The Gwyn Family

Yarn-Along

2012-02-08T10:18:00.000-05:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things this week for another Wednesday Yarn-Along

On the Needles: Finishing up the February Baby Sweater from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitters Almanac. Hoping I can squeeze in some time between grading my students first papers of the semester and my daily mom-ness to cast off on this baby off by the weekend.

Off the Bookshelf: Somehow I'm finding lots of time to read. Poetry has been my nightly nursing reading (which takes place after S goes to bed); Siblings Without Rivalry is my bathtub reading and John Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist is my bedtime reading. This last book is a classic that I read and re-read often. Even the forward, which was written by Raymond Carver, is fantastic.

Check out Ginny's blog to see what others are knitting and reading this week!

Boy Artist

2012-02-07T14:43:00.000-05:00

Ever since S could hold a crayon, T and I have been encouraging him to draw, color and paint, and ever since S could hold a crayon he's been fighting tooth and nail to put it down and just go play. T and I were starting to think he'd never learn to draw a stick figure, let alone write his name. I couldn't figure it out; T has two fine art degrees (one of which is in drawing and sculpture), and I spent most of my childhood on the floor of my bedroom hunched over a paint-by-number or a drawing pad. I always assumed any kid of ours would love art. Instead, our first born seemed to regard it as a punishment anytime I asked him to draw me dinosaur. Occasionally, I'd convince him to draw a creature or two, but these attempts were only successful about once a month. T and I consoled ourselves with the idea that S is more scientifically inclined and is obsessed with nature, and drawing, painting and coloring just weren't all that interesting to him.

But then in the midst of my maternity leave, something clicked with S. We'd been practicing writing his name, a torturous 10 minutes a day for both of us, and as his handwriting improved so too did his competence with a pencil. Before I knew it, S was drawing creatures and dinosaurs all on his own without any provocation from me, and very soon he was coloring in coloring books (something that had always seemed boring to him in the past).

To keep him motivated I ordered some of Dover Press's nature coloring books and a big box of 120 of Crayola's finest crayons, and when they came in the mail it was like Christmas all over again at our house. S spent most of an entire day coloring snakes of the world and prehistoric reptiles.

Since then we've had lots of fun coming up with projects for S. T got out his projector, and S and I traced animals onto watercolor paper. I spent the next day teaching him how mix watercolors and paint. We also spent a day making paper dinosaurs.

The past few weeks have brought numerous drawings and paintings, and even a couple of homemade storybooks. Our house is now full of crayon-scribbled monsters, dinosaurs, cardinals, aardvarks and screech owls, and now some part of every day is devoted to making art and S enjoys every moment of it.

Yarn-Along

2012-02-01T11:25:00.000-05:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things this week for another yarn-along...

On the Needles: I've just started knittingthe February Baby Sweater from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. I've wanted to make this sweater for Little Viv since before I knew she was a girl, and since February is upon us...what better time than now. This is the second time I've made this sweater, and I love it just as much this time around. I'm using Kertzer's organic cotton yarn, which I got for a steal at Jimmy Beans Wool.

Off the Bookshelf: Now that I'm on maternity leave and no longer have access to my library's copy of The Knitter's Almanac, I decided to order my own. I was so happy to learn Dover reissued this book (and it's a great price too). I love EZ's writing so much, I'm reading it page for page. She puts so much poetry into her knitting patterns, and I love reading the stories and opinions that precede each project. Plus, her patterns are timeless. I would love to knit up everything in this book.

Happy Month One, Little Viv!

2012-01-22T13:47:00.000-05:00

Our little girl is a whopping one month old today!

It's been a whirlwind of a month in which we've all tried to find our groove with this new lifestyle and this new little member of our family. This month Vivian has picked up the nicknames Little Viv and Vivers (both from Seamus). She still nurses every two hours and is trying in earnest to smile and coo.

I've neglected to mention one little thing because I'm afraid I'll jinx it, but Vivian has pretty much been sleeping through the night since day two. At first I was waking her to nurse, but her pediatrician advised me to let her sleep. She goes to bed around 8:30 or 9:00 pm, and she wakes once to feed at 3:30 in the morning and then usually doesn't wake up again until 6:30 or 7:00. Most of the time after I nurse her she goes back to sleep until 9:00 or 9:30. I can't believe I've actually been fairly well-rested all month. Of course I know this could change at any moment. Any night she could decide to be up all night or nurse around the clock.

