I'm looking at the man in the mirror . . .

It was one of those days that gets off to such a rough start that the two of you--the parental units--spend the rest of the day talking about one particular child and whether or not it's time to change something fundamental about the way in which you are parenting him. I say him as we have no hers.

I won't go into details, largely because it creates a sense of anticipation in the reader and lets your imagination run wild, but also because the catalyst of these discussions -- the behavior of the child -- was so common and ordinary for this particular child. It wasn't a big deal. It's just that the behavior is unacceptable to us as parents and we've been trying for over a year to change this one particular behavior without any success. Add to that a full moon, a thunderstorm coming in, rising humidity and pressure, and a tendency on our parts to stay up to late -- and there was a big explosion around 10 am.

We have given our approach to the matter time to take effect and it hasn't. The problem is unchanged. No better, no worse.

We take our role as parents very, very seriously. Obviously. So it's killing us right now that we're in a period of upheaval with this child. But that's how it is. You have periods where things are sort of quiet and organized and you can get to feeling sort of self-congratulatory. We're in that space with Ben right now. He is well managed. Not horrible in public, no toileting accidents, not inclined to hit or bite -- he makes us look good. If only the other two would give us a similar break. But that's not where they are right now. Right now they're our wake-up call. So we keep talking and talking and talking . . .

On the upside of the day, I'm trying to cook my way through some of my food storage items and one of them is dehydrated apples. I found a recipe for apple pie using the dehydrated apples and decided to give it a try even though it meant making my own pie pastry.

Well, it came out deliciously, in a sort of frankenstein-esque way. I am out of wax paper, so I tried rolling out the pastry between two sheets of non-stick aluminum foil. I had to freeze the pastry for twenty minutes to get it to cooperate and come off the aluminum foil, but it all came out okay. Sadly, when it was time to eat the pie we discovered it had taken on a kind of graham cracker crust consistency. The taste was great but the pastry was crumbly, not flakey. Nobody really complained. It *did* taste good. But I'll have to keep working on the crust. Do you think it's because I was using ww pastry flour? Can you not make a pie crust from ww flour?

I just ripped out the sweater I'd started for myself. It wasn't going to work for a couple of reasons. But the yarn is beautiful and I want to wear it. I haven't knitted anything for myself in years and years. And I think my MIL would be upset if I turned around and used it to knit up a gift for someone else. So it has to be for me. I spent an hour tonight looking for a pretty cotton sweater to knit in its place and came up empty handed. (I started to type, "I wasted an hour" but then I reconsidered. It wasn't the hour's fault that I didn't find what I was looking for.) So, maybe I'll cash in some of my reward points for a B&N gift certificate and go spend another hour one afternoon looking at knitting books until I find what I'm looking for. It can't be a shawl or a poncho because I've made three in a row and I need something else. It can't be a scarf because I intended this project to reach beyond my existing abilities and I can knit a scarf in my sleep. I *was* tempted to start a project for the twins with the yarn because I suspect that my MIL would be okay with THAT, but for the time being, I'll keep looking for something for ME.

The pants I've started are my first attempt to do my own design. I want to make a comfy pair of pants for the boys and they don't exist. In general, most knitting designers are smarter than I am and they have the sense not to knit anything for the preschool boy's bottom. But ever since I saw this totally magnificent pair of pants in a vogue about a year ago, I've been obsessed with knitting a pair. Ben and Milo are much shorter (and better looking) so they make good models for this attempt. I'm using a pair of Levi jeans that fit them well for measurements.

Hmmm, any fellow knitters out there want to take on the challenge? To be fair, the model has to be between size 3T and 6 and out of diapers (which requires an entirely different tush design). The finished pants must have some way to stay UP and must be full length. Otherwise you can use whatever type of yarn you want, whatever stitch, and indulge whatever wild whims you have as you go. Keep in mind that if you can find more than an hour each day to knit that you're going to finish well before me. So feel free to make more than one and submit both pictures :)