Board Game Night part 2

We're hosting another board game night tomorrow and none of Josh's co-workers can make it. One of my co-workers who recently relocated from San Diego will be coming along with her husband. In preparation I have been cleaning today with Maegwin in the Ergo. Oh Ergo, how I love thee. She gets to be snuggled close to Mommy and I get to do pretty much all the things I could do while I was pregnant plus lifting more weight. I just finished doing the floor in the living room and straightening.

Whenever I polish the wood floors in our house I'm always struck by how old it is and yet how amazingly good it looks. I wonder how many times the boards were lovingly (or grudgingly) polished, how many sets of little feet raced and slid around on them, how long the house will last after I am no longer caring for it. This year our house is 110 years old, a quite venerable age. One of our neighbors, Claudia, is the great-granddaughter of the man who built our house back in 1900. I think about whether any of the houses we build today will be around in 110 years and will they look nearly as good? We probably won't stay here forever sadly because the school districts aren't that great and honestly we both work on the opposite side of the city so it doesn't make as much sense as when one of us was working. I think though, that I will always remember my first little house and have a special place for it in my heart and for a few years we get to be a part of its story.

I don't really have any cute new pictures. Maegwin has been a bit fussy the last few days so I've spent most of my time just soothing her. We did go out to visit my dad and stepmom on Wednesday. My dad has off Wednesdays and Thursdays so this was the last week we could go out and spend a day with him while I was off. Maegwin really enjoyed it and I know they loved seeing her. Sadly she hated the car ride back. At the best of times she hates her car seat and over an hour in it is like pure torture. At least she slept until we were about 30 minutes away from home so I didn't have to hear her cry pitifully for as long. I hate it because I can't do anything other than try to get where we're going as fast as we can.

We recently received some great gifts from the family. Josie & Matt sent us another six Bum Genius diapers so I think we are set with how many we wanted before starting daycare. Sara & Jonathan sent us a ton of board books from Emma and some great Under the Nile clothes and other outfits. They incidentally match the stuff Therese & Jay sent us so we can mix and match. Score! John & Shelly sent us an adorable summer outfit with one of those cute big floppy sun hats. I can't wait until she can wear it. It was like a tiny promise of summer in a box. We sure need it with all the snow around here. At least my first week back to work is supposed to be sunny all week!

I'm nearly done with Maegwin's hoodie. I finished the sleeves and started the hood yesterday. I just have to knit that up then seam it and put on some buttons. It's going to be so cute! It will also be my first foray into set in sleeves so I'm curious to see how that goes. I'll be busting out my Knitting Answers book for sure.

Maegwin is almost too long for her bassinet though I don't think she is ready to sleep upstairs yet since she isn't sleeping through the night. We'll have to break out her pack n' play soon to have downstairs.

She has also almost outgrown all her footed sleepers because of her length. I've started storing all her baby clothes in a tub in case we choose to go through this whole adventure again. I also packed up all my maternity clothes. I never thought it would feel so good to wear real pants with zippers and buttons again!

Update

Two posts in one day? I'm going to spoil you all. Maegwin did fabulously with her shots. The first one she didn't even cry or grimace. She kept smiling away at the nurse and talking to her. The second and third she cried but as soon as they were done I picked her up and nursed her and she fell asleep. I had them weigh her before the shots out of curiosity and she weighs 12 lbs 4 oz. That means in two weeks she has gained 13 oz! I'm beginning to wonder if I'm producing heavy cream instead of breast milk. hehe

We stopped by her daycare and two of the women were there-Michelle and Erin. I'm writing that as much so I'll remember their names for next time as for information. They have one boy that comes three days a week so on those days they have two adults which is great because it means there is a 3:1 ratio for over half the week instead of 5:1. Maegwin will be the youngest in the room and the two directors said she will probably be spoiled rotten. Apparently everyone loves young babies. People kept dropping by the classroom to see her. It was very nice. We got her crib set up with her organic cotton sheets and some extra clothes in her cubby and emergency frozen breastmilk in case she needs more of a bottle or I have to pick her up late. All is ready except for me. :p

Shots day

Today Maegwin goes in for her first set of shots. I'm not very pleased about it but I'm sure she'll be fine. It can't be any worse than the foot sticking incident which lasted for an hour. At least I know this will be quick and I'm planning to comfort nurse her a bit afterward. She was really good with other blood draws later so I bet I'll be more upset than she is. I know it's for the best though. I'm hoping if she's doing ok after to stop by her daycare and drop her sheets off and some spare outfits and a bag of frozen breast milk for them as an emergency thing.

