I was just leaving a comment on the Yarn Harlot’s blog when I typed up the following paragraph:

You can never have too much yarn with you! I was daydreaming the other day about what it would be like if I was in the Big Brother house and realized that I’d be sneaky and hit the thrift stores before leaving and find some mens’ 3X knit sweaters to put in my luggage, so once I was in the house I could unravel them and have something to knit. I’m still working on what to use as needles since you’re not allowed writing implements. I could probably sneak in some dpsn as hair sticks though, or as shawl pins. I think I’ve been thinking about this too much! 🙂

It’s sad but true. I really was thinking about that the other day. I mean, they go through your bags and veto what you can and can’t bring. Plus you only get one small duffel. So bringing in obvious yarn would be out of the question. But they can’t stop you from unraveling your own shirt, can they? I mean, as a last resort I could even finger knit it…

(Let’s ignore the fact that I would never be appearing on Big Brother because it is a US show, as if that was the only reason).

So I was watching the nine hundredth repeat of the premiere of Girlicious on Much Music. I know. Does the world really need Girlicious? I don’t think so, but what do I know? Anyways, during the fifty million commercial breaks, they aired the American Idol video game commercial about 10 million times. In the commercial they sing along to Fergie’s hit Glamorous, and it got stuck in my head.

Fast forward about an hour later and I can’t stop singing just that part, of just that song. The portion that they sing in the commercial is the following:

G-L-A-M-O-R-OUS

We flying first class
Up in the sky
Poppin’ champagne
Livin’ my life

Well, I was feeding Jakob lunch and trying to get him to eat his veggies when all he wanted were the toast, cheese and orange waiting for him. Suddenly puree of brussels sprouts was not so interesting. What do I do to get him to eat? Start singing of course! What did I end up singing to him?

B-R-U-S-S-E-LS

It’s flying first class
into your mouth
They’re from Brussels
and they’re sprouts

Hey- stop laughing- it worked!

p.s. I don’t know if Brussels Sprouts are actually from Brussels but it worked for the song. 🙂

Yesterday, when preparing Jakob’s lunch to bring to work, I held out 2 cubes of meat to him – a dark cube of beef in my left hand, and a light cube of chicken in my right. I offered him the choice. He reached for my right hand, so I included the chicken with his veggies.

Today I offered him the same choice, but I switched hands. I had the chicken cube in my left hand, and the beef in my right. Jakob was sitting in Yannick’s lap, and I held both cubes an equal distance away from him. He looked up at me, looked at the cubes, and immediately reached for my left hand – the one with the chicken.

Is it possible he’s making a choice? I know he doesn’t understand that one is chicken and one is beef and he might like one taste more than the other…but could he be making a clear choice between the light cube and the dark cube?

You know…those weeks where you actually have stuff to post? But then you get busy, and more stuff happens. And you really want to blog about that, but then more stuff happens? And by the time you remember a week has gone by and you’re home with time to post on your hands and you realize that you left your camera, the one with all the relevant photos, at work?

I’m having one of those weeks.

The aforementioned camera is still at the aformentioned store, so I won’t be able to add any photos to this post. Those of you who came here only to see knitting or Jakob…well…I guess I can say anything about you that I want in this post, ‘cus you probably won’t stick around long enough to read it. 🙂 Those of you who care about the rest of my life (and knitting stuff without accompanying photos) keep reading!

Last Saturday we finally went to Ottawa. I say “finally” because for 3 weeks now, stuff has continued to come up and prevent us from going. So finally, we go. We left early Saturday morning and drove down in my car, because Yannick’s car was leaking prestone from an unidentified source. On the way down we hear my car start to make a funny noise. Yannick said it sounded like a pulley was nearing the end of its life, but he’d check it out when we got back home that night. (We were only going for the day). Can you guess where this is going?

We spent a wonderful day in Ottawa with Julie and Richard and adorable 8-week-old baby Kayla. Jakob got to play with his new friend, Yannick and Rich were able to sketch out plans for their basement and talk “guy” stuff, and Julie and I were able to go to Michael’s- a chain we don’t have here in Quebec. (Oh yeah- that was another thing I wanted to post…I bought yarn). We left much later than we’d originally planned on, but figured it was no big deal. It’s only a 2 hour drive from Montreal to Ottawa and we knew Jakob would sleep the whole way home, so the worst that could happen was that we’d be tired the next morning when we woke up with Jakob and couldn’t go back to bed after because the boys had swimming class.

Yeah. No. We left Ottawa at 11pm. First we get lost after leaving a gas station, and it took us a half hour to find the 417 highway. We were a bit annoyed, but this ended up saving our butts, big time. (You’ll see how in a minute). We start driving and make it another half hour…when we hear a loud noise followed by the sound of something falling off of my car, hitting the road and rolling away. This was immediately followed by all the lights on my dash starting to dim.

10 points to the one of you who can guess what happened. Yes? You in the back? That’s right. The pulley broke.

