Divine Intervention...

Not with the knitting, although I did finish a couple things this week. Above is the Bias Shawl which is Handmaiden's suggested pattern for Silk Rumple (discontinued). It's quick, easy and the beauty of the silk doesn't need any fancier a pattern to glow.


And the Mini-Clapotis from the previous tutorial. Note the teeny amount of yarn leftover after doing the math!






About the Divine Intervention... this past week was spring break for the girls. Thursday, E and C attended a cooking class several miles away and after Gilly and I dropped them off, it seemed silly to drive home so that we could turn around and pick them up a couple hours later. Grocery shopping killed a bit of time and then we hit the mall.

Malls are often not a good place for Gillian. Ours is worse than most because it is undergoing LOUD renovations which greatly stress both Gillian and her service dog. To make matters worse (and I admit to poor planning on my part) not returning home was an impromptu decision on my part, so I hadn't brought Haley in jacket, nor had I fed Gillian breakfast. So, loud mall, hungry autistic child with sound sensitivities, no comfort dog...recipe for disaster?

We started with Mastermind Toys...a very well-stocked toy store. One of Gillian's Xmas toys was defective and I still had a store credit for her there, so we looked for a present for her. Gilly touched nearly everything in the store, but really settled on two things...A Maisy lift the flap book and a Xylophone.

Now any thinking parent would prefer a quiet book to a noisy musical instrument, so let me explain that I had purchased this identical book for Gillian twice already and each time it was "loved to death" through some aggressive "stimming". I figured that two copies was enough and because Gillian was already starting to stim on the store's copy, I took it from Boo and tucked it into my shopping bag so that we could continue shopping.

At checkout, I paid for the xylophone (and piece of candy that Boo selected) and slipped the book back to the clerk to be replaced on the shelf.



Gilly and I went out for lunch, picked up her sisters, returned home, did some cooking and dog walking...played the xylophone...until after dinner when Gilly started asking me for "book" and "maisy book". I told her we didn't have it, she lead me to our shopping bag and looked, she lead me to my purse, back out to the car, flipped the couch cushions??...no book. She had a minor meltdown over that book. She was certain that we had it with us and it was no where to be found. Not a fun evening.

Friday morning Gilly had a doctor's appointment. Dr. L is fabulous with her, patient and gentle, nonetheless, Gillian remembers that their first three visits together involved Hepatitis needles and TB tests. She is usually quite agitated in his office. Not Friday! She behaved at least as well as could be expected and was even fairly compliant with his requests for height, weight, BP and heart rate tests. A rare successful health professional visit!

On the drive home, we passed the other Toronto location of Mastermind Toys. Still giddy from our victorious appointment, I pulled in to the parking lot and Gilly and I located a copy of the Maisy flap book...on sale no less!

There had to be some help from above yesterday!