She has been smiling up a storm and I finally caught some really good ones on camera.

I may have gone a little crazy with snapping photos. I'm sure you all understand.


Overall she is such a happy and curious baby. She loves the lights on her play gym now.


I got quite a bit of knitting done this weekend. I'm three whole rows into the pattern on Josie's blanket. I'm done with the lower border. Of course on the pattern set up row I missed a stitch 246 stitches back and didn't notice it until I got to the end of the row and had an extra stitch. 30 minutes later I had ripped back and reknit that one row. :p We were watching Charlie Wilson's War, which by the way is a great movie, so I was distracted. Word of advice, don't watch a good movie when knitting a blanket that involves working four sets of charts simultaneously. It is not a good mix. I could have jinxed myself more only by mixing in a good glass of wine. I also got the rest of the back of Maegwin's hoodie knit and am halfway up the sleeves. I'll finish those up today and hopefully the hood tomorrow.

We had a good relaxing weekend. Most of it looked like this:

Josh shaved and we made sure Maegwin was in the bathroom to see it through the various stages. We didn't want her to suddenly see clean-shaven Daddy and freak out. He's had his beard the whole time she's been alive.

I saw this cute video today and wanted to share. I thought it was so sweet and it made me smile.


Off to the sudden but inevitable betrayal! I'll update later.

Two more weeks til work

Just two weeks left of my maternity leave and it seems like it has flown by. I'm sad to be going back but glad I got to spend this time with Maegwin. Next year I hope to take a block of time off to spend with her too. We'll see how it plays out but it would be nice. She already seems so different and is changing every day. She smiles so much more now and babbles up a storm. I finally caught a picture of her smiling and though it is blurry I'm proud I got it at all.

I tried to upload some videos to Flickr today but it is being contrary so I'll try again later. There is one of her playing on her mat with Daddy and wearing her new socks from Grandma. I also really like this one which I imagine her to be saying "Are you tawkin' to me?" in her best Brooklyn accent:

She is generally quite a happy baby and we are enjoying her so much.

The great bottle strike of 2010 finally ended this weekend when we bought her a new type of bottle. It's the First Years Breastflow bottle and she is now taking it for at least one to two feedings a day. We were starting to get so worried because she kept refusing all bottles and crying so hard until I nursed her. This one has the same kind of mechanism as breast feeding so I got her to take it by switching back and forth in one feeding. Now she goes straight to it and latches on. Whew! One problem down. She gets all her shots next week and I think that is the last thing to do before she starts daycare. I'd like to get another 12 or so Bum Genius so I don't have to do laundry as often but we have enough to get by now. They are still working out great and we love them.

On Monday I was heading out to dig out the cars since I had to take the Prius in for the recall and thus Josh had to take the Honda. It hadn't been touched since the beginning of all this snow so it was well buried. As I stepped down to the last of our porch steps I slipped and fell. Luckily I had my wrist brace on for the DeQuervain's tendonitis and managed to catch myself mostly on that hand. It bent the metal pieces in the brace I came down so hard but hey-I don't have a broken wrist thank goodness. My lower back and tailbone were pretty sore the rest of the day but by Tuesday I was more or less recovered. Josh had to finish the shoveling with his bad foot and all. :P I told him we're quite a pair, all sorts of messed up. hehe

I finally picked the hoodie back up that I was knitting from the Vintage Baby Knits book. Mine is being knit out of Knitpicks City Tweed-a very soft alpaca and merino wool blend-and has been lying dormant since around September. I just have a tiny bit of the back and then sleeves and hood left to do. Hopefully by this weekend I'll finish it. The one in the picture to the right of mine was knit in a bamboo yarn but I like the weight of what I'm using.

