I will now be posting on Wordpress

Having lost yet another post on Blogger, I have now decided to make the move to Wordpress. You can find me at tsampamama.wordpress.com
See you soon!

Potty, Pottermore and more

Oh, stop looking at me like that. All right, all right, it's been a while. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions - well, colour me contrite and call this an official cobblestone on said road.

Little r has been on a roll with all his accomplishments. Turns out that I have a most verbal little boy with an amazing memory. Did I ever tell you how I got him weaned? Well, one day when he was 22 months old, I sat him down and said, "Little r, you are now a big boy. You used to have chi-chi and now it's finished. Now you have your homa in a cup like a big boy, okay?" He looked at me and said "Chi chi finished?" and I said, "Yep, finished! All Done!" and he said, "Homa in a cup?" and I said "Yes, that's right." and that, as they say, was that. Seriously! No crying, no fussing, nada. Here I was being advised all manner of tactics from smearing on something spicy or bitter to deter him from breast-feeding to drawing a scary picture (well, the picture Kimiko drew was actually cute but whatever - apparently it scared the bejeezus out of her little one) - yeah, didn't have to use any of that.

Now, he has discovered his sense of humour. The boy clearly has hit his stride. So nowadays, he is constantly making up lyrics to some of your classic nursery rhymes to suit his purposes - "Rockabye Amala" is one. The other one which goes "night night (insert name of child) , night night (insert name of child) , night night (insert name of child) , it's time to go to sleep" has now become "Get up Rigden, Get up Rigden, Get up Rigden, its time to get some breakfast"! and this is what he sings... at night... when he should be trying to fall asleep... Oy!

There are somethings that send him into gales of laughter for whatever reason. So we do this classically tibetan rhyme called "Agu thebo ro-ro" done in the style of "This little piggy". For whatever reason, I was just fooling around and said to him "Aghu thebo No-No" and that was it. He finds it hilarious. Couldn't stop laughing about it for ages!

Anyone who knows Rigden, knows he loves his food - yes, he's my boy through and through. Well, at present, his favourites are, in no particular order, cupcakes, ice-cream, rice and dal, rice and curry, noodles, and spaghetti and "neat-bols". He also has the darndest memory. For his second birthday, I made him coconut cupcakes with cream cheese icing, topped with little teddy bears. I pretty much did it for me - to have the pleasure of making something delicious and fun that I knew to have good quality ingredients. Well, he remembers! He totally remembers the cupcakes and that they had teddy bears! I felt SO gratified and rewarded. Next year, heaven help me, I have promised him a Thomas the Tank Engine cake. Wonder how that will go... hmmmm...

Rigden's latest hurdles that he is dealing with are potty-training and learning to sleep by himself and sometimes those two are going had in hand. The potty training is going okay. We are doing really well at home but not so well at daycare. Probably due to the fact that at home all the attention of 2 people are going to 1 child as opposed to the daycare having a 1 adult to 5 kids ratio. Anyway, with patience, we will get through it. He is however TOTALLY using this "I gotta go potty" business as an excuse to not go to bed and interact with me. SO not cool. Cut to 2 nights ago, we went to the potty 4 times (count 'em, 4 times) in about 15 minute. Aaagh!! I put a stop to that yesterday but we will see how it goes tonight... (deep breath) that's me bracing myself!

And now onto Pottermore. For those unobsessed with Harry Potter, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. For the like-minded Potter-heads, I can only squeal "I KNOW!!!". Pottermore is an online experience for Harry Potter fans. There are going to be back-stories to many characters and an opportunity to adjust the story line and so on for those who may be so inclined. There are also going tobe games and so on but the part that I'm most excited about are the back-stories and the content that got axed at the editing stage. I bet it will add so much richness. So like any good geek, I got all excited at the opportunity to be one of the first people to get a sneak preview and to test the Beta site. I got online on Day 6 of the 7 days where they were giving away these opportunities. I answered the question correctly ("How many chapters are there in "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince?" 30.). I found the Magic Quill. I got all excited and announced it on my Facebook page and did my little victory dance. And then.... nothing. Never got the welcome email from Pottermore, never got to log on to the website and now I have to wait alongside all the Muggles till October. Bah! I'm annoyed. peeved. crest-fallen.

But you know what will cheer me up? Yarn! Fall is almost here and I don't think I have ever looked forward to it quite this much. Fall equals new fashion, equals perusing patterns and dreaming up knit, equals shopping for yarn! Currently working on a cowl that I had auctioned off for charity. Just finished little r's Fall Jacket that will fit him possibly next fall! It's ginormous! Started Amala's sweater but then I realized that I better get on that afore-mentioned cowl since someone did pay money for that! I picked a beautiful yarn by Tanis Fibre Arts in their Aran weight (green label). It's called Stormy and is full of beautiful shades of blue and charcoal.

