Fretting

Lately I've been having trouble falling back asleep. The first time is no problem, but if something wakes me up at night (as it has the past two nights) man, I'm up for an hour or two. And why am I awake? Why, because I can't fall asleep for the worrying! Worrying about work I need to do, worrying that I should be pushing academics on the kids (night time does strange things to my brain), and worrying about Liel's social life. See, Liel didn't really make friends during her year in preschool. Now she's socially ready to (I think) but the only kid she sees most days is her brother. I'm mostly to blame for this- I suck about arranging playdates. But I'm not entirely to blame...part of the reason I suck is because I get shot down probably 75% of the time when I try to set one up for her. Mostly it isn't personal (I hope!) but I hear "oh, we're busy this week, let's try for next week..." an awful lot. So I feel like a bit of a bother, since next week is always busy when we get there too, you know? Get knocked back enough and it sure starts to SEEM like maybe that mom just doesn't like me and I should give up.

But in the night two nights ago I had a rather sad realization. Zion wants to have a birthday party this year (it will be his first friend party. We offered last year but he said no). And that's lovely, and he has a number of friends who he'll want to invite and who will want to come. But that also means Liel will want a friend party this year. And Liel has 1, maybe 2 friends. I'm not kidding you, my eyes teared up thinking about how that might make her feel, and how I've kind of failed her in this way because I'm not trying hard enough to find other little girls for her play with.

So, I got back up and sent out 4 emails asking if daughters wanted to play with Liel this week. I've heard back from one, saying her daughter is away visiting grandparents, but we did make an actual plan for the week after (of course this is the one girl I can count as Liel's friend with as much certainty as is possible when counting friends for 4 year olds).

This is the most pathetic blog post I've ever made.

PS- success! Heard back from another mama and Liel has a playdate this week. Perhaps less pathetic now.

Stuff I made this week

I had a busy week, it turns out. Excuse some unflattering pictures of me- just focus on the awesome knits!

First I made this awesome circular shawl:




I took a day off part way thru the shawl to make these felted slippers.



When the shawl and slippers were done I made a dropped stitch cowl.



Then I made a hat.



Let's see the shawl again, shall we?

2 important notes

1. I am close to finishing my first circular shawl! It will be 60" in diameter and I'm feeling rather pleased with myself. I was always afraid of the extra long rows as one neared the end of a circular shawl, and while 500+ stitch rows can be a bit monotonous they aren't so bad after all! I think I'll try a square shawl next.

2. I'm going to Kerri's tonight to watch Mamma Mia! with her, Sayantani, and Liv. We're going to snack and drink girlie drinks. Liv fears the movie will be too campy, but I think I've successfully pleased and guilted her into coming over, at leat for a little while. I'm super excited about my evening plans! I'm also a wee bit sad that I'm not going to be spending the evening knitting and hanging out with Robert, though. Cause I'm cool like that.