The Kitchen Table

Three, Just Us

A Tuesday birthday seems to stretch out like the miracle mile. A birthday party on Saturday, a class song on Monday, a real birthday on Tuesday, Mama didn't finish the birthday creation in time for any of it. 

 

On her actual birthday, neither of us baked the cake. Mister stopped at Dean & Deluca to pick up a beautiful gold-flecked chocolate thing. She didn't know why we turned out the candles.

She wasn't sure what to do with them. It seems the whole blowing out at the park thing was a ruse. She saw everyone else blowing, so she did.

Moocow birthday girl. 

I eventually finished the birthday apron, which had been shoved in the queue by the birthday bags, Halloween, and poor planning. I used Sew Liberated's Montessori apron, an incredibly easy and super cute pattern. (Argh. I had planned to sew up one of these from her revised and expanded pattern, but couldn't find it, couldn't find the link. In writing up this blog post I searched for sew liberated apron and ... argh.)

You can't give a budding chef just an apron, so she also received her own, Bama-sized whisk and two rubber spatulas. 

We're working on a kitchen. Our apartment just isn't very big, and we're running out of space for things. What goes, what stays? I look at photos of craft corners or craft rooms, play rooms, and sigh. Sew Liberated's Meg showed her son, Finn's, kitchen corner. It's about the size of half our living room. Sigh. But we have Central Park! ;)

I'm Three?

Bama woke up this morning to Mister and me wishing her a happy birthday. Confusing? Maybe, after all, we'd sung happy birthday to her on Saturday in the park. Yesterday, she had a happy birthday fête at school with her classmates singing happy birhtday. How many birthdays does one girl get? 

We asked her how old she was. Two! she answered. Nope, we said, You're three! 

Wait for it, her mind is blown. THREE?

   

She approaches three with clarity: She knows what it is to be kind; she recognizes it in herself and in others. She asks questions: Why is her name Isabel (That's what her parents named her)? Is he brown (she navigated male vs. female and has moved to race)? She comes with silliness and good humor: rhyming songs, making up new versions of the ABCs. 

She's still sweet, that sweet baby I held on my lap.

She's still the girl who looks at the world with open eyes, studying, thinking, absorbing. She takes it all in. When she was a baby, someone said she didn't laugh enough. She's not a pony, I said. 

The pretzel that ate Bama. She wanted to see horses, so we went to Central Park on a bitterly cold day, one of our first after moving. I bought her a giant pretzel, then we went to watch the horses. 

Her Christmas scooter. The helmet still doesn't fit, but she's bigger, more balanced now so she rides it rather than walks it. But she was determined to try it out when we gave it to her.

Getting her funk on at the gay pride parade. 

She is magical.

She will eat New York.

Pulling her weight. Her choice.

First day of school. Her family and friends photo necklace helped her through the day, but so did how much she loves the school and her teachers.

Maker Faire. She loves to draw. She loves her new guitar. She loves to get her groove on. She loved the experiments at Maker Faire.

Baby Tiger. Rawr.

Rainbow. Fearless about having a tattoo on her face, then stand on a set and have a bunch of photos taken. 

Furry blue monster. Really. Her idea.

She has willfulness in spades. But she is reasonable. She loves to help cook. She really loves to taste the flour. And the sugar. And the baking soda.

She is an amazing sister, protecting Rabbit from leaves and sticks and anything he tries to put in his mouth that might choke him. She reads with Rabbit, she sings to him. We hope they will be friends forever. 

My lovely girl, you are still my healthy girl, my smart girl, my funny girl, my read in a quiet corner girl, my run around in the sunshine girl. My loves numbers girls, my curious girl, my kind girl, my silly girl. 

Happy third birthday. Papa and I love you, and we will always love you, no matter what.

Practicing Our Scary

Halloween. Year one, I wanted her to be a lamb, since I called her lamb. My mother made her a lamb costume. Cute, itchy, we tweaked it to fit her baby belly.

Year two, we went to Washington DC to see the Rally for Sanity, visit Uncle and Aunt, and I so wanted her to be a gnome, but I never got past buying the felt.

This year, she says she wants to be a furry blue monster, friendly, not scary. Then she said she wanted to be a bell pepper. Now she's going to be a furry blue monster who is friendly and eats bell peppers. Rabbit is going as a garden gnome who cultivates bell peppers. I get my gnome. 

