now fortified with impotent fury!risperdal

Finally, pics of stuff.

first up, the blanket OF DHOOM. Big Bad Baby Blanket from stitch-n-bitch, done in a 2 ply twisted alpaca on size 11 32″ circulars.

And a close up of the seed stitch edge.

The first umbilical cord hat. Done in Jo Sharp silk road

The second hat in progress. Done in Berocco lullabye

And the Rowan bag from bigger picture. If I can ever afford to make myself the Jude sweater, which requires a bajillion skeins of biggy print, I am totally doing it in this color way. I have all 4 pieces knit, I just need to seam it all. Damnit.

And last, the haiku sweater for Sean in progress. I’m about an inch and a half from being done with the right front portion. Jo Sharp aran tweed.

Look, in a shock to no one, my child needs a haircut and is eating. Yes, I know you’re all stunned. Dig that stabby stabby chopstick action.

Mmmmm, tempura.

Oh god, mother, why do you insist on Sesame Street and not my beloved Full Metal Alchemist?

Sean is not especially verbal, though his cognitive skills are clearly there. Accordingly, we’ve been working very hard to positively reinforce when he does say something remotely coherent (like ‘WAFFLES!’ when the toaster kerbinged the other day, ‘wuv you’ when he barreled into me for a hug, and the favorite of mealtimes around here- ‘MEATBALLS!’ Which, I’ll note, when I told my mother, she misheard me as saying ‘Assholes!’). The other day, though, he was very verbal, and I won’t be reinforcing it, thank you very fucking much.

It’s been colder than a welldigger’s arse around here, and Sean has a one piece LL Bean polarfleece snowsuit. If the kids in his room are still napping when I go to drop him off, I lay him on the bench seat in the foyer of the school and handle wrangling him out of it out there. I was busily stripping him when a mom came in with her little girl to meet with the owner of the school and get her registered. The little girl was dressed to the nines to go to her new school for the first time- velvet tam, little frock coat, dress, cable tights, shiny shiny black patent mary janes. Little miss brown ringlets and big big brown eyes is an older woman- she’s going two rooms ahead of Sean. In an effort to welcome them to the school, and continue to work on engaging Sean in being verbal, the owner of the school introduced us.

“Sean, this is M–, and she’s going to be a new friend. Can you say ‘hello’ to M?”

None of us expect Sean to say hello. It was one of his first words, yet he busts it out only in the privacy of his own home. At most, he’ll smile flirtaciously or wave, yet everyone at the school is working very hard to gently encourage him to be verbal. If he makes any noise in response to ’say hello’, we throw a parade and fling candy and beads from flo– wait that’s Mardi Gras. Anyway, the owner, co-director, and I weren’t expecting much from Little Man. Except he rolled to sit up on the bench, cocked his head back and smiled widely at M–. Oh good, I thought, he’s engaging with the new cute girl. And then he opened his mouth.

“Hey baby.”

Thank you god, for daycare. Thank you for making a place where I can drop off my child and come back home and crawl into bed.

Hell is caring for a toddler when you are ill.

I am sick. I am sicker than sick. I realize I am going to sound all drama queen OMG teh_ANGST here, but this is either the worst cold I have ever had, or it’s the flu. The sinus pain and pressure is so bad my left eye is watering constantly. And I’m working on day four of this. There was no gentle ramp up, either, just wham bam hello, and now you will pray for sweet sweet death to claim you.

Sean, bless his sweet face, thinks it’s funny to clamber on top of me as I lie prone on the couch in the mornings, and jump up and down on me until I start to cough. Because mom turns funny colors! Then he sits on top of me, squealing and clapping his hands with glee, while I attempt to breathe enough to reoxygenate my bloodstream before any more parts of my brain die from oxygen deprivation. Lather, rinse, repeat, until I finally cave and make the offering of giving him a piece of clean kleenex, which he triumphantly snags and scrabbles off of me, running away to pantomime mom blowing her nose and warning ships away from rocky shoals. Then he wads it up and stuffs it down his sleeper, since mom shoves nasty skanky kleenex in her pockets to keep it away from him.

By the time morning nap rolls around, his crotch is bulging with about a quarter of a box worth of wadded up tissue.