Elevenaies: The Months Go By

Week 43:

  She loves climbing.  She will climb up us if we hold her or climb onto the LovSac in the reading room.  She used to roll off more often, but recently I've seen her back away from the edge a few times now.

  One tooth on the top and two teeth on the bottom have officially broken through.  The other on the top is close to breaking through, but not quite yet.

  She has started playing a game before bed that involves gravity.  She will grab something from her crib, like her crochet octopus, and drop it on the ground over the edge.  She then yells until someone gives it back.  Then she drops it again, just to repeat the process.

  I love hearing her blow raspberries.  She didn't do it as often for a bit, but she's back again.  Tank was leading her around the dining room and reading room and she was blowing raspberries while chasing him around.

  There are times she gets herself "stuck" places.  If she's actually stuck I will get her out, otherwise I will help coach her through it.  At one point she was stuck between Tank's chair and two storage boxes.  I told her to stand up and scoot, which she did, while screaming the whole time.  She did manage to get herself out.

Week 44:

  She is getting even better at noticing edges that she could crawl off of.  If she's distracted then she is slower to notice, but she isn't just blindly crawling off edges as often.

  She sees Bill laying on the floor when we are trying to get her to sleep.  She has started laying on the floor and kicking her legs to thump on the floor.

  After she told us she was done having dinner on Tuesday she decided that she actually wasn't done eating.  She ate half of the broccoli she left behind and two dino-nuggets on the go.  It apparently tastes better when you ask for it when standing next to the table.  She then decided to try and take a chunk out of the chair cushion I was sitting on.  She got all the pleather coating off the corner and could have probably taken an actual bite out of it.  I kept trying to put my hand in the way, but then she would try and bite my hand.

  I'm still not used to her having so many teeth and being able to rip off pieces of food with them.  Bill gave her whole dino nuggets and she was able to take off pieces that were easy for her to eat.  I've now given her whole mini meatballs and she easily ate them.

  When I was giving her a bath I had the showerhead tilted to the side to wash her neck.  She then started to lean forward and tilt her head so that the water ran into her mouth.  It was really funny for both of us.

  She thinks it's hilarious if we scrunch our nose and audibly breath in and out.  She will even come over to us and do it so that we will do it back to her.

Week 45:

  I got us some Strawberry Cheerios to try on our trip to the cabin.  I thought they were pretty good and Miss Spud liked them enough that she didn't dump them all on the floor immediately.

  She was crawling around under the table and was trying to figure out how to get past the supports.  She tried lifting her leg but couldn't get it over.  She then just put her arms out and did a controlled fall over it.  She ended up rolling a bit, but she didn't hit her head.  In a later attempt she was able to get a leg over, but ultimately went under it again.

  While Bill was working on the dishes she crawled onto the door of the dishwasher.  She's tall enough to reach into the top third rack a little.

  Like the last time she worked on a skill at the cabin she got a lot better at standing up and sitting back down.  Sometimes holding things in both hands, sometimes not.

  The vibes in the bedroom Bill and I usually use were way off on Saturday night.  We easily got her to sleep more times than I could count, but every time we went to put her down she woke up wailing.  I thought it was the door squeaking, but a few times we didn't even get to go back to the door.  Bill questioned if we should move her bed back out into the living room and that finally did the trick.  I got her some white noise with a black background playing on YouTube.

  Since she didn't go to sleep until 1:40am, she decided to get up again at 6:30am.  Bill brought her in and she got a nursing nap while I snoozed for about an hour.  She then quietly laid there for another 20 minutes before she started trying to climb around.  She was then okay in her crib for a little bit, but not long.  I tried to go back to sleep, but she managed to hit the Page button on the baby monitor.

  All weekend she saw all of us pulling snacks out of bags.  I rolled down the bag of popcorn puffs so she could reach in and she loved being able to grab her own snacks.

  She will sometimes do a glute bridge while I'm changing her diaper.  Sometimes she will also put her hands under her lower back while doing it.  If her hands end up under her she gets grumpy because she can't move them when she's back to laying down.

  She managed to slip while cashing Tank down the hallway.  Normally when she does she grumps because of the slip and keeps going.  This time she was crying super hard.  She managed to hit her cheek on the corner of Tank's scratching post and had a mark on her face for five days.

