Writing

I was just chatting with a friend about the need to write. She's the sort of person for whom writing is a much-needed creative outlet. She a good one, too; she writes thoughtful, lyrical blog posts, and often has me giggling at her tweets.

Me? Sometimes I need to write; sometimes I have something to say that needs to be said *just* right, in that polished way you can only get by writing and rewriting. Here's the thing tho: depression stops me.
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When I was in college, I found that I had good ideas for papers, and good theses, but my execution sucked. I could actually feel the mental fog that blocked the way between my ideas and their manifestation. Nearly a decade later, on medication and pursuing lighter topics, I still have the fog. It's lighter now, and I can often make out the path between A and N, but..... I have allowed inertia to prevail, and I turn my creative energy to outlets like knitting.

Depression still affects my knitting, any glance at my mess of half-finished projects will reveal that, but it doesn't matter as much. These projects will wait patiently for me to return to them. This is not to say that writing won't, but when it comes to blogging, I feel the pressure of all the posts I haven't written, all the (probably imagined) reader expectations I haven't fulfilled, and it stops me dead. So I knit, and sometimes sew, and mostly don't blog.

Just a quick note..

For all of you who haven't given up on me completely:

32 weeks and counting! The Infanta was a reassuringly active baby; Elessar is a positive acrobat! When s/he's awake, I never know quite where I'm going to feel kicks/shoves/punches. S/he is, however, beginning to favor a head-down position, which is reassuring. My SPD is a pain in the arse - literally, as my sacrum is tending to be quite sore - but chiropractic care and knowing more about how to not make it worse is helping me to manage it.

A photographer friend and I went out this weekend and did a belly photo shoot. The few shots I saw were absolutely amazing, and as soon as she gets the disk of finished photos to me, I plan to post them, well, everywhere.

Part of the reason posting has been so scant in the last months is that the Infanta has hit 2.5 early and hard. I don't know why it took me so long to realize that, and to remember that her pattern her whole life has been that she hits her half-year disruptions early and hard, but once I did remember, it has made coping a lot easier. It's still difficult, especially as I'm feeling like a beached whale and mostly unable to move without pain, but at least I understand what's going on.

Edited to add: I know I'm not posting often, but I do tweet a fair amount. If you don't already track my twitterstream, I have a gadget that shows it over on the left.

Sugar and Spice and Puppy Dog's Tails

* The Infanta's going to be two in a week. Where did the time go?!

* I'm still pregnant - 10 weeks tomorrow! Morning sickness held off while I had a ferocious cold, but came roaring in when the cold left. It's not as bad as I remember from the Infanta's pregnancy... or maybe I know more about coping? I do keep having thoughts about "why did I think this was a good idea again?"

* My SPD is kicking in. Not so much in front, although I've had a few itchy twinges there, but more in my left sacro-iliac joint. If I didn't know better I might say it was sciatica, but I do know better. I really hope it doesn't get any more painful than it is right now, but again, I know better. I guess I'd better get a form for a temp handicapped placard for my midwife to fill out sooner rather than later. Maybe when we go by the DMV to renew my permit?

* Having no (or almost no) knitting mojo thanks to first trimester exhaustion is really frustrating. Okay, first trimester exhaustion is frustrating all on its own, but not being able to knit much really sucks. So many things I want to work on, so little energy to do it with... so I'm focusing on J's father's day socks, and hoping I'll be able to get them done in time.

* I'm liking doing the Wordless Wednesday thing, because it means I'm actually actively taking pictures, *and* getting them off my camera.

Wordless Wednesday

In the interest of soothing certain grandmotherly desires for more posts, I'm succumbing to a meme. :)

New Year, Old Frustrations

I don't like how long it's been since I last posted. For the five of you still paying attention, I apologize. It's not at all that I've had nothing to post; rather the issue is that I've had entirely too much I want to write about, and it gets overwhelming. Then there's the part where I don't have time, and on top of all that, I've been incredibly inarticulate of late.

Goals for this year:

1. Love my family, no matter how much hair they make me want to tear out. More than that, enjoy them! J is a really great guy, and I don't pay enough attention to him. The Infanta is in a frustrating stage, but she's a sweet-natured, bright, beautiful little girl, and it's easy to lose sight of that in the day-to-day (or the all-nighters).

