Three weeks and counting

Josh snuck up on me while we were cuddling the other morning. Ok, we were sound asleep, too...

Vacuum Girl after her first bath; photo taken about 20 minutes ago. We did take pics while she was *in* the bath, but as I was bathing with her... those aren't for public consumption.

This was supposed to be for Father's Day...

But time moves very differently with a newborn.

Vacuum Girl is 2w 3d today, and at her 2-week appointment yesterday, she'd gained 13 oz. above her birth weight!

Finished Object - Picture heavy!

Carolina Rose was born May 31, 2008 at 10:04 am, 18 hours after my water broke unexpectedly, about 7-8 hours active labor, and an official 14 minutes of pushing (although my doula thinks it was more like 4 really good pushes). She weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce, and was 20.5 inches long. Doubtless she's longer now, as she's sucked like a Hoover from birth!

Incidentally, that's Carolina (Lina for short) with an "e" sound, not "i" like the state; the reverse of her fetal nickname, I now realize. Yes, I have condemned my child to a lifetime of being mispronounced. *grin*

This is the last belly pic before labor, at 38w3d. I hadn't realized how huge I looked before seeing this!

So there I was on Friday May 30th, going about my business, which happened to be picking up a prescription at the pharmacy. I had just paid when I felt a couple of little gushes... I finished my business and called my doula, who confirmed what I suspected: my water had just broken. It had broken pretty high up, so I didn't flood the carpet or anything, but still, I knew that my baby was going to be arriving much, much sooner than any of us expected. Ok, about a week sooner than her due date, but at that stage, a week feels like a million years! I continued on to meet Josh at his classroom as we had previously arranged (about five minutes' walk from the pharmacy), and with some telephoning and consultation, the three of us (Josh, Stacey-the-doula, and I) decided to wait a couple of hours and let traffic die down before heading to the hospital; it's about an hour away and lies along a major commute route. Meanwhile, Josh and I headed home to do what we could to get things moving, because my body wasn't really yet ready to go into labor, and Stacey got things ready on her end. By the time we left home, I was contracting lightly but regularly, but by no means in active labor.

Mom and babe, just minutes after birth.

So we got to the hospital, and got triaged, and yup, that was broken waters, and those were light and regular contractions, so they admitted me, and we got down to the business of getting my labor going in earnest. We walked the halls; we went outside (it was a gorgeous night) and I walked the labyrinth the hospital has in the pavement. I did some lunges midway through the labyrinth, and by the time I had come back out of it, my contractions were strong enough to make me pause, although I couldn't really call them active labor yet. So we went back inside. I sat on the bed and knitted for a while; we asked for a birth ball and I sat on that for a bit, too. My contractions were slowly strengthening and coming closer, and we decided to try the bathtub for a while. That was lovely, I must say, but by the time I got out, my labor had mellowed, and the midwife on call started talking pitocin. Since that was almost the last thing we wanted, we negotiated to try more natural methods first. Since no one could find a hospital-grade breast pump we could use, we decided to ask for some privacy so that Josh and I could cuddle and hope that worked. 45 minutes later, my labor was moving quite nicely enough that the "p" word wasn't mentioned again. :)

Isn't she precious?!

So I sat on the birth ball again for a while, and then lay in bed for a bit, because I wanted to try to rest some between contractions, and I wasn't able to while on the ball at that point. But lying in bed made the contractions more painful, so I was just thinking of moving back to the ball, when GUSH! My water broke low, with enough meconium (baby's first poop, for those who don't know) that we all felt some concern about getting the baby out without delay. Fortunately, my water breaking like that also got my labor really going in earnest, so delay wasn't a worry.

Back to the birth ball, and on to a timeless time in Laborland as I dozed between contractions, and sat up and breathed and moaned (and sometimes puked - hospital barf bags are fabulous!) through them. My voice was hoarse for days after. I had about two contractions, probably right before transition, where the "e" word floated through my head (that's epidural), but right after that I had the classic "I can't do this" moment while on the toilet, and it was time to start getting prepared for pushing.

The new family - yes, I know it's dark.

