With My Head in My Hands...

HEAD IN HANDS REASON #1
Smallest Child Declares to Kinder Teacher:
“AT MY HOUSE WE’RE SICK OF SEX!”

Later translated at kinder pick-up by mother of Smallest Child (me):
“AT MY HOUSE WE HAVE STICK INSECTS!”

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HEAD IN HANDS REASON #2
At morning tea, Kinder Teacher regales children with stories of her dog. Smallest Child declares that she too, has a worthy dog story:
“SOMETIMES MY DAD PUTS ON A RUBBER GLOVE AND SQUEEZES OUR DOG’S ANAL GLAND!”

Kinder Teacher pushes away her plate of hummus and rice cake and is forced to define ‘anal gland’ to 23 kinder children.

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HEAD IN HANDS REASON #3
Smallest Child campaigns to teacher for an Adventure outside the kinder. Smallest Child is emphatic that Adventure involves scouring streets in search of roadside finds “LIKE WHAT MUM AND DAD DOES EVERY DAY!”

In the defence of the Smallest Child’s parents (who do not ‘scour’ but merely keep an ‘eye out’), the Smallest Child has been enjoying the use of a roadside violin find. Currently played as a three-stringed cello.



Recently valued at a surprising, (for a roadside find), $1200.

Dodgy Parenting and Craft Floozy-ing

Last week, the Mr and I were lying in our ripple-blanketed bed, chatting, (except he was already asleep). We decided the best way to parent the third kid would be to largely ignore her. Of course we’d read her an occasional story and feed her but she’s dressed herself since forever and has taught herself how to leap tall buildings in a single bound, without any interference from Mum or Dad. The Mr and I also decided, (except he was already snoring), that one day we would apologise to the eight and ten year old, for not largely ignoring them.

To make up for all that past hovering, helicopter parenting, the next day we let all three kids drive the car:

1. Under Age Driver



2. Even More Under Age Driver



3. Ridiculously (Can-Only-Just-See-Over-The-Dashboard-When-Sitting-On-Dad’s-Knee) Under Age Driver



If you would like four more suggestions of dangerous activities you should let your children do, then click over to this fun TED talk. I am proud to say we have all five basically covered. I am also proud to confirm that no kid breached any driving speed limits.

In more sedate news, I’ve come over all craft floozy again. I can’t stick to any one thing and I haven’t even the foggiest what this pink knittery is even meant to become. The Small keeps asking when her ‘thingy’ will be finished. But the poor Small keeps being ignored.



I have managed to make a good start on this blue knittery which looks like a large, thick, ribbed sock. There are two holes for legs and it will remain open-ended, so sometime soon, before things get frosty, Jasper the Dog will have a possibly humiliating, thick, ribbed, sock-thing to keep him warm.



Between rows of dog ‘sock’, I’ve been surveying the ripple blanket scraps and opening a whole new can of blanket worms, which I am inevitably destined to regret.



I’ve been feeling very sorry for my eight year old boy-kid. When I last performed cooking duty with his class, apparently I danced. DANCED! Possibly at the same time as the muffin mixture was doing its Mixmaster mixing thing. I can only begin to imagine how embarrassing this was and have promised to limit all dancing to gardening and reading duty only.



To make up for such indignity, I have made a start on a quilt for him. He’s been asking for a while, since before he started growing up a bit more and needing to act a bit cooler. Before he started losing some of that breathtakingly-precious, carefree, kid-innocence.



I thought I’d better get cracking and stitch in a whole quilt load of love before he decides he doesn’t need it anymore.

The Blanket of Epic! FINISHED! (With a Small Disclaimer)

73,528 treble-based crochet stitches later and the way I figure things, my snuggly queen-sized ripple blanket is FINISHED.



It looks convincingly finished on top of our bed,



even if I haven’t yet got around to spray painting the bedroom and the Mr’s birthday suit a nice, crisp, contrasting white.



The big kid has thrice attempted to claim it as her own



and once succeeded for an entire night, when I was wrongfooted by her sudden, complimentary enthusiasm for crocheted craft.



The Mr deemed me well within my rights to indulge in another WOOHOO! blanketing moment



and dutifully lobbed kilos of crocheted yarn into the air.



Perhaps the eagle-eyed, the Those Who Know Me Too Well, the Doubting Thomas types, just spotted the ‘disclaimer’ in my ‘finished’?



OK, nearly finished.



Dangly disclaimer bits aside, finished enough.



PS. It wouldn't be dubbed the Epic Blanket if I didn’t whinge about end-weaving-in for the next three years.

PPS. Crafted using Lucy’s pattern here. Ravelled here.

’Scuse Me While I Veer Off On A Random Tangent...

As I was saying, I have a new-to-me sewing machine. This came about, not because I was proactive in any way, shape, or form but because Nikki needed some designy-type stuff done. May I suggest, that being presented with a sewing machine that entirely ROCKS, along with a bazillion sewing machine feet and associated gizmos and a swisho case on WHEELS, may be the most excellent swap for services rendered?

As emphatically requested, my new machine is low on superfluous bells and whistles and big on the everything-I-need. Big on ‘workhorse’. It’s weighty. Reliable.

Because the last machine was basically pathetic and couldn’t do any free-wheelin’, sketchy stuff, (you need to be able to lower those feed dogs for that), please do bear with me, while I veer off on my random craft tangent...

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Sing
at the top of your lungs



at a red traffic light
with your window open
and your teenager
in the passenger seat



(Don’t mind me, I’ve been musing over future revenge upon my children).
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At a wedding
the two 90 plus grannies
are congratulated
for attending...



Is that weird?



(The fact that the grannies made it to the wedding was remarked upon in three separate speeches. Both grannies looked lovely – and more importantly, lively).

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Actually, this one is less of a tangent and more a reflection on everyday life.



(as well as an acknowledgement of the trouble I’m in, after the granny speech commentary).

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Hope your weekend is fabulously high on nice tangents, definitively low on controversy.