"That's enough for one day," I said.
"Why?" Ryan whinged.
"Look at your son!" I said with a gesture towards our progeny. "It's only been half an hour but he already has the zonked out expression of a child who is watching too much TV!"
Ryan's response to that was a smirk of all-knowing condescension, as he doubtless remembered how much TV he watched as a child, which in no way affected his activity levels or variety of interests.
"Silas," I prodded, "Do you want to go color?"
"No."
"Do you want to go outside?" I upped the ante.
"No." He paused, clearly considering what it was he did want. "Pikachu!"
I glared daggers at Ryan, who laughed but with an embarrassed expression that suggested he realized the implications of what had just happened.
I am happy to report that a minute or two later it dawned on Silas that he had been given implicit permission to go outside and we had to chase him down to put shoes and a clean diaper on him before he escaped (he's becoming terrifyingly good at opening the front door without assistance), but the incident remains peculiar.
On the knitting side of life, I'm working on a pair of socks for a travelling sock swap, and therefore there can be no pictures without spoiling the surprise for the recipient, but I will say this - a smooth join from cable to needle is really critical to success with Magic Loop, otherwise it's a hair-rending experience that makes me dread working on the project. Addi Turbos = excellent in this regard. Knitter's Pride Dreamz = surprisingly and disappointingly less so. I love my Knitter's Pride needles, but the size 1 I bought for this project is snagging just enough to set my teeth on edge and drive me to other pursuits that I can't talk about because they're for a swap too . . .
There was a bit of crochet, though!
I apologize for the terrible, low-light picture; it was taken at the last minute with my phone around midnight, because it was a very last minute project finished around midnight, because for some reason it didn't occur to me until two days before she retired that my lovely coworker Julie would really, really appreciate having something handmade by me. I sacrificed a skein and a quarter of my precious Lion Brand Amazing yarn (colorway "Pink Sands"), mainly because except for the odd pale olive drab portions, the colors were entirely her, and slightly because I knew the long color repeats would be an easy way to get the most bang for the time I had to spend on it. The pattern was a fairly easy pick, too - crochet = fast, crochet flowers = pretty and entirely to the taste of the woman I was crocheting for, pattern that looks complicated while in fact being mindlessly simple (without being mindlessly boring) = best bang for time available, and this pattern in particular = extremely well suited to yarns with long color repeats. She absolutely adored it, and we both enjoyed showing it off to everyone we thought would have the inclination to ooh and awww over the pretty handmade. I do wish the thought had occurred to me, say, months ago when she announced she would be retiring in October, so that I could have invested more time and money and perhaps knitted her a shawl, but this scarf was made with all my love and good wishes, and that's what I really wanted to give her. She may not ever know how loathe I was to part with the yarn, but she knows I was thinking of her when I chose it for this project, because I know she loves pink and yellow and blue and color in general, and I hope when she wears it she remembers the many conversations we had about clothes and color (and Silas and babies and recipes and so many other things), and that she feels fabulous because the woman loves to put together a great outfit!
