One Week

Almost Ready

I bought the fabric for this project way back in March, just before we started showing the old house and I had to put my sewing stuff in deep storage. I finally found time to put together a sewing space (the living room, which has excellent natural light) and sew the dern thing.

Deep breath. I am almost ready to met this little guy who has been kicking up a storm in my belly since I was 16 weeks!It is now coming down to just a handful of things (carseats, second rocking chair, children's tylenol, wash breast pump just in case, nephew's birthday party.....)But the important thing, this blanked I so wanted to give to my little one is done!

Hmmm....

37 weeks!

Trying to spend the last little bit of time before Yogurt's arrival enjoying the days with my little boy. It is a little sad that the days of me and my little guy are at an end, and soon it will be me and my little guys, or my big guy and my little guy, however you want to think of it.

With this is mind, we took a 3 day weekend staycation with the focus on doing stuff with the little guy. It started with a Friday morning trip to the Montgomery County Ag Fair, and a visit to the tractors. He has been talking about this since I took him (by myself because JC sprained his ankle that morning) last year. "When is the fair open? Can we go to the fair?" It has really been pretty constant, which is suprising. I guess it made quite an impression on him.

The boy loves the tractors, skid loaders, lawn mowers, and the combine harvester! And the tractor ride from the parking lot. Not so much into the animals, but he did pet a goat or two.

And we went to the National Zoo for the first time all summer to see the baby lions, which aren't so little anymore! And we went to IKEA, and Cabin John, and found a new park in Rockville. It was a nice weekend. We haven't had one like that in a good long while.

Then there was the earthquake, and the hurricane which thankfully just busted up one of our last weekends BB, and didn't really make itself too much of a nuisance. Although I did scoop the little guy out of his bed at the height of the winds howling and plop him inbetween us. Just feel safer knowing I can grab him quickly if need be, even if that sentiment is completely illogical. At some point in the night he sort of woke up and looked at me with a big smile on his face. He likes being in bed with us, but we don't allow it often.

So we are down to our last little bit of quiet before the baby arrives, and while I'm looking forward to the new arrivial, I'm going to miss these days a little bit too. I'm trying to spend as much time enjoying with the little guy as I can because these days are fleeting too.

A time to finish up, and start anew

I looked at my calender this weekend. Guess what I'm 35 weeks pregnant, not 34! I'm missing a whole week now! And wow, there is a big mental difference between 34 and 35. 35 is starting to be in that range of it could happen anytime!

With that in mind last weekend I knitted the pebble vest by Nikol Lohr( pebble) and this weekend I actually finished it!

I also finished the tiny tea leaves by Melissa La Barre ( tiny tea leaves) for my niece. I had finished knitting this months ago, back when it was cold, but because of all the house selling, moving, nonsense I never had the patience to sew in the ends and get buttons. Yes it's knit in the same yarn as the vest (knitpicks Swish DK, delft heather). I like this sweater alot, and it will make a nice big girl sweater for my niece. I just hope it fits in the shoulders and sleeves. I'm worried the sleeves might be too tight.

I'm trying to squeeze some more baby knitting in, and a have a pair of socks for myself I would like to finish before baby arrival, and I think I need to come up with a nice sweater for the little guy too, because he sees me knitting all this stuff for the baby, and I don't want him to get jealous, and I want to work on my long hibernating DC blanket, and a mitre squared blanket for the baby. Hmmm... I think I have the knitters version of nesting: The stuff in the house, the nursery, that can all wait, i just feel like knitting. And there is that taggy blanket project..... maybe I need to set up my sewing area at least!

We got rhythm??

Inspired by a blog I recently started reading (http://frontierdreams.blogspot.com/), and by some issues that started cropping up around our home, we are trying to establish a routine in our household. The idea is to help the 3.5 year old feel a little more secure and maybe cut down on some of the whining, and tantruming that had started to creep into our daily existence.

This summer has been one of transition for our family. We packed up one household, moved to hotel for a month, and have since been setting up in the new house. In addition I am 33 weeks pregnant, and the pregnancy has taken a toll on my patience and energy level. The routines we had (which weren't that good to begin with) completely feel apart for awhile, and we ate out a whole lot, got a lot of take out, got into the habit of going somewhere almost ever afternoon. Now that we are in the house and setting up, I have started to cook real food again, and seemed like it was time to start reigning in some of the chaos. I wanted to do this to help the little guy adjust and feel secure in the new house, but what I'm finding is that it helps me probably as much as it helps the little guy.

