Gertrude has a complicated relationship with Santa. On one hand, she has an inherent fondness for any kind, old man who routinely brings her presents and tells her what a good girl she is. On the other hand, she's terrified of him.

When we told the kids that we were going to go visit Santa at the mall, Gert spent the entire afternoon and evening wavering between one extreme and the other.

Gert at 5:00 p.m.: "I'm going to bring this snowflake that I made in school to show Santa! It's the best snowflake I ever made. Santa will love it. I want to sit on Santa's lap and show it to him!"

Gert at 5:03 p.m.: "I DON'T WANT TO SIT ON SANTA'S LAP!"

Gert at 5:05 p.m.: "I love Santa. Can I tell Santa I love him?"

Luckily, by the time we were actually standing in line, Gert had swung over to the pro-Santa camp and was eagerly bouncing on her tiptoes with her prized paper snowflake clutched in both hands.

Santa motioned to Matilda and Gert, and I saw Gert hold up the snowflake and tell him all about it.

"That's beautiful!" said Santa, taking and admiring the snowflake with his white-gloved hands. "Is this for me?"

Oh crap.

Gert smiled and nodded and watched Santa tuck the snowflake next to him into the cushion of his oversized Santa-couch.

Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! This was going to end badly.

But Gert was all smiles as she told Santa what she wanted and how helpful she was to mother and how nice she was to her sister, etc. She hopped off his lap and trotted back to Gary and me without so much as a backward glance.

If you look closely here, behind the superimposed snowman's head, you'll see a folded piece of purple construction paper. There, the snowflake remained with Santa, and we cheerfully headed for home.



I still had a nagging sense that we hadn't heard the last of the snowflake. Sure enough, as I was helping Gert get into her jammies that night, her lower lip started to quiver.

"My snowflake...!" she whimpered. "I didn't mean to give it to Santa! I couldn't tell what he was saying because he has that old beard on his face."

And that, according to Gert, is the story of how a sneaky, bearded old poser tricked her out of her most-perfect snowflake that she ever made, and how Mommy promised her extra toys on Christmas morning (although it's unclear how Mommy is qualified to make that promise).

You can go ahead and consider this my "oh well, I'm not going to finish my nano novel again this year" post.

And I'll go ahead and continue a little tradition of my loserdom that I started last year. When it became clear last year that I wasn't going to finish it, I consoled myself with a yarn purchase and cast on for a new sweater. I affectionately called it the Loser Sweater:



As you can see, it's simple and clean and uncomplicated. Clearly, this was a sweater that I could knit quickly and easily while sniffing back tears of failure. My heart was still in the writing, not the knitting.

By contrast, may I present Loser Sweater #2:



There is nothing uncomplicated about this sweater. The yarn wasn't purchased, it was recycled silk/angora which I reclaimed from a gigantic cabled pullover. The pattern is actually knit from the center outward in a giant, lacy circle with arms grafted in at just the right point. It's ridiculous in its complexity. But I loved making it. This is a sweater that screams at the top of its lungs, "Screw you, Nano! I'm a knitter, not a novelist!"

Next year I may need to devote November to something more along the lines of NaKniSweMo just so I'll have a Winner Sweater to add to the collection.

Here is an expression of how much I love my husband.

During the Tour de France, I got the idea to knit him a sweater modeled after a retro-looking wool jersey. Yes, there is such a thing as a wool cycling jersey. Don't you know wool fabric is a much more efficient regulator of body temperature than any synthetic material? It's true. So this is not as far-fetched as it sounds.

I spent months and months knitting it, months finishing it, and more months with it sitting halfway finished on my shelf because I KNEW it wasn't quite right but I wasn't ready to admit it yet.

So finally I finished it. I gave it to my husband.

And I immediately excused him from any obligation to wear it. Is that not love?







By the way, remember when I told you about how I goofed up the measurements and wrote this pattern without any ease? Well, in the time it took me to construct it, Mr. Compulsive Cyclist dropped off enough weight to account for his own ease. He loves me that much.

Okay, since I haven't been doing much writing this month outside of work and the nano novel, I might as well show you something constructive:



These are gloves that started out as Broadripple Socks but confided to me that they'd rather be worn as arm adornments than live life hidden under bootleg jeans.

I glove them so.

Still feeling a bit gloomy and under the weather this morning, I packed my inner child a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, and a bag of chips for lunch.

(I stopped just short of filling a thermos with chocolate milk, mainly because I cannot be trusted to promptly rinse out a thermos, and have you ever experienced anything more disgusting than old milk in a thermos? I don’t believe I have.)