So the nurse checked my dilation, and I had a bit of a cervical lip, so everyone helped me on my side to encourage that lip to melt away. I did about five contractions there, as the urge to push got more and more overwhelming, and the medical folks got set up for the endgame. Those five or so contractions of not pushing felt longer than the whole night had been, and blowing instead of pushing was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life.

Finally, the medical folks were all ready, and Stacey had them set up a bar I could grab so I could squat and push more efficiently, and they helped me sit up so I could push. And push I did! Stacey was an invaluable help there, reminding me to push into my bottom and not into my face. After about three endless contractions, I could feel the baby right almost crowning, and I knew that she was almost here, and that I would probably tear pushing her out, because I knew there was no way I was going to be able to ease her out. So on that last contraction I pulled myself upright, gave a mighty push, and there was the head! And I pushed again, and there was all the body! And she was beautiful and purple as the midwife put her in my arms. It all happened so fast that the medical personnel didn't get a chance to see her sex, but I was holding her in such a way that I could feel that she was a girl, just like I'd hoped for nine long months and more. Because of the meconium, she needed to have her cord cut sooner than I'd hoped so that the goo in her lungs could get suctioned, but lo and behold, when Josh (not liking to touch icky things) passed on the opportunity to cut it, the midwife offered me the scissors. Of course I accepted. :) After the suction team had their way, they put my baby girl back in my arms so I could nurse her, and boy did she ever! She latched on well right away, and sucked so well I was comparing her to vacuums.

Meanwhile, the midwife (or "medwife", since she seemed much more inclined to the medical model than not) was starting to get impatient about delivering the placenta. I would have been happy to let it come when it was ready, which it clearly wasn't yet, but she was anxious and started applying traction. Ultimately, she was quite rough with it, and I hemorrhaged a bit. Not a ton, not dangerously, but enough that I clearly lost more blood than I should have, which loss I'm still recovering from. I did indeed tear as well; one second-degree tear and two near-skidmarks that the midwife stitched just because of their position. Still, while we're annoyed about the placenta incident, we're very satisfied overall with our experience, and wouldn't hesitate to go back to that hospital the next time.

Lina today.

Because of my hemorrhage, I was in the hospital an extra day, just to make sure I was going to be all right going home. I'm actually rather glad of the extra time, because it gave me a chance to remedy my near-ignorance about infant care, something Lina is tutoring me in every moment still. Lina stayed with me the whole time, usually snuggled in with me; Josh stayed with us, too, except for brief trips out for special goodies, or home to feed the cats. We came home on Monday, and I've spent the week mostly sleeping, or nursing, or trying to find a few minutes to take care of myself; I didn't even get a chance to look at the pictures until today!

Beauty and Praise

Hedra, an online acquaintance of mine, is a very wise woman. To our joy, she has recently started blogging. She always has interesting, well-informed, and thoughtful things to say, which was why we all (the community over at AskMoxie) all encouraged her to start blogging.

Today she wrote about praise and beauty, and I hope you find her remarks as thought-provoking as I did.

I've never worried too much about my appearance. When I was born, it was evident that I would be a person of some size, and my parents instantly embarked on a "big is beautiful" campaign, which worked quite well. I've never been "fat", although I've always had some womanly curves about me, which some who obsess about that sort of thing might think of as excess. Every once in a while, when my jeans get a bit too tight from drinking too much soda, I fuss about it a bit, to myself if no one else, but I never really change my habits. My body is as it is, and I like it as it is. There are things I'm not too fond of - my appendix scar, for one. But there are many more things I like, even love - my hair, sable and wavy, and beginning to turn the beautiful silver of my grandmother's; my eyes, dark hazel-brown, big and liquid; my waist, uneven from scoliosis but swelling sexily to my hips. I actually inherited most of my physical traits from my mother's mother, from my hair to the shape of my nose to the very way my pants crease over my thighs. It was a revelation the day I was looking at pictures of Gran as a very young woman, and admiring her beauty, and then realizing how much I resemble her (except for the part about being seven or eight inches taller). I wish I had some of those pictures of her to show you. Maybe I will someday!

First, the inevitable Belly shot. It's not a skin shot this time because I'm modeling my brand new, just arrived in the mail ten minutes before Bravado nursing tank. Comfy!!!

