Gimmesanity

It started with a quiet breakfast, just me and my thoughts as the Bean took her morning nap.

Picking up a new skill for a potential new project. It’s not perfect, but I’m getting there. In the meantime, I have a new coaster.

Sharing a post-nap banana with this toothy beauty…

…before going out to meet a new friend.

Internets, meet beautiful baby Jacob.
I’m honored that he’ll be coming home in this.
Also, I wanted to keep him, but his mom said no.

Then, it was off to pick up Monkey from school, hang out as a family, and then knead some pizza dough for dinner. There’s something so cathartic about making dough from scratch.

This became one veggie pizza and one pesto, chicken, and ’shroom pie. Yum.

Now, the babies are asleep, the apartment has been picked up…mostly. It’s time for some knitting, a movie, and a few snuggles with my Alan on the sofa.

Hi, I am an impossible color to photograph accurately.

Hope your day was fabulous, too.

Monkey goes to school three days during the week. That leaves us with two weekdays to figure how to be creative and not destroy the apartment. This week, we decided to try making some new foods.

First, hummus, because Monkey asked for it.
Seriously.

This was super easy and very, very delish. Basically, we threw a can of drained chickpeas (save the water!), two minced cloves of garlic, a sprinkling of cumin, salt, about 4 tbsp of toasted sesame oil, and the juice of half a lemon into a blender and gave it a whirl. It took a bit of pulsing and some extra tablespoons of the bean water to get it to the right consistency. Monkey was not a fan of the loud blender, but she had fun dumping the stuff in and then eating the hummus with her pita.

Yeah, we made pita, too.

This was easy, and fun, and really only time consuming at the very end. Monkey was amazed by how much the dough grew. We used this recipe and cooked it on our pizza stone and it worked out great. Since we didn’t have paper bags in the house, after taking them out, we placed the hot pita on a cookie sheet and covered them with a damp dishtowel for a few minutes to soften them up. Once they had cooled, they went into a zip-lock bag. I thought we’d have some for the next day (we got 13 pitas total.) But, um, yeah, we ate them all in one day.

I blame these two for finish them off:

Ohai! I have two wee toofers now!

After lunch comes my favorite time of the day - naptime!! Monkey read quietly in her room while Bean was busy spooning with Curious George.

Don’t you just want to nibble on her?

Dear Santa,

This was going to be a letter about all the things I wanted for Christmas, like:

- A shower in peace, where I’m not running out mid-way with shampoo still foaming around my ears and a towel haphazardly wrapped around my shivering body to tend to someone crying over hunger (again), or because someone got a boo-boo running on the parquet floors in their socks (again), or because that same someone decided that they needed to take a poop right when I was showering and is now sitting on the toilet asking me if I was done and could I please hurry up and wipe her butt?

- A full 8 hours of sleep. Sweet, blissful sleep where I’m not woken up in the middle of the night by a grunting Bean looking to devour me, or a Monkey who likes to stand by my bed around 3 a.m. to quietly stare at me, thereby scaring the living shit out of me.

- An evening out with my handsome man where we can sit over dinner and enjoy, guilt-free, the fact that we’re kid-less and able to have a grown-up conversation without being interrupted by a little Monkey who needs to tell us about how Darion threw a box of wipes at the teacher, Ms. Greene, today and then got put into timeout where he proceeded to pick his nose and wipe it on the wall, and can you please pass the potatoes?

- A whole day where I’m not walking around with baby vomit down my cleavage and/or in my hair.

- An evening out with the girls, where I don’t come home with my ‘girls’ as hard as rocks and ready to fall off my chest. Hooray, breastfeeding.

I was going to ask for all these thing, but, then I realized just how many gifts you’ve already given me this year, like:

- Baby chortles and smiles early in the morning.

- A Monkey who likes to stroke my hair while she watches Elmo on TV.

- A partner who always smells deliciously, even when he’s a little ripe and in need of a hot shower.

- Snow flurries as I walked home from my mom’s house this evening with a softly snoring Bean strapped to my chest and a plastic cup of wine in my hand (because I’m classy like that.)

So, thank you, Santa, for my presents. You rock.
However, if you feel like I still deserve one more gift, that long, hot, blissfully quiet shower would be greatly appreciated.

Smooches,
- me.

We wear so many hats, don’t we?
One of my favorites is when Alan dons his story-reading hat. We’re a very captive audience.

There’s this silly-looking blue hat that I don’t write about too much.
It’s been a long time, but in about six months I’ll be back to wearing this on a regular basis again.

There’s the cute ones that make chubby cheeks seem even more munchable.

There’s the big-sister hat. Monkey does an amazing job of showing her baby sister tons of love.

And, then, there’s the ones that help you strut your stuff, even when your unruly curls threaten to take over.

Pattern: Meret (rav link)
Yarn: Knit Picks Andean Silk in Cranberry, 1.5 balls
Needles: US5 (I’m a really loose knitter)

Mods: I casted on for the medium, didn’t read ahead so I accidentally started the lace pattern for the large, realized that my row gauge was WAY off, so ended up doing an extra repeat for a total of 3 pattern repeats. It fits perfectly. How’s that for serendipity?

And, now, I will put on my finishing-up-my-thesis hat…the one that will be worn for two more weeks. I can’t wait.