What's a mom to do?

So I survived my week of appointments last week. Yippee! And we get about twice as much money from energy assistance this year! Double Yippee!! The lady scared me, just before she told me how much we would receive she said that this year was going to be less than last year because more people had applied and there was less money available... But we have an additional child and I was working part time last year. We're getting the same small amount for electric, but double for LP Gas. Which is the real killer in the winter. I hate dealing with the LP tank. It's expensive! I think more so than gas from a city. This year hasn't been quite as bad as last year. Last year it was about $400 for 200 gallons (which is less than half a tank). The last time I got LP this year it was a little over $300. We keep the thermostat at 60! And close off two of the back bedrooms in the winter. And we still go through too much LP. Last winter we went through a little over a thousand gallons! We really need to get a wood burning stove, but those are pretty pricey. Some year at tax time we will. But this year we need to fix the roof. And hopefully have enough left over for a cheap minivan.

Well, I didn't intend to talk finances...

I wanted to talk destruction.

But I also wanted to story before that ;) 'cause really I'm a storyteller.

It's a long, involved story, with digressions and everything. I can't just tell one simple story.

So, Little Man has been tearing his socks apart. He's down to about one pair of socks. He likes pulling strings. He will pull strings out of his socks until there's nothing left but a ring around his ankle.

They were cheap socks. I wonder if that makes a difference in string accessibility? I struggled last night at Wal-Mart. Do I buy him another bag of cheap socks? Or do I spend an extra dollar for two fewer pair? Not completely convinced that more pricey socks were more durable, I went for the cheaper pack with more socks. But they were a different brand than the last bag I bought him. So we shall see what happens.

I was seriously considering knitting him a nice pair of socks. I went and tracked down some nice blue and tan sock yarn. I bought a book on knitting socks from EBay. I want to try to knit some socks anyway. Since I finally figured out how to use those horrendous double pointed needles. I like a challenge.

I have a new passion for knitting. I've been a crocheter for a few years and love it. But knitting is a little different. I love them both. The sucky thing is that I am pretty limited to getting my supplies at Wal-Mart. Which is pretty limited. I really wanted to try those fancy circular needles for hats. Wal-Mart only had one size in 24" and then a couple sizes in 29". I bought the 24" and attempted a 22" hat. And it worked OK - you aren't supposed to be able to make something smaller than your circular needle size. So making a 22" hat on a 24" needle was a bit of a stretch.

I really wanted to knit some hats for my babies ;) which have 16-18" heads.

So for Christmas I asked my mom for 16" circular needles in a variety of sizes to match which double pointed needle sets I had. ('cause the really sucky thing is that you have to end up using the horrendous double pointed needles anyway - when you have to decrease beyond the 16").

So Christmas came and I was really excited to start making little hats!! But the typical mom thing happened.

When I was like 12 or 13 or so the song "Jesse's Girl" had me head over heels with Rick Springfield. The only thing on my Christmas list that year was the Rick Springfield album (yes, I know I am totally dating myself here)... My mom ended up forgetting her list and buying me a Bruce Springsteen album instead. I was devastated. I've only recently been able to stomach listening to the Boss (and only because that album is one of my husband's all time favorites).

So, I opened up my gift from my mother. Mind you, I was very specific with my list for her. She got half of it right - I got the right needle sizes, but the length? She got all 29" cables! Typical mom fashion. So I won't be able to knit anthing less than probably 27" projects with those. I'll just have to make Baby Sister some dresses, ponchos or something...

I ended up just buying my 16" needles from EBay after Christmas. I got them last week, so I've been busy trying out hats. I'm getting better ;) The first one I did ended up being a little short. The last one I did ended up looking a little funky ;)

I made a cute little purple hat for Baby Sister. I purled some butterflies on it, which turned out really nice! Then I decided to dress it up a little by putting a pom-pon on top! And the stupid pom-pon took almost as long as the hat. I bought a little set of pom-pon makers and it just takes forever - I should have just made it the old fashioned way of wrapping yarn around a piece of cardboard... but the ending part went a lot smoother than it would have on a piece of cardboard...

So I finished the hat and Baby Sister wore it for about 5 minutes.

Then Little Man picked up the abandoned hat and would not take it off for anything! I decided that I should make him one sans butterflies and with a more masculine color... I barely got him to take the hat off for his bath. Then at nap time? As he had his quiet time on the couch, he pulled strings.


He came to the gate between the living room and kitchen and said "sorry mom" and handed me the hat. Which now had a string with a loop sticking out of the top, and one strand of yarn kind of hanging out from the side... he had pulled that pom-pon apart piece by piece until there was nothing left of it. His shirt was covered with itty bitty pieces of purple yarn. There were itty bitty pieces of purple yarn littering the couch and the entire living room.

He is still finding little pieces of yarn today.

I don't think I will be knitting him a hat any time soon.

And I definitely will not be knitting him any socks.