InQuisitive Boy and the things he says

Posted on by
9

I’m working on a superhero name for Davey.  InQuisitive Boy?  Perpetual Motion?  Mr Mayhem?

He’s already been in superhero mode with David this morning.

They built a “castle” for their guys.

They’ve decided they needed more supervillains.  And Davey’s first visit to a comic book shop.   So that’s in the plans for today.

Davey is Mr. Questions (hey there is another possibility!) these days.

“Mommy, why are rainbow sprinkles called rainbow sprinkles?”

“Daddy, what’s a kneecap?”

“Mommy, why are M&M’s called M&M’s?”

And the question of the day:  “Mommy, where do kids come from before they are kids?”

Here is his usual head tilt position  when he is asking questions.

He also gets a few words mixed up.  We referred to an ape as both an ape and a gorilla.  He got a little mixed up and calls them “grapes”.

The other day he wanted to know what “corn on the cobbler” tastes like.  (Now maybe that’s a vegetable that would tempt him.  It does me!)

He’s outside watching David weed-eat and mow.

Here he’s safely perched on the porch.  I gave him some gummy bears to pass the time while he watched (It kept him safely on the porch as well).

I was trying to get him to smile for me.

I just went out to check on him.

“Mommy, would you like to look for bugs with me?”

“Can you tell me one of your famous stories, Daddy?”

Posted on by
3

I’ve just been dismissed.  We just finished reading Davey his bedtime stories.  We’re trying to get him used to the idea of falling asleep by himself again.  He did this from the time he came home from the hospital until he got his toddler bed.  Then we started staying with him until he fell asleep.  So he said I could go tonight.  And as I was leaving the room, he cuddled into David and said, “Can you tell me one of your famous stories, Daddy?”

The sun came out off and on today.  Davey and I ran some errands.  He’s starting to feel a little limited I think by his ankle.  It’s been a week.  Two to go.

Oh boy.  I just heard, “Mommy, I need you.”  I think David has told him it’s time to go to sleep .  So he’s hopeful that I will return to tell many more stories and to sing many more songs.

By the way,  the Rachael Ray Vodka Cream Sauce pasta recipe was really really good.  We had leftovers tonight.

Ok, back to Davey.

Shades of Green

Posted on by
6

It’s been pretty gray and rainy and chilly here for the last few days.  It has happened rarely since we moved here last fall, so I’m still enjoying it.  We’re about ready for some warmer weather though.  Davey is ready to storm the waterpark which opens Memorial Day. It better start warming up soon!

So at the moment he is engaged with, yep, superheroes and I thought it might be a good time to write my blog.

I have three primary knitting projects going on at the moment.   It worries me a little that I am now categorizing my projects.  I actually have a 4th which should be grouped in the primary category, but it’s going to be hot pink, and that did not go with my “Shades of Green” title.

First I’m working on a very “cabley” hat.  My friend Susan gave me the yarn.  It’s the cool Shelter yarn by Jared Flood (his pattern as well).  It’s not really soft but it feels really good.  Kinda rustic, and every once in awhile I come across just a small piece of grass in the yarn.  I love that.

Next, I am working on Wendy Johnson’s Mystery Shawl KAL.  So far so great!  This pattern is not difficult (so far *knock on wood*) especially if you use stitch markers to mark each of the 12 stitch repeats. I’m knitting this with some “On Your Toes” bamboo, but it feels warmer than bamboo usually feels to me.

Finally I started a new pair of socks (I’m on a mission to knit up my sock yarn!).  They are just plain stockinette but the yarn is this very fun self-striping yarn from KnitPicks called “Green Veggies”.  I love it!  It shifts from one really pretty shade of green to the next.

So there’s the “primary” projects.  Davey has now shifted to playing with his tub of farm animals.  He just asked me to take his splint off for awhile as it was itching him.  So we’re resting.

I’ve got plans to try a new recipe tonight.  I was looking through my notebook of recipes that I’ve collected, and I found one that I’ve never made but always wanted to.  It’s a Rachael Ray recipe called “You Won’t be Single for Long Vodka Cream Pasta”.  So that’s the plan for tonight.  We’ll see how it goes.  Maybe Davey will like it.

