11. Maybe it's the time of year?

The Infanta and Grandpa at family Christmas, New Year's Day.

I really admire Norma for not only posting daily for over a year now, but for always having interesting things to post. Or maybe they're just interesting to the rest of us, and she thinks it's all trivial and uninteresting, but posts anyway? Hard to tell sometimes.

All I know is that January's always been the worst time of year for me, and the last few days I've felt like I couldn't get enough sleep. I even got to the point of "touched out" last night, with the Infanta and her 9 pm wakings (which we handle by letting her play with us (usually Daddy) for a while, and then it's lights out and she's swaddled and into the cosleeper, where I lay a hand on her until she's out), and my having wanted to go to sleep at 7.

But we did have a funny moment the other night; Daddy had just turned the lights off while I was nursing Herself (trying to get her asleep), and while she was having none of that, she clawed at the side of my breast rather painfully. I said "Ow"; Daddy gently said something about "Don't hurt Mommy", and she gave a rousing raspberry. I honestly don't know if the timing was intentional - my guess is not - but it was so perfect that Josh and I laughed and laughed.

10. Check this out!

Found it here. I heart pro-breastfeeding ads!

9. Save Handmade part 2

The law affecting handmade children's items has been altered to exclude those made by the WAHM industry; read a bit about it here: http://www.kval.com/news/37241774.html On the other hand it still prohibits the resale (or even giving away!) of used clothing and toys. There's a petition about it here. I understand why they put the law into place at all, but they needed to have been more careful about how they phrased it! Sign the petition, please; leave a comment if you do so, and I'll pull a name out of a hat and give you something nifty. If you're a knitter or you sew, it'll be something stash-like; if you don't, maybe a book. It'll depend on whose name I pull.

eta - Contest will end this Sunday, Jan 11, at midnight.

8. Clients?

We're off to the babywearing meeting this morning. Such a pain to make the trip take twice as long, just because I have to take the bus.. but it's better than staying in and never seeing anyone.

I found two potential clients last night! One is the wife of a guy Josh games with. The other is one of the local knitters. Although the knitter is due around the beginning of August, I'll still leap at the chance to be her doula - we even joked about her being due for the Sock Summit. :)

7. Well, I was going to post some pictures.

Blogger seems to be having trouble talking to my computer and uploading pictures today. I was going to post a photo of the Infanta sitting up on my lap, but I guess not today... Nope, can't even work it from posting it on Flickr - but here's the link.

The Infanta (currently snuggled against me in my new Moby), while not precisely crawling or sitting up independently, is making great strides in physical achievement. She creeps quite well, and pretty quickly at times - I should probably find another place for the Asian ceramics than the floor, dontcha think? She also sits quite well if placed there, as in the linked image - although she tends to lean forward and scoot off in pursuit of something that looks chewable.

SIL's naturalization ceremony yesterday was amazing. I think that every kid should attend one, as part of their education in civics. I definitely think I'll be making an effort to get my kids to one when they're old enough to appreciate it!

6. I overslept!

And have no time to post properly before a full day that includes a trip to Portland on Greyhound to watch my SIL become a citizen. Proper post tomorrow!

5. Giraffe!

The Infanta is practicing her Velcro skills today, so here's a video of a giraffe being born to entertain you. Ignore the gratuitous footage of the tourists.

4. Let there be Knitting!

Helena, from the Summer 2008 Knitty. Begun in August, finished Christmas Day; you may recognize it from the pictures I've posted of the event.



The start of the Leaf and Nupp Shawl, from Lace Knitting of Estonia. I never, ever thought I'd say this, but nupps are kinda fun! Apologies for the dimness of the picture, but a) the Kauni is dark and b) I had to get between the Infanta and the lace, which also meant between the light source and the lace. This is something I can only work on when the Infanta is asleep. I'm really enjoying it, though!

3. To answer a question.

Have I mentioned how much the Infanta loves the kitties?

My brother asked yesterday: Ok, so I have to ask. What's the diffrence between this and the other wraps you own?

