A Good Day To Be A Daddy

Well, maybe the whole day wasn't so good--we had a three-kid meltdown there for a while shortly after dinner, just as haircut time was happening. Yup, all three kids had their hair cut today, in our little kitchen. The Happy Boy most assuredly wasn't happy. But he looks a lot cuter now.

Anyway. Earlier today, the Pillowfight Fairy did something that made her daddy proud: she announced to me that she wanted to get out that pegboard that I'd showed her last week (and blogged about, at great length, a few days ago), and that she was going to make a blanket.

Well, I reasoned with her, blankets are awfully big things to make, and take a long time. You should probably start with something smaller, that can be finished in just a few sessions. Scarves are perfect.

Lo and behold, my reasoning actually worked! With a six-year-old! Will wonders never cease? So, the Fairy picked out an appropriate color ("as white as snow!"), and I helped her get started. I admit, when she started I was thinking to myself, I wonder how long this is going to last. I needn't have worried. She worked on it for a couple of hours straight in the morning. And then she worked on it a couple of hours in the afternoon, while the rest of us were taking naps. And then, after her bath tonight, I suggested that she work on it a while while I read to her.

So here's a picture of the Fairy knitting a white scarf on the pegboard, sporting that do you mind? facial expression:
She currently has her scarf about two feet long, give or take. Of course, she's not as fast at it as I am--yet. But still, I'm very proud of her.

And given that she had something to keep her occupied, I got a little more ambitious with my reading tonight; since we've just finished Little House in the Big Woods, I got to pick something I wanted to read. So I started to inflict The Hobbit on the Pillowfight Fairy. In the past she hasn't had much patience for sitting through that kind of stuff. But having the Fairy work on knitting while I read to her was pretty close to ideal; because she wasn't idle, she didn't get squirmy; she had something to do while I read to her, so she was able to sit through the entire chapter (and Tolkien's chapters are pretty long). The only drawback was that Tolkien's chapters are so long that we went way past her bedtime. But she was able to get some serious length on that scarf of hers, and she enjoyed Chapter 1: An Unexpected Party.

We'll have to get another project lined up for when she finishes the scarf. I want to finish the book with her. :-)

Oh, and by the way: I've been talking a lot about the Fairy lately. The other kids are doing well, too. I liked this picture of the Adrenaline Junkie, freshly scrubbed and looking at a book just before bedtime.