Quickly

Ummm...let me see if I can be coherent on 4 1/2 hours of sleep. I'm pretty sure there is something about Heather that I have been meaning to post and keep forgetting.

Oh well. I'll remember someday.

I do want to tell you that Heather LOVES pasta. Spaghetti sauce, pesto sauce and mac'n cheese will be eaten enthusiastically. If anyone out there has any great sauce recipes with healthy ingredients (especially with interesting vegetables) I'm all ears.

This weekend I thought it would be nice to let her try out the toddler crayons she got for her birthday. After spending some time banging the little plastic animals together that act as the crayon "grips", she set them aside and focused her attention on the paper. :-)

So industrious and serious!

Since a few people have asked me, here is a little update on my progress and it isn't great. I ended up working rather late on Friday night and spending much of Heather's nap time doing work, too.

So, I dealt with the items in the upstairs hallway. I dealt with half the clutter in the foyer and made a minor dent in the dining room. I did a couple of loads of Heather's laundry and made a quick pass through her clothes to pull out what's too small.

I didn't go to bed as early as I would have liked and was up too late last night working.

I travel for work this week and have other deadlines, so the insanity will continue through most of this week.

And with that, I have to get back to work...

This weekend

I'm going to start making my to-do list public and we'll see how much I get crossed off. I've been hesitant to make a real list because I thought it would just be overwhelming, but now that I've made a dent in the cleaning process it doesn't seem so bad.

Other than some laundry I haven't gotten a lot done this week, but I have managed to maintain the clean state in the kitchen. I guess maintaining the status quo is better than sliding back into messiness! I also managed to cook four of the past five nights and the fifth night was leftovers. Not bad.

Must do:
- Write birthday thank you notes
- Deal with clutter in foyer and dining room
- Laundry
- Put away items currently "hanging out" in upstairs hallway
- Sleep

Next steps:
- Deal with clutter in bedroom and dressing room
- Clean bathrooms
- Dust, vacuum and mop first floor
- Dust, vacuum and mop second floor
- Weave in ends and sew up baby items that I finished knitting this week
- Start next couple of baby gifts

In my mind I would like to get the house to an easy to main state so that during the next few visits from my parents we can deal with more long-term projects - like cleaning my office and maybe finally finishing the mural in Heather's room. ;-) At least the alphabet is complete...but I never got to add the bugs and butterflies!

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Also, a nursing note. For the past four days, Heather has gone to her high chair for a snack instead of requesting to nurse after daycare/work. I thought this was going to be the last session she would get rid of, and it looks like it is going to be the first. It will be interesting to see if she requests a late afternoon/early evening session this weekend or not.

I'm not really ready to wean, but dropping this session isn't bothering me as much as I thought it would. So I guess if she decides to wean I will probably be okay with it. A little sad but okay. And relieved that we don't have to force her to wean down the road.

We're down to 2-3 sessions a day and I guess we'll wait and see what happens!

Goal?

There's probably no way I'll get that much knitting time in the next couple of weeks...but it would be cool to wear "Ivy" on March 20th. It is a cardigan, after all. :-)

Sweater day to honor Mister Rogers

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

No one knows what the weather will be like on March 20, but the people behind "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" are declaring it sweater-wearing weather.

March 20 would have been the late children's TV host's 80th birthday, and Family Communications Inc. is urging everyone -- not just in Pittsburgh, but all over the world -- to wear a favorite sweater that day in honor of Fred Rogers' legacy. Family Communications is the production company behind the long-running "Mister Rogers" public TV series.

David Newell, who plays Mr. McFeely on the show, stars in a YouTube video created to spread the word about the March 20 sweater day.

The sweater event will cap off the "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Days celebration March 15-20, in which area cultural institutions will offer family events and free or reduced admission prices and family activities. "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Days is also part of Pittsburgh's 250 anniversary celebration.

-- Adrian McCoy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Productivity

The kitchen is clean.

This might not seem like a big deal, but I feel like we've been digging out from under tons of clutter and disarray for months (House Tour - Mastitis - Holidays - Thrush - Work Travel), and this past weekend was the first time in a while that I went to bed on Sunday night feeling like real progress had been made. We are caught up on dishes, the counters are clean and I did some of the reorganizing needed to free up counter space and only keep the really necessary items out all of the time. My spring cleaning goal will be to go through all of the cabinets and drawers to organize some more, but it is not a time-critical project.

Now that Heather is going to bed rather reliably at 8pm (*Knock on wood*), I'm going to try to use my evenings to make some more dents in the laundry and clutter. It would be great if I could get more done during the week so that weekend nap time could be used for longer projects like cleaning out my office and spring cleaning/purging/organizing. It's just a matter of not sitting down in front of the TV after I put her to bed. If I do, the night is toast. :-) I at least need to find a balance where I'm not spending 3 hours every night in front of the TV. There are no knitting deadlines that require that right now!

The Tulip Cardigan

I finally uploaded some photos of this finished sweater to Ravelry, so I figured I should post them here, too. The pictures were taken at Amelia's first birthday party. We had a lovely time. :-)




I will do this pattern again. Probably not with the called for colors/yarn, but it is a really nice top down cardigan pattern.

There is enough of this yarn left that I might try to make a newborn sized sweater with what remains...

1 year

I keep thinking of sentimental and sappy "1 year ago" posts, but seriously there are just not enough hours in the day.

I just got back from two days in Canton, NY and things at work continue to be insane. I just have too much work and there aren't enough hours in the day. Period. And everyone in the office is overloaded, so there is no one to "give" any of my work to. Plus, the guy helping out with one of my jobs is new to us, new to our CAD software and has only worked in residential architecture before...so he has a steep learning curve and need very specific instructions that I don't really have time to put together.

So, I will hold you off with a super quick list update and I'll try to post some more pictures this weekend.

- Pedi appointment went well on Monday. Ear infection and thrush are gone. 18 lb, 1 oz (15th percentile) and 28" long (25th percentile) are the stats. So status quo on growth.
- I finished the back of Ivy on the plane Tuesday and cast on for the left front yesterday. As of this morning, I'm almost through the cable section of the left front.
- I watched the first episode of "Weeds" on my iPod on the plane yesterday. I love Mary Louise Parker, but I don't know that I enjoyed the show enough to pay for more episodes. I love Elizabeth Perkins, too, but so far her character is just too evil to want to watch. Any fans out there that think I should try a couple more episodes?
- I'm still not totally healed, but we can comfortable nurse in a variant of the football hold position (just like we were using 1 year ago(!)) without further damage. I think the thrush is totally gone, so it is just a matter of the tooth marks healing. I no longer dread nursing and my supply seems to be fine even without pumping all day at work...so I am a happy BFing mom again. The only downside of our new position is that it is very difficult to do discretely, so nursing will be limited to home or private rooms for the foreseeable future.
- Heather is doing a great job with whole milk in a sippy, so we are basically done with bottles! (R did use one overnight while I was gone, so we won't put them in storage yet...but we no longer have to wash 2-3 every night!)
- We are looking forward to celebrating Amelia's birthday on Saturday and I'm looking forward to knitting on Sunday. I might force myself to get out the patchwork tortoise just so it doesn't languish forever...
- I have yarn for two baby gifts. One child was born last week and the other is due in April. I need to figure out exactly what I'm making and get them going soon.

That's all my brain can handle at the moment. Back to my stairs!

Happy First Birthday, Heather!

We all had a lovely time celebrating Heather's birthday today. Personally, I had a fabulous time at her party. All of the adorable children having fun, all of the lovely friends and family chatting away and everyone celebrating our beautiful daughter.

I have to admit, we've been keeping a secret for a little while. We thought it would be fun for everyone to see Heather walking for the first time at the party. :-) She started taking steps on her own more regularly last Saturday and she's been getting more and more adventurous every day. She can even stand up on her own without pulling up!

It was a delightful and exhausting day! And we're going to the knitting festival in the morning! What a weekend...

Bye-bye pump!

It's official. I'm done pumping at work!

I was planning to pump through Friday, but after a bad session last Thursday I decided to go ahead and quit so I have time to heal during the day. (I'm still not totally back to normal, but things are better.)

I will have to pump when I travel for work and I don't have plans to wean Heather soon (assuming that my healing continues), but I am free from daily pumping! Woot!

...but I'm hanging onto my key to the storage room for a couple of weeks, just in case. ;-)

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Other tidbits

- It seems more likely that Heather associates the sound mamamama with me and dadadada with R. I wouldn't say that she is calling us by name, but she seems to use those sounds at the right time. I also think she says duck "Duh" to the rubber duckies in the bath and the other day R & I were sure we heard something that sounded like kitty while she was in the high chair and the cats were wandering around. I'm hesitant to say that any of these are real words, but they are sounds that she associates with things, so I guess by loose definition they are words. ;-)

- She rarely waves anymore. She used to love it and now I don't think she's done it in a week or two.