2. Sew more.

3. Relax about getting pregnant again. (Much easier said than done!)

4. Get better at household maintenance - by which I mean trying to keep the floor more or less picked up, the table clear (for dining or for sewing, which will help with #2), the dishes done more or less daily, etc. It's so easy to slack a day, and then it's overwhelming. Speaking of which, I should go run dishes once this is posted.

5. Get outside! I spend entirely too much time sitting here, dinking on the lappy. The Infanta needs to get out and run more, and I would do better with more outside air as well.

Now to get on some of those chores, while J has the Infanta off at church with him!

Babies!

I've been thinking about a lot of things recently, and I may get around to posting about some of them sometime soon. Meanwhile, watch this:



It's the trailer for the forthcoming documentary Babies, which follows the first year of life of four babies in different parts of the world. Just this two-and-a-half minute trailer made me laugh and cry - and within the first few seconds, Josh had whipped around, wondering if it was Lina squealing!

Metablogging Musings

It's been almost two weeks since my last post. Some of that is because I'm travelling for the holiday, and preparations for travel ate a lot of my attention the week previous (and I'm not home until Tuesday - until then I'm still in California, visiting my mom).

But that's not all it is. It's also that there are enough people who read this blog now (or at least check in from time to time) that I don't feel comfortable being quite as candid here as I have at times in the past. I've done and experienced things that I want to write about, that I need to write about to help process them, that aren't things I can tell just anybody. Some of them I can't tell almost anybody, for reasons of confidentiality.

Also, I've just plain had so much going on recently that I haven't had brain space to look at it enough to write about it...

Enough with the excuses. I'm not giving up blogging, by any means. It's an important outlet for me, and an important part of documenting my and the Infanta's lives.

Speaking of the Infanta: about to hit eighteen months, she's just exploding in development. Talking, processing, playing... it's been huge just in the last week. Mom looked up at her on my lap this evening, and said that she (my Mom) thinks she (the Infanta) looks older than she did when we got here. I teased her and said "yeah, a whole week older", but I think it's true; she's changing mentally so rapidly, it's no wonder that she's showing changes on the surface, too.

It's late, and time to go to bed to rest for another day of solo parenting. How do full-time single parents do it?!

Threefer Thursday

1) I got to check the inside of the Infanta's mouth this afternoon, and three more molars are peeking through. It's just one point each so far, but they're there. She also has at least one canine trying to make it in... That's everything but her second year molars making an appearance, and she's still short an incisor. I'm beginning to wonder vaguely if I should be concerned. But only vaguely.

2) I have three client meetings in three days this week! Makes me feel like a real doula or something. One's a postpartum visit, one's mostly a formality with a mom that (re)hired me in February (the instant she got the positive test, basically), and only one's a new client... but still! Business! It's awesome!

3) Did you know that I tweet? (In case you didn't know, that's the commonly accepted present tense for the verb to Twitter.) I succumbed a few months back when I discovered that the Yarn Harlot tweets... and I'm hooked. *sigh* Anyway, if you don't get a Twitter feed yourself, you can follow my random thoughts over on the sidebar. It's currently stuck a ways down, but I'll move it higher at some point.

Symptoms and speculations

Skipped a day again. I would give up on the resolution and just say "as often as possible", but that would end up with me posting fortnightly again. And I don't want to do that.

In regard the tender nipple portion of my post on Friday, Karen remarks, "...last time I had that particular symptom, I ended up with a son nine months later." I wish it was that easy. Sadly, that particular symptom is most likely simply what it's always been for me - simply part of my cycle, just more difficult to bear because my nipples are in actual use. On the other hand, just before I started this post, the Infanta was hanging off my lap (as she often does), and I suddenly could. not. bear. to have her touch me. So maybe there's something to speculate about this month, after all. I'm not counting on it, but naturally I would be thrilled.

