And just because the last entry didn't mention Clara at all, here she is.
We never did hear anything about the lost bouncy chair or mei tai or toys, but we've replaced just about all of them. The bouncy chair has been discontinued, so we got the floor model at a nice discount, and Grace at MangoBaby was very nice about the mei tai, too. So the Stupid Person Tax wasn't as high as it could've been.
She understands certain words now, and she has one more tooth. We are still completely, completely smitten.
Showing posts with label baby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baby. Show all posts
Friday, May 25, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Mindless knitting and a very high Stupid Person Tax
Last night I got so discouraged about a project I'm working on (it's a complicated little thing that may well be entirely the wrong size for its intended recipient) that I went ahead and started the Jane pullover, which is lots and lots and lots of stockinette stitch. Yay. Boring knitting.
Good thing I did, too, because at the S&B last night Jen was working on it too (in exactly the same colourway!), and was a few rows in when I asked her whether she'd used a provisional cast-on.
What? she said.
So I pointed out the bit a few paragraphs on in the directions that say to pick out the cast-on row. Oh. All righty then.
So she pulled out what she'd knitted, and Joyce showed us both how to do the cast-on, and now we're off. Hooray. Mindless knitting in gorgeous yarn. I tried on Laura's shop sample: this sweater sure is going to emphasize my rent-a-tits. Whee!
Last night was fun and I'm glad I went, even with the headache that has moved in and hung up pictures and put down area rugs. (It's still here today, five days after it started. Sigh.) There were three (count 'em) birthday cakes because there were three people who had recently had birthdays. One woman, not knowing about the weekly gathering, came in to buy yarn because she knew the shop was open late, and was quite apologetic about interrupting a party. No no no, everyone said, come on in and join us. When she mentioned that her father had died very recently she was sat down and comforted and handed a glass of wine. The knitters: they are good people.
In other news, the beautiful new mei tai is gone because of a moment's stupidity on Sunday. Dave was picking me and Clara up at Jacquie's house after an afternoon of knitting in the sunshine, and somehow the bouncy chair (with mei tai, peacock toy, stuffed giraffe, and Whoozit toy inside) made it out to the sidewalk but not into the car. I'm sure someone walking by after we'd left was thrilled to find Free! Great! Baby Stuff!
We'd had the mei tai for two days. I'm still feeling sick about losing it. Dave went back to put up signs, and I posted on Craigslist, but I'm not hopeful. The total value of what we lost works out to be just about the same as what I made doing some private tutoring last month: not very much in the grand scheme of things, but also, a lot.
At least it wasn't my knitting bag.
Good thing I did, too, because at the S&B last night Jen was working on it too (in exactly the same colourway!), and was a few rows in when I asked her whether she'd used a provisional cast-on.
What? she said.
So I pointed out the bit a few paragraphs on in the directions that say to pick out the cast-on row. Oh. All righty then.
So she pulled out what she'd knitted, and Joyce showed us both how to do the cast-on, and now we're off. Hooray. Mindless knitting in gorgeous yarn. I tried on Laura's shop sample: this sweater sure is going to emphasize my rent-a-tits. Whee!
Last night was fun and I'm glad I went, even with the headache that has moved in and hung up pictures and put down area rugs. (It's still here today, five days after it started. Sigh.) There were three (count 'em) birthday cakes because there were three people who had recently had birthdays. One woman, not knowing about the weekly gathering, came in to buy yarn because she knew the shop was open late, and was quite apologetic about interrupting a party. No no no, everyone said, come on in and join us. When she mentioned that her father had died very recently she was sat down and comforted and handed a glass of wine. The knitters: they are good people.
In other news, the beautiful new mei tai is gone because of a moment's stupidity on Sunday. Dave was picking me and Clara up at Jacquie's house after an afternoon of knitting in the sunshine, and somehow the bouncy chair (with mei tai, peacock toy, stuffed giraffe, and Whoozit toy inside) made it out to the sidewalk but not into the car. I'm sure someone walking by after we'd left was thrilled to find Free! Great! Baby Stuff!