When I zipped open the lunchbox just now, it smelled like Lunch! There’s some kind of chemical reaction that occurs whenever this particular combination of food sits together in a confined space for several hours, and it has the power to reach deep into your brain and transport you back to elementary school.

On gloomy days like today, though, my mom would sometimes pack me a thermos of vegetable beef soup.

(I'm realizing now how repulsive THAT must have been to clean out. I can't help but feel even more loved.)

It's 8:15 a.m., I've been at work for over an hour, and can I please go back to bed?

Between the rain pounding on the side of the house, the dog whining, and the phone ringing, none of us got any sleep. Except the kids. Unless they're the ones waking us up with vomit and whatnot, they usually sleep through whining dogs.

I don't know what was wrong with him. For six hours straight last night he paced from one end of the house to the other, with his nails clattering loudly on the wood floors. I imagine this is the same sound you'd hear if you trapped a miniature but highly enthusiastic horse inside the world's largest snare drum.

I suspected he riding a sugar rush from the pre-Halloween candy he stole out of Gert's room earlier in the day.

Then the whining started. It was raining hard by this time, but he's not normally bothered by rain, other than his refusal to go outside and relieve himself when it's wet outside. Okay, so maybe he had to go.

Letting the dog out at our house is a process that involves walking out through the garage to get to the only door that leads to the backyard. So I pulled on a robe and skipped on my freezing cold tiptoes over the freezing cold garage floor through the freezing cold garage and opened the door to a wall of rain outside.

Finnegan looked up at me.

"Go potty," I said.

He hunkered and stepped gingerly outside. I closed the door behind him and stood bouncing on my cold toes. He waited, absolutely motionless, inches from the door, looking back at me through the window.

For six full minutes, we stared each other down.

Finally, I threw open the door and he rushed back through the garage, shaking himself with indignance.

I called the dog several rude names and went back to bed. In fifteen minutes, he was whining again.

All night long, Gary and I took turns checking on, comforting, and finally threatening the little rat bastard. I have no idea what his problem was. All I know is that when the phone rang at 4 a.m., I half expected it to be the producer of a reality show on sleep deprivation congratulating us for making it to the Final Two.

As I was getting ready to walk out the door for work, I noticed Finnegan napping contentedly in the living room. I walked over, and he opened one drowsy eye.

"The cat has instructions to meow at you every time you graze REM sleep," I said.

And then he rolled onto his back so I could scritch his belly. Sometimes cute is the best defense against crabby. Dogs know this.

Did you see the episode of The Office where Michael hears a joke about updawg and spends an inordinate amount of time trying to lure someone else into the joke so he can deliver the punchline?

(If not, you're probably asking yourself... what's updawg? Nothin' dawg, what's up with you.)

When someone finally does walk into it, Michael gets so excited he blows the whole thing. And we laugh, because that's how pathetic the poor guy is.

So Matilda and I were at the grocery store last night picking up cereal and ground turkey, and I mentioned to Matilda that while we were here we should get some updawg.

"Huh?" said Matilda.

"Updawg!" I said. "You know. We've gotten updawg before."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. Updawg. You told me you liked updawg."

"What?"

"UPDAWG!"

"I have no idea what that is."

I stopped the cart in a huff in the middle of the aisle and looked at Matilda with complete seriousness. "We need," I said, "to find out where they keep the updawg."

"What," said Matilda, "is updawg?"

"Ah HAH!" I shouted.

And then I completely forgot what I was talking about.

Evidence of a sweater's success

Exhibit:





Point A:

The first thing you'll notice in this exhibit is that subject is actually wearing the sweater. She is not in the act of tugging it off or squirming in it. Her face is not contorted into a spasm of displeasure, itching, or irritation. In fact, subject appears to be quite accepting of the sweater's presence upon her person.

Point B:

Upon further inspection, we see that the sweater's arms appropriately match the length and girth of subject's arms, and the body of the sweater contours to subject's torso without excessive bulking or stretching. We can conclude from this evidence that the fit is, in fact, "solid jackson."

Point C:

Finally, allow me to submit that the color and stitch design of the sweater do physically enhance the overall cuteness of the subject. Given the subject's inherent cuteness and the implied difficulty of that task, I feel that it is safe to conclude that this sweater does qualify as a successful Gertrude sweater.

Mission accomplished! I'm working on the pattern and I'll have that up "soon" -- or sooner if anyone really wants to knit one.

The real reason I'm so tempted to have a go at Nanowrimo again this year?

