We have achieved lappy!

It's one of these; not super-duper fancy, but it works! I am, in fact, posting from it now. I'm having a little bit of an interesting time adapting to the smaller keyboard, but not too bad. Whee!!!

Thing to make your blood boil.

Rixa posted a link to this article. It tells the tale of a Peruvian couple who were brought up on child pornography charges, and whose children were taken from them by CPS, simply on the issue of a photo of the mother breastfeeding her son. It's absolutely ridiculous that the couple are being forced to call something so beautiful and natural "wrong". Dude, I have nude pictures of breastfeeding the Infanta; they're not something that I choose to share with just anyone, but neither was this photo.

Harrumph. Time to go poke at the fire and nurse the Infanta, maybe help my blood pressure calm down.

More Snow?!

The view from our porch at 6:30 this morning. No, I didn't take these.

The weather continues to be freaky. I suppose it's a good thing that I haven't gotten around to making my window boxes yet..

Last Night

was the new moon. And it showed! I spent a good two and a half hours trying to get the Infanta to sleep (ok, Daddy had her for a chunk of that, while I played with crochet), while myself exhausted and fighting a nasty headache I'd had since mid afternoon, which caffeine and Tylenol had barely scratched. It wasn't pretty. I finally said some bad bad words and brought her into bed with us (after dosing her with motrin); she immediately latched on to the nearest boob and nursed herself to sleep. Why couldn't she have done that two hours before?! Then she slept quite well.

Perhaps ironically, Moxie posted about managing stress today.

Blah.

SOMEBODY woke me up at a much earlier hour than I'm accustomed to, climbing all over Mama and wanting to play. Now, an hour and a half later, she's crashed out on my lap.

I think I'm going to take us both back to bed for a while.

Yay, photos!

We figured out the issue my camera cable was having - corrosion on the contacts! Zomg! All hail the cleaning power of fingernail polish remover.



My local Ravelry knitting group keeps a charity project going every couple of months. This last time it was preemie hats for the local hospital. We found out they need upwards of ten a month! So, since they're so easy and fast to make, we've decided to make it an ongoing project. Ravelrized here.



The Infanta and her first cellphone. Actually, it's an old broken one of mine; she's been grabbing for ours recently, so we decided to pull one out that she can play with. She was enchanted. Shiny!



Finally: is that Mama behind those glasses?!

Guess who?

This isn't actually the Infanta, it's me at pretty much the age she is now, performing the Infanta's current favorite trick. Like mother, like daughter, eh?

OMG.

The teacher list for the Sock Summit is up... and it reads like a freaking who's who of the knitting world. I swear, if EZ were alive, she'd be teaching! Her daughter is..

Let's hope the classes are priced humanly, eh?

Garden update: The sprouts I mentioned yesterday? More like six inches. And the daffodils are showing buds. I should really prune the roses this weekend.

Signs of Spring

The days have been almost warm at times recently - mid 50s is almost warm, right? - and somewhat sunny, so we've been getting out and walking a bit. Wednesday I popped the Infanta in the stroller and we wandered around the neighborhood for almost an hour, ending with a good fifteen or twenty minutes at the park, watching some kids play. She so wanted to join them! But I'm thinking that crawling + bark dust = bad news, so while I let her stand at my knees, I didn't let her crawl off.

While we were walking, I found a yard all bordered in crocuses! Just beautiful. I pointed them out to Herself, who I think noticed... hard to tell, you know? I saw another yard, a big one, with a whole array of raised beds; no bed boxes, just long rows of heaped earth. Some were full of grasses, some were heaped with straw, a couple still had onions, and there was one section with plastic support over it - obviously protecting something against cold.

Thinking about these yards makes me appreciate what's going on in my own yard more. Around the edges of the house, the camas lilies, daffodils, and irises all have leaves about two inches tall, and I'll bet that if I went into the back yard I'd find that the tulips were doing the same thing.

It won't be winter forever!!!

I like

I like cloth butts and I cannot lie
You other mothers can't deny
When a babe crawls in
With an itty bitty waist
And a round thing in your face
You've got cloth!

With apologies to Sir Mixalot - this has been floating through my head for months!

And then there were Two

Are you having issues seeing posts? I ask because Josh couldn't see the overall list yesterday, but if he clicked on individual posts, he could see them. I can see it all just fine, so I won't know if there's a problem.

The Infanta cut her second tooth, probably sometime yesterday. I was only sure about it late in the evening, around maybe 8? Whereupon we gave her some motrin... and then she was wide awake and playful until after 11. *sigh* At least she wasn't screaming.

I got to watch Stardust last night, while attempting nurse Herself to sleep in the rocking chair. Wow!!! Really an amazing movie, and all it's cracked up to be. Sadly, I think we woke the Infanta up at one point, laughing hard at Robert de Niro's character! Anyway, I highly recommend this movie. Some of the fairytale aspects are a teeny bit predictable, but what do you want, it's a fairytale! Beautiful design, great acting, amazing dialogue.. I'll be looking for the book soon - ok, and also the film itself, as what we watched last night came via Netflix.

When Tuesday is Monday

Yesterday was lovely. We spent it quietly doing couple of chores, juggling the Infanta (who was inclined to be very fussy), and playing Agricola. It was even nice enough during the afternoon that a walk to Safeway was very enjoyable!