We'd had the mei tai for two days. I'm still feeling sick about losing it. Dave went back to put up signs, and I posted on Craigslist, but I'm not hopeful. The total value of what we lost works out to be just about the same as what I made doing some private tutoring last month: not very much in the grand scheme of things, but also, a lot.
At least it wasn't my knitting bag.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Knitterly thoughts
Took Clara to the Knitters' Frolic on Saturday, where she was a big hit in her new MangoBaby mei tai. (Note: "MAY tie." Not "my tie." Do not correct me when I say "MAY tie"; I am right. A Chinese person told me so. And I don't wrap my baby up in a fruity umbrella drink.) She will be seven months old on Thursday and is heading into several new phases at once: the "AAAAA! I wasn't finished playing with that plastic bag when you took it away from me!" one, the "AAAAA! My new mobility scares the hell out of me!" one, and the "AAAAA! WHO THE HELL IS HOLDING ME? I DON'T RECOGNIZE THIS PERSON!" one.
Phases one and three came together to make her freak out when she was handed to the very sweet and grandmotherly Ann Bourgeois of the Philosopher's Wool Company. I was mortified. I want to go visit their farm in Inverhuron and say "See? She's really a nice baby," and maybe buy yarn for another sweater or two. But right now I need more yarn like I need a third shoulder.
Right now I'm finishing one project and about 40% through another one for the kids of a friend. Will post more about those once the kids are wearing them. I made a hat out of Blue Sky Cotton for Clara, but it's much too big, so I'm going to make another one in the next size down. It's the bucket hat from Little Turtle Knits (scroll down to near the bottom). I did the first one with a cream-coloured brim and crown, and a dusty rose band. I think I'll do the smaller one with a rose brim and crown and a cream band. It's a very fast project, takes less than a day, and entitles me to do another Lizard Ridge square. I'm just finishing #7. My sister-in-law's loud socks are done too, hooray.
I have yarn for the Jane Origami Sweater. I had originally wanted the Blackberry colourway but it wasn't as intense in person as I'd thought it would be, so I went with Midnight, a mix of rich purples and browns. I've decided I'm not going to start it until the kids' projects are in the mail. Twitch twitch. At the Frolic I picked up five hanks of Koigu Kersti in a rich yellow with a lot of dark flecks -- it's going to be my clapotis (only two years after everyone else's).
Phases one and three came together to make her freak out when she was handed to the very sweet and grandmotherly Ann Bourgeois of the Philosopher's Wool Company. I was mortified. I want to go visit their farm in Inverhuron and say "See? She's really a nice baby," and maybe buy yarn for another sweater or two. But right now I need more yarn like I need a third shoulder.
Right now I'm finishing one project and about 40% through another one for the kids of a friend. Will post more about those once the kids are wearing them. I made a hat out of Blue Sky Cotton for Clara, but it's much too big, so I'm going to make another one in the next size down. It's the bucket hat from Little Turtle Knits (scroll down to near the bottom). I did the first one with a cream-coloured brim and crown, and a dusty rose band. I think I'll do the smaller one with a rose brim and crown and a cream band. It's a very fast project, takes less than a day, and entitles me to do another Lizard Ridge square. I'm just finishing #7. My sister-in-law's loud socks are done too, hooray.
I have yarn for the Jane Origami Sweater. I had originally wanted the Blackberry colourway but it wasn't as intense in person as I'd thought it would be, so I went with Midnight, a mix of rich purples and browns. I've decided I'm not going to start it until the kids' projects are in the mail. Twitch twitch. At the Frolic I picked up five hanks of Koigu Kersti in a rich yellow with a lot of dark flecks -- it's going to be my clapotis (only two years after everyone else's).
Friday, March 09, 2007
First meal
First "solid" meal, anyway. We started her on rice cereal yesterday at the recommendation of her doctor, who is still a bit concerned about Clara's slow weight gain. At about 25" long and 10lbs, 13oz, Clara is in the 75th percentile for height and well below the third for weight.
