What I Have Been Doing for the Last Two Months…

Wow, I am not even going to pretend that it hasn’t been like a bagillion years since I have written my last post. Let’s just go with things have been super busy and crazy insane. I have really missed writing, but there has just been so much going on that it has really taken a backseat which is sad because there is SO much that I could write about. If only I didn’t have to sleep.


Anyway, here’s a little update…

After much deliberation, and thought, and second guessing myself, I finally decided to put my knitted critters on Etsy and open The Fuzzy Forest; thus the complete and utter lack of time. Almost every waking second is spent trying to figure out how to cram in more knitting time. If I am not cleaning, or doing laundry, or tending to the needs of the children, I am knitting. This is great because I LOVE to knit, but it’s hard when I can only devote ten minutes here, twenty minutes there, and the occasional afternoon during Elyse’s nap. Still, I am feeling a huge sense of accomplishment and just this past weekend I got my first two sales. So I am officially a productive shop owner.

Elyse is just getting over a bad, BAD stomach bug which was the cause of a total Febreeze shortage at Wal Mart last week. I will spare you the details, and let me tell you, there are details, but let’s just say that when it was all said and done, we had gone through an insane amount of Pull-Ups and wipes, bought stock in the Febreeze company, and had to replace the area rug in the living room. It was a rough, smelly week.

Aaron is still doing fantastic at school. We are well into the third month now and not once have we had any tears or desperate pleas to spare him the agony of school. He seems to love it and his teachers say that is doing an amazing job.

Speaking of Aaron, he is getting so big, so fast, I feel like at times I can barely recognize him. We were standing outside waiting for the bus a while back and he was talking to me about something school related and I couldn’t believe how mature he seemed. I wasn’t talking to a little kid. He was this great big boy who had all of this stuff to say and I was speechless. When did my baby boy get to be such a big guy?

This past Saturday I watched with Mike as he rode his bike without training wheels for the very first time. He sat on the bike in our front yard trying to kick off and get moving. He was unsuccessful the first few times, but as I watched him I just knew that this was it and that he would do it. I no sooner thought it and off he went clear across the yard. My heart almost burst with pride.

Elyse is in tumbling classes on Tuesdays now. It’s the same class that I used to take Aaron to when he was her age and whenever I hear the Wiggles start to sing “Five Little Ducks” I almost start sobbing. Anyway, she loves her class. After each tumble she stands up and yells, “TA DA!” I even bought her an adorable little tutu for the class and she looks so sweet that I have a hard time not gobbling her up right then and there. Looks sweet is the term though because unlike Aaron, we have had a bit of trouble where the other kids are concerned in that Elyse appears to be a hitter. I am MORTIFIED beyond belief at this because she is THAT kid in the class; the one that all the other mothers have to keep an eye on, and I am THAT mother who spends much of the class apologizing for her behavior. She doesn’t just go up to another girl to hit her, she does it when she feels crowded which is no excuse, but I’ve got nothing else. Screw it, she’s the class bully and I am her toady.

I am sure that there is a lot more, but I will leave it at that for right now. I hope to start squeezing in more writing time in between all of the knitting, but I am not going to make any promises. In the meantime, go and check out The Fuzzy Forest and let me know if there is a critter that you would like to see in the shop.

Look at What Elyse Let Me Do...

Pretty much since the day that I found out that I was carrying a girl, I wanted to braid her hair. Then Elyse was born and she had the most gorgeous head of hair that you have ever seen on a baby and it only made me want to play with it more. Today, against all odds, she held still long enough for me to do this…

I had to bribe her with playing in the sink and sure, at one point she lost her balance while standing on the bench and fell off, ripping the towel bar off the wall in the process.  Not just a towel bar that is screwed into the wall, oh no, one that was tiled into the wall. But look at how pretty she looked.

I say “looked” because a few minutes after we snapped these pictures the braids were no more, but for those few minutes I got to look at my pretty baby with the beautiful braided hair, and it was totally worth it.

Sometimes Dolls are Evil

Take a look at this doll…

I personally don’t find her troubling. She doesn’t really look demented and she certainly doesn’t give the impression that she is a minion of the antichrist. Elyse used to agree, that is, until this morning.

