This Moment...

A moment from our week. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Eight Months

8 Months Pregnant

Busy busy busy.

Sanding staining sealing.

Knitting sewing doll-making.

One month left.

Maybe if I keep this up, I'll have this baby in 3 weeks instead of 5.

This Moment

A little extra help for those of you struggling with the baby image... Have a great weekend!

Sneak Peek

LEFT: Profile, hand to face.  RIGHT: Full facial

You'll be glad to know that my (our) afternoon at the hospital yesterday produced no shocking news. Of course, you're not nearly as excited and relieved as I am to find that this child does not, in fact, weigh 10 pounds. (Which unfortunately means I'm the only one experiencing abnormally rapid growth.) Nor does there seem to be any excess amount of fluid that could be linked to a possibly fatal genetic disorder (I hate the internet - if you're concerned about a possible ailment, do NOT do any online searching. It will just rattle your already twisted and nervous mind).

Even though I spent what seemed an eternity in waiting rooms, getting blood drawn, and in the company of the ultrasound technician, I did get another sneak peek at baby-to-be, which provided me an unexpected opportunity to secretly discover the gender of this little cutie.

And?

 In a rare display of self-restraint, I let her know we wanted to wait until the big day.

On the left: a profile view of our (approx. 5 lb baby), with hand to face. On the right, my favorite image -  Looking at the babe straight in the face. Top of head (with tuft of hair) is at the top right of ultrasound image. Chubby face, wide open eyes, open mouth.

I can't wait to meet you, little one!

And in the meantime, I'll be knitting these for you - for your first bitterly cold Chicago winter:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/stay-put-baby-mitts 

From Joelle Halverson's: More Last Minute Knitted Gifts, in cashmere. 

Nesting

My attention has swung dramatically in the direction of my belly. It's hard to ignore these days... it is there when I go to bed, there when I wake. It makes it difficult to get out of a bed or a soft, deep chair. It's constantly jumping and bouncing away: during class, during meals, during sleep. And it's growing, oh yes it is growing. In fact, it grew so much in the last two weeks that my midwife was a wee bit concerned, and so today I shall spend most of the afternoon at the hospital: blood work to check on the success of the iron therapy, and an ultrasound - to make sure I won't be birthing a preschooler instead of a tiny little infant.

While I don't have a lot of faith in rising iron levels (I feel awfully, terribly tired), I'm pretty sure I won't give birth to a 12 pound baby. What I also won't be doing this week is working, an unexpected little break from the day to day of my normal life, as I get poked and prodded and await test results.

So I find myself with a few extra hours to rest, and now a bit of time to blog. Aside from the usual busyness of the end of the semester testing and grading, I have been pulled away from this blog because I have been busy readying my home for the baby.

Nesting is such a funny thing, so instinctual, and sometimes so impractical. I spent the last two weekends moving furniture, drilling, sanding, hanging shelves, and re-purposing items in my sewing room and bedroom. The bedroom makes sense, because the baby will share that space with us indefinitely until we move out of here and get a bigger place. But the sewing room? You know, every newborn needs a tidy and practical crafting space for those ever important, um, newborn projects.

I didn't bother to take 'before' pictures of the space. I don't work that way. I let frustration with a certain area of my home build until it explodes and then jump in and start tearing things up. No time for photos. But change it has, quite dramatically. Here are some 'after' shots:

It's a tiny space just off the living room, but it's mine.

Old cabinet = new storage for fabric and yarn

Full - this will keep me from buying more until I use some of what I have. 

Overflow yarn storage in an old Trunk insert

New home for awesome buttons Chris bought me in Paris

Patterns, pattern books, pattern ideas, and more patterns

Sweet wool felt bird and kite paper star for my window

In case you thought I was just re-arranging, I've also been busy making. I have a few finished sweaters for myself that I don't have pictures of yet, but my attention has turned fully to the little one and its little things:

Puerperium Cardigan - Madeline Tosh DK Yarn, color = Gossamer 

Booties to match

Can't remember the name of this one: Hooded jacket, will add knitted i-cord toggle buttons

Blue merino wool from Australia

Pattern and fabric for new baby bunting

Sweet doll head - will soon be attached to a sweet star-baby doll body. 

This Moment

A moment from our week we would like to remember. Here's to two days off in a row! May you spend them in a happy little fort of your own...

Halloween High

I'm a bad blogger lately. Too too tired. Last Friday I wanted to share a video clip for my This Moment post, and I didn't. And then I spent the entire weekend revamping and reconstructing my house (i.e. nesting). No time, apparently, in my busy life for my already existent children. I'm focusing right now on the one that is in the works. (Oh please, please come a little sooner than you're supposed to. I can't take feeling this big and slow anymore!  I want the old me back.)