  We joke that she is a Professional Upstairs Neighbor because her stomp crawling still lives on.  You wouldn't think someone so small using all four limbs could be this loud, but here we are.

  The only way she is letting me clean her hands after her meals is if I blow on them.  So I will wipe her hand and then wave her hand back and forth as I blow on them.  She laughs so hard about it.

  She loves doing her bouncy bop dance.  She will bounce up and down while moving her head back and forth.  She is also a big fan of when we sway back at her.

  She enjoys drinking water from her sippy cup.  She has gotten quite good at tilting it back and drinking without choking herself.  I'm pretty sure she's better at remembering to hydrate than I am.

  Standing up is coming so easily to her now.  She will sometimes even kneel down some to reach something on the floor and stand back up with it.

Week 46:

  When we were at dinner she got to play with Ursula's watch.  She figured out how to set a few events in the future.  One of them just said "free" a bunch of times, which was when she also wanted to get down.  She has managed to change the face of my smartwatch and put it into airplane mode before.  I didn't know you could do either of those things from the watch at all.

  While she was at knitting on Saturday she got to play with a pop fidget toy.  I showed her once that the bumps can be pushed in and she figured out how to do it.  My mom brought her a spinning one on Sunday and she remembered that the bubbles push inward.

  If I'm sitting at the dining room table, she will come over and rest her chin on my leg.  She will then let her arms dangle in front of her.  I will then give her back scratches.

  I asked my dentist about her teeth.  She said we didn't need to bring her in until she is 1.5 at the earliest and that 2-2.5 years is the usual time frame to start bringing them in.  The internet says otherwise, but she told us to just keep brushing her teeth and gums while keeping an eye on them.

  I've blocked off the one side of her 4-square shelf because it has a lot of pumping stuff and other things she doesn't need to get into, like a power strip.  However, she has figured out that she can easily get into everything if you crawls around the back of her nursing chair.

  She has discovered the flap on the trashcan in her room.  It used to just pinch her when she tried to reach in, but she's learned to hold it back with one hand while reaching in with the other.  I have to keep an eye on what's in there because she's started dropping things into it.

  Tuesday night she was being grumpy and sad.  I figured she didn't have most of her bottle because she had a banana and a pack of peanut butter puffs for dinner followed by a while garlic knot and some pepperoni roll.  She was acting grumpy, so I was letting her nurse to help her fall asleep.  She bit me, so I pulled back and inhaled sharply.  She looked heartbroken and started crying.  I told her that it was okay and I know she didn't mean to hurt me, but it hurt me.  We tried again, but she bit me two more times and just looked so sad and heartbroken.  You would have thought I told her that Tank hates her or something.  Bill read some more of The Hobbit to her while she reached over the edge of her crib to scritch-scratch the pages of the book.  After some of that she was able to nurse to sleep without trying to take a chunk out of me.

  Her new passion in life is to turn off computers while people are using them.  She finds the lit-up button and messes with it until she can push it down long enough that it goes off.  She has a side hobby of turning off power strips.  When she manages to turn off the one that turns off the lights in the reading room she gets so mad.

  Since she's been big enough to try and throw herself off of her nursing chair I've been trying to show her how to safely slide off.  She gets grumpy because if means she's has to face the "wrong way" but it is finally sinking in.  To get off the LoveSac she stuck out a leg and then slid onto her butt.  Since that worked out for her on the lower side she tried it, and succeeded on a taller side.

  Bill has started making honking sounds whenever she touches his nose.  Now she wants to touch more noses to see what sounds they make.  Tank does not like this idea, but she keeps trying.

  We went to dinner with one of Bill's out of town co-workers.  She has two little ones waiting for her at home and she told us stories about things they did as babies.  She then made everyone else jealous in the work group chat because she showed off how she got to meet Miss Spud and they didn't.  Miss Spud even smiled and looked at the camera for a nice picture.