Aaron left for school and Elyse and I decided that we should play with her babies. Everything was cool; everyone was having a good time. I was feeding her new knitted pug some baby cereal and she was giving her baby a bottle when she decided to put the doll down for a nap. This doll does a lot of stuff if you do different things with it. If you squeeze a foot, it cries. If you squeeze its belly, it laughs. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, what we didn’t know until today was that if you feed the baby and then immediately put it down, it goes into sleep mode and the baby snores. Elyse DID NOT appreciate this feature.

At first she just kind of starred at me from her bed with this look of horror plastered clear across her face. Then the baby snored again and in about 2.1 seconds she was wrapped around me so tight that I needed a crowbar to get her off of me. A few minutes later I had to call our pediatrician about a prescription for Aaron and I had to run into the kitchen to double check the name of what he needed. After I left her room, she threw such an incredible, blood-curdling, terrified fit that you would swear that I had left her alone with Chucky.

When I finally got her to calm down, I took her back to her room where evil baby waited and I asked her if she would feel better if I turned the baby off. She responded with a very enthusiastic “YES” and so I turned the thing off. She has refused to put the baby down ever since.

The thing is, now she has me all paranoid and I am starting to look at that baby in a whole different way. Just to be on the safe side, I think that I am going to lock the thing in a closet before bedtime tonight because, you know, sometimes dolls are evil.

So Far, So Good.

I am pretty sure that I am totally tempting fate by even thinking about the fact that Aaron’s first day of kindergarten went so well yesterday, let alone dedicating an entire post on the subject for all to see. But I had to tell you just how fantastic of a day he seemed to have, and how uncontrollably excited he has been to go back. I think that it has more to do with riding the bus than anything else because the bus was almost all that he could talk about when he got home. He is also back with some of his best friends from last year which seems to have put him right at ease.


Mike and I stood in our driveway for almost an hour waiting for the bus to bring our little kindergarten student back home. School was out at 3:00 PM, but we had no real idea when the bus would come through. Being the on-time psychopath that I am whose biggest fear in life is being late, I went outside to wait around 2:50 PM. Sure, I knew that school didn’t end until three, but what if Aaron’s bus runs early, and I am not out there when it comes through. Since Aaron is a new bus student, the driver might forget that that is his stop and will just keep on driving. He will make all of his stops and finally Aaron will be the last one on the bus, little lip quivering, a running commentary in his head about how Mommy must not love him, and an entire lifetime of therapy sessions staring him in the face. I couldn’t let that happen to my little guy. So out the door I went at ten till three.

There was one false alarm when a different bus came through, but finally around a quarter till four, Aaron’s bus pulled in and a smiling little boy bounded down the bus steps. We were absolutely petrified that he would step off of the bus and burst into tears, but instead he got right to telling us about his day and demanding snacks.

All evening he kept saying how excited he was to get back on the bus and he also told me that he did NOT want me to start taking him to school because he always wants to ride the bus. About forty-five minutes ago I watch him get back on the bus for his second day. He gave me a big smile, a quick wave, and hopped right on; disappearing into a sea of other students. I know that it is early, and there is still plenty of time for things to go down hill, but for now I am thoroughly enjoying the fact that he seems to be having so much fun, and I can’t wait to hear the stories that he will bring home today.

The First Day of Kindergarten

Today is Aaron’s first day of kindergarten.

When exactly did he get to be so big? As I am sitting here sipping some coffee and looking at the pictures that we took this morning, I am blown away by the little man staring back at me. He was just two years old talking about how one day he would be a big kid and would ride the bus to school. At the time I thought that it would take forever to get to this point, but thinking back now over the last five and a half years, I feel like someone must have accidentally pushed the fast forward button.

This is the first year that he is able to ride the bus and it has been all that he has been able to talk about. One of the first things that he said this morning was, “Can you believe I get to ride the bus today?” No, Sweetie, I can’t.

I hope you have an absolutely wonderful first day of kindergarten Aaron. I am so proud of the little guy that you are growing up to be, and I can’t wait to hear all about your day when you get home.

Yep, It's a Pug

Yet another knitting project.  This guy is for Elyse.  She has loved him since he was just a doggie head in my knitting basket.

Addict

Sometimes, after a long day of playing and dealing with the drama of life with an older brother, one pacifier just isn’t enough.