It's not because I enjoyed adding to the year's busiest month (sales meeting, birthdays, holidays, etc.) with the self-imposed deadlines and unnecessary stress of writing a novel in 30 days.

I actually did not enjoy that. If I can force myself to think past the magical first few pages into the murky depths of what that reality was like, trudging through paragraph after paragraph of uninspired exposition just to meet each day's word count requirement, I actually have no desire to do any of that again.

But, oh. The beginning! The metaphorical casting-on of words. It's so simple just to begin, to entertain possibilities, open doors, pick up story lines that have not yet begun to suck. Characters exist as only a wisp of exciting potential and haven't yet been corrupted by ineffective fleshing-out or thinking-through.

I'm incurably addicted to starting things.

Now if someone were to join me... that would be all the convincing I need. Can't you just imagine a month of evenings spent camped out together with a pot of coffee and two computers crackling away between us? I would call out, "Toss me a plot line, honey! I'm drowning over here!" And he would reply, "Your main character finds evidence that a civilization of miniature, technologically sophisticated lemmings is flourishing in his/her vegetable drawer. Go!"

That's romance, is what that is. That's effing true love.

Allow me to be vague for a moment.

Something happened at work and I'm unhappy about it.

It keeps playing as a scene from Joe Versus the Volcano where the boss keeps repeating into the phone: "I know he can get the job, but can he DO the job?"

I'm unhappy. Other people are unhappy. Someone who deserved a chance wasn't given one, and I'm not sure I completely understand why.

So that feels like crap.

How much of parenting is overcorrecting things gone wrong in your own psyche?

Yesterday Gertrude spent the better part of the afternoon walking down the street to ask if her friend could play, pausing with her finger poised to ring the doorbell as she wrestled with her shyness, and then walking back home.

She has asked her friend to play many times before, but she's always had her big sister at her side. This time, Matilda was at her dad's house. And Gertrude was bored, so I told her to go see if her friend could play.

I watched her from the kitchen window. I told myself, don't enable. Don't enable! She needed to do it herself to know she could do it herself.

This was me I saw, walking back and forth between the houses, or holding a phone receiver in one hand with my finger poised to dial a friend's number, my heart pounding and my confidence wavering. This was me, sitting on the porch step alone watching a group of kids across the street because I couldn't find the words to say, "Can I play?"

This was me staying home instead of going out. It was me with a single ticket to a play.

Back and forth Gertrude went, each time starting out from home with determination, armed with what I'd told her over and over: "Just say, 'Can Kylie play?'" Each time she dragged her feet back home without her friend and begged me to come with her.

I watched her out the window and argued with myself the entire time. She's still so little! And she's shy! No, she's old enough to walk over and ring the doorbell. She's perfectly able to communicate with other people. She knows what to do.

For the hundredth time, Gertrude marched down the sidewalk toward her friend's house. I heard a screen door screech open. And then I heard the little neighbor girl’s voice ring out, "Hi, Gertie!"

Even from my window in the kitchen, I could see the broad smile break out on Gert's face.

It was nothing compared to the smile on mine.

Seven years ago I married this person, who also happens to be my strength, support, love, and lifetime companion.

About eight years ago he offered me a diamond and asked what almost seemed to be a rhetorical question.

Six months before, I was working away at a mindless cubicle job when I looked up and saw the man I was meant to marry. When we met, I recognized him. That's the only way I can explain it. It was like rediscovering something I'd lost so long ago I'd almost forgotten I was looking for it.

We dated less than six months, which is a ridiculously short amount of time to get to know a person. But we already knew each other. The six months we did wait was just to prove to our families that we weren't entirely rushing into things. Two weeks might have seemed a little abrupt.

So seven years have passed since the day we officially made that commitment, and eight years plus 196 days since I was lucky enough to find the one I'd been missing since the last time we found each other.

And counting.

Do you ever wonder about the narrative your grocery cart tells? Yesterday I found myself standing in the checkout line with three gigantic packages of triple-roll toilet paper, frozen egg rolls, diaper wipes, and beer.

"I'm going to get smashed while binging on prepackaged Chinese food that will ultimately cause me to crap myself to the extent that I might need soothing, moist intervention!" it seemed like I was broadcasting to my fellow Schnucks patrons.

This was the perfect follow-up to me being unintentionally pantsed by my overexcited preschooler in front of the entire parent pick-up lane. Her rubber sandal caught in the hem of my skirt as she rushed at me for a hug, and before I realized it my elastic waistband was hugging my knees.

It's amazing how long it actually seems to take to untangle yourself from a hug, put down a squirming child, and yank your skirt back into place when everyone's trying really hard not to notice what color drawers you're sporting.