She is developing beautifully, becoming stronger and increasingly grabby. One of her favourite games is "Attack of the Forty-Foot Baby," in which she stands on top of her dad's chest while he lies on the floor and makes monster noises. RAAARRR! RAARRRRR!
She did pretty well with the cereal -- as instructed, I mixed it with a lot of breastmilk, so it was soupy. Lots of it ended up on her hand and her chin and her bib, but a fair bit went down. She figured it out remarkably quickly. She figures out a lot of stuff remarkably quickly. We've got a smart one on our hands.
She's been vocalizing a lot: she's discovered she can make long, high-pitched noises that her father points out sound eerily like a howler monkey's calls. She has two teeth already -- first one on February 19, second on February 22 -- and is experimenting with biting my nipples. This is not a fun game.
She caught me off guard yesterday when we were at the Movies for Mommies seeing Pan's Labyrinth (which I hated for its bloody brutality; the retreats into fantasy were not nearly enough to redeem it for me) and bit Leftie hard, hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. Instinctively I swatted her, and immediately felt like the biggest shitheel ever. I guess this is a bit of excitement that nearly all breastfeeding mothers have to deal with. I've been experimenting with different anti-biting and anti-pinching strategies: ending the feeding, pressing her nose into the breast (as Dr. Sears recommends), admonishing her sharply. I hope one of them gets through soon.
Every now and then I look at her and start to cry with joy just because she exists. Beloved, beloved baby.
On the knitting front: the baby kimono is done (I'll try to photograph it today; the light is nice), as is the first Lizard Ridge square. The last bit of the kimono was very tedious. I used Japanese short rows for the neck and shoulder shaping, and managed to get one of them wrong as I was picking stitches for the neck edging. Conspicuously wrong, in fact. It took a long time to fix with a crochet hook (I did not want to take out and reknit more than 1100 stitches). My reward for doing that right was knitting the sashes: two 18" pieces of six-stitch rows on 2.75mm needles. Knit 6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. Etc. EIGHTEEN INCHES. TWICE. Bleah. But the good news is: DONE. And the matching trousers are underway.
It took several experiments to get the short rows right for the afghan square. I finally settled on yarn-over short rows. The wrapped-stitch ones didn't look right to me, and the Japanese ones, while the most attractive, are far too fussy for a short-row project of this scale. Once I figured out what I was doing, the first square went quickly. It's beautiful. It is taking all my self-restraint not to throw my little "one square per finished object" resolution out the window and just get down to business on the whole afghan.
I was sorry to miss the Knit Night on Wednesday this week. When I went last week it felt like I was coming home. Knitters are my peeps. This week, Clara's nap schedule was so b0rked that I couldn't get there, plus my sister-in-law came by to say hello. I'm hoping to get there next Wednesday, though, and maybe even pick up the yarn for this, which is supposed to be a great sweater for breastfeeding.
In other news, the cats are still dorks. But I love them.
She is developing beautifully, becoming stronger and increasingly grabby. One of her favourite games is "Attack of the Forty-Foot Baby," in which she stands on top of her dad's chest while he lies on the floor and makes monster noises. RAAARRR! RAARRRRR!
She did pretty well with the cereal -- as instructed, I mixed it with a lot of breastmilk, so it was soupy. Lots of it ended up on her hand and her chin and her bib, but a fair bit went down. She figured it out remarkably quickly. She figures out a lot of stuff remarkably quickly. We've got a smart one on our hands.
She's been vocalizing a lot: she's discovered she can make long, high-pitched noises that her father points out sound eerily like a howler monkey's calls. She has two teeth already -- first one on February 19, second on February 22 -- and is experimenting with biting my nipples. This is not a fun game.
She caught me off guard yesterday when we were at the Movies for Mommies seeing Pan's Labyrinth (which I hated for its bloody brutality; the retreats into fantasy were not nearly enough to redeem it for me) and bit Leftie hard, hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. Instinctively I swatted her, and immediately felt like the biggest shitheel ever. I guess this is a bit of excitement that nearly all breastfeeding mothers have to deal with. I've been experimenting with different anti-biting and anti-pinching strategies: ending the feeding, pressing her nose into the breast (as Dr. Sears recommends), admonishing her sharply. I hope one of them gets through soon.