- She might officially be down to one nap a day. Because she is primarily with older kids, that is what she is doing at daycare, and that is what she did this past weekend at home, too. I'm just trying to be really watchful in the evenings to see if her bedtime needs to be earlier. Some mornings she wakes up while we're getting ready and other mornings she wakes up around the time my alarm goes off to nurse and then goes back to sleep. (Selfishly) I don't really want to get to a point where she wakes at the same time every day because rigid schedules really don't work for us...but I don't want her to be sleep deprived either.

- I ordered gates yesterday. I've been meaning to do it for weeks, and it is just a hard enough process given the strange and large sizes of our openings that I never followed through on it. One of us is with Heather all of the time, so it's not like she is in any danger. But someday that isn't going to be so easy anymore. Our plan is to keep her gated in the living room and dining room. At some point we will probably need a gate to put at the top of the steps on the second floor, but doors will have to work for now. We also need to make a serious pass through the living room and dining room and figure out what needs to be put up or away. There are a few shelves that need to be cleared and some lower tables that need to be kept free of clutter. Maybe with the grandparents around this weekend we can make a dent in the work.

- The tulip sweater is done. If it hadn't been 59 degrees this morning I might have sent her to school in it today. It will probably make its debut later this week. (Note to self, I need to buy some sew-in labels. The iron-on ones just don't work.)

- Ivy is going well. I'm about halfway up the back. I'm a little sad to be in the 'boring' stockinette section on the bus, but I know it will get interesting again.

- I keep forgetting that my birthday is tomorrow. We don't have any specific plans and I don't even know if Heather can stay up long enough to go out to eat after work. I would normally take the day off, but there are a number of reasons why I'm not doing that this year. Heather and I will just have to celebrate on the 18th when we're home together. :-) I guess the most surprising part is that I don't really mind. Strange coming from someone that used to start counting down to her birthday a month in advance!

Info for parents and a little rant

I've heard great things about the book "The Wonder Weeks" by Frans Plooij and I've also heard that copies aren't so easy to come by without paying through the nose.

Well here is a link to a summary of the book. The highlights for those of us who want to understand sleep regressions and developmental milestones better without having to track down the book and read the whole thing. :-)

http://www.livingcontrolsystems.com/wonder_weeks/content_ww.html#ch06

For those unfamiliar, Ask Moxie has some great posts on the topic, too.

http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/02/qa_what_are_sle.html

http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2005/12/quick_and_dirty.html

http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/01/qa_11weekold_an.html

http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/02/qa_9montholds_s.html

I find the sleep regressions kind of fascinating. Not only because they are so predictable (the number of message board posts I've seen titled "4 month sleep issues!" and "8/9 month sleep issues!" is astounding), but also because absolutely NO ONE warns you about them. If I wasn't a regular reader of Ask Moxie's blog I would have no clue why Heather went from sleeping all night to waking 2-3 times a night at 4 months.

Is there a reason that pediatricians don't talk about this stuff??!! No offense to the doctors out there, but I hear about so many doctors telling their patients to just let their kids cry or that their BABIES shouldn't be waking up overnight after a certain age or weight. Is there not enough guilt in our lives already without making us feel like failures because our babies want a little comfort or food when it is dark? If the parents aren't upset about getting up then why is there all this pressure to change the behavior? And if we know that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to adults, why would we possibly expect that every baby should be doing the same thing at the same time?

And most importantly, adults don't sleep well when there are stress or changes in their lives. They might have trouble falling asleep, or bad dreams, or they might wake frequently. With all that babies are learning and the all the ways that they are changing and growing, how can we possibly expect them to sleep like perfect angels every night from the time they are weeks old?

And no, this isn't sleep deprivation talking. Heather slept from 8pm to 6am last night. (We were just woken once by a cat having a hairball on the bed. Thank you, Stewart.) I'm hopeful that the breaking through of her 4th tooth and the antibiotics for the ear infection that we didn't know she had will mean more good nights of sleep in our near future.

*knock on wood*

And by good nights I don't mean that I expect her to sleep from 8 to 7 every night without a disturbance. It would be nice, but I'm not going to push my luck. :-)

I hope that some of this information is helpful to those of you with younger babies. You might be lucky and have kids who sleep through all of this developmental stuff, but if you aren't at least you will know why it is happening!

Mood and Milk

I started a blog post like this yesterday...

"I'm really, really, really trying to move beyond my crankiness.

Granted, I probably have a right to be cranky. Even before the thrush I felt like I was barely holding it together and this new 'fun' has added another layer of things that 'have to be done'.

But yet, I'm also really lucky. I have a very happy and mostly healthy baby, and we have been able to breastfeed for almost a year (and we're still going). I have a wonderful husband who has been very helpful and supportive (especially lately). I have a good job that I enjoy with nice coworkers and good clients. I have so many friends both in and out of Pittsburgh that I can't possible see and knit and talk with them all as much as I would like...or even as much as I should. My grandmother has recently made a fabulous recovery and my other two grandparents seem to be doing well."

And then I didn't know what to write.

I guess the point I wanted to make is that I'm trying to be very aware of my mood and how I interact with others. Even my boss made a passing comment about me being cranky (he wasn't being mean), and that's really not the "Amy" I want to project to the rest of the world. So, I'm allowed to be annoyed about things. I'm allowed to be tired and overwhelmed. I just don't want to allow myself to let it take over my life.

Some other tidbits:
- Heather stood on her own for 5-7 seconds last night. I'm not sure if she even realized it. She let go with her steadying hand so she could open her Elmo book. Later R was helping her stand and letting go, and she seemed to think that was pretty fun. We may need to come up with make-shift gates if we don't get on the ball soon and order some. :-)
- I cast on for "Ivy" last night. It's a wrap cardigan pattern from Knitty. I've got two cones of Jaeger Wool Silk (I have no idea how many yards/cone, but I'm sure it will be enough) and I had to buy a new circular needle. In my desperation to start asap I bought a metal needle. I hope I don't regret that decision.
- The Tulip sweater is close, but not done. I have to wind the extra skein of border yarn in order to finish the knitting.
- I would not wish thrush on my worst enemy. I hate feeling like a germaphobe and I hate pumping now more than I did before. We will see whether I make it another week.

Lastly, a quick question for the moms and pediatricians who read this. I plan to stop pumping at work next week and once we get the go ahead for whole milk, Heather will just get that at daycare instead of EBM and formula. I still plan to nurse morning, evening and overnight (as needed) for some time frame yet to be determined. (I'm not anxious to wean, but I don't want to go on for years or consider tandem nursing). When I travel for work, do you think R is going to need to give her bottles of EBM or formula? Or will she just eat more solids when I'm not around? Any advice or thoughts? My next trip is right after her birthday, so I'm sure he'll need milk then, but I'm more curious about what to expect in March or April. Thanks!

One more obstacle...

(If you aren't a reader with any interest in breastfeeding or women's health issues, then you can just skip this post.)

I considered taking a photo just like someone I know, but I decided that if I haven't been posting any fun pictures lately, then I don't want to post "unfun" ones like that. :-)

Heather and I have thrush. Ugh. I'm not really sure when it started. My right side hasn't been quite the same since the bouts of plugged ducts and mastitis in November/December...but it was never really bad enough to call anyone. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. What's done is done, right? What I can tell you is that I started noticing some real discomfort and even a little pain overnight on wednesday. I freaked out a little, but then pumping and nursing sessions on Thursday and Friday were okay. And the irritated areas were primarily the side where Heather's new upper tooth was hitting. Starting Thursday morning, I applied lanolin religiously after every session and kept myself in clean breast pads. By later Saturday afternoon, I knew that my problem was not getting better and I'm sorry to admit that I was a bit of a cranky pants myself for the rest of the weekend...at least to poor R.

This morning Heather and I visited the pediatrician and this afternoon I spoke to an LC and made an appointment at a local Breastfeeding Center. We're primarily going to get a prescription for me for a cream that will fix my pain and I plan to ask about other strategies we can take if Heather's meds don't work. (From what I've read, about half of the yeast strains out there are resistant to what she's been given and the pedi found an ear infection, and the antibiotic she's now on isn't going to help our situation either.) I'm also going to ask about how best to clean and steralize around here. I've boiled all of the bottles, pump parts and pacis. And my bras and her blankets are currently in the washing machine in hot water.

I don't know what to do about all of the stuffed animals that I can't put in the washer or the plastic toys that make music, noise, etc. I'm hoping the doctor will have some good suggestions for us.

If we were down to fewer feedings, I might consider weaning. But I'm just not ready yet and I don't think Heather is either.

