Bup!

Clara is talking a lot now, but we don't know what she means. Favourite syllables include "bup," "epf," "upf," and "huh-bapf." The other morning she and I awoke at the same time; she yaaaaawned and streeeeetched and rubbed her eyes and then very solemnly intoned, "Bup." I nearly fell off the bed.

We're just getting through to the other side of a particularly difficult phase, the dreaded Nine Month Freakout. This is when object permanence develops -- she's working hard on the concept that things still exist even when she can't see them. She'll hold a cloth in front of her face and then lower it to see us, and then laugh and laugh as she does it again. (I knew babies liked peek-a-boo, but hadn't realized it was so important developmentally.) She's also working on the idea that a picture of a cat represents an actual cat, like the ones she lives with, and that a black or orange cat is the same kind of animal as her beloved Martha. Plus, she's getting more mobile (but not crawling yet; she can scoot along backwards and get stuck under things), and the separation anxiety has kicked in. (Separation anxiety is evolution's way of keeping us from getting killed as we become more able to move away from those looking after us.) Clara's has been mercifully mild, I think because the babywearing and co-sleeping and unified approach from both parents have made her feel very secure with either of us, and so the other one can get a break now and then without Clara wigging.

And then there's the teething. Oh man, the teething. Poor baby has six of the little choppers now. She got the middle lower ones first, and then the lateral incisors on top, more than a month before the central ones, which have just come in in the past week. She's been looking a bit like a little baby vampire.

So there's been a lot happening in babyland, and baby has not been very happy about most of it. Sweet little thing.

Here she is, as of yesterday:


Love. Her.

In knitting news: the Diamond Fantasy shawl is done and waiting patiently to be blocked. I did seven pattern repeats instead of six. The applied I-cord castoff looks fabulous. The Sea Silk looks like spun gold. Pictures forthcoming.

Shawls on the needles: Kate's modified Lace Wings, in purple Sea Silk, and a Shetland Triangle in Mini Maiden, which I like even better than the Sea Silk. As Homer Simpson would say, glaaaaagh.

Knit night this week was all kinds of fun; Glenna and Maryann have posts up about it (and Glenna's even has video, and more pictures of Clara!). Fun conversation, good beer, people losing their minds over the SEVENTY-FIVE POUNDS of newly arrived Socks That Rock yarn (nine ounces of it came home with me), a delicious yam burrito (mmmm, Big Fat Burrito), happy Clara being held by at least a dozen people, and knitting, at least after Clara's dad took her away to go geocaching. And singing! We were serenaded! Perfect.

Even better: tonight's Drunken Knitting is at Betty's, my favourite pub ever (and my local).

Life is good.