Blathering on

This afternoon I wanted to bake cookies but I couldn't muster the energy.

That might not seem out of the ordinary for most folks, but this is me we're talking about.

I've been listing "making cookies" or some variation of the same in the "hobbies" section of getting to know you forms for well over twenty years now and I'm not even thirty yet, so think about that.

Instead of baking, I swept my floor, gathered old school papers and hid them out side in the recycle bin, swapped a load of dishes and put some books back on the shelf.

I couldn't really tell the difference when I was done.

That was a bummer.

Then I read to Enzo. It was a story about a sea lion in the Galapagos islands who is an aspiring geologist. He's been waiting for days to hear this particular story.

He fell asleep at some point. I'm not sure when. I read the whole thing and when I finished I looked over to find him slumbering there against my arm.

I managed to hoist him into my arms, and then to hoist us both off the sofa. I walked him into my room and of course, he woke up as soon as I laid him on the bed.

I can no longer reach the sink to wash a dish unless I bend over and lean my elbows on the counter.

I have to use a modified version of the same stance to attend to pots of simmering things on the stove top.

I made a super rad plan for easter dresses. I'm absolutely enchanted with it. The plan does not include buying pre made dresses at Target, Old Navy or even the Gap. The plan is, I think, doomed.

This post is kind of a downer but rest assured, there are positive things going on as well. The positives just take more words to relate.

I guess while I'm as it I might as well add on a few more.

Yesterday I heard a clattering sound coming from the kitchen. Then I heard it again, and again.

Moo, who has assigned herself the chore of feeding the dog, was throwing scoop after scoop of dog food onto the kitchen floor while Mouch dog gleefully munched his way around the room.

Moo takes time-outs as a personal offense.

She screamed with out-rage during that portion of what followed.

It made for an interesting few minutes as I was trying to help Zizza practice her tricky new Cello piece. "Song of the Wind" involves plopping the first finger on the A string while the other three move next door to plop on D. Plus a bow circle to finish off the first line. It sounds great with enraged screaming as back up.

Since it was post-nap-time Moo was sporting a fair number of fly-aways. These, she habitually pushes back from her forehead.

By the time she'd completed phase two of "We don't coat the kitchen in dog food" other wise known as "I could sweep this all up in under a minute but instead, you're going to pick up each piece by hand and put them in the dog dish," her hair was packed with greasy dog food crumbs.

I refrained from snuggling that child until after bath-time.

A sales representative came to my door yesterday offering free carpet cleaning.

I declined.

"Aw, how come?" she asked.

"I just don't have the energy to have anyone in my house," I told her. She was very obliging in her acceptance of my answer and left right away. She was so nice I thought I might like to do business with her after all.

Some things

Zizza mentioned to me that her unders were feeling a bit squeezy. She has been growing a good bit so I suggested we evaluate each pair and see how many fit and how many bigger pair she needed.

She had four that were the right size.

Oddly enough, two of those that fit were from the first pack I bought for her back when she was two.

So, we went to the store. Enzo was playing with a friend so it was just me and the girls. I felt so very free.

There was no one trailing ten feet behind me unable to catch up regardless of how slow I walked. No one drug their hand along every piece of merchandise we passed by. No one ran and climbed upon the riding mowers in spite of warnings that he'd better not dare. (I guess part of that had to do with how we didn't go to the Home Depot in search of panties.) Some one did insist on visiting the rest room. They, none of them think an outing is complete without a tour of some germy toilet or another. I said the other day "You know dears, people generally do their best not to use the bathrooms at the store," to which Zizza replied "Why? This bathroom smells alright."

We ventured into the baby isle and found a sale on diapers. It was the first time I'd been down that isle in 9 months. I selected some newborn size diapers in the name of nesting and went about my business.

Moo loved them. She held the package to her cheek all the way home. Once we got here she toted it around the house. "My diapers" she cooed onto the plastic wrappings of her beloved.

