This is me paying bills. I think I have ADHD.

Sit down at computer. Survey the situation. Realize the pile of bills is sitting across the kitchen on the counter. Get up, get bill pile.

Sit down at computer. Launch Money program. Tap fingers waiting for program to load. Glance out window and realize Sunday paper is here! Coax dog to fetch paper.

Sit down at computer. Good, program is ready and bills are within reach. Better reconcile receipts to see how much money is available to pay bills! Receipts are in purse. Reach for purse. Oh, forgot to bring in purse from car after grocery store trip this morning.

Walk out to car in garage. Let dog out to pee. Take out trash. Pick up bike helmets and skates. Glance at pile of Freecycle stuff. Realize forgot to reply to Freecyclers offering to come take stuff away!

Sit down at computer. Reply to emails. Hey, there’s pudding in the fridge – and Cool Whip! Get. Eat. Answer more emails. Get up and return to car to actually bring purse inside this time.

Sit down at computer. Get up and let dog back in. Get more pudding out of fridge. Notice leftover chicken still on bones. Decide to make chicken stock so as to feed family economically and retain more money with which to pay bills (related thought! see?!).

Spend rest of afternoon chopping vegetables, boiling chicken bones, and measuring stock into two-cup portions stored in zip-lock freezer bags.

“Are you making soup?” asks Gary, who thought I was paying bills.

“No, I’m paying bills!”

Did I ever let the dog inside…?

Children may not realize it, but any Valentine's Day candy not consumed within one week is fair game to parents. It's a cruel twist of fate. I only let them have two pieces per day after dinner, and at that rate, that's only 14 pieces of Valentine's Day candy. The average child in our household scores at least 121,000 pieces from grandparents, school parties, and (ironically) their parents.

And while we're on the subject, a pox upon whomever decided to disguise those nasty, fruit-flavored "creams" inside chocolate coatings in such a way as to resemble caramels.

I'm avoiding something right now. I'm avoiding the costume committee at Matilda's school. In a moment of weakness, I admitted to them that I can passably sew. Now I've been given a list of parents to call and interrogate about how they're planning to outfit their child for the fourth-grade musical.

"Hello, Mrs. Smith? I have here that your boy is slated to play a pioneer. How are you on period clothing? Do you need to check his drawer to see if his cowhide pants are clean? Oh sure, I'll hold on."

I hate, hate, hate making phone calls. So I'm wondering if I can just sew each child a brand-new costume rather than put myself through calling their parents. That's how much I hate the phone. If you don't hear from me for a few days, it's because I'm barricaded in my sewing room avoiding anything that threatens to ring.

I think one of the coolest things about having kids is seeing them develop into separate people and watching as they discover each new thing about themselves.

For example, Matilda comes alive on a stage.

This totally surprised me. Matilda is reserved, sensitive, bookish, and observant. She answers most questions with one-word answers.

I figured we'd ride out the musical theater class as a fun, after-school diversion and then move on to the next short-lived interest. There's nothing wrong with that. Nine is the perfect age to throw a bunch of stuff against the wall to see what sticks.

I mean, whenever she practiced the songs at home or talked about rehearsal, she just seemed so nonchalant about it.

I actually sat in the audience on Saturday, before the first performance of The Pirates of Penzance, hoping that she'd at least be able to keep up with the other kids or blend in and seem as if she knew what she was doing.

I was not expecting her to come skipping out onto the stage, arm-in-arm with one of the other Major General's Daughters, smiling from ear to ear and confidently projecting complicated lyrics. From her diaphragm! I didn't actually realize she had one until that moment.

Her face beamed expression. Her choreography was graceful, poised, and precise. She expertly downplayed a potentially disastrous wardrobe malfunction in which another girl's fan became entangled in the lace of Matilda's hat. I saw other performers flub their singing a few times. Not Matilda. She knew every word.

Proud doesn't even begin to describe how I felt.

Between shows, the kids had been instructed to "find a fun and relaxing way to unwind and recharge." Matilda instructed me to take her to Borders. She wanted to browse for a new book. Then she told me we would take the new book to Starbucks for hot chocolate.

As soon as we walked into the bookstore, she inhaled and said, "Ahh, I love the smell of this place!"

Is she the coolest kid, or what?

This time we’re trying something a little different in the garden (and by “garden” I mean the strip of exposed dirt along my fence line in which I attempted to grow tomatoes last year).

Instead of coaxing little tomato plants out of improbable little seeds in improper lighting on the window sill of my bedroom (last year’s approach), I’ve purchased some plants from Burpee. They promise to ship me healthy, happy plants just in time for Spring planting.

I’m more excited about it than I probably have a right to be.

On the offside chance that these happy little plants aren’t eaten by the dog within their first fifteen minutes of life in my garden, here’s what I’m looking forward to installing:

Burpee’s Tomato Hall of Fame

Sweet Pepper Collection

Blue Lake Pole Beans

And of course, the Hot Pepper Mix which I will lovingly grow so Gary can transform these various peppers into his own curiously wonderful blends of chili powders.

I’m sure it wouldn’t betray any confidence to tell you that if you enter BP53 at checkout you’ll save yourself five bucks. And spending more than $25 earns you a free packet of mystery seeds!

Life is good in the garden until everything fails.

I’m wondering if my neighbors who are trying to sell their house would like me to rake my front lawn. I bet they would.

I did accomplish one yard-related task today while the weather was nice. I built a compost heap!

I bet you’re thinking I must know my shit to be throwing terms like “compost heap.” The truth is, if I’ve learned one thing about myself in recent years it’s that I would rather do something half-assed in the heat of inspiration than to wait two weeks, buy the proper materials, and learn the proper techniques.

Thus, I have a half-assed compost heap beside my shed that took me one hour to throw together. And I’m immensely happy with it.

In the spirit of Just Doing Things because the weather’s nice and you feel like it, I offer you today’s DIY tidbit:

Squeaky Composting System

Materials:
Several pieces of concrete landscaping border
Because that's what I had laying around
Um, that’s about it
Are you still reading this list?
This isn’t a list
It’s really just one item
And yet, with all these words here it does look like a list

Instructions:
1. Pile border pieces on top of each other, roughly forming a box shape.
2. Dump old mulch and other yard waste into the makeshift box.
3. That’s it. And damn if it doesn’t look and function very much like an actual compost heap.

I mean, honestly. If I were expected to think these things through first, I’d never accomplish anything.

I'm happy to report we've had a V-Word breakthrough! I am no longer held hostage by the V-Word. In fact, I think I'm going to try to work it into most conversations I have with random people from here on out.

Here's what happened:

Matilda was off school today, so I swung by at noon to take her out to lunch and give Dad a break from the long day of Bored Matilda standing behind him at the computer silently watching him work. I am not insensitive to his plight.

We went to lunch. We were chatty. We joked. On the way home, Matilda picked up one of the dolls Gert had left in the back seat.

"Ew!" she shrieked. "This doll is not wearing any clothes!"

"So what?"

"This doll has… NIPPLES!"

"Well, so do YOU!" I giggled. "Just be glad it doesn't have a VAGINA!"

That's right, that was me. You should have heard how casual I sounded.

You might have thought I regularly shout "hey, vagina!" at passing cars.

Perhaps you would have thought I'd named my cat Regina Vagina.

You might have been inspired to discuss Georgia O'Keefe with me because you'd be confident I wouldn't bat an eye before wondering out loud if she intended this to so closely resemble a vagina (of course she did).

Now we can watch The Vagina Monologues! As well as any other Eve Ensler project!

I feel like I should be thanking the Vagina Fairy for bringing me the ability to discuss girl parts. But I know how she likes her anonymity. Hey... so would you, if you were the Vagina Fairy.

One of the nicest things about knitting is the built-in guarantee* that if I simply pick it up and work at it from time to time, I'll end up with a finished object.

*May not be combined with any other offer. Guarantee does not extend to any implied quality of work, utility, or aesthetic. User assumes all risk and liability.

I'm not saying all knitting is automatic, but if you put one knit stitch after another knit stitch, and another, and keep making stitches, eventually you'll make something.

The same cannot be said of other things in life, say writing, parenting, love, baking, auto repair, or animal husbandry.

I find it soothing, the simple act of making one stitch after another, the same way putting one foot in front of the other in a routine of daily life is therapeutic in its own way.

As long as you have the occasional metaphoric equivalent of some lace gloves or a bikini to keep things interesting, it's fine if the rest of your life is one long, snuggly, garter stitch afghan. In fact, I think I prefer it that way.

I woke up with so much anxiety but no identifiable cause. Everyone is healthy, we're employed, and we have a place to live. So what do I have to be worried about?

I hate when I can't pin feelings down because it usually means there is a reason but I've just pushed it off and forgotten about it. (Repression: the other white meat) Now it's probably been kicking around all night, generating metaphor-rich, anxiety-producing dream sequences.

Oh well, la la la, out of sight out of mind! Everything's rosy.

I'm heading to the craft store at lunch to pick up some beads for a sweater. I'll probably stop and pick up dog food.

And speaking of the dog… there's a strange power play going on between the dog and the three-year-old. For example, I'll walk into the living room and find one of Finnegan's squeaky toys perched high up on the back of the couch, with Gert sitting innocently beneath it. Then I'll find a rawhide bone under Gert's bed. And his tennis ball in the basket of her bike, deliberately out of the dog's reach.

"Gert…?" I said, holding the rawhide I'd just retrieved from her room. "How did Finnegan's bone get under your bed?"