Week 47: First Part

  We all went to the gunshow together and used her wagon.  So many people commented on how perfect it was and how cute she is.  I didn't see the chocolate guy from NazBro Chocolates, but it's harder to catch them on Sunday.  We sometimes make a stop at Dark Run Jerky, because they have some good flavors.  We also made a stop at Peter Peppers PA Pickles, I was hoping they would have their sour kraut, but they didn't.  They gave a slice of their regular pickles to Miss Spud, but she didn't know what to make of it.  She touched it and even squeezed it at one point.  Bill helped by showing her it was a food.  She looked a bit concerned while eating it, but ate the whole slice.

  I was putting away the clean dishes when I noticed that Miss Spud was being too quiet.  When I went to check on her I saw her crawl/fall headfirst into the Papasan chair.  She was so happy to get in there because Tank has been using it to nap on.  It had been a safe spot because she could see that he was there but not reach him.

  I've been trying to show her the safe way to slide off of chairs and my lap.  While Bill was reading to her she demonstrated her technique.  She moved both feet off and wiggled until she was standing on the floor.

  Since she is getting so good at reaching into bags for snacks, I thought it might be time to get her a snack container with a lid.  I showed her a blue/green combo and a pink/purple combo.  I asked which one she wanted.  She looked at both and then poked at the pink/purple combo.  They do match her one set of cups with a straw.

  She was "helping" Bill put away the food at the cabin and grabbed the baby carrots out of the drawer.  She then proceeded to dump a bunch out and started chewing on two of them.  She gummed them for a while before she figured out she could nibble pieces off with her teeth.  We kept a good eye on her to make sure she didn't choke.  She did manage to widdle them down and eat them.

It's 5:30am, Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

  Our fireplace birds have been extra energetic lately.  We keep meaning to cap it during the winter when they have moved out, but we keep forgetting.  A series of events lead me to find a young bird in my basement.

  Around 5:30am Tank really wanted to play.  I tried to get him to just settle down, but he wasn't having it.  I played with him with his ribbon for a bit and made a mental note to bring one of his dead laser toys with us to see if the batteries from the broken one at the cabin will fit.

  He then meowed sadly from the kitchen and I went down to see if he needed a Potty Buddy.  Since I was down there, I figured I could pop into the basement and get the toys before I forgot.  When I got to the bottom of the stairs I saw a weird dark shape, I didn't have my glasses on.  I looked closer and saw it was a bird.  I was hoping it was alive because it wasn't on its back or side, but it did have its head tilted back and wings out some whole being pressed into the wall.

  I ran back upstairs to get my glasses and other things I would need.  I found my collapsible pet carrier on the other side of the garage where it was difficult to get to.  I was able to get it and also grabbed a towel.  When I finished assembling the carrier I heard some fluttering sounds from the basement stairs.  I didn't want it to get into the main part of the house, so I carefully opened the door.  I didn't see it at first, but as I was going down I saw it on the stairs with its head looking upwards and it's wings spread a little, like it has been on the floor.

  I put the carrier on the floor and slowly went back up with the towel.  I placed the towel over it and was able to scoop it up with one hand.  I placed it in the carrier and offered it some water and peanut butter puffs.  It started trying to fly around when I put down the puffs, so I quickly closed the door again.

  I left it with the door open on the front porch.  I don't know how good it is at flying, but the only way to get it back into the nest is through our chimney.  We are going to have to check our basement for any little friends more often.  I did an image search and it's apparently called a Chimney Swift.

  This is also not what I meant to happen when I said the blog might not be "interesting enough" by any means.

  When I checked on the carrier again after I woke up again I saw it was empty and the other Chimney Swifts had calmed down again.  I hope that means that everyone was reunited.

How Many Hours in a Day Do I Think There Are?

Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver in Neon Stripes - Hook: 6mm

  I asked Janelle how many kids there are in Wise and Hazard.

  In Wise there are usually about 300 on the Angel Tree (that is the approximate # of foster children in Wise County).

  In Hazard, the Viper Elementary School that we deliver to has approximately 250 students (they all live below the poverty level).

 

  There are a lot more than I had assumed.  One Christmas I was able to send about 300 worms with her.  I was thinking it would be fun to make enough octopi for most of the kids.  I also added T.A.P.S. back into the mix.  That's a lot of small things to make.