"No," I said "The diapers are for the new baby. The baby in my tummy."

I've tried to communicate to her just what's coming, but it's a hard sell. She is very aware of the oddity of my current form. She asks regularly about my swollen belly. The Duke, being a strong and active fellow, kicks punches and nudges her quite frequently as she sits upon my lap. She notices this and reacts to it but for all that I really don't think she has any idea.

Pinch me

My morning started out with a little one running about in nothing but panties while her older sister chased her brandishing outfit after green tinted outfit.
Zizza's attentions were enough to get her brother appropriately and verdantly robed, however the rest of us were rather late in our dressing.

By the time I'd moderated the screams that inevitably come with a six year old's unsolicited attempts to aid in dressing her two year old sister, it came to my attention that Zizza had been unable to find any green clothing for herself, and was sincerely hoping that I would unpack her spring clothes in the hopes of finding something suitable. Meanwhile, Enzo for whatever reason full expected to breakfast at McDonald's.
Eventually though, I did manage to closet myself in the bathroom long enough to remove, clean and put away my retainers. That was such a relief I went ahead and made muffins for breakfast.
Something was different about them today...

Also, some naughty leprechaun had the nerve to sneak into my fridge and turn the milk green.

Can you believe the nerve of that little chap?

Enzo's birthday. This time with pictures

Here he is, four years old to the minute. His sleeping is much more grown up this year.

A few weeks before his birthday he saw a photo of rainbow pancakes and was completely taken with them. I promised to make him some for breakfast on his birthday. I went ahead and made the decision to make them silver dollar pancakes. It seemed safer than presenting a four year old with a stack of six full size flap jacks.

It would have been a complete disappointment to see all the colors of batter being cooked up and then settle for one or two rather than a full multi-hued stack.

If you're like me, you enjoy your pancakes topped with nothing but plenty of melted butter. I thought the color wheel presentation was better in this case.

The rainbow pancake plan didn't take long to morph into a theme for the entire birthday celebration. Enz let me know the day before that he was expecting his gifts to be adorned in rainbow paper. Lucky for him, they had some at Target. Ziz spent a exhaustively long time decorating her gift to him. Give that girl a package and a sharpie and she will go to town.

We did't have birthday cake for over a week after the actual date had passed. I think he actually liked it better that way. One day of reveling wouldn't have been enough to satisfy him.

That's a toy garbage truck on top of the cake. Drawing from last years' experience he and Zizza (she just can't keep her nose out of his birthday business) established that his cakes should always be vehicularly adorned and a garbage truck is what they settled on for this year's festivities. Also there was a 4 made of jellie bellies. I kept it super simple on the outside because on the inside...

It was a rainbow of course.

I took this slice photo the next day when the sun was out allowing for some decent light. You would think I'd have chosen a more photogenic plate for the photo, but to be honest, I'd just cut the slice with no intention other than to eat it. The photo came as an after thought and switching from the Disney princess plate just seemed like too much work at the time. I was hungry ok? I just had to snap that photo so I could put the cake in my belly where it belonged.

By the by, I used this cake recipe with a little extra milk as the reviews suggested. (I made two batches divided into 3 layers apiece) I was looking around for a good but basic (I didn't want to have to divide all the eggs and then figure out what to do with the yolks) white cake to start with. One of the reviews said this cake basically tasted like a really good moist sugar cookie. I hit "print" right then and there. My search was over, and I wasn't disappointed.

This is the frosting I used, super yummy. The recipe is ample for icing your average 2 layer cake, but it was down to the wire to get a thin coating over the whole thing once I'd stacked all six layers.

I used this tutorial as a guideline for my rainbow construction. It saved me a lot of frustration, and saved me from over cooking the super thin layers.

In closing I'd like to say: Happy Birthday my dear sweet boy and long live rainbow cake.

The Star Belly Sneetches...

had bellies with stars.

