Last Day of Winter Break

07.365: at play

January 7, 2013. My kids’ 3-week vacation ends. We spent a chilly hour at the park.

I took photos with my Nikon 1 (affixed with the 18.5mm f/1.8 lens). I am in love with this little camera. I still adore my D7000, but this baby is just so handy! I also don’t feel like such a weirdo when I bring it out. The giant DSLR makes me feel like I’m screaming, “LOOK AT ME! I have a camera! I take photos! Ask me to take your photo!” when I bring it out. I need to work on my confidence.

Anyway. I love this camera and it helps me capture special moments with my boys. I didn’t even notice I was taking photos of each of them doing the same thing (sorta) while we were there.

They did some:

climbing
climbing,

crossing
crossing,

balancing
balancing, and of course–

sliding
sliding! Fast slides are the best.

It was pretty great. They’re back at school and, I gotta say, I miss these faces.

hanging out

seven years and seven months

Feliz dia de las Madres!

I’ll be spending it with these dudes:

127.365: the one who started it all

the bestest

Nathan woke me up before 8 by throwing his card at me and yelling, “Happy Mother’s day!” I got up and made a quiche and sliced some strawberries. We’ll be visiting my MIL later this afternoon for dinner & dessert (I’m making a lemon berry trifle complete with homemade lemon curd! yum).

Have a good one!

the smell of loved woolies

toddler diptych

The first Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern I ever made was ‘Ganomy’ from Knitters’ Almanac. It’s also been the most used pattern in my repetoire. My copy of KA is in bad shape. It lived in the bottom of my bag for a while. I haven’t knit everything she gives pithy directions for, but I HAVE read the whole book–some parts more than others.

Anyway, what I meant to blog about is how much I love wool. I’m sorry you have to wash your handknit hat. I’m sorry you accidentally put it in your hamper and it’s a ball of fluff. I’m sorry it itched you when you first touched it and now lives in a box in your closet. Fact of the matter is: you never gave wool a chance! It took me longer to knit your hat than it will for you to wash it. You should not put something beautifully made in a hamper. If you would have given it a soak, it wouldn’t be itchy.

That first Ganomy was a rather quick knit. It isn’t perfect, as I was a newbie to knitting, but it fit and was pretttyyy in all its Noro Kureyon glory. It was also lost in a hamper, almost-felted, and hella itchy. But I kept putting it on my little one’s (now, 4.5) head, hanging it on a hook, or shoving it in my bag, when he wasn’t wearing it. I even soaked it in warm water + lanolin (the same tube I got at my baby shower–thank heavens for an easy start to my breastfeeding career) + baby shampoo to wash it when it got really dirty one day.

Three years later, it is the hat I love most. Soft, pilly, smelly. It’s never gotten quite as dirty as the first time it warranted a cleaning. Heck, it’s only needed a wash once since then. And because of that, it smells wonderful. It smells like their heads. A lovely mixture of baby shampoo and baby sweat. No, don’t wince! Babies’ heads smell gooood. I promise.

This hat has been loved. It will continue to be loved for the rest of winter and perhaps into Spring. Maybe Easter will be cold and Andy will wear it one last time, on his second celebration of the holiday, like Nate did in 2007.

Won’t you give wool a chance? In a few years, when my boys undoubtedly become obnoxious the way I was when I was little, I bet someone will find me crying on a closet floor, deeply inhaling the scent of my babies from this hat. It’s just a fact.