Ah well. I must extract myself from under the sleeping kitty to go pick the peanut up from daycare. (I dropped her off so I could get the boiling, washing and cleaning done. I had hoped to do some work, but I didn't sadly didn't get to that. Sadly because I don't want to get any further behind...)

Check!

1 - Birthday invitations are in the mail.

2 - Presents that need to be sent for Christmas, an October baby and three birthdays (*shame*) and two gifts to be returned to amazon were sent with R today for mailing.

3 - A gauge swatch for a sweater for me has been started. I'm not sure what the pattern will be yet. I decided that there are enough patterns I want to make that I will see what gauge I get when I like the feel of the fabric, and then look for patterns with that gauge. I can do this easily in Ravelry, right?

4 - The second sleeve of the Tulip Sweater has been started. I predict that the knitting will be done by the end of the weekend, but I'll still have ends left to weave in next week. And I'm really glad I bought more of the border color than what came in the kit because I'm definitely going to run out.

Heather still has a cold, but she only woke up once last night and didn't need the marathon nursing session she's been prone to lately, so hopefully that means that she is on the mend. I will not miss the fight to clean the dried snots off her nose each morning and night when she is healthy again! But a minute after finishing the morning face wash she loves me again, so it can't really be that bad. ;-)

R turned the timers off that light the Christmas trees each night and Heather has shown less interest in them recently, so hopefully we can take the trees down this weekend without any backlash.

A blur

Things are a bit of a blur at the moment. I'm behind on sleep, there is a lot to do at home and a ton to do at work. I find myself using my bus rides to play solitaire or sudoku (I think it is a bit of escapism on my part) although there was some knitting over the weekend with my parents here and the usual sunday brunch. I've finished the body and one sleeve of the Tulip sweater that I started on the 13th. Good progress for someone that doesn't really have a lot of time to knit. :-)

Heather and I had a lovely playdate on Monday with Amanda, Eleni, Lisa and Eliana. I didn't take any photos (I know, bad mommy), but Heather enjoyed her visit with Bella quite a lot. She giggled watching her run around the room and most of the times that she was licked. She didn't even seem to mind very much when Bella licked her right on the face (is this really my child?!). We all started with a nice lunch at Eat'n Park where Heather ate well despite her cold and then we hung out at Amanda's for a little while. It was our first playdate where Heather was the oldest child there. Kind of fun to be the one answering all the questions instead of asking them for once!

Nights have been somewhat difficult lately. I think it is primarily due to Heather's cold and maybe tooth #4. Although I think it is more about the cold because she's woken up with tylenol in her system and that usually takes care of teething pain. I'm trying to go to bed early and not freak out about it. I'm not good at going to bed early...but I decided that lying in bed from 9:30-10:30 is better than going to be at 10:30 even if I don't get that extra hour of sleep I was aiming for. Rest is still rest.

Heather still isn't walking, but there have been several more instances where she has stood for a couple of seconds or taken a couple of quick steps. She's also happy to walk around the house with us for long stretches (only holding one hand, instead of two), so I think once she decides that she can walk there will be no stopping her.

No, we haven't ordered gates yet. It's on the long to do list that keeps getting put off because I need extra sleep. That and sending out the invitations to her birthday party. Hopefully everyone we're inviting doesn't have plans on February 9th from 4-6pm because I don't know if the invitations will get in the mail before this Saturday... ;-)

I must finish my lunch and get back to work. My managers are traveling tomorrow and I want to finish a few things for them to take with them!

Knitting, Walking and Food

1 - First about me. I'm struggling with the knitting a little bit. I still really want to work on a sweater for me. But I get to the point in the evening (like now) where my choice is either to go to sleep or do something for me. I've been tired enough that the thought of planning out a sweater is a little too much for 10pm. I have hope though. Heather has slept through the night the last two nights (*Knock on wood*), so maybe there is a more rested Amy in my future.
I'm still working on the Patchwork Tortoise for Heather. I'm working on the patches now and should easily finish them before knitting or Sunday, or at least in the first hour that I'm there. I don't want to spend the get together seaming, so I need to get something else on the needles.
I started swatching for the Tulip cardigan. Santa brought me the kit for Christmas. If I don't make the time to start a sweater for me before Sunday, then this will be my next project.

2 - Heather isn't walking yet, but she's still painfully close. She's moved up to the older infant room at daycare, and she's the only one in the room not walking, so it is certainly just a matter of time. She can climb the steps by herself (with someone behind her, of course, as a safety net), push the wagon by herself and cruise all over the place.
Her eating has reached a new level, too. Since the new year, she's eaten pasta with sauce, grilled cheese and shared some of my chicken, rice and broccoli casserole. Sometimes she won't pick up and eat things when they are first offered, but will come back to them later. And other times she'll eat her fruits and veggies from the spoon even when she won't pick them up herself. Last Sunday at brunch, she ignored her apple chunks on the table, but was happy to eat them from my hand later. She also ate quite a bit of potato, egg and cheese from my breakfast.

It seems like there was more I wanted to post, but my mind is blank. Must be time to go to bed.

Fingers crossed for another long and quiet sleep!

2 more hours...last minute thoughts for 2007

I think every year on New Year's Eve it seems strange to me that one year is coming to an end and another is about to begin. I always like the fun of saying "This is the last time I'm going to do X this year" or "I'll do that next year". Silly, but it still kinda cracks me up.

I looked back at some of my posts from a year ago. They are about how I was feeling during the pregnancy, preparing the house for Heather's arrival, and finishing up the Christmas knitting. None of that to write about this year, although we still have lots of presents for Heather to put away just like last year. I need to decide which ones should stay in her room, which ones should stay in the living room, which ones should go in the 'corral' in the dining room and what should go into storage. I also need to go through her clothing again. There are lots of short-sleeved shirts that can go into storage since she got a good winter wardrobe for christmas and there is some stuff from the past few months that needs to be labeled. It isn't as critical as it used to be since clothing changes at daycare are more rare (knock on wood), but it needs to be done.

I'm pleased to announce that I was right. :-) Heather's on-and-off crankiness of the past couple of weeks was due to a new tooth. Number three has broken through the gum and our happy baby has returned. There has still been some night-waking and co-sleeping in response, but I'm hopeful that it is partially due to our recent travel and screwy schedule. Our recent trip did give me some insight into Heather's nap needs. Based on our experiences, I'd say that Heather could do one nap per day and she can adjust okay to schedule changes. She can do a 2-3-4 nap schedule, a 3-2-4 schedule, a 3-4-2 schedule, etc. But, I still think that she does better with two naps each day and her first nap 2 hours after waking up.

Heather is also doing better with table foods. She still seems somewhat reluctant, but tonight, after being encouraged by daddy, she fed herself pasta with sauce, peas and carrots. And at one point she seemed to be shoveling it all in as enthusiastically as she does her cheerios. I have to keep reminding myself to be patient. It is a lot easier to feed her mashed food with a spoon, but I know she needs to get used to more table foods so I can stop making her food separately.

The closest thing I have to a resolution this year is the goal of cooking dinner on a regular basis. This includes planning ahead (sigh) and making a real grocery list each week. Not sure when I will find time to start looking for ideas in my cookbooks.

Now there are only 90 minutes left in 2007. Time to wrap this post up and try to relax a little. A note for the readers on Ravelry - I've finally posted some project pictures and there will be more on the way soon. Not sure when there will be time for blog posts about the projects, so the Ravelry descriptions might have to do for a while.

I'll end with my favorite picture from Christmas Day. :-)

Stash

Before...........and after...........

A few weeks ago, mom and I organized the yarn stash. Heather attempted to help, but we decided that she should supervise from the exersaucer. For reference, we have a queen sized bed. I'm not going on any kind of a yarn diet, but i will be trying to knit from the stash when i'm ready to start something new. All of the warm i have was purchased with a project in mind.

Heather's hat

A message from the road. The knitting on Heather's hat is done. Now to weave in the ends!

Merry Christmas...2 down, 2 to go...

So far we've had a lovely holiday, and there are still a few celebrations to come over the next few days with my grandparents, aunts & uncles and family friends.

My parents arrived on Saturday evening. Having them around to help entertain and care for Heather enabled R and me to finish wrapping presents, do laundry, make more food for Heather (me) and do some straightening up around here. On Monday, we had a pretty quiet day at home. It seemed like before I knew it, it was time for dinner to eat my dad's yummy chicken and noodles. And then we got Heather into her new Christmas pjs, attempted to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" (I got through it, but she was nursing through the last few pages), and before too long it was time to head to bed so that Santa could come. :-)

We had fun on Christmas morning. Heather didn't really get into ripping the wrapping paper as much as I thought she would, but she was certainly happy to play with and chew on each new toy as it was unwrapped for her. Also, Santa left her walker wagon with a teddy bear and Raggedy Ann sitting inside. After a few presents, Heather noticed the wagon and went immediately over to it. She pulled the bear out for a hug and pulled up on the wagon to try to move it around. She can't turn yet, but she is stable enough now to push the wagon without help - it's very impressive for someone so small!