I guess the other thing to point out is that I am also really still trying to figure out the whole stay-at-home mom thing. I worked full time the first 2.5 years of the little guys life, and some of our bad habits stem from the exhaustion of that period of our life.

The little guy wakes up slowly. I go into his room around 7:15 and say good morning, I try tickling him, and sit and talk a little. Then he gets up, walks down stairs, plops on the couch, and watches TV, usually Dinosaur Train, for a half hour while he wakes up. I drink coffee.

Breakfast is a tricky meal for us. The little guy is picky. I have never been a big breakfast eater, and this doesn't help the little guy. We used to just eat breakfast on the couch while watching TV. This is a bad habit from my working days. Now we are trying to turn off the TV at 8:00 and go over to the dining room table and sit down together, even with daddy if he doesn't have to be in to the office early, and eat something. Still working on meals that work, but this has always been tricky for us. We do this for about fifteen minutes.

Then we march upstairs to get dressed and brush our teeth. Again this was something we used to do sitting on the couch during the morning crunch. To get him to do this a bribe him by with ten minutes of play time before herding him into the car to get to nursery school in time. He stays in nursery school til noon.

We are a week into the new routine, and it seems to be working. The little guy is taking some pride in getting dressed, and the whining has been minimal. We shall see if he simple gets bored, but I hoping that establishing this now will help us weather the arrival of the baby, by giving the little guy something to help him help us get him ready for school everyday.

Moving

Old kitchen, fun with flour, hotel while we wait, new house, new kitchen

Not much difference in the state of my kitchen before and after our migration

We will be putting away boxes forever.

we (and our stuff)are in the new house!

and although there is lots of work to do, and a measure of dreaming and plotting of improvements, I feel like a should sit back for a moment.

I wish I could grab a cold beer, but alas!

somehow we pulled it off!

we sold the old house in a down market, bought the new house, did some renovations to clean it up a little, and moved.

and somehow (and with some help from the movers ) we sorted and packed And moved all our stuff

and learned to appreciate how little we need.

but man, our little guy was so happy to be reunited with all his old toys!

(pictures soon)

Sold the old house.

Moved out.

Waiting in a hotel for the new house to be painted, floored, aired.

All while creeping closer to yogurt's arrival.

One crazy summer.

We will make it. just a little farther.....almost there.

The mantra playing in my head......

It will be worth it in the end, right?

Hello?

(Me on Mother's day)

I find myself in mid-May having not written in this public journal since January. It isn't like there hasn't been bloggable stuff going on. Quite the contrary, maybe things have been just a little too bloggable, and I thought better of posting any of it until things quiet down. And then there is that finding time thing, and the slowness of yeah old laptop, and my general impatience.

Let's see....We went on vacation to Sanibel island. We had lots of work done on our house. My husband changed jobs. And I am 22 weeks pregnant, and have had an interesting time of it so far. That is all I want to say for now. Maybe I can get back into the routine of archiving our little life, maybe not. But I'm glad that it is Spring, and soon will be Summer!

A near thing

We almost moved to Chicago, but we didn't. It was close.

I realized that I would follow my husband anywhere if it would make him happier. just as long as we were all together.

We lost power for two days, and I (my husband actually) threw away everything in the fridge and the freezer. Then I scrubbed the heck out of the fridge. It just seemed like the appropriate thing to do. so much for my new year's resolution!

I'm feeling tired and nauseous all the time. It wasn't like this last time. I think I'm going to be saying that a lot over the next couple of years.

Resolution

This year has greeted us with little resolution, so a thought I would share mine

1. Waste less food. (without making anyone sick)

2. Use less paper towels, plastic bags, and plastic water bottles.

3. Put some batteries in the camera, so the blog has pictures.

4. Finish Anna's sweater.

Mostly in line with being conscious of what we consume that we don't need to, to be kinder to the earth, and kinder to our bank accounts. I made some progress on #2 last year, but I still forget the shopping bags on occasion, or forget that I can use them in a non grocery store as well. I have switched to use cloth diapers for rags in the kitchen, which adds to the laundry, but not appreciable. However some messes are paper towel kind of messes. I also use crocheted or knitted cotton dishrags instead of sponges, and throw them in with the laundry. They work better for the most part anyway.

