Friday, May 23, 2008

AGAIN with the no knitting content.

DD is 9 days old. She is jaundiced, not gaining weight appropriately (she actually lost weight from two days ago), and had to be readmitted for a couple of days of baking under the lights. Our ped is making noises of concern - he's not freaking out, but we'll be in every day this weekend for weight checks, and rechecking her bilirubin, and I am just hoping to avoid rehospitalization (again).

She's an incredibly sweet baby, but I have to say, the transition to three kids (OH MY GOD, I HAVE THREE CHILDREN) has been a tad...rocky. DS2 is having a particularly hard time. He's incredibly sweet with her, but man oh man is he fragile. We're supposed to go to a birthday party tomorrow, I have yet to purchase the gifts (a double party), and I'm now running a fever too.

I don't think I'm drowning, yet, but I do think I need to just have a big fat cry, but I've got guests and no space in which to do it. I am well aware that a lot of this is just the post-partum hormone crash, and this too shall pass, but dude. I'd sort of forgotten how hard these first few weeks are.

And I can't find one of my sock projects and I'm freaking out that I lost it because I thought I took it to the hospital but it's not in that bag. I haven't actually been able to get it together to, you know, LOOK for it, which might help, so all I'm doing is feeling anxious.

Blah. Sorry for the downer post, it's really all okay.

Friday, May 16, 2008

FO: The Fruits of My Labors


Baby #3, hereafter to be known as DD. Born May 14 at 4:01 pm, 7 lbs 13 ozs., 21" long.

My heart is full.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Not knitting, but progress!!

My yarn/tools/knitting stuff organization (or lack thereof) has been making me crazy for, oh ages, and even after moving, it hadn't improved. I have many different bins, overflowing with random printouts of patterns, yarn, plastic baggies with stuff or leftover yarn in it...I've been looking for different things lately. I'd get a thought of "wait, didn't I have THAT yarn?" and my OCD wouldn't allow me to let it go, I *had* to search through everything and find whatever it was that had crossed my mind. My knitting needles were all over the place, and it was just annoying!

So, today, I pulled out all the various boxes and bins of stuff, and dumped them out and reorg'd! Now I have one big bin of kitchen cloth yarn and kid-related yarn, one big bin of other misc. yarn and left over yarn, two smaller bins of sock yarn (I had to admit that I'd gone beyond the one), a bin of tools, and a bin of random papers/books/patterns. My energy didn't extend to actually sorting those, but at least now they're all in one place. All my needles are together. I ripped out some lingering projects (the damn Berroco Boho scarf which had FALLEN OFF the needles because the yarn is so slick; the Jaywalkers (whoa, looks like it's no longer available on the web, that link is to the Ravelry pattern) that were just never gonna fit). I also have a basket of current stuff, and another bin of "next on the list" projects: a dishcloth (because I have such a ridiculous amount of kitchen cotton), a cable hat for DH, and a hat for the Froggie.

In other news, I've had the joy of (attempting) to teach a couple of folks to knit. One is the 6 year old daughter of a friend (my older son has the world's biggest crush on this wonderful little girl). I got some advice and gave it a try - she did great! She actually sat with me for a good 45 minutes, and seemed to get the knit stitch. We'll see if she sticks with it. Apparently at her school, once a week during recess there is a knitting club, and she's been wanting to go, but since she didn't know at all how to knit, she was too shy.

The other was even more fun, one of my dearest friends in the world (J) was on bedrest for a couple of weeks (knock wood that she stays pregnant a few more weeks), so I forced her to learn offered to teach her to knit. She seemed to really enjoy it, and has been knitting some wonderful swatches. When DS2 and I went to visit her yesterday, I showed up with a small bin of kitchen cotton (even though cotton is harder to work with, I think dishcloths are some good first projects), and she commented "That's a lot of yarn!" I started laughing and thought "You should see the rest of my stash" (which really isn't that big, compared to some!). I'm hoping she'll get addicted and then we can be knitting buddies as well as friends!

And in other OTHER news...we had an ultrasound on Thursday, and everything looks good (still no penis in evidence). I'm starting to dilate and efface, for whatever that's worth (something? nothing? who the hell knows). And, this came to live with us today:

Monday, May 05, 2008

Stepping into New Territory

In more ways than one.

In non-knitting life news, many good things have happened. We sold our condo, so we're now down to one mortgage and one HELOC, and hopefully by tomorrow the condo check will have cleared, so we'll only have one mortgage! Hooray! It's amazing, this has been one of those situations that I didn't even realize how stressful it was, until that stress was lifted. We've had both the euphoria and the post-euphoria crabbiness, so hopefully we'll head into more calm waters now. I also have filled (signed contracts and deposits) my son's coop nursery school classes for next year, which has also been a BIG THING hanging over me. Phew! He's got about 5 more weeks of school and then we're done with all the commuting into Cambridge. We also have about a month before #3 shows up, and we bought a minivan. Yikes.

In knitting news...I finished the Double Braided Cable Scarf. I want to write up the pattern and post it somewhere, in case anyone ever wants to do one! Okay, perhaps finished is the wrong term. I've completed the knitting. I have to weave in the end (not too many) and then...BLOCK IT. I have to confess, I have never blocked anything in my life. I've only knit kid's sweaters, and most of them out of acrylic (I know, the shame of it), which can't be blocked. This scarf, even with the garter stitch edge, is still really pulling in, and I think(?) blocking it would help. The issue is, because it's a new skill set for me, I'm scared to start. I need to do some reading and figure out what I need to do, and how to do it. More on that as I have information.

I told DH that the scarf was really for him, and he got very very happy about it. I'm planning some sort of hat to go with. I can't decide if I want to do a cable hat, even though the cables won't match, or just do a plain watch cap type thing for him. I could just ask him what he'd like, I suppose. (Note: he said "Cable that's different.") I had a nice pattern for the Irish Hiking Hat somewhere (still owe my BIL a remake of that too), so I could do that fairly quickly.

The exciting thing is that this gets me down to TWO projects on needles (plus the "coming home from the hospital" hat that I want to churn out for the Froggie). Both are socks. One is a very vanilla stockinette sock, toe up. I'm almost ready to turn the heel, which is very exciting. The other is Falling Leaves #2, which my son pulled the needle out of, so I need to just start it over.

I also think that nesting may be kicking in because I came very, very close to pulling ALL of my knitting stuff (which is waaaay disorganized) out of the closet and organizing it today. I'd love to do it, maybe next weekend, I won't have time until then.

All sorts of great stuff coming up. DS2 turns 3 (THREE! How did this happen??) on Wednesday. This weekend we're having our 2nd annual Mother's Day Brunch with some friends, out here at the house, so I assume Saturday will be spent cleaning. OH and picking up our new car!! The following weekend is DS2's party, with family and some friends, yay! Since I'll be 38 weeks pg (which happens to be when I actually delivered DS2), we're doing way simple: cake and ice cream cups. It looks like we'll be having either my mom or MIL with us from DS2's party until the birth. Given how much driving I have to do for DS1 right now (150 miles a week), I'm a tad nervous about being alone in the car with the kids, so I think we may call upon our support system to help us out. (I will admit that I'm hoping the Froggie shows up early.) So, all this means, probably not much time for knitting!