making progress

The Fetching/sleeve dilemma has been solved and both are finished!



Now I just need to weave in all the ends and add the buttons...

works-in-progress

I read a conversation thread in the Ravelry group "I should be studying" about knitting monogamy; the idea that you should start one project and take it all the way to completion before even thinking about starting another. This is so not me. Lately I've been really bad about taking pictures of my knits before I give them away, so all I have to show you for now are some works-in-progress. I think I may have gotten carried away with starting projects lately!

First up, my sweater - hmm, not much farther along than last time. For some reason I keep pushing it to the back of the pile in favor of starting new, fast projects.



I've decreased enough on that sleeve now to need to switch to double-pointeds, but of course I can't because I'm using the ones I need for this project:



It's the beginning of Fetching, for a friend who has a birthday coming up, and I'm now done with the main part of that mitt and need to do the thumb. So, should I finish the sleeve on my sweater, or finish the mitt? And if I go with the mitt, do I then do the next one (they come in pairs, you know) before finishing the sleeve, or after? Dilemma, dilemma.

So instead I decided to make this hat (it's this same pattern - the Robin's Egg Blue Hat), it's for a woman I used to work for. She's awesome. I just need to finish darning in ends and to sew on the button.



But of course I can't do those things (darning and sewing) while watching movies, so I took a ball of yarn and a circular needle with me to a birth-film-fest at the Birth Center the other night and came out with this:



The beginning of a 2x2 ribbed hat, which was supposed to be toddler-sized but since I was watching movies as I cast on, it's looking to be a bit bigger than toddler sized. I'm sure it will fit someone.

And then last night when I should have been studying for my Anatomy & Physiology midterm, I found The Perfect Pattern on Ravelry. And it's worked on straights, which is good because nearly all my double-pointeds are in use. So of course I couldn't resist, and started in on it right away. And kept going, and going, until I had stayed up too late and had finished the knitting and bound off. More on this one later, I'm way too excited about it.

I do have some finished objects around, but I can't post them yet, because a certain someone might snoop and see their birthday presents before it's their birthday. And we certainly can't have that, now can we?

my tiny little baby

Nearly all this week Sophie has been running around naked or half-naked. It suits her character, and it facilitates potty-training nicely. She hardly ever gets cold because she's constantly moving, jumping, yelling, running as fast as she can (which is getting faster).

She wraps her baby up in her quilt, carefully lays her on the bed, and closes the door, whispering "shhhh" with her finger up to her lips. She hears the dogs barking on the carport roof (they can jump up there from the enormous pile of snow in the back yard) and says "Doggie! Foof! Hush!" What do doggies say? "Wuf!" (she growls as she says it). What do kitties say? "Wow-eee."

Before she goes to bed we read two books, How Many Kisses Goodnight and Goodnight Moon. She insists now that she reads the first one, How Many Kisses Goodnight, herself. She holds the book, I read the words, she tells her own story and points out things of interest in the pictures (doggies, babies, and fish, mostly), and she turns the pages in the order that she wants to. Then I'm allowed to read Goodnight Moon to her, although she has to stop and kiss each page before I turn it. She notices the blankie at the end of the bunny's bed, and she thinks the "little toy house" is a dog house. She points at the fireplace and says "Bapa!" (Grandpa). Yes, Grandpa does like fires, doesn't he.

She's too busy to stop and take a nap anymore, except on days like this - when I pick her up to dance to a song on the radio, and within seconds she is sleeping (and drooling on my arm).



I put a diaper on her, grabbed a quilt, and settled onto the couch to read...



And knit...



And kiss her head, which still has the same sleeping-smell it had when she was just a tiny little baby, when we would spend hours like this, her head tucked under my chin where I could smell her and kiss her as much as I wanted to.

She weighs more now on my shoulders, and these moments are shorter and come less often. She'll be two years old in two short months.

But she's still my baby.

happy spring

Today's the Vernal Equinox, and it's snowing outside, so I thought I'd put up some more reasons why I really do love Alaska.... even if spring doesn't show up on time.

1: View from Crow Point


2: Auke Rec (this is Hillary doing a cartwheel....)


3: Sandy Beach


4: West Glacier Trail out to the ice caves (that's me and Sophie when she was 3 months old)


5: Bonfires on the beach.


Oh Spring, please come soon....

why i love alaska

One of many reasons:





This is the view out the window of the classroom I have my microbiology lecture in. It can be distracting at times.

"Look, it's snowing again."
"Look, the boat that sunk is back up again."
"Look, that buoy's moving. Are those sea lions?"
"No, it's divers."
"Look at the sunset!"

Oh, microbiology, what?

when the simplest answer is the best answer

Who knew things could be so simple? When Sophie had her Staph infection, I put her in disposables for a week and bleached all her diapers. The point was, obviously, to kill the Staph, but I was also pretty excited about the prospect of not having to deal with yeast infections for a while.

Yeah.

Two days later she had a yeast infection. I've been beginning to think I'm breeding a resistant Candida strain over here or something. I've tried everything... you name it, I've done it, at least twice (this has been going on for over a year now, sometimes worse than others). But I think I'm finally ahead of the game! She hasn't had any yeasties in over a week now. And what did it?

Boiling water.

I feel thoroughly put in my place. Bleach, psh. All it took was a couple big pots of boiling water dumped into the washer with a hot wash... and some lavender essential oil for good measure (I couldn't find my tea tree oil, but lavender is antiseptic to a degree also).

Yay for clean diapers!

a doula story

I'm watching this movie right now, and my internet is slow so I have to keep pausing and waiting for it to load - so I'll take the time to pass it on here.

It's the story of a doula working with black teenage mothers in Chicago. While I wouldn't choose the birthing options that she does (hospital birth, medication), I can relate as a teenage mother myself. Unlike a lot of the young mothers in this film, I had great family support and my mom was with me through the whole experience. Rather than having a doula support me and go with me to the hospital when labor began, I had my wonderful midwives who met me at the birth center and took care of me throughout the entire process - acting as doula during labor, catching my baby as she was born, staying with me until I was ready to go home, and coming to my house every few days afterwards to check on us.

What runs through the film is that what young pregnant mothers need is love, trust, and most of all just being - being with them when they need it, not leaving when they're scared, listening when they need to talk, and talking when they need to listen. This is what teaches them how to be a mother. The word 'midwife' means 'with woman.' When you are with the woman, you are not only helping to bring a baby into the world, but bringing a mother into the world as well.

a very sad elephant

Today I caught Sophie in the dog bed, pulling the stuffing out of this:



This sad little elephant was one of my first knitting projects ever.



I was 15, and I made it in preparation for the arrival of Elwood. It's entirely in garter stitch and has an amazing number of errors and is just generally really crappy, but I put so much love into it! I was sure he would love it as much as I did.

Here he is, around 7 weeks old: The Cutest Puppy Ever.



He never did show the smallest bit of interest in that elephant, and it quickly migrated to the very bottom of the toy basket. It's been there now for almost 5 years, until Sophie came along and started pulling all its stuffing out. I think it's finally time to let it go.

Goodbye, sad little elephant.