Gertrude has this sinister, gleeful smile that comes out spontaneously when she knows she's being evil. "I took it, and I put it there," she sang, sporting the widest evil grin I've ever seen.

"Honey, you can't take Finn's toys away. He's not allowed to take your toys."

Then the grin burst into an evil laugh. "Heh! Heh! I know!"

Oh, brother. So I went through the house and gathered up all the dog's toys and returned them to his toy basket. Finnegan watched me with a look that spoke of long-suffering persecution and injustice.

Perhaps it's not time to introduce a younger sibling quite yet. Gert's tormenting time is booked solid.

It's remarkably beautiful outside today. The fact that I have to be inside is just wrong. All this time I've been holding my breath and waiting for a break in the miserable cold, and this morning I stepped outside and it was warm. The air smells fresh and clean. It's so blissful it defies explanation. But don't mind me, I'm just sitting over here in my office missing it all.

I hope it's still nice at lunch, because I'll take my chicken-salad-on-whole-wheat-pita outside and pretend it's not going to rain and get cold again later.

It charts on today's list of Things I Currently Like, presented here in no particular order:

• Asymmetrical ponchos
  
• The Gilmore Girls "soundtrack" constructed for me by my husband, following his successful "soundtrack" to ABC's Lost.
  
• Unseasonably warm weather
  
• Silver jewelry
  
• Children who wake up in a decent mood
  
• Knitting tonight
  
• Possibly going out to dinner tomorrow for a belated Valentine's Day event
  
• Neil Young
  
• Billie Joe Armstrong, all of a sudden. I don't know why. Maybe it's the dark circles.

Plenty of strange things can happen when you're making pizza dough in the morning. For example, you might find yourself loudly singing "Peeeeee-izza crust.... Soooooo-uperstar...." to the tune of Jesus Christ Superstar. Your youngest daughter might come screaming out of her room in a panic claiming that there are strange bugs under her bed. The dog might suddenly develop a taste for raw flour and begin systematically licking the kitchen floor searching for another hit.

I'm not really surprised. I know that later this morning I'm going to find myself in a gradeschool Plinko booth handing out plastic rings and whistles. Nothing qualifies as weird anymore.

The best part about working the Plinko booth is I know I'm already guaranteed to embarrass Matilda. She knows I'm going to do something wildly inappropriate or parentlike, such as call out from across a crowded gymnasium, "HEY MATILDA, COME HERE! THAT BOY YOU LIKE IS NEXT IN LINE FOR PLINKO!"

Incidentally, here's the recipe we've been using as a pizza crust base lately. I like it because it's so elegant in its simplicity. You can tweak it mercilessly and it doesn't show bruises, which is handy because you don't want to lose custody of your lunch.

Squeaky Pizza

2-1/4 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 cup warm water
2 cups flour (approx.)
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp salt

Activate yeast in water and sugar (i.e., mix the first 3 ingredients together and let it sit until the yeast starts popping into little bursts of froth - my favorite part!). Mix in olive oil and salt. Add flour gradually until it feels like you could start kneading it. I'm about as exact with flour measurements as I am with following knitting patterns. Not very. Anyway, knead the dough until it's nice and smooth, then cover and let it rise until double. Punch it down (like I said, it resists bruising), and shape it into crust on a cookie sheet. Spread it really thin because it'll thicken up when you bake it. Add toppings, bake at 400 degrees until edges are brown and your toppings are done.

For the record, I like pizza much better than Plinko. And I probably always will.

Do I want chocolate so badly right now I'd consider stealing from Tsunami victims?

No. Well… kind of.

You see, this morning I brought in a big jar of change to donate to the Change for Change drive. The company offered to match donations, so we all decided to pool our spare change into something substantial.

So all of my change is sitting in the Change for Change jar. There is absolutely no change at all in my wallet. Or at the bottom of my purse. Or in my desk drawer. Or wedged into the seat cushion of my chair (I've checked).

There's apparently nothing like being utterly changeless to make you desperate for vending machine food.

But I'm not so evil and heartless that I'd go retrieve three quarters from the poor families who lost everything. Really. Besides, everyone would see me do it.

I'm not saying I didn't have a wardrobe meltdown in my closet at 12:06 a.m…

I won't say I didn't contemplate running to a department store at the asscrack of dawn to find something new and cute to wear to a pitch meeting today…

I also won't confirm or deny a brief flirtation with Harajuku street style or even EGL…

Anyway, this afternoon, I sat in a room of women wearing varying combinations of black, black, and black. They were all full of corporate sass. I was not in black; in fact, my wardrobe highlight was a completely unexpected scarf knotted around my neck featuring a color palate that has not been attempted since 1972.

Losers. Don't they read K.1? Color is the new black.

I am Creative Services. My image is supposed to be, by definition, creative, edgy, whimsical, and nonconformist. If I were my client, I wouldn't trust a creative in a black suit.

The best part was the message Gary left me on my voicemail this morning: Your presentation will be fine. You look amazing. He is the greatest.

Take a look to the left and you'll notice I've cleaned up the links. No more broken or inactive blogs over there! Nothing but good, solid blogginess. In fact, I highly recommend you take a moment right now to go discover someone new. It's like making a new friend!

Just when you think your neighborhood is settled and you have a good sense of who is cheating on their spouses with whom, someone has to go and put their house up for sale.

The house across the street from us seems to have sprouted a "for sale" sign overnight. I swear it wasn't there yesterday. They must have snuck out under the cover of darkness and planted it so no one could get an early jump on the gossip.

This is really only interesting because it's one of the Swingers' houses. This particular couple and the couple next door to them always seemed to have an unnaturally neighborly relationship. In a subdivision where people raked leaves side by side without more than a cordial nod in each others' direction, where a friendly wave satisfied the month's requirement for casually exchanged greetings... (let's just say we're not the lean-over-the-fence-and-chat sort of neighborhood)... these neighbors raked each others' lawns, strung Christmas lights on each others' houses, distributed Halloween candy from the same bowl, pulled each others' kids in wagons, etc., etc., etc. It was sickening bordering on incestuous.

But they seemed to be happy in a way that we envied. The husbands would stand outside drinking beer together while their comparably aged children played and their wives smiled and talked on the porch swing. I'll admit it. We wanted what they had. We wanted a couple next door who liked the same music we liked and who didn't give a crap about what teams were playing in the next televised sporting event.

So how best to cope with our jealousy? We decided they not only traded meatloaf recipes and babysitting, but sexual favors and spouses. Because that shit is funny.

Then we imagined that things went sour between them. Maybe one of the wives was a tiny bit hotter in the sack, and the other one wanted to call off the extracurriculars. The tension! The fury! The inevitable discomfort of living in such close proximity to temptation and sin!

And now one of the houses is suddenly up for sale. Interesting...

Hi, I have your sunglasses. Those prescription sunglasses you thought you lost last summer? They're in my desk drawer.

I found them in the parking lot and thought, "Boy, I'd sure hate to lose something as expensive as those." So I picked them up and brought them inside with the intention of dropping them off at HR.

Then somehow a week or so went by with the sunglasses sitting in my desk. After a week, I felt like it would have been embarrassing to admit to having had them for a week. The person who lost them would wonder why I hadn't turned them in immediately. So I started putting it off, and they stayed in my desk, and I looked at them every day with twinges of guilt and self-recrimination.

Now it has been more than six months and I'm beyond embarrassed to have these sunglasses in my possession. I wholeheartedly regret the act of consideration that prompted me to pick them up in the first place. But what should I do with them? I have a feeling they'll stat in my desk drawer until the day I die. Maybe I'll ask to be buried with them to avoid the uncomfortable questions.

On a related note, last night I took a trip with Poppymom to a small town where we spent some time driving around and scoping out the school districts. (This made a lot more sense to me when I woke up and realized it was a dream.) As we were driving, I told her all about PTSD, exposure therapy, regression, and hypnosis. "Are you insane? Shut up," I said, accidentally out loud. Robin thought I was talking to her, which was awkward. Then I awkwardly tried to change the subject by pointing out a couple of cute, small-town boys riding their bikes up a hill toward a huge refinery of some sort.

Conclusion: My subconscious is a ditz. I've decided to name it Bambi so when it flips out and acts all flighty I can say, "Shut it, Bambi."

Of course, I'm apparently the one hoarding other people's sunglasses. That's got to be a criterion of something in the DSM-IV-TR…

On health, hygiene, and other frightful topics… The link Anon posted below bears reposting: Think twice before reusing that plastic water bottle!

By all accounts, I should be dead.

Maybe my New Year's Resolution to Eat More Fruit is keeping the bacteria at bay. For now.

Regardless, I've added plastic water bottle reuse to this list:

The Great-Big List of Things
Squeaky Weasel Has Been Propagandized Out of Ever Doing, Volume I
(A Random Sampling)

28. Eating beef
2. Prolonged tampon use
14. Donating to the March of Dimes
12. Wearing copper jewelry
189. Wiping counters with sponges
47. Leaving contacts in overnight
88. Taking aspirin on an empty stomach
299. Receiving a foot massage during the later stages of pregnancy
60. Clashing patterns
8. Cleaning the bathroom with the door closed
365. Giving honey to babies and young children
44. Touching public toilets
217. Eating more than one type of starchy food in the same meal
153. Wearing underpants made of synthetic fibers
71. Looking directly at a running microwave oven

Lest you get the wrong idea about me (if the incessant list-making on this site hasn't already done that), let me assure you that I do abide by the 3-second rule for certain foods, and my cat has occasionally licked her own girl parts while sitting on my lap.

Yesterday I discovered a small, white surveillance device in my office. It was either that or a grain of rice stuck to the wall, and which do you think is more likely? That's what I'm saying.

