The Heathen Housewife

Just under the wire again…tonight involved dinner, bathtime for the girls, running off to the grocery store after working up a list, coming home and putting everything away including a dishwasher full of clean – well, you know, dishes. Then, I got to shift around some laundry, fold a couple of loads, and what do you know, suddenly it’s 11:15 and I haven’t written my blog entry yet. Welcome to my freakin’ world and happy Friday night. I need to hurry this up, too, because I want to get to bed because I have to get up and be at the salon at 8 for a haircut. Yay! A haircut!

If I haven’t bored you silly yet, let’s talk about the blankie for a few minutes. Shall I answer a few questions, finally? Someone asked a while back what the measurements are in inches. It’s about 54 inches wide and currently about 36 inches tall. It amuses me to no end that some of you really want to see high-resolution images of the blankie all the time, and I suppose if it makes you happy, it’s no skin off my nose really. Only, I didn’t take pictures tonight so you’ll have to wait for new ones till next week. I didn’t count new squares for the week either because the number is somewhere around four. In the mean time, here is the full-res version of last week’s pic.

By the way, I still get the occasional comment asking me where I got the pattern for this thing. If you go to the main page of this here blog and scroll down far enough, you will see links to my tutorial on how to make your own blankie. I’m sure I’m forgetting someone’s question and I’m sorry if I’ve ignored you. It’s not on purpose, I’m just incredibly disorganized and tired.

I actually did have some very nice parts to my day – a playdate with some of our favorite friends, and an awesome package showed up in the mail to boot. But I’m tired. I’m ready for bed. I don’t feel like messing with photos and links and stuff tonight. The good stuff will have to wait for tomorrow.

It’s been a year already. My little one is a year old. Let’s flash back to this day a year ago. It was cold and snowy outside, but not quite as cold as it has been this week. I woke up having contractions at 1:30 in the morning that day, and I spent all morning in labor at home. We finally headed out the door to the hospital around 11:50 – that’s the time stamp on this photo. The Bradley childbirth classes taught us that if the mom can smile for one last picture on the way out the door, she’s not ready to leave for the hospital. I remember actually thinking this thought as our doula took our picture, but I wasn’t playing possum – I was very serious about getting through the contractions and making it to the hospital without losing my composure. It makes me laught that I insisted on leaving for the hospital wearing my purple pajamas and my big pink robe. I got a lot of stares as they wheeled me moaning through the ER that day.

Up in the room, this photo is time stamped 12:49. That hour between getting in the car and getting in the hospital bed was like a blink. I remember keeping my eyes closed for most of the time so that I could focus on relaxing and riding the waves of the contractions. I was SO relieved when they checked my cervix and I was already at 7 cm. You can’t tell it, but I’m working really hard in this picture. Joe is so cute – so excited, maybe so relieved to be in the hospital with some of the responsibility off his shoulders. That is just about the happiest face I think I’ve ever seen on him. It’s the same smile he smiled on our wedding day.

2:08 P.M. This is toward the end of the pushing – I know because I started out leaning over the back of the bed and they made me switch positions only for the last few pushes. Again, I look calm, but I was concentrating very hard on staying calm and relaxed, all but the muscles I needed to push.that.baby.OUT!

Sophie was born at 2:34 – that’s the time stamp on the photo of her sliding out of my hoo-hoo. Nobody really needs to see that one – the quality of the photo is really bad anyway.

This one is at 2:46 PM – she is just over ten minutes old. God, what a rush – having that intensely scary and powerful experience over with, and in my arms a sweet, fresh, moist little human with a cute little nose that looked just like her father’s. She had already nursed a bit at this point, and was very sleepy. Being born is hard work.

5:06 P.M. We spent the next couple hours snuggling with the baby while the midwife fixed a couple of tears, the nurses cleaned up the room and entered data in the charts. Joe had just called in an order to a sandwich place for some food – we were both starving! I stood there taking pictures while the nurse gave Sophie her first bath. Look how chubby she is in this picture! I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so angry since then, either.