Cast Be Gone! and Seaside Shawlette Complete

Posted on by
8

Davey’s cast is gone and has been replaced by a splint and bandage.  Sunday night he told us it itched.   It itched so much that he could not sleep.  We tried benadryl.  I don’t think it phased him.  He slept for a few hours and then from about eleven to three a.m., he was waking up crying every 15-20 minutes, “It itches!”   Poor thing.  He was miserable.  None of us got much sleep Sunday night.

Monday first thing we took him to the doctor.  The doctors looked at the x-ray again and decided it would be ok to do the splint and bandage.   So they cut that thing off.  I was still in class and hadn’t got there before they started cutting off the cast, but David said that Davey giggled through the entire thing.  I guess the vibrating blade tickled a ticklish kid.

Turns out it was a good thing we got that cast off.  2 days into cast wearing, Davey already had some mold on the bottom of his foot.  Davey is really hot-natured and it doesn’t help that his skin is sensitive as well.  He was probably sweating buckets in there and just getting more and more uncomfortable.

So we all slept well last night, and Davey is doing great in his splint and bandage.

He wasn’t too interested in helping me photograph my shawl this morning though.  This was all the cooperation I received.

He was busy playing and watching tv.

I started this shawl in April when my friends at Knit Unto Others began their seaside KAL.   I thought it would be fun to participate despite being a few miles away from where they are in Arkansas.

It has been fun.  I have learned a lot.  Lace really has gotten easier for me.  I can kinda see in the pattern where I should be which helps limit my mistakes.  When I did make mistakes, I was able to tink back and fix them pretty well.  I learned that I should always make sure and use a long enough circular needle!  That was really important.

This is not supposed to be a difficult lace pattern, but it was plenty challenging for me.  In fact, I am so inspired, that I am going to start another KAL today.   This will also be a shawl by Wendy Johnson.  It’s a mystery Knit-a-long which means she will reveal the pattern in segments.  I’m excited about it.

I do have some more to learn about knitting lace.  Not only the knitting of it, but the blocking of it!  This blocked out ok, but I was having no luck with the points.  I was feeling fairly sleep-deprived yesterday, so it probably wasn’t the best day to do it, but I tried anyway.   I’ve now done a little reading, and there are all these different techniques for blocking lace.  The one that intimidates me the least is the one where I use blocking wires.  It looked like a more manageable way to get those points.  So at some point I need to order some!

This picture is actually of the wrong side of the shawlette, but I liked it.

Ok, I guess it’s time to go tackle that mountain of laundry in the basement.  Davey will probably want to climb it first.  It’s pretty tall.

Gettin’ Around & Knitting Disaster Averted *knock on wood*

Posted on by
4

Davey’s moving around fine today.  Cast?  What cast?

He’s doing a little cooking.

Then he thought of a new game called “Mommy Take a Picture of Me”.

“Mommy Take a Picture of me!”  and then he runs away as fast as he can.

“Mommy Take a Picture of Me!”

Thankfully he is more interested in doing sitting down activities (superheroes, tinker toys and race track), but he’s moving around some too.

And for me, I am knitting a little this morning.

I think it was on Friday when I posted my shawl was going well.  The slightly superstitious part of me knew that I should not make this claim.  And I didn’t even add a single “knock on wood” in that post.

So then my shawl almost became a huge disaster.  I tinked back 100 stitches and then I didn’t have enough stitches on my row and ugh…I was getting worried. But thankfully there was this stitch sequence of “slip 1, k2tog, and psso”  So I could find where these were in my row which helped me find my mistakes. I found where I’d dropped a couple of yarnovers and the green markers were where I needed to get them back.

The reason I think I almost had a disaster was because my stitches were so bunched up on my needles (and of course the fact that I made the mistake of talking about how well I was progressing on the shawl).  Some slid off at one point, and I couldn’t spread them out to see what I was doing.  So before I attempted to make this fix, I bought some 40 inch circular needles.  I should have been using them in the first place (I had 32 inch).

Lesson well learned.

“It only hurts when I walk on it.”

Posted on by
5

Yesterday, we went to a enrollment party at the Little Gym.  Davey was having a great time.  They were doing some group activities, and each time they did a new one, they’d call all the kids to the mat.  Well, Davey always runs pell-mell just as fast as his little legs will carry him when the instructor calls. This time he tripped on the mat and went down.  He came up holding his ankle.  Poor thing, it really hurt him.

