Citius, Alitius, Fortius, Knittius

It is Day One of the Knitting Olympics, and hopes are high! I'm having the breakfast of champions, of course--an incredibly sugary, colors-not-found-in-nature kind of cereal--and lest you think I'm stealing it from my children, let me assure you, I wouldn't feed this shit to my kids in a million years. I don't do coffee anymore, though, so a little sugarbuzz in the morning is nice once in a while. I'm certainly not going to get a caffeine jolt ever again. But I digress...

Today at two o'clock, knitters around the world (or at least in their respective time zones) will cast on their own individual olympic challenge projects. How cool is that? Team Dekalb will be meeting at our lys to cast on together, because honestly, knitting is more fun with rowdy, yarn-habit-enabling company. I'm really looking forward to it, because not only do I get to knit with some really cool people, but I get to leave my home for a while. Allow me to sound like a really terrible mother for a moment...my children are both so sick, and it breaks my heart to see them feel so awful. Not only does it break my heart, but omg, it wears me down! Keep in mind, my babies both slept through the night by about 6 weeks old, so I've been somewhat spoiled thus far...lately, though, there has been NO restful sleep for me, and virtually none for my poor children, either. My youngest has a cough that would make a sea lion proud, and my oldest has an ear infection that made him literally yell out loud from the pain (fortunately, we're pumping him full of amoxicillin now, so at least his ear feels better). The little guy is the worst, though. That cough is CONSTANT, and it goes through the night, which makes him cry from frustration (and presumably pain in his throat by now). I do my best to comfort him at night, and generally feel helpless, because nothing I've tried has really helped it quiet down. During the day, it's aggravating as heck to try to watch a movie or have a conversation, because the poor little guy is barking so constantly that you can't hear what's going on very well. He feels awful, and that kills me, and as much as I want to make him all better, I also really just want to run away to someplace nice & quiet & warm. I feel so terrible for getting annoyed at the constant coughing, and I NEVER let it show to them. It's just so never-ending! He's been coughing for a week, and so has his brother, and his father was coughing for a week before that, so it's been at least 15 days or so of solid, non-stop coughing. Even at night. If anybody has any brilliant ideas about how to bring my poor little family some relief, I'd LOVE to hear them!! If the little guy is still hacking come Monday, I'm hauling him in to test for whooping cough. I hear it's going around the school system in a nearby town, so you never know...

But anyway, enough whining. Back to the yarn! I've got this gorgeous deep red alpaca & silk yarn for my Olympic scarf that needs to be wound into a ball before cast on today. I'm also planning a huge KnitPicks order, which should pretty much cover me for projects till 2008. Which is fabulous.