I own one other wrap. Well, two if you count the rebozo, which I have more as a doula tool than as a baby carrier. I also have a mei tai (which I made myself) and a ring sling (which Amy made me), both of which I use frequently. My wrap is homegrown; it started as a piece of cloth from my costume stash (actually a length I acquired a decade ago to use as a turban) which I cut in half lengthwise so that I could have a wrap and a turban. I have yet to hem the raw edges, although I really should. It is lightweight but sturdy woven fabric, and I haven't ever really used it much, because of the learning curve, my laziness, and fact that I'd never washed the fabric, so it was very stiff with dye, making it very difficult to adjust. I did wash it recently, but haven't gotten around to playing with it. Maybe I'll take it to the babywearing meeting next week for some help.

The wrap I have coming to me is commercially made of jersey (knit fabric to those in my audience less fabric savvy than me). This makes a hyooge difference in ease of use - for one, you can adjust it before you put the baby in! Not something you can do with the woven wrap.

2. Gravelled for lack of matter

Five days into daily posts, and I'm dry. This does not bode well.

Well.. it's not really that I have nothing to talk about, more that I'm sleepy enough (sue me, I wake up late) that I'm having trouble thinking of what to say, especially without having a cute baby picture that I want to share immediately to hand.

So here's something (almost) completely different.

Someone on my babywearing group posted this video a couple of weeks ago. Words are in French, but the visuals are clear enough..plus the music's pretty awesome. Anyway, it got me fired up again about acquiring a stretchy wrap. I've been wanting to get one in time for the next baby (whenever that will be), but a Moby is supposed to be good for babies weighing up to 35 pounds - and the Infanta is only about 16 right now, so I can use it with her for a goodly length of time, too. So, as my Christmas present, I ordered one last night. This will be my first bought carrier!

1. Happy New Year!

Kind of in a rush this morning, as we're going to Grandma and Grandpa's for the family Christmas celebration this afternoon, but here's a cute baby and momma picture.

I hope your headaches this morning don't overshadow the joy in possibility of a new year!

A year in review

My blogroll this morning was full of posts thinking about the past year, appropriate for the day. So here goes some of my year.

This was a big year for us. Buying house and having a baby are some of the biggest events in people's lives, and we did both!

I went from being a complete virgin as a doula to being one who has a birth under her belt, two if you count my own.

I went from being a complete recluse, with a social life entirely conducted online, to acknowledging my social needs and fulfilling them, forming new friendships with like-minded moms in my area. My social life is now conducted about 50% in person. :)

I went from being completely out of shape, unable to walk even a few blocks without exhaustion (although some of that was because of gestational changes), to regularly walking the mile or so to the nearest "downtown" area without thought, even with an increasingly heavy baby strapped to me.

My baby went from this:



a twenty-two week bump in my belly;

to this:



seven months old today and loving french fries and pickles. (I've invited Gran to write the story of the pickles, and I'll post it when she sends it to me.)

Things I want to do in 2009 include posting here every day (as I mentioned yesterday) and growing my doula business (and oh the social things I'll have to do for that... not fun for this introvert). I also want to stop thinking of myself as an overgrown teenager who's just faking this adult stuff (I'm 32 years old and a mother now! way past time to work through that), and to see if I can't get my teeth fixed. Lesser goal include going to the Sock Summit and working on growing my hair out.

2009, here I come!

Some videos

First off, some videos of the Infanta. You can see all the videos we've taken and edited of her here, but for those who don't have time to check them all out, here're a couple of my favorites.





Secondly, I realized the other day that (duh) I could find bellydancing videos on yootoob, so I did a search, and found some great stuff. First up is a video of "superstar" Rachel Brice doing her thing (with a couple of friends, ultimately):



And here's a dressing-room interview of her talking about an incredibly inspiring moment she had watching another dancer:



My New Year's resolution is to post here every day in 2009!

Christmas

Yup, we had it. My folks traveled up from the Bay Area by train; my dad stayed with my brother and SIL, and my mom stayed with us. Due to the snow and there only being one car (seating four adults and one baby) between two households and seven people, we didn't get together nearly as much as we'd intended, which was a bit sad, but we'll do better another time.