Then I started thinking about sewing a costume. Fur. Yeah. Mister said to buy one, anything, just save myself the aggravation. Searches. Blue costumes are out all over the place. She saw a yellow one. Hmmm.

Last ditch effort, on our way to the main event of our date (see tomorrow's post) last week, we popped into the local (read: only) consignment store and voila! a blue monster. Aarh lessons courtesy The Backyardigans.

 

More fun in class. Every day she comes home singing something new. Today, it's related to turkeys, but it's a secret she can't tell me about *twinkle, twinkle*. Yesterday, however, she sang "Ghosts and Goblins" all the way home and then for anyone who'd listen, which was often Rabbit.

This was, by the way, the third attempt at this video. Crack ups, Rabbit distractions, this is what we got.

 

Art: glue, paint, feathers, cork, fingers

 We do a lot of art projects around the house, and some plain old cutting and gluing with no set goal. Bama's less keen on drawing, but she likes painting. She loves layering. Glue, stick, glue some more, stick, stick, stick.

Between home, school, Moomah, and now the Children's Museum of the Arts drop-ins, we've got a lot of work stacked up. I have some up on walls, I rotate pieces, and I thought I might take photos of some to keep, and let a few go to the recycling place.

 Snowman: January, 2011

Spring Flower: April, 2011

Lady: spring, 2011

Barn, with doors and windows: Summer, 2011

Pile: 2011

World: Spring, 2011

Bird: Spring, 2011

Rainbow Warrior

It started with rainbows and chef's knives. Mister ordered some tattoos from Brooklyn-based Tattly. Mister follows Made by Hand, a Brooklyn-based documentary film maker, who is doing some work with fellow Brooklynite, Tina Roth Eisenberg, who started Tattly because her daughter loves tattoos.  

This combination was on one arm while the lone, tough cheese grater was on the other. Ooh, scary.

Last week, Tattly put out a call for models for a film shoot. Fun! We thought. It turned out to be a film shoot by Brooklyn-based Made by Hand which is making short films about folks making goods by hand and selling them. You can view the first video, The Distiller, about the Breukelen Distilling Company on the site. It's incredibly beautiful. The film color is rich, great visuals of the distillery. When I emailed pictures of Juniper, I didn't think much about what was going on, just that we like the tattoos.

I'm not sure how many kids were in the studio space. Eisenberg shares the East Rver view with other designer notables (and local favs) Jessi Arrington, an incredible rainbow color loving person who is as bright in person as you'd hope. (Arrington designed the rainbows we loved.)

They asked if Juniper would mind a David Bowie-esque rainbow striping across her face. Yesterday, baby tiger, today, rainbow. This is the girl who couldn't find enough rainbows at the gay pride parade. She's game, boy howdy! 

A little rainbow-fication by Yoko, one of Eisenberg's assistants. The boy behind us was looking a little James Dean and wearing the "Laura" tattoo, a list of scratched out girls' names with Laura at the end.

And then the shoot.

Per Mister: eat the camera or the lollipop or both? She did a lot of staring into the camera as if she expected it to ask questions and offer commentary.

With the director.

Rainbow Warrior! (Photo: Jessi Arrington)

We met some of the nicest folks since moving to New York, got to see a great design shared workspace, our girl was tattooed!, and our boy gummed his toy into oblivion.

We left with a happy girl, a sleepy boy, packets of tattoos, and passes for Jane's Carousel, a recently restored carousel at the Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

Reflecting

Sometimes we need to take a moment from the twirling and sliding and hopping and running to sit and look into the canopy at the leaves. Flutters, colors, shadows. 

Rest.

Nova.

It's done, in time for fall if it ever arrives. Orange tights? Gray tights? She needs new wellies, to boot. ;)

Maybe not the most amazing photo ever, but she stood still long enough for me to take this photo. The others, she was a blur, sweaty despite the air conditioning in the humid fall.

I'm happy with the fit. I knit the four-year-old size of Nova and my row gauge was on, necessary for the body and sleeve stripes to line up, but my stitch count was tight so it might wear a little snugger down the line. We'll have to see how she grows. 

Regarding the pattern. ....

I have comments on Ravelry, some of which are duplicated below regarding the pattern. Overall, it was easy and relatively quick. I think I'd recommend it to other people. Do follow the row counts as that's what matters for the stripes to correspond.