After a few hours of fun, Heather took a nice nap and the four adults had breakfast and a respite. When she was ready for her second nap, we got in the car for Johnstown to see R's family. The house in Johnstown was very full of people and dogs. Heather was a little clingy at first, but she warmed up to the place and loved watching the dogs and letting them lick her hands. She got some more great presents (and seemed to have a better idea of how to remove the tissue paper from the gift bags) and we had a nice evening. We left at her bedtime, so we had a little challenge transitioning her to the crib when we got home (note to self, next time put pjs on before leaving, not at home).

Today, we took a quiet day to unpack toys, do laundry, make food for Heather and prepare for the rest of the celebrations to come. More soon with pictures...

Fourth Time Ever!

I was going to make this post last week, and the title was going to be "Second Time Ever!" Well, time got away from me and the stats have gotten even better, so let's celebrate. :-)

Some of you may not believe this, having seen the lengths we sometimes go to, to get Heather to sleep...but last night was the fourth time that she was left in the crib awake and fell asleep on her own! (The first time it happened was during the fall, at 11pm, when I was out of town for business. She quickly proved that that occurrence was a fluke.) I knew this day would come eventually, I just didn't dare to dream that it would happen before she turned 1... To be fair, it isn't totally consistent yet and I'm not sure what the best timing is (especially since her naps have been good but inconsistent lately), so we're just taking it one day at a time.

Here are my parameters:

- When I was home for a week at Thanksgiving I tried to focus on improving Heather's sleep schedule and routines. I got a pretty good idea of where here naps should ideally fall and I figured out that holding/rocking/nursing her in her room had a better affect than doing so in the living room. (We had tried this before, but when she was younger it didn't seem to make any difference where we were, so R and I stayed downstairs to watch TV).
- For the first week after Thanksgiving, I could usually get her to sleep within 30-45 minutes of going up to her room, but after we traveled to Ohio she was more resistant.
- I decided that I was willing to stay in the glider for 30-45 minutes trying. She could nurse, I could read, we could rock, but she needed to stay on my lap and try to relax. If she spends too much time trying to get off my lap or if she's just hanging out and having fun, into the crib she goes. I kiss her goodnight, turn off the light, turn on the bunny that plays music and leave.
- After 3 consecutive minutes of crying, I'll check on her again. If it stops and starts, I'll let her go longer. A few nights when I've gone back in she is much more conducive to nursing or rocking to sleep. And three nights I haven't had to go back in at all!

I'm sure that things will change again at some point, but I like that our evenings are a little more predictable and I feel like we're giving her the right amount of structure without trying to be the kind of strict bedtime parents that isn't in our nature.

On the venting/pain/whining side of things, I am better now. I ended up going home half an hour early Monday because my clogged duct turned into my third bout of mastitis. :-( Not pleasant. I was already on Motrin, so all I could do was rest, nurse and wait for the chills and fever to pass. I was pretty miserable all evening, but the fever finally broke while I was nursing Heather to sleep. I took Tuesday off to fully recover and after sleeping in I dropped Heather off at daycare so I could take a nice, long, hot, relaxing shower and rest and pump and do things that I can't do at work (like massage the remaining lump in my breast :-). All I'm left with today is the leg pain and a little nipple soreness. Neither is great, but they are better than they were and having felt so miserable so recently, they are much more tolerable than they were. It's amazing how that works, isn't it?

And lastly, the holidays. Let me just say how thankful I am that I chose not to knit for anyone this year. I feel a slight twinge of guilt that I didn't knit a little something for Heather's teachers (and I still might as a New Year's Gift), but otherwise it is a great feeling of freedom. We've been plenty busy, and I know that holiday knitting would have just pushed me over the edge...and I have been pretty close to the edge a few times already.

I still have some photo printing to do, all of the wrapping to do (some online shopping hasn't arrived yet, though) and Christmas cards to finish. But with the timing of the holiday this year, there is still the weekend. And personally I've never felt bad about holiday cards arriving late. It is the holiday *season* after all. :-) My parents arrive on Saturday afternoon bringing two extra pairs of hands to contain the little crawler, so I think everything will get accomplished and maybe I can even finish Heather's winter hat and bake a batch of cookies, too!

p.s. Anna and Cara - no, "it" hasn't returned yet. ;-)

Vent

I am tired of being broken.

I vividly remember a few weeks ago (the first weekend in November, to be exact) thinking how happy I was that I felt like I had my body back. Despite the fact that Heather was still nursing, we were in groove that made everything feel almost like it did pre-baby, I could move all of my appendages like I used to pre-baby and I was even continuing to lose weight from breastfeeding (granted, some of this was just from being too busy to eat much dinner).

Well, all of that has reversed. The friday before Thanksgiving I got a clogged duct in my normally perfect and extremely productive right side. The Sunday before Thanksgiving my hip/leg pain returned. And the past couple of weeks I've been craving chocolate and sweets like I did pre-baby. (I haven't gained any weight, but the loss has stopped). I'm back on my motrin and not sleeping as well because of the hip/leg pain, and my clogging issues seem to be ebbing and flowing (ha ha), but not going away. The only good news is that the motrin I'm taking for my leg is good for the duct, too, so at least I don't have to overmedicate.

Add in a horrendous night last night, which was probably due to the beginnings of Heather's third tooth (Merry Christmas to us) and I'm pretty miserable today. I'm seriously just waiting for the clock to strike 5 so I can go home and put a hot compress on my sore breast. And the fatigue and stress are probably the cause of the clog (or the reason it keeps returning), so it's a catch-22 of sorts

I seriously hate being this whiny...but nothing seems to make me more whiny than being tired and achy at work.

Whine.

To keep from being totally obnoxious, I'll end on a happy note. The inside of the house is decorated for Christmas and it looks nice. Heather loves the trees and the lights. :-)

About the Peanut

Heather is 10 months old. (How time flies!)

Overall, I would call her a happy girl. She's generally only cranky when she's hungry or tired, although there have been a few brief moments that we've seen a little bit of a temper. I think she's going to be a handful when she's a full-blown, walking toddler. Honestly, she seems like what I expect from a toddler now, just without the walking. She's as independent as she can be and has so much personality. I can't really think of her as a baby anymore...except maybe when she's nursing.

The thing I've learned in this parenting thing so far is that as soon as you get one thing figured out and under control, something else will get harder or toss you a curve. In our case, we seem to finally have a handle on a more regular bedtime, so Heather has decided that she has no interest in lying still for diaper changes anymore. Whenever possible, we double team her so the extra person can distract her.

Things are progressing on the food front. We haven't tried a lot of new things in the past couple of weeks. Although we did try pumpkin last week and chicken tonight. I have to figure out if there is anything else that Heather needs to try in order to share in the Chicken and Noodles my dad is making for Christmas Eve. :-) A few weeks ago, Heather wasn't interested in self-feeding anything other than Cheerios and Puffs (and she refused to let any meal pass without getting some of them), but I tried a few more finger foods this week and she seemed more receptive. I can tell that she isn't ready for an entire meal of finger foods. She is just a little too impatient and hungry for that, but I'm happy to be making another stride toward table food. Now I just have to figure out if there is a good way to prepare finger foods in advance like the purees. :-)

Heather is still crawling and cruising. She'll also walk a little bit holding our hands...although it's kind of a drunk walk. ;-) Her favorite thing at the moment is crawling over to the Christmas tree. She loves looking at it - the lights and the ornaments. She's also very enamored with ceiling lights and fans. Just turning on an overhead fan can stop a cranky baby in her tracks.

Occasionally she gets close to letting go and standing on her own, but she isn't quite there yet. It seems like it is just a matter of time. She doesn't have much fear when it comes to trying new things. She also still loves going swimming and really enjoys her bathtime. Splashing mommy and daddy is lots of fun!

Oh, and she wasn't at all scared of Santa. She just stared at him!

Sigh

I'm still here. I've probably thought about something to post to the blog every day since my last post...but I think about these things either while I'm working or when I'm no where near a computer.

I'm tired.

We bought a christmas tree on Saturday, but the christmas decorating is only half done. Christmas shopping is started, but none of it is finished.

My hip pain is back. After two weeks it is finally improving, but slowly. I'm trying to do my stretches regularly and taking my motrin again.

Over the weekend I got to meet Eleni and William which was awesome, but made for a very busy Sunday.

I just got back from a 2-day trip for work. (Only one overnight) It was productive and motivating, and there was lots of pretty snow.

