June 29, 2008
37 Weeks...
Any time from today on is considered full-term for this baby, so we've been trying to get the big things done enough to feel ready. Big things like: digging the infant carseat out of the basement...check, doing some baby laundry...maybe tomorrow, packing the bag for the hospital...uh, yeah, better do that soon... And, of course, trying to get the baby's room to a point where it's not completely under construction anymore. Denis got the painting done this weekend, and he and my youngest brother got the furniture mostly sorted out. Carrie has a "new" (my old) dresser in her room (with a mirror!), and the changing table/dresser is all set to be filled in the baby's room. Once we get the closet organizer in, the window treatments up, and assemble the crib, the room will be as done as it needs to be for now. I'm not assembling the crib until everything else is done, though, because I went into labor with Carrie the night we put her crib up, so I'm feeling a little superstitious about that...of course, by the end of this predicted hot and humid week, I might just be begging to get that crib ready...
Oh, and happy birthday, Lisa - sorry I couldn't go strawberry picking with you today!
June 25, 2008
Still a Girl!
With the gradual rise of my blood pressure, I've been getting to do weekly blood work (fun!), non-stress tests (actually, those are pretty relaxing), and yesterday I even got to have another ultrasound, just to make sure everything was still looking good. Of course, I wanted to be sure baby was fine, but I also asked the tech if she'd be willing to just double-check for me that there is still a baby sister in there. Although it would be a pain to have to repaint the pink wall in the baby's room, my bigger concern was that Carrie has been talking about her new baby sister for four months now, and I'd been getting more and more worried that we'd wind up with a surprise in the delivery room and come home with a baby brother instead. (How exactly would I be able to explain that?!?)
But, she is definitely still a girl. No doubt in the tech's mind, so that's one less thing for me to worry about. Oh, and she looks perfect in all other ways as well, so now we just get to play the waiting game while she decides what her birthday will be! And possibly try a little harder to pick a name...
June 24, 2008
3.8 Years Old!
Dear Carolyn,
Today you are three years and eight months old. You really are too cute for words sometimes. Lately you've been cracking me up on a daily basis...and driving me up a wall on a daily basis too!
So what's been going on this month? Not much! School ended, and with it any pretense we had of a daily schedule. You've become mightily addicted to TV, as I've been trying to keep my feet up and my blood pressure down. We have daily battles over turning the TV off, but once we do you have no problems filling your time up with other fun things. I do feel badly, because you beg to go to the park or out in the pool on a daily basis, and I just don't have the energy to do those things with you without another adult around to lend a hand right now.
On the other hand, you're intensely into books right now. There was a stretch of a week or so where if Daddy or I sat down you'd hold us hostage with book after book after book after book...pretty much until we couldn't possibly read one more thing without completely losing any voice we had. And then you'd switch to the other one of us. As a result, you either have all your books memorized, or you've finally connected all the pieces to actually read fluently. (And given that you can read new books pretty much on your own, I'm guessing it's more the latter.)
I think you might be headed for a growth spurt, because you've actually been eating lately. Not just your standard cereal, yogurt, fruit, veggies, pb&j kind of diet, but actual meat, pasta, and even scrambled eggs. The other day you even ate rice and beans - granted, they were in separate bowls (god forbid anything touch - you get that from me, apparently I did that as a kid too), but the point is, you ate them. You'd still live on olives and blueberries alone if I let you, but I'm glad to see you actually do like food, and will eat it when your body needs it. That's really all I can ask. (Of course, it's never been a problem getting you to eat ice cream.)
I just realized that if all goes according to plan, this might be the last update I write to you as an only child. (If your sister is a bit late, you might get one more letter all to yourself!) I have really mixed feelings about this. I know you're going to love your new baby sister, and at the same time I'm worried that you're going to think we destroyed your life. Change is really hard, even for someone as "old" as I am, and we're going to be asking you to handle a very, very big change. I hope that all the dire predictions about this that we've gotten from (assuredly well-meaning) others are wrong, and that even though your life is going to be very, very different, you won't really hate us for it, or feel that you've been displaced or replaced. Nobody, ever, could take your place in my heart. You are my very special baby girl, and you always will be.
