often showers when he gets in.  This means that the shower floor is almost always wet when Hannah climbs in, so she usually emerges with her lower half soaked.  This day she started off in just her diaper, so it wasn't so bad.

Jayce noticed that Hannah was getting some attention in this "play the shower game," so he jumped in as well.  Then Chris had a mean parent idea.  And I went with it.

It didn't really work.  But still, here is the video.

I think it's kind of funny that the whole time Hannah is just really excited to see Chris.  I'm both glad and sad that it didn't work. :)

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Knitting Wrap Up: THE SCARF

So, yes, I finished Jayce's scarf and I have finished the "month of knitting" part of my resolutions.  I had a marathon knitting session the last week of February where I worked on it almost every evening and I cranked that baby out.

I told Chris I felt like a human loom.  First there was just a ball of yarn, and then Jayce had a scarf!  It was like magic.  Sometimes frustrating and forearm numbing, but still magic.

It's long-ish, I guess?  I didn't really have a pattern so I just winged it.  But it seemed to fit Jayce just right, and worked well with the little bits of yarn that I had.  A local (beautiful) yarn shop had donated some yarn to the knitting group that I go to, so the green, blue, and creamy white came from there.  The purple and light blue came from the stash of a sweet friend.  It was overall a win-win: Jayce loved it, I practiced, and the price was right.

Jayce did like it.  He was excited.  He put it right on and wouldn't let Hannah touch it.  

But we're seeing more and more that he is a collector, as I've said before.  He wore the scarf around the house all morning on the day that I gave it to him.  Then he folded it up neatly and settled it into front row spot on his dresser, among his other treasures.  There was almost no room even though the dresser is massive, like 8 feet long, because he has so many of his favorite little things nestled up there.  Now the scarf is one of them.After I took these pictures I informed Jayce that he doesn't have to walk with his chin down, pinching the scarf between his chin and chest.  

It will just kind of stay around your neck.  You don't have to do that, you can keep your head up like normal.

But I don't want it to fall off.

I guess getting used to wearing a scarf is a little strange.
I have liked doing a scarf as my first project because I can look at it and see exactly how much progress I made from my first day to my last day.  The left/green end of the scarf leaves a lot to be desired.  But by the time I made my way into the purple it was downright pretty.  Even the edges!  And I should hope so.  I didn't count the stitches, but there are 27 in each row, so by the end I had literally done it a few thousands of times.

I took my finished scarf to my knitting group last week.  I held it up and was like, "Look!  I'm not a complete impostor!  I knitted something!!"
And they smiled at me, looked at it, and all clapped sweetly for me.  I know that they were all thinking that they could do this in their sleep, minus the wonky part, but it was still nice.  And the sweet old lady who first taught me to knit said, "Good job.  Now you KEEP knitting."

I told her I would, and I will.  But for now, I'm taking a break.  

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Akron and Iphones

When Hannah and I traveled to Akron last month, I couldn't take my camera with me.  But it didn't matter, because mom and Chelsea and Mom had their "cameras."  That week, Hannah was the primary subject of much iPhone photography.

I don't blame them though, and I was happy they had their phones, because there were many memorable moments.But eventually I got all bossy and was like, "Chelsea, you have to stop using your phone's camera and get a camera app to use instead."

Then I took her phone, bought my favorite one, downloaded it, and her pictures got significantly better.  It was $1 well spent.

Right?  I might be bossy on occasion, but sometimes I'm actually right.Many thanks to mom and Chelsea for taking this many photos x100 to document our week together.  Not that they did it for me, but I still love it. :)

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Let's Talk About Flying with a Baby

A little over 2 weeks ago, I found out that my grandpa had a heart attack, which I'll write more about at another time.  As the week went on, he went downhill fast, and we made a quick plan to fly home to say goodbye.  By quick, I mean we bought tickets after Chris was home from work one night, and I left for the airport the next morning before Jayce was even up for school.  Chris couldn't miss work and Jayce couldn't miss school, so it was Hannah and I who would be traveling.

Since she is not yet 2, we didn't buy her a seat, but planned for her to sit on my lap.  AKA, I hoped desperately that the flight wasn't full and that there was an empty seat that I could put her in.  Luckily, there was.

What did I pack to keep a 20 month old busy, on an 8 hour flight, without a trip to the store?  Randomness.  And things that she is normally interested in, but not allowed to play with.  

Like markers.  And post it notes.  And the little notebook that I use to make lists.  (Yeah, so I went through my desk drawers for options.)

And tape.  And paperclips. (I don't know, I was desperate.)  I went through my craft stuff and grabbed washi tape, pipe cleaners, and any interesting-looking writing utensils.

Then I went through my kitchen cupboards, grabbed everything edible that is smaller than a quarter, (goldfish, raisins, gummy things), and every single type of cracker.  Then cookies.  And the chocolate that I don't normally let her have, for when I was feeling desperate.

This is what I took.

Then, right before we boarded the flight, every single flight, between the time that they started the boarding process and when they called our group to start boarding, she pooped.  EVERY time.  Including the time that we boarded a plane, had a 2 hour delay on the runway, de-boarded, told to come back in 2 more hours, and when we were about to re-board, she did it again.  And I said loudly, "Hannah you have GOT to be kidding me!"  Not because I' was mad.  But because she had to be kidding me.  5 out of 5 times, no joke.

But it was all worth it, because on the plane, she was a peach.  An absolute peach.  She wasn't easy, because it took a fair amount of finesse, and was a bit like I was orchestrating and starring in a 3 ring circus, for 8 hours, but it all worked.  

Eventually we arrived in Ohio, and when I walked into the bedroom and turned out the lights, her little body immediately fell against mine in sleep.  Because she'd been awake for 19.5 of the last 20 hours straight.

On the way home I was feeling a little confident.  This time our bags were well stocked with thoughtfully selected Target goodies.  But, this time, she was the opposite of a peach.  (What is the opposite of a peach, anyway?)  

She was a terror.

It turns out that, for the record, Hannah is the happiest, chattiest, and most charming little passenger during an 8 hour day flight.

But she is the most unhappy, unsettled, non-sleeping crier during an 8 hour night flight.  She cannot sleep on my lap, and on the plane, (or on a train or in the rain.  Sorry.)  So she was a miserable little gus.

Or maybe it had something to do with that 9 hour layover in Chicago before we even started the 8 hour flight home.  The one I mentioned earlier, where we were on the plane for 2 hours and never moved on the runway.  That could be it.

 But eventually we got home, I put her to sleep in her crib, and then I tried to catch up on sleep myself for days.  I'm finally getting there.

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I Made That, on Flickr

 Well, it's been 3 years since Tiffany, Patrice, and I started Lemon Tree Creations.  I've written before about how good it was for me at the time, but the writing and blogging of weekly tutorials was not something we could do anymore, and it still isn't.

To be honest, it annoys me slightly that there are 100+ of my projects and photos on a site that is no longer active, though we still get 1,500+ hits per day thanks to Pinterest.  I feel like I should claim them somehow: I should re-post them on this blog, and put links to them on my tutorials page or sidebar.  But that's just a dag-gone lot of work:weeding out my posts, pulling off pictures, re-linking.  Blah.  I'd rather spend those hours doing something tangible, instead of organizing a backlog. 

In the meantime, I've started a Flickr page with the projects that I've done recently, all within the past 6 months.  Because, honestly, I don't always want to write out a tutorial and give lots of details, but I almost always want to show off a few pictures.  It was the creating and the pictures and the sharing and the community that I loved about LTC, so this will give me just a slice of that.

Anyway, here is the link, which I intend to update regularly as necessary, called I made that!, a set on Flickr.

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