His ankle didn’t swell.  It didn’t bruise, but Davey could not put any weight on it.  We decided to watch it last night to see how it looked in the morning.

This morning, we decided we’d better have him checked out.

Davey had told us that it only hurt when he walked on it.  I could rotate it around.  I could put some pressure on the side.  “It only hurts when I walk on it Mommy.”

So we were in with the doctor.

He asked Davey several questions. Davey always had the same reply.

Doctor: “Does it hurt when I touch here?”

Davey:  “It only hurts when I walk on it.”

Doctor: “Does it hurt when I move it like this?”

Davey:  “It only hurts when I walk on it.”

Doctor: “Does it hurt when I move your toes?”

Davey: “It only hurts when I walk on it.”

You get the idea.  Davey patiently answered “It only hurts when I walk on it.” to every question.

We went to x-ray.  The doctor didn’t really think they’d find anything, but he wanted to be sure.

Unfortunately they did.  Davey has a buckle fracture on his tibia.

He’s now sporting a black cast.

He’s taken it all quite well.

His only request?  “Smarties and M&Ms”.

So he’s had some Smarties.

And some more Smarties.

And when I asked him for a smile, he was back to his goofy self.

He has to wear the cast for 3 weeks.

I just heard him ask David, “Daddy, when I can I take this thing off?”

Poor thing.  Superboy has been temporarily grounded.

Is Hulk a good guy OR what?

Posted on by
3

First thing this morning:  Davey is already going great guns with his superheroes.

David and I were trying to wake up.

Every few minutes we’d hear:

“Daddy. Is Hulk a good guy OR WHAT?”

Then quiet…well actually more of a more quiet running commentary from the superhero camp.

And then again: “Daddy. Is The Thing a good guy OR WHAT?”

This morning they got out David’s Heroclix.

These are little superhero and supervillain guys.  There is a game with rules that goes along with the clix.  Davey is not too interested.  He likes to set them up with Daddy and then they just have the little guys “clobber” each other.

Superheroes make Davey grin.

Ok and here is what is making me grin.  My seaside shawlette is really coming along. I hesitate to say that as I made a small error yesterday.  I think I fixed it, but I haven’t gotten back to it yet to make sure.

It’s so hard for me to take pictures of my bunched up lace, but I took a couple to kinda show the emerging patterns.

This is the shawl’s center pattern.

And now I am working on the outer part of the shawl.

I’m hoping to complete this shawl soon.  Today is a rainy gray day.  It would be a nice day to knit.  We’ll have to see what the little superhero thinks!

Faye’s Beans

Posted on by
5

I am fortunate to have some old cookbooks which were once owned and used by David’s grandmother, Memaw Lucy.  She was a great cook.   She would make us great breakfasts of homemade biscuits, eggs, and bacon, and by the time we were done eating, we could hardly move.  Part of the reason was she’d insist that we have more!  “An egg is just two bites.  Have another!”   And because it was all so delicious, we just couldn’t resist.

So now, I have these old cookbooks which are almost falling apart.  I love looking through these worn books, and I decided I want try out more of the recipes.  I found some recipes which had been written out several times.  It kinda reminded me of the way I will print out a favorite recipe, and I end up  having several copies of them all over the place.  I prefer her handwritten version however.  These recipes must have been popular, and I want to try some of them first.

Some of the recipes are fraying around the edges and have spots on them.  These may have been frequently referred to recipes, and I definitely want to try them first too!

There are all kinds of recipes.  There are quite a few jello salads.  Several recipes include buttermilk.  One that just sounds really unusual to me is a cake recipe which has orange slices in them.  Not fresh orange slices, but those candy citrus jell orange slices!  I have no idea what that might be like, but I am going to find out!

So one of the first recipes I made is called  Faye’s Beans.

This dish has shot up to the top of David’s favorite meal list.   Here’s the recipe, and I also have the pdf linked up above for printing or saving purposes.

Faye’s Beans

1 pound pinto beans (cooked tender)

1 1/2 pound ground beef

1 large onion

1 can green chiles  (4 oz)

1 can taco sauce (4 oz) (I couldn’t find this.  I used a jar of Ortega Taco Sauce and thought it worked awesomely.)