Today isn't being so fun so far... mainly between the Infanta being fussy and my glasses only helping somewhat. *sigh*

Oh, well, you can't have everything.

The cure for my migraines is...

glasses! Bet you didn't know I had them. :)

They're reading glasses with a very mild prescription, and I don't need them most of the time, but apparently I do right now. Since they're about 5 years old now, it's probably past time for a new pair; fortunately we have medical insurance that will cover that nicely.

Now I have the fun of adjusting to them all over again... but at least I've had the pleasure of the Infanta being thoroughly confused by them. *evil laugh*

Signs of Spring

A little while ago, Josh called me into the living room to look out the door at the tree in our front yard. This is the same tree that houses a colony of honeybees, but today it was proving a tempting target for a pair of woodpeckers. I commented that I didn't recommend they check out the hollow in the tree for a nest... next thing I knew, one of the birds was heading straight in. Oh well, not my damage...

Twice overnight, going to get the Infanta to nurse, I found her standing up while inquiring for me. Good thing Josh had already shifted the base of the crib to its low position! Wonderfully, though, she gave me a nice four-hour stretch of sleep during the middle of the night... I love my baby, and I don't mind night nursing at all, but every two to three hours at her age is... wearing.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Despite our nonexistent budget for extras right now, Josh has managed to get me both flowers and chocolate. I love this man...

The Infanta, having mastered crawling and cut her first tooth, is patently not content with all-fours locomotion. Oh no, menacing the kitties on their own level isn't enough; she now has to work on walking. To that end, she's begun climbing everything in sight (especially me), and yesterday was consistently making it to her feet - when she wasn't falling (usually in range of hard things to bonk her head on) due to misjudging either whatever she was holding on to, or whatever she was reaching for. We're doomed, doomed I tell you...

I do not recommend

Combining teething, separation-anxious babies and migraines.

This just in!

The Infanta had her first tooth finally come in late last evening. I knew it was imminent, as I had been able to see it (and the one next to it, so she'll have two soon) for a couple of weeks, but as with all such things, exact timing was impossible to predict.

I feel like a bad mom on some levels for not connecting the teeth just below the surface with a number of behaviors she's been showing recently - frequent nursing, poor sleep, generally escalated fussiness (like the two hour crying jag night before last), and that adorable one-sided dubious smile she's been sporting since Sunday. I didn't connect that last until I remembered at just before 6 this morning she that must be in pain. When I turned the light on to give hers some Motrin, I saw that her face was tense on the side of the tooth, but not the other. Duh!

On the other hand, I can't feel too bad, really - for one, this is my first time at all this, and no book can really tell you what exactly to expect. For another, every kid reacts differently, and the Infanta's been showing possible signs of teething on and off for the last six months!! Also, since she can't tell me what's going on in English, I have to interpret the signals she does give me, and they could mean so many different things that I have to guess. I mean, she isn't generally fussy unless there's something specific - but which specific is it? Hunger? Tiredness? Pain from a bonked head? And why has she been bonking her head so much lately? Well, I guess now I know.

In the 16 hours she's had the tooth, she's managed to bite me twice, but that's not even the main reason I already miss her toothless grin.

this'nthat

First, a very cool video I found from a listserve of Salma Hayek breastfeeding an African baby. I'm so not a celebrity chaser, but I thought it was very cool, and even more so as she discusses her own feelings about it, and shares a family story on the subject.



On another subject, Hedra talks about men. But maybe not how you'd think! Hedra, can I be you when I grow up?

Snow again, snow again, Jiggetty-Jig

It was snowing when I woke up this morning (the first time). So I pulled the curtain back to watch it, which we did until it turned all to rain. Then I went back to sleep for a while. So much for Stephanie complaining that in Oregon, snow is a singular word! Just because we're not generally buried under mountains of the stuff... and really, what kind of person willing lives in a climate where that's guaranteed to happen? :D

One of my current knitting projects is making a couple of preemie caps for my local Ravelry group's current charity project - preemie caps for our local hospital. Super easy - take fingering yarn and the size needles you prefer (I'm using 3mm simply because that's what came easily to hand), cast on a decent amount of stitches, knit for a while, cast off. I'm using Baby Ull (of which I have a fair bit of leftovers stashed), casting on 64 stitches, and knitting in 2x2 rib for 4 inches, before decreasing. For the one I've finished (yes, I've finished something!!!), I decreased at 8 points around with p2togs, which made for a pretty and easy top. I'm making another in "boy" colors (the first was lavender and white), and hoping that they bring some brightness to the lives of some stressed preemie parents. I'm taking the opportunity to kind of make them prayer hats, too, and knitting in intentions of health, warmth, strength, and love - I figure preemies can use that.

Not just for throwing!

The Infanta discovered how to drink from a sippy cup last night. Being a total dork, and bursting with maternal pride, I tweeted it (yes, I have succumbed to Twitter). I got a picture, but since the cable connecting my camera and my computer is acting weird, I can't share it. :(

There continues to be knitting and cooking and all that other good stuff, but I just don't feel like writing more about it right now. And, it being past noon, it's time for us to get out of our jammies and into real clothes!

Oh, yes, I've given up numbering my posts; it was helpful for a while, but now it's just tedious.