I'm now 37 weeks and pretty much down to playing the waiting game. I hate waiting, always have, but at least this give me knitting time. :) The most uncomfortable part is that I'm now suffering heartburn bad enough that it occasionally makes me throw up... and Maalox doesn't do much. >.< Oh, well, a few weeks, and that'll be done, and I'll have other things to worry about...


Remember the peonies I got a snowy shot of a few weeks ago? This one is currently gracing our dining room table. The color's a bit off - the depth and intensity are about right, but it's actually a vibrant magenta, not red. It also smells WONDERFUL, although the fragrance is very light and you have to stick your nose right in the flower to catch it. I'm so glad for the delightful surprises my new garden keeps giving me... even with the occasional unpleasant one.


These three little charmers are Josh's nieces (I suppose mine, too, now, but I haven't quite gotten comfy with that notion yet). In order of age and height, they are Rachel, Paige, and Jessica; Rachel and Jessica are sisters, and the daughters of the younger of Josh's two elder sisters. Paige is the daughter of Josh's eldest sister. They're all dressed up for their great-grandfather's funeral last Friday, and looked so sweet and beautiful that this is almost the only picture I (well, Josh, really) took of the occasion, despite my best intentions. The funeral was... ambiguously melancholy; Grandpa Roy was Grandma's second husband, and while a lovely man, most of Josh's family wasn't terribly attached to him. It did serve for an opportunity for me to cry some for my own departed grandparents, for whom I hadn't really had much chance to mourn. A little embarrassing to be sobbing at the funeral of a man I barely knew, but hey, you grieve when you can, right?

Greeeeeeeeeeennn!! ...Eventually.

Norma is such a gardening inspiration... damn her eyes. I mean, I've been craving gardening space for years, and one of the things I was looking for while house-hunting was gardening space, and I was so happy when this house, in addition to its other perfections (well, qualities, anyway) had two raised beds already installed in the back yard. But then I look at what I can do, and what she has... *sigh* I really shouldn't compare, she's had her garden for years, and this is my first, and I'm pregnant and mobility challenged, to boot. Next year it'll be better. I still covet her bed edge thingies.


Tomatoes! Itty bitty yellow pear tomatoes, which Josh and I both love. The big sprawly thing is the parsley that our realtor gave us as a moving-in present, and which I had been keeping on the kitchen windowsill. The rosemary is still there, but the parsley had grown beyond my ability to keep it happy in a pot. What you can't see (because they haven't sprouted yet) are marigolds, to the right of the tomatoes, and chamomile, up in the watered panhandle.


This is the current state of the larger bed. I turned the soil in the last couple of days - half at a time because I'm so gimped right now - and now I'm getting out with the hoe and smoothing the clumps out. I expect that to take about two more days, because I can only do about a third at a time before I poop out. I wish I could do a better job of smoothing, etc., but I'm doing what I can. This is going to be flowers! Veggies, which I shall do in abundance another year, would be redundant because of the CSA we're doing, and I also anticipate that they would just be too dang much work with a newborn. So, flowers, many of them edible, to look pretty in the yard and to put in vases inside. :)


I noticed the other day that the climbing rose near our back door has begun developing buds. This spring has been so cold and dreary that I thought the roses wouldn't flower for another month at least, but here's a promise that it'll be only a week or two!


And the inevitable belly shot. 36 weeks today, and Igor is still very much a wigglewort. We had some fun times in the last couple of weeks with Igor experimenting with heads-up positioning. One reason I've been doing so much garden digging, despite my gimpiness, is that I discovered that the vigorous exercise made Igor turn back head-down to where s/he's supposed to be. Effective, and good for getting me more in shape, but rough on my poor bones and muscles!

