I tried, but couldn’t quite cut it.  Between all the studying I had to do to stay on track before taking next week off, and getting sick over the weekend and wanting to go to bed early each night, I came close but couldn’t finish on time.

This is where I left off last night.  I’d wanted to completely finish by Thursday night, and by 10 pm I had both halves of the body, the underbelly, both ears and 3 of the 4 foot pads.  I usually get into bed around 11pm or so, and I’d planned on staying up until I finished.  But Yannick came home from bowling at 10 and I mentioned something to him in passing about Ravelry, and he always gets confused when I talk about Ravelry, mixing it up with Knit Picks, and never knowing what I’m talking about.  Since the laptop was nearby, and on, I decided to just show him the two sites, and then he was looking at my listed patterns, and next thing I knew it was 11pm.  I couldn’t bear the thought of staying up until 12-1am just to finish the elephant, especially when I realized that I would be giving the gift to the bride’s family to give to her, since she’s on mat leave.  I wouldn’t be able to see her reaction whether it was while I was at work or home on leave.  I still want to finish it this weekend, but I don’t need the pressure of getting it done by a certain date.

Jakob has been having a “thing” for Sam lately.  He always wants to go get him and carry him around the house.  Right before I took this picture he’d actually carried Sam into the kitchen upside-down, the poor cat’s head was dragging on the floor, and Jakob had him clutched around the hips.  By the time I got my camera open Sam had gotten loose, so he grabbed him again so I could get a shot.

Oh- funny story with Jakob: for a week now he’s been telling Yannick about a naked daddy with a broken arm that he saw at school.  We had no clue what he was talking about- I know he calls all men “daddies”, but a naked man?  With a broken arm?  At school?  What??  I finally remembered to ask Jakob’s teacher Stacey yesterday, and after a lot of thought she remembered they have an Usborne book about going to the doctor, and in it there’s a little boy with a broken arm, and his daddy tries to help him put on a shirt.  Bingo! I thought, that must be it!

When I dropped the kids off today, Stacey called me into Jakob’s class to show me the doctor book.  I flipped through it, and sure enough there was a photo of a little boy with no shirt on, wearing a sling to indicate a broken arm.  Just to be sure, I called Jakob over to show him.

“Is this the naked boy with the broken arm?”

He shook his head, to indicate no.

“Sorry, is this the naked daddy with the broken arm?”

Again, no.

“Is the naked daddy in a book?”

Yes.

“This book?”

No.

I asked him to show me the book, and he started towards the stairs to a different classroom, one on the main floor where all the kids still there after 5pm go.

“It’s in the ghost book, in the purple classroom,” Jakob said.

I got permission to bring him to the other class, then asked those teachers if we could come in.  “Jakob says you have a book with a naked daddy with a broken arm, and he can show me,” I said.  They let me in right away- they wanted to see this “naked man” too!

Jakob went right to the book shelf, touched a book and said “this one”.  He handed it to me- it was a large, thin, hardcover French book, all about ghosts and assorted Hallowe’en monsters.  I asked him to point out the page and he opened it right to a back page.

“There”.

And, sure enough, he was right.  There, in the ghost book in the purple classroom, was what Jakob would call a naked daddy with a broken arm.  Wanna see?

Since we have a Jakob photo above, here’s a Henri one to even things out.  On Monday I’d kept him home for the day, and after getting back from the doctor (he was fine, just wanted to make sure the cough he had didn’t go back into his lungs, from two weeks ago) we spent the rest of the morning doing crafts.  There was come coloring, a little water painting, and then we had fun smashing Playdough.

The bib was to protect his Habs jersey from getting dirty, and the personalized chef’s hat (a souvenir from a cooking birthday party) was worn for fun.  Henri LOVES wearing stuff, whether it is the chef’s hat, a “love bug” paper crown with antenna he made at school for Valentine’s day, the stethoscope from a doctor’s costume, or even the small, yellow plastic glasses from Mr. Potato Head.

Well, now it’s Friday night.  It’s 9:30 and my studying for the night is done.  I’m going to sit down with Yannick, the elephant, a 1 lb bag of stuffing, and an episode or two of Hawaii-5-0.