Friday Waste of Yarn

I want to start a feature. Each week on Friday, I am going to post the worst possible waste of yarn I can find that week.

I have thought about this, and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings (or break copywrite laws) by cribbing photos off of other people's sites.

This week's worst waste is dish soap aprons: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS297US298&q=dish+soap+apron+crochet

Follow any of the links to see the glory of dish soap aprons.

The Hills are Alive with Bittersweet Music

It's pretty amazing how much of a difference it makes in your life, when, on that fateful night, completely unexpectedly, the baby sleeps all the way through.

Maren has slept through the night before. In fact, for almost a month she did it every night. Then she stopped. It became the ritual to get up every morning at 4 a.m. to try to pacify her with a bottle and the rocking chair. On some nights, she would refuse to return to sleep and I would end up watching TV with her in my arms at 5 a.m. Do you know what's on at 5 a.m? Freakin' nothin, that's what.

But for the past two nights, she has returned to her complete night of rest mode. It's pretty amazing. She takes her final bottle at 11 and then sleeps blissfully until the rest of the house is stirring at about 6:45. That's nearly 8 hours people!!

Right now, we're still getting up every morning at 4 for a paci-check. This is when we pop her paci back in (preferably as the "hand of God" where all she sees is the hand descending from the heavens) and then pray as we crawl back into bed that there will only be one paci-check that night.

It's habit to get up now, but the fact that the paci is sending her back to dreamland means (hopefully) that it won't last much longer.

Now the only problem is that 11:00 bottle. What I wouldn't give for a 10:00 bottle. It'll come, though. It's only a matter of time before I can count on 10 hour nights. Then it's only mere months until she is sleeping on Brynna's schedule and I have 2 kid-free hours every night when everyone is tucked in and I can watch grown-up TV and read and crochet without tiny hands getting tangled in the yarn.

Of course, then I'll probably be sad that my tiny baby is snuggled up in my arms every night.

That's the problem with parenthood. There is always this focus on the next thing: sleeping through the night, talking, walking, dressing themselves, going to school, driving, college, marriage. But as soon as you (or rather your incredibly well-raised young-uns) reach that milestone, you are filled with pride and joy and sadness because there is no going back. Brynna will never again call me "mum-mum" or look precious while in the middle of a spaghetti incident that puts Guns N Roses to shame. She will never again take stumbly, unsure steps (at least until she's old enough to get drunk, but I am sooooo not thinking about that). She'll never again giggle while someone claps for her heroic efforts at rolling over. All that is gone and I'll never get it back.

Maren will never again take her first bite of cereal or scare the crap out of us by sleeping through the night. And soon, she'll be Brynna's age and I'll be thrilled to have two girls in school, dressing themselves and feeding themselves and bathing themselves. But I'll also want to cry every time she tells me she can do it herself and beat myself up for not spending more time enjoying it when she couldn't do it herself.

I can't even begin to think how much worse it'll be with Brynna by then. She will be reading to herself and won't even need me for bedtime stories. I think when she tells me she'll just read to herself, it will be the saddest day of my entire life. And believe me, I will make her tell me. I won't stop following her into that room gripping Junie B. Jones, or Ramona Quimby or Laura Ingalls-Wilder until she stops me at the door.

I wonder if it's better as a grandparent.

Like a Prayer, People

My daughter, my beautiful, smart, funny and sweet oldest daughter has the weirdest fashion sense in the world. She loves clothes and loves to put together outfits. She has told me more than once that it's okay to wear shoes that are too small and hurt your feet if they are pretty and look good with your outfit. She once didn't speak to me for two hours because her sister got to wear a hairbow and she didn't. She went a solid three months without putting on pants because skirts were coooler. Last fall, she told me polka dots were "in." In what, little one? Are they big with the Montessori crowd? Did tiny child magazine do a spread about polka dots? Seriously, where does she get this stuff? I am no fashionista. I barely wear stuff that's clean and color coordinated, yet alone put the thought and effort into a single outfit that she does her top half.

When people ask me about her sense of style. "What kind of clothes does she like?" "What's her favorite color to wear?" etc, I reply that her natural style is sort of Madonna, a la 1982. She does a lot of layers, things in the wrong order, colors that don't really match, etc. etc. The thing is she puts things on and you think "Oh, no, make it stop! I can't believe she's going to put that red shirt on top of the pink one, oh-no-oh-no-oh-no." Then she gets it all on and her vision makes sense. (Okay, it's totally a twilight zone kind of sense, but sense all the same.) I am convinced that she's going to work in fashion when she grows up.

As a testament to the Madonna-y-ness of it all and her crazy style and timeless beauty, I offer this proof:

Three Month Pictures

Okay, here is my start on the three month pictures. I want at least one in a different outfit, preferably a fancier one. I just like to have a lot to pick from, really. These are my favorites, thus far:" Hmm... I believe you may have a point, there. But I cannot yet concur."

I can't decide which of the two I like better. The bottom one has better color quality, but the expression on the top one is slightly better. I wish I had PhotoShop.

I tried for hours to get this sideways shot and this was the best I could do. It's funny, though and funny is worth a lot.

I want a sleeping shot, too. I love sleeping babies.

When Brynna was this age, I spent a whole day trying to get one of those really cute naked baby pictures. After she had wet every blanket in the house and half the furniture, I gave up. So, I don't even think I'll try that this time around.

I'd love to get a good shot of the two of them together, but I don't think it's going to happen. I just can't quite manage anything that doesn't look like someone's head is about to pop off. I'll leave that to the professionals.

I will try to post the rest when I get them.

The Blog that Should Have Been

Today, I was soooo ready to blog. Okay, I didn't finish doing the three month pictures, but I started and I got one really good one. (And at least five funny ones.) I'd show you, but I forgot my memory card.

Also, Brynna and I did a super-cool project, fixing up her dresser. I took a bunch of pictures to show you what a desperate, no creative soul wandering hopelessly, no purposefully through Michael's and a brilliant four-year old with no bounds to her imagination can create together. But again, that pesky memory card.

I also cleaned off said memory card and found proof, that's right, proof of my daughter's insane fashion sense. Everything today involved pictures.

I was also sick. I have no pictures of that, but that's my excuse for my memory loss today. I'll have to come up with another excuse tomorrow... In the meantime, you've got some good stuff coming your way. Illustrated stuff no less. I haven't posted a picture since Maren was born, so get ready!