The first month has been fun! We're looking forward to all the little milestones the months ahead hold for her.

Happy month one, sweet girl!

Yarn-Along

2012-01-18T12:15:00.001-05:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things this week for another yarn-along...

On the Needles: A sweet bunny hat for a friend's baby. I'm such a slow knitter and reader these days with two kids to keep me busy and no long train commute at the beginning and end of each work day. But I'm happy to have the chance to pick up my needles here and there throughout the week.

Off the Bookshelf: The Orchard by Adele Crockett Robertson has been such a pleasure to read if only for the gorgeous writing. It helps that Robertson keeps the reader invested and interested the whole way through with her fine storytelling. I've learned a lot about apple trees, peach trees, bee keeping, well-digging and rural life in New England during the worst years of the Depression. I only have a few pages left and am trying to make it last as long as possible. This will be a book I purchase and give to friends for years to come. I'm so happy my neighbor let me borrow it.

Lately...

2012-01-16T15:15:00.001-05:00

Today begins week two of my being on my own with two kids. It was a little difficult at first giving everyone the attention they need while also making sure the house wasn't too upside down and dinner was on the table every night. But by the end of the week our own rhythm began to emerge. I've also begun teaching an online composition course from home and even though my students have lots of assignments due, I'm still finding this new life of ours a little easier and a lot more enjoyable than our old life of full-time jobs and long commutes. Yesterday I nursed and did housework most of the day, but I also read several chapters of a good book, knitted, made a yummy apple cake and even got a bit of writing done. Today, S and I have been learning about Martin Luther King, working on his handwriting and reading. We still have puzzles, crafts and yoga on our list of things to do before dinner.

I still find it difficult keeping up with all the house work and keeping S entertained all day while also tending to Vivian's needs, but it gets easier everyday, and S has been a wonderful help fetching things for me when my hands are full, helping to soothe Vivian when she's fussy. He always seems to know just why she's crying even when I don't.

As for S, he's been adjusting fairly well. He adores his sister. The only problem we're having is his not minding me as well as he used to, but he's getting better.

Seamus and Vivian grow closer everyday. Her eyes follow him around the room, and he can't stop kissing the top of her head.

P.S. Thanks to my aunt Vivian for the adorable onesie she sent to her namesake.

Vivian Llewella's Birth Story

2012-01-07T11:57:00.002-05:00

In the middle of my second pregnancy I switched from an OBGYN group to a group of midwives a few towns away. I’d decided with this pregnancy that I wanted as natural a delivery as possible since my first labor and delivery was anything but, and I didn't fully trust that my group of doctors would let me labor naturally. My first baby was born in Tennessee with a different OBGYN group. I had been induced ten days early with him due to low amniotic fluid; ended up with an epidural that didn’t work and had to be repositioned three times before it finally kicked in right as it was time to push; had a giant episiotomy and a vacuum assisted birth that left my baby with a minor birth injury. I knew I didn’t want any of those things with my second labor, and so I started reading all about natural labor, specifically Ina May Gaskin’s books on midwifery and natural birth. During the last few weeks of my pregnancy I began re-reading all the positive birth stories contained therein and hoping my birth would be just as magical. By the end of my pregnancy I’d spent many months seeing the same midwife and felt a close bond with her.

The last month of my pregnancy I began feeling contractions a few times a week, something I never felt with my first. I thought for sure this meant I’d deliver early, well before my due date which was December 19th. But the full moon of December came and went. Days of irregular contractions came and went. My due date came and went, and still no baby. I walked every day, drank cup-fulls of Red Raspberry Leaf tea, meditated each day, ate spicy food, drank half a Guinness, rode in cars all over the bumpy, pot-holed streets of our New Jersey town, jogged up and down the 44 steep concrete stairs of our town’s biggest park. 10 times in one day. And still baby was content to stay put. I’d been 3 cm dilated and fully effaced for the last two weeks before my due date, and every day that passed felt like it could be the day I would go into labor. I wasn’t too uncomfortable, but I was having daily contractions and sometimes it literally felt like my baby’s head was right between my legs. On my due date my midwife swept my membranes, hoping to get labor going. I left her office feeling like I’d have the baby that day since I’d been up most of the night before with what felt like menstrual cramps. In the car on the way home from her office, I started having stronger cramping sensations and a few contractions, but by the time I arrived home they subsided.