1 large can tomatoes (I used a large can of diced tomatoes)

1/2 tsp oregano (I was out of oregano and so used none.  I didn’t miss it, but I will use next time to see how it is with oregano.)

1/2 tsp cumin.  (Since I had no oregano, I used about 3/4 tsp cumin.  Thought it was perfect.)

The recipe doesn’t mention salt.  I started with 1/2 tsp and then added to taste.  I think I ended up using about 1 tsp.)

Brown the hamburger with onion.Add spices, chiles, taco sauce and tomatoes.

Add beans and simmer about 30 minutes.

We have had it two nights in a row.  We eat it in a bowl with corn tortillas.  We also wrapped it up in corn tortillas like a soft taco.  I think it would be great as a burrito filling too.

Superhero Saturday and Sunny Sunday!

Posted on by
2

We’re having a fun weekend.

Davey and David played superheroes yesterday.  I love to take pictures of them playing, and I love to listen to their stories and dialogue.

Here’s yesterday’s story as I understood it.  A panther was going to attack the supervillains.  Apparently the supervillains are actually big chickens, so they called the superheroes to help.  The Hulks and some other big guys came to help.  Afterwards they all gathered together for a big pasta party.  They had every type of pasta that you could imagine.

We did a little bicycling too.  We got Davey his first helmet.

As you can see from Davey’s expression, helmets are serious business.

Later we got the sprinkler system going.   This was Davey’s first experience with a sprinkler system and he wanted to play in those sprinklers.  Oh but it was chilly!

He ran through just as fast as he could go.

Then he ran to me.  He wanted me to run through those sprinklers too.

I did so.  Very reluctantly.  It was cold.

He’s back out there right now.  He’s probably trying to convince David to run through.

This morning we went to play disc golf for the first time.  I needed an occasion like Mother’s Day to persuade David to get out there.   I think Mark Twain said that “Golf is a good walk spoiled.”  For David, you should insert Disc at the beginning of the sentence.  But we had a fun time.  It’s not so easy to sling a frisbee really far.  Not for the three of us anyway.

Davey roamed around slinging his frisbee like he was throwing a rock.  I finally convinced him to kinda throw it like a frisbee by telling him to hug and then unhug himself.  That helped.

David roamed around debating on whether he’d be better off throwing with his right hand or his left hand.  (His left-handedness was causing some problems from him.)

I just roamed around and tried to throw it as far as I could.  Which was not very far.  I like being around the basket.  As a matter of fact, I wonder if miniature disc golf has been invented.  Now that would be fun.  Lots of short holes with windmills and giant cows.

Ok time to join them outside.  I think the sprinkler portion of the outside activities is over.

Happy Mother’s Day!

American Gothic and Superheroes

Posted on by
4

I have written a little about my pattern of the day calendar.  I made the eyelet rib fingerless mitts adapting one of the patterns.   The other day there was a colorwork pattern called “American Gothic”.  I really liked (like) it, and I thought it could be great on some fingerless mitts.

So I tried it out.  It did knit up nice.   However, I thought I would just carry both strands all the way around the mitts.  I weave them in as I go and it makes for a very tidy look which I thought might also add extra warmth.

It was a nice idea in theory, but I didn’t allow for the tension problems.  I cast on only a few extra stitches when I should have cast on probably at least 10-15 to allow for the increased tension of the colorwork.

It is an idea that needs work.   I like the little guys.  Here’s a photo – although ideally I need to block it so the knitting evens up.

So that was fun but the mitt is very small.  It fits Davey almost perfectly, but American Gothic just doesn’t seem like a pattern meant for toddlers.

Speaking of toddlers (my transition to superheroes),  Davey loves superheroes.  We checked out a preschool Superman book the other day.  We read it every day.  Davey loves Superman.  He loves to spread his superheroes out all around him.  He has found a great spot in our bedroom where he really has some room to move his guys around.

I think he looks like he is about to cry in this picture, but I don’t think that he was.

He plays with all these little guys and says, “Daddy.  Is this a good guy?  Is this a good guy?”  He has many questions.

Yesterday we were out on the front porch and a car drove by.  As it passed, Davey said, “Mommy, I think there was a supervillain in that car.”  By this time the car was at the end of the street, so I am not sure which supervillain it was that he thought was in the car.

David suggested it might have been a balding man – so Lex Luthor maybe?