Who are they and what do they want? Is it a group of grandmas seeking insight into my mad lunchtime knitting skills?

Is it the Dasani® purified water loss-prevention group seeking evidence that I've been refilling the same bottle of water from the drinking fountain for over three weeks now, at a minimum of three refills per work day? (That's about $45 so far I've yanked from the mouths of their hungry families.)

I'm thinking about this too much.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but just in case it's not a grain of rice stuck to the wall here's some useful information on how to avoid Jose Feliciano, diablo de la federación de la lucha del mundo.

Be careful out there.

'Tis Groundhog Day!

Shall we all collectively take this opportunity to retreat from any fears or personal shortcomings we are unwilling to address head-on?

Here, I'll lay a few of mine out there for you.

• I find it very difficult to make and maintain friendships. The truth is, I wear myself out trying to do it right, build up lots of unrealistic expectations, and then blame other people for my own problems with intimacy. I don't see myself addressing that one any time soon.
  
  
• I avoid confrontations. To the point that I allow tiny little annoyances to build up and become huge, looming issues. I've tried, tried, tried not to be this way, but it seems to be a personality defect or something. Perhaps ignoring it will fix it!
  
  
• You've noticed the lack of photos on this site? It's because I'm lazy. I'm not too lazy to take a picture, but I'm too lazy to figure out how to get it on my website, or to get it printed. Or if I happen to have prints, I'm too lazy to put them into albums. Consequently, I have tons of photos that no one can ever look at. It's on the giant mental list of Things I Should Do. I hate that list.

Ah, groundhogs… They're kind of weird looking but we love them anyhow.

Last night I dreamed I met a psychic at the airport. He reportedly had a 100% accuracy rate in his predictions, but with a twist. He gave predictions by making three statements. Two of those statements were always false, and one would always be true. You just had to guess which was the true statement.

Gary left to get a pretzel, and I found myself chatting one-on-one with the psychic.

"The plane you're about to board will crash," he said to me. "You'll be chosen for a key role in an upcoming off-Broadway play. And you're never going to fit into those cute brown pants you bought even though they were unrealistically tiny."

"Hold on a second," I said. "You're 100% positive only one of those is true?"

He shrugged and cracked open a can of Diet Dr. Pepper (more product placement, no doubt). "You might get into them, but they'll never really look that good because you're not eighteen." Then the asshole made a very unflattering motion with his hands. "You know…bulges."

In a huff, I left him sitting in his hard, plastic airport seat and went to find my husband. I told Gary the three predictions. He looked concerned. "We should take a different flight!" he said.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said. "But he's right. Those pants are a lost cause."

So we took the flight. Cut to a very tense moment of Gary and me clinging to our armrests as the plane takes a sudden dive.

Gary muttered a few expletives and something about having told me we should have taken a different flight.

"Don't you realize what this means?" I cried gleefully.

Just then, a lady from the next row leaned over to me. "Excuse me," she said. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering. Have you ever done any stage acting?"

I looked out my window last night, just as I was turning out the lights in the kitchen to go to bed. It was late. I was tired.

Holy crap! There's someone standing in the middle of my front yard!

He's short, motionless, and he's wearing the blue and green hat that I knitted.

No wait, that's our snowman.

Fifteen minutes later, Gary had the same reaction, so I felt slightly better about all the Sudafed I'd been taking.

I've been told being sick makes me stupid. Though in my defense, less air through my plugged-up nose means less oxygen to my brain. Physiology! Suck on that, eh.

And then I spun around in my desk chair until my eyes crossed.

But none of that stopped me and the girls from building a snowman on Saturday. It was perfect, packable snow, all wet and dense. We started rolling the body in the back yard and then decided he would be best displayed out front. So we rolled around the side of the house, through the gate, over the driveway, through the front yard.

At that point, I asked Matilda to go locate the dog because it was quite possible we had rolled over him and encased him inside the Snowball from Hell. It was the size of a ten-year-old child and we were only halfway done.

Throughout the entire process, Gert chattered about using a carrot for the nose. We had to use a carrot for the nose. Did we have a carrot for the nose? Because we needed a carrot for the nose! I fricking hoped and prayed that we had a carrot somewhere under all our lettuce and uneaten celery. Matilda ran inside and got her Snowman Kit, which is a really nifty collection of wooden eyes, a scarf, the whole deal. It included a wooden carrot for the nose, but Gert was offended by the very idea.

So Matilda decked him out and I went and got a carrot out of the fridge for Gert. She was so excited. It was like she was finally taking her rightful place in the great snowman-building legacy. Filled with purpose, she grasped the carrot in her mittened hand, walked right up to him and, well, aimed low.

Let's just say that if Stumpy wanted to blow his nose he'd have to loosen his belt first.

How to terrify a room full of preschoolers in three easy steps.

First, find yourself a big, black, ugly crow-type bird.

Next, convince it to fly into the chimney of your unsuspecting home daycare provider while the children are innocently having their afternoon snack.

Finally, run around the room trying catch the bird in a shoebox while bird shrieks and thuds into walls, careening and flapping over the heads of the children who have all just wet themselves with panic.

Miss Diana called her husband at work and asked him to COME DO SOMETHING about the bird while she herded the children into another room.

This was the scene when I arrived to pick up Gertrude from daycare. Little Gert was shaking and sobbing, and she had a look on her face that told me she would never again throw breadcrumbs to the birds at Grandma's house with the same enjoyment.

I tried to be comforting. I scooped Gert up in my arms and she just clung to me. "Is that poor little bird trying to find his way outside?" I said soothingly.

THUD. Crash. Flutter. Thud.

Diana said, "It's not exactly a little bird." She obviously had no intention of throwing any breadcrumbs in the near future, either.

"Okay, well, let's get your coat on and go home. I'm sure birdie will be gone by tomorrow."

THUD.

"No!" said Gert. "I don't want to go out there!" We would have to pass by Death on Wings in the next room in order to leave by the front door, and abject terror was preventing Gert from thinking sequentially.

Fortunately, it was only a few minutes before the bird was caught and released outside. The little boys went out to watch it fly away. Gert, however, insisted that I carry her all the way to the car in case the bird decided to come back for more, and she buried her entire head in the hood of her coat.

All the way home, we talked about how scared she'd been, and soon she had herself convinced it was a truly fantastic adventure that she couldn't wait to tell to Dad and Sis.

"Was the birdie really that scary?" I asked.

"I was scared," said Gert, "because I thought it was a crab!"

Well sure. Because a giant, winged crab flying around your house is scary as shit. Who can argue with that?

The idea of having Tigger and Piglet stuck inside your ears is good for a quick laugh at the doctor's office, but as an extended gag it really blows.

I asked Gert to pick up her toys, but she ignored me. "Gert, did you hear me?" I asked, doing my best Mom impersonation.

"My ears are not working," she said.

"That must be because you have Tigger and Piglet stuck in there," I said.

"That's what the doctor said," said Gert, amused but somewhat concerned.

"So now that we're engaged in an audible verbal exchange, how about picking up your toys?"

"Okay."

Later, I was making dinner (spaghetti and meatballs – and by the way, a friend recently gave me THE PERFECT meatball recipe. If you need it, let me know .) and Gert came and stood beside me, silently tugging on one ear.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Mom…? How am I going to get them out?"

"Huh?"

"Tigger and Piglet are really stuck waaaay in there. I can't reach them." She then tried to fit her hand into her ear canal, one finger at a time.

My grandma has a morbid mistrust of the medical profession, and I wonder if we're seeing the groundwork laid for that kind of thing right before our eyes.

Bathroom update: Vanilla scent seems to be migrating toward more of a cherry vanilla. A subtle yet upbeat fragrance featuring pleasantly understated notes of hickory and ass.

Two things almost made me cry before 10 a.m. today. First, we took Gertrude to the doctor for her 3-year checkup. She was very nervous about it. She packed up her own doctor kit and brought her doll Shashanti so she could show Shashanti what was about to go down.

(Yes, Gertrude named her doll Shashanti. I had nothing to do with that. Matilda's favorite doll for a while was called Tina Babonza and I had nothing to do with that either. But I did get a kick out of hearing them say it in public.)

But anyway,

Gert waited on the padded table in her socks and underpants, kicking her chubby legs and chatting with Daddy and Shashanti. She giggled when the doctor located Tigger and Piglet inside her ears. She smiled proudly when the nurse told her how well she was doing.

All I kept thinking about was how she used to be such a tiny, fussy, squirmy thing, and now look at her. When she was a baby I used to try to imagine what she'd look like as a kid, and I couldn't picture it. Now it seems so obvious.

The doctor remarked that he rarely saw any perfect kids, but this one seemed perfect. Bright, friendly, happy, and with a killer immune system to boot. We agreed that she was perfect. Matilda has always been perfect too. I have perfect kids. Sniff.

So Daddy headed back to work and I drove Perfect Gert to drop her off with my mom and grandma.

I hadn't seen Grandma since before Christmas, and I'd given her gift to my mom to give to her. No big deal, I just knitted her a scarf. It was the only scarf I've made for anyone, and only because I didn't think Grandma already had one.

When I saw her this morning, she told me she couldn't thank me enough for the scarf, from the bottom of her heart. I was a little caught off guard. She said, "You always do just the perfect thing," she explained. "You see, when Grandpa died, I had to leave him at the hospital and I was real sad. And I said to him, 'Austin, I like this here scarf real, real much but I'm going to leave it here with you.' So I think he must have wanted me to have a scarf back."