My mother-in-law was staying with us to look after our son Seamus while I was in the hospital, and the closer we came to Christmas the more pressure I felt to have this baby. I wanted my mother-in-law to at least make it to her home in Tennessee in time to spend Christmas with the rest of her family. While my husband Thomas was at work, my mother-in-law and I passed the time together waiting for baby by playing with Seamus, baking and cooking, making a popcorn and cranberry garland for the Christmas tree and sitting on the couch talking about our lives. She was great company, and I was grateful to have her there with me.

Then two days after my due date I walked my son to the park. We’d been cooped up inside for a few cold days, and he needed to blow off some energy. As soon as I got outside and started walking I noticed a much stronger pressure in my pelvic floor than I’d ever had before. It was a consistent pressure that I recognized from my first pregnancy to mean that I had probably dilated some more. By the time we reached the park I was having long, painless contractions, which felt exactly like the word contraction, like a big muscle flexing and tightening. I pushed my son on the swing and watched him run and slide all over the playground. It was a typical December day with temperatures in the 40s and a cold, gray sky. There were starlings everywhere outside, swarms of them, flying from treetop to rooftop and making lots of noise. After we were done playing in the park, I decided we should take a long, leisurely walk around the block and enjoy the day, enjoy a last little moment we’d have as just mother and son, a last walk around the block for me as a mother of one. I felt with certainty my labor would start within a few hours or at least sometime after I went to bed that night.

My contractions continued all that day, coming every 30 minutes or so without pain, only pressure. That night I went to sleep next to Thomas while he watched Friday the 13th in bed. I wanted to tell him to turn off the movie and get some sleep because I was positive he’d need it. Sure enough a couple of hours after going to bed I had a big contraction. This one woke me up, and this time it wasn’t painless. In fact, it felt exactly like the contractions I had while in labor with my son only a little lighter. It was 2:18 in the morning and I started recording the times of my contractions in a little notebook I kept by my bed. I had three contractions nine minutes apart each and then two contractions seven minutes apart. I woke Thomas at this point and he started rubbing my lower back and reminding me to relax and breathe deeply through each wave. In the span of about 45 minutes my contractions were coming three minutes apart and lasting about 80-90 seconds each. I called my midwife, who was already at the hospital with another laboring woman. Since I could still talk through my contractions, she advised me to labor at home for a while longer until the contractions built in intensity. However, at the end of our conversation she told me if I felt like my labor was progressing rapidly to just come on over to the hospital. She told me I was the best judge of what was going on with my body. I got off the phone intending to labor at home for a while, but twenty minutes later my contractions were right on top of each other, coming less than a minute apart and I was starting to feel nauseous. Thomas called the midwife and told her we were on our way. Incidentally, throughout my labor I was always able to talk through my contractions even during the pushing stage.

I grabbed a big metal bowl on the way out the door in case I threw up, and we started off on the thirty minute drive to the hospital. Each time I would have a contraction I would breathe deeply and remember all the positive birth stories I’d read, trying to take from them whatever would help to get me up and over the long wave of each contraction. A simple Yogic breathing technique (inflating my stomach with each inhale and deflating my stomach with each exhale) seemed to help the most because it directed the breath right to the source of the sensation. It also helped to imagine all the work my uterus was doing to open me up and move the baby down. During labor my every sense was heightened. I took everything in on the drive to the hospital, every billboard (it was Christmas time so there were a lot of Ginger Ale ads), ever exit number, every street name. I was able to give my husband directions to the hospital we’d only been to once before, help him find the emergency entrance, the parking garage and the appropriate place to park even in the midst of a contraction. I felt like I could see and hear and feel every single thing around me.

I decided to walk from the parking garage to the emergency entrance since I thought it might speed labor along. It was a long walk made longer by the fact that we had to stop each time I had a contraction so Thomas could stand behind me rubbing his hands on my lower back. We laughed about the fact that it looked more like we were engaging in indecent behavior in the parking garage than having a baby.

We finally made it into the hospital around 4 am, and I was wheeled up to a room in the maternity unit, where I met my midwife along with a new midwife she was training and a couple of nurses. My midwife dimmed the lights and closed the door and told me I didn't have to wear the hospital gown waiting for me on the bed if I'd rather wear my own nightgown. As soon as I got into my nightgown and rested on the bed I had what felt like a pushing contraction and announced to the room that I needed to push. As soon as I pushed, there was a loud pop and a gush of clear, warm water around my thighs. My water had broken. My midwife checked my cervix and found I was 10 cm dilated and ready to push. She said she was glad I came to the hospital when I did instead of laboring at home or Thomas would have been delivering the baby.

