J Strizzy

Remember That Time We Almost Went To Rhinebeck.?

Back in July, hugely pregnant and optimistic, I made a hotel reservation for Rhinebeck, just in case I felt up to traveling 6 hours and traipsing around the festival with two-and-a-half-month-old twins.  My mom said she'd go with me to help with the babies and get her first go at Rhinebeck.

Then at some point in the last couple of months, I got it in my head that Rhinebeck was the weekend of October 24.  Not October 17, its actual date.  Last Friday I mentioned to a friend that the babies and I and my mom were going to Rhinebeck "next weekend," and this friend gently let me know I'd gotten it wrong.  It wasn't until later that evening that it occurred to me that just maybe I'd made the hotel reservation for the correct weekend nonetheless - which of course I had, and my credit card had already been charged since mom and I had failed to show before the cancellation deadline. 

But it turned out to be a good thing I screwed up (the hotel charge notwithstanding).  For one, I keep reading about how cold it was, and I wouldn't have wanted the babies to be outside too much if it was that bad.  And for another, Saturday morning we learned of a death in the family; had we been at Rhinebeck we would have left immediately to drive home, and wouldn't have made it to the festival anyway.

So maybe we'll try again next year, and in the meantime we might drive out to the Shenandoah Fiber Festival this weekend - it's close enough to be a day trip, it'll be less crowded, and Sunday is supposed to be sunny and in the mid-60s.

Things I Have Learned In My First Month As A Mama

1. Babies' clothing sizes are meaningless, and no more consistent than those of women's clothing.  Newborn?  0-3 months?  Whatever.  Even the brands that give weight ranges for their sizes are useless.
2. The folds of an infant's neck can be deeper than the Mariana Trench and hide truly impressive amounts of dried milk.
3. That quiet contemplative pause during an otherwise vigorous nursing session?  Someone's pooping.
4. One can go from feeling like a wonderfully natural parent who can soothe their little one's woes just by holding them, to feeling like an incompetent doofus who can't for the life of them figure out what's causing that same little one such horrible distress (gas? hunger? uncomfortable carseat strap? unpleasant noise? Paula's not coming back to American Idol?  WHAT????), all in the space of ten minutes.
5. I really miss working.  I love that I can spend this time with the munchkins and I know that I'll miss them terribly when I go back to work, but I also miss my job.  I miss the people, the work, and the feeling of engaging in intellectual discussion on a regular basis.  Yesterday we started talking about something related to my job that was in the news, and I really liked using my brain that way again.  Ask me again in two months though, when I'm back at work...
6. It is totally possible to eat a bowl of pasta one-handed.  It is equally possible to sort through the mail one-handed, to read a book, operate a digital camera, or type a blog post.

In other news, the swelling in my hands is nearly gone, so I can knit again!  I'm plugging away at the baby blanket I started months ago, but just to celebrate I may try to whip out something fast like a pair of booties or something.

Strizzy: The Next Generation

The babies are here!  They were born a little over two weeks ago, and we're only just starting to catch our breath.  A boy and a girl, born a few weeks ahead of schedule and absolutely beautiful. 

Beautiful but rather small because they were early; our little girl came home with us when I left the hospital, but our even littler boy only came home from the NICU a few days ago.  In the interim we spent most of our time at the (internetless) hospital so we could be with him, feed him, watch him grow.  Now our family is all home together, and enjoying getting to know each other and catching up on sleep. 

And for those of you who might be wondering, my hands are still numb but they don't hurt anymore, so yes, I've been doing a little knitting here and there...

Counting Down

Eleven more days of work.

One car seat is already installed in my car and the other one will go in any day now.

The nursery is being painted this weekend, and the cribs are being delivered in the next week or two.

My parents will be in town in a week and a half.

I've made a list of what to pack for the hospital, though I haven't actually packed any of it yet. 

My doctor's appointments are now weekly. 

The babies are now more than five pounds each.

We're getting close...

I can't wait, and yet I'm terrified.

I Miss Knitting Too

I have a new pattern book I haven't been able to knit anything from (well, half-ownership -- Mom and I bought it to share), a couple of lace shawl kits, my not-even-a-quarter-finished baby blanket, a twist collective gift certificate to use, and a complete set of Violently Domestic sock patterns that I won in Claudia's MS Ride Prize Basket, all just sitting and waiting patiently for me (and that's just the recent stuff, not even considering all the stash).  I don't know what's come over me, but for some reason it's just hit me very hard in the past few days how much I miss knitting. 

It's especially frustrating because right now I have plenty of time and motivation to knit, whereas I know that for some indeterminate length of time after the babies are here I will have neither time nor energy to do so. 

I mean, yeah, I know I probably won't miss it then, what with getting to meet our little ones and learning to be a mama, and I am impatient as all hell for that.  But in the meantime, I really wish I could make the time pass more enjoyably and come out with something useful or at least pretty to boot.

I Miss My Ankles

These kids better be really cute.

Surreal, Bittersweet, Satisfying

Over the weekend I cleaned out a closet in what is going to be the babies' room.  Apparently when we moved in that's where I stashed all the stuff I wanted to hang onto but didn't ever really need to look at or use. 

I found high school yearbooks, my college diploma, photos from when I was a camp counselor, journals I kept sporadically during college and law school, holiday and birthday cards and thank-you notes received over the years, VHS tapes (not sure we even still have a VCR), an old day planner, and a crossword-a-day calendar from I think 2002.

