Friday, July 31, 2009

Time flies when you're roasting.

It's been over a week since I posted last - yikes! I didn't realize until Mom called last night, wanting to know how things were since I hadn't posted... It's been hot. If you don't follow the weather in the Willamette Valley as slavishly as do the people who live here, we're on the down side of a really nasty heat wave - I think even my friends who live in places like California, New Mexico and Texas will agree that 108 is really, really hot! It's even worse when you live in a place that's rainy for 10 months of the year, and where 95 is usually considered roasting. As I type, it's about 92... and it feels a bit warmer than we'd really prefer, but it's not horrid. Two days ago? 108. Happily for us, we could go take refuge with my in-laws and their central AC for the afternoon; I'm not sure what we'd have done without that option. I've been feeling ambivalent about the fancy, expensive windows we had installed last year, but no more! With this heat, they've really been showing their worth, keeping our poorly insulated house mostly tolerable.

What else, what else... well, I'm on call for a mom whose EDD was two days ago, and that's pretty central to my life right now. It's hard to relax into doing much of anything when I know that any moment I'll get The Call, and have an hour to get ready and be over at her house (or wherever she wants me to meet them). I'm very excited to attend this birth, but being on call is really a strain.

At the same time, I'm instituting some changes with nursing the Infanta. I've really been feeling that her nursing has strongly contributed to losing two pregnancies now (early this month I had what I believe was a chemical pregnancy, where the egg is fertilized, but never implants). Since we really want to become pregnant again, I'm making an effort to reduce the number of times a day that she nurses. I'm aiming for about three hours between sessions (with the intent of stretching it longer bit by bit over time), which really isn't all that long, but is quite a lot longer than the 45 minutes or so she was doing earlier this month! It's a change for all of us, especially as Josh and I have to pay much more attention to giving her real food and drink to replace the mommy-moo we're trying to cut down on. I'm *not* weaning her completely, simply trying to adjust the proportion of milk to solids. I think it's going ok at the moment, but I'm also at a point of my cycle where she is much more relaxed about my supply. She does start getting frantic to nurse about a half hour before I'm ready to, which means that we're practicing the fine art of toddler distraction.

Perhaps by the time I post again, I'll have double the number of doula births under my belt. :)

Thursday, July 23, 2009

If this don't make you smile...

Found via Norma:



Probably not what I would do, if I had the big day to do over again, but dang, that's just full of awesome.

How does my garden grow?

Lushly. I even have some blossoms, suggesting that some of my veggies may in fact bear fruit sometime before the frost hits. Because, you know, late July is the best time to not even have immature fruit yet. *sigh*

The Infanta and the Garden


Yet another album starring the lovely Infanta. The first ten pictures were taken last week(?) while my mom was here; you can get an idea of the monster hill of pumpkins, reaching out to grab the toddler innocently pulling bean leaves. The latter portion were taken yesterday. Josh took Herself with him while he turned on the sprinkler, and then came and asked for the camera. Most of them were taken in our rather jungle-ish back yard, but the last several are in the front, as the Infanta reacts to the sprinkler spray. She's just so dratted photogenic...

I keep meaning to take and post some pictures of the garden itself, especially as it's so very... verdant right now, but I just keep getting distracted by shiny things, or a certain fussy toddler, or whatever. Maybe tomorrow morning. It's supposed to get very hot indeed in the next few days, so we'll be hunkering down in survival mode, and searching for air conditioning to borrow.

And for all you Ravelers - the voting for Dye For Glory is open! Be sure to go cast your ballots. I wouldn't want to influence you unfairly (oh, no, never), but especially check out the entries from our local Three Fates Knitting (yes, that's a totally unpaid-for ad on the left there, because she's my good friend and dyes awesomely) and Dicentra Designs. Between the two of them, they have entries in nearly every division!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

We Have a First Word!

"Cat".

If you've been following along on the Infanta's obsession with felines (including her major motivation for becoming mobile), this will come as no surprise at all.