It's all over but the Hemming

So I spent Tuesday afternoon working on this dress. I cut it out about 8 years ago, when I had fewer mature curves and pregnancy wasn't even on the horizon (for one thing, I was about to break up with my long-time boyfriend... but that's another story). I don't really remember why I didn't sew this up immediately - it can't have taken me more than 3 hours to put it together now - but I suspect heat (I remember it being late summer when I cut it out) and laziness factored in. Anyway, it's been on the edges of my crafting mind ever since, and I was reminded of its existence when I went through my fabric stash the other day. Since my adventures with the mei tai reminded me of how much I enjoy sewing for its own sake, I decided to pull this out and get it sewn. I have no clue when I might be able to wear this; for one thing, I seldom attend occasions when its formality would be appropriate, and for another, I have no idea when my body might be this shape again, if ever. Still, on the off chance I might be able to wear it while still nursing, I left the slit at the front bodice (a design feature present when I bought the pattern) open a bit further than it's supposed to be. I suppose that when I get to the finishing (I also need to tack the lining down to the zipper in back) I'll put a hook and eye at the front so it doesn't gape so badly.


At the time I bought the fabric and lining for the dress (I think I was working at JoAnn's at the time - all hail craft store employee discounts!), I also found this lovely sheer. I think it was a remnant, which is why there isn't quite as much of it as I would prefer in a scarf of its type, but it went so well with the dress fabric that I couldn't resist. It, too, needs work; I'm thinking that I won't bother rolling its hems by hand, as I would with silk. I'll probably follow a thread so that the edges are absolutely on the straight grain, and then zigzag. But all of the finishing will have to wait for a day I'm feeling like handsewing, which I'm not, at present. ;P Maybe in the next few weeks, as I feel less and less like sitting in hard wooden chairs...


And finally, the inevitable belly picture. 35w, 2d, and I feel like I've exploded in the last week and a half. Of course, this is the period in which Igor should be pretty much just finishing up, gathering minerals, and adding weight, so I'll be getting bigger by the day, but it's still startling. Josh looked at me the other night and said something about how weird it'll be for me not to have this great belly any more, and it will be, but I'm ready for it! I don't want Igor to come before s/he's ready, but *I'm* ready to be done.

Babywearing?!

In preparation for Igor's appearance, I've been getting my babywearing gears together. Amy, for whom I made those STR Monkeys earlier in the year, made me a sling in exchange for them:


I think the sling is going to have a fairly steep learning curve, but that it'll be worth it once I do get it figured out. Coincidentally, Amy's most recent blog post is about babywearing!

I also spent a couple of afternoons last week making myself a Mei Tai-type carrier, which I think will be much easier to figure out - well, once I figure out the logistics of actually getting a baby into it without dropping her!


Filling the carriers is my teddy bear, who has been with me since my burst appendix eleven years ago. I think it's very cool that you can use these even while round almost to bursting with another baby - pictures of that tomorrow! I've just exploded in the last week or two.

Monkeys Without Borders

I know. I suck. There she was, the Yarn Harlot in all her brilliant and hysterically funny glory, and this is the best picture I got of her. I didn't even get a picture of her holding the baby whose birth I attended six weeks ago (and whose kind mum is how I got to go). On the other hand, when said mum mentioned that I'd been her doula, Madame Pearl-Mcphee shook my hand, with enthusiastic words of praise about how important we are. It was enough to fluster anyone.


The fabulous folks at Blue Moon Fiber Arts had cooked up a special colorway of Socks That Rock Lightweight for the occasion called "Knitters Without Borders". In order to not finish my mother's Monkey (see below) too soon, I wound my skein... and still ended up knitting Mom's sock halfway down the foot. Anyway, I took my precious ball home and promptly cast on for one pattern... then decided that not only did I not have enough yarn in the one skein to complete that pattern, but that the white/black/rust-red/gray/mauve variegations really didn't suit the lace. So I frogged that start, and started another Monkey, this one for me. You can't really see it in the above pic, but I'm several rows into the heel - this pattern knits ridiculously fast for me! I'm thinking that I'm going to wear these for my labor - just seems appropriate in so many ways I can't count.