I love the yarn and I want to pick out some really cute buttons for it. I'm glad I went for the bigger size back then since she'll be about right for this within the next month or so. It will be a good transition sweater as we move into spring.

The Power of the Nap

Never underestimate the power of a nap.

So far this morning I've been able to:
1. Have a cup of HOT coffee & eat breakfast(a rare delicacy with an infant)
2. Start a load of diapers without having to hear crying upstairs
3. Work out
4. Iron a shirt for Josh for work
5. Soak some of his other shirts
6. Fold a load of laundry
7. Sweep the floor
8. Pump and store my daily milk allotment (I'm trying to get a store built up before we start with daycare)
9. Clear the dishes out of the dining room and actually get some in the dishwasher
10. Take the compost out
11. Refill the fish tanks
12. Blog
It's only just 8:00 am! I still have the whole day ahead of me. It's enough to make one laugh maniacally with the sheer power of it. Bwahaha!

I received a very thoughtful package from my friend Cara and had not had time to blog about it. I love getting mail, especially when it is unexpected and not a bill. :p She sent a lovely hat knitted out of Malabrigo. This is Maegwin's first but certainly not last article of clothing out of this most wonderful of merino wools. It is so soft. She loved wearing it though she often objects to the cotton store bought hats. I've never yet seen her reject a handknit item. That's Mommy's girl!

Cara also sent us a lovely jar of Rosemary salt which Josh was quite excited about and some ginger caramels which I've eaten several of already. Yum! I'm looking forward to visiting with both her and my friend Gwen whilst we're out in California for Josie's wedding. I have a feeling it is going to be a packed couple of days. I'll also see Gwen in June because she is coming out to sell her yarn at TNNA and Knitter's Connection-both shows held here in Columbus. I offered to let her stay with us because it would be silly for her to get a hotel and cut into profits for the show when we live so nearby. Sadly I can't take extra days off to help her but there's always the weekend.

Josh was home the last two days with his foot, the other toe this time. I told him it sucked he was not feeling well but on the bright side it has been awesome having more family bonding time. I think Maegwin needed a few solid days with him to really get things straight. From what I've read, this is the age when babies put faces to voices and develop preferences for people. She seems to be taking to the Medela bottles with him and she smiled a lot and happily hung out with him. I'm so glad since I know it's been frustrating for both of us when all that calms her down is nursing. I want her to love her daddy just as much as me and to also be comforted by him. With him down though, it meant I had to do all the snow clearing.
I still haven't got the energy to dig out the Honda so I'm stuck at home until I do. I took the Prius out for a few errands while he took care of the baby. The picture above was after the first set of snow and the Prius had been driven. I have at least two feet of snow to clear out around the Honda. :p

I also got to bake yesterday. It all started innocently enough. I had made a chocolate stout cake for our board game night and it called for sour cream (I made mine with Young's Double Chocolate Stout instead of Guinness like any self respecting stout drinker would do, but I digress). I still had a cup left and I really hate throwing out food. I thought I'd make some kind of muffin that used sour cream. Then I realized I still had half a butternut squash from the butternut squash cake I made for the same party (in case people didn't like chocolate). I also had some crystallized ginger that I had used for garnish. Then I found walnuts from our roasted red pepper walnut dip. I started combining things and the batch grew and grew. By the end I'd made some kind of pumpkin-butternut squash-walnut-ginger muffin monster. It was delicious though! Probably not repeatable but we ended up with four dozen muffins so I'm freezing some to enjoy later.

The yarn came for Josie's blanket yesterday so I cast on 227 stitches and started the long slog. One row takes a really loooong time. I worked on it most of the day yesterday off and on and I have 10 rows to show for it. Hehe! Someone from one of my Ravelry groups actually asked me if I would finish it by the end of March. Uh, maybe with a million tiny knitting elves. I think by July or August should be doable though.