Love, Mommy
June 22, 2008
Baby's Room Update
Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a pink and yellow room. (Let's just hope the ultrasound technician was right about this baby being a girl!) There's still quite a bit of trim painting to do, a closet organizer and shades to install, and a lot of furniture moving that has to happen, but I'm actually starting to believe that the room might possibly be usable before the baby arrives! (Four or so weeks to go...)
Bonus points if Carrie's "big girl" room is completely set up too. I found the neatest idea for rain gutter bookshelves which will solve a lot of problems for us - most of which involve the insane number of books the kid has already, all of which are too tall to stand up on her tiny bookcase. Plus, it's cheaper than even the cheapest flimsy particle board bookcase you can buy right now. So even when we need to replace it in a few years - I can't imagine that she'll still be reading the sort of books we'd put in these shelves by the end of elementary school - it won't have been such a huge investment that we'll regret it.
June 15, 2008
Happy Father's Day/35 Weeks
Oh, and I'm 35 weeks along and NOT on bedrest...yet. My blood pressure has been creeping up a bit at each appointment, but considering I'd already been housebound for two weeks at this point last pregnancy, I'm counting every day I'm allowed to go about my normal life as a bonus at this point!
June 14, 2008
Simone's Apron
I found a great little pattern for a quick child's apron, and thought it would make a good gift for Simone for her birthday. And I even finished it early! Carrie not-so-helpfully modeled it for me. (She couldn't quite get why I didn't want her to stand behind things. Sigh.)
Please ignore the fact that I also have (different) material to make one for Carrie but I haven't even ironed the fabric yet, let alone started cutting out pieces... It's on my to-do list, I swear, along with all the other things on my to-do list. I even feel guilty enough that when we stopped at the craft donation place to drop off all that yarn I mentioned a few days ago I bought a dog-fabric apron that someone else had made so that if it takes me a while (my to-do list is very long) she still has a special hand-made apron!
June 9, 2008
Rethinking Mystic Meadows
The first clue for Mystic Meadows came out today...and I'm mostly convinced that the lace pattern is going to be much too busy for the variegated yarn I've selected. And I'm *way* more than OK with that, because ever since I got the yarn in the mail it's been whispering "soft little baby sweater...hat...baby socks...big sister socks..." to me, trying to convince me that it doesn't want to be that stole. So now I just have to find a different yarn (there's a whole shop to choose from. we must have *something* I can use.) for the stole and see if there's a perfect pattern to knit this lovely yarn into a tiny little baby sweater.
June 7, 2008
A Tale of Two Sweaters
I'm cleaning out my craft room. Seriously cleaning it out, although I can't work on it for much more than a half-hour at a time, so it's going to take a while. So far I've managed to dig out a giant rubbermaid tote of yarn I'm going to donate. And tucked in there were these two abandoned sweaters...
This blue/green sweater is something I started for Denis on 8/15/1998...so almost an entire decade ago! There are several reasons why I'll never finish this. First, it's made from a cheap yarn with wool in it (he's allergic to wool, and I'm allergic to cheap yarn). Second, he's tall. Much taller than the armhole-to-hem depth would suggest. Third, it's not a pattern I would pick for him now. The only thing that kept me from getting rid of it sooner (besides having forgotten mostly about it for a while) is that it represents a lot of work for the novice knitter I was ten years ago. That much knitting? I could do it in a matter of days now. The yarn, mostly-finished back, and the pattern are all getting donated together. Someone will love it and finish, I hope!
The red sweater. Ah, the red sweater. This is a case of a wonderful pattern being worked up in an awful yarn. Even the best chenille would have been a bad choice for this pattern, but the not-so-great chenille I picked out? Well, let's just say, I've grown a lot as a knitter since then. You'll notice that all of the knitting is actually done, it's just a matter of sewing the thing together. I'm not going to. It's getting donated, and maybe someone else will figure out what to do with it.
There's a lot more that I need to get rid of, but between these two completely abandoned projects and that big tote of yarn I'll never use, there's just the tiniest dent in the piles of stuff all over my craft room!
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