Attachment Everything

I have an additctive personality.  Martin does too.  That's why we can never dabble in drugs or alcohol.  I'm not ashamed to admit it, but knowing how frustrating this can be (not so much doing without the drugs... more like being obsessed with something to the point of hating it), I'm sorry so say that my kids (especially Anja) seem to have inherited this trait.  It's really coming out this year too--right around Christmas time she became completely obsessed (OBSESSED!!) with a few different things.  One thing was the story/song/movie of Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey.  she's still stuck on that.  Another was the Nutcracker.  She talked about it nonstop for days until we saw the production and then she barely talked about it anymore.  Funny.  Well, she's been obsessed with the Nativity since Christmas and organizing home productions of it, handing out parts to all of us, etc., for the past few weeks and now alongside that, she has become more obsessed with the Disney Princesses than I ever thought was possible.

I don't have a problem with Disney Princesses like some people do.  I watched the movies when I was little and didn't come out with any horrible scarring to my self-esteem; I also played with Barbie dolls.  I'm not judging... everyone is different. All I'm saying is that I don't really have a problem with my kids liking the Disney princesses so much... especially since they were obsessed with them LOOOOOONG before they ever saw a movie.  But over the past week they have watched "Beauty & the Beast" at my parents' house, and Anja loved it!  (Greta doesn't really watch.) But even before seeing the movie, she would see a picture of the princesses and she would ask Martin and me to tell her every detail of their stories.  It's been many years since I've seen any of those movies and some of them I've never seen at all, so I mostly just tell her the actual stories, with some details from the movies (like names and funny characters) thrown in. After she knows the names she can assign us all parts and we have to BE those parts.  Recently she's really been into Aladdin, which she calls "Jasmine" because our Aladdin part (Martin) is always at work.  And why would we name a production after someone who's never in it?  Anyway, this talking about the princesses and their stories is nonstop to a level I hadn't known was possible in four-year-olds, and it made me realize... THAT'S why people hate the Disney princesses!  It has nothing to do with self-esteem, victimizing women, too much emphasis on exterior beauty, etc..... it's just that the parents are so exhausted from hearing about and telling about and discussing at length each and every detail of each and every story of each and every princess that are driven to HATE all things Disney princess--and maybe they don't even see why!!!  That has been my observation lately. 

Meanwhile, as Anja grows increasingly obsessed with Disney princesses, Greta has her own little attachments.  She found this little plastic rabbit, covered in fuzz (this thing is very old... and has seen better days. I'm not sure what the fuzz used to be like, but I'm SURE that there was more of it at one time, years ago.)  She promptly named it Sam and brought it home and now it's her best friend.  She draws pictures of Sam, Sam goes everywhere with her... it's kind of weird!  And cute!

Back during our anniversary I didn't have enough money to buy Martin the gift I'd wanted to get him, which was a fiddle.  I didn't want to settle for something made in China, so I got him a lame book and that was it.  But lately I came into having a little extra cash of my own, so I sneaked down to the music store here and I bought him this ukulele.  It's great!  I'm pretty sure he can learn to play it easily because it's pretty basic.  It's fun to think up songs that would be great for it... and I can't wait for him to learn it so we can play together!  I've learned "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and it's super fun.

 The same night I got the ukulele I went to the knitting store (that was my cover to make it a surprise... and Anja knew about the secret plan all day and kept it a secret!) and picked up this yarn to make myself a new sweater.  It's sort of a variation of The February Lady Sweater that I found on Ravelry, which is a variation on Elizabeth Zimmermann's "Surprise Baby Jacket," which I've never made but have thought about making.  I've actually never made any E.Z. patterns.  She works mainly in circular needles... which is a turnoff for me because I am a bit of a loser. But I feel like I should at least try one of them sometime. Maybe this summer when I know what gender this new baby is I'll make him/her a Surprise Baby Jacket for the fall.  I did find some really fun purple and green yarn at River Knits the other night.

 This is Greta.  !!!!!!  What happened to my tiny baby!?!?!?!?!?!?  You can't see her little crossed ankles hanging down from the chair, making her look even older.  she's been asking to have her hair ina ponytail lately--like me!  What a compliment!  (Anja asks for her hair in a ponytail too... like Jasmine. haha.)

From Clare's blog I found the recipe/idea for this "snow dough."  We made it yesterday and the girls loved it.  This stuff is incredible!  It's just flour and oil... but the oil amount is perfect.  Not enough to make it all greasy and nasty, but just enough to make it clump up a little bit when you press it together.  And it makes it REALLY easy to sweep up.  It's kind of the consistency of wet sand, except way easier to clean up than sand, which NEVER cleans up... this stuff just brushes off the body (or out of your hair) and sweeps up so easily!  It did fill in the cracks of our tables and chairs though... That'll have to be scraped out with a knife, I guess.  But it was totally worth it.