I spent a week or two this month freaking out about why my body might not be keeping pregnancies. I do still plan to call and get myself checked out, but I would guess that they probably won't want to see me yet (not "enough" losses). So... I've decided to continue trying, but also trying to be more mellow about it. I do still feel the crunch of time, but in the long run, stressing about it won't help anything, and might even make things take longer. I'm attempting to adopt an attitude of "it'll happen when it happens".

Just remind me of this next time I'm freaking out, okay?

Ugh.

So, three days into my new posting resolution... and I skip a day. It wasn't my fault, though! I decided to swap the operating system, and making it work took a lot longer than we expected. But as of this afternoon, I'm back online.

This week has been a very long one in some ways, and very short in others. Two good friends had their babies (Stacey on Wednesday, Karinda just today), Br. Vincent visited, and so on. This is fairly TMI, but my breasts have been very tender this week, rendering nursing very uncomfortable. The Infanta has been beginning to take more chances with what she can do, and so her collection of war injuries, as of this evening, includes two splits in her lip and a bruise on her cheek.

We said farewell to Br. Vincent this morning, delivering him to visit his dad in Newport. I'm not sure when we'll get to see him in person again, but I'm sure we'll have plenty of good times online, as we generally do (when life doesn't have us too busy).

Tonight I am exhausted. I ache in body and soul, and am beginning to dread overnight, knowing that the Infanta is likely to nurse much as she did last night - not often (she only woke me twice), but long, and persistently (owie!!!!). I'm beginning to have thoughts about night weaning, but am not sure I'm up to the battle that I have no question it will be.

I am looking forward to the weekend, however. I have knitting tomorrow afternoon, and the weather has cooled significantly. I hope you all have good ones!

More Blog resolutions

Posting has been pretty thin on the ground here. Partly it's that I've been busy, or tired, or... But mostly it's that I got out of the habit. So I'm going to get back into the habit.

Has it really been since Thursday?

I guess it has. Rest assured, life has improved since that very dreary post. Among other details, the Infanta is walking more than crawling. That is, she's at about 60% walking, 40% crawling; I think we can say that "she's walking" now.

But I'm posting because I found this tidbit through my Reader just now. I like this blog a lot, by the way; I don't agree with all of her politics (because she's very anti-choice, and I'm, well, very pro-choice), but in general she has a lot of really smart things to say. All of you third trimester mamas take heart!

Black Sheep 2009

I finally made it to the famous Black Sheep Gathering! I went with a couple of friends from my local knitting group and assorted spouses and offspring; Snarfy and Mia and I (and the Infanta and Snarfy's boys and husband) carpooled down, and met some other friends there, including Stephania and her husband and houseguest.

I was surprised to find that this year,at least, BSG was actually smaller than Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival; from everything I've heard, I expected it to be bigger. Of course, I didn't check out the wool show, or take any classes...

I also didn't take nearly as many pictures as I wanted. Before lunch, I was a woman on a mission: I had $20, and I wanted to find a new spindle, a smallish one, and maybe a little roving to spin on it. I did finally find a spindle, and I had enough left over to buy a single ounce of merino roving - and I even got a chance to spin a little of it! After lunch, we went and visited the sheep again, and this time I had my camera out. I'm not skilled enough with a camera to take exactly the pictures I'd like, but I hope I captured at least some of the Infanta's delight and utter fascination with the big furries!

Black Sheep 2009

I've been slacking with the blogging lately. So easy to let it fall by the wayside when life gets rough, and then so hard to get back into the habit...

Good Reads

One of the many blogs I read is Whatever, the personal blog of sf author John Scalzi. He writes anything from updates on what his cats are doing, to political diatribes, to ramblings about what he's up to with his writing, be it being offline because of a deadline, or the schedule of a convention he's attending or speaking at. He's an excellent writer, and well worth reading; even if you disagree with him politically, he makes his arguments clearly and cogently, and is always thought-provoking. Well, maybe not the butter-eating. Josh would probably argue that the bacon thing is, though.

Anyway, one of Scalzi's pet projects is something he calls The Big Idea. The feature combines pimping other authors' works with insights into how they come up with their ideas. Today he posted this. Go read, and then follow the links to the pdf of The Patriot Witch. I'm 129 pages in, impatient to finish, and planning to acquire the books as soon as I reasonably can.

Do I Even Need to Say It?

