Our house has been invaded. The invaders either live in pots or tubes, and are invariably named "blue" or "blau" by Cubling. They have captured her very mind. Their effect on Cubling is that of a class A drug, the addiction is powerful and shows signs of dominating her very life, with ripple effects on her immediate family. In desperation to lay her hands on any of the invaders, Cubling's language has made leaps. Words like "off", "blue", "yellow", "pen" "paper", "draw", "brush",  "in there", "messy" and "look mummy" (she can say the latter up to 15 times in a row without even taking a breath) are terrorising Cubling's parents. The invaders have strange transforming effects on paper, walls, tables, chairs, floors, eyes, ears, arms, tummies, hands, skin and sometimes even paper. Once the drug is applied, there are permanent marks left on such surfaces which are only pretty to the eye of the agents of Cubling's birth and conception.

However, the liquid alien invaders have a certain attraction and come in handy for the creation of birthday cards for other toddlers who all happen to turn two at the moment (I wonder why that is) and are duly recycled in such manner.

In the meantime, mummy is trying hard to explain that permanent marks on paper are very nice, permanent marks on furniture and walls are less so, applying the drug of choice to tongues, inside ears and to skin in general is not recommended as it results in serious scrubbing and cold turkey (separation from alien liquids).

Cubling is currently deeply steeped in her blue phase as befits a future Picasso. This extends to both waking and sleeping times of the day. Her dreams are taken up by exploring why yellow is not blue and blue is not yellow, and why red starts with a letter that Cubling cannot for the life of her pronounce, so therefore should not denominate such an important representative of the invaders. Upon waking, oftentimes a panicky and urgent "blue! Yellow!" can be heard, a further sign that the invaders have taken control of her mind.

Cubling has a good sense of humour. There's nothing better than her infectious giggle. Her excited super fast dancing on the spot when she knows it's time for bath time bubble fun with her cousin ("bubbles!"), watching In the Nightgarden ("baby!") or going to the park ("seesaw seesaw seesaw").

She finds this hilarious:


(http://www.infoscotland.com/gogreener)

She's totally and utterly into play doh, drawing and painting, gardening (which usually involves scooping up stones and putting them into flower pots, onto the grass and into flowerbeds, or stealing the soil out of the flowerplants). Thanks to her alphabet obsessed cousin, she will now also point out every "S" and "O". Her counting is rather interesting - she always leaves out "one", which is kind of logical, after all if there's only one of a thing it doesn't need counting, does it? So she goes: two three four five eight nine ten!, sometimes also: zwei drei vier five acht neun zehn! and sometimes even: three two nine blue!

She definitely has an extended blue phase, all colours are blue/blau, although she can say yellow, green, pink, purple, brown, weiss, lila, silber, orange. It's almost as if "blue/blau" means "colour" to her. Her "k" is consistently a "t" and that means that OK becomes OT, which is ever so cute and has gladly taken on in frequency over the past week after a rather frustrating couple of weeks where her answer to absolutely everything was NO.

Her favourite words at the moment are "a dassa", which she uses for things she isn't confident to say (I wonder if it is a variation of "was ist das"), moon, spoon, star, fish, draw, books. She also loves first names, and her vocabulary expands steadily. She is quite clever to pick up bits of conversation not directed at her (like me asking hubby who this band "Elbow" were as I'd never heard of them so far, which made Cubling helpfully point at hubby's elbow with and explanatory "ebow" to make sure mummy knows what an elbow is. Still no sentences, but many more words, including preprositions, adjectives and lots of words I don't understand. She can now imitate new words if they are repeated to her, she doesn't always do it but she can if her mindset is thus. Her cousin is still bound to overtake her active German vocabularly in the next few weeks, but then again, he's exceptional so there's no real competition there.

And the big news of the week is that weaning from mummy milk has been completed. The last feed (morning feed, theoretically any time after 5am but with Cubling waking earlier most nights and not getting back to sleep, this feed had slipped back to 4am or even earlier on some nights) was hard to get rid of. So here's how it all went:

I weaned her off the evening feed in 3 days, day number four she didn't even ask for it anymore. The feed was replaced by books and I explained that she was now a big girl and didn't need mummy milk but could have cow milk from a cup. One night of slight protest, 2 nights of asking for milk, and that was that. Phew, easy.

