Walk like a man...

My sweet baby Gator is now walking at least as much as he crawls. He's so proud of himself and fearless in his efforts and I can't help but share his excitement.

A fringe benefit of this acheivement is that he is still a slow, wobbly walker, which is a stark contrast to the turbo crawl he's perfected. I don't have to rush quite as fast to get him away from, say, the cat food dish or his sister's potty chair, unless he drops to a crawl. He'll often notice I'm coming after him and gleefully sprint on all fours.

I know he'll be running on two legs before I know it. I'm trying to enjoy this short-lived wobbly walker phase while it lasts. With my second child, I understand so much better just how fleeting some off these baby stages are. My snuggly mama's boy will be running off on his own adventures soon enough.

Overworked and underpaid

Motherhood is a wonderful thing, but I often feel like my contributions are undervalued. Especially by my co-parent. Monetary income is not the only thing that keeps this household afloat, and replacing my nearly 24-7 availability and round-the-clock child care services would cost more than the hubster makes.

I parent all day, and yes I sometimes get to blog or go on Facebook, but I might be interrupted repeatedly. At the moment, I'm supervising siblings at play and ready to jump in any second if my referee commands aren't respected. My internet time usually happens when I'm nursing a baby or have someone asleep on/next to me and I don't want to risk waking them.

Superdork the dad-man gets spoiled when the babes are young and I'm their sole food source. When they start eating solids, he seems to forget that either one of us is equally capable of feeding them. And he has a major advantage when he does parent. Spending time with Daddy is a special thing and behavior is better when the kids, especially the toddler, are with someone they don't spend most of their waking hours with.

There are some days when I desperately want to do something as simple as use the bathroom without having repeated interruptions. I can tell I'm desperately in need of a break when I do things like go to a doctor's appointment and love having the time to myself.

So, how do I go about negotiating some vacation days from this motherhood job? I'll settle for a real meal break or some personal time on a regular basis.

She's growing up so fast...

Little Miss Violet has a lot of crazy toddler moments and frequently imitates her baby brother, but whether I like it or not, she is growing up. I'm happy about that, for the most part, but I suspect I'll be sending her off to kindergarten in a virtual blink of an eye.

She's wearing panties most of the time now. She's still horribly intimidated by public potties, unless they are low child-size ones, but she has pretty good holding capacity. We're very proud of her, and she's very proud of herself, for her potty capabilities. It wasn't that long ago that we were wondering if she'd ever decide to use the potty instead of a diaper. It's a relief that she is potty training, because it's a prerequisite for preschool in the fall.

And preschool...oh, I was going to do a post on it, but I have such a jumble of emotions about sending my little girl off to school that I might save that for later. We are weighing two preschool options at the moment. One is supposed to be a very good program that is hard to get into, but it seems like it might be a lot of preschool for a three year old. I think she'd enjoy it and my hesitations to send her four days a week are probably more about me than her. If she goes when she's three, she's guaranteed a spot when she's four, and we'd love for her to be in this program when she's four.

We've been weighing pros and cons of both programs, and a lot of the differences between then have advantages and disadvantages to them. I don't have a gut feeling about which would be better for her, maybe because my gut is confused by my brain. We weighed several options for traditional two-day preschool programs and I felt very good about the one we chose. But then my little girl was accepted as a typical peer role model at the public school's integrated preschool. The screening period is very short and I was pleasantly surprised that she impressed them while she was there, because she was in quite a mood before we left home that day. She loves new experiences and interacting with other children, which is why ten hours of preschool a week rather than four might be harder on me than on her.

Not this time.

"Daddy, did you have a baby?"

You've got to love toddler logic. The last time Violet had a parent in the hospital overnight, she had a new baby brother.  She kept wondering if Daddy was going to bring a baby home.

She's been very sweet and concerned about her daddy and is so glad he was home to read a story tonight. She has become such a daddy's girl.

The silly girl last week.

What a crazy weekend

Gator's walking in short spurts and is so proud of himself. His eighth tooth just cut through and is still bothering him. He's been lunging at me and biting as I tried to start this blog. A change of venue was required so I could continue without bite marks all over.