She's been working on words for about a month now; in fact, as long as she's been really walking - to the day, even. We've had assorted variations of something that sounds a lot like "light", and she says "hi" appropriately (with the cutest little wave EVAR), and she signs "more" (which I think she thinks means food) and sometimes "nurse" (we use the sign for "milk" to mean breastfeeding, because the official sign for nursing is... NSFW), but she's really pulled it together in the last few days with "cat". She even points towards places where the cats are known to lurk - even if you can't see into those spots from where we are - and says it. And then this evening, as she and Daddy were taking me off to knitting, she was pointing at everything and calling it all "cat".

Well, she's also mastered "dada", and she's working hard on "mama", but they don't seem to count those at the doctor's office. The signs they do count, however. Thirteen and a half, almost fourteen months, and she can say 4 words correctly. Not bad, not bad...

Monday, July 20, 2009

My Current Wallpaper



Which proves that the Infanta is indeed my daughter: yum, books!

My mother and brother headed home this morning. They were here for two weeks, which was both too long and not long enough. Miss you guys!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

So totally true.

Ohmygooses. Go check it out. Not that I know from the drugs end... but I was high on the Infanta's birth for two months, and didn't even know it until I was easing off.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Silver Falls Picnic

We took a trip to Silver Falls State Park yesterday. We had several purposes; a picnic, checking cell reception there (which is nil), and showing my mom and little brother Mithrilwood. I made sure to bring swim clothes for the Infanta, so that she could go play in the stream that runs by the picnic area. It ended up being colder than she's used to water being, so she didn't much like it after she tipped over face-first, but until then she had a grand time!

Here's the day's photoshoot; I handed the camera to Josh, since he's far better with a camera than I am.

Silver Falls

Monday, July 06, 2009

Monday Night Musings

Posting just to post, more or less. I'm sitting here, tired after a busy but fun weekend, wondering why I'm not in bed, snatching a few hours' rest before my mom and little brother arrive. They didn't leave the Bay Area until mid afternoon, so we don't expect them on our doorstep until after midnight... It's going to be a long night. I am really looking forward to seeing my mom and brother, though!

The Infanta is clearly teething; I can see her still-missing lower incisors lurking just below the surface, just waiting to cut through and damage my poor, innocent nipples. Such is motherhood, I suppose.

I should sign off here, collect my now-wakeful offspring, and drag Josh into the bathroom to cut his hair (sounds kinky, but it's really not).

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Sheesh!

Honest, this isn't turning into a Thursday and Sunday blog! It just looks like it.

I recently decided that it was time and past to teach the Infanta some nursing manners. She's been kicking and wiggling a lot while nursing, and I've gotten tired of it. So, when she's on teh bewb but not sitting still, I will detach her and set her down, even if she's in the middle of a let-down (she's usually concentrating on eating at that moment, but there have been times..), with the admonition that she must behave herself and sit quietly while nursing. A little while ago, I picked her up to nurse, and she happily latched on, but was kicking very strongly, so I set her down. And she screamed!! She sobbed and wailed and lay on the floor for a good five minutes while I went about my business (I have a pair of sample socks I'm knitting for a friend's yarn dyeing business), and after a while, when she'd quieted a little, I
picked her up again, gave her some teething tablets, and we nursed more less quietly.

We're pretty sure she's in pain from something today, though, although we disagree on whether it's teething or gas. Either way, it's making her fussy and sleep-resistant!

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Light of my life



I was taking pictures of a current sock project (which I need to frog and start over due to gauge issues, sigh), and looked over to see this beauty. Since pictures of that smile are few and far between, I couldn't not take a few. This one's even not blurry!

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

In the good old Summertime



She walks!



She discovers the fan!



I discovered the pleasures of making freezer jam a few weeks ago. Mash up the fruit, mix it with sugar and (special, already mixed) freezer jam pectin, ladle into jars, pop in the freezer, enjoy at leisure. Shown above are 5 1/2 jars of raspberry-blackberry jam, potted just moments before. When I finish this post, they will supposedly have thickened enough to go into the freezer.

There has been knitting. There has been finishing! I even have photos!! But I've only posted them to Ravelry so far. Maybe I'll post them tomorrow, if I manage to blog. :)