Drive By with Lightning Bugs

Trip home to New Jersey.  Dramatis personae: Me, and a kid in the airport.  I was working on a baby blanket, with the project bag on the floor. (More on the blanket soon.)

“What are you doing?”  He seems about 4, maybe 5. “I’m knitting, making a baby blanket.”

He points to the yarn yarn trailing down to the bag .  “Is that a yo-yo?”  No, I tell him, it’s yarn.  “Yarn?”  Then the light of understanding shines in his eyes.   “Ooooh, so it’s a blanket for a baby cat.”

I was home for a family wedding, which was great fun, except that the mother of the bride had to leave right after the ceremony and have an emergency appendectomy.  Really, what are the odds?  The wedding was at a lovely B and B, former goat farm,  in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  It was  perfect setting when there are lots of little ones in tow – plenty of space to run around.  Wouldn’t you want to catch lightning bugs with this crew?

Best lighting bug line?  My 9 year old great nephew told me the next one he caught would be named Bob.  “It’s kind of an old-fashioned name, but I like it.”  Catching lightning bugs was a regular activity of summer evenings in my childhood, but I rarely see them here in Minnesota. The other night my husband rushed in to tell me that Bob was in the backyard.

And crafting was all the rage.  Are Rainbow Looms a hot commodity where you live?  I received many of these snazzy rubber band bracelets:

A knitting student update: this guy is still knitting, two years later!

He told me there is a knitting club at his school and he goes every week.  “Some people (glares at his twin sister) say knitting is boring, but I like it, don’t you?”  His older brother scoffed that all Nick makes are squares and rectangles.  I reassured Nick that many, many knitters don’t get beyond squares and rectangles.  Nick also things we should write a knitting book together.  “But not now, because I’m on summer vacation.”  Whew, I thought I was going to have to squeeze that in!