A series of uninteresting updates...

Gertrude's sweater? Finished knitting while on retreat with my department yesterday (yes, it is a fantastic retreat when one can knit through most of the activities). I have some reknitting of the sleeves to do, which shouldn't take more than a few days. And it's okay, because I've just purchased The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns which is pretty much the most useful book ever, and I should never have to reknit too-tight sleeves again.

Gary's cycling sweater? It's finished and blocked, and all I have left to do is a little detailing, but I keep putting it off because that part is neither fun and immediately gratifying nor mindless and relaxing. I like all things knitting to fall into either of those categories. Actually, all things in life should be that way.

Our anniversary roadtrip? It's almost here, and I couldn't be more excited. Seriously, I keep thinking about how much fun it's going to be to ride our bikes down to a cute little cottage in the heart of winery country where we'll spend the evening holding hands and making silly faces at each other (that's because of the fatigue and alcohol, of course).

Once upon a time (nearly a year ago, in fact), you all helped me pick out some Mermaid-colored yarn for the 2nd Mystery Shawl knitalong:



I started knitting it on some priceless handmade wooden needles crafted by yaya. Here's the little guy just starting to spread out:



After this point it was pretty slow going:



And many, many months later, after lots of giving up and modifications of the original edge pattern, the Modified Mermaid Mystery Shawl broke free of the needles and climbed up into the sun to stretch and spread its lace in repose.



And see? It works like I assume a shawl is supposed to!

Here's an unexpected turn of events.

The boy who asked Matilda to the dance is the boy I know many of the girls last year giggled about. He's the one with the pretty eyes. He's Mister Popularity.

Matilda turned him down!

She apparently told him flat out over the phone that she didn't want to go to the dance with him. She and three of her girlfriends are planning to go together instead.

By the way, we have Gary to thank for this clever bit of parental sleuthing. All I could get out her last night was that yes, that was a boy on the phone and yes, he'd asked her to the dance.

Gary got her talking. He asked if she liked this particular boy, and she said no, not really.

"Does he know you don't like him?" asked Gary.

"He does now!" Matilda shrugged.

I think I love that kid.

I am declaring an official State of Emergency.

Matilda has been asked to the 6th grade dance. By a boy.

And so it begins.

I have a problem. My wrists hurt. And I blame the acrylic.

See, the other day Gertrude came home from preschool and pulled a piece of construction paper out of her My Little Pony backpack. On this piece of paper, she had carefully inscribed a string of crudely formed letters.

I looked at it. It appeared to be written in Russian.

"This is wonderful writing!" I exclaimed.

"It's a note," Gert said. "I had to write it to myself so I wouldn't forget."

"Oh? What does it say?"

Gert pointed and read, "Bring... sweater."

I don't know why, but I found this to be unbearably precious. The idea of little Gert sitting in a chilly preschool classroom and being prompted to take pencil to construction paper, asking a nearby grownup how to spell these two key words that would remind her to bring a sweater on the next day of preschool... that's too adorable!

This instantly reminded me that I have yet to knit Gert a mommy-made sweater that A) fits her and B) is not itchy.

The first sweater I ever attempted for Gert was neither A nor B:



This sweater taught me an important lesson about gauge. I bet you can guess what that lesson was.

The second sweater I made for Gert was such a failure that I never even attempted to photograph it. It was a green, white, and blue striped top-down raglan. In addition to the colors being all wrong, the sleeves were too short, the body was too wide, and worst of all it was itchy.

In sharp contrast, the sweater I made for Matilda was a complete success. It's just that now she's a middle schooler who is too fashion-forward to wear a handknit sweater that wasn't handknit by underpaid Guatemalans for a runway show.



Gert's note to herself renewed my desire to make her a successful sweater. Together, we went downstairs to the yarn studio. I showed her all the viable sweater yarns and we narrowed it down to two pinks -- one option was a stretchy pink wool blend, and the other was pastel pink acrylic. I will say one thing for acrylic: it's soft. And that's exactly what Gert fell for. She held it against her cheek. She rubbed it on her arm. She declared it soft, fluffy, pink, and perfect.

We tucked an intermediary store-bought sweater into her backpack and I got to work on designing and knitting the perfect Gert sweater.

You know. Because I can't ever do anything easy like use an existing pattern. This one has to be Gert-perfect.

And that means Cables.

Cables + Acrylic = Dammit, my wrists hurt.

I should really take a break from it, but the classroom is chilly...