Pushing contractions were intense. I don’t want to use the word painful because it wasn’t pain that I felt but rather an overwhelming pressure in my bottom. Let’s just say it felt like the baby was crowning in my rectum not my vagina. My midwife poured mineral oil over my perineum and used her fingers to help stretch me. She told me to push into the pressure, which was scary because doing so only made the pressure greater. The pressure I felt while doing this completely overcame me, and I heard myself letting out these enormous roars and groans with each push. Thomas said this was one of the most amazing parts of my labor; neither one of us realized I could make those sounds. When I went with it I felt like I was possessed and letting my animal-body take control. Pushing was hard work. My baby didn’t just pop out like I thought it would, being my second baby and all. I pushed for over an hour. I know that much of this time would have been reduced if I’d gotten over a mental block I had sooner. The pressure was so intense it scared me and I held back, but eventually I realized if the baby was going to come out it was up to me to listen to my midwife and push into the pressure. As soon as I’d made up my mind to do just that my baby’s head came out with that very push. I felt an enormous relief and pushed the rest of the body out with the next contraction.

I held my baby against my chest for a moment before checking out who I had. I was surprised to find a little girl in my arms. I held her to my chest for a while before the nurses took her weight and measurements and then handed her back to me. My midwife helped me out of my clothes and I nursed my baby, who latched on instantly and nursed beautifully for over an hour.

Vivian Llewella Gwyn was 7 lbs. and 15 oz. and 20 inches long. She came out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and oh, so strong.

Her birth was the most amazing thing I’ve done in my life. I was in labor for only 3 ½ hours from the first contraction until my baby came out. Two weeks later my recovery has been much easier than with my first. After having both a medicated birth full of interventions and a completely natural birth with no interventions, I would have to say the natural birth was easiest and definitely the most rewarding. I was so happy with my midwife, who stayed with me the entire time and did things in my labor that a doctor would never take the time to do. The level of care I experienced from her before, during and after birth has far surpassed that of any OBGYN I’ve ever seen. She was more thorough than my previous doctors and intent on letting my body do what it was made to do. Even though natural labor was intense and at times painful, it was such a powerful feeling to let my body do its work to bring this person into the world.

Special Delivery

2012-01-06T10:49:00.002-05:00

Yesterday the Gwyn Family received a special delivery from one of my very favorite bloggers, Lori Times Five.

Lori is an amazing photographer and master knitter. Check out this recent post of some of my favorite of her photos. Lori's blog is full of lush and breathtaking photos, scrumptious hand knits and beautiful words. I was so happy to come across it through the Wednesday Yarn-Alongs hosted by Small Things, and I've been a devoted reader ever since.

Lori sent my sweet Vivian an adorable pink ruffle-bottomed onesie and some super-cute socks to go with. This summer my girl will be the cutest ballerina I know. She also sent along this adorable kitten, which Mr. S has taken on as his own.

But according to S the most exciting item in this special delivery were the Bubbles of Steel. S has had so much fun with these unbreakable bubbles...he's asking to go outside with them constantly.

Thank you Lori for such a special and thoughtful surprise! You made our day.

Yarn-Along

2012-01-04T14:37:00.000-05:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things this week for another yarn-along...

On/Off the Needles: A simple apple hat that I made up. Basically I just made a simple red hat, switched to brown yarn at the end to make a stem and found a simple leaf pattern for the leaf on top.

It's still a little big for Vivian, but it should at least fit her all through this long New Jersey winter. The lime green sweater is a puerperium that my mom made.

Off the Bookshelf: Sorry I didn't take a picture of these, but S and I have started the Little House on the Prairie series of books. We read one chapter a night at bedtime. So far we've learned all about butchering and curing different types of meat and how to churn butter.

While nursing, I'm reading The Orchard: a Memoir by Adele Crockett Robertson , a beautiful book about a daughter's single-handed attempt to save her family's apple orchard during the Great Depression. It takes place in Ipswitch, Massachusetts, a place I've been dreaming of visiting since my upstairs neighbor (who loaned me the book) came back from a trip there; she was full of stories about 200 year old farms and beautiful beaches full of birds.