I didn't even know I was trying, but I'm glad I got the message right.

Email is down. Long live word of mouth.

I've just taken part in my first grown-up game of telephone.

Without email, how do you let everyone in your department know that the Monday Meeting is cancelled? If you're my boss, you tell your assistant to go spread the word. Then she tells all the supervisors, and they tell whomever they happen to pass in the hall. Those people filter it back to their office neighbors, and they call out to random passers-by.

I am a passer-by. I am the last link on the telephone chain, the one who repeats the garbled message out loud so everyone can have a good laugh. I can only guess at what the original message might have been. All I know is, I'm glad no one brought a monkey to work because there's really nowhere for it to sit.

Bathroom update: Now it smells like pipe tobacco. Curious.

Attention coworkers: Please eat the candy in my office.

This will ensure that the Smooth Chocolate Truffles and Royal Cherry Chocolates are sent to a good home.

Instead, I'll just eat this fabulous Clementine, containing a mere 35 calories and countless vitamins and nutrients not found in any variety of chocolate.

Also, when lunchtime rolls around, please go to Tomatillo's and order yourself a grilled chicken burrito with spicy cheese sauce, sour cream, and their signature salsa. And chips, lots of chips. I'll stay here and be content with my ham sandwich (lettuce, no cheese!), Gala apple, and baby carrots.

Really. I mean it. Go.

Vanilla scented air freshener does not belong in a public restroom. For one thing, it reminds me of the time a few bulimics in our building took care of a case of Nilla Wafers. Also, aside from that unhappy visual, vanilla smells really good. When something smells good, you can't help but be aware of the smell. And smell is the last thing I want to be aware of in a bathroom, because it inadvertently draws attention to bathroom odor, even if it's being covered up by cookie-like scent.

Okay, we're now changing the subject.

In terms of free stuff, KnitPro is the greatest thing ever. Put in a picture and it spits out a chart to knit. Oh, this is so much fun. Try it! Such possibilities.

If you are as captivated by that as I am, you need to go spend some time on Craftster. I get these people. They make things like Converse-style baby booties.

Guilt and inadequacy can sometimes be found in the most surprising places.

At work, birthdays are a big deal. Because morale is a big deal. And certain people here believe that receiving trinkety shit on your special day generates enough sunshine and happiness to last all year.

And I like the people I work with, I really do. They all deserve their sunshine. The problem is, everybody has a birthday, and that's a whole lot of birthday cake, handmade cards, and thoughtfully wrapped trinkety shit to come up with throughout the year.

PS, I'm really bad at remembering birthdays anyway. I've probably lost friends over it. I'm not the type of person who always has The Perfect Card on hand for any occasion, it's just not what I'm good at.

When my department grew from 7 people to 13, I felt my stress level getting out of control over birthdays. I was running to QuickTrips on my lunch break for cards and lying about having "left your gift on the kitchen counter at home – can you believe it!?" I made a decision. I would no longer participate in the Birthday Recognition Program. NOBODY was getting anything more from me than verbal wishes on their birthday.

That went really well until my birthday, when I came in to the office to find gifts from all the people I had nongifted all year.

So I made another decision. I would ride out 2004. Then in January 2005 I would buy gifts and make cards for EVERYONE at once. I would wrap and file gifts by month. If this whole thing was so important to everyone else, then I would treat birthdays just like any other job responsibility.

Well, today is Connie's birthday. I found myself rushing to Target this morning before work, grabbing a card and a gift to shove into a gift bag, and apologizing for being late because I "left your gift on the kitchen counter at home – can you believe it!?"

But it didn't matter, right? I was on board! I was doing the birthday thing! No more guilt or unreciprocated gifts for me!

I set Connie's gift down on her desk and exclaimed "Happy Birthday!" Then I noticed the two December Birthdays who had gotten nothing from me a month ago, standing right there by Connie's desk, looking at me with that pointed oh, so SHE gets a gift from you…? glare.

When the dog isn't busy sticking his nose into someone's crotch (because that's his job and all), he can usually be found gnawing on his favorite yellow, rubber ball and trying to catch your eye so you might be tempted to throw it to him. Unfortunately, his ball is just the perfect size to roll off and get stuck under the entertainment center.

There he is, lounging in the den, getting his gnaw on, when all of a sudden the thing gets away from him. With his head flat on the floor, he can see the ball. He scratches and paws as far as he can under the four-inch clearance, but can't reach it. He needs help. So he finds the nearest human. And stares. He stares until he captures the human's attention. Then he throws an urgent gaze over to the entertainment center. Back to the eye contact. Back to the ball. The eye. The ball. Throw in a whine and a little fidget for emphasis.

That's where Gertrude and I came in yesterday afternoon, in between episodes of Dragon Tales.

"What is it, Finn?" I asked. "You have to go potty?"

Whine.

"You need some love?"

Haroo. Fidget.

"Timmy's stuck down the well?"

Earnest glance at the entertainment center.

Gert said, "I think lost his ball." She hopped off the couch and crouched down to look. Finnegan joined her, squeezing his nose as far as he could into the little space. Gert's entire arm disappeared. "I can't reach it!" she grunted.

With a sigh, I got off the couch (which I like to do as infrequently as possible) and crouched down behind Gert. "All right, let me see if I can get it."

"Okay!" WHAM.

That was the sound of Gert's head connecting squarely with my nose at point-blank range.

Gert started to wail. I waved off those little cartoon birds circling my head and felt my nose, which I half expected to come off in my hand. Finnegan whined and sniffed and stuck his nose in my face and then Gert's.

After Gert had calmed down and the dog's ball had been retrieved, I felt slightly cheated. No blood, no bruising. I should have at least gotten a black eye out of it. All we could do was eat Tootsie Rolls until we felt better.

I have two things to say about cleaning out the fridge.

First, it's awfully thoughtful of mold to be the most unpleasing colors of grey, blue, and black. This way it's easily spotted and sufficiently repulsive to ensure that no living person would ever purposefully ingest it.

And second, if you thought a container of turkey gravy left over from Thanksgiving couldn't survive three months in the back of your fridge, well... you don't even know how correct you are.

It's pretty clear that Gert is a daddy's girl. Sure, she loves me, and her sister, the dog, the cat, the fish, her "silky" blanket, cookies with sprinkles, and many other things with Gert-like intensity. But that daddy is something else.

I think maybe it's because they do things like this:

Most Tuesday nights are "Daddy Nights." Matilda and I take our yarn out for coffee (and brownies), and Gert hangs out with Dad.

Sometimes they make popcorn and watch a movie. Sometimes they head to the mall for orange soda and a run on the indoor playground. Yesterday as Matilda and I were leaving, Gary asked me for construction paper. And yarn. They had decided to make clouds for Gert's room.

I didn't know what to expect, but when we got home Gert proudly showed off her clouds.

They were fluffy, stuffed, cloud-shaped, construction paper pillow clouds! Hanging from brightly colored yarn taped to the ceiling, they could also have been upside-down posies or suspended lollipops. Gert stood under them on her tip-toes, straining to bat them like cat toys. I lifted her up to touch them and they swung around wildly.

"This is the coolest thing!" I said.

Always the optimist, Gary said, "I just hope they don't fall in the middle of the night and freak her out."

If they do, I have a good guess who she'll want to come and save her.

Marking the sad passing of a very angry and apathetic cat…

He was a mean, yellow stray who terrorized Grandma's three other cats, Bear, Annie, and Two-Bits and managed to win her over simply by eating the food she set out for him every night.

She named him Anthony after the patron saint of lost things.

I loved the other cats and I spent most of the summer before I started high school trying to win his affection, or at least come to some kind of understanding with him. I'm lucky I still have any skin left on my forearms.

Anthony hated everything and everyone. He routinely kicked Bear's ass and made inappropriate moves on Annie. He'd rub up against your leg as if to make nice, and then savagely sink his teeth into your ankle, cling to your sock with his front claws and scratch mercilessly and repeatedly with his hind legs.

He outlived the rest of the cats (even Two-Bits who could hold her own in any throw-down), thereby further endearing himself to Grandma as the cat who was decent enough to still be alive when she needed company.

Toward the end of his life he'd mainly glare at everything with vague threats. He lived on the screened porch, and if I ever visited with Gertrude I'd warn her to keep her fingers away from the holes.

Well apparently, despite my warnings and despite never actually being allowed to have physical contact with the cat, Gert grew to share Grandma's brand of appreciation for Anthony.

"Mom, guess what!" she told me yesterday. "Great-grandma's cat is gone!"

"Yes, I know," I said sadly. "He was old and he died. We miss him, don't we?"

Gert then spoke to me as if she were addressing a small child. "Mom. Anthony did not die. He had to go to up heaven."

"Oh!" I said. "That's right." But I still felt the need to soften the religious programming since we are not a Sunday School family. "When kitties get old and die, then they get to go to heaven."

Gary leaned over to me and muttered something about Baby Jesus needing a cat and choosing Anthony to come and live with him.

"Anthony would eat Baby Jesus," I said.

"WHAT?" said Gert.

"Wings!" I blurted. "Now he can fly around up in heaven! With the angels! And God! Because Jesus loves all the little children and cats."

Later I heard Gert relay the news to her sister: "Guess what? Anthony's dead."

Stop, you're encouraging me.

I have to report that Phase One of the Fruit Hair Experiment yielded mixed results.

The bottle said "Plum." And the model on the box was sporting fabulous, dark red hair with glossy purple highlights.