So yeah, Mom's Monkeys. Mom had been working on this sock (well, not *this* one, she was doing a plain stockinette sock) for a couple of years now. She was taking so long not because she hates the yarn or anything (Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, colorway is Lorikeet) - quite the contrary. But in her life, she's used her hands enough that she's got some arthritis in them, and can't knit so much anymore, and this sock just fell to the bottom of the pile, one way and another. When she was visiting for my brother's wedding a few weeks ago, we were talking about knitting (naturally), and doing a bit of show and tell, and she pulled her version of this sock out - barely longer than the last time I saw it, over a year ago. So I said, "Mom, I need more things to knit, my stash is low and not likely to be replenished for a good long time, why don't you leave that with me and I'll do something fun with it." Well, that was the gist, anyway. She agreed, and left the incipient sock (now frogged to a happy little ball) with me... I started this Monday morning on the way to a prenatal appointment, and got this far between that travel and listening to the Harlot Tuesday evening... and now I'm waiting for the first of the month and payday so Mom can send the second ball and I can finish the pair. Did I mention this pattern goes super fast for me? I mean, it's just ridiculous. The leg of the Monkey Without Borders above I knitted almost entirely in about 4 hours last evening.

I feel the desire to comment here about how I knit Monkeys. When I made my first pair last summer, I fiddled a few false starts (alliteration not entirely intended), and found that for me, I really do need to use US 2s on the leg, because the pattern just doesn't have the stretchiness of the ribs and lace patterns I frequently use. On the other hand, I sincerely dislike the feel underfoot of stockinette from 2s (not to mention I think the gauge I get doesn't wear as well as a tighter one), so for the heel to toe portions, I switch to US 1s, and decrease a few stitches less in the gussets. This modification, of course, is for fingering weights; anything heavier, like the STR Mediumweight I used for the Monkeys I knit my fellow doula Amy, and I use the larger needles throughout.

Snow in April?!

Last weekend sun and near-record highs, this weekend snow. I can't think of any explanation other than global warming, honestly.

But this morning I woke up to the most beautiful sight: snow falling in the lilac outside our bedroom window! So I had to go out and take pictures before doing anything else.



Here are those same tulips that were so glorious in the sun last Sunday:


And this is I think a peony? Anyway, see the falling snow?


Sadly, as I post, the snow has turned to a light rain that's melting everything, so I'm glad I got out and got these pictures when I did.

And there has been knitting! I finished the knitting on my Mommy Snug early last week (finally!), and then in the middle of the week I heard this cold snap was coming, so I decided that was the best encouragement I could have for seaming the darn thing instanter. I'm not entirely sure about the strength of the underarm seams; I did the whole thing in half the plies of the base yarn (KnitPicks Wool of the Andes), and I think the underarms might need more reinforcement than that. Well, I don't expect this sweater to get very heavy use, at least any time soon... I do think it looks good, though, even though the front shot is really blurry!


I will say I didn't expect it to be so long, even on me; if I ever make it again, I'll save myself some trouble and only work one set of short rows! (this one has two)

Pictures!

I done borked my intarnetz posting these pics. They're being stubborn about being reordered and such, probably because I'm putting them in an edit (long story), so here are they are, as I promised, but in no particular order.

First up are a few garden pics. In the first, you can see the lovely show of bulbs that has popped up in the last weeks. I claim credit for none of them.

Here you may see some of the highly ambitious grape hyacinths (they're trying to take over the yard!!!!) as well as the partial hoeing job I did on the one bed the other day. Note also the incipient raspberry canes that I need a shovel-like thing to cope with; I think I can borrow one from a neighbor until we can get our own.


This is a BSJ I have all but finished. I still need to join the shoulder seams and weave in the ends, but I really like how it's turning out. I'm making it (and a few other things when my queue is clearer) out of two pairs of Koigu socks I loved dearly, and so they got holes in the heels, and since I hate the way darns feel under my feet, I'm recycling the yarn for the next generation. :)


Speaking of the next generation... here's mah belleh at 32 and a half (or so) weeks. Igor has been making her/his presence most emphatically known lately, and although nothing *hurts* yet, I would not be at all surprised if I came out of this with a cracked rib or two.

Below is a shot purely for the cute of it. When Peppar is just-woken-up sleepy, she puts up with the most remarkable array of nonsense. In this case, Josh arranged my teddy bear on her. I should submit the shot to http://www.stuffonmycat.com/



I'm not sure why this shot got doubled. It's my rose, the one I've been nursing for two whole years now(!!!!!!), being very happy in today's sunshine.


