By jove, she can be taught!

Just a quick note for you today. I thought I would start by sharing photos of the Granny Square blankets that I am making for the minions. Yes, you read correctly. Granny Square as in Crochet. I have mentioned before that I'm fine wielding 2 needles but you give me 1 hook and I'm at a loss. I received a little tutorial and I was off. Well, off to make 2 identical giant blankets using a few basic crochet stitches. It's a start anyway. Last summer I was gifted a bunch of yarn from J and M while they were on Holiday and I knew that it was destined for a blanket.
Little man liked his sister's blanket-in-progress so much that he had to have one of his own. My original plan was to finish the blanket in honor of little miss' 2nd birthday (which is tomorrow!!!!! How is my little baby 2 already????) but I put hers aside and started in on his.

You see, little man had his 4th eye surgery (on his right eye only this time), this past Monday. I wanted to be sure that he knew that I was making something special for him so I jumped right in on his. I gave little man free reign over the colors in his blanket. I took him to the store to buy some yarn and I tell you what, the boy was giddy. Such a proud Yarn-y-Mom moment. He was walking around picking up skeins and saying "I want this one and this one and this color would be good...". His blanket could get interesting but in a good sort of way. Here's an in-progress photo of his blanket. I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seat at the mention of "eye surgery" so I'll get into a few little details for you. All went well... What had happened after his earlier surgery this past January is that the inner eye muscle of his right eye slipped and wasn't attached to his actual eye ball which is why it was deviating to the right so much. The surgeon was able to locate the muscle and reattach it to his eye. I'm not posting any photos of his eye at this time because of his numerous surgeries, his eye looks the worst after this one - not horrible but perhaps a little too gory for the blog. He even got a nice little shiner out of it! He's doing well though, quite the little trooper :) Now the hubby and I get to "keep him calm, no wrestling, no roughhousing, no basketball or baseball, no swimming..." for a month. Ha ha ha ha ha. I don't know how we're going to succeed with that task, but so far so good. It's getting to be more of a chore as he's feeling better and wants to burn off some of his energy. I'll keep you posted! This weekend is supposed to be nice and the sun might even show up so I should have some pictures of the minions next post. Enjoy your weekend!

The long and short of it

Ever since I started going Handmade for the Holidays, my crafting mojo has taken a little holiday of its own from Christmas to the middle of January where I may not even pick up a WIP for a few weeks at a time. It's usually a good time to catch up on some reading that I don't get to do as often as I'd like to anymore. This time, although my mojo did leave there for a while, I completed the scarf for the hubby's cousin G. It is made from Malabrigo Worsted in the Alpine Pearl colorway. I love working with this yarn and flirted with the idea of keeping it for myself for all of 2 seconds when I got the message loud and clear: "this is for G, keep your hands off"! This is how it usually works for me. I start a project (whether it is to simply work the pattern or to use a particular yarn) and the project itself then tells me who it's for... in a manner of speaking. Basically, once I get a feel for the yarn/pattern, that in itself assigns it to a recipient.

My mojo came back to me shortly before little man's eye surgery. I wanted to make him something that he could play with and since he is always stealing my oven mitts, I thought I would knit him up a mitt of his very own.I saw this pattern and thought that it was pretty much what I was looking for, I just wanted to beef it up a bit and make it a little thicker. I modified the pattern by doubling my cotton and using US9's in the round. It worked out alright, but next time I might use a slightly larger needle. Little miss likes it too! That was a very quick knit and while I was on a roll I went ahead and finished the TT2 socks that I started, ahem... about this time last year... for a birthday present. A sock a year, who knew. Maybe it will catch on! There they are being blocked and dried... and ready to ship out. While I was working on little projects, I whipped out a 70's ski hat for a friend of ours T. I modified it a little by increasing the size and adding earflaps. There's a "P" on the other earflap, but I didn't get a photo of it for some reason or another.

Little man's eye is healing up just fine. The redness is fading and now that the swelling has gone down it is starting to move back into place, but we're still not quite there. As you can see... This photo was taken at the Des Moines Botanical Center last weekend. I am getting a little tired of the cold, dry, white, stuck-in-the-house winter so I thought the hubby and I could go on a little mini excursion with the minions to enjoy a little warmth, humidity, and color.
Little man loved it and was running around, checking out different trees and plants. Little miss was a little tired. It was a good time anyway.
I think I mentioned last post that I was participating in Project 366 this year and taking a photo a day. This has proven to be a bit of a challenge with the current Winter season so I have had to become a little creative with how I see things in the house. Here are a few examples. If you're reeaalllly curious you can see the rest of them here. Another little side project for the month included getting my hair cut. 11 inches of this were sent to Locks of Love , leaving this: It's a little draftier than I have been accustomed to lately so I thought I would knit myself a scarf. About 4 inches into it it was clear to me that this scarf would be for my Grandma D. Maybe that will entice her into frequenting the blog. Probably not, but that's alright I suppose:) I have another one in mind for me though, which will be made from some Noro that was gifted to me last Christmas from my SIL K. It will be mine all mine!!!!!

I'll leave you with a peaceful vision.