I bound off a baby kimono on Monday morning on the bus, so the only thing I have that I can take tomorrow is my shawl. Lace isn't great bus knitting, but it is my only option.

I'm sure there is more, but this post is lame enough already. :-)

Frog Pond

These camera phone pictures aren't great, but they are good enough for this post. The purple sweater (top) is from the original Stitch'n'Bitch book and the blue sweater (lower) is Blaze from knitty.com.

The purple sweater is the first pattern I saw that inspired me to want to learn to knit. As I think I've stated before, the idea of knitting sweaters was what made me want to learn and this particular sweater was one of the inspiring ones. It was the second sweater I ever knit and it taught me a few things:

1 - Steam kills ribbing. This is a tough lesson to learn on a sweater that is almost entirely ribbed.

2 - Just because you get gauge doesn't make the yarn a good substitution. The pattern calls for a half wool, half cashmere yarn in worsted weight. I used a 100% wool in a DK weight. The fabric I got is bulkier and heavier than what I had anticipated and doesn't really show off the yarn well. With wear it gets even worse.

3 - An Empire waist needs to fall at the right spot. Given my figure, I really need to add short rows in the chest. At this point, the waist line falls at the widest point of my chest. If I pull the sweater down to get the horizontal line in the right place, the sweater is about 8" too long.


There are better uses for the yarn in both of these sweaters. And knowing what I know now about how I want sweaters to fit me for the most flattering look, and how to customize sweater patterns, I know that I will never wear these sweaters in their current state.

I've haven't unraveled them yet, but this fate is in their future. I love the yarn too much to give them away. So I'll take the time to undo them when I find the right project for the yarn.

Don't be sad for me. I learned a lot from both of these knits and enjoyed the process of making them. Sure, I'm sad to have two fewer sweaters to choose from this fall/winter. But I know that there will be more sweaters in my future and hopefully they will work out better because of what I've learned from these two projects!

Next?

I'm finding myself being very drawn to the idea of knitting a sweater for ME next. This is daunting because I don't often have the time to do the measuring, swatching and planning necessary for an adult sweater that fits properly. Most of my knitting time is either on the bus or hanging out with friends. The first doesn't include any table space and the second isn't very compatible with math.

I think one of the motivations is that I finally figured out why "Blaze" (from knitty.com) didn't turn out quite how I wanted. I've known for a while that I should have chosen a size with negative ease. But I figured out the rest of the equation while reading the latest issue of Interweave Knits. There is an article about alpaca, which talks about the fact that alpaca is a denser fiber than wool, and is therefore not a great fiber for ribbing or cables. It doesn't loft as well as wool and therefore doesn't "pop" or pull together when knit in these textures. Ummm...yeah. "Blaze" is covered in ribbing that zig-zags back and forth like cables, and I knit it with 100% alpaca.

I do want to make "Blaze" again, but not now. And once I do, I will be taking the existing "Blaze" apart and using the yarn for something more appropriate for 100% alpaca. Live and learn, right. There are also issues with the shoulders and neckline that I will fix with #2. I didn't realize it, but this sweater made me realize that I have narrow shoulders.

What I really want right now is a new cardigan. Probably a wrap cardigan, which gives me some leeway on fit, but still requires some planning. I suppose at the very least I can bring some yarn for making swatches to the knitting get together on Sunday, and hope that I can find some time to do some math during my week off next week.

(Yes, I still have baby knitting to do...but I have a feeling that it is a never-ending queue, so I'm not putting other knitting totally on hold. And don't be worried that Heather will be cold. Her grandmother has made her enough sweaters that I think she is set until at least spring. :-)

Back in the 'burgh

I had a great trip to Chicago last week. I don't think I can really summarize it, but I do have some thoughts brewing in my head. I will see if I can distill them into anything useful when I'm writing the seminar I have to give at work about what I learned. The end of the trip was punctuated by a less than stellar experience at the airport when we returned. Totally my own fault, but still a bummer.

We came back on an express flight, and as I was exiting the plane, I missed the bottom step. Ouch! It all happened so fast I'm not really sure how I did it. All I know is that I was so happy to be home and I was worried that a gust of wind was going to come by and blow up my skirt for everyone on the ground to see. In my hurry, I did *something* careless.

My coworker was patient while we hobbled to baggage claim, where his wife and son were waiting. He had offered me a ride home and he hadn't checked his bag. This, coupled with my throbbing foot and strong desire to see my baby caused dumb act #2 for the night. I didn't double check the tag on the suitcase when I took it off the belt. Yep, I brought someone else's bag home. :-( My wonderful husband drove back out to the airport to return the 'other black suitcase' and retrieve the one with a gallon of milk in it. It certainly could have been avoided, but I still think we need to move "luggage that is not black" up on the list of things to buy for ourselves.

Despite my troubles, Heather was thrilled to see me on Friday night. So much so that she has been very reluctant to let me put her down to sleep in the crib. I spent most of Saturday trying to get her to nap and the last two nights I've ended up bringing her to bed after nursing because she will just NOT let me leave her. I'm hoping that being home for 9 days in a row next week will help to fix some of this. Or it's going to be a VERY long week.

As Melissa mentioned, we had a lovely little knitting get together yesterday. She, Tobi and Michelle have the basics, but just need a little push into the knitting world beyond scarves...and Anna and I were happy to oblige. I found buttons for a nearly complete baby sweater and am halfway through the second sleeve of the current baby sweater (gotta love the knitting you can do during airline travel!), so I hope to get some things finished, gifted and blogged soon.

I keep thinking about writing a blog post titled "Incapable"...about how I am completely unable to follow a knitting pattern exactly as written. I was following the current baby sweater pattern to a T...until I decided to make it a pullover and added color work to the body and sleeves. And I can't even follow the pattern that *I* wrote for yesterday's knitting lesson. I was knitting along with the ladies in case I needed to demonstrate anything and I tossed the hat in my bag this morning. I couldn't resist adding cables instead of doing plain stockinette. It's a sickness, I tell you...

Almost 9 months

I took Heather for her 9 month appointment this morning. All went well and she only had to suffer through one shot this time. There will be more shots and some bloodwork at the next one, so that is something to look forward to...

We got the go ahead to try most foods and the pediatrician strongly encouraged table foods so she can be used to lots of textures and flavors by the time she hits her first birthday. She dropped a little in the percentiles for height and weight, but he wasn't worried and it makes a lot of sense considering that she is almost constantly in motion. But I also plan to start offering more food at her meals. She might not take it until she's over her cold, but I usually just stop the meal at the usual place instead of waiting for the stop signal from her.


Weight - 16 lbs, 13 ounces (10% percentile)


Height - 26 1/2" (15% percentile)


She was a bit crabby (partially because she was hungry) during the exam and mad about the shot, so she didn't wave to anyone in the office (you'd think she'd be happy to say goodbye to them) and needed her pacifier for the trip to daycare. But once we arrived she immediately started playing, she let me pop the pacifier right out and she didn't even care about saying goodbye. Back to her normal, happy self. Considering how clingy she is at home and was all weekend, I wouldn't be surprised if she never cries when she gets dropped off at daycare. :-)


To make up for my sparse posting lately, here is a photo. It's from a few Saturdays ago, before a trip to the park and the swings.

I have secret knitting underway still. But I should be able to give my current project as soon as it is finished and I have two sweaters that just need a bath and buttons and they can be gifted, too. If nothing else, I'll do some more photo-filled posts while I am off work the week of Thanksgiving!

Tuesday List

There is too much going on to focus my post on one topic. Sometimes I feel like I should just be able to download the blog posts that I think of during the day directly from my head. That might make these things more coherent. :-)

1 - I think I've mentioned before that I've been watching "Gilmore Girls" in syndication on ABC Family. We are nearing the end of Season 6, and according to the DVR they are looping back to the pilot next week. :-( I just checked on amazon.com and season 7 isn't going to be released on DVD until November 13th. :-( I guess in the best case, I will be able to find Season 7 at Blockbuster and there will only be a week or so of suspense until I get to see how it all ends.

2 - With that meme last week I was delighted to see how many of my friends watch Battlestar Galactica! I almost feel like we should have a party when the next season starts.

3 - Heather's sleeping habits. The good news is that on Friday, she went to sleep at 9pm and slept for over 11 hours straight. And her sleeping the rest of the weekend was generally good. One overnight wake-up and decent bedtimes. But now the confusing part. Last night she fell asleep nursing around 6:30. Then she woke up and nursed again at 8:30. And we couldn't get her to sleep again until 11:30. :-( My first theory was that she had crappy naps yesterday. But no, she had a good one and an okay one. Tonight, she fell asleep on her daddy's lap at 7:20 and she had two good naps today. I don't know if she's taking annoying evening naps that disrupt her bedtime or if she's working on an earlier bedtime. Assuming that she is going to wake up again this evening, I plan to try to nurse her and put her right back to sleep. I was almost able to do it last night but I wasn't trying hard enough.
...So...she woke up about 8 and slept/nursed in my arms for half an hour and went back to sleep. Cross your fingers.

