Hunkered Down

Hello, BLIZZARD WARNING! I made a quick dash over to the library to post my excitement. I've been wanting to get to a computer for a few days and make a post... partly because I was disgusted with society, but now I've gotten my soulemama fix and am feeling a little less annoyed. (My annoyance had to do with a generally lazy society and the mentality that someone else always has to fix things for you. When did people forget how to take care of themselves?!)

So, I've been collecting some knitting books from the library and in one (something about vintage baby knits) I found a pattern for little baby pants, worked on straight needles! (I don't do circular, remember.) They are freaking adorable, and I am afraid that I've.... been bit. (again.)

I don't have any yarn for them, but I did get my hands on this wonderful cotton (mission falls) that's in a very springtime green that I'm working into a little baby sweater. I'm calling it the Springtime Garden Sweater. I think it's going to be cute! And I'm pretty sure it'll fit Anja, but if not, it's lucky I have two baby girls!

Baby girls, who really aren't babies at all any more. In fact, yesterday I was nursing Greta while she was picking her nose, and I realized I'm nursing a little girl, not a baby. How did that happen?! Greta seems so much older than Anja at that age. She talks ALL THE TIME and really well. In fact, she speaks way more clearly than Anja does, and tries out words more bravely than Anja. Greta can name almost all of her cousins.... Anja only says the name of four. She still calls Avila "my cousins' new baby." Haha! Greta calls her "ya-ya" which is adorable. And Greta's got all this fluffy hair now! And Anja's hair is so long she wears it in pigtails, which is great, because left on its own it kind of goes wild. She's got a pretty crazy mop.

And Anja is getting too big too fast too. Last week we read "Charlotte's Web." !!!!! A CHAPTER BOOK!!!! She was asking if all spiders are mean, and I said oooooh no, no, no... and I told her about Charlotte. She immediately wanted to read the book. They didn't have it available at the library, but we happened to be at Once Upon a Child last week (where I also picked up for $2 a pair of green corduroy pants that will soon have felt vegetables appliqued onto them) and found a brand new copy for $1.50! What a bargain. So we bought it and started reading it that day in the car. We finished it in five days. Every morning Anja would come downstairs and ask me to read her a chapter of Charlotte's Web. She looooved Wilbur, and she really loved Templeton too.... oddly enough, she didn't really care much about Charlotte or the fact that Charlotte dies at the end of the book. But anyway, we're into the world of chapter books now and I am not sure what to think about that.

But in all this sentimentality, I have to say that I LOVE having two "kids" instead of two babies. It's so much fun! We do such fun things together during the day. Today to celebrate Blizzard Day we made a blueberry coffee cake. They love to help me bake! And they're getting really good at stirring without flinging ingredients all over the kitchen.

The guy next to me is totally rocking out... and burping. Do I laugh, or throw up a little?

Oh my gosh, the other day Martin told a really gross joke that made my mom run to the bathroom. She called out "I'm gagging!" And then a minute later she said, "I threw up a little in my mouth!" Oh my gosh, I'm trying not to laugh out loud right now around all these weird dirty people in the library computer lab.

Well, I'm on Martin's library card (I've lost mine) and he wants to jump over here too, so I'd better not use up all the time. We're well stocked on toilet paper and canned goods, and yesterday when Martin left work one of his co-workers said, "See you Thursday!" It would be a cozy break. We were reminiscing this morning about the blizzard of 2007, when we'd just moved into our house and everything was closed except Chumley's so we walked down there for beers with downtown friends. And I think it was that same snowstorm when Martin picked up that hitchhiker during the snow emergency. Looking back on past events, everything seems so weird and funny.

Okay, it's time for me to leave. I'm feeling claustrophobic. And I am feeling the very strong need to wash my hands. And body.