Snowmageddon 2010 continues

One of the people on my Ravelry group was calling it Snowmageddon and while we aren't getting hit as hard as the east coast I have to agree. I was born in the year of a very bad blizzard here in Ohio. So bad that people still talk about it. My family was snowed in for days-luckily I was breastfed and cloth diapered! I guess it's only fair that my own child should be born when there is tons of snow. I actually really like it, especially since I'm still off on leave and don't have to drive in it. That leaves Josh able to take our newer, more reliable car (the one with better tires) so I don't have to worry about him as much. We're supposed to get eight more inches of snow today and tomorrow so I might have to go dig our driveway out again.

Maegwin is currently napping so I'm trying to catch up on stuffing her diapers with inserts and all the laundry that is clean but waiting to be folded. I like doing laundry and I like folding it but only when it is still warm. Weird, I know. It feels like a warm snuggly hug when it's fresh from the dryer. Otherwise, it just feels like work. Coffee and some apple chips are making it at least tolerable.

We went for Maegwin's eight week check up yesterday. Apparently it was a bit too early for insurance though so they had to hold off on giving her shots. That was ok by me since I'd been steeling myself for the experience. She is doing amazing and is living proof that vegetarians can have big healthy babies!

She weighed in this week at 11 pounds 7 ounces and measures 24 inches long. She is in the 90th percentile for weight and off the charts in height. Her doctor joked that she is going to be a model. She gets it from her dad not me since I'm a very petite 5'4". I knew she was heavier than my weights I lift though and I was right. The doctor was amazed at her head control and that she is already cooing, smiling, and imitating us. She also really loves our cloth diapers and asked where we got them. We've been using a diaper rash powder instead of a cream and she said that Maegwin looked great. Apparently she's seen lots of babies with at least some diaper rash so I'm glad that it's working out so well. We can't use rash cream without a liner because it will stain the cloth diapers and mess with their absorbency. This powder, called Anti-Monkey Butt Powder can be used without a liner and it smells nice too!

My sister-in-law, Josie, has set a date for her wedding. It's going to be September 25th. We had thought that she was getting married in 2011 so we had to refigure things for the family reunion that is happening at the end of July. Originally we were going to take off Thursday & Friday and drive out to Iowa on Wednesday so we could have a good long weekend. I only have eight total days of PTO left for this year when I go back to work because we couldn't get her daycare spot until March 1st and my short term disability runs out this week. I have to use ten days to fill in the gap. So now we are planning to take only Friday off and maybe leave work early on Thursday, driving straight from there. We'll pack the car the night before and drop the dogs off on the way to work. That should get us to Iowa either midnight Thursday or in the wee hours of Friday morning. We'll have to leave Sunday after breakfast with the family and drive back. For the wedding we want to go out for longer so we can also visit friends and see Josh's Nana & Grandpa since she can't travel and otherwise they won't be able to see Maegwin until after she is a year old. I think if I haven't had any major illness by then we'll try to be out there for five days. We are thrilled that Josie is getting married, it just took some figuring. :)

On the same note, I'm already busily planning their wedding gift. Those in the family know that I knit Amy & Justin a lovely afghan for their gift which took me over a year to complete. Yep, this one:

I loved the yarn and enjoyed knitting it but it decided me that I wouldn't knit another in pieces like that. I was literally seaming it in the car as we drove down to the rehearsal. :P I wanted to knit something for all three of the sisters (yes, I've got a while to plan for Laura hehe). I've been combing through patterns and think I've decided on Saffron Cables from Interweave Knits this one:

Sorry Josie, no surprise but at least you can tell me if you'll hate it! I'm thinking a soft taupe color on this one, an organic cotton in a colorway called Malted Milk. Beautiful and delicious.

I just spent about 30 minutes digging our driveway out as best I could. The snow is falling so quickly though that I will probably have to do it again before Josh gets home. I was just picking up huge chunks of ice and throwing them to the side. No way I'm going out in this to get my wrist brace. I'll just have him pick it up on his way home. The Honda is too buried for me to dig it out alone. At least I've got a sock to work on while I sit in.