4 - I'm not sure what I'm going to do on the bus tomorrow. I finished my socks on the bus today. I started another baby sweater over the weekend, but the gauge is off and I don't know if I can find the needles I need quickly. I may have to start another pair of socks or use the leftovers from my socks to make a pair for Heather.

I'm pretty sure there is more, but I am fading and I need to get a few other things done before crashing in bed as soon as possible.

Let's talk about sleep for a minute... (long vent)

I posted the following to a message board this morning and thought I would post it here, too. I'm happy to get some insight from any of my readers, but I also wanted it to be easy to find in the future when I want to look back and remember past parenting challenges. :-)

************************

So, I think I know where I stand on this, but I'm going to write down what I'm thinking and maybe somebody out there will have some brilliant advice for me or can give me a good reason to read one of those sleep books or try a specific technique.

Heather has always fought sleep. Even as a newborn, she would rarely just relax and fall asleep in your arms, it was always a process of paci/rocking/holding tight/swaddling etc. How long she has slept has varied, but she usually seems to wake because she's hungry or because something interrupted her sleep when she was sleeping lightly.

Over time, she gradually started sleeping longer stretches, and at 10 weeks she started sleeping 10 straight hours at night. (2 weeks before mommy went back to work - good girl!)

At 4 months, we hit the first sleep regression and things went to hell. She was waking multiple times a night, but some rocking and the paci put her back to sleep and 1-3 times a night she'd need to nurse.

By 6 months, we came back to a nice sleeping place. She was generally sleeping 10 hours a night, with one wake-up in the middle to nurse. She went right back to sleep after nursing and seemed to be getting easier to put to sleep at night. Less fussing and I could put her down when she was almost asleep instead of dead asleep.

Between 7.5 and 8 months her sleep was disrupted by her first tooth, a stomach bug and then her second tooth. And now, she's at 37 weeks, which is supposed to be the onset of the second big sleep regression.

So my biggest quandry is how to react to her night wakings. I can live with nursing her once a night, but I don't really want to nurse multiple times and set up a 'bad habit'. But if she follows her previous patterns, she will drop the extra wakings when she gets passed her current milestones. We try the paci/rocking when she wakes. Sometimes it works and sometimes she screams for 20 minutes until I nurse her. So if I just went ahead and nursed her DH and I would both get more sleep...but is taking the easy way out going to set us up for more difficult transitions in the future?

I guess my point is, that I really think that Heather has good sleeping patterns in her and her waking is just a reaction to developmental changes, and this is the crux of why I can't bring myself to sleep train or CIO or ferberize. But if anyone thinks that there is a book out there that could give us some insight to make these developmental sleep setbacks easier, I would be happy to give them a read.

(And thanks if you've managed to read my whole tirade here.)

Filler

I'm too tired for a real post. I still haven't recovered from last week's teething and lack of sleep. I have spent all of Heather's recent naps and trips with Daddy cleaning the house and doing dishes.

I've been tagged by Amanda. So here is a post requiring no creative writing skills.

Jobs I've Had
1. Babysitting
2. Blockbuster Music
3. Annual Giving at CMU (calling alumni and asking for $$)
4. Office of Admissions at CMU (giving tours, filing applications and overseeing other student workers)
5. Summer Internship at an architecture firm in Buffalo
6. Intern Architect turned Project Architect at an architecture firm in Pittsburgh

Places I've Lived
1. Dayton, Ohio
2. Buffalo, NY (Amherst)
3. Valencia, Spain (6 months)
4. Pittsburgh, PA

Foods I Love
1. Chocolate
2. Sushi
3. Pasta
4. Fruit

Places I Would Rather Be
1. With Heather and R
2. Home
3. Valencia, Spain
4. St. Lucia

TV Shows I Watch
(Too many...although #12-14 are between seasons right now)
1. Gilmore Girls (I'm almost caught up on the reruns and can stop watching soon.)
2. How I Met Your Mother
3. The Big Bang Theory
4. Two and a Half Men
5. The Office
6. Bionic Woman
7. Pushing Daisies
8. CSI
9. Ugly Betty
10. 30 Rock
11. Scrubs
12. LOST
13. Battlestar Gallactica
14. Doctor Who
15. Torchwood
16. Numb3rs

Books I Love
1. Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter
2. Harry Potter, especially #4 through #7
3. Little Women
4. Sense and Sensibility
5. The various Ramona Quimby books
(I think these qualify as books that I love since I've read them all at least twice.)

I tag Katie and Nadine. :-)

Still around here somewhere...

My mood seems to swing between totally overwhelmed and totally under control on a regular basis these days. On one hand, I'm in much better shape than I was two weeks ago. I'm still behind at work, but not as much since this week's trip was cancelled. And I was finally able to start cleaning up the house this weekend. But on the other, the house is still a big mess and I'm still behind at work. We're also running low on Heather's food and I really need to start getting in the habit of making a regular dinner so we can start eating as a family.

On the food front, Heather seemed to have a surprising intolerance to apples. But she has accepted avocado the past two nights when I mixed it with her oatmeal. I don't know if the texture or the flavor was the issue, but oatmeal fixed it. We've been offering her a sippy cup of water, which she seems pretty unimpressed with, and Gerber puffs for "dessert", which she has learned to feed herself! Since she has learned to move the puffs to her gums and munch on them, I don't think it's going to be too long until we start offering her some small chunks of real food and see how she does. Both exciting and scary!

I'm working on a pair of socks (my first regia sock yarn because it was the first Regia colorway I ever liked enough to buy) and I still have two baby sweaters to sew up and at least one more to make before the end of the year. But I don't expect a lot of at home knitting time until the house is clean enough for Heather to crawl around without getting her hands covered in cat hair. ;-)

More soon...

Not going to whine

I might not be posting much for a bit. I'm still behind at work and the house is still a mess, and I really don't feel like getting on here just to whine and complain.

The good news is that we all seem to be healthy again (R and I both got the daycare bug to varying degrees) and I had a lovely time at Amanda's shower yesterday. When I have time to post pictures, that is at least one baby sweater that I can show you.

Let me remind you again that October 8th, 9th and 10th is when you need to contact agencies about Guatemalan adoptions.

And thanks to those of you who supported my efforts in the Light the Night Walk. It's not to let if you meant to and haven't had a chance.

I'll try to be back soon.

Adventures in Parenting

So things are still busy and I'm still behind at work. I was beginning to feel like I might have things under control soon, so of course we were thrown a curve ball.

Heather woke up sick at 2:30 and continued to be sick for about an hour. I won't go into detail at the risk of pushing those of you who aren't parents yet into the "never gonna have kids" camp. (Although given what the nurse told me, it could have been much worse and lasted a lot longer - *knock on wood*)

Around 4 she fell asleep in her daddy's lap (awww...) and after putting in a load of laundry and emailing work to tell them I wouldn't be in on Wednesday, I joined them in bed. She woke up around 10am and seemed to be acting like herself. The nurse had told me that she should nurse for about 4-5 minutes every 30-60 minutes, and I was worried about having to cut her off to keep her from eating too much. Not a problem. She stopped after a few minutes. It never ceases to amaze me how smart our bodies are. Although, admittedly, after losing my lunch I'm generally pretty hesitant to start up with the eating again too quickly, so I really shouldn't be that surprised.

We had a quiet day and she had no more problems. (Thank god! It was difficult enough with two parents to take care of her...) We even went for an afternoon walk and she fell asleep in the stroller on the way home.

Sadly, I only got a little work done and so I'm still behind. I'm taking Monday off because daycare is closed and I leave for yet another trip on Tuesday afternoon. Somehow I will get caught up again someday. I just hope that day comes soon!

But beyond all of my recent stress, I just totally adore Heather. She is a beautiful, charming, happy and engaging child who will not rest until she can get anywhere she wants to go whenever she wants to go there. And that smile - irresistible. She is sitting up, crawling, pulling up and even cruising. Her physical development is just staggering, even in just the past couple of weeks. There is no doubt in my mind that she'll be walking before her first birthday and we're already past the point where we can walk into the other room 'for just a second'. I walked from the living room to the kitchen yesterday to grab my shoes and on my way back to the living room she met me halfway! The cats are wary and thankful that they can still move faster than she can. :-)

Two links

I've made a somewhat last minute decision to walk in the Light the Night Walk sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma society in honor of my friend Lisa who passed away on Tuesday. Our team (3 of Lisa's bridesmaids) goal is $500. The walk is on Thursday night. Yes, in 3 days. Although I'm pretty sure you can still donate for the effort after Thursday.