This is a nearly finished (needs buttons) BSJ my mom made for Igor; it's probably 6 month or so sized, which is good, because the ones I make all turn out 0-3 month sized. :/ It's Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted (I forget the exact name, so sue me!); we both love how the varigations pooled in deliberate-seeming sections in the over-the-bum section.




This doubled, too, but I think that one was a user error. Yet another BSJ, this time in Dalegarn Baby Ull. I'm very fond of how the rainbow striping turned out. Again, I need to weave in the ends and seam the shoulders. Sense a pattern? I sure do!

Aaaand the Igor belleh, this time from the front. I really need to apply the nice lotion more often to my poor appendix scar down the bottom front there. :/

Has it really been a month?!

...I guess it has. sheesh.

I'd love to post some up-to-date pics of the house and my 32-week belly, but honestly, I don't have any. I was out in the yard a little bit ago, doing a bit of work on one of the raised beds that was already in place, and exhausted my (feeble) store pulling the top layer of greens off the bed and then hoeing about half of it before my body declared me done. This is the smaller of the beds, mind you, at about 4' x 5'. I was going to take my camera out with my lunch for digital proof of my efforts... but I forgot, and now I'm too limp to want to go back out. Soon, my friends... I promise. Probably.



This is not me this week. This is me two weeks ago, at my brother's wedding, where I was a witness - if it had been larger and/or less casual, I would have been Best Woman, but meh. It was still lovely. I would post more pictures, but I don't have the permission of the people involved, so I won't. This is as close to a belly shot as I've taken in the last month!

There has been knitting, but again, I'm too limp at the moment to want to fish it out and have it meet the camera. So I'll post it another time.

For now, this is proof I'm alive! As if my novel-length comments on everyone's blogs aren't enough. ;P

Updates in the Life

First, I give you belly pics, because I know you all are just panting to see them:



And now, what's really exciting:


This is our house! Ok, technically the bank owns it... but don't banks technically own most people's houses? This one's ours; we got the keys on Friday, and we've been taking several trips a day since, moving smaller pieces. This is why I'm late posting belly pics this time. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

It's not a big house - barely bigger than our apartment - and the brown isn't all that great, and the astroturf on the front porch has GOT to go asap... but it's ours! It was built in 1915, and for all its age and oddities, it's really lovely inside, with tons of cabinets in the kitchen and gorgeous moldings around every conceivable doorway and other opening, and a wood stove, and quite a nicely large back yard. It needs some love (read: elbow grease) here and there, but truly, it was an amazing house to find in our price range and time frame, not to mention the very nice neighborhood it's in! We're very happy to be moving in and having it be OURS!!! Apartment living is the pits.

We plan to be living in the house by this weekend (especially if we can get the gas line put in by then... for the stove :) ), so my next set of belly pics will be in a different bathroom!

Yes, there has been knitting. Just not much, because even though I can't do any lifting in this move, there still isn't very much time for knitting right now.

Cherry-Poppin' Momma!

I got to go to my first birth last night! It was a very fast, intense labor - I left home at about 5 in the afternoon and was home at about 2:30 am, with 4 hours of active labor between the mom's water breaking and the delivery of her bouncing baby boy. If I wasn't hooked on birth before, I am now!

There were times I felt a bit at a loss for how to help, but I'm sure experience will help fill in those gaps. And boy do I want more! (Experience, that is.) I did feel, however, like all my training for the moment did, in fact, adequately prepare me, which I'd been anxious about beforehand. But actually, it was easy for me - just follow my instincts, as honed by my training and reading and discussions with other doulas. And honestly, I think the mom's labor was so fast and intense that maybe even a much more experienced doula might have been a bit at a loss at points (I hope my mom doesn't have an issue with that comment if/when she reads this!). All in all, though, I think it was a very positive experience all around, which makes me happy. :)

Feeling a bit blue

This has been a pretty hard week for me, emotionally. I ran out of brain meds last weekend, and of course the pharmacy was closed on Saturday, so I couldn't get my new supply until Monday. Well, Monday night my WoW guild ran smack into a humongous pile of drama, and I lost it. I think I would have been ok without all this; just sailed on until the meds kicked in again, no muss, no fuss. But the drama, which would probably have made me upset anyway, took my unbalanced brain chemistry and threw me off the Grand Canyon. I'm still trying to pick myself up.