Oh the weather outside

We are having our first good snowstorm this year and it is so cool! The weather channel is predicting a foot or more of snow and it has been falling steadily since about 8:30. Unfortunately, it started after my dedicated hubby left for work. He's leaving within the next few minutes so we're hoping that the roads aren't too bad yet. In the last three hours about two to three inches have fallen and it shows no signs of slowing down. I went out and took some video of it in our backyard.

I love the way snow covers everything and makes all the sounds so muffled. I'm looking forward to a warm weekend in with my little family, knitting and watching Netflix.

We've been watching Stargate Atlantis but we're on season 4 so there isn't much more to go. I'm also watching the new Dr. Who series on Netflix watch instantly. It's fun and brings back memories of me watching the original on PBS at night. I had a little TV in my room-the old kind that had a dial you turned to get UHF or VHF and had an antenna. I played Nintendo on it and watched lots of PBS shows since it only picked up like five channels. Anyway, long story short I was a huge Dr. Who fan even with the old corny version and the BBC did a good job updating it.

I finished up some socks yesterday that were a year in the making. I cast them on right before I found out I was pregnant and totally lost my knitting mojo. I've picked them up and worked a few rows from time to time but they were solid black so frankly they didn't catch my interest. They turned out great but I don't think I'll knit anything pure black again for a while. It is really hard on the eyes and really boring on the brain. That said though, I'm sure they will probably become my most loved pair since they match a lot of my clothes...or at least my old clothes. Still have to figure out that work wardrobe thing before I go back. Anyway, without further ado:

Pattern: Belle Epoque from Two-at-a-time socks (a gift from my friend Gwen)
Yarn: Knitpicks Risata in black
Needles: Size 2 circulars
This is my third pattern I've knit out of this book and there are still several more I want to do. They are well written and can easily be knit one sock at a time. Frankly, I have no interest in knitting both socks at once. I like figuring things out with the first one and then zipping through the second. Less to fix if you screw up! I've started a new pair of socks today and am done with the first toe. They've been on my list to knit for quite a bit-Bacchus Socks. I'm knitting mine out of some yarn from my stash, Pagewood Farms Chugiak in a colorway called Mocha. So far this year my stash reduction efforts are going well. I think next I will knit myself a sweater.

Maegwin continues to delight and amaze us. She is really enjoying playing and she loves being with her daddy. He is apparently far more stimulating than I am. Probably because he can hold her up more than I can and sling her into more different positions-like riding on shoulders:

Or being tickled with facial hair:

She does seem to seek me out for comfort though. Whenever she is upset I seem to be her go to person for consolation. This is good most of the time but sometimes I want a break. Hopefully she won't be inconsolable at daycare or I will be very sad.

7 weeks old

Maegwin is seven weeks old today and it seems like my leave is flying by. She can really reach for things now, smiles all the time, and can push herself around if you put your hands down by her feet. It's amazing how quickly she is growing. I'm really curious how much she has grown. She has her eight week checkup next week where she'll get her next round of vaccinations so I'll find out her weight and length. I've been having some issues with my left wrist. Quite a bit of pain along my thumb and down into the wrist and arm. Many of the other new moms on my board have the same thing and I suspect it might be DeQuervain’s tendonitis but I'm going to see if the doctor can see me the same appointment to confirm. For now I'm just wearing a brace to sleep so I don't mess it up more. I take Ibuprofen when it gets too bad, mainly just after I wake up.

I've been working out at least three times a week trying to get back in shape. Boy, having a baby definitely made my abs so weak! Doing crunches is way harder than it used to be. I'm also only up to lifting five pound weights for any respectable amount of reps. I know it will get better but it is daunting knowing how far I have to go. My goal is to be more or less back in shape by the family reunion. Most of my tops fit me from before but my pants do not.

I caught a decent ending of a smile from Maegwin the other day. She was very happy in her swing while I worked out. I think she was laughing at me.

She also reached out and hit her zebra which was something new. She has never reached for something so far before.

I tried to take a picture of the two of us together in the mirror. I don't think it turned out too bad other than having weird bathroom lighting.

For now she definitely has grey eyes like mine. They seem to be tending more that way which is cool. It's the one thing where she looks like me.