The reason we ended up thankful that we spent 30 minutes lost and trying to find the highway, is because my car ended up dying about 15 feet from an off ramp for a service station/motel/resto/bar area. We were able to take the exit and park my car with all the cars from the motel clients. Had we been driving home for the whole hour we would have ended up stranded on the side of the highway somewhere most likely in between rest stops with no heat and the prospect of a long walk…and Jakob with us.

I’ll try to sum up this long story by telling it in point form:
-even though it was midnight Julie and Rich were gracious enough to come back and get us and let us sleep over, and even take me to the 24hr grocery store so I could buy the supplies I’d be missing for Jakob for the next day (diapers, food, etc)
-my dad had to drive down to Ottawa the next day so he could drive us home while my car was towed
-the tow truck was called at 3:45pm. He said he’d be there in 5-60 minutes. He got there at 6pm.
-We finally made it home at 8:00pm. We only were able to come into our house at 8:20 because I’d left my house keys on my car key ring…which was in Yannick’s pocket…which was on Yannick’s coat…which was on Yannick…who was in the tow truck…which stopped for gas and was 20 minutes behind us. Thank goodness I had brought knitting with me! I did enough work on my striped scarf during the extra time away to allow me to finish it after only knitting for an hour once we got home and I put Jakob to bed.

Poor Sam was starving once we got home- he has dry food and water out at all times but he’s used to getting 1/2 a can of wet food every night for supper.

The rest of the week wasn’t as hectic. I missed playgroup on Monday because I had no car to drive, and even though one of the other moms offered to pick me up, I chose to stay home and do the cleaning that I was supposed to have done on Sunday. Monday night Jakob we had a shiva to attend for my friend Debbie’s grandmother, and while it sucked that it was on those circumstances, it was nice to see Debbie’s family again. Debbie’s parents’ house and my parents’ house are literally 2 streets away from each other (about the same distance as my house and Maaike’s house…but it feels shorter ‘cus it was a straight line) and I’d spent a lot of time there in my teenage years.

Tuesday was my first day back at work. I needed a lift from my dad ‘cus my car still wasn’t ready, which was great for me because it meant I could knit on the way to work (not something you can do when you’re driving). Since my dad has bowling on Tuesdays and goes straight there from work he wouldn’t be able to drive me home, so my mom picked us up when she finished teaching at 2:15…so it was a nice, short day. We stayed at my parents’ house for supper and for the first time ever Jakob fed himself an entire meal from real people food (as opposed to purees that I’d thawed). My mom served hamburgers with a broccoli/cauliflower/carrot mix and potatoes, and Jakob had already been cleared of allergies for all those foods, so I broke them up into small pieces, put them on his high chair tray and let him feed himself. He loved it!

He is trying so hard to be independant- the only way I can get him to let me feed him a meal with a spoon is if I give him a breadstick. He gets the opportunity to self-feed and he tolerates me offering a spoon in between bites.

Wednesday I didn’t end up going in to work, because my dad was delayed in going in, and by the time he would have picked me up, I would only have had about an hour before my mom was due to pick us up, so it wouldn’t have been worth it. That evening one of Yannick’s friends fixed my car (he could have done it himself but was too tired and his buddy works at an auto-parts place and knows cars like the back of his hand) and while they took my car for a test-drive, I went outside to try and take photos of the lunar eclipse. They didn’t come out so well, but I only went out when it was about a quarter covered, and didn’t go out again to see it at full eclipse. I’d wanted to, but suddenly started getting the chills.

I went to bed early and woke up many times throughout the night. I kept taking my temperature- I had 102 F all night. I felt really achy too so I think my body was trying to fight something. In any case by the time Thursday morning rolled around it had dropped to 101 F but I wasn’t about to go in and have to work and take care of Jakob the way I felt. It was hard enough just taking care of him! I slept every time he slept, and lay next to him on the floor while he played, and by night time the fever had broken and I felt much better. A bath before bed and I was as good as new.

Today was our first full day at work…or at least it was for Jakob. I left for 2 hours in the afternoon to attend the funeral of the mother of one of Yannick’s friends. My sister came to the store to watch Jakob so I could go.

I’ve been working on the Rumple shawl all week long and am nearly finished the first mini ball of silk. I’m trying to focus on it before moving on to something else, but I might put it aside- for a good reason. Jakob will be 1 in less than 3 months, and I have a 12 month sized sweater I want to knit him, plus his birthday gift. I don’t need a silk shawl done in the next 3 months. I do need a sweater and giant dinosaur knit. 🙂

Anyways, I’ve been sitting here half-posting and half-websurfing since 8pm, and it’s nearly midnight. I’ve got work in the morning so I’m going to bed- I work Tuesday to Saturday, remember? Hopefully I’ll remember to bring the camera home so I can take some photos of the latest shawl progress (all week’s worth) and maybe a few of Jakob too.