The Poor Children of Knitters

Children of Knitters suffer many hardships.

To begin knitters are drawn to many colours and patterns, and this means that the hats and mittens and scarves of Children of Knitters probably don't match. The hat may be a shade of blue, the mittens pink, the scarf green.

The Children of Knitters are often seen wearing items that were made purely for the fun of it...sweaters with dinosaur spikes, hats that look like fish, scarves and mittens shaped like alligators.

The Children of Knitters are subject to over-sized woolen sweaters, because children grow fast and the knitter wants the knitwear to last.

The Children of Knitters are often overly warm as the knitter expresses their love in wool...dressing babies in lovely hand knit cardigans and bonnets and socks then wrapping the whole lot in a cozy blanket. In summer.

Not to mention having to compete with stash for storage space or hearing "Just one more row and then we'll head to the park" or having their knitter parent pull out a sock to knit during the recital.

But these humiliations are nothing compared to this...



The shame of being forced into a partially knit garment so Mom can take pictures for her Ravelry page.

Poor, poor Children of Knitters.

Mmmm....Nostalgia...

We've had a rough few days around here...the babies are sick with rotten colds again, this time filling their sinuses and making for a lot of goo. They're having difficulty sleeping, which means Mom and Dad aren't sleeping. Last night was especially fun as I sent Phil out to sleep on the couch since he had to get up early for work this morning while I tried to get the boys settled. It was a long night, I finally got them down and got to close my eyes at around 5am. I slept in 20-30 minute bursts until 9:30 when the girl child woke up and wanted breakfast.

So with very little sleep I was cranky. I spent the day surfing the net and knitting, and wiping wee noses. I felt like crap, and I started feeling lower and lower. This day needed a pick-me-up ending. But it had to be a good one.

This day called for cookies.

And not just any cookies...I got out my book where I've written down all my favourite recipes and found the peanut butter cookies from the Pillsbury Cookbook that lives in my mother's kitchen. That book is full of family favourites, but I think these cookies are the best.

When I was a kid I'd help Mom or Dad make them, and by "help" I mean that I was in charge of pressing them with a fork.



It's still my favourite part of the process.

When I was smaller, I'd watch the cookies through the window of the oven, waiting for them to be ready. As an adult it's hard not to sneak peeks



As a teenager, I'd bake them on my own sometimes and I'd have my nose in a book while they were in the oven. That hasn't really changed...except my book has an on/off switch now.

Other things have changed since I baked these as a kid...I now do all the measuring, though I'm not at all able to "eyeball" measurements as my Dad can (the man can literally toss flour and whatnot into a bowl and come out with perfect pie crust. It's his gift). I'm also fully responsible for clean up, which isn't nearly a fun as the baking or eating part.

Most importantly, I now have my own little helpers, eager to do the pressing, eager to watch the baking, eager to have a cookie still warm from the oven.

The best part hasn't changed though...



Mmmmm

Exactly like that.

Since my twins were born I've had moments where I look at them and think "they're sort of like puppies".

Not that they are covered in fluffy fur or have floppy ears or pee on the floor. But the way they sleep piled on top of each other or roll around on the floor all over one another.

The way they will totally bite you when playing with you, including creeping over and biting your unsuspecting bare toes.

The way they will nip at each other or pull on the other's hair.

However the Puppy Comparison really hit home the other day. It was the early part of the morning, when I'm buying snooze time by nursing the babies and snuggling them to keep them sleeping just a little bit longer.

I had been nursing Jude, and we'd fallen asleep. Luke had been on the other side of Jude. I woke to the feeling of tiny hands pushing at my breast and the sound of a determined baby.

I open my eyes to discover that Luke has woken up and decided it was his turn to nurse again. He pulled himself up and over Jude, smooshing Jude's head out of the way and was trying to get latched on. No regard for his brother...he saw exposed food source and went for it.

So yeah. Exactly like that. Puppies.

Hi there

I used to blog a lot. And I loved it. I'd post mostly about my knitting, showing off new yarns and swap packages and finished objects and chatting about my works in progress. Then along came Ravelry and the need to show off my knitting sort of fell away.

I had been toying with the idea of restarting my blog for a long time now. But talking about my projects and yarns seemed repetitive after sharing them on rav and occasionally on twitter. We started a home schooling journey in the last couple years and blogging about that on a knitting blog didn't seem right either. Other aspects of my life didn't really fit either.

So here we are, a fresh start for my blogging voice. There will be knitting content. There will be home schooling chatter. There will be stories about my kids and my husband and my life in general. I might get political (but I'll keep that to a minimum). I hope I'll be funny and interesting enough to keep you reading.

I can't promise that I'll post often. I have lots of ideas of posts I'd like to write but...I've also got 5 kids, two of those are babies and I'm home schooling the three older ones. I've got an awesome group of friends. I've got an amazing husband. I have all this yarn that needs to be knitted into things and fibre that needs to be spun into yarn so it can be knitted. Dudes...I am really busy. So posts might only ever get written in my head. Hell, this might be the only one that ever gets published. Who knows what will happen? I'm hoping to post regularly and maybe I can make it a habit.

I'm still working on how the blog will look. My husband is working on some artwork for the header, I'm tweaking the colours and the look. So don't be surprised if it looks different every time you pop by for the next little while.

With all that said...let's get started.