Every now and then I look at her and start to cry with joy just because she exists. Beloved, beloved baby.
On the knitting front: the baby kimono is done (I'll try to photograph it today; the light is nice), as is the first Lizard Ridge square. The last bit of the kimono was very tedious. I used Japanese short rows for the neck and shoulder shaping, and managed to get one of them wrong as I was picking stitches for the neck edging. Conspicuously wrong, in fact. It took a long time to fix with a crochet hook (I did not want to take out and reknit more than 1100 stitches). My reward for doing that right was knitting the sashes: two 18" pieces of six-stitch rows on 2.75mm needles. Knit 6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. K6, turn. Etc. EIGHTEEN INCHES. TWICE. Bleah. But the good news is: DONE. And the matching trousers are underway.
It took several experiments to get the short rows right for the afghan square. I finally settled on yarn-over short rows. The wrapped-stitch ones didn't look right to me, and the Japanese ones, while the most attractive, are far too fussy for a short-row project of this scale. Once I figured out what I was doing, the first square went quickly. It's beautiful. It is taking all my self-restraint not to throw my little "one square per finished object" resolution out the window and just get down to business on the whole afghan.
I was sorry to miss the Knit Night on Wednesday this week. When I went last week it felt like I was coming home. Knitters are my peeps. This week, Clara's nap schedule was so b0rked that I couldn't get there, plus my sister-in-law came by to say hello. I'm hoping to get there next Wednesday, though, and maybe even pick up the yarn for this, which is supposed to be a great sweater for breastfeeding.
In other news, the cats are still dorks. But I love them.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Weigh-in
Yesterday's weigh-in: nine pounds, fifteen and a half ounces.
Clara is still the smallest mammal in the house. (Most other babies are at least twelve pounds by now.)
At the recommendation of her (mercifully non-interventionist) paediatrician, we'll be starting her on rice cereal at five months, not six. One more month until the really nasty baby shit starts.
She's been having a rough few weeks because her brain is wiring itself up for the nineteen-week developmental leap, and she's perceiving lots of stuff differently and is very confused. She spends a lot of time stroking textured surfaces and putting things (especially our fingers) into her mouth. I'm finding that life is a lot more manageable when I think about the baby not as an impediment to what I want to be doing (futzing with my website, knitting, going out to the gym, writing blog entries, etc.) but instead as What I Do, with the other stuff on the side. She's much happier that way, and therefore so am I.
Clara is still the smallest mammal in the house. (Most other babies are at least twelve pounds by now.)
At the recommendation of her (mercifully non-interventionist) paediatrician, we'll be starting her on rice cereal at five months, not six. One more month until the really nasty baby shit starts.
She's been having a rough few weeks because her brain is wiring itself up for the nineteen-week developmental leap, and she's perceiving lots of stuff differently and is very confused. She spends a lot of time stroking textured surfaces and putting things (especially our fingers) into her mouth. I'm finding that life is a lot more manageable when I think about the baby not as an impediment to what I want to be doing (futzing with my website, knitting, going out to the gym, writing blog entries, etc.) but instead as What I Do, with the other stuff on the side. She's much happier that way, and therefore so am I.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
But what will the neighbours think?
My mother has complained bitterly all my life about her own mother's obsession with what the neighbours would think of any given situation. (The answer is usually "They don't. They have their own lives to worry about.") Instead of enabling me to become a devil-may-care type, however, her complaints seem to have installed this same attitude in me. I am my own worst critic. (But we've known this for a long time.)
Clara is still tiny for her age. As of last Friday (at 13 and a half weeks) she was nine pounds, 1.5 ounces. This is off the bottom of the growth curve that the paediatrician uses (and I'm pretty sure she's using the new one that's calibrated for breastfed babies, who tend to be much leaner than formula-fed ones). Even so, Dr. D is very happy with Clara's development, which is right on schedule: she's grabbing at things, she smiles and coos at people, she controls her head better every day, she rolls from her back to her side at will, and so on.