Happy Week One, Little Girl

2011-12-30T10:39:00.001-05:00

My Darling Girl,

Yesterday marked one whole week that you've been out in the world, and what a wonderful and delirious week it's been for the Gwyn family. You've been a great sleeper, sleeping through the night three nights in a row this week, and of course just when I was bragging about that feat to your pediatrician you decided to stay up until 5 am that night. But that's ok because there's something so lovely about walking around the house with you at night watching your wide-awake eyes take in every shadow and every light. I get a lot of thinking done at night walking the floors of our apartment with you in my arms.

If seven days is any indication of your personality, you're going to be a curious little lady. When awake you're absorbing the sights and sounds of our home with bright, wide eyes. You love looking at and listening to the wind chime we have hanging over our kitchen sink; the Christmas tree holds an endless fascination for you; and the sound of the overhead oven fan soothes you when you're fussy. In fact, we keep the oven fan on all high all night long, so you can hear it in our bedroom.

Yesterday you had your very first appointment with Dr. Texidore, your and S's pediatrician. You grew half an inch from 20 inches at birth to 20 1/2 inches at one week. Dr. Tex was impressed with your weight gain. You gained all the weight you lost the first few days before my breast milk came in and even gained a few more ounces on top of that. Your weight at birth was 7 lbs. and 15 oz., but you got down to about 7 lbs. and 2 oz. before my milk arrived. As of yesterday you weighed 8 lbs. and 2 oz. That means you've gained a whole pound in just a few short days. It's no wonder because you nurse all the time. You came out of the womb knowing just how to do this without any encouragement from me.

All the Gwyns are madly in-love with you, especially your big brother, who loves to hold you and dote on you as often as possible. He rubs my back while I nurse, kisses your forehead when you cry, sings you lullabies to sleep. You are a very lucky lady to have this new little best friend always by your side. Your papa is also smitten with you, smiling and laughing every time you look at him. He's already told his friends that you've got him wrapped around your finger. He is such a sure and confident father, a natural. I'd forgotten what an expert swaddler he is; he makes you into the neatest baby burrito at night before we go to sleep, and you sleep tight and cozy for hours this way.

Week one with you has been a lot easier than we expected. Your papa and I are a perfect team, alternating waking shifts at night, fetching items for each other before anyone has to ask for them, staying up late with you watching old episodes of Roseanne on Netflix, taking turns entertaining Seamus and knowing just what the other person needs without having to say a word. I don't know if it's your personality of if it's our experience with a newborn already (or both), but life with a new extra family member has not been nearly as difficult as we expected (so far). You fit right into our lives as if you were always meant to be here.

Yarn-Along

2011-12-28T10:17:00.001-05:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things this week for another yarn-along...

On the Needles: An apple hat for Baby Vivian. I couldn't find a pattern I liked, so I'm making a simple baby hat and attaching a stem and leaf to the top. I've been so busy with the baby and the boy that I wanted something quick and easy to work on, and this little hat is perfect.

Off the Bookshelf: I've been spending a lot of time with my old copy of What to Expect the First Year, and S and I just finished up The Cat Who Wanted to Go Home, another in Jill Tomlinson's series of books (recommended by Little Macaroon).

Some Scenes from Our Christmas...

2011-12-26T12:54:00.001-05:00

It's a Girl!

2011-12-24T22:55:00.002-05:00

Vivian Llewella Gwyn was born on December 22, 2011 at 5:59am after a beautiful (and super-fast) labor. She weighed 7 lbs. and 15 oz. and was 20 inches long.

We came home from the hospital on Christmas Eve with the best Christmas present ever.

What We've Been Up to While Waiting for Baby...

2011-12-18T16:14:00.001-05:00

Taking long walks and playing in the park:

Making a popcorn and cranberry garland for the tree:

Enjoying the lights in the City and in our living room:

Counting down the days with a simple, homemade-by-me advent calendar:

Making gingerbread houses:

We've also been knitting, baking (T's mom has made biscuits for us twice now...as well as cookies, homemade Chex Mix and several yummy meals), reading, listening to lots of Perry Como Christmas songs, sleeping in, staying up late and eating too many Christmas candies.

I've been drinking tons of red raspberry leaf tea, walking up and down stairs, meditating and yesterday my mother-in-law surprised me with a prenatal massage at the local spa...all this in hopes of getting my labor on. But nothing yet. I'll have contractions for a spell and then they'll fade away. My due date is tomorrow, and I didn't think I'd still be pregnant by this weekend, but here I am getting bigger and bigger. Even though I'm fully effaced and 3 cm dilated, I'm not that uncomfortable. I just can't wait to hold that baby.

