conversations with invisible pigs and sheep

Colin has been falling asleep in his crib pretty well these days. At nights and for naps. Something that helps him sleep is his blanket. At this point he’s old enough, and it’s knitted, so there’s plenty of airholes if his does put it over his head.

Which he does. Bedtime goes like this:

• Happy at book reading and song singing
• Unhappy to be put into crib
• Happy to get blanket put over legs and belly
• Pull blanket over head

We joke that he’s trying to hide from Mr. Sandman (or that sleep is going to get him).

When we were “floating”, it’s because we took a ride on the ZooBalloon — a helium filled balloon that rises up 400 feet on a tether. Jim has wanted to go on it for the past two years, but this was the first time we were there and it was running.

And now, pictures have been added to colin’s first story.

the first night in i don’t know how long, colin is sleeping — it’s been 2.5 hours and he only woke up once between going to bed at eight and now. the last couple of nights it has been 2 to 4 times.

And I’m wide awake.

In other news, Jim made it to the top (the moon) of his spaceboy reward chart today, after languishing in a very low orbit around Earth for the previous two days. He choose a spiderman comic and pokemon game cards as his rewards. He had a complete meltdown at bedtime though, but I was pretty happy with how we handled it.

OK, I’m going to try and sleep now.

Me and mom and big brother Jim were lying in Momma’s bed. Mom checked the weather and then told me and Jim we were going to the zoo. I don’t know what the zoo is, but Jim was excited, so I smiled and tried to act excited too.

Mom put us in the car and we drove and drove and drove. I don’t know how long it took, because I don’t know what time is yet. Plus, I fell asleep. That’s when Jim took my toys from me. He’s always doing that. I can’t wait until next year when I’m bigger than him and I can beat him up for taking my toys.

Anyway, we stopped and mom put me in the stroller. We walked and walked and walked. Then we would stop and mom would take pictures. If I laughed, she would take a picture of me. First we stopped and watched a big thing drink from a fountain. It was big, bigger than that daddy guy. We watched this thing for a while because Jim seemed to really like it.

Next we went into a building and watched little funny animals jump all around. They remind me of how Jim plays right before he gets in trouble with mom and dad. I think I heard Mom call them monkeys. Then we saw bigger ones that moved real slow. They were really hairy. Then some woman came over to Mom and Jim and started telling them all about apes and monkeys and I could see that they didn’t want to listen, so I made cute noises to distract her.

After momma changed me, we walked around some more, and mom and jim watched polar bears. I couldn’t see anything though. But then we stopped and sat in the shade, and momma gave me a wagon wheel. It was so sweet and delicious. Definitely the best part of my day. After that, I took a little rest.

Mom and Jim walked me in the sun next, which I didn’t like so much, but we got to see these tall animals that Jim called giraffes. Then I really fell asleep.

The next thing I knew Mom was putting me in the sling, and then we floated up in the air. Mom held on to me real tight, and I think she was holding on to Jim real tight. She kept saying, “Merry Christmas”, which I though was kind of funny, and then she told the other lady next to us that she doesn’t like heights. But then we stopped floating. Mom put me back in the stroller, and then we rode back home.

Mom took a bunch of pictures, but she says she left the card reader in the car, and doesn’t want to go out in her PJs to go get it, so you’ll have to wait. It’ll be worth the wait, because she took pictures of me, and I know you love them.

I’ve had the blehs all day. I did re-do my excel progress chart for my knitting, and proved what I already knew — that I’m two rows away from being 50% done.

Nothing going on the house, and it looks to be a slow week for showings.

Today’s relative laziness — it’s 8.30 and we’re all still in pajamas — makes me fear what it will be like in two weeks, when we have to leave at 8.00 to get Jim to school on time. I’m thinking that I will be unshowered many preschool days, until we get home. But no PJ’s, because I have to walk Jim to the door.

Today Colin had the last of the “1st” baby foods — peaches. He really liked them. I still have a bunch more for him to eat, but I picked up a bunch of second foods with crazy fruits like blueberries and mangos! Saturday I gave him a real, mushed up banana, and he liked that, and he’s tried tiny crumbs of my banana bread. Just about the only thing he’s iffy about is the rice cereal with bananas I got him. We also got him wagon wheels and puffs, to get him to practice handling the food and “chewing” it.

We’ve really got nothing to do the next two weeks until school starts, for the first time all summer. But, I’ve got my knitting — I started a new sweater for Jim last night. I needed something simple for when I’m too tired to concentrate on more complicated projects.

Lastly, we had a showing yesterday, so we went down to the new house and saw that the foundation has been poured. The house sits up higher than we both had imagined. But it’s still cool to see. The frame will probably be up in the next week or two, based on what we saw going on the rest of the street.

(later this morning) Jim and I just finished his spaceboy reward chart while colin napped. It’s supposed to help reward good behavior. We’re having a hard time with discipline lately. Anyway, what I forgot to mention is that Colin got “new” clothes from storage. Little shorts rompers that Jim was wearing when he was 18 months old. And walking. They are roomy, but not inappropriate. Like with the long rompers that we just bought, I didn’t see the point in buying some new ones in an in between size, for just a few weeks.

Coiin hasn’t been sleeping well, and it’s taking its toll on me. Jim has been pushing boundaries left and right. Free time seems non-existent when trying to keep on top on the laundry and cleaning. I feel like a regular nine-to-fiver, because at five o’clock I can mess up the house if I want. Friday night I took advantage and made banana bread and brownies.

