Together

I'm so loving seeing the kids together these days. While the boys were reading their current chapter books on the couch last Friday Ellie climbed up with them to "read" a Star Wars chapter book upside down and I had the three of them in a row on the couch in the family room all looking deep in thought while thinking about very different things.


Ellie runs after them to "tickle" and they all giggle and the boys indulge her even though her tickles often include unintentional pinching and scratching.


The boys regularly load Ellie into a laundry basket and stuff blankets and pillows around her before taking her for rides- sliding the basket along the carpet in short bursts. She laughs and they laugh and they add stuffed animals to the basket.

For as much growing up as Ellie has done in the last 18 months, it is Ender who has changed the most. He didn't want a sister- in fact he wasn't a fan of adding another child to our family. He likes status quo and adding another kid threw his world for a loop- but for the better. He's learning to take care of someone who cannot take care of herself, he now understands that her cry means she needs a response of some sort, and I think he enjoys the detective work sometimes involved in discerning what a non-talking toddler needs. He thinks she is incredibly funny (she is) and he has learned that including her in the "big kid" games can make for a hilarious time.

I'm so thankful for the time they have growing up together.

FO: Little Mitts

{Ravelry notes}

I love thumbless mittens for toddlers, but these little mittens have a funny way of deceiving me- I know I can knit them up quickly because they are small and don't have that thumb to mess with, but that somehow translates into me only putting on a few stitches here and there because it's "not a big project". But now that it's cold the mittens need to be done, so this weekend I made sure that happened.

Ellie likes them, but hasn't learned to keep them on quite yet. When I first put them on her she wiggled her fingers as if the mitten was a puppet and then took them off and said "toes?" and tried to put a mitten on her foot like a sock. The boys got a good laugh out of that one. 

I'm planning to knit her another pair or two in worsted weight since my boys frequently lost mittens at this age- I don't want to be caught without backups now that winter is well on its way.