Yesterday I went back to FitMom after the holiday break (which I had confused with the Movies for Mommies holiday break, and assumed was one week longer than it actually was). Two things depressed me a lot.
(a) I've lost a huge amount of ground with my fitness again -- it's like being back in high school gym class and being the biggest sluggard there. I know from so much past experience that it's just a matter of buckling down and exercising three times a week and eating more protein before I'm getting stronger and feeling better again, but sleep deprivation plus shorter days plus having nine pounds of raw need right. there. all. the time. are making it harder for me to convince myself that this really is something I have to do. And all the pep talks in the world from other people don't help.
(b) I'm to the point where I'm embarrassed to tell people how old Clara is, because she's so small and mothering seems to be such a competitive sport. I talked to one woman yesterday whose ten-week-old's slow weight gain had prompted her paediatrician to recommend supplementing with formula. The mother did, and the baby gained more than a pound in a week. Clara gained 13.5oz in the past month.
There are lots of reasons I really don't want to supplement: reduction of my milk supply, changes to Clara's intestines (PDF), messing with the incredibly fine-tuned system that is a nursing mother and child. Plus, she's obviously healthy and developing appropriately; Dr. D. even said that if she stays on the curve she's on now, even if it's below the "official" one, there's no need to worry. (I like Dr. D.)
But good ol' Lizard Brain is shouting at me that People are going to think that I'm a bad mother because my baby is so tiny. I know this is stupid, but I feel this way anyway. Telling myself not to doesn't shut it up.
I've read that parenthood is a whole lot of being faced with things you can't fix and learning how to deal with them anyway. I've spent most of my life fighting my weight and feeling rotten about the bigness of my body; who'd have thought that my first big challenge would be trying to accept my daughter's smallness?
Clara is still tiny for her age. As of last Friday (at 13 and a half weeks) she was nine pounds, 1.5 ounces. This is off the bottom of the growth curve that the paediatrician uses (and I'm pretty sure she's using the new one that's calibrated for breastfed babies, who tend to be much leaner than formula-fed ones). Even so, Dr. D is very happy with Clara's development, which is right on schedule: she's grabbing at things, she smiles and coos at people, she controls her head better every day, she rolls from her back to her side at will, and so on.
Yesterday I went back to FitMom after the holiday break (which I had confused with the Movies for Mommies holiday break, and assumed was one week longer than it actually was). Two things depressed me a lot.
(a) I've lost a huge amount of ground with my fitness again -- it's like being back in high school gym class and being the biggest sluggard there. I know from so much past experience that it's just a matter of buckling down and exercising three times a week and eating more protein before I'm getting stronger and feeling better again, but sleep deprivation plus shorter days plus having nine pounds of raw need right. there. all. the time. are making it harder for me to convince myself that this really is something I have to do. And all the pep talks in the world from other people don't help.
(b) I'm to the point where I'm embarrassed to tell people how old Clara is, because she's so small and mothering seems to be such a competitive sport. I talked to one woman yesterday whose ten-week-old's slow weight gain had prompted her paediatrician to recommend supplementing with formula. The mother did, and the baby gained more than a pound in a week. Clara gained 13.5oz in the past month.
There are lots of reasons I really don't want to supplement: reduction of my milk supply, changes to Clara's intestines (PDF), messing with the incredibly fine-tuned system that is a nursing mother and child. Plus, she's obviously healthy and developing appropriately; Dr. D. even said that if she stays on the curve she's on now, even if it's below the "official" one, there's no need to worry. (I like Dr. D.)
But good ol' Lizard Brain is shouting at me that People are going to think that I'm a bad mother because my baby is so tiny. I know this is stupid, but I feel this way anyway. Telling myself not to doesn't shut it up.
I've read that parenthood is a whole lot of being faced with things you can't fix and learning how to deal with them anyway. I've spent most of my life fighting my weight and feeling rotten about the bigness of my body; who'd have thought that my first big challenge would be trying to accept my daughter's smallness?
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