  It would take me about 367 hours to finish all the octopi for Christmas in Wise and Hazard.  I think I could do it, if I was able to buckle down and focus on it.  However, I seem to forget that I have one cat and one baby who all love to get attention and help me play with my yarn.  They make it a lot harder to get them done.  Since I did finally realize this, I enlisted Mickey to help me out.  I sent him the pattern and the modifications I've made to it to account for the pony bead eyes and how I do the tentacles.

  Something interesting happened with this skein.  I ran into a factory knot, which is annoying but not the worst.  While working on the octopus after the knot I noticed that the color order was reversed.  So where I was working in the ROYGBIV direction, now I will have VIBGYOR.  If it bothers me too much, I could start pulling from the inside of the skein.

  If you wonder how I manage to get the eye placement so perfectly on the octopi, it's half luck and half working it again.  For the Neon Stripes and Bitty Stripes yarn I find that if I put the eyes two or three stitches away from the end of the row then I have a good chance of it working out.  If it doesn't, I mark where I want the center of the eyes with a stitch marker and pull it out.  I know that means that I could make two in that same time, but I want them to look their best.

  I'm worried that all this amigurumi repetition will also make the blog a bit slower paced.  I won't have the ease of being able to talk about a new pattern if I'm just making 550 octopi and some unknown number of Worry Worms.  If I combined the Miss Spud update posts it would guarantee more interesting posts, but I don't like that idea for a few reasons.  It would mean that posts would only happen about once a month and I feel like it would make the posts too distracted.  It would take away from Miss Spud and also take away from looking at the fun octopi.  If we are going out and doing something, then I don't have as much time to crochet or to play with the babies.  Also, if I do this every year, this blog would pretty much just because a log of all the octopi I've made.

  I guess the long story short is to expect a lot of the same on here for a bit, not forever, but a bit.  I know I also don't need to make one for every child every year, they could possibly make it so that some that didn't get one the previous year get one the next.  There is also a chance that not every child will want one.  I'm not going to stress myself too much and just make as many as I can.

Yearly Yarn Tracker:

Yarn In: 13 (6)
Yarn Out: 17 (2)

Total: -4

Bag Charm Craze

  If you haven't seen yet, this is a Labubu.  Labubu is a character created by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung, first appearing in his 2015 storybook series, "The Monsters", inspired by Nordic folklore.  The character gained significant popularity after a 2019 collaboration with Pop Mart, leading to the release of collectible blind box toys.

  Labubu is known for its pointy ears, mischievous grin, and sharp teeth, and is part of a tribe of monsters that includes other characters like Zimomo and Tycoco.

  However, when people saw that LaLisa from the K-pop group BlackPink collects them they exploded in popularity.  People are camping out to get them.  Scalpers/resellers are buying out entire restocks.  Cars are getting broken into if they are visible and people are cutting them off bags if people use them as the bag charms they are intended to be.

  I am not stranger to bag charms.  I've had Catula (cat Dracula) on my bag since 2022.  I think stuffed bag charms can be really fun.

  Labubus are also blind boxes.  Which can give you that rush of gambling, since you don't know which one you will get, but can also lead to needing to buy many.  If you don't care which one in a series you get, then it's easy to stop at a few, but if you only want the pink one, then there is a 1 in 6 chance you will get it.  If you want the Secret special one, it's a 1 in 72 chance.  A lot of people want to collect all of them.

  Since they are so popular right now, like with the Stanley cup, other companies are trying to make their own.  Some are just making something similar and giving it a cute name, like the LaBabies from 5Below.  The ones who are trying to make identical copies are getting the nickname Lafufu.  I think that's a pretty cute name for them.

  Since I don't feel like camping out for the chance to possibly get one and hope it's the one I want, I decided to make my own bag charms.  I used Red Heart Bitty Stripes in Crayon Box so each would be different looking.  I'm testing out how to make them bag charms that will last for a long time.  One has a wire loop and the other has a eye screw connected to a round pony bead.

  Don't get me wrong, I also think the Labubus are pretty cute.  I just plan on waiting until the masses have moved on to something else so I can get them from a thrift store for a lot less than people are selling them online for currently.  People are currently able to sell an unopened box for up to $60 while they go for $30 from the store.  If it's a Secret color then a lot are listed for over $100.