I had to ask Joe to come take the camera so I could sit down because I was feeling lightheaded. That was when the nurses realized I was hemorrhaging and a few more hours of scary shit went down. I remember feeling pretty calm about the whole thing – not scared, just in a lot of pain as they started to work on me right there in the room. The drugs they were using to numb me weren’t working, and I was so relieved when they finally decided to haul me down to the OR. Looking back, the overall recovery from that surgery was far more painful and difficult than that from my c-section with Julie. But each birth experience is different. Thankfully, Sophie slept the whole time I was gone, and I spent the rest of that night alternately dozing and holding her, nursing her and just staring at her, kissing that cute little nose. The detailed birth story is here.

Flashing back to today…It was a pretty normal Thursday with a few exceptions. I’m feeling a little better today, but still tired and sore. While Julie was in pre-school this morning, Sophie and I went to the party supply store and picked up her balloons. I had five from Julie’s birthday that I refilled, plus I bought two more. The girls had a lot of fun playing with the balloons this afternoon, but I didn’t really get any pictures of that I’m afraid. Maybe tomorrow.

When Joe came home from work, we took the girls down to the basement to see Sophie’s gift. The birthday girl got the first ride.

Then Julie took a turn. We knew Julie would be very excited about this gift, and oh, yes, she was.

Sophie was just as happy to ride on the tractor for a while, and now she can actually push it with her feet and make it go. When did that happen?

They played down in the basement while I made dinner, and after dinner I brought out the cupcakes we baked this afternoon.

Sophie surprised me with how quickly she shredded hers and ate it. She really liked it, and probably would have eaten the whole thing if I had let her sit there long enough. That’s my girl!

Happy Birthday, Baby. Mama loves you.

It has not been a terribly wonderful day in the life of this human milk factory. I woke up feeling so achy that this time when Joe asked “Do I need to stay home?” I answered “Yes, please.” And I struggled with the misplaced guilt of letting go my parenting duties all day long.

One half of me told myself I should be up helping out, that I should get up and tell Joe to go on in to work for the afternoon, that laying in bed is lazy and maybe I’m being overly dramatic. Then, after some Tylenol, a couple more hours of sleep and nursing the baby again because when Human Milk Factory is part of your job description you don’t get to take the day off from that, I dragged myself downstairs for some breakfast and to try to help with the kids for a bit. Lo and behold, there really was a reason why Joe had stayed home. I still had the throbbing headache that boomed even louder when I leaned down to pick up a child or a toy. My whole body did still ache, and I was exhausted beyond comprehension.

Every time I put my left arm down at my side, it felt like I had something tucked under it – like maybe my wallet or a folded dish towel. Nope, just a swollen milk duct. I was really surprised, since I remember the other times I’ve had mastitis feeling almost immediately better after starting the antibiotics – the kind of immediately better where you start to wonder if you were really sick in the first place even though you know you so desperately were. Not today. I’m still feeling pretty crappy. I even went back to bed for a few more hours this afternoon, and laid there listening to a book on tape while drifting in and out of consciousness. It was the Time Traveller’s Wife, and I’ve just started it so I have a feeling I will need to start at the beginning again.

There were many moments during the day today when I wondered if there is some other malady that presents as mastitis but is really some horribly incurable deadly disease. Like a fast spreading cancer or some crazy virus. I know I am not the only person who has a hidden hypochondriac that comes out when they are sick. But I think maybe I’m starting to mend, and I know that a big part of what I needed was some rest. It’s very hard to take a day off work when you’re a stay at home mom, but Joe did an awesome job of keeping the kids downstairs.

Tomorrow is Sophie’s first birthday, and I have done next to nothing to prepare for it. The party’s not till Sunday, but I feel we should mark the actual day with some small celebration. I sent Joe out this afternoon to buy her present, and in the morning maybe Sophie and I can pick up some balloons while Julie is in pre-school. The mylar kind, which last forever and are safer for little kids. I have a little video of Julie on her first birthday with one of her balloons – here it is on You Tube:

Sophie is nowhere near that kind of walking yet, and it’s interesting comparing the two girls at this milestone. Julie was saying several words and full-on walking by the time she turned one – you can hear her saying “buh! buh!” in the video, which was her version of balloon for a long time, and Sophie is still happily cruising and has said Mama only a couple of times. The range of “normal” is so wide, and I am not at all worried. Sophie is such a happy baby, and obviously healthy and on her way to the same milestones. Perhaps I have been a little bit less in her face with reading books and singing songs and over-the-top parenting than I was with Julie, but then again, she is not screaming constantly as Julie was, she gets the benefits of playing with her big sister every day, and she *is* perfectly happy.