And then today I hear that one of my oldest friends had her baby last night. Now, this friend (more like an acquaintance these days, but friend is shorter to say, and we did used to be quite close) is notorious for avoiding all possible discussion of emotional topics. I was hurt, but not very surprised, when she barely acknowledged to the email list we're both on (all my contact with her these days) that she was pregnant at all, and of course didn't mention a due date or anything like it. I had to get a few bare scrapes of info by making my brother (who saw her about three weeks ago) screw it out of her; all he could say was that she was due this month. And then he told me this noon that she popped last night; turns out he found out from another friend, who had just the most basic birth announcement information. Well, I can see not having the brainspace to make announcements yet, but to send it to some friends and not others makes me grumpy. It's like being annoyed at water for being wet, but there it is.

Personally, I can't imagine not wanting to shout the news to the whole world, much less to my general acquaintance - having a baby is exciting! And then, of course, I personally am obsessed about birth stories these days, one way and another. ;P

Anyway, I got a little mild revenge (which satisfies my super-sensitive, rather petty-this-week self) by posting gushing congratulations and such to the list we're all on. Snarky? Guilty! Petty? Damn straight! Exactly what I would have said for real? Definitely! What made it snarky and petty was posting it before they made any kind of announcement at all. ;P But I don't feel at all bad - they might never have done so anyway.

But being petty and then dwelling on it makes my soul all sticky, so here's a kyoooote kitteh picture to leave you with!

Bleh.

Igor has been apparently trying out for gymnastics and karate championships simultaneously today. I can't blame the little bugger, it won't have the space for it too much longer... but still. It's not painful at all, but it's not precisely comfortable, either.

I have been wondering, on and off, whether I'll miss the feeling of the little one moving around inside me. I'm sure that by the time Igor's born I'll be glad to be done gestating, but... Just one of those random pregnancy wonderings, I guess.

For Br. Vincent

This takes you back, doesn't it?

(for everyone else, this is supposed to be a .gif that's a LoTR parody... but Blogger apparently doesn't like animated gifs. :( )

Has it really been two weeks?

Astonishingly, it has. I have been terribly distracted with house stuff, game stuff, knitting, and even baby! I'm still knitting furiously on the kilt hose; I'm about halfway done with #2, with ambitious plans to have it finished this week. I don't have any current in-progress pictures of that; if you really want some, scroll down to the pix for #1, and assume they're identical. House stuff is progressing; I still don't want to post much until everything is definite (like, we have the keys in hand), which will be about two weeks, depending.

This will be a picture heavy post, though! I took a few minutes this morning to slightly alter a lovely smocked maternity blouse my mom sent me, that could so easily roll over into being a nursing top, too, with just a few modifications... first on the list, however, was eliminating the silly band across the front neck which severely restricted the neckline size:


First step was cutting the silly thing across the middle.


Second step was folding the ends over and stitching them down (ignore my unmanicured hands). Converting this to a nursing top will involve gently ripping the seam down the middle front and adding buttons - I'd love to raid my mom's collection of tiny antique pearl buttons for this, but failing that, I'll use commercial plastic baby buttons. Upon examining the inside of the center seam, I find it's not even solidly French seamed or anything, just one side lapped over the other and sewn down. This will be cake to alter.

While getting to my sewing things to perform this minor adjustment, I was struck once again by the question of the ages: how did my sewing basket


become a knitting basket?


Visible are my nearly-finished BSJ made from favorite old socks and two skeins of KnitPicks Gloss, one green, one purple, both mates to to socks in-progress. I'll finish the BSJ when the wedding knitting is done.

Last but not least, I have my bi-weekly belly pics. The more observant among you will recognize the shirt I'm wearing as the afore-mentioned smocked blouse, post surgery. What's really astonishing to me is that I still have a waist, even at 26 weeks and with my baby belly getting more obvious!




I do wish the maternity jeans would stop falling down, though. :( This may be endemic to the design, however, and I'll gladly put up with it, anyway, just to wear jeans again!