Posting remains spotty due to a certain fussy, clingy, and frequently over-tired proto-toddler sucking all my energy. Since she is currently passed out on my lap (all I can say is that the $20 Mom spent on my Boppy was some of the best $20 spent on this child...), I figured I'd take the opportunity. Rather than spend the time on, like, surfing Ravelry. I'll do that next; it's easier to juggle with a newly wakened baby (when that happens).

Today has been a perfect example of a Willamette Valley spring day. It has been gorgeous and sunny and pouring rain by turns. This morning we ditched the babywearing meeting, and ended up meeting some friends at the Riverfront Park to watch the toddlers (and proto-toddler) run. While we were at the playground, another mom told us that they were having a story time over at the Carousel. So, we packed the kiddos up (cleverly exchanging which girl rode in which stroller so that Hurricane Tavy would cooperate) and headed over. A nice, grandmotherly woman read stories, played music, guided a coloring activity, and let us all on the carousel for free... and while we were at this, the sky opened up! Since I was walking, my friends started brainstorming ways to get us home (due to two carseats among three babies)... but I figured that the rain would at the very least lighten up enough to allow me to make it to the bus stop. Happily, it stopped entirely, and got positively bright out. My friends and I packed the babies up again, and they wandered with me up the sidewalks to the new pedestrian bridge across the River (I still get flashes of Lord Ken raining Greek fire over the Protectorate turtle boats when I cross it, but I think I always will). And so home, pausing at the local Jamba Juice to wait out the next shower. And now happily posting, with the front door open for the fresh air, a shawl over us to cut the slight chill, and a sweetly napping child in my arms. Does life get better than this?

Eleven Months

The Infanta is eleven months old tomorrow. She is babbling up a storm, getting into EVERYTHING, and sooo close to walking. When she "plays" on the keyboard, she "sings" along, and if she happens to hit the drum machine button, she full on RAWKS OUT!!! Today, she started pushing off whatever she was propping herself against, and standing on her own for 5 or so seconds at a time. She grabs our hands to go walking often, and if she's on my lap with a pile of goldfish in front of us, she will reach out for the crackers, asking for some. She's happy and inquisitive, and definitely has as strong a will as either of her parents.

You will no doubt have noticed that my posting has been somewhat sporadic recently. This is because the Infanta's rapidly developing self is demanding more and more of my time and energy, and taking care of myself and my baby is more important than my blog. Besides, half the time, about all I have to say is, "I'm exhausted", which has got to be as boring to read as it is to post. ;P

Yup.

Yup, I did consciously skip posting last night.

We went over to my IL's place on the spur of the moment last night, to hang out with my BIL and play Agricola with him (he's in town this week for his daughter's birthday). Alas, we arrived at the time we're usually departing, and so the Infanta spent pretty much the entire time screaming unless she was attached to boob (I think it's a growth spurt, combined with separation anxiety). Combined with my FIL's modesty about breastfeeding, and things were a bit... complicated. So, by the time we got home (at an hour in which we're usually in bed), all I wanted to do was fall over and pass out, even with babe connected to boob. Josh was kind enough to enthusiastically potter around and get me the bits and pieces I needed to feather my nest.

I have a sneaking suspicion (ok, an already made decision) that I'll be bringing Herself to knitting with me today; even if I don't get much actual knitting done, I desperately need the social time!

I also plan to bring the camera, lappy, and assorted cables so I can do little things like upload and post the pictures from the tulip farm...

I'm tired.

The last couple of days have been very long; lots of exciting things happening (such as the visit to the tulip farm this morning, of which I do have pictures...), and then topped off by a certain wanna-be toddler who's not going to sleep well. So while I have been in the habit of posting at around this time of day, I was just too tired out from, among other things, wrangling the Infanta. Hence no post yesterday, and a very spare one tonight. I'm hoping to get pictures posted this weekend.

Why oh why

..do I wait until it's so late that I'm too tired to be coherent, in order to post?

I've been doing some birthy reading again, and have a few thoughts to share. But not tonight, Herself needs to go to bed.

Wow

For the first time this year, I failed to post yesterday. So consider this a replacement, and I'll post for today later. :)