The plain bellied Sneetches had none upon thars.

Looks like the Fix-It-Up-Chappie came for a visit, and I apparently took a few too many rides through the star-on machine.

You know what I never understood about that book? Why did the Sneetches without just stand around moping in the dark? Why didn't they plan their own dang Frankfurter roasts, or picnics or parties or marshmallow toasts?

I've always felt that if I were a Sneetch I would be plain the bellied sort, and spend my time planing fantastic parties.

Clumsy Robot Marionette With a Bum Leg

I remarked to a number of people today that I wished someone was here to appreciate how ridiculous I looked as I heaved myself around the house. My kids were here, but they don't tend to notice things like limping, staggering or grimacing, not even when it's funny, so the comic quality of my physical state was going to waste. I enjoyed it myself, as best I could and now I'll attempt to share it with you. It was hard work see, and I'd like someone other than me alone to derive some kind of enjoyment out of it.

During the morning and late afternoon/evening I was able to shuffle-waddle about in a fairly common, non-funny pregnant manner. These were the times when I encountered other adults. It was smack in the middle of the day when I wished for a audience to laugh at me, with me.

Allow me to describe the spectacle for you. It started out as I lean back and to my right, this weight shift allowed me to hoist my left leg in a stiff mechanical fashion. Then, as I lowered the left leg, my foot would flop to the floor as though the string controlling it's upward suspension had just been released. The bulk of my weight would then shift back to that left leg and the right leg was dragged along behind to rest beneath me, ready to lend support again as I leaned back over it to restart the whole process.

Adding to the overall effect of my monstrous lumbering was the fact that I found myself unable to change directions as I propelled myself forward. Thus, I was forced to take shuffling backward steps in order to orient myself in the direction I wished to travel before setting forth to my destination.

Also, I was emptying the dishwasher at the time. I don't know of a house hold task that rivals the putting away of dishes in directional change requirements. Possibly vacuuming, but with the work it took to convey myself around the house, the pushing of a vacuum was really out of the question.

And so, I proceeded to clumsily navigate the day, amused by my predicament but unable to spare the energy to really enjoy the amusement, because robotic marionettes with compromised appendages have to work hard getting from here to there.

Every baby needs a blankie

Ever since I read this post on Sew Liberated that blanket has lingered in my thoughts. It looks to soft and cozy and the colors are an absolute dream. Also, it heaps beautifully (as pictured in that final photo.)

I tried to put it out of my head because my knitting skills are so very meager and Meg mentioned in her post how long it took to work up. If it took her a long time, I'd be hopeless. I was mostly successful in my attempt to squelch the thoughts of the blanket but yesterday I read Meg's latest post in which the blanket is pictured wrapped around an actual baby. All my squelching was thus rendered useless and I found myself back on the original post, following the link to the super easy baby blanket kit at Purl Soho.

Good news for me and my brooding over my lack of ability to make the blanket for Duke, the colorway I so love is sold out. Still, "ocean" is very nice and I wouldn't turn my nose up at"river rocks" either though it's a bit earthy for my taste.

In an attempt to restore my previous squelching, I've been making a list of reasons why the blanket wouldn't be ideal. So far what I've come up with is this; If one went to all that work to make such a fantastic blanket for a babe, it had better turn out to be the blanket in that child's life. To have a beautiful cuddly hand knit blanket on standby while the baby in question fell in undying love with a cheap waffle weave number would truly be a shame. Also, I feel much more secure as a parent when my child's beloved has a back up and since I don't see how I'll be able to produce even one hand knit blanket, having a second for back up would be like wishing for the moon.

Twice.

That's right not just the moon, but a second identical moon as well. I tell myself all of this and shoo any thoughts of knitting out of my head.

Still I wonder... does anyone out there feel inclined to bestow such a generous gift (generous in both time and monetary categories) upon my off spring?

I didn't think so.

I'll get back to my squelching now.