I showed the box to Gary (who, by the way, had earned himself 500 Husband Points for secretly cutting out hair color coupons and slipping them into the weekly coupon stack) and he deemed it sassy. It seemed an excellent "baby step" to the bright Jolly Rancher-ish colors I really want.

Shortly before dinner, I informed everyone I was going to be in the bathroom a while. Gert asked why. I told her I was going to take a bath and make my hair change color.

"Oh!" Gert said. "I like to do that sometimes too!"

We were confused, until it occurred to us that dunking your hair in the water does make it appear darker. We praised Gert for the keen observation and she ran off to play, chatting to herself about how sometimes she makes her hair blue, and sometimes she makes her hair orange… She's been hanging out with me too long.

Something I learned: If Mom is going to try to lock herself in the bathroom at 4:45 on a Sunday, EVERY CHILD IN THE HOUSE WILL NEED HER from 4:46 until 5:32 when she finally throws open the door and says, "What???" Then they will all look confused and shrug, and proceed to play contentedly by themselves for the rest of the night.

What I ended up with is not exactly what I would call "Plum." It's more of a warm chestnut brown with hints of red, and in the right light it might lean more toward burgundy. Oh well. It's nice, in a this-just-might-be-someone's-natural-color kind of way, but not very unusual. I should have expected as much from supermarket color.

But that's okay, it's a start.

It makes me want a piercing.

I have really, seriously got to get over my obsession with punch-colored hair.

I see a girl with hair the color of Grape and I desperately want to be the kind of person who could rock that.

I'm too freaking old to turn my hair into shiny, glossy, awesome strands of purple. Or orange, I could do orange. But no! That's the problem, I can't do orange! I'm the mother of two daughters who would never stop laughing at me. I couldn't go to a parent-teacher conference and talk solemnly about math and social studies with Grape hair.

On the other hand, I'm 99% sure it would keep other parents from trying to make small talk with me in the hall while I waited for my parent-teacher conference.

That's appealing.

I don't like other mothers of fourth-graders. With very, very few exceptions, they are a bunch of old married women who think their husbands are retarded and that swapping canned tuna recipes is a good time. They all smile a little too wide and chat in a voice that's too high-pitched to be authentic.

The worst part is, I turn into them when they talk to me. Because I don't have any other defense. I can't really say, "Are you serious? You actually give a shit about PTA politics?"

I'm taking Matilda to a school-sponsored skating party tonight where I'm going to rock my mental purple hair and knit a lot, which hopefully will make me seem odd and unapproachable.

Hot.

I am so doing this.

And not just because I'm cheap. Only somewhat.

And then I'm making this because garter stitching should be as dirty as it sounds.

I love rainy weather so much it makes my fingertips tingle, and no, I'm not being sarcastic. I love everything about it, from the charge it gives the air, to the sound of it, to the feeling of being warm and dry in your own little spot while everything around you is drenched in a downpour.

When we heard that it was supposed to rain nonstop from yesterday afternoon well into tomorrow, Gary worried about water in the basement. I solemnly voiced concern as well, and then I got a little giddy and rummaged around in my closet looking for my coziest rainy-day sweater that I might hole up with somewhere while rain pounds the roof and threatens its structural integrity.

So many things to be concerned about in a rainstorm. Tree limbs could fall. Yards could flood. Basements could leak. And at this time of year it could all quite possibly freeze, causing all kinds of turmoil.

I'm concerned, I am. But… rain! How can you not want to just curl up and listen to it, or daydream about running out in it and splashing through it barefoot, grinning like an idiot?

Gert sat in her bed last night as I was tucking her in, and I pointed out how lovely the sound of the rain was. She started to whimper. "What if there's thunder?" she asked.

"Then you can just come snuggle in bed with me!"

I knew she'd be sound asleep in five minutes and would never hear any thunder unless it was loud enough to wake me up too. Except now I'm thinking the only thing better than laying in bed listening to the rain would be to have a warm, chubby little girl in your arms who feels safer in the rain because you're there.

In the spirit of the new year, there are a few things I'd like to address. It's important to note that these are not resolutions. These are pinky swears.

I do hereby and in the witness of my peers solemnly resolve to:

1. Eat more fruit.

2. Post more often.

3. Occasionally put down the knitting.

4. Be myself.

5. Pay attention.

6. Let go of things that don't matter.

Not mentioned in the list above is my weight loss goal for this year, because to fret about weight would violate Solemn Resolve #6. But I'll just say we bought a new digital scale and I lost 3.5 pounds during the fifteen minutes it took to calibrate it properly. Shut up, that counts.

My total goal is divided into little goals, and each one is tied to a reward. And when I say reward, I mean:

Reward 1. A new knitting magazine

Reward 2. A new knitting book

Reward 3. Yarn for a new project from elann.com

Reward 4. My own knitting blog

I realized I need to have a blog devoted to knitting as I was making a list of things I want and discovered this surprising trend.

What did I do with myself before knitting? Oh yeah, I took on crazy projects like this.

And speaking of, if you say the words "musical theater" around our house nowadays, a certain oldest daughter breaks into songs from The Pirates of Penzance. Meanwhile, if you say the words "costume check is next Monday" to me, I'll pull out sketches and schematics of dresses and nightgowns I'm planning to complete before costume check.

I am the very model of a modern major gen-er-al…

HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION: If it is true that a) My boss is out of town, and b) All of today's tasks have been completed with grace and flair, is it therefore logical to conclude that I should spend the rest of the afternoon with my door shut knitting a superpunk sweater and listening to Spoozys at a decidedly unprofessional volume?

On my to-do list before the year ends:

Find a way to use up about 2 pounds of frozen pork in my freezer, hopefully in some sort of tasty, low-effort casserole.

Select "Español" when I check out my groceries through the self-service lane at Schnucks.

Finish a project at work that's tied to a bonus. I could be finishing that up right now if I weren't making lists… whatever.

Make peace with the pre-tax reimbursement accounts so all columns end with zero.

Reacquaint myself with the concept of healthful snacking and reasonable portion sizes. Right now my pants are so tight I can't put my hands in my pockets, and that's seriously crimping my ain't-no-big-deal style.

Clean the house so that when people come over they're not tripping over human-sized balls of lint.

Pretend I actually have people coming over so I'll have an excuse to prepare six or seven packages of Little Smokies swimming in barbecue sauce.

Buy toothpicks, because Little Smokies taste ten times better coming off a toothpick. Even if you're standing over the crockpot in your own kitchen, wearing sweatpants and stabbing at them like fish in a barrel.

Santa got a lot of things right this year. A Pixter for Gert and a Gameboy for Matilda, a karaoke machine, a bottle-sucking baby Annabelle, and several of the very loudest board games known to man.

The karaoke machine was cool on Christmas morning, but it didn't really come into its own until later that day when the girls were given a huge set of "play" (a word which here means never-ever-to-be-worn-outside-the-house, or not-even-when-you're-forty) makeup by Grandpa. And Matilda's biodad "gave" (a word meaning to foot the bill for an idea he never would have come up with on his own) her a spot in a musical theater class.

Well, by the time Monday rolled around and Daddy had to go back to that business of being in business, it became clear to me and the girls that it was time to become Pop Stars.

First stop was Wardrobe – rooting through closets for mismatched clothing skirts with some spin, to them.

Then it was time to hit the ProStyle Salon for Hair and Makeup, in which it was announced that I was "the best!" for letting them smear makeup on themselves. Have you ever applied mascara to a 3-year-old? Go ahead and tell me how wrong it is. Both girls got the whole thing – eyeshadow, lips, blush, nails. And then they did the same to me.

As my face began busily breaking out beneath thick layers of Walmart cosmetics, the little brittneys sang and shrieked into the microphone, taking turns calling the other up on stage to perform.

Just as I had them believing I might possibly be the coolest mom ever, I announced my next big idea.

"Okay! Now let's all go wash our faces with Noxema before Mommy realizes what's actually taking place here."

Another successful office party last night, rounded off with competitive alphabet belching. Props to Whitney for her victory, who apparently after we left started cranking her fist in the air and yelling, "I'm a belching machine! BraKK! BraKK!"

Whitney doesn't even work here.

She claimed to be with one of the designers, but I'm not so sure he was willing to admit to that by the end of the night.

Ah, to be young and drunk again.

There's a strange hostile vibe in the toy section of stores these days. You'll notice it kicking in if you find yourself standing in front of a display thinking over a purchase, weighing the price, features, etc, all of the perfectly rationale shopping strategies that you employ the other 11 months of the year. Then another parent walks up beside you and starts eyeing toys on the same display.

Suddenly, it becomes critical that you end your leisurely browsing and make a dive for any particular toy that interests you, because you might be picking up the last one in stock. And the other parent might pick it up first, leaving you frantically grasping for Plan B before that too is snatched up.

Hooray for the holidays.

I'm normally very "whee, it's Christmastime!" but not this year. It came around too fast, and I wasn't prepared. I don't feel organized, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something important that will occur to me on Christmas Eve when it's too late. I haven't baked cookies, I haven't sent cards. Sorry, I don't think they're going out to anyone this year – please don't take me off your list. I'll send you two next time.

I want to be excited about Christmas but I'm afraid I'm failing at the whole thing and therefore should enjoy none of it. I guess I just need to lighten up because no one gets it 100% right, and those who do end up with display-case Christmas scenes where everyone is sitting perfectly still, afraid of upsetting the perfection and sending you into convulsions.

That's not cool. What's cool is sitting in your darkened living room watching the lights blink on the tree, just like you did in when you were a kid and it was magic.

I'm really ashamed of myself (well, not really), but I just told a spammer where to go.

