Cabbage Patch Drolls

So apparently there is an article on the web on how kids should be sleeping through the night at three months old. This in spite of pretty much any other source and experience I've personally had saying MOST kids won't start this until at least six months, since, you know, they're eating constantly, they're in a giant new strange world, they're growing... then somewhere around six months as they finally start getting used to and exploring everything, they start teething, crawling, trying to stand and walk.... more new things that put a lot of stress on the body.

But they're supposed to be sleeping through the night. Because an article, which admits it doesn't cover all the factors... says they should.

I find this... to say the least, hysterical in the most bitter kind of way. Especially because I know there are people who will take this to mean that if your child isn't sleeping through the night as though you hit the magical "You're three months old now, Sleep!" button, that you, personally, are somehow a failure as a parent.

Kids aren't magical wind up toys that do everything for your convenience and comfort, they're little people who are getting used to being in a giant new world full of new experiences. They don't come with magic on/off switches, they don't start out with a self cleaning option, and they don't control the interruptions that sometimes come in the night.

Last time I met a little chubby cheeked, permanently smiling kid that did whatever anyone wanted, it came in a cardboard box with a little birth certificate that said "Cabbage Patch Kids".

*GRUMP*.

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It was a pretty interesting weekend though, I have to admit. Saturday Tilmani and I got to go on our date, though I also went outside and put some pumpkins on our stone wall by the steps as part of decorating for Halloween. While I was outside doing this, I kept hearing someone call "Buddy! Buddy get back here!"
I figured it was someone's dog, as there are a few on the street, and didn't think much of it... until I heard the distinct sound of horseshoes on pavement. I looked up and there was a horse coming down the street!
He took one look at me, did the horse equivalent of an 'don't mind me', and bolted up the kitchen side of our house into the back yard to visit with the horses that stable behind us. His rather frazzled keepers spent about 10 minutes trying to narrow him down from one side of the house to the other, since when they pursued him up behind he came down the other side into our driveway, then turned around and went back because of a car pulling out of the driveway. ((I imagine the driver was at least as surprised as he was.))

He was eventually safely caught, and escorted off the property unharmed. MiniMonster got to see him walk past the kitchen doors again, he thought that was enormously exciting.
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The Date was great. We went to the Elegant Ewe, where I got a thousand yards of "Dream in Color" sock yarn in "Purple Paisley" to try and make the Spanish Armada shawl with. ((If I can actually pull off some decent shawls I might actually try and put one on my Etsy. Although if someone wants one in just plain basic knitting, I can do that very easily. Price would depend on the yarn.

We went to the Candy Store, and I got some of my favorite candies, we went to Michaels and got a new scrap book ((I need to go print photos))
Yeah it was just a blast.

Sunday was good too, we went to a joint Birthday Party for Aunt Kris and Papa Tom, Mini got to taste the Lasagnina, and was nuts for Butternut Squash with brown sugar. I'm gonna have to try and make it for him some time, since I'm more than happy to encourage any veggies he wants to eat, and there's not actually a ton of brown sugar in it.

Fuzzy Monsters and Rice Cakes

Some new project fun: I've temporarily put aside my second attempt at 'Mystery Afghan' so I can try and figure out how I somehow gained seven stitches while following the directions.

So I pulled out the 'Fuzzy Monster' mod for the Fuzzy Lamb pattern and I'm trying to make a green monster for the Mini Monster. If it goes well I'll make some more and back stock them for my friend Mouse for her con-going adventures.

I also scored some great pictures of MiniMonster "Getting Piggy with it" with his rice cakes. Sour Cream and Onion in case you're wondering.

Tilmani and I are crossing our fingers to catch up with Nana J too, so that we can get a sitter for the monster and go for a "Date" this weekend.

Go to Starbucks, the Expensive Yarn store, The Candy Store, Starbucks, and Outback... ohhh bliss.

Nospheratu!

The Mini Monster has cut one of his two upper front teeth, and the other is immediately on it's heels! This was a rather exciting development for us, and kind of funny timing if you consider the teeth on the traditional Nospheratu vampire, and Halloween's rapid approach.

I've purchased some candy for the Trick or Treater's, but I'm not entirely sure if I have enough. I bought two boxes of full sized bars, none of the fun sized ones for me, and definitely no DumDums.

I always hated getting DumDum's when I trick or treated, I dunno about the rest of you but they just never had that much appeal for me. They just make your mouth sticky and don't taste all that great. It was kinda like getting pretty much any form of 'bad' candy. Like *shudder* Necco Wafers.

I realize that they're cheap candy, but Halloween and Christmas only come once a year, and if I have an excuse to dress up and get candy (speaking from Kid-view) I want to do it in STYLE. I mean most kids around here are already going to be sulking because they'll need to wear warm coats over their costumes, so I don't see it hurting to give them 'real' candy bars.

Mini ones also always seem to be a little stale, I've never understood that.

I just hope they actually get to eat them. I used to work with a woman... I'm sure most of us have met the type. The aging woman desperately trying to pretend she's still Sweet Sixteen. She dressed in clothing that was too small, wore too much makeup, bleached her hair to straw... and boasted about how whenever she and her son went trick or treating she'd trained him to give the bag to -her- afterward, so she could take all the 'good' candy. ((Her phrasing)). He got the dumdums and the Necco wafers, she got the Reeses, the Chocolate Bars, the Baby Ruths... you name it.