My husband, who almost never gets sick, was up pretty much all night Friday night (and kept me up too). He felt awful. When he was going on 12 hours of misery, we got him some medical help. It was a good thing we did, because he had appendicitis. He went from feeling perfectly fine one day to recovering from surgery less than 24 hours later. The workaholic is off work for a week and on other restrictions. We'll see how this goes...

Milestones

My little diva is three years old now. She dressed up on her birthday as we prepped for her party the next day.

We registered her for preschool next year and something about that seems so grown up. She'll be headed off to kindergarten before I know it. And while I look forward to the break from parenting while they are being educated and enriched elsewhere, and she drives me nuts on an almost daily basis, I have a feeling it won't be long before I'm looking back on these days wistfully.

Gator is spending more and more time on his feet. I saw him take a real step for the first time on Violet's birthday. He's repeated the feat several times since then and is practicing standing for longer and longer times. I think he's challenging himself to see how long he can stay balanced.

Today he took three steps! My little boy will be walking before I know it. It seems like he's growing up so fast.

Recent knitting (and Gator the frogger)

This is my primary project at the moment. I was intrigued by a neckwrap pattern in brioche rib and decided to learn it. I was lost after reading a few ways of writing the pattern out, but after watching a video on youtube several times, I got a satisfactory result. I'd love to try this pattern with the right yarn. Which would be something a lot bulkier than what I have, and a color variation that works well with the stitch.

I love having a project that is easy to pick up and put back down after a row or two if needed, or even put down mid-row when needed, without horribly messing up the project.  I've messed up the stitch in several places when loops slipped off my needle, etc. and I haven't figured out how to get them back on correctly. With the exception of one spot where I got really mixed up, the mistakes are small and show it's handmade. If I wanted something flawless and uniform, I could buy something made by a machine. At least that's what I tell myself when it's too late to easily fix a mistake.

My sweet little boy LOVES to play with my yarn. And socks, his sister's leggings, and other things he can hold with both hands and raise above his head, behind his head, and wave all around. One of the wonderful things about using circular needles when you're not knitting i the round is all that extra cable to scrunch your project down on in case a little frogger gets ahold of it. Gator was having so much fun with this colorful yarn that I grabbed my camera instead of stopping him when he grabbed my yarn yet again. After a lot of detangling, my yarn is neatly wrapped into a much less tempting ball, and I have some very cute pictures of my little guy. One happens to show the work in progress, so I can show it to you here.

Gator did get his hands on an embossed heart square I knitted on Valentine's Day and hadn't tied off yet. I don't care how you're supposed to do it...I have to put knots in when I finish a project with the little undoers that live here. It's a good thing I wasn't all that excited by that project when I was done, because he ripped out enough of it that it was a lost cause.

Violet hasn't really frogged a project yet, but she likes to pretend she's a frog. She jumps around and says "RIBBIT! RIBBIT!" and yes, I'm using caps to yell, because she does.

Anyhow, one of the reasons I started this blog post...I just found patterns for alligator scarves and I will have to knit one for my Gator to wear when he is older. He doesn't have much of a neck now, so I have a year or two. Maybe I'll purchase the pattern and work on it over the summer. Or next year. Or sometime when I have time to tackle something complicated. Thanks to Ravelry, I have some ideas for which yarns to use and not use and a few pattern modifications I might want to make.

Gator in a gator scarf. I think it will be so cute! He has just enough gator stuff for it to be fun without getting old.

Gotta love that imagination...

Violet was using the potty, and she likes a little privacy for that. I checked on her and was overwhelmed by the stench. She informed me she'd done a "big dinosaur poop".

Later, as we washed her hands, she sang a song that went something like "I made a dinosaur poop," repeated several times.

She also loves to look at the poop in her BABYBJÖRN Potty Chair - Blue and announce what she thinks it looks like. Today she decided it was a fish.

When she's not stretching my patience to the point of snapping, this kid can be a lot of fun.