Not one of those who steals your email off your website or a message board and bombards you with offers of cheap Viagra… I'm talking about people who you have one simple exchange with over email, and then you find yourself suddenly added to a list of about 90 "close friends" in her address book. The kind of friends to whom she routinely forwards every joke, urban legend, puppy photo, inspiring Bible passage or Christian preaching that happens to land in her inbox.

I'm normally very nonconfrontational. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. So for five or six months, I simply deleted the 500 or so "FW: FW: this is so cute!!!" subject lines from this individual and assumed she was well-meaning and harmless.

Then I randomly opened one of her emails and was kind of horrified that it was being mindlessly forwarded by people who evidently see the word "God" and think it's a nice sentiment to pass along.

I'm paraphrasing, but it said (in loud, magenta, 36-point, sans-serif type):

You suck if you:

• Are an immigrant, the child of an immigrant, or have ever spoken a language other than English!
  
• Say "Season's Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas!" Everyone knows Christmas is the "real" holiday this time of year, and if you don't believe in Jesus you're retarded!
  
• Don't want organized prayer in public schools! If you don't like God, you should go find another country to go live in! (Sadly, that last line wasn't paraphrased.)
  
• Are offended by this email! Because that means you're one of THEM!

It went on and on, spewing intolerance and ignorance to the point where it felt like even the other spam in my inbox was kind of staring at its feet and exchanging embarrassed glances.

Feeling that perhaps this had crossed the line from "well-meaning and harmless" to "offensive and unacceptable," I replied to the spammer, expressed my disappointment in her decision to forward such a hate-filled email, and requested that she remove me from her address book.

Five minutes later, I received two more "FW: FW: this is so cute!!!" subject lines.

I drafted a new reply. "Seriously," I said. "Please do not send me any more crap. Please. I really mean it."

"FINE!!!" came her reply. "You're not getting anything else from me!!! Don't reply to this email!!!"

"Reply," I replied. I like that I amuse myself.

Shoes!

I have a very practical approach to shoes. I buy a few pairs and wear them to death, repeat.

I also cannot stand to pay more than ten dollars for a pair of shoes I plan to wear to death. Don't ask me why. I also have an eight-dollar sweater rule. It makes it very painful to shop outside of the off-season, but nevermind.

Yesterday I kicked off my shoes at the end of the day, and later heard them whimpering and licking their wounds in the corner of the closet. When I went to see what was wrong, they flinched and tried to scoot away from me. So since I had just been given a $25 gift certificate to a certain major department store, I went to check out their shoe selection. I was excited to see a rack of shoes 50% off! Less excited to find that the discounted price of every pair exceeded my gift card allowance.

The best option was a very uninspiring pair of black flats for $24. Sure, I could pay $24 for a pair of shoes I don't love, but I'd rather pay $8 for a pair I do.

So on the advice of a fellow cheapskate, I went to check out the store's outlet. I was immediately encouraged by racks of $6.99 sweaters. And they had shoes. Cute, sassy, fun, inspiring shoes! I cautiously approached a pair of black flats and struck up a conversation.

"Hi there," I said. The shoes smiled and looked interested, so I continued.

"I couldn't help but notice you're sitting under a red clearance sign. I'm sure this is a terribly personal question, but I was just wondering how much you are."

"$9.99," said the pair.

"You're kidding! Hey, I hope this isn't some scene where all the cute, affordable shoes are tiny. Do you mind if I ask what size you are?"

"8-1/2M"

"Hmm! Would you be willing to pretend you're a 9?"

The shoes agreed, and three more pairs joined the party. And we all lived happily ever after. And I have a new favorite store. But I'm not giving you any more details because those are MY $6.99 sweaters.

I've always secretly believed that I'm a really, really uninteresting person. If you happen to find anything interesting about me, that's only because some of your own interestingness is reflecting off this big tabula rasa where my personality ought to be.

But never mind. If you're not seeing it, then I'm doing a good job of disguising it. And that's good enough for me. Consider it the gift of optical illusion. Merry Yule.

Of course, the best delusion is self-delusion! If anyone were ever to come along and poke a hole in my thin, reflective veneer… boy, that would be depressing.

Have I shown you my collection of irrational fears lately? It's around here somewhere, probably right behind my stack of unresolved issues and bottles of emotion.

Speaking of depressing, I'm starting it wonder if it was a mistake to get involved in Freecycle. I now find it impossible to drive down any residential street on trash day without thinking, "What??! Why would anyone throw out what appears to be a perfectly serviceable seat cushion from a chair circa 1978?"

Happy birthday to me! Twenty-one years ago I started writing in my first blank book. I still have it, carefully stowed in a safe place along with every other journal that followed it.

Five years ago I moved into my new office as a junior copywriter with the same group I work for now. My own office. I felt like I had arrived.

Three years ago I was frantically breastfeeding my new little Gert and wishing I had decided to buy birth announcements instead of lovingly hand-craft each and every bleeding one.

Twelve years ago I skipped dinner because my friends were taking me out, pulled on size 5 jeans, and went to a party where I apologetically claimed to have already eaten.

Seventeen years ago I got my period for the very first time. It had actually happened earlier in the month but I wrote about it on my birthday with great excitement.

Nine years ago marked my grateful exit from the realm of teenage motherhood.

Twenty-three years ago, my mom brought chocolate cupcakes to my kindergarten class and I sat in the circle next to Melissa. Melissa had the nicest, softest hair of any girl I have ever known, to this day.

Nineteen years ago my mother drove me to the home of a sweet old couple with a litter of kittens and let me pick out my first cat. I named him Princess and then discovered him several days later licking some very non-Princess-like anatomy. I promptly renamed him Fredrick.

This morning, Matilda presented me with this heartfelt poem, sung to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it":

Its your birthday, it's your birthday and you have smelly feet, smelly feet. It's your birthday, it's your birthday and you have smelly feet, smelly feet. But I don't give a care. I love you anyway. It's your birthday and you have smelly feet. Smelly feet!

My little baby Gert entered the 3-5 year demographic over the weekend, and thus let it be known that she no longer has any use for plastic, baby-friendly bowls, nighttime training pants, or toothbrushing assistance.

She cried when her new roller skates wouldn't let her go as fast as her 9-year-old sister, and again when the loops on her tennis shoes wouldn't fold into neat, bunny-eared bows.

After the excitement of her party, after all her favorite cousins and aunts and uncles had gone home and the sugar was wearing off, I caught a glimpse of Gert sitting on her Sit-n-Spin in the living room in front of the TV, gazing up at her new Care Bears DVD and twisting slightly, absentmindedly from side to side. Then suddenly, she looked down on the floor next to her and patted a small pile of blankets. "Aw, it's o-tay honey," she told it, and I realized one of her new dolls was apprehensively watching the video with her.

The only babies in our house anymore are the ones Gert takes care of, and that makes me more than a little sad. I don't necessarily miss the messy, exhausted, nervous parts of parenting a baby. I don't necessarily want another one, or wish that I could relive the entire thing with either of the girls. It's just that I see Gert being such a kid, and she's so beautiful and perfect in each and every moment that it hurts, like looking into a bright light and never wanting to look away.

When people told me that being a parent is hard, I thought they were talking about messy, exhausting, nerve-wracking things. I didn't know it would be so hard to let go of each perfect moment while you're reaching to grasp at the next one. Children shed them like scales and laugh at us for trying to hold each one so close.

Who says two-year-olds don't get politics? Gertrude & I were having our morning chat on the way to Meemee's and I mentioned that tomorrow was election day. Then I found myself struggling to find a way of explaining democracy to a child who refuses to let anything drop until she thinks she understands it.

She wasn't satisfied with the mechanics of voting, "poking holes in a piece of paper." It sounded like a great deal of fun, but she was interested in the larger purpose.

So I went into a bit of detail about "choosing someone to be the leader."

"The leader?" said Gert. She was quiet for a moment. "I will choose my daddy to be the leader."

I stifled a giggle. "Why do you think Daddy should be the leader?" I asked, just out of curiosity.

"Be-tuz I like my daddy. And my daddy takes care of me."

"And because Daddy wouldn't take us to war to satisfy his own interests, or run us into debt to finance tax cuts for the wealthy?"

"Yes," said Gert. "I like my daddy."

I'm definitely looking forward to poking some holes tomorrow, I don't know about you.

I'll be the first to admit I'm the fairest of fairweather fans, but... go Cards! Our bottom-of-the-twelfth, two-out homerun had me shrieking like an inebriated redneck. This morning I went tearing through loads of unfolded laundry to pull out anything red for the girls to wear.

Matilda, being nine, is starting to find her sense of style, and right now she's using me as a guide. That is, whatever I pick out for her to wear is not what she should be wearing. I tossed a red t-shirt at her as she came out of the shower. "Here, support your team!" I said.

She then gave me her requisite list of reasons why she should not wear that particular shirt: too long, too loose, too cold, too red.

"You have to wear that shirt," I told her. "It's your lucky shirt. The Cardinals have never lost a game when you've worn it."

Matilda looked at the shirt in her hand. "I've never worn this when they've played."

"Details," I said. "Look at me, I'm wearing my lucky red sweater.

"Mom, I don't think that sweater was very lucky for the person who started knitting it."

"Details!"

Anyway, not to end on an unrelated downer but this sort of thing ought to make intelligent people ill.

Were you ever a kid plagued by an itchy tag in the back of your shirt? I think we've all been there. Both girls find tags to be a real buzz-kill, but lately little Gert has become intent on hunting down and killing the tags, wherever they are.

Sorry, our debate viewing came this close to turning into a drinking game. Activist judges! Top one percent! Anyway.