We did get a chance to get together both Christmas Eve (over at my brother's place) and Christmas Day (our house); the picture above is the Infanta giving the Nom of Approval to the tag of one of her presents. She loves the present itself, too, but you know babies and tags...

There has been Knitting! But I'm saving that for another post. :)

Fun stuff

I promise a baby news post in a bit, but first, something completely different.

My friend Bethany is a writer... and like many writers, she's in a writing group. Well, one of the other members is about to be published!! And she's holding a contest on her blog. Linky below!

I mentioned it's cold, right?

I mean, this is the Willamette Valley. It's supposed to rain a lot, get frosty now and then, maybe have a light dusting of snow in late winter. Right now, there's a pretty thick blanket of snow on the ground, enough that a little while ago Josh and I saw a couple going up the street on skis! This photo is of my front yard right now - that's snow up to the top of our bottom step. Incidentally, we had rain overnight, so that this was bare ground this morning. Right now? Freezing rain. What's going on, are we turning into Canada or something?

Baby, it's cold outside!

First of all, I apologize for having lied on Sinterklaas. I really did mean to come back and post that recipe and such... What can I say, it's reeeeeeelly easy to get sucked into not being able to do much besides chasing the Infanta (who's at the on-all-fours-and-rocking stage of learning to crawl - I would not be surprised at some real crawling by Christmas!). I promise, I'll post it sometime soon!

Now then, for the members of the audience who don't live near me, this was the view out my front door at noon today:



Notice the white stuff? We had a couple inches of it fall yesterday afternoon and evening. It had melted/settled a bit by the time I took that picture; now it's preparing to get verrry icy overnight. Go go down comforter!

Save Handmade!

A few of my readers may have heard about the law going into effect this February that will basically make it impossible for anyone but big manufacturers to sell items that come in contact with children. It seems reasonable in theory - protecting kids from lead - but it basically requires everything that goes into any item that's going to be used with or for children to be tested for lead. Every part of every item. This will absolutely kill the WAHM (work at home mom, for those not internet-acronym-savvy) industry, as well as many others, including all small craftspeople that make kid's toys.

This particularly hits home for me, since I was hoping to soon start a small sideline in things like soakers, just to have a little coming into the family budget from me.

At any rate, I've put a button in the sidebar that will take you to a site with more information, including details on the Act and contact information and sample letters to nag your politicos with. I strongly encourage you to do this!!!

Sinterklaas

First, a gratuitous baby shot, taken just moments ago:



Today is Sinterklaas. Now, I'm not Dutch, but my SIL is, and we thought this was such a good idea that we've adopted it ourselves. I have a few gifts for our immediate party - Josh and Lina and me, and my brother and his wife (we'll be celebrating at their place tonight) - and I can't show you pictures because that would spoil the surprise, now wouldn't it? Tomorrow, I promise. :)



I also have cookies - at least, cookies in progress. It's kinda hard to make cookies late in the evening with a tired baby and no daddy to take his shift... Nonetheless, I did manage to make half a batch of Dutch Letter Cookies (thanks to Norma for sharing the recipe!), with the rest to make this afternoon, and I have the dough chilled for Pepparkakor. Yay for ethnic European spice cookies! I would post the recipe, but I have a sleepy baby in my lap, and getting up to get it would disturb her. Again, tomorrow, I promise!

Reality Check.

My mom had a cancerous tumor removed yesterday. It was, as these things go, a minor deal - a melanoma "in situ", meaning it was just in that spot, nothing extending elsewhere, not even all the layers of skin - but is cancer ever a minor deal, really? And, to pound it home even more firmly, I just read a post about another blogger's mom's cancer, and now I'm getting pretty upset about it all. I mean, I can't even go be with her right now, because we're hundreds of miles apart. She's planning to come visit for Christmas, but I'd like to be with her now, sharing Lina's toothless laughter in person and helping with her recovery.

I think I'll start keeping enough room on a credit card for an emergency train trip.