The morning feed took 3 full weeks to get rid of. It was fine on working days, I simply cuddled her until she would eventually fall back asleep, sometimes that meant 2 or 3 hours of tossing and turning and regular little cries. I was knackered but being used to interrupted sleep and constant sleep deprivation, it was fine. Then, the weekends when I had to consider the sleep of her cousin, it was harder. I didn't want her to cry and usually gave in to feeding her just to keep her quiet. So 2 weeks we had 4 days a week no feed at all, 3 days a week a morning feed. By week 2 I knew that there was no milk. Week three we managed with no feed at all, but still lots of waking and crying and cuddling to calm the crying. This is us at the end of week 3. Last night she slept through and spent the whole night in her own good bed - this is worth mentioning because it very rarely happens - she usually wakes at some point during the night with a big big cry and won't stop until taken through to our bed, so I'm really not used to waking up in the morning withouth Cubling beside me. And did I rejoyce in jubilation? No, of course not, I panicked, thinking something MUST be wrong because Cubling NEVER sleeps through. But actually, last night she really and truly did and she was of course perfectly fine.

Anyway, where was I? After waking her and taking her through to our bedroom for a bit of play and cuddles, she asked for milk, but with a cheeky grin. I complied. She didn't latch, just pretended to, then shook her head - mimi all gone. Other side, the same. A big smile on her face. She doesn't miss it. Neither do I. In fact, it felt like she didn't quite remember how to do it. And I didn't quite remember what it felt like either. Gone like it never happened. We were both very attached to those special calming moments of closeness and nurture. It lasted so much longer than I ever imagined, but I'm happy that this is it. It took 4 weeks to wean, without forcing the issue too much, and on the whole it was much easier than some people made me believe. Bye bye magic mummy milk.

Why did I feed for so long? Because it got easy. Because it was convenient. Because it made her settle and sleep. Because it meant I didn't have to spend hours during the night calming her. Because it's good for her. Because she liked it so much. Because for all the pain and worry at the beginning, I wanted to make sure it had been worth the effort. Because she doesn't drink much milk or other liquids during the day. Because it soothed her so well whenever she was ill. Because it worked, felt right and good.

The week before last I got enthused by an idea that I had and an email reminded me that this idea was noted and Cartside had been signed up to actually make it a reality.

The international children's rights charity Save the Children will be 90 this year. Throughout the year, there will be celebrations and activities to mark this special year, all with a view to raising the charity's profile (which is particularly needed for their UK work which is little known) and raising funds.

I'll be contributing to this by publishing an online book and looking into a 90 second video competition. The book idea will take priority because it seems easier to implement. The original idea was to collect 90 recipies (maybe from countries Save the Children works in and with a bit of information on what the charity does in that country), although I'm also considering the idea of collecting 90 knitting patterns with ideas of knitting for charity, maybe with pictures of 90 of the 550 000 baby hats that UK supporters of Save the Children knitted for the "knit one, save one" campaign. Considering the generosity of knitters and the international knitting communities that could be linked into, it would be interesting to see if this idea would sell well. Above all, I'd like explore avenues of charitable giving connected with knitting. Recipies are a safe bet, I don't like the idea as such so much because it's been done a lot of times before, although I like the thought of linking country of origin with information on Save the Children's work. Above all, I want this book to make lots of money, so whichever of the two ideas is making that happen will be made into reality.

As to the technical side of things, so far I've looked into online book publishing sites. Lulu is the one I knew of anyway and my own book is published there. However, it's not clear if Lulu is the best choice - with the pound losing in value, and Lulu being US based, it may mean that UK customers have to dish out more money for a book and wait longer for delivery. I assume that most buyers would be from the UK. A quick internet search came up with two other sites, createspace and booksurge, both subsidiaries of Amazon. They seem to be roughly one company, and offer the option of marketing the book through Amazon (with a higher percentage of the sale going to Amazon of course) so that may be useful. I like the forum of createspace, and the name of the service, so for the moment I'm leaning towards them.

I take the process of publishing a book for charity as a learning opportunity which I'd like to share on this blog. Have you ever published a book online, and if so, which platform did you use and what did you think of it?

What are your thoughts, should I go for a 90 recipies book or a 90 knitting patterns book?