The food thing I've been working on, but it is a challenge. My eyes are often bigger than our ability to eat, or my desire to prepare food at the end of the week. But I'm working on it. I still need to figure out when to freeze part of a meal for later, and when we are okay eating that meal all week. Maybe I should er toward freezing. But what's the best way to freeze?Will it stand up? I don't like freezing food in general, because it often gets ruined in the process. I think part of the not wasting might be making smaller more frequent grocery trips. So that I don't plan two meals and only cook one, and then lose the produce for the second one. It may mean eating in more on weekends, which we generally don't do. It is a complicated problem. But I think we can do better.

Now off to work on #4

Happy New Year

The arrival of the New Year means the end of the crazy bustle of the month and a half surrounding the Holidays. I am sitting alone in a quiet house for the first morning in weeks. We had a great Holiday. Each year seems to get better and better, and we are enjoying making our new traditions as a family.

This year greats us poised for great changes. One change will make me extremely sad if it happens, another potential change will make me extremely happy. Combined together they are extremely daunting, but maybe it is time. Maybe we have gotten too comfortable and we need this to keep living.

And with alot left unsaid, I will leave for the moment. And promise as I do every year to get back to this space more often.

This time of year a whirl of activity descends on our household and we seem to jump from celebration to celebration. Enjoy the chaos!

My little boy turned three, and he was feted, and feted, and feted again, culminating in the spectacular party this weekend at our house. Kids, sugar, guitars, the fire brigade running through my house with every vacuum house I could muster up = Complete and blissful chaos only little kids can create! The hose seemed so still when everybody left! Oh yeah, and then there is this Hanukkah thing that we now celebrate as he is old enough to sortof get "it". The early arrival of Hanukkah this year means that there is a two week period in which he gets toys almost everyday. I fear he will go into withdraw waiting for Christmas. Enjoy this beautiful, busy season, and try not to get too caught up in what you HAVE to do, so you can enjoy what you are doing right now!

Halloween

I never knew Halloween could be som fun: Pumpkin carving, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin farm with nursery school, and trick or treating. We did it all, and the three year got it! What a difference a year makes!

These knits deserve better

The beginning of fall has been spent playing fire-fighters, learning to make a decent loaf, cooking, and knitting.

The knits deserve better pictures, but it was humid, hot, and rainy this morning, so this is the best I could do for now.

They are Frost Diamonds and Tea-leaves cardi . There is a 3rd thing I've completed.

It is a self design. I'm very proud of it. I knit it at the beach, and don't have a finished picture yet.

Have a Rockin' Halloween everybody!!!

Well, I've come to it. I have told my boss that I have done what I can for the paper. I am no longer working on a paper. I will soon no longer be able to hid behind working on that paper, like the paper was the one thing keeping me from being a frivolous house-wife. I am now totally the frivolous house-wife. I am trying to embrace it, to relish this time because it is a gift, and who knows how long it will last, but I am a little sad to loose a part of my identity. When people ask me what I do, I won't be able to say "I'm a scientist." Even this weekend when asked that very question I explained about just finishing up working on a paper in an attempt to pump up my importance or something. It's going to be hard to break that habit of letting people know that I'm at home now, but I used to do something that made me unique and special, and in a way that was easily conveyed by my job description.

It's important to break that habit, of referring to my scientist-self. My identity is not just about what I did, even when I was actively doing it. It was a part. In reality a small part of my interests and experiences. Now I have been given the opportunity to explore interests I didn't have time for, and even more important the time to experience fully being mom. Not everybody gets this chance these days, and I should consider myself very, very fortunate to get to spend so much time with my boy, playing and getting to now him, and in a way in which I can be absorbed by him in those moments.

Nursery school time, will be time to put the house in order, and time to think and be creative. It has been put forth that in order to be creative, one need exactly this, time alone, time with one-self and one's thoughts. Time to digest what we experience and put it into some form of expression (or not). And whether that expression in making bread or sewing or even writing this silly blog doesn't so much matter. It is time that I haven't had, time I have been craving, and time I probably won't have in the not so far off future, so I'd better take good advantage.

.

Summer, so far...

Sewing

"We the Guys"

Slide

Lush

"Crunch Buckets!"

Storms

*Crawldaddies Rock!

Wheaton Park

His favorite Zoo attraction

Lion

Farm

* note to myself because I want to remember this story 20 years from now: We went to see the "Crawldaddies" give a cajun inspired free concert at Strathmore. They gave out beads to the little dancing kids. The boy got his hands on some, and at the end of the evening when we left to go, he was absolutely adamant that he return them to the guys. So he walked up the the stage and placed them at the feet of the lead singer while they are still performing. They train them too well at the Montessori school!