I carried the yarns up the side to reduce the number of strands for weaving in. Still, I had about 20 or so at the top to manage from the flap and various pick-ups around the neckline. 

It might be the way I read dirctions, but I found some of the pattern details unclear and posted in the Petite Purls forum and emailed the designer. I did not not follow the instructions for the front flap and neckline, in part because size 4 has a four extra rows (and I don't know exactly why that is), and because it uses the "pick up from the right" kind of language that I never understand in knitting patterns, even if I read aloud. My pick-ups seem to be going the wrong way, so in this case, I picked up with double pointeds as you'll see below.

• Frustrating directions when it came to the "front flap" and pick up for the finish. 
• There are no stitch counts, so keep track of your decreases, adding them up before you begin.
• What I did, after several false starts, pickign up stitches along the right and left sides, across the middle, decreasing ... I decide to go my own way. I used double pointed needles to pick up the 20 stitches (for the size four) on the left (facing right) side of the pattern, skipped the first marker, knit one, PM, then knit across the top, didn't K2TOG, knit on, PM, k1. Third DPN, picked up the last 20 sts, which meant I picked up 21 because the attempts to pick up the initial stitches bolloxed the right (facing left) side of the "flap."
• Flap done. Onto the back and shoulders. Not sure how many stitches I should have (yes, i could go back and count through the pattern, but I won't), but I'm going for it. Directions say "purl row," but don't forget to pick up the yarn. I'm hoping I'm supposed to have only two markers on the back. Fingers crossed. 
• FYI, all of this, I find a little tight on the circulars, so if you have two sets, you might use them.

 

Gamers

A few months ago, Mister asked Bama if she wanted to play a game. We don't have many  kids "games," no Hi-Ho Cherry-o or Candyland (I'm not saying this is a good thing). We have lots of puzzles, blocks, stringing cards.

But Games? 

Bama gamely said, "Sure."

Here they are, playing Go, which Mister plays regularly and even has a "class" with a Go master. Cool. They play by taking turns. Sometimes Bama wants to use the other color,which is cool. She'll even give you one of hers to make an even trade.

 

Other games include Too-Dah, the card throwing game; cards in various tossing formats; backgammon of sorts, Carcassone, Ticket to Ride. 

(She has Bigger Baby in her baby sling. Bigger Baby is either napping or nursing in this photo.)

Not Enough Water in the World

We headed to Battery Park City to beat the recent 100+ weather. It was genius, because Nelson A. Rockefeller Park has big lawns, lots of trees for shade, and a great park with water, water, water. I wanted the grass for Rabbit. Poor guy, there aren't always good opportunities for him to get on the ground and roll around, scoot, or hop in the city parks. He needs grass. I do put him down, but he really likes to to put his face in the sand or lick the rubber mats. His immune system is hearty, people, hearty.

After lackluster interest in the weekly BPC art project, we headed for the grass and trees with Bird and Aunty N. (At some point, you all become and aunty or uncle in our world.) On the menu: ball tossing, rolling around, grass tasting. 

Then, water. Sand? Who cares. Swings? Whatever. We need sprinklers in our everyday lives. Big, little, fountain, whatever. As long as water is flowing, we're good.

 

Rabbit thinks he can take Bird's bucket. Not just yet!

 

Rabbit got to enjoy this part of the park. Face-plants in sand are fun, but face-plants in water = awesome! He's fearless, this boy is. 

Have Wheels, Will Travel

I wish I had a photo of Bama on her scooter. We gave her a Mini Kick for her second birthday. She spent time pushing it back and forth around our apartment through the winter months. Spring came and we took the scooter outside, where she made progress pushing farther, gaining momentum. Now, she zips along with me to the park, to the library, wherever I will take her.

In May, I picked up a used Skuut (it never left the apartment building). With Bama, there's a learning curve for all activities, especially physical. Lots of kids her age scoot on their scooters no problem. She's generally cautious when she explores new things, like ladders and tall slides. And scooters and Skuuts.

So, while she's floating along on her Mini Kick, we're at square one with the Skuut. It's awesome. She rides it by climbing aboard and walking along. It's hilarious. Awesome. She loves it. "I'm riding my bike!" she exclaims!

She likes going over the subway vents, a lot. All the time. The advantage of the Skuut over the scooter is the wheels don't get caught in the vent holes.

 

I'm sorry this video is sideways. Anyone know how to flip it? Nana says it's like watching her ride uphill. ;)