If the tag thing is annoying during the day, it's intolerable at night. Every night we put on a fresh pair of pajamas, get Gert nicely tucked into bed, flip off the light, and just when we think she's dosing off, we hear this ear-piercing, horrified scream:

"MOMMM! I HAVE A TAG!"

Usually this means I'm supposed to leap into action and grab the scissors, haul her shirt up by the scruff of her neck, expose the tag, and snip.

But lately the tags have become as predictable a bedtime stall as the third drink of water, the last-minute trip to the bathroom, the shadows that look like monsters or spiders, and the need for that one last kiss goodnight. I'd had enough with the tags.

On schedule last night, we got the call. I remained planted on the sofa. "I'll fix it in the morning," I assured her. "Just try to go to sleep."

Silence. Then I heard the quiet, resigned weeping. Feeling like crap, I got up to get the scissors. I stopped outside her door for a moment and heard that she was talking to herself.

Sob. "It will just be itchy forever and ever." Sob. "Mom never will fix it." Sob. "It will just be too itchy forever."

I think they write about people like me in fairy tales when they need a really terrible villain.

Today I have a serious day of copywriting ahead of me, which leaves no time for my usual routine of skipping around my favorite blogs, checking my email six times, rooting through Freecycle for today's finds, and feeling morose about the fact that I have nothing to blog about, which usually leads to me hugging myself and chanting affirmations about how creativity is a fragile spark and should not be thrown too soon to the harsh winds of scrutiny.

Today I will embrace the I-have-nothing-to-blog-about moroseness for what it truly is: an excuse to get some work done.

And in case you're not quite sold on how boring I am right now, I'll tell you the single most exciting thing happening in my life today. I'm eating dinner at McDonalds. There. Now everyone, please check your pity at the door and thanks for not laughing behind my back.

October marks this blog's 25th month of blog entries, and to celebrate the occasion I've decided to give everyone names.

Husband's name is Gary, as most of you already know.

Taking a cue from his very successful and popular blog, I think I'll stick with his names for the girls. They seem to fit.

Youngest shall hereafter be known as Gertrude.

Oldest is Matilda.

And my name, of course, is Penny Barcelona. Nice to meet you.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, we can proceed. The highlight of our weekend had to be running into Jeff and young MC at the grocery store Sunday afternoon. With our carts pulled up side-by-side, Gert and MC had a nice moment of toddler interaction.

I should add that Gert already has a rich fantasy life surrounding MC – in her mind they have gone to the zoo together, shared a fear of lions, exchanged laughs, and continually hung out. So Gertrude was all, hey man! Good to see ya! Check out my baby doll. Nice bib. I like your shoes. Your pants are sparkley. What are you doing for lunch later? I hope this place has free samples. Stores are cool, yeah? Okay, call me!

The second biggest event of the weekend was that the sound on our TV went out, necessitating an emergency TV purchase. It went down like this.

Me: I've just finished paying the bills. For some reason, we are not behind on the budget. In fact, we seem to be in fairly decent shape for once!

Gary: Shut up! They'll hear you!

Me: Who will hear me? What?

TV: What did you say? Oh! Crapping out now. Pppthbbbpthp.

Gary: Damn it! You can't crap out. You're only 1.5 years old. Your peer in the next room is pushing 20!

TV: Can't talk. Crapping.

TV from next room: Feeling a little iffy also…

So before the threats could continue, we quickly purchased a replacement set and restored the natural order of things. Yes, I realize we are being held hostage by the whims of our electronic media devices. There are worse things.

In case the suspense was killing you, yesterday the organizers of Creativity Week reserved a conference room and led everyone in a rousing session of yoga. I don't know if I feel any more creative, but I have several muscles experiencing a very unique and unusual brand of ache.

There are paint fumes in the hall, and the impending threat of volleyball hanging over my head. I don't know why, but every year the company picnic rolls around and I feel the need to organize a volleyball team. Why can't I just be happy and accept myself as a non-joiner?

This is going to go down exactly as it always did in gym class so many years go. I will stand on the court with my hands clasped out in front of me, running after the ball so as to fool spectators into assuming that I have some intention of volleying it. And then I will yell "GOT IT!" several times as the ball passes serenely over my head. If I ever do inadvertently make contact with the ball, you will see me grab my wrist and wince as an unspoken apology to the team for that tragic mis-bump.

Just so long as I make it through the game without wetting my pants, I'll call it a success.

Sometimes when you have a lot of things nagging at you, the best thing to do is ignore them all.

Here's what I'm ignoring today:

Copy for the back cover of an ultrasound physics book.

Headlines for five brochure concepts yet to be concepted.

Unpaid bills.

Unbalanced checkbooks.

Unvacuumed rugs.

Unlaundered laundry.

Because after all, it's Creativity Week in Creative Services! Yesterday we looked at close-up photographs of various surfaces and tried to imagine what they might be. Monday we ate Jello molded into the shape of a brain. Today we had a homework assignment – bring in 5 to 10 photos of yourself growing up, and refrain from wearing a skirt. I'm a little nervous about what the connection may be.

All right, I know the reality is that most people coming onto this site couldn't give a rat's arse about knitting, and you probably think it's for old ladies. That's what is so very punk rock about knitting. You're making assumptions about me, which makes another nice layer of societal camouflage designed to keep the unworthy out of my elite inner circle.

So husband's promotion to Vice President/Treasurer of his company earned him an office move to the executive wing of the basement. It's much larger and brighter, and it has fringe benefits for me. His old office (a repurposed bedroom) makes a much cozier art studio than the garage. What it lacks in Potato Barn earnestness, it makes up for with padded carpeting and fewer spiders. My yarn moved right in and made itself at home. It's kind of like having my own dorm room without the nuisance of trying to squeeze in a bed and a room mate. Unless you factor in the cat. At least I can trust her not to flake out and try to set the place on fire. Ah, college…

Today is one of those days where you wake up with the motivation to eat right and get in shape, and by 10:15 AM you have eaten all the remaining chocolate out of your desk drawer.

However, for five whole minutes I felt wrapped in the arms of a warm, chocolate embrace. So it was worth it.

Note to self: when selecting sweaters to unravel for cheap, re-knittable yarn, avoid chenille. Avoid it! It is nothing but pain, heartache, and clumps of fuzz. Down with synthetics.

On the other hand, I have high hopes for the much-anticipated unravel of a gloriously soft mohair blend I scored from the local Goodwill for $3. I'm not sure yet, but I think I heard it saying something about wanting to become a hoodie.

You will never believe what I have come to possess.

Someone on freecycle offered a partially knitted red wool sweater that she’d picked up at an estate sale and never gotten around to finishing.

My first thought: Hmm. I could use that yarn!

My second thought: Estate sale. This is the knitting of a dead woman.

My third thought: I Have Got To Have That Sweater.

So I’ve created an idea of her, this knitting dead grandmotherly type. In the middle of a stitch, her red woolen knitting fell to her lap and that was that. The picture she held in her mind of what the finished sweater would look like, her thoughts of the intended sweater recipient woven into each neat stitch, none of that was seen by the relative or caregiver who discovered her. It was simply red knitting, set aside and never picked up again. Maybe grandchildren would see it and glimpse a memory of grandma’s fingers on that yarn for a moment.

I didn’t have a knitting grandma. My grandmas taught me to make banana pudding, showed me how to use pastels, raised tomato plants and demonstrated cross-stitch as we watched Shirley Temple movies.

But knitting is my own. It’s something I’ll try to teach to every grandchild or anyone else who wants to learn – because it's knowledge that is meant to be passed on. It's part of a tradition of people who have each calmly and purposefully turned string into clothing one single stitch at a time, like a loud hum of a thousand things working quietly in unison. You infuse potential, ideals, outcomes, and random thoughts into each inch of fabric, weaving in pieces of yourself as you go. It's magic, in the very oldest sense of the word.

And this is all probably why people seek out communities or religion or something, but I'm happy just knitting and knowing it's there.

As I looked through the box of red sweater pieces, I was seized with an overwhelming Amelie-like urge to complete the sweater, locate the person for whom it was originally started, and anonymously send it compliments of the deceased.

It's just been nothing but good news here lately. Congratulations to my brilliantly entrepreneurial husband and his partner, who have just incorporated their business.

I believe this officially makes me a trophy wife.

*Glitter.*

And if that weren't exciting enough, I've discovered the slickest little ballerina-style slipper pattern that knits up in just a few hours and uses a single skein of yarn plus some ribbon. I'd post the link, except that some of you just might be getting them for Christmas, wink wink.

I do believe congratulations are in order!

Dear Tiny Baby Pudding, this silly sentimental blog entry is dedicated to you. Ahem:

Into Being

Be unafraid of jumping.
You are the work of generations
of selective engineering.
You are DNA empowered, engendered, enlivened,
Foreseen from subatomic destiny
to stand on a thousand cliffs without collapsing,
Your atoms fixed securely into a state of undispersing.
Rocks that crumble from the edge were never meant to hold you.

Stitch Klatch meets tonight at 7! (The Coffee House, 177 Hilltown Village Ctr, off Olive -- 63017 if you're into Mapquesting)

Tonight is special. With my sketchy and limited ability to instruct, I'm going to give a go at teaching someone how to knit. I have packed extra needles, yarn, and photocopies of illustrated, step-by-step instructions from a book that is so much better at explaining things than me. So if you want to learn too, come have coffee with us. I can't promise anything except that there will be coffee, and that at some point I will confuse myself and forget what I'm doing.

