yarn along

Joining in (for the first time in ages) with Ginny's yarn along.

I have been knitting small items recently. There has been a spate of headbands. One for a Christmas present and two requests. The latest, the pink one in the picture, was for Hannah. I am a sucker for those single balls of interesting wool that live in charity shops. I knit this green/rust/blue one into a neck warmer for me.

My mindless-can-be-done-with-kids-around knitting is currently another neckwarmer for Hannah. Well at least that's what I hope it's going to turn out as. Hannah thinks it's going to be a skirt for one of her dolls.

I have decided I want to knit the kids birthday jumpers this year. Thomas' birthday is in April. Better make a start soon.......

I seem to be reading lots of books at the moment, but I forgot to put any of them into the photo! I am finding 'Living with the Active Alert Child' (I have one) by Linda Budd very interesting, and I think it will have some useful ideas in it. I like the way she analyses different styles of families, and talks about how each family style has useful components and how each one can adapt itself to better suit this type of child. This seems a more useful approach to me than one which suggests a specific way to parent.

yarn along

joining in with Ginny's yarn along

Knitting is going very slowly but I have been enjoying knitting a doll's top, making it up as I go along. 

I found two really good books in the library. The first is World Vegetarian Classics by Celia Brooks Brown. It has vege recipes from eleven different areas of the world. The ones I've made so far have all used easily sourced ingredients and been simple to cook. We've had pastel de choclo, maple-roasted mushroom burgers, spatzle and masala dosa and there are loads more I want to try

The other book is French children don't throw food by Pamela Druckerman. I heard a discussion about this on the radio and thought it would be some lightweight reading about why French kids are better (or not) than British ones, but it's actually a really thought provoking and interesting read. The author is from the US (New York I think) but is living and bringing up 3 small kids in Paris. She observes the differences in behaviour of French (well at least middle class Parisian) children compared with those in New York and sets out to investigate what aspects of parenting bring these about. It really made me think about how some of our parenting rules are so ingrained that we don't even realise we have them. And also that maybe what really matters (at least up to a point) is not whether we have lots of or few household rules but whether we educate our children gently and respectfully about what they are