Looking through my high school yearbooks in the process of preparing for our twins' arrival was a strange feeling.  Notes from people I don't remember, interspersed with inside jokes I don't get anymore, made me feel as if the person who owned that yearbook was someone else entirely.  One inscription brought me to tears, from a friend I was very close with in high school and then kept in touch with on and off until he passed away a couple of years ago.  But the stiff-sprayed bangs and pegged jeans in all the pictures brought a smile back to my face.

The college journals also made me sad, in a different way.  They also felt like they belonged to a different person, an unhappy and insecure person, who put up with lousy relationships far longer than she should have.  Apparently I only wrote in a journal when I was upset and depressed, so reading through them gave me a disturbing picture of myself as someone who was never happy.  And yet I know that's not accurate, so along with the old day-planner, the journals went in the trash.

The day-planner did have one useful item though.  I've long kept lists of books I've read and books I want to read, most recently on goodreads.com.  One of the books on my to-read list on goodreads is A Child's Book of True Crime, by Chloe Hooper.  According to the list of books I read in 2002 that was in the planner, I've already read it.  I guess my taste in books has stayed consistent, even if the book itself didn't make much of an impression.  And it does feel satisfying to check a book off the list...

Tell Me What To Read

Wow, it's been almost a month?  Well, damn.

I'm still here, still pregnant, still can't knit.  Which is going to make the 8-hour (each way) car trip we're embarking on this weekend rather boring and unproductive.  Not to mention the four days of our visit to my parents, that are expected to be almost entirely cold and rainy, and would therefore be prime knitting time.  Instead I'll only be able to watch my mom knit cute little baby stuff. 

I, on the other hand, am planning to spend a good deal of that time looking through the big plastic tubs full of children's books that my parents saved from when my siblings and I were little and which have been waiting patiently for new owners all these years.  We were all big readers and my mom used to be a children's librarian, so there is a pretty good collection. 

But my knowledge of children's books pretty much stops about 15 years ago, when I stopped babysitting and my youngest sibling outgrew picture books.  What are your favorites that we'll have to make sure to find for our kids?

This Is What You Get When I Can't Knit

1. My hand is marginally better, thanks to a wrist brace.  Knitting is still out, but at least I can sleep comfortably, and I can brush my teeth in the morning without cursing the concept of opposable thumbs.  Now, however, I am starting to develop a slight bruise and dent in my arm where the bottom of the brace hits.  Small price for mobility I guess.

2. My eyes are also marginally better.  I hadn't mentioned there was anything wrong with my eyes?  There wasn't, not exactly.  I went to the eye doctor the other day because it seemed like my (already terrible) vision had gotten a bit worse and things were sorta blurry.  Turns out, it had actually gotten slightly better!  Pregnancy is weird like that.  Sadly, my eye doctor says my vision will probably revert to its previously bad self within a few months after I give birth.  But I got new contacts with a slightly weaker prescription -- for the first time EVER -- and the world is all sparkly again.

3. This afternoon I went to part of a free Chaka Khan concert at lunch.  She was kicking off a summer concert series downtown, right next to a food court that is an office favorite, and so of course we had to go.  Unfortunately, we got there after she'd already opened with "I Feel For You" and left before she did "I'm Every Woman"; the plaza where she was performing was packed and it was HOT.  So... pretty disappointing actually.

4. But work made up for it by having free ice cream later on!  I was sitting there thinking I might go get some from the place down the street, when up popped an email saying there was ice cream in a conference room.  I"m working on getting that to happen every time I start thinking about going out for ice cream...

5. I need to get a manicure.  I did my nails myself a few days ago, in a color I really like, but nine out of my ten nails ended up with those little tiny bubbles in the polish (I know you know the ones I mean).  I've never been able to completely avoid them, except by having a professional take over.  Would it be terribly weird to take the bottle of cheapo drugstore polish to the manicurist with me?

6. I don't have a sixth thing, but five just seemed too round and convenient. 

Bittersweet

Well, I promised pictures, did I not?  Here they are -- enjoy, because this is probably my last knitting and sewing for a while.  The minor hand problems I mentioned in my last post have gotten much worse.  The swelling has progressed to the point where my right hand hurts almost all the time, made significantly worse whenever I grip something.  Like a toothbrush, a pen, or a knitting needle.  So I can't really knit anymore, and I don't think I can finish my baby quilt even though I can still work a sewing machine (and even bought a free-motion foot), since not only would crawling around on the floor to do the layering and basting be awkward, but dealing with all the basting pins would put me totally out of commission. 

My mom and my doctor say it will go away within a day or two of giving birth, but I'm guessing I won't have much time for crafts at that point.

So here is the first quarter (almost) of my Around the Block blanket, in Shelridge Farm superwash DK:

It's a very cool pattern: you start with a provisional cast-on in the middle of one side (that's the blue yarn over on the right), then work short rows to the corner, at which point you turn and start picking the short rows back up until you're at the middle of the second side, then do it all over again.  So it looks like a standard square worked out from the center, but in fact the whole thing is worked perpendicular to the edges, pivoting around the center.  I've never seen anything else like it, and I look forward to getting to finish it someday (hopefully before my kids go to college).

And the quilt top:

Also a cool construction method.  You sew strips together, then cut squares from them at an angle.  The piecing was quick and simple.

Unfortunately, this too will not be finished for some time.  It figures that I went and bought batting and backing fabric only a few days before my hands started getting really bad...