knitting librarian

So they all rolled over…well, not ALL of them, but Zoe did today. I was preparing my lunch and put her in the pack and play for some tummy time. She was a little fussy, but I continued in the kitchen. When I came back to check on her and give her her pacifier, there she was looking up at me. She rolled from her tummy to back today. What a cutie!

We had a really good day today. AJ came in early this morning (well, early for a Saturday!) and climbed into bed with John and I. About 9, Zoe woke up for breakfast and cuddling with Daddy and big brother. We turned on cartoons and stayed in bed until late late morning. AJ asked me whether we could go to McD’s for lunch. He went to check with Daddy, who sent him back to me…so we took him to playland for a while this afternoon.

When we came home, we had a rest for about an hour and a half and then AJ and I got up and went to the pool. We had a lot of fun. We talked, we swam, and then AJ’s best friend from day care showed up, so we played with him for about 40 minutes before coming home for dinner.

John and I also had a really good conversation during AJ’s rest. I’m so glad that he’s my husband. I love him always, but today I love him even more.

Nothing much on the knitting front, but that’s all right. Tomorrow I’ll take it with me to Mom’s and maybe work on it a little bit. I can’t figure out how I keep ended up messed up, but I do.

Today I met with my new principal. He started the meeting by telling me he was a big supporter of libraries and believes that the library should be the heart of the school. I am thrilled! This is the first administrator in my 15 year career who told me he believes what I believe. The most exciting part: his goal is for us to have the best middle school library in the district in three years!

We met for about an hour and discussed the library program, the condition of the library, the implementation of an independent reading program, Teri Lesesne’s Naked Reading, information literacy standards, AR (Reading Renaissance), and his goals for all of the above. He sent me home with some reading from Fountas and Pinnell and he wants to read the Lesesne book when I’m done.

He sounds like he’ll be very hands-on and plans to implement many things that I’ve done in other districts but have not been the norm at my school. I planted the seed about encouraging/requiring faculty to do one collaborative project with me each year/semester/marking period. I don’t know if it’ll work out or not, but I that this is definitely the time to do it—his first year here people don’t know if it’s just something that he believes in or if it’s something I’ve pushed for so the blame doesn’t have to fall all in my lap.

I think it’ll be a great year!

On Monday, when John picked AJ up at school Miss Mindy told him that AJ was pretty reserved and wasn’t really participating at circle time. She said that since he wasn’t disruptive, she let him go, but that it wasn’t “normal” behavior for him. I didn’t think much about it or worry about it too much when John told me.

Tonight while we were sitting at the dinner table, AJ turned to me and said, “Garrett and Brock said they’re not my friends anymore.” Garrett has been AJ’s best friend since he started at the center last August. (Sometimes to my dismay! He’s not the greatest influence.) I told AJ that it’s just that he’s been out of touch because he hasn’t been going to school every day. As I was preparing to tell him that things would get back to normal next month when he was back to full time, he told me he doesn’t want to go to school anymore. I know that kids can be cruel. I know that it’s not a big deal. AJ doesn’t understand this though. I’ve been trying to convince him. I did tell him he needs to keep going so that he keeps in touch with them and then proceeded with my “it’ll be back to normal when you’re going to school all the time. Don’t worry, honey.”

Now I just need to convince myself…heartache for your kids is much worse than personal heartache.

I knit this sweater and hat for Miss Z. I believe I started the sweater in mid-June and finished knitting it a week ago. I finally sewed in the sleeves on Saturday night and started the hat. The hat got finished today while AJ played at McD’s Playland.

The pattern is from Interweave Knits and is called Pea Pod Baby Set. It’s free if you sign up for their new blog, Knitting Daily. The yarn is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Cotton Ball. I used Brittany DPNs size 5 to knit the hat and my KnitPicks Options needles in size 5 to knit the sweater. It took me a bit longer than it should have for a few reasons:
1. There were 3 false starts on the sweater due to me being confused about how to follow the pattern for the bottom ribbing.
2. There were 3 false starts on the first sleeve because I didn’t know how to follow the pattern for the bottom ribbing (but I blame that on mommy brain mostly!) I felt the pattern wasn’t as explicit as it could have been.
3. When I started the second skein of yarn, I ended up pulling the yarn from the wrong end of the skein and had a HUGE, and I mean huge mess. I tried to untangle it for about 2 hours by myself. Finally, last week AM kindly offered to help me out. It took the two of us about an hour to untangle the knots. We couldn’t believe how long it took us to get it straightened out.
4. I needed to find buttons that suited me. (Okay, technically, this only delayed me by a day, but I still had to do it!)
5. I have a life.
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on July 21 causing me to be torn between two things that were important.

I recommend this pattern in spite of my problems with it. Zoe’s wearing her hat right now and seems quite content. I chose the neutral color because I want her to be able to use it for her babies some day whether she has a boy or girl. I hear I may be dreaming and my expectations may be set too high. I just hope that I’ll have a sentimental daughter who’ll see value in reusing clothing that she wore. I may make a pair of knitted pants to go along with this. I found a pattern I like that has a seed stitch cuff on the legs. I have a few other things I plan to knit though, so we’ll see what happens there!