Fun on the Fourth

  They estimated that Bill's truck would be done on 7/11.  Just in time for Free Slurpee Day.  However, he got a text on 7/3 saying it would be done later that day.  We had mostly figured out how we were going to use my car and his motorcycle to get to the cabin, but this made everything easier.

  Getting into the Buc-ee's parking lot was pretty easy, there were even some free gas pumps.  The line to leave was so long and made it hard to find a spot to just park in.

  Steven ran into someone he knew when we made it into Buc-ee's.  Miss Spud had finally fallen asleep soon before we got into the parking lot.  So we took turns going in while we let her nap.  She will have to wait to get her first visit.  Though to be fair to her, she fell asleep closer to her actual nap time.

  I heard so many people say "This is ridiculous" about how many people were in the one building.  It was the first weekend after they opened and 4th of July weekend, so it wasn't surprising.

  We tried the brisket burrito and the Carolina pulled pork sandwich.  Bill thought the burrito was too salty, and we both agreed that the sandwich had too much sauce on it.  I also picked up some snacks to try later.

  When we were trying to get her to sleep the first night at the cabin she was being oddly chill and relaxed.  She was just laying back and watching the movie we had on.  We checked to make sure she wasn't overheating, but she felt okay.  It took 3 different tries before she was totally out.  The first time she fell asleep after climbing all over me, then she fell asleep after Bill gave her a bottle, then she was finally out when she got some nursing and rocking time in.  We forgot the Boppy, so I improvised with a rolled up blanket.

  We got a fire going and just hung out Saturday evening by it.  Miss Spud was entertained for a while and then wanted a snuggle followed by climbing Mum-Mum.

  We made a stop at Buc-ee's on the way home.  We had just had lunch before packing up, so we didn't get any sandwiches.  I got some pickled quail eggs to try at home.  Miss Spud loved seeing all the people, Bill was less of a fan.  I'm looking forward to trying more of their sandwiches and burritos in the future.

Yearly Yarn Tracker:

Yarn In: 7 (0)
Yarn Out: 15 (0)

Total: -8

So Many Things

Pattern: combination, see below - Yarn: Caron Big Cakes in Cherry Compote - Hook: 6mm

  During everything else we had had going on we checked on a leak over the breakfast nook.  We got a plumber out to fix it.  When I first saw the text I got excited because it said "Jonathan" but it turns out Cardinal Plumbing had more than one.

  We were told that our county has hard water and that we should get a whole house filtration system.  They found another leaking pipe in the basement.

  It's getting warm out again, so I've been looking at bucket hat patterns once again.  I have been meaning to make the Crochet Quick and Easy Bucket Hat Tutorial by Bag-O-Day Crochet.  I liked the body of the hat, but thought the brim was only okay.  I then saw the tutorial for the Appa Bucket Hat from Avatar by DayannasCreations.  Between the two patterns I worked a row of half-double crochet working the other way from all the other rows so I could work into the front two loops and get the brim to sit more outwardly.

  We got home from Route 7 Brewing a few weeks ago to find we had no power.  Twice the power came back on, went off, then we heard a Thunk Thud.  When we were trying to put Miss Spud to bed a large truck that I assumed was from Dominion showed up to try and get us back online.

  Since Bill's truck is in the shop, I had to make sure to get my oil changed and my car inspected before we could take it to the cabin.  The last place I took it to didn't impress me, so I'm trying a new place.

  While waiting I overheard some funny things:

• One guy was talking about getting new chairs, the other guy was talking about getting barely used chairs, and the first complained that he'd be the one to get a stained chair if they got the used chairs

• The third guy at the counter needed a certain car part the same day.  He used DoorDash to get the part delivered to him

  While I was there some pre-teen girls were waiting near me while their mom checked in to get their car.  When they were leaving, the one with striped socks said she liked my worms.  I asked if her and her sister wanted one and let them pick out what color they wanted.  A minute or two later they she came back in with a crochet plant and gave it to me.

Yearly Yarn Tracker:

Yarn In: 7 (1)
Yarn Out: 15 (5)

Total: -8