All right folks, got to get moving. Enjoy your day and remember to breathe.

Looking at an old hobby in a new light.

For as long as I can remember, knitting has been in my life. Both my mom and my aunt fantastic artists with yarn. There isn't a pattern that Amala see's that she can't decipher and recreate. Pattern, schmattern, who needs it! I remember her and Aunty Yangzom-la sitting together, laughing, chatting and knitting in the morning light as they asked me to run downstairs for tea or coffee on a chilly morning. I loved sitting at their feet, normally with a book, taking part in the conversation at will, feeling the joy, the warmth, the creativity envelop me.

I have loved the clicking of the sound of needles, the excitement of making a choice - pattern, colour, design - the feeling of smooth, new yarn between my fingers and imagining the end product so finally at about age 5, I begged to be taught how to knit. And she taught me. She cast on my stitches and I knitted and purled my little heart out. How grown up I felt! When I hit a snag, she unsnagged it, when I dropped a stitch, she picked it up but I just didn't have the persistance to stay with it. Being the dabbler that I am, I now recognize in retrospect that a scarf was the wrong project for me to start with - long, straight and going on forever. After a pathetic attempt at a sweater for SUPW in high school that I never wore and a mis-shapen sweater for baby when I was pregnant 2 years ago (seriously, what was I expecting? I faked it without a pattern!), I gave up my needles. Until this last weekend.

It all started with a “Knitting in the Round” class at the Purple Purl that I did last Sunday morning. (Excellent btw, I highly recommend their classes - free coffee too!) I picked this nice pumpkin colour, machine washable (hello, I'm a mom remember? The days of having the time to handwash is a distant memory.) Mission Falls Merino yarn for little R's hat and some bamboo needles - having always used metal needles in the past, I was hesitant but now, I’m a total convert! The control is so much greater. (Thanks Miko for the excellent guidance!) Happily, the class provided a pattern for a hat. Rosa was our wonderful instructor - clear, patient and calm - who lead us through knitting on 4 needles. The class just flew by as fun times often do and I couldn’t stop knitting! By nightfall, I was half-way through with the hat and the interesting part was coming up (the decreases) when I realized, horror of horrors, I was actually out of yarn and the Purple Purl was closed on Monday!!! Argh! Why hadn’t I bought more yarn? What was I thinking - or in this case, not thinking? What would I do with myself for a full day without yarn! Somehow I talked myself off the ledge and sanity prevailed :) I was done by Tuesday evening with the knitting and last night I finished my first hat ever. Today, my son is rocking his new toque.

Now, for a scarf to match! This project has been a little plagued with doubt. The scarf this time is a short one that buttons together instead of wrapping around, which means two things:

1. I will have less worries about strangulation - don't ask.
2. This greatly increases the chance that this project will actually get completed! Quick is a good thing when it comes to projects.

The merino yarn (once again, machine washable - please and thank you) is this gorgeous confection that reminds me of fall. It has all the colours - orange, green, brown and …. pink! Is that too girly for a little boy? After a lot of thought, I have since decided that MY boy will be in touch with his feminine side and will rock the pink! After all, with our dreary Canadian winters, we will be crying out for a shot of colour by January.
Since my size 7 circs are not here yet (bought a lot of needles off of Ebay for a song!), I tried using my size 8 dbl. pts. and it’s going fine but now I’m beginning to wonder if it’s my tension or the needles or simply the weight of the yarn that is causing the fabric to be nicely maleable but a little on the thin side. Since this scarf goes around the neck only once, I do want a bit of heft to it but not so much that it’s uncomfortable.
Then there is the fact that I changed it up. Instead of following the pattern, I kept the spirit of the scarf (size and design) but changed the pattern to a seed stitch because it took me forever to do two rows of the the pattern (I’m so not used to YO and k2 tog line after line) and the recipient kinda needs the scarf yesterday - now I’m beginning to wonder if that is contributing to the lack of heft.
Oh and did I mention that I kept the width of the scarf the same as the pattern? What possessed me? Well, I cast the stitches, knit two lines thought that it looked about right. Now I’ve knit about 4 inches and yeah, bad move. I will scale back from 30 stitches to about 22.
Which means, I need to rip out what I’ve done,

Which means I may as well borrow those size 7’s from my knitty friend KR,

Which means, I may as well try and stick to the pattern!! HA!

