I'm back

(Did you miss me?)

Three days, two dresses, one cardigan and one suction catheter holder. Very very little sleep. One cardigan finished at 3.03PM today. One small child returned from school at 3.02PM and immediately shuffled out of uniform and into pretty dress and cardigan. One child raging and screaming and tantrumming about not liking pretty dresses, not wanting her picture taken, not wanting to go outside. One child sick all down pretty dress and cardigan - entirely deliberately - at 3.08PM.

Incandescent woman walked again.

3.17PM second child returned from school, shuffled into pretty dress and different top (anyone want to knit up the next cardigan? If I never see any more burgundy wool it will be too soon).

3.23PM everyone out of the house and heading towards the photography studio.

3.55PM arrive with one dishevelled mother, who is definitely not looking her best after three days non-stop knitting, one child with a vomit-strewn dress and one who proceeded to dribble mightily demonstrating my lack of wisdom in choosing cream fabric for the dresses.

It sounded more sensible on Monday when we booked the photographer. Two dresses in three days, not even a little bit of a problem. Same photographer we used a few years ago; I was thinking similar shots to reflect our current family. And then he uttered the words "by the way, I shoot against a white background now, so make sure they are wearing dark clothes".

With quite ridiculous optimism I grabbed enough wool for two burgundy cardigans. Beautiful wool, a beautiful match for the dresses. And a very very simple pattern. And then I completely forgot that if you're a slow knitter, it doesn't matter how simple the pattern; double knit on 4mm needles is going to take a while to work up.

Annoyingly, Tescos have some beautiful wine coloured cardigans which would have been a perfect match. I'd already bought the wool by then though. The sensible thing to do would have been to put them in different clothes, or alternatively make a later appointment for their photos. But why be sensible when you can instead sit up til 1.30AM, fall asleep in your clothes, drag yourself out of bed early to continue, and produce at the end of it something which looks as though it was knitted by the four year old wearing it? We weave our own yoghurt here...

I have no pictures for you; the proper ones won't be ready for a while and the girls were most definitely not in the mood for any more posing afterwards. Plus, who wants to see pictures of vomit and dribble stained crumpled and creased things anyway? I hope the photographer can work some magic on them for us.

We came home, fed the cats, fed the littlest girl, processed her through to bed and repeated the process for the older one. And then two kittens vomited in unison, clearly feeling I hadn't paid them enough attention over the last few days. Have you any idea how irritating a kitten can be when you're trying to knit? I cleared up the vomit and they vomited again, but swapped and ate each other's vomit before I could get to it. My life is full of glamour. And then they vomited again, and now they're feeling better and chasing each other around the house, destroying hairbands as they go.

Is it bedtime yet?