I never told her but that always -really- made me mad. I understand checking your kids candy to make sure that it hasn't been tampered with, but that's an entirely different animal. As an adult, if you want Halloween candy THAT badly, go buy yourself a bag.

Chantilly Lace and a pretty face...

So after my relative success with the "I'm Blue" Doily/Afghan/Round... Thingie, I'm absoloutely itching to try another high complexity project, and I'm giving some serious thought to diving into a lace project. I don't technically have Lace Weight yarn, but I do have some fingering weight Alpaca, which isn't -that- much heavier. It will however make the "FO" ((Finished Object)) come out larger than if I knitted it with almost thread thin laceweight.

I'm debating some patterns from ravelry/yahoo group designer MMario, who makes some really incredible patterns, and furthermore, offers them to knitters for free. He does accept donations, but they aren't required.

I'm debating between "Spanish Armada", which has the advantage of having both written instructions AND the usual chart, or "Threadfall" Which is chart only, but -seems- relatively clear. Both are knitted on round needles, though the resulting project will actually be a square.

Of course then again I could do my "Mystery Afghan" again, and maybe stash bust some of my green Manos del Urugay.

HMM. Choices Choices!!

I'm Blue da ba dee ba da dah

So one of the yarns I bought at the Sheep and Wool Festival was some naturally dyed homespun. Actually I bought two different blues, but only one of them became an issue.

The darker blue yarn immediately 'showed it's true colors' on winding, staining Tilmani's hands and mine. It continued in this bent when I started knitting with it, attempting a 'Mystery Afghan' pattern I'd been given a while ago.

My fingers were blue, my nails were blue, my palms were blue... my NEEDLES turned blue...

Oh and the couch cushion started to turn blue. JUST by having the ball of yarn sitting on it.

Needless to say after this discovery, I bound off what I'd done instead of trying to switch colors and continue, and went through the work of doing what apparently HADN'T been done properly to begin with, and got the extra dye rinsed out. Or that's what I'm hoping anyway. I put it in the bathroom as an attempt at blocking, and you guys might laugh because we actually used one of our baby gates that's not currently in action.

Have a look!

THIS. IS. SPAR...oh wait no it's not.

Thanks to "Emptyhead51" for the welcome back and sorry for my long absence, those of you who care. ;) We've been getting a new roof put on the house, and today they're putting in a bathroom fan that -actually draws air-. ((Gasp)). It's also a great deal quieter than the previous one, which, by comparison, sounded like a jet intake. For all this noise, it was also incapable of so much as moving a Kleenex. Granted the Kleenex had -aloe- in it, but since the fan sounded like it was preparing for take off, it could have at least managed to make the tissue twitch feebly or something.

As I mentioned before, The MiniMonster is making great strides, so to speak, in getting toward standing and cruising, and I've been admittedly reading ahead a bit into the toddler books so I can foresee what I've got coming.

The Toddler books however don't include anything about random nesting instinct, or the vague prophet like certainty that we may someday be painting up a room for another kid, who in my crazed, nesting fashion I am somehow equally certain will be a girl.

... I don't make these things up. I wish I did. So yes, babies apparently make you CRAZY. It's true.

I also decided to have a fun round of "Open my Big Mouth" this morning and posted my two cents in a Ravelry Topic. The last month or so there have been several very heated debates on copyrights and knitting. Specifically the issue is weather or not a pattern designer can put a footnote on their pattern saying "You can't sell the finished product."

It's actually not that uncommon, and many designers are actually outright rude in the way they phrase these demands. I own one pattern actually with a particularly snarky footnote to that regard. I was irked and annoyed to find it, and ended up not trying (yet) to even make the pattern. Hell, there are even people who try and say "You aren't allowed to make MY design with, say Red Heart Yarn."

Now this is interesting because, and here's where the "Open my big mouth" part comes in.

Copyright law actually protects the knitter of the END PRODUCT in this case. Not the designer. The designer is considered to have received fair compensation for the PRICE OF THE PATTERN. And the finished products made from it are the sole property of the person who created them, who then has the full, LEGAL right, to sell them.

This has been confirmed by several peoples lawyers and even a letter someone got from the Bureau for Copyrights, or whatever they're actually called. ((I'm tired and I don't care to check right now.)) Which makes the resulting arguments from the handful of grouchy designers actually sound somehow more childish, since they all complain that it's 'not right', or it doesn't 'feel right'. Or even 'It's not moral'. None of which actually has the slightest bearing on the current state of the law.

...It also doesn't cause any of the complainers to stop trying to sell their patterns online.

That's actually where it kinda makes me roll my eyes. If you actually feel that the law is HORRIBLY wronging you by allowing people to sell what they make based on something you received money for, then stop selling it. Fight it if you want but no one's yet won that fight apparently.

Apparently however it makes far more sense to sit on your butt, and scream how horribly unfair it is that the product you were paid for can legally make someone else a profit.

...Somehow that sounds like bitching that the apple you sold someone was sold in a pie, and goddamn it, where's your cut.

I can kinda almost hear the people who like to know they're protected by the current law retreating from ever buying anything from those designers. Oops. More profit loss. So sad.

Mini Monster pulled himself up and then let go of his handhold, entirely on his own. He only stood upright for a few seconds, turning to look over at his shoulder at us cost him his balance, but he was at least as excited as we were.

It. Was. AWESOME.