This has been quite the ramble of a post! I’ll share with you a quick and dirty picture of the knitting I did last night:

This is the first in the pair of clogs for our little friend – it’s waiting for me to knit on the outer sole. I took a little packet of yarn swatches to hand off to them in the school parking lot the other day – Julie and M go to school in the same building at the same time on Mondays, so I often run into them in the parking lot after dropping Julie off. Apparently, it took quite some time for M to choose the colors she wanted for her clogs. She picked the pink and the orange, and unfortunately I didn’t have enough pink on hand to do the big parts, so I added the green for the soles.

Now I am going to sit on the couch for a while and will my body to mend so that Joe can go back to work tomorrow and I can begin to think about all the work that needs to be done between now and Sunday so that we can celebrate Sophie’s birthday properly.

I don’t have much of interest to say today. I’m sick again – this time with the fun, fun, flu-like symptoms of mastitis, along with of course the painful burning lump in my boobage. I’ve seen the doctor. I have a prescription. It will be better soon.

In the mean time, I have a headache. I am going to sit like a lump on the couch and watch a DVD while I start knitting those clogs for my little friend.

Giant projects like the blankie are wonderful in their own way – they are very satisfying in the long term, that’s for sure. In the mean time, I needed a little instant gratification, and I also needed to keep my hands warm. We live in an old house with some drafty windows, and normally it’s not much of a problem, but the temperatures have been sub-zero F all week.

I started these fingerless mitts on Friday afternoon, took this picture of the first one on Saturday morning:

And Joe took this picture of the finished pair this morning. What a quick knit, and I’m wearing them right now.

Here are the stats.

Yarn is Aisha Celia Designs wool – somewhere between sport and worsted weight handspun. Size three needles. The pattern is by my friend Jean Christensen and is available at the Yarnery. This is a great little pattern – perfect for a quick gift, a great way to use a single small skein of yarn.

I do plan to get back on the blankie wagon tonight, but there is another small project on the horizon for this week. One of Julie’s little friends, M, has had her eyes on Julie’s felted clogs since I knit them, and asked her mother in the sweetest way to knit her a pair. M’s mom does know how to knit, but still hasn’t finished the socks I helped her start some time over the summer. Well, she hasn’t made it to the heel on the first sock yet. I want M to have the clogs while she can still get some use out of them this winter (because M is a sweet child and deserves nice warm feet). I also don’t want M’s mom to be frustrated with the fiddly short-rows that comprise this pattern, along with all the weird picking up and knitting together involved. It’s hard to have a knitting lesson while watching four kids at the same time. Mostly, it’s wonderful to knit something for someone you care about and will appreciate it, and these will only take me a couple of evenings to whip up.

Here are some pictures of our quiet weekend at home. The girls love helping me fold the diapers.

The diapers are looking pretty ratty. These are the diapers that I bought before Julie was born, and we’ve washed them at least once a week since then, so it’s no surprise that they’re falling apart. They are still functional, though, and nobody sees them under the clothes.

The girls sometimes play together so well, it just makes my heart melt. Julie was helping Sophie open this box so she could play with some blocks. I don’t even think the word “MINE!” was used once during this conversation.

I stuck my head around the corner this afternoon and saw this scene. This is so typical for weekends around here. So sweet.

And, of course, Julie says “Take my picture too!”

Now, excuse me while I sit and watch the Superbowl commercials. We videotaped it especially so I could skip through the boring parts and watch the good stuff. Oh, and there was the whole missing the second half because of dinner and bedtime. I can’t believe I’m admitting this next part to the world, but we saw a Pizza Hut commercial with the cheezy pocket crust. We hate Pizza Hut, but right now we are waiting for our cheezy crust pizza to show up so we can eat it.

I almost forgot to post an update on the blankie – probably because there’s not much to show for the week (what’s new?). The tally is eleven for the week. Remember, I’m supposed to be trying for about 21 squares a week. Oy. I don’t even want to think about how far behind I am. I’m still going to aim for three a day as my goal, but it’s looking a bit dismal for getting to the State Fair with it this year if I continue at my current rate.