Anyway, the day after Halloween turned into a day of no school for my yet again lice-infested children. Which, in its own weird way, was a sort of gift for this tired and slow mommy. We slept in a bit, didn't have to get dressed bright and early.

Chris and I laid in bed and listened to the pitter patter of their feet running up and down the hallway. We rolled over lazily and giggled at their hushed conversation. We knew they were getting into the halloween candy, but in our own naive way we enjoyed it. Until later when, after who knows how many pieces of candy, they turned into this:

Now, I can't get my iMovie to recognize this video taken with my android phone, and I'm too tired and impatient to try anything else. So if it works, you're looking at them sideways, which is just as well. You'll notice that every sheet and blanket has been thrown onto the floor, and the monster on the top bunk (Mae) is terribly menacing and unable to string together any coherent sentences.

Let's just say that since that morning, Halloween Candy has been strictly rationed around here. In fact, it seems that it will never run out, which makes me want to eat it faster - you know, just to get the stuff OUT OF HERE.

Enjoy the madness.

Magic Trick

After almost 7 years of parenting you'd think I had a few tricks up my sleeve, the kind of tricks that magically calm your restless, pestering children; the kind of tricks that silence them in the middle of chaos, make them listen to you, behave. But I don't. I mean, I didn't, until now.

I hesitate to share this with you - it is, after all, quite powerful. But I'm a generous person at times and this really does work wonders. The number 1 way to silence a car/room/house that was just mere seconds earlier brimming with calamity is....have a complete breakdown in front of your kids. And then sob. Silence.

It can't be just any old type of breakdown, though. It has to be the kind that builds, grows, festers, over days and weeks and months. It has to be accompanied by sore back and weight gain and sleepless nights; by surging hormones and by hundreds and hundreds of papers to grade. It emanates from a deep source of sheer exhaustion and stress.

And then, on top of that all, the following events need to transpire - not necessarily in the same order: You need to completely tear apart your home in the midst of a very busy weekend full of halloween costume making, exam correcting, and composition grading, because your place must look and feel better when your new baby comes in 7 weeks.

You need to scramble to finish the final details of your kids' costumes so you can push them out the door in time for this very important of days at school.

Your youngest needs to soak her (basically un-washable) halloween costume with urine before the school day is over and have nothing to wear for trick-or-treating.

Your oldest needs to be named the newest victim in the lice outbreak at school and GET SENT HOME just HOURS before the big parade and halloween party she has been looking forward to for weeks. You need to cry on the phone, on campus, in the middle of hundreds of undergraduate students, and tell the school intern/receptionist that this is a cruel and awful way to ostracize your child and please OH PLEASE couldn't she just stay one more hour for the party?

Your husband needs to lose a day of work so he can race to the rescue, grab her, treat her with nasty shampoo, and return her to the school just in time to participate.

You need to lose a whole day and $500.00 to go to the lice professionals to ensure that NO ONE in the family has even one nit left in their hair and then start to freak out about sending your kids BACK to the school where they got lice because you definitely don't have another $500 you want to spend on parasites.

You need to visit your midwife and be told that your iron levels are plummeting dramatically and that you are probably breathless and exhausted due to this and must start iron therapy. And then learn that you gained 3 pounds in 2 weeks.

You need to go home and wash every bedding article on all beds, all towels, all stuffed animals, and then change them and wash them daily for the next week or so.

You need to stay up well past midnight grading (late) compositions, counting on that one glorious hour you have between your four classes the next day. That one glorious hour where you can grade at least 6 more compositions. And then you need to open your email to learn that you have to sub for a TA the next day, during that glorious hour. Which means no eating, sitting, grading, resting at any point the following day.

You need to get up at 5 am to finish the compositions. Rush out the door without breakfast or a wallet. Almost run out of gas, pull into the gas station, discover missing wallet. Return home, (it's important that you start sobbing uncontrollably in front of your kids at this point) get your wallet, get gas, and get to your daughter's school - whose door is locked because school has started and you're just standing out on the street wondering what in the hell to do when a passing parent sees you and calls the school for you so they let you in.

You need to rush to class with an ill-prepared, boring lesson plan, and repeat it 5 times in a row. And then it's important that your Friday babysitter text you to tell you she has to cancel.

And most importantly, you need to get home, stumble into the kitchen, and completely break down in front of your girls, who are in the midst of a vicious battle over gummy bears;  who then smother you with kisses and hugs and sweet sayings for a few minutes.

And then go off in a different room to fight about Halloween candy.

I'm telling you, it's magic.