But I shall prevail. Hello knitting needles, I'm back.

The beat goes on

This is a post that I found in draft form (one of a few that never made it) - It is a good reminder to myself to just post, no matter how short, even a thought because otherwise I risk forgetting all the little things that enthralled me about my baby growing up.

9/24/2010
"Things have been busy in the Tsampa household. As you all know, litte r started walking and now, he's walking all over the place and getting into e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Pots and pans don't stand a chance. Clash! Bang! Clothes are out of the laundry basket and strewn higgeldy-piggeldy everwhere. Books, ditto. He is can get up the stairs on his hands and knees but we've been discouraging him coming down on his own.

Litte r is in the cutest stage ever (I know I say this about every stage!). About 3 weeks ago, I woke up to some loud breathing and then realized this breathing had.... a tune! He was humming to himself! It was so adorable. Now he's full out ..."

Little r's making a transition

Little r,

Today is your first day of transitioning into the Toddler Room! I am so proud of you. It seems like just yesterday when we took you to the infant room for the first time, full of trepidation, wondering how you would do. You are now growing and thriving. You even go potty every morning now and we wave the poo-poo goodbye as we flush. (Well, I wave and you watch me like I'm nuts.)

You are my light. My joy. My heart.
I can't wait to see what you do next.

xoxo
Amala.

This weekend, I Skyped with my family back home for the first time. It was amazing to see everyone and to talk to them. Pala has completely grey hair now... he did tell me that he was going to stop colouring his hair after Ola got married but the impact of this didn't hit me till I saw him. Ola had warned me that this had happened but seeing it was.... well, a punch to the gut. You have to understand Pala has been colouring his hair for what feels like ever. He started prematurely greying in his thirties. This just reminds me that we are creatures with limited lifespans and we must make the most of what time we have. That said, I do realize that no matter how vital or young one looks, one could go at any time. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and go before my dad, who don't get me wrong, looks fantastic. I am always surprised by how surprised I am when I am confronted by mortality. Little r was asleep and he didn't get to interact with the grandparents but they were really thrilled when I took the laptop to the room and showed them little r fast asleep. They couldn't get over how tall he's gotten! I can't believe it took me this long to do this. I will make a weekly Skype date with them and try to melt the miles (and miles) between us.

Little miracles

This year the Tsampa family decided to skip out of town for summerbreak and head to the mid-west. The compromise was that this summer, we would go to attend Tsampapapa's friend's wedding and then next Spring, we would go to Jhola Kep and Kana's wedding. One for him, one for her - peace reigns supreme in the household just the way we like it. Then we found out serendipitiously, we will be missing the G-8/G-20 summit happening in our fair city. What luck! What am I tired of? How about a multi-billion dollar security plan, a "water-feature" that costs over $57,000, security measure practice runs that clog up traffic, shall I go on? Why don't I just not.... anyway, I'm just glad to have this time to be with family and r-e-l-a-x. I am bummed to miss yet another family reunion that my mother's side has every summer but I figure I will see everyone next Spring.

So, here we are - we flew out of Buffalo Intl. into Chicago yesterday. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by Chicago. When I would think of Chicago in the past, I thought of a grey city with grey buildings, grey weather and the mob in the old days. What I have seen is a beautiful city with great outdoor public spaces, well planned roads, a fabulous waterfront, endless opportunities for culture - museums, planetariums, aquarium, festivals - check, check, check and check, a passionate home crowd for their many sports teams, I could just go on. I have yet to explore the shopping though we did drive down Michigan Avenue with many designer stores where I am convinced they would charge to breathe. If Rigden had been older and able to stay home with a movie or better yet, able to accompany us, I would love to check out the blues and jazz scene. I have to say, I *heart* Chicago! I just wish we had more days to check out this fair city. I guess we'll just have to make it back for another trip. Maybe I can then visit the shrine of the Mighty Opes - Harpo Studios or is that Harpo City? Next up, cottage country Minnesota style followed by a few days in Minneapolis. Woo Hoo!

In other news, guess who decided to start walking two days before we hit the road? That's right, WALKING! Little r decided one fine day that he had just about had it with crawling and it wasn't cutting it so he did the "little frankenstien" over to me - you know how it goes, arms straight out, balance slightly off, coming straight at you - so CUTE! It's amazing how much better he's already gotten at walking. He's already steadier and favours walking over crawling. He's fallen down so many times and even cut his knee in his endeavours but he keep charging forward. My little conquering hero - defying gravity every day. More little miracles to come - Happy Fathers day to Tsampapapa!