Carabiner Lovies and Other Stories

I blinked and November passed. It's actually a little scary how that happened.

Chubble is attached to a carabiner; and by this I do not mean that my convenient new babyproofing method is to utilize one of the aforementioned objects to secure her out of harm's way, I mean that she has developed an emotional attachment to a blue carabiner. The other day she whacked her head on the counter trying to dive to it. I refuse to sleep with a carabiner or to have one snuggled against my breast while she nurses, so we'll see how long this lasts.

In the beginning of November, some of our extended family visited. We had a fantastic time despite the fact that I have four children and they ("they" being my children and not the more distant relations in this exchange) are difficult to do anything with. I haven't forgotten to send them the information they requested (not sure if they read this blog), I've just apparently lost all of November somewhere.

The blog has been more than a little neglected, mostly because I think things like "oh, I'll just wait until I can pay attention to it for a few minutes," and that never happens. So now I'm typing while I'm making Green Goo - that gloriously green herbal salve that will hopefully solve all of Chubble's skin issues - and kind of thinking "this sucks, but at least I'm posting." I've also been taking other endeavors in bite-sized chunks, which has resulted in the completion of a small handful of knitting projects (me! knitting!) and a couple of smallish sewing projects; primary in my mind right now is the one in which I altered a pair of Chubble's pants to be shorter and wider, a project that came out well but took significantly longer than it would have taken to just make her some new pants "from scratch."

Our power went out in a tiny storm earlier this month. It gave me a good excuse to start a fire and pretend like I was roughing it even though the baby and I got to have a fire, managed to make coffee, were plenty warm, and finished a knitting project.

Here's Chubble "helping" me knit:



And our "roughing it" setup. Note the coffee press.



My very-second completed knitting project: a hat for Chubble:



Our hot water heater is half broken. One of the heating elements isn't working. Our landlord is trying to figure out how to call in warranty service.

We had a nice snow, and then a wind storm where we didn't lose power, but did lose a tree into the neighbor's fence. Francesco and the big kids spent Thanksgiving morning helping clean up the tree and fix the fence. We then departed to MIL's, where we had a great time despite too many people and despite the fact that MIL asked me not to bring anything but then bought pies from the store (which I find mildly offensive given that I, in my own not-terribly-humble opinion, make one mean pie). Still, getting stuffed silly and having the kids behave is, indeed, my idea of fun.

Hmmmm.

Also on the topic of things-we-did-this-month: we went to the Pacific Science Center twice; once with our own family and a friend, and once with Aunty Betsy when she came to visit (the child-asshatness that the kids - particularly Boyness - indulged in when she was here would be worth a post of its own, if I ever posted). It was more than a little fun the first time we went, and then way too crowded the second.

Cubble enjoyed the baby play zone surprisingly much.




She flaps her arms when she's excited, like she's going to fly off or something:




BittyPrincess managed to learn something, go Science Center!



The big kids' favorite the first time (the second time there were too many people for it to be really fun) was the spelling game:



Oh look, small spaces are fun:




We left right at rush hour and tried to stall for a bit at the fountain. And yes, the kids ran around trying (not) to get wet.



I think that brings us approximately to date in a weird muddled kind of way. And if anyone has read this instead of just glancing at pictures and being done with it, I will be mightily surprised.