Please consider supporting us.

(The funeral service was very nice and I'm very glad I went. I'm still sad, but I am feeling more at peace. I've been in a very good mood this evening. I think it is partially because I know how lucky I am and partially from the huge smile Heather gave me when I picked her up at daycare.)

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A friend of a friend of a friend sent me this petition to stop Guatemalan President Berger from halting all adoptions, making it impossible for over 5,000 children who currently have no family and no permanent home to be denied that opportunity. Please sign.

http://www.petitiononline.com/foafoa1/petition.html

If you have a blog please post this. If you don't have a blog, please email this to everyone you know!

Cathartic

On my way home last night, the second song on the radio was "The Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie. (Gotta love satellite radio) This is not a song specifically linked to my friend Lisa, but it is one that I strongly connect to my first couple of years at college and my first CMU friends, of whom Lisa was one.

As I drove, I sang along with Kermit and let the tears flow. It was one of 'those moments'.

I'm certain that I will still cry at the funeral this afternoon...but my emotional release in the car seemed to be enough to prevent me from randomly crying for the rest of the evening as I had been doing all afternoon. It was a relief and I'm thankful I found something to help.

(I'm pretty sure that a song from Into the Woods would have had a similar effect...)

Sad

Just a quick post to try to get some thoughts out of my head so I can concentrate on the tasks at hand.

I am sad. Upon arriving home from the house tour yesterday, I found an email from the husband of a college friend letting me know that she passed away on Tuesday. He realized that I was unlikely to have heard it from anyone else and wanted to make sure we knew. She and I emailed on an infrequent basis but read each other's blogs. Hers had been silent for two months, and now I know why. I did not going to the visitations at the funeral home, but will be going to the funeral tomorrow morning.

I am tired. I have gotten two good nights of sleep this weekend, one uninterrupted and one interrupted. But I am still tired and trying not to get sick.

I am emotional. On top of the news of my friend, I am worried for my friends who are adopting, I am feeling blessed by all the things I have in my life and I am constantly trying to balance my time between my family, my friends, my activities and my job. Something is going to have to give soon.

I am in constant motion and yet feel bogged down. I am behind at work and the house is a mess. Yet I can't fix everything at once and when I am with Heather and R, I want to focus on them and forget all of the things on my "to do" list. There are too many things on that list that I never get to (thank you notes for the June shower, cards to friends who have lost loved ones this year, finishing projects for Heather's room, planning household renovations, etc). There are important things on that list that I never get to. Something is going to have to give soon.

Basically I am just keeping my head above water, but I know that I need to enjoy life, take care of myself and my family, and focus on those things that really matter. I will be trying very hard this week (after I grieve) to spend my work time being focused, so I can get caught up and let that particular weight off my shoulders. Then maybe with the upcoming 3-day weekend I can get back to those important things on the to-do list and not feel like such a "bad" friend anymore.

I apologize if this is a depressing post. Please don't worry about me. I will be fine. I know I will. I just need to use this moment to understand what is important and move forward the best way I can for myself and my family. I need to clear out the clutter (figuratively and literally) and figure out what is going to give.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. I promise we will return to a less emotionally-charged blog soon. :-)

Please

Please go read this and mark your calendar to call, fax and/or email the appropriate parties. We know three families that could be affected by this change if it happens.

http://becomingfamily.blogspot.com/2007/09/we-need-your-help.html

A List

1 - I'm tired. It turns out that Heather's recent funky sleep patterns and overnight wakings are probably due to teething. Last night she woke up for the second time at 12:30 and didn't seem interested in nursing. So I put my finger to her gums and voila - there was a little pokey bit of tooth. Baby tylenol got us through the night and she was her usual happy self by morning, so hopefully cutting teeth is just uncomfortable enough to cause night wakings and not turn her into a little miss cranky pants.

2 - I got some good news this week. I didn't have to report for jury duty this morning. I'm not opposed to serving. But things are very busy at work right now and it would be a rather unfortunate time to miss an unknown number of days. It's not like I have all kinds of free evening time to get extra done.

3 - I'm not sure what is kicking my butt more - the tiredness caused by traveling or the fact that each trip generates more meeting minutes that need to be written. I'm taking a break from the meeting minutes this week to work on a project going to bid on Monday...but we travel again on the 9th, so next week is going to have to be a marathon of meeting minute writing.

4 - I do have another Heather milestone to report. She is really crawling now and she is pulling up on anything that will hold her weight, including the side of her crib. Our only saving grace is that she is not very fast, so it has been pretty easy to keep her in safe places since the house isn't really baby-proofed yet. But there is no more leaving her alone "for just a minute" until the actual baby-proofing is done. In my opinion, the cutest thing she does right now happens after she sees me across the room. She crawls over to me (right over toys if they are in her path), pulls up on my legs to a stand (grabbing skin, clothes and whatever is necessary) and then slobbering on my knees. Can't beat it.

5 - The house tour is Saturday. I just have a little signage to finish for the ticket area and a couple of street signs. No biggie, but I'm ready for it to be over so the possibility of doing more can stop hanging over my head.

6 - One baby sweater needs blocking and a button, two need seams sewn, crochet edging, blocking and a button and one I haven't started yet. I have more accessories to make, too. I think I'd like to create a "stash" of burp cloths and wash cloths so I always have a couple to give with a big baby gift. (I've decided that it doesn't matter if the mothers and mothers-to-be read my ramblings about this stuff because they have no idea what any of it looks like or what applies to them. ;-)

7 - Once the knitting for other babies is done (or slows down), my next task will be some cold weather gear for Miss Heather. She has mittens but most of her hats are too big and she doesn't own a scarf yet. I might make a pair of socks or two for outdoor adventures in the winter.

Plus a photo

We really haven't taken many photos in September, but R did take this cell phone picture at the pool. He and Heather had a great time. :-)

Quickly

Sadly, I have meeting minutes to finish today, so I'm trying to get them done while Heather is napping. It's going to be another busy week (traveling for work again, didn't last week), so I'll do what I can quickly.

After learning to sit up on her own last weekend, Heather has continued to make more progress. Last week she started grabbing our hands in order to pull herself up to a stand and made her first efforts at crawling. This weekend, with Stewart as her motivation, she crawled from the living room to the foyer! The good news is that she still doesn't really know that she can crawl yet. I think she was so focused on Stewart that she didn't know what she was doing. For the most part, she just scoots and stretches forward for whatever she wants. It's also harder to crawl on a blanket than on the carpet, and we try to keep her on her big pooh blanket. :-)

This week also involved new foods. I told you that peas were soundly rejected. Bananas were less interesting initially, but on the third attempt she decided she loved them and on the fourth feeding I couldn't shovel them in her mouth fast enough. :-) Avocado's first introduction was luke warm, but I'm hoping that was because of the new texture and we'll try again this afternoon when she wakes from her (hopefully long) nap.

The baby gifts continue well, the house tour to-do list is getting pretty small and the house was vacuumed this week. There is finally only one small pile of bags to be unpacked and there is laundry in progress.

I'm still busy, but a little less overwhelmed. A little. Still too much to do at work - partly because each trip I take produces more meeting mintues that need to be written, and I'm getting pretty far behind pretty quickly. Even if I get caught up on the Bradford ones today, I still have St. Lawrence and we go back to Bradford on Tuesday. :-)

Ah well. At least the work days are going quickly and not dragging, right? ;-) Hope everyone is enjoying the cool, crisp fall weather. I know I am! Although it adds one more thing to my to-do list - all of Heather's hand knitted sweaters need iron-on labels so she can wear them to daycare.

I prefer wood

Oh, the temptation.

Must resist.

At least until the next credit card cycle...

Peas....No

We have our first denial of food. At first I thought she was just tired, so we took a break, and she ate oatmeal without a problem. So I tried the peas again. Same immediate negative reaction.

So we left the table. She nursed, she played and then we went back to the table. This time, she had a full serving of oatmeal and enjoyed clicking her lips together to imitate me. Near the end of the bowl, I added just a dab of peas to the oatmeal.

Another crying fit.

So, what shall we try tomorrow night instead? :-)

Squash, Formula and a lower mattress

There is no way to catch you all up on everything, but I think this will be a rambling post to do what I can.

First off, I'm in pretty good shape with the house tour stuff. It took every available minute last weekend to get everything ready that needed to go to the printer...but I made it. At 9pm on labor day night, I delivered a CD to my co-chair with the program, poster, ticket and postcard designs on it. Big, humongous CHECK. There are still a few other things on my to do list, but I think I can get most of them done before our next meeting on Tuesday.

