This is a post in response to the wonderful rant on Yarn Harlot today. I have to tell the story and although no one ever reads my underground blog, I will write it here.
On New Year's Eve we had some lovely friends over to ring in the new year in the style we have grown accustomed. Read: say Happy New Year at midnight and head straight to bed. We do, afterall, have children who wake up at 7am no matter what time we put them to bed.
After a fun meal (in which I attempted a Rachael Ray dish of Roasted Beet Risotto), and during a rousing game of Cranium Family Version (in which we were going head to head against the other family, although we swapped a few kids to make it more friendly), my younger son calmly, and with a sheepish smile on his face, enters the living room and says quietly to me, "Mom, it's an emergency." With his calm demeanor and sheepishness, I reply, equally calmly, while at the same time trying to listen to the trivia question in the game, "What's an emergency, son?" He says, calmly, "You need to come to the kitchen."
"Why?", I reply. "Because the napkin is on fire and I can't blow it out!" "What's on fire!!!???!!!!" I leap into action, dodging children and tables of food as I dash into the kitchen to see one of the lovely, paper Christmas napkins being consumed by flames as it attempts to convince some of its nearby friends to join it. I swiftly grab it by the unconsumed edge and drop it into a sink full of dirty dishes and (luckily) dirty water. The fire is out in a split second and by this time, the living room has emptied as everyone followed me out of the room to see what I was running to. I think I yelled something about "FIRE" as I darted from the room but things are a bit fuzzy as it all happened so fast. I am sure the wine didn't help. (it was a lovely Australian Peter Lehman Shiraz if anyone is wondering).
What happened? While we were all busy in the living room I had left a candle unattended burning in the kitchen. Baby boy thought it would be a great idea to see what the napkin would do if he lit it on fire and blew it out. Only it wouldn't blow out.
The irony of this story is two-fold:
1. My son was so calm and although he started the fire, he did exactly as he was taught in all the fire safety lessons. He stayed calm. He asked an adult for help. The only thing he didn't do was stop, drop and roll. The little monster. Other guests at the party tell me he had quite a grin on his face as this all played out!
2. And this is the doozie. My dad, much to the chagrin of my brothers who thought it a most disgusting gift, had given all of us FIRE EXTINGUISHERS (one for the kitchen and one for the car) for Christmas. I was the only one who thought it was great because I didn't have one already and always felt a little guilty about that. When I told my dad about our little fire, he said, "I hope you didn't waste your fire extinguisher on that!"
So now today, after reading the Yarn Harlot's post about acrylic and it's flammable qualities, I have decided that That Boy will only get wool sweaters. Sigh. Good thing I am knitting a WOOL blanket for the new baby joining our family any day. Of course it won't be done in time but what can I say. It is inspired by the felted patchwork blanket in the Toving magazine TEMA 11. Right now it is just a bunch of boring stocking stitch squares but I am really looking forward to the needle felting part later. And since I took that finishing class, I am actually looking forward to sewing the blocks together so I can practice some of my new techniques. Pictures:
I hope everyone reading this never has need to test the anti-flammable qualities of wool. BTW, A Cranium trivia questions we had during our game: What is the difference between Flammable and Inflammable? Answer: There is no difference. They both mean the same thing. Boy, do they.
On New Year's Eve we had some lovely friends over to ring in the new year in the style we have grown accustomed. Read: say Happy New Year at midnight and head straight to bed. We do, afterall, have children who wake up at 7am no matter what time we put them to bed.
After a fun meal (in which I attempted a Rachael Ray dish of Roasted Beet Risotto), and during a rousing game of Cranium Family Version (in which we were going head to head against the other family, although we swapped a few kids to make it more friendly), my younger son calmly, and with a sheepish smile on his face, enters the living room and says quietly to me, "Mom, it's an emergency." With his calm demeanor and sheepishness, I reply, equally calmly, while at the same time trying to listen to the trivia question in the game, "What's an emergency, son?" He says, calmly, "You need to come to the kitchen."
"Why?", I reply. "Because the napkin is on fire and I can't blow it out!" "What's on fire!!!???!!!!" I leap into action, dodging children and tables of food as I dash into the kitchen to see one of the lovely, paper Christmas napkins being consumed by flames as it attempts to convince some of its nearby friends to join it. I swiftly grab it by the unconsumed edge and drop it into a sink full of dirty dishes and (luckily) dirty water. The fire is out in a split second and by this time, the living room has emptied as everyone followed me out of the room to see what I was running to. I think I yelled something about "FIRE" as I darted from the room but things are a bit fuzzy as it all happened so fast. I am sure the wine didn't help. (it was a lovely Australian Peter Lehman Shiraz if anyone is wondering).What happened? While we were all busy in the living room I had left a candle unattended burning in the kitchen. Baby boy thought it would be a great idea to see what the napkin would do if he lit it on fire and blew it out. Only it wouldn't blow out.
The irony of this story is two-fold:
1. My son was so calm and although he started the fire, he did exactly as he was taught in all the fire safety lessons. He stayed calm. He asked an adult for help. The only thing he didn't do was stop, drop and roll. The little monster. Other guests at the party tell me he had quite a grin on his face as this all played out!
2. And this is the doozie. My dad, much to the chagrin of my brothers who thought it a most disgusting gift, had given all of us FIRE EXTINGUISHERS (one for the kitchen and one for the car) for Christmas. I was the only one who thought it was great because I didn't have one already and always felt a little guilty about that. When I told my dad about our little fire, he said, "I hope you didn't waste your fire extinguisher on that!"
So now today, after reading the Yarn Harlot's post about acrylic and it's flammable qualities, I have decided that That Boy will only get wool sweaters. Sigh. Good thing I am knitting a WOOL blanket for the new baby joining our family any day. Of course it won't be done in time but what can I say. It is inspired by the felted patchwork blanket in the Toving magazine TEMA 11. Right now it is just a bunch of boring stocking stitch squares but I am really looking forward to the needle felting part later. And since I took that finishing class, I am actually looking forward to sewing the blocks together so I can practice some of my new techniques. Pictures:
I hope everyone reading this never has need to test the anti-flammable qualities of wool. BTW, A Cranium trivia questions we had during our game: What is the difference between Flammable and Inflammable? Answer: There is no difference. They both mean the same thing. Boy, do they.
