Thursday, July 19, 2007

Gnuman in NJ - Day 1

I met the children this morning. Guess what! Jennifer has triplets! And then she had a daughter! The triplets are three years old, all boys, and all boy, which is what I guess all that wrestling and tussling was about. Her daughter is 23 months old (going on 40, Jennifer says) and thinks she's one of the boys. She took a liking to me right away:



Boy E (Jennifer asked me not to use their names) took a liking to me right away, too, and tried to tackle Baby Girl in order to reach me.



That's Boy E in the green shirt. Fortunately, Jennifer dropped the camera and intervened none too soon--I didn't want to be in the middle of that!

We then hit the road for the Grand Tour. Boy E wanted to show me the sights:



He spent a few minutes feeling my nose and then said, "I like his nose." Thank you, Boy E!

It was a traditional NJ summer day, hazy, hot and humid, or as Boy M said, "hot and steamy." It didn't hold us back, though. We took a walk down Main Street to a playground that is fenced in and backs onto the train station. The boys complained if we tried to stop and take pictures, so we're going to try to do the Grand Tour tomorrow when they're in camp.

Metuchen sits right on the Northeast Corridor train line, which runs from Boston, MA to Washington, DC; it's used by NJ Transit, Amtrak (Metroliners and Acela) and the occasional freight train. There are a lot of commuters in town, which is approximately 25 miles south of New York City (Jennifer's two sisters, both knitters, live in Manhattan). The boys love trains and like to watch them as they go by. Boy E took me to see one:



It was so cool! I also had snack with Boy J (on the left) and Boy M:



The boys even let me drive the car!



Then Boy J took a fall, scraped his chin and cut his mouth. He was ok, but he was done with the playground. So we took a long walk to Jennifer's mother's house. She also lives in Metuchen (in the house where Jennifer grew up). The house is two houses from "The Woods," which is formally known as Woodwild Park. That's me at one of the entrances:



The children love to run through the paths, but we stayed in the strollers this time.

Jennifer's mom (the original knitter in the family) was really excited to meet me. She bought my pattern online about a year ago in a crazy bidding thing from eBay. She was totally impressed, too, and examined everything, even my seams! Unfortunately, we didn't get to take any pictures there. But she made lunch for all of us, and then we walked home. Or actually, everyone but me walked home and I was left behind. Bad Jennifer! But after she put the children down for a nap, she came back for me and brought me home. I was pooped! So Jennifer let me take a nap, too:



But before napping, I couldn't resist snuggling her WIP, a Monkey Sock in Shelby B's Nymphadora Tonks colorway:



Jennifer is making it for her sister in honor of the release of the last Harry Potter book. Obviously, she's behind schedule, but her sister understands. And Jennifer promised to share Book 7 with me when it arrives on Saturday. I'm glad I won't miss out!









4 comments:

The A.D.D. Knitter said...

Aww, lucky Gnuman to play with all those kids!!

Lapdog Creations said...

Your faceless triplets look like they are adorable! :)

jennifersm said...

Thank you both so much! I had to closely monitor Gnuman to make sure he didn't get loved too much, lol!

Embryo1 said...

I've seen their faces (being the lucky aunt) and the triplets Are adorable, as is their sister.

I just never got to see Gnuman when he was there. Maybe he needs to come visit me in NYC.