Thursday I took the kids to the art museum. It’s the second trip, and it was much easier this time. It’s actual pretty kid friendly, except for the food they serve at the cafe. But anyway, I just let Jim pick where he wants to go. He really likes the fountains. I just have to figure out how to take some low light photos. But I got some pcis of the kids outside at the fountain.

I also spend my free time knitting. I’m still loving my current christmas project. I’ve gone over the 50% mark. I got a lot done in the past few days, especially since we went to the library twice this week.

I’m rambling; it’s time for bed.

I had a few minutes spare time, and I upgraded the blog software, which always makes me want to upgrade the look of the site.

edit: this theme has the best bones for what I was looking for, so it should just be fine-tuning from here…

8/24/2007 — now i’ve got the fonts and colors, and I’m working on a graphic. although I think the font size need to go up one…

We just got back from shopping, and got eight rompers for colin! I had to reassure myself that I was getting the right size for him when I picked up the 18m ones, because they look SO BIG. But then I remember that I took off the 9m romper this morning (too small) and the 12-18m romper he’s wearing right now fits him just right, right now.

yesterday was pretty successful. We got Jim and Colin another set of matching shirts, some pants for colin, and one romper. and jim picked out a shirt and pants.

Today I barely got a 9m romper on Colin — the wrists and ankles are too short, and the ankles are too tight. I’m once again disappointed in the selection of boy’s clothes. The other romper choices from O.N. were too cheeky. There were nice ones in Gym-bor-ee, but pricey. But the online place that will have rompers are even more expensive. And L.E. is disappointing — their baby sizes are supposed to go to 24m, but the selections I was looking at only went to 9m or 12m. There’s Car-ter’s, which is my last option before going back to the pricier choices.

For the past two nights I’ve brought Colin into bed with us around 3am. He’s been eating like crazy, so it’s keeping me sane. I hope it’s not going to set us back. It’s also been a turnaround, since he’s also fallen asleep without crying these two nights too. He just won’t go back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night without eating.

Hopefully, I’m taking the kids out to the sewing store today, to look at halloween costume patterns.

Oh, and geeky me made an Excel spreadsheet to track the progress of my christmas project, and I’m 42.18% done right now. And because I’m looking for some other projects that don’t require so much concentration, I pulled out the sweater I started for Colin a while back. It needed the shoulders sewn together before the collar could be started, and I was having a problem with the shoulder seams. I slogged through, and I’m now in the process of binding off the collar — got most of it done in the library yesterday, with Colin asleep on my shoulder. All that’s left after that is sewing the rest together and adding buttons. Then, my next brainless project will be a sweater for Jim. I went through all the yarn and patterns that I kept out of storage, and this is what I kept out. The rest I put back into storage, although it’s accessible.

we just had one showing on Saturday. We had a pair of guys come up to the house early Sunday morning, asking if we were having an open house, and Dad said he saw a guy do a crazy maneuver to get across the road and get a flyer from the box outside.

I spent most of Sunday going through Colin’s clothes — I went out to storage and pulled out everything up to size 2. He’s wearing a 24m onesie and 18-24m pants. I found a bunch of denim/khaki/cord pants for him, but only a few soft pants and no long rompers that Jim wore when he was older. There’s plenty of shirt and plain onesies. So I need to get a few soft pants and rompers, if I can find them.

Gah, now we have two showings today, so gotta go clean…

are up in the July and August galleries for 2007.

Coming soon… pictures of the hole in the ground that will be the basement of the new house! and piles of dirt!

and “na, na, na”, and makes raspberries and a funny noise that sounds to me like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park. In his scooting adventures, he’s added scooting forward on his butt. This method is much slower, but he is going forward. I’ve seen him flop down from sitting to a crawling stance too, but I think he’s still too heavy to get crawling yet. Speaking of heavy, he’s wearing an 18-24 month outfit today. It’s new (a gift) and roomy, but it looks perfectly acceptable. I was looking at clothes for him in Target, because he outgrowing the pj’s he’s been wearing all summer.

Speaking of Target, I bought the boys two matching outfits today. Jim seems to like the idea. It looks like this winter will probably be the only opportunity to do this with Target clothes, because Jim can still wear 5t clothes. But I’ll bet that next spring he’ll be moving out of the toddler clothes. Then we’ll have try places like Land’s End to dress alike. Right now, Target is no good for the clothes Colin needs anyway. He needs at least a 12m size, and an 18m if it’s a onesie, and I bought the two outfits that had this size for him. There were no soft pants (my preference) or one piece outfits or pj’s. I’m thinking of heading out to the outlets next week, after going through (once again) what I can get to in storage.

I am making good progress on the christmas present that I started a week or so ago. With all the stress of selling the house, this has relieved some of it. I’m trying to get at least two rows done a night, which doesn’t sound like alot, but the stitch count for the next row is around 160, and increases by four each row. So it takes longer to do each row. And the “final” row stitch count is 295.

This project has reminded me of another I have wanted to try for a long time. It’s called Shetland Triangle, a shawl based on a fir cone lace pattern. It looks so cool in every version I’ve seen. The downside is that the pattern is only available in a book called Wrap Style. I looked through the book, and this is really the only pattern that I’m interested in. So it’s been hard to justify the book price for one pattern. I looked on half.com, and there was one copy for $10, which I would pay. But we’re having problems updating our payment information on half, and they don’t take Paypal. So…

So… I had to get some blocking wires for the above mentioned christmas present. And on the site that I procured said wires, there was a book sale. So I decided that I like this project so much, I would get the book anyway. And the price was justified. Not $10, but not much more. And with some chocolate brown merino/silk added in, I got free shipping. So now I just have to finish the christmas present to have a set of needles with which to work.

(I’d post a picture, but I don’t want to violate any copyrights doing so…)