Gertrude is the victim of unrequited love:



Gert loves the cat with every fiber of her being in ways that make her want to rush at the cat, scoop her up into her arms, and carry her throughout the house. The cat, while tolerant of Gert most of the time, does not like to be picked up and loved quite that hard.

No matter how many times the cat runs from her, Gert continues to try and pick her up. Sometimes I find Gert crouching beside my bed and peering under it, saying, "Kismet! Come on out to me, sweetie! I'm just going to love you…" It's heartbreaking, really.

The other day, she asked Gary if we could get a new cat. He asked her why, and she wailed, "Kismet doesn't love me!"

The kid needed a cat of her own.

This is not usually how cats are born:



But this is no usual cat:



And this Kismet lets Gert pick her up whenever she wants:

Part of Matilda's new 6th-grade curriculum includes learning to play an instrument in the band or orchestra. Matilda fell in love with the cello.

The cello is a huge-ass piece of instrumentation. This thing is as tall as my daughter and probably weighs more.

But she's very excited about it, and as Gary and I are both hardcore band nerds* we are excited right along with her.

As you'll see by the asterisk down below, we're all about the woodwinds and brass, but we're in full support of the cello. I told Matilda she was the first member of her family to play a stringed instrument, which is kind of like being the first person to go to college. Full speed ahead, we're with you all the way, but we don't have the first clue about anything you're doing!

After school yesterday, I took Matilda up to the local music store and asked about renting a cello. She can play the school cellos in class, but she needs one at home to practice with. They fitted her for one, tuned it, and handed me some paperwork to sign. It costs $200 to rent a cello for the school year. That's a lot of cannoli, but okay. Then they asked me if we wanted the $25 service policy which protects against blah, blah, and blah.

I have a policy of saying no to service policies.

No thanks, I said. We're just going to use this one at home. It'll be fine.

Those of you English majors paying close attention here will pick up on that subtle instance of foreshadowing.

On the way home, Matilda decided the cello was a girl cello and named her Chellie.

She couldn't wait to start experimenting, and as soon as we pulled into the garage, Matilda leapt out and lugged Chellie off to the den. She popped in the instructional DVD that came with her essentials book.

Gertrude was extremely interested in all this. She parked herself on the sofa to watch as Matilda perched on the edge of a dining room chair, balancing the cello between her knees and practicing her posture as the DVD instructed.

I checked to be sure she was all set up, then I went out into the kitchen to chat with Gary. I still had the yellow receipt copy in my hand, and I plunked it down on the counter to show him.

I said, "Wow. Two hundred and--" I glanced down at the total. "WHAT?"

"What?" said Gary.

"I told them we DIDN'T want the service policy, and here it is checked 'service policy' and they charged me the extra $25!"

"Well, what’s the service policy?"

"Oh, I don’t know. Something that protects against things like—"

CRASH.

I am not even kidding. At that exact moment we heard the horrible sound of large, soft-wooded instrument meeting hardwood flooring.

We both sprinted.

Matilda was standing beside her chair, righting the instrument. Gertrude was kneeling on the couch looking worried. "It fell!" Matilda wailed. "Gert touched it!"

"She just touched it, and it fell?" I asked, not buying it.

"I was just..."

The parental band nerds both knew what had happened. "Did you lean it against your chair?" I asked.

Rule number one of playing an instrument: NEVER LEAN IT. IT WILL FALL. Leaners never learn and learners never lean. We had neglected to mention this at the onset, and now the cello's strings were flapping against its neck, limp and flaccid. And I, player of woodwind and brass, had no idea what to do about it.

Split a reed and I'll pat you on the shoulder and hand you a new one. Break a string and I'll completely flip out.

"Oh my god, we broke it! In the first fifteen minutes of having it in our house, we broke it! How can we take this back to them and admit that we broke it within the first fifteen minutes? Can we get a new string? Will we know how to attach it? And how do we tune it? We don't know anything about tuning a cello! Where's the tuner? Crap, crap, crap!"

Gary, player of strummable strings, was entirely rational. He reassured me that there was nothing wrong with the cello itself (and P.S. we have the service policy if there is), he would pick up a new set of strings, Matilda would learn how to tune it in class (because P.P.S., the reason you take a class is to learn things like that), and everything would be fine.

And it will. And it is. And we're going to have to start Gertrude on piano lessons ASAP or something because she's way too fascinated by expensive stringed instruments, even when she's not supposedly sending them crashing to the floor as her sister would have you believe.

*Gary has played the clarinet, guitar, and ukulele. I've played the piano, sax, trumpet, and various percussives.