I am almost done shopping for the holidays.  (It’s really fast when you haven’t got much to shop with, ya know?)  My grandmother sent a check so I could shop for the kids for her (don’t you wish more people did that??  I always put her name on the tag) and I got the girls these tops (jacks and patchy) from Textile Fetish*.  (I get tons of comments when the girls wear her stuff.  And, hey, I may have fallen down on the job about looking cute myself, but nobody can say that I — with contributions from fashion-minded relatives like Granny, Uncle Jay, aunties Cait and Ashley and others — don’t do a good job dressing the girls when I know they won’t get muddy or eat strawberries.)  Now for the wrapping and sending.  But, first, the knitting.  I have to go on a yarn run sunday when John gets back (not taking the kids with me no matter what) so I can make 2 eyeglass cases — easy! fast! yay! — and finish a scarf (thought I had too much, but it was not enough) and find a good yarn for my little brother’s hat and for someone else’s scarf and then I have to knit all those and one more scarf that I do have yarn for and, yeah, you might be getting a card that says "Sometime in January, February at the latest, maybe March if we don’t all get over this cold, you will recieve some hand-knit goodness from me." 

I also want to have a little family picture taken, but Lexy is still waiting for his barber to return to work and his hair is really long.  Maybe it will stick; he does look good now that it’s getting long looking instead of he-needs-a-haircut looking.  As long as he drops the whole tail fixation.  I let him dye his hair in first grade, but I can’t stand by and let him make such a fashion error.  I’m all sentimental that his curls returned in the back.  He had ringlets until he was two and someone (not me) insisted he get a haircut.   

Speaking of Lexy; yesterday he and I were talking about the horrible girl that always calls him names and puts him down.  I’d complain to the principal, but he dishes right back and I am hopeful that they will figure it out without grown ups forcing them to be nice.  Anyhow, he was telling me that she was, this hurts to type, "hot."  I asked him what he meant by that.  He said, "Mom, you know what a hot girl is!"  I asked him to enlighten me and he said that it’s a girl who wears "certain clothes" (meaning certain brands, not skimpy styles) and is a "fancy dresser."  I told him that when someone describes someone else as hot, it means that they think that person is really attractive and that they like them.  He said two of his friends told him that they think she’s hot.  He was mortified.  Poor boy. 

Hell, poor me.  Second graders calling girls hot??  Just because I’m fully aware that worse goes on at even younger ages doesn’t mean that I’m not sad about stuff like that.

John’s performance in Seattle was last night at 6 pm.  Haven’t talked to him since, but we did talk on the phone before.  He said that it’s raining there, but we like that.  Saturday night is the Portland show, and Sunday morning he comes home.  I wonder if I can teach him to knit? 

* I know, paranthetical comments AND a footnote.  Shoot me.  *I wish that the lovely Jen at Textile Fetish made grown up sized, capri length patchy overalls.  I think about that all the time.  Like when I am at the grocery store with all four kids and I’m saying, "NO! We are sticking TO THE LIST!   Quit asking for that.  ONLY THE LIST, I SAID.  NO NO NO.  Quit whining and begging.  Stop it," what I’m thinking is, "Oh.  My.  If I had a pair of patchy overalls, I wouldn’t care about any of this trivial stuff, because life would be fabulous."  And you think I’m making that up.