That said, I am more than halfway done with the thing, and I did spend an evening plus a bit weaving in ends. Here’s the picture.

Oh, and by the way – somehow this happened this afternoon. It really didn’t take that long – these mitts knit up incredibly fast. It was really hard to take this picture, and this was the best I could do as far as showing off the stitch definition. The colors here aren’t quite right. I still love this yarn, but I’m afraid it’s one of those that looks better in the skein than it does knit up. Hopefully it will look a bit less muddy in the stockinette portion. These are meant for me to wear around the house, though, so I’m confident I’ll be happy with them as they are either way.

I’m going to admit something here. Just putting it out there. I like to think of myself as somewhat of an intellectual. Someone who, despite being on the mommy track and living in the world of poopie diapers (sometimes unfortunately the lack thereof) and what’s for dinner and how *do* I entertain these children for the next three hours till my husband comes home, does think a bit more than average about the world around her.

I do like to read. I love prose, fiction, nonfiction, all kinds of genres. I have just never been one to sit down and enjoy a nice book of poetry, though. There you have it. I am a member of the great unwashed. The shame.

Then I got to thinking about it a bit. Music lyrics count as poetry, right? Maybe I can just share the words to one of my favorite songs.

Here are the lyrics to Keep on the Sunny Side of Life as sung by June Carter Cash.

Well there’s a dark and a troubled side of life.
There’s a bright and a sunny side too.
But if you meet with the darkness and strife,
The sunny side we also may view.

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,
Keep on the sunny side of life.
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way,
If we keep on the sunny side of life.

Oh, the storm and its fury broke today,
Crushing hopes that we cherish so dear.
Clouds and storms will in time pass away.
The sun again will shine bright and clear.

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,
Keep on the sunny side of life.
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way,
If we’ll keep on the sunny side of life.

Let us greet with a song of hope each day.
Though the moments be cloudy or fair.
Let us trust in our Saviour always,
To keep us, every one, in His care.

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,
Keep on the sunny side of life.
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way,
If we’ll keep on the sunny side of life.

If we’ll keep on the sunny side of life.

I know, it’s funny that a heathen such as myself would love a song so much that refers to putting ourselves in the hands of a Saviour. That particular line doesn’t do much for me, but I don’t care. The song as a whole means a lot to me – I love the words, the optimism, the catchiness of the tune. This was one of the songs we had in our wedding, too, which was perfect considering the weather that day – an awful storm involving heavy rain and hail up till about half an hour before the outdoor ceremony, which cleared off and left a beautiful afternoon for us just in time.

It’s been a busy couple of days, and I have all kinds of things swimming around in my head to blog, so here we go…

I mailed off a pile of packages this morning. It felt good to get them on their way to their new homes. One pile of yarn is still sitting in my office looking for a good home. It really wants someone to love it, knit it up into a baby sweater or a scarf or some other fun little project. If you participated in the recent contests and/or are someone who I either know in person or who has commented in the past and you want this yarn, send me an e-mail at shellyk at shellykang dot com with your address and first come first serve it’s yours.

Speaking of mail, this came in the mail a couple of days ago. It’s the Vesper sock yarn I ordered from Knitterly Things last week. Yum-yum-yum-yum-YUM! It’s going to be good knitting. I want to wind it and start right now so badly, I had to force myself to stick it up on the top shelf of the cabinet where I keep my sock yarn stash. Lookie, no touchie for now. I accidentally ordered two skeins of the Love Stinks colorway. Maybe some lucky friend will get a special prezzie in the eventual future, or maybe I will knit something a little bigger than socks with it. Perhaps a sweater or pants for Sophie for the fall?

Speaking of Sophie, let’s look at some cute kid pics. We’ve really been enjoying the basement play room. I’m only kicking myself for not having gotten it cleared out last winter, because it totally rocks to be able to say “Let’s finish doing X and we can go down and play in the basement.” We can easily kill a couple of hours down there, and the girls wear themselves out running (and crawling) around.

Sophie is getting closer and closer to walking, and she figured out how to push the tractor toy around. That’s a happy face for a kid who’s stopped up!

