An important quickie!

Lots to tell you, but I'm low on energy and I don't know when I'll have much time or energy in the near future. If any of you haven't heard yet - we have two kids now. ;-)

Some photos of the little guy are here.

Todd Eldon was born on 04/27/09 at 2:08pm.

Todd, Heather, Daddy and I are doing well, and as long as Todd passes the car seat test tonight we'll both be headed home tomorrow. :-)

He decided to follow in baby Jude's footsteps and come before 36 weeks, which caused a bunch of extra tests due to his prematurity, but so far he's passed them all with flying colors. Good temp, good weight, good glucose levels, etc. Mommy just wishes he would eat a little more, but he has a good sucking reflex and the pedi says he'll eat more in a few days when he's hungry. He's pretty laid back right now - hopefully he'll stay that way, but I'm prepared for a lot more fussiness when we get closer to his due date. DH and I were just happy to get sleep and keep him in the room with us last night, unlike our experience with Heather.

For those interested in the birth, I was able to do a VBAC and even though she wasn't able to get there right away because I went early, my doula was a big help. My water broke just before midnight and I was 1 cm when we got to the hospital. I was doing well but progressing VERY slowly and getting tired for potentially a long labor ahead. So I decided to get the epidural around 10am. It actually helped my body relax and progress really well - I was fully dialated and ready to push before 2pm! My anesthesialogist did an awesome job, the epi was just strong enough to help me relax and rest, and strong enough that I could still move and feel the pressure of the contractions. 10 minutes of pushing (I have no idea how anyone pushes for two hours!) and Todd was welcomed into the world.

I've got nothing

Sorry if you're checking in for interesting blog content, I'm going to disappoint you today.

I'm tired. I've got lots of work to do. There is a lot to do at home, and I'm not going to get any of it done this weekend.

But I've been reminded recently of how lovely and supportive my friends are. The girls weekend I went on last month was a great respite, and I've since been reminded in a number of ways how lucky I am to be a part of the give and take from a lovely group of women. And even friends who I don't talk to or communicate with as much as I would like to (or should) have been reminding me a lot lately how much they mean to me - whether it is sharing a story, gushing over the same TV show or just letting me know that they are thinking of me. And, of course, the time to spend with family and longtime friends over Easter gave me the usual warm and fuzzy feeling.

Consider this a blanket reminder that I am thinking of all of you and I promise that when things get less insane I will find more tangible ways of reminding you.

Happy Easter!

Heather enjoyed seeing her family this weekend and loved when the weather was nice enough to take the ball outside. This was a camera phone pose to send home to daddy.

Waiting

Heather asked about the garbage truck as soon as she woke up this morning.

Possible stash solution

I tossed the stash last night. It was in need of a tossing because it's been at least a year, there are multiple new yarn purchases that had either not been properly stored or not stored with similar weight yarn, and I was pretty sure a reorganization would result in a few less containers by making better use of my bigger ones. There were lots of project leftovers that needed to find a home, too. I'm also a little paranoid about the m-word* and wanted to head off any problems before they become big ones. (There are three bags ready to go in the freezer due to signs of problems, but luckily nothing flew out of any container I opened...)

*for the uninitiated, I'm talking about m-o-t-h issues. I find I don't even want to use the word, like the superstition of not mentioning "the scottish play" at the theater.

I was also keeping an eye out for potential baby yarns and possible yarns to help with my vest issues. I need to do a little swatching, but I may have found an alpaca solution for the vest. I've got 200 yards of a 100% alpaca purchased at The Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs, Ohio in fall 2006. The big pro is that it is a from-the-farm yarn like the ones I have, which will keep the whole vest "sustainable" without needing to add a factory yarn to the mix. The caveat is that it is hand-painted, so I need to see how it works up in a fair isle pattern. I'm also a little concerned that the lighter portions of the hand-dyed will be too similar to the oatmeal yarn and no provide enough contrast. But if it does work, it would be really beautiful.

Hopefully we'll get the nice weather we've been promised this weekend so I can take some progress photos to document this little journey.

Vest woes

Let me start by saying that I would probably be better off right now working on things like shawls, blankets, hats, mittens...you know things that are actually compatible with the body of a woman who is 7 months pregnant. I do have the advantage that I've made/I own several sweaters that fit my not-pregnant body well, but there are times that it would be simpler if I could just put what I'm making ON. The prime example being the nearly finished but zipperless Samus cardigan that I have no use for until at least October.

But my current yarny fever seems to be all about sweaters and vests, with only a mild interest in crocheted blankets, so I just seem to keep going with the things I can't wear.

I've got two things on the needles right now. I'm working on Bristow in my solo silk from Brooks Farm and so far it is turning out spectacularly. I can't know for sure since I can't put it on, but it looks comparable in size to things in my closet.

The other is this vest (pictured above) from Vogue Knitting Fall 2005. Consider the pattern really as a jumping off point. 1 - I'm not doing the body in ribbing because I'm using 100% alpaca, which doesn't hold ribbing well. 2 - I'm going to put an i-cord under the fair isle to emphasize the smallest part of my waist. 3 - I'm going to knit the whole thing in one piece and steek the openings. 4 - I was hoping to do the fair isle in just two colors (chocolate and oatmeal). 5 - I'm using a 100% alpaca in DK weight while the pattern calls for a heavier yarn in a wool blend.

My primary concern is that I just finished the first hank of chocolate brown yarn. I have 8" of body done, and I need to do 11" to get to the fair isle section. I was going to do the ribbed edging in the chocolate, too. I can do some math and weighing, but I'm just really not sure that it will be enough. And if I steek, there is no going back.

I'm considering:
- washing the body of the vest that is done so far to see if it grows in length (I did wash my swatch, but I didn't measure it before I washed it. Although I guess I could compare the row gauge of the washed swatch to the row gauge of the unwashed knitting...)
- working the fair isle back and forth so it would be possible to rip back if I run out of chocolate yarn.
- calling the alpaca farm to see about getting more chocolate yarn. (I was just being too thrifty while I was shopping)
- adding a third color to the fair isle pattern in order to need less chocolate yarn. (Pro - add more color to the sweater and I have a lovely pink angora blend that could work well, Con - vest is less neutral and might go with fewer shirts)
- weighing the knitting, weighing the skeins and counting the stitches I've knit so far to do some more advanced knitting math and see what's really possible. I enjoy being a "figure it out as I go" knitter most of the time, but I don't think that's a wise path this time.

When I'm not obsessed with things for me, I'm on the lookout for a good spring/summer hat pattern for baby-yet-to-be-named and I'm pondering a crocheted blanket for him made with these squares in either a sock yarn or Cotton Fine.

Letting out my inner geek

LOL!

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