I may not have mentioned this (and I'm sure that the blogosphere is full of mothers and fathers who appreciated me keeping quiet so that they could continue to live in a gentle world of powerful denial about it.) but the March break starts today. In their infinite wisdom, the Toronto District School Board has arranged the one week March Break so that it begins today, with a Professional Development day, and ends March the 29th. That is, for anyone who cares about my sanity...11 days with no school, and known to the Toronto District School Board (who I think have proven that they are not on my side with this latest go-round, no matter what they say when I phone them) as "the one week March Break".
I don't really mind my kids being around, they live here, they are occasionally charming and really, picking up abandoned apple cores, screeching "that is completely unnatural", fighting for the phone and computer while listening to The White Stripes at ear-rupturing volumes while preparing meal after meal after meal for the ravening hoard and contemplating carbon dating for the wet towels on the floor of their rooms is actually my life's work and far, far more fulfilling than say...working for a living, knitting or forming complete thoughts without that twitch over my eye. Sign me up.
My big plan so far is to spend a fair bit of time sitting in the living room humming tunelessly and trying not to think about it while making further progress on the garter leaf cardigan.
I'm done one of the fronts and I'm halfway up the back, and I'm still just loving it. Loving. It. The yarn...the pattern. It's all working for me. I'm enthralled. (My pattern, Peace Fleece dk)
My sister and I doing a little kid swapping over the holiday, and we kicked it off last night when she dropped off our favourite 4 year old, Hank. You will all remember from Christmas that with our little buddy Hank, it's all Spiderman, all the time, and share my shock when he walked in the door last night and said:
"I bet you thought Spiderman was coming to your house!"
Now, I know Hank is not dressed as Spiderman. I can see that he does not have his Spiderman mittens on, and moreover, he is not wearing the creepy Spiderman hood that he has had plastered to his head for the last five months. I don't think I've seen Hank wearing anything but a pair of Spiderman jammies for just as long...day and night...so I'm sort of thrilled. I don't have anything against taking a little dude all over Toronto in a pair of jammies and a hood, but variety is good, you know what I mean?
So even though I can see that he is not dressed in Spiderman pyjamas, I play along.
"What? Holy cow! Where's Spiderman? Dude, what's going on?"
With an enormous smile on his face, my supermature Hank-man, too old for Spiderman jammies, getting bigger everyday and nearly-five not four years old unzips his coat and reveals...
Batman jammies.
Hank is seen here with his favourite item at my house. Even though I have a whole house-full of lego and books and games and cousins this is his favourite thing. The ball winder. I'm sympathetic, since I have a deep, deep emotional attachment to my ball winder as well. I give him one ball of wool and he winds it into a centrepull ball, then takes it off the winder, carefully pulls the centre free, inserts it into the ball winder and rapidly rewinds it. This can occupy Hank for hours during which he only speaks to other people in the house if something like this happens.
I feel his pain. (This happened because Hank was winding the ball winder so fast that the generated centrifugal force hurled the newly forming ball across the dining room like a speeding powder blue woolly fruit bat and scared the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of me. Let that be a lesson to you.)
Hank also got the mail for me (when he was cut off of ball winding activity)
That's sweet little spring blossom post-it-notes from Beth, to help me hold on for my own spring, (have I ever spoken to you of my irrational love of post it notes?) and the most charming little measuring tape from Jenny. The measuring tape has these happy and contented women playing with laundry and looking fulfilled on it. Clearly Jenny has shipped me a measuring tape from the 12th dimension. Thanks ladies, for the presents, and for the 15 minutes that they occupied Hank Batman.
Posted by Stephanie at March 18, 2005 1:20 PM