Super-Poob

**If anyone is on the squeamish side, perhaps this post is not for you, just a warning**

When little man was born, the hubby and I noticed that his eyes crossed a little bit. We kept waiting for them to straighten out, and kept waiting... Then we went to see a professional. According to multiple sources, surgery was the best option for correcting little man's vision issues. He was 11 months old for his first surgery and he was 21 months old when he had his second. Yesterday's surgery ups his tally to 3 total surgeries and I am realllllly hoping we are done. It's too early to tell right now because that right eye needs to settle down a bit before we can see what the actual alignment will be.

Surgery with any child is difficult, more so when it involves your own. We scheduled this one 3 months ago so it's been a little black cloud looming in the distance for the hubby and I (and other family members for that matter). I started to do a bit of "prep work" last Wednesday by starting to explain a little bit of what would happen to little man. There we sat on Sunday, enjoying a little family time when he has a freak accident and falls and hits his chin/jaw on the edge of the dreaded coffee table. 3 little teeth managed to pop their way through his bottom lip so to the ER we go. Everything was fine, all of his teeth are still intact, no fractured jaw... the lip will heal up fine... Surgery will go on as scheduled. Poor little guy! The hubby was trying to get him to take a little nap yesterday, telling him that it would make his eye feel better. Little man responded with "Nothing makes it feel better." He's doing a little better today, but we've got a ways to go before I get my smiling little man back!

In case anyone is still reading this post, I will explain what "Super-Poob" is in reference to. About a week ago now, little man was building towers with his blocks and I commented that one in particular was "superb." This was a new word for little man so we went over the definition and then asked him if he could say the word "superb". "Super-poob". We try again. "Super-poob". We succeeded with a "superb" on the third try.

I will follow up with a knitting/other happenings post in a day or two, as I thought I would dedicate this one to little man.

Ice is nice

2 Strabismus surgeries and they still cross. Beyond irritated. At least with the first surgery there was obvious improvement; it's as though nothing really changed after the second one. Of course it might help if I was able to keep an eye patch on him for longer than 20 minutes. Although he did leave one on for an hour and a half one afternoon. Small steps. The Childhood Development lady came this morning and played with him for about 40 minutes or so. Little man was quick to pick up some hand gestures for "my turn" and "more". Little miss was rather happy today. Her smiles just kept getting bigger and bigger.
Still working on the birthday projects. After dinner I was sidetracked by Little man's new favorite toy: ice cubes.

Here, want some?

I am hoping to be able to post some actual knitting photos tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

As long as she has to wear one too.....

I tried to sweettalk little man with pancakes this morning (hence the leftover syrup on his stomach) and then went in for the kill. He wore it for a whopping 10 minutes. Then again, it's better than the last time I attempted to put one on him. Maybe he will be more agreeable this afternoon. I felt so bad though... he hated it so much that his tears wore down the adhesive on the bottom of the patch so it wouldn't stick to him anymore. Incidentally, the patch on little miss isn't stuck on, he just layed it over her eye so she could wear one too.

Moving on... Look what I had when I came home from work last night:
My Father-in-law constructed this Plexiglas wall to prevent the minions from toppling over the mini-wall there. He and the hubby had installed it right before my shift ended at the hospital. If only my house was as level as the new addition! However perfection is often boring and I believe that my house prefers to see itself as a challenge when it comes to things like construction :)

Didn't get a lot of knitting done yesterday, just a few rounds on the earflap hat. The Christmas deadline looms in front of me as I have less than 93 days with which to complete my projects. Tick tock tick tock... Hopefully I will be able to get some knitting done this evening so I can post some pictures tomorrow.

Not having it

Picked up the new eye patches yesterday and thought I would introduce them to little man. So I "modeled one", and passed it onto Grandma to "try out", and passed it over to Great-Grandma... you know, so Nick could see others people wearing a patch... Nick decided he wanted one and grabbed one out of the box and held it over his eye like we were all doing. So far so good. Took the backing off to try to actually put it on him... Not having it. Perhaps I will succeed with the patch thing this morning. We'll see.

On a good note, yesterday I did finally finish the gusset on the purple sock and have moved forward onto the body of the earflap hat. I have a feeling that this hat may end up looking rather funky - which is okay with me because I've never really taken hats too seriously as my hubby can attest to. You see, I have "special hats" that I am only allowed to wear in his company while we shovel the driveway at 5 in the morning when it is too dark out and people are too tired to notice. Isn't he sweet? Ha ha ha. I should make some absolutely horrible looking hat and hide all of his other ones some morning so he is forced to wear it. Since he's not stubborn at all... there is no way that he would simply flat out refuse and just go snowblow or something without one. So much for my evil little plan. Too bad. Although I could proceed to make one and just sneak it into the car so I could wear it when we were going shopping or something... I'll have to think on that one :) I'd have to be really sneaky though and not put it on until we are actually in the store otherwise I think he'd just wait in the car. hmmm.

This picture was actually taken a few weeks ago but I thought it would be appropriate with the amount of rain and overall dreariness that the past few days have provided. Little man does love to get wet! Rain, garden hose, shower... it matters not.

About the eyes...

Little man had another eye appointment today for those interested. The doc agrees that things are looking good after the second strabismus surgery but recommends patching each eye for 2hrs each (alternating eyes of course) to strengthen them up a bit. I have noticed that each eye tends to gravitate inward occassionally, moreso when he is sleepy, but anyway.... thought I would keep you up-to-date! I'm still working on the pics. I think I figured out the links though! Yeah me :)