Today I was asked to introduce myself with an item that has special significance for me or tells something about me. Of course it took ages to settle on an item. I"m not one good at decision making when there is a choice. I thought about picking a running shoe, which holds significance because running made me turn around my weight and fitness issues, turning from borderline obese and ever-last-to-be-picked-for-sport-teams to a slimmish marathon runner and aerobics junkie, losing a third of my body weight in the process. But I don't run at the moment so thought it inappropriate. Next came a jar of rhubarb jam, made with rhubarb that I'd grown myself, representing the satisfaction of growing and enjoying the fruit of a year's gardening. Then there was the handpainted Mexican wooden monster which I bought in San Cristobal de las Casas, which stands for my travel itch and the most interesting trip undertaken so far.

I settled on this:
I'm not a mad knitter who spends nights finishing an item. But knitting has many meanings to me. It was a skill passed on to me from my mother when I was very young, passed on to her by her mum, and I'll make sure to pass it onto Cubling. It's about learning from each others, across generations, as so many skills used to be learned. It's simple yet can be complex, it links and transforms. It is beauty and the satisfaction of working with yarn, often spun and died by similar handycrafts. It uses materials which are sustainable (well, if you choose to). Knitting is never about the efficiency of using time for maximum financial gain. Rather it takes time, persistence and hands. The product of knitting keeps loved ones warm and protected. The joy of making, creating, and seeing something grow slowly but steadily is extremely satisfying to me. Knitting links people across cultures, continents. I'll never forget how I was taught by a Somali woman how to cast on her way, how we all learned from each others, shared skills in a supportive and warm environment, across language barriers. I've seen the positive effect on mental health that knitting has, how it balances people, empowers them to make something beautiful in lives which are determined by external circumstances and powers and which have little space for beauty. The generosity of knitters who I've come across is overwhelming. Knitting will never be a profitable activity, it's all about the love of the handmade, the love of making and transforming, of connecting and caring. It's an antithesis to our world of consumerism and time is money attitude. It is slow, domestic, universal, and female (although I'd be very happy to see more male knitters!). Personally, I like the relaxation it gives me and that it's portable, and it's the one thing where I don't get competetive with myself - I only knit when I feel like it and as much as I feel like it.

What do you like about knitting?

Oh, and here is a Christmas knit I forgot to add. It's a bag I knitted for A. who I hope likes bags... I really liked knitting this one. The pattern is Lemon Zest from Emma King's 25 bags to knit (a book with lovely bag patterns) and I had photocopied the page, then bought colours from memory only with the description on the sheet. When I revisited the original pattern I was surprised at the difference. And I was very pleasantly surprised that I preferred my version. It was a hard bag to give away because I really liked the result, but I'm simply not a handbag person and A is a very worthy recipient.

This is what was on my needles before Christmas: I came across a pattern for gloves and somehow a yarn that I had picked up in Germany was crying out to be made into just those very gloves. The colour and style spellt Cubling's auntie all over, so that's where they are now. The pattern is "Sage" fromfrom Fun & Funky Knitting: 30 Projects for an Exciting New Look, I used Rowan kidsilk haze for the frill and RY Cotton DK As a main yarn. Knitting my first set of gloves was daunting but really easier than expected and quite satisfying to see the progress finger by finger. I messed up ever so slightly when making up, so the two gloves ended up not entirely identical.





Cubling's cousin had been a tad neglected as far as knits were concerned. So he was definitely due a lovely something, even if he really got it for his second birthday rather than Christmas. The cardigan that I had picked looked fabulous on the page, with a lovely tweed yarn from Rowan. When I bought the yarn, I tried our local yarn shop, Marjorie's. Marjorie doesn't do Rowan. She believes that cheaper yarns are just as good, and she also won't sell you a pattern without yarn. To be honest, I don't know how the shop is still there with that kind of attitude, but she's an institution and must be doing something right. She did sell me some lovely yarn for my project so I compromised. It was my first date with self striping yarn and I loved the colour effect. Until I got bored of the pattern which was rather dull. I do like the finished piece, but still tempted to knit something using the recommended Rowan felted tweed yarn that looks just oh so cosy on the picture in the book. The yarn I used is an English tweed yarn, 100% wool, can't remember the name just now as I can't remember the name of the pattern, but it's from a reasonably well known baby knit book stocked at a Glasgow library frilled edge crossover jacket from Debbie Bliss' Baby Style: Home Accessories and Irresistible Knitwear Designs for 0-3 Year Olds.

Cubling learned (to say) a new word today. It is Schneemann. Need I say more?