The other highlights of last weekend is that Saturday night was R's high school reunion. For my benefit, I was thankful that there were two couples there that I had met before. Dave (who was in our wedding) and his wife, and Michelle (R's prom date) and her husband were in attendance, and as well as talking with them that night, we also saw them on Sunday so they could meet Heather and we could see their ever growing children again. (Dave and Reiko's youngest was still in the womb at our wedding!)

We actually stayed longer than we had originally planned, partially to see these friends, but mostly so that Heathe could have more time in the pool. The reunion started at 4pm and we left later than planned from Pittsburgh, so Saturday's dip was just too short. We had a great time on Sunday - Heather really enjoyed the water. We will have to go back more next summer. :-)

On to things about Heather. On the physical activity front, she's a dynamo. We heard from her teachers this week that she had sat up on her own. It seemed that she had pulled up on a toy. Well, maybe she did then, but today she sat up with no toys around! She figured out how to get from all fours to a sitting position. I saw her do it in the crib. Even before I saw it, we decided to lower her mattress in the crib...figuring that it would only be a matter of time until it was necessary. While I was at it, I installed her new crib mirror (thanks grandma and grandpa!) and finally made an adjustment to her mobile so it could be used on her crib.

On the food front, things have been moving slowly so far. In a month, she's had rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potato and squash. Given that we can try something new every three days, that's pretty slow. :-) Honestly, a big part of it is how busy I've been. I've traveled for work two weeks in a row and we only had sweet potato and squash in the freezer. Truly, since solids are just for practice at this point, it is pretty easy to put them off when there is a lot of other stuff going on. And we have to try new foods with Heather before they'll give them to her at daycare. But today I made peas, bananas and more squash (she really seemed to like it yesterday and today) and we bought apples, green beans, pears, carrots and avocados. I hope to make at least a couple of those tomorrow in between vacuuming and laundry.

On the milk front, the milk stash officially ran out while I was on my trip this past week. And just like the solids, it was necessary for Heather to have formula at home before they would give it to her there. So on Thursday morning, she had her first full bottle of formula. Since my last trip was longe than my next trip, I don't expect that we'll run out again until I go on one of the longer trips again.

It bothers me less than I thought it would and pumping during business trips truly stinks. Although I successfully squeezed the gallon or so of milk that I pumped into my checked suitcase. :-) I'm tempted to try to wean from the pumping and just BF when I'm with Heather, but I'm to scared that I'll have to stop all together, so I'm not willing to try it for a few more months at least.

Not much knitting to report on. The secret knitting continues (and I need to get on that) and I started a stole from Victorian Lace Knitting on my last trip. So far I like the pattern in the yarn I'm working with (Helen's Laces). Although I might not work on it again until my next business trip since the secret knitting is bulkier.

I'm tired and I've written quite a bit, so that will have to be my catching up for now. More soon.

Close

For my own sanity, I need to finish the tickets, poster, postcard and program for the house tour by the end of the day tomorrow. The tickets, poster and postcard are done. I'm working on the program. I'm traveling for work from Tuesday night through Thursday night...and it's really just better if I get "everything" passed off to the printer before I leave.

There will still be some stuff to do for the house tour after that, but these are the big obstacles.

I plan to take my laptop with me on this trip and I expect it will be more of a 9-5 type of trip than the Bradford trips are...so I will try to post this week and get "caught up" on everything.

Someday I'll have more time to relax...

Hanging on

I'm not even sure what to say. The workday is sprinting by in a blur of phone calls, emails and trying to actually get some drawing done. I'm reading the occasional blog and nest post to save my sanity, but I'm not really keeping up with everyone right now or participating like I would like. (Someday I'll post a picture of my sewing machine. :-)

Heather started getting two "meals" over the weekend, so we've had them start giving her rice cereal at daycare. Honestly, she hasn't had oatmeal in the evening the past two nights because I've been too pooped. After a fruitless search for ice cubes trays at three downtown stores on Tuesday, I got home over an hour later than usual. And last night, R wanted to take Heather with him to pick up our take out during the best window for feeding her, and I wanted a few minutes to myself too much to argue.

I realize that this doesn't make me a horrible mother, and I also wouldn't be horrible if I fed her jar food instead of making it myself. But the thing is that I want to enjoy feeding her and I want to make some of her first fruits and veggies. So I'm a happier mom if I skip a few nights of cereal and if I hold off on veggies and fruits until I can squeeze out the time to make them. In a couple of weeks I might be buying all of her food, but at the moment this is where I am. ;-)

I don't think I'm going to stop feeling stressed out until everything is done for the house tour and/or when things get less crazy at work. I've got two days off, a deadline and 3 business trips in the next four weeks. In other words, it will be at least a few weeks until I really relax. :-) But I'm okay. I know this isn't going to last forever, I'm enjoying my time with Heather (and R) each night, we had a nice visit with my parents last weekend (and I came home with new shoes, new clothes and new yarn...not to mention Heather's new toys!) and I'm really just tired more than anything else.

On the happy front, two baby sweaters are almost done, I'm enjoying the baby genius burp cloths in progress and I've started another baby sweater that I think will be adorable. I can't go into any more detail since most of the recipients read this blog, but I will say that I'm anxious to finish my baby commitments so I can make things for Heather and me again. (I pulled out lace weight yarn and a pattern to make a stole for me, but I haven't cast on yet.)

It's taken me about two hours to write this in between phone calls and emails, so I guess I should post it before the day is over. How is it 3pm already?!?!

Thanks to all of you who have commented and encouraged me recently. I really appreciate it, even though I haven't had much time to comment in return. All of your support means a lot!

Overwhelmed

These things seem to come in cycles, and now I'm on the overwhelmed part of the roller coaster ride of the working mom.

I have four projects going at work, all in various states and with competing needs for my time.

Deadlines are approaching for the house tour. I have a lot of stuff I need to assemble before the weekend so I can spend my free time assembling the program.

I'm still barely keeping up with Heather's milk needs, so I'm still pumping 1-2 times a night.

This cereal thing not only takes time but dirties more laundry and dishes.

I think Heather's bedtime might need to be even earlier if we ever want to have a hope of putting her in the crib tired instead of putting her in there asleep. And I really don't know how everything is going to get done every night if she goes to be before 8. As it is I haven't managed to give her a real bath in almost a week.

And on top of all that I'm really tired, which makes it all seem that much harder. In the past few weeks I've only had a couple of nights when I managed to eek out 8 hours of sleep, so my average is probably somewhere around 6.5 hours. I can't tell you how good 7 hours straight felt last night, but I still need more to stave off my bad mood.

**************

Cereal is going okay. Heather is accepting of it, although she's not crazy about being constrained in the chair and I don't think she loves the rice cereal. Maybe oatmeal will be a bigger hit.

(Part of me thinks I should have them feed her cereal at daycare so she needs less EBM and we have one less thing to do at night...but then that is one less thing that I get to do with her. In a month or two she'll need two "meals" a day and I can stop fretting over this particular decision.)

She's also babbling up a storm and sitting on her own. She still needs to sit on a soft surface or with some adult arms nearby, but she is pretty stable for several minutes at a time.

Happy news!

When I opened my bedside table drawer last night to grab the remote, I happened to see my sad iPod. I honestly hadn't been using it much since I came back to work in May, but the past few weeks of not having the option of listening to it has made me want to listen to music at work again. (oh, what complicated creatures we are)

So I decided that I had nothing to lose by trying to turn it on again.

And I'm glad I did, because it worked! I guess it finally had enough time to dry out and/or forgive me for mistreating it. :-)

I will be accompanied by tunes all day and I can get caught up on the Cast On podcast again!

Removal

I have removed the button for the Dulaan project from my blog. For those who haven't heard, you can read all about it here.

I have to say that I'm not quite sure yet how I'm going to spend my charity knitting time. I like the idea of the Red Scarf Project, but with all of the baby knitting on my plate, I don't know that I can have anything to the OFA by October 15th. Then there is the fact that I've been meaning to go to the charity knitting time at one of my LYSs for ages, but I've never made it. I think that has more to do with our preference for family time on Sundays than anything else.

I think once I'm ready to do some charity knitting I'm going to have to do some internet searching for either national or local organizations. I'd really like to help local groups, but I've never found good results from google searches. If anyone knows of any groups in the Pittsburgh area that are in need of donated knitting, please let me know. I'd even be happy to maintain a list or share the list with the Pittsburgh Knitting site.

Goal Reached

Heather is 6 months old today and she's had nothing but breast milk!

I've decided I'm not setting any more goals. I'm not going to force any weaning but I'm also not going to do any more than I'm already doing (3-4 pumping sessions, oatmeal, mother's milk tea). It's going to be a busy fall, so we'll see what happens.

Thanks to all of you who have provided support to help us get this far. :-)