Julie was busy building a wall. We recently bought the book “The monster at the end of this Book” with Grover from Sesame street, and she was basically acting it out with herself as the “kid at the end of this book.” God, I love this kid.

Part of the reason why I didn’t post yesterday was because I wanted to write a huge rant at how poorly behaved the parents at the Eden Prairie Center play area are. Every single time we go there, I am surprised by what I see. It would be such a fun place for the kids to play if only the parents would obey the posted rules. I was so upset by what I saw there yesterday that we had to leave abruptly, and I wanted to do so without upsetting Julie. There is a kids’ salon across the hall from the play area, so I decided it was a good time to go ahead and get Sophie her first haircut. I was going to wait till she turned one, but as that’s only a week away, it was a good opportunity. Plus, it was a great diversionary tactic for Julie, who also got a haircut.

Sophie was pretty tired, which in this instance worked to our advantage as she sat there in a daze just taking everything in.

We didn’t cut much off – just a teensy trim to even the ends up a bit. Her hair has been thinning out lately, but it’s still more hair than any other one-year-old I’ve known. See that sweater? Yep. and Yep.

And Julie was a bit more animated. She loves getting her hair cut, and I was proud of her for letting the lady dry her hair with the blow dryer, which she is leery of. Her sweater is not hand knit – Target clearance special.

We got home today after pre-school and I started putting together lunch while the girls played. Then I heard a few suspect noises and discovered this scene.

Reminds me of this one from a couple years ago. At least Sophie didn’t eat it.

Back to knitting for a moment. Remember that scarf I started? The lace one with the awesome alpaca/silk from my secret pal? Well, I had a few minutes to work on it this morning while Julie was in pre-school and Sophie was asleep in her car seat between errands. For once, I was looking at it in clear daylight and with a clear head. I knit a few rows and ran into an inconsistency I had noticed a couple of times before. I took a closer look at the charts and realized I had made a major mistake.

This pattern is one from an old issue of Piecework magazine, and the charts in the magazine were handwritten ones with weird symbols that I didn’t care all that much for – see?

So I transcribed the charts to more standard symbols and a cleaner layout using Stitch Painter. Only, I guess I didn’t notice the little bracket over on the right that shows you’re only supposed to repeat rows 3- 13, so when I copied the repeats up the sides, I copied all the rows. I had creatively fudged the extra stitch when I came to it the first few times, so I don’t think it’s noticeable in the work I’ve done so far. Here’s what I’ve got.

And a closeup of the edging – the problem is on both sides of the edging, but at least it’s consistent and not immediately noticeable.

I suppose I could rip back. Rip back the results of maybe a month’s worth of naptime knitting. But that’s not really the point – if you’re going to do it, you may as well do it right, and this is just the beginning of the project. If it’s wrong, it would bother me for the rest of the hours I invest in it plus all the times I show it off to my knitting friends. Plus, really, the product of knitting is not just the finished item but also the enjoyment of the time spent doing it. Hm.

On the other hand, I think it looks pretty good so far. The only real problem is that the repeats won’t work out to match exactly, but I’m not too worried about that. I think it could be fudged a bit at the other end – especially with the join into the trim at the end – one row plus or minus probably will not be noticeable. I don’t really think this project is going to be State Fair material anyway because that category is highly competitive….but it might be….must think this through a bit.

In the mean time, it’s been very cold here this week. Sitting in front of my living room window, my poor hands have been quite chilly. Suddenly, a pair of those fingerless gloves that I was poo-pooing last month sounds very attractive. And I have this yarn in my stash that’s just burning to be knit.

It’s handspun from Aisha Celia designs that I bought at the Craft-O-Rama in December. The pictures don’t do it justice. It’s luscious. It’s just one skein of something like DK weight, perfect for these little mitts. I went ahead and wound it up. I’m SO tempted to cast on. Because you know I have so much extra free knitting time on my hands.

Oh, and I got a couple of pictures of my knitting group’s Christmas gift exchange from a friend who was there. Lisa knit that little panda Sophie is holding!

In this picture, Sophie is wearing some reindeer antlers that I got in my prize package.

Thanks for all your concern about Sophie. For what it’s worth, I took her in to the ped. today – she’s going to be fine, and we got some good advice about what to do next and a prescription for something that should help.

Now I must go get some sleep!