Shirley Shrugs for Mom is getting too big to be portable knitting and requires more concentration than I can muster for knitting at the moment, at least while I'm at the hospital, so I started a pair of socks.  I know I was going to use some of JessaLu's beautiful, spring-colored yarn for the next pair, but I decided instead to use a ball of the self-patterning Trekking XXL that my sister gave me for Christmas.  She's been asking me about it (she gave me two different balls) and I knew that I'd be seeing her.  I am using a simple ribbing pattern, but wonder if I shouldn't just be knitting a plain ol' stockinette stitch sock with that yarn.  I'll keep going for a bit yet to see how it looks, but I'm prepared to rip it.

Mom has given up on the baby blanket she started for Mack, and my sister is finishing it for him herself.  Instead, Mom's working on what started out as a dishcloth, but is growing into a scarf.  It's a simple six-stitch, six-row repeat that is both engaging and mindless and hey, whatever.

Mom and I both did a little knitting yesterday, and my SIL looked on with interest.  She and my brother have been working on a big latch hook project, but it's too big to lug around.  She said that she hasn't knit in ages, but maybe she should take it up again now -- she wasn't sure she'd remember how to cast on.  We were all over that!  I stopped at the LYS on the way home and bought some nice Brittany Birch needles for her.  I typed up the pattern (with clip art!) on an index card and printed it out last night.  Mom had an extra ball of cotton and I threw in one that I had, too, and made a nice little package for my SIL that Mom will deliver this morning -- and she'll show her how to cast on.

I didn't get the "pooh-pooh" I might have when I uttered the words "dishcloth cotton" on the premises, but I would like to suggest that while an LYS may not wish to carry "dishcloth cotton" as regular inventory, it wouldn't hurt to have a few balls behind the counter.  No doubt my needs could have easily and inexpensively been filled at a Big Box, I was in no humor for that kind of nonsense nor for schlepping all over creation.  Truthfully, when I think "yarn," no matter what kind, it's an LYS that comes to mind first, not Big Box.

I spoke with a CCU nurse early this morning and she said that there has been no change in Michael's condition -- and that's okay.  They've kept him heavily sedated.  She said that hopefully the brace will come today.  We're thinking that their anticipation for the arrival of the brace means that they want to wake him up and get him up for a while... for various reasons and scenarious that occur to even my non-medical mind.  Oh, this slow, step-by-step, waiting stuff is HARD!

Thank you for your continued prayers and thoughts and well wishes.  It really does help.

Michael had a lot of fun with Super Glue as a kid.  What's a young boy to do with a full bottle of glue and nothing that needs fixing?  A.) Glue the eyes of his little sister's dolls closed.  B.) Glue various light switches throughout the house into the "off" position.

I don't personally remember the breakfast exposure incident that I wrote about yesterday.  My sister told the story at the prompting of my SIL, and it was hilarious -- we were all laughing with some gusto in the hospital cafeteria.  In a phone conversation with another sister last night, I mentioned our lunch and the story and that I didn't really remember it, but did she?  I didn't even finish the question and she started to laugh and that, yes, she did remember.  She said she's always felt badly about it; that we were really quite dramatic and overreacted (by quite a lot -- we were probably doing it up good for the benefit of our youngest) and she always thought that we should have helped Michael eat all that cereal.  ; ) Not that he didn't get away with other stuff over the years... or that people didn't take the rap for him at times...  I'm sure we're all even-steven.  ; )