I feel especially cute today because I'm sporting one of these. His name is Morton and he'll be perching on my hip for the next 24 hours, because apparently when you mention to your doctor that you've been feeling fluttery and short of breath it makes him think of setting the two of you up.

Morton is neither funny nor charming, we have nothing in common, and has already felt me up and elbowed me in the spleen. I want to find an unsuspecting girlfriend to dump him off on and then crawl out a bathroom window, but I'm too polite to do anything but keep glancing at my watch.

I know they're not going to be very impressed with the "symptom diary" I've been asked to keep, either. Instead of writing down things like shortness of breath, my log is looking like this:

9:42 AM. Morton poked me in the side. Intense jabbing sensation.
9:43 AM. Cannot get comfortable.
9:44 AM. Ow! Motherfucker!
9:47 AM. Wires are uncomfortable.
9:48 AM. Shifting position does not alleviate jabbing.
9:49 AM. Morton is being inappropriately familiar.
9:49 AM. Jabbing!
9:50 AM. Ow, quit it.
9:50 AM. Ow, quit it.
9:50 AM. Ow, quit it.

Please do not ask me to show you my electrodes, because I won't.

Look what my dad got me for my birthday! Except he doesn't know it, and wouldn't know what they were even if I told him. And my birthday was actually about 10 months ago. You see, I found the birthday card he'd given me in a drawer just the other day, and there was cash inside! Way to re-present.

But speaking of birthdays, my sibling J$ is another year older. I did not call my brother yesterday on his actual birthday, and for this I now hang my head in shame...

--> Shame <--

...and in celebration of the great event, I'm knitting him this with the aforementioned needle set. (The brightest among us will immediately observe that the link is not yet active, as the item has not yet been gifted. And given the massive amounts of traffic this site sees, who knows how the word might leak out…I think I see someone from CNN reading right now! Ahem. Thank you, that is quite a bold little skirt I'm wearing today, isn't it. Don't pretend like you didn't notice. Why yes, I'd love an on-camera interview.)

Is Ipecac the only over-the-counter medication that sounds like its intended result? Perhaps not, but it is the most fun to say out loud.

I guess I should be glad this isn't necessarily a trend in the industry, where products like Senokot might be named... well, okay. I'm sure we're all creative enough to fill in our own blanks.

In my lunch today:

3 slices of prepackaged deli ham
1 slice processed American cheese
1 tomato, sliced
1 hamburger bun…

354 calories.

1 Cortland apple…

80 calories.

1 package Nabisco Dora the Explorer fruit snacks…

Priceless.

Shazzaam, baby! I just put the final stitches on my very first sweater for Youngest. And it feels good. So good, in fact, that I'm not even going to let the buzz fade before starting on Sweater #2 for Oldest.

You see that little girl in the pink and grey sweater? That's what Oldest still looks like to me when I think about her. She's this chubby-wristed, wispy-blonde toddler with huge blue eyes and eyelashes that any mascara diva would envy. She pronounces "r" like "ahwa" and thinks toe fuzz is serious business.

That kid started fourth grade today. And man, is she cool about it. Except one little moment this morning when the cool broke at 6:15 am, a good chunk of time before she was supposed to wake up. I opened my eyes to her standing beside my bed grinning down at me, about to pop with excitement.

Unlike all the other kids at the bus stop, Oldest did not have a new backpack this morning. She decided to blow her school supply budget on nifty accessories, while "re-upping" her old backpack with glittery fabric paint and artistic flair.

It gave me a moment of guilt to see her beside all the kids with new bags. I would have bought her a new bag. Never mind that the old one was still in perfect shape, if she'd really wanted a new backpack I would have bought her one. I just hoped she really was pleased with the creative option, and wasn't secretly standing there wishing hers was new.

"That's your old backpack," said one of the little boys. "I have a new backpack, and you have your old one."

"Yeah," said Oldest, in her you-are-a-moron tone. "Only, it's not old. I painted it."

And then all the kids gathered around her work of art as Oldest proudly showed it off.

She is not me. I have to remember that.

Because I'm feeling bitter and angry today, and because some bee-otch newsletter editor in the UK is trying to UK-ize ("-ise") the article I wrote, I just feel like complaining.

I'm not going to say who, but someone is this room had a baby right out of high school. She went to college, worked two jobs, and so on. The male component went right on collecting Magic: The Gathering cards and working as a lifeguard for a hotel pool.

Now, I should be glad about one thing. Oldest's biological father has always faithfully paid child support. With the exception of, well, a period of 18 months where he was just sort of, you know, unemployed. But hey, as soon as he got back on his feet living in his mother's basement, he started writing checks again! And they have always been for the same amount. You know, the amount he could afford to pay. When he was a hotel pool lifeguard.

And he still plans to pay back the period of support he missed.

When he can afford it.

You know, after he gets married, goes on a honeymoon, takes a few supplemental trips to various parts of the country, buys a house and some new shoes.

Last time I asked him about the missing support checks, he told me, "I'm working on it. I've been putting it into a savings account for her."

That's great! I said. But I'd prefer you just to pay us back as you get the money.

He said, "Okay." And since then, nothing.

I try not to be angry about it. We all do the best we can with what we have. We're not all born with common sense.

Have I mentioned he filed for bankruptcy after opening a credit account in my name, and then stuck me with a $10,000 charge-off on my credit report? Hhh.

I asked him to buy Oldest's Girl Scout sash and troop number patches. She also needs khaki pants and a white shirt as part of her uniform, I mentioned. We probably have a white shirt. Perhaps he could pick up a pair of pants since she's outgrown her old khakis. He hesitated, but agreed.

Instead of buying a normal pair of khaki pants from K-Mart like a normal, cost-conscious adult, he bought the official Girl Scout khaki pants – you know, where they sew a logo on the pocket and charge twice as much. AND he got her a white GS logo shirt – which cost more than I would ever spend on a single article of clothing.

That was awfully nice of him. Or, it would have been if I didn't feel like it was such an unnecessary waste of money when he's acting like he can't afford to pay the support he owes. Every time he buys her shoes she doesn't need or a shirt she'll never wear, I can hear my own voice screaming in the back of my head: That's nice…Pay Your F-ing Child Support!

Plus, when I told him she wears a size 10 pants, I assume he heard a loud buzzing and some noise where my voice should have been.

"You'll have to hem them," he said. "But they should fit for a couple of years. Right?" he said, nudging Oldest.

She smiled and nodded in a way that spoke to how much she really didn't care to be part of the conversation.

At this point, neither do I.

I'm happy. Work, for once, is being good to me. Plus, there's chocolate in the studio.

And tonight, we knit!

I'm disappointed that by not keeping up with the blogging community I missed an opportunity to meet other area knitters. This is because I secretly think that many of the area bloggers are cool, and I want them to like me.

Knitting is cool. People who think knitting is cool… are also cool. The other day, I had my knitting with me at the doctor's office, and the receptionist said, "Hey, I knit too! I love knitting." See, and that made me think, "She's cool! I like her."

A funny thing happens to me when I knit. It's a strange, happy, peaceful thing. I stop freaking out about stuff. I quit thinking I need to lose twenty pounds. I'm not worrying that no one likes me or that I'm a terrible wife and mother. When I'm knitting, all the things I want to do or be are either reachable or irrelevant. Why else would we waste time wrapping yarn around needles in a time-consuming, often frustrating process of creating textiles? Why do runners run? Why do painters paint? There's got to be some chemical change going on in the brain of a knitter.

Whatever it is, knitting makes me want to befriend people.

That's a big deal. No, trust me. I think I've had like four friends in my entire life.

And now this has just turned pathetic so I'm going to stop. And knit! Mmmmm, serotonin...

"Hey ma, come here," Husband called from Youngest's bedroom. I looked in on the two of them sitting on Youngest's toddler bed, grinning.

"Tell her," said Husband to Youngest.

Tripping on a giggle, Youngest told me, "The sun is in your eyes on a string."

"Oh!" I said, and looked at Husband for a translation.

"Hold on a second," he said, and cupped his hands around her ear.

Youngest listened to his whispering, with the gleeful look of a co-conspirator. She said, "My mistresses eyes…"

More whispering. "…are nothing," she said, "…like the sun."

Later, he lined up both girls at attention, popped quackers into their mouths and quacked orders at the newly formed Duck Brigade to march – march! – into the living room and pick up any toys they found on the floor.

Not only did they pick up their toys, they brushed their teeth when they were done.

While his methods may be unorthodox, his genius is incontrovertible. And you can quote Shakespeare to me anytime, Cpl. Mallard.

Just so you know, inanimate objects make great pets at my house. The kids have turned just about everything into a piece of their imaginative world, and most of it is alive.

My skeins of yarn are all cats. Specifically, they are "yarn-spinning cats" and they are all named Sophia.

I find the girls in my closet pawing through my stray yarn skeins, each looking for just the right Sophia. They wrap their Sophias in baby blankets. They rock them to sleep. They push them in strollers. They make leashes and take them for walks. They feed them "treats" made of rocks from our back yard.

The skeins without labels are the orphans, which is all very sad, and those poor Sophias are rounded up to live in the orphanage on our living room couch.

The other night, I was sitting on the couch with my knitting, and Youngest crawled up beside me.

"Can I hold your Sophia?" she asked.

"I'm using it to knit," I told her.

"I will be really careful?"

"Well, all right." I lifted up my needles for access to the bundle of yarn on my lap. She held it out in front of her in both hands, gazing at it lovingly.

"Aww!" she said, after a moment. "My Sophia is falling asleep in my arms!"

My kids are sweet, but they're all completely whack.