Week 39

2011-12-15T13:51:00.001-05:00

Highlights of Week 39:

*My mother-in-law arrives to help out for a couple of weeks while we wait on baby to arrive
*First full week of maternity leave left me feeling relaxed and rested and reconnected with my guys
*Sleeping in until 8:30 every morning; so much better than waking at 5 or 5:30am to catch a train
*A lovely and relaxing morning at the spa with my mother-in-law. We got haircuts:

*Lots of time with S
*Very active baby, who now seems huge to me

Lowlights of Week 39:

*Anticipation and the excitement and let down that Braxton-Hicks contractions bring
*Lots and lots of contractions every day but no baby yet

Midwife Update: This is actually a week 40 update, but since I'm not sure I'll make it all the way through week 40 I'll update now. The appointment with my midwife on Monday went well. She checked me and found that I was fully effaced and 3 cm dilated. She didn't think I'd still be pregnant by this weekend. Each day this week I've had tons of contractions and cramps and feel like I've dilated even more. A couple of nights I've thought I was in labor only to find my contractions subsiding. I'm hoping this is my body's way of doing a lot of pre-labor work so I won't have such a long labor. Any day now. We're ready baby whenever you are.

Finished Object

2011-12-11T11:52:00.000-05:00

The R2D2 Hat is off the blocking board and on husband's head. Happy early Christmas Mr. T!

I'm so happy I finished this before the baby came (yep, I'm still pregnant).

Although it's still a little small for him and might require another round of more aggressive blocking, I think he's happy.

Thanks Mom!

2011-12-09T19:40:00.002-05:00

My mother has been knitting away since finding out she was expecting another grandchild. Many of the Yarn-Alongers have asked that I post pictures of all the goodies she delivered to me on Thanksgiving.

Here are just some of those sweet hand knits (there are actually more to come when she visits this Christmas):

I'm all stocked up on wool soakers now in newborn to three-year-old sizes.

I also have lots of Puerperiums in more than just the six week size.

And some cute outfits complete with booties!

Thanks so much Mom! I can't wait to see my little model dressed in all your handiwork.

Week 38

2011-12-08T17:30:00.001-05:00

Well, I made it to week 38...actually I'm in week 39 as I write this. I don't know if you can tell by this photo but the baby actually dropped in week 38 and is head down and ready to go.

Week 38 Highlights:
*Last week of commuting to work; last week of long meetings; last week of sitting in an office for most of the day

*Sweet farewells from my co-workers complete with treats and baby gifts

*The gift of some exquisite baby clothes from India given to me by one of my co-workers who travels to India all the time

*Lots of movement from baby

*Seamus's ear on my belly listening to the baby's hiccups

Week 38 Lowlights:
*Getting harder to move around; slower walks to the train station, round ligament pain and belly button pain

*Having to say good-bye to my dear friends and co-workers for six months

Yarn-Along Wednesday

2011-12-07T13:36:00.001-05:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things this week for another yarn-along...

On the Needles: Finishing up T's R2D2 hat; working on the lining now, which I'll fold into the inside to cover all those color-change floats. After this it just needs a good blocking and then it's done. Don't know what's next on the needles since I had planned on this being my last knit before baby arrives. However, I think I'm going to finish this hat in the next evening or two, and I think baby's holding tight for now.

Off the Bookshelf: Started reading The Otter Who Wanted to Know as recommended by Little Macaroon. So happy to have discovered this series of books. S and I read three chapters yesterday and one today (so far). S LOVES this book; when we're not reading it he's pretending to be an otter cracking open rock oysters and diving all day.

I'm officially on maternity leave now and loving every moment. My mother-in-law is here for a few weeks to help out. So grateful!

Oh, Christmas Tree

2011-12-05T18:17:00.000-05:00

Week 37

2011-12-02T08:39:00.002-05:00

Week 37 Highlights:

*Getting 6 days off from work for the Thanksgiving holiday
*Spending Wednesday of week 37 on a mama/son date at the Science Center in Liberty State Park
*Four sweet days with Grandie and Grandpa, who came up to celebrate Thanksgiving with us
*Yummy T-day food
*Lots and Lots of R & R for me. T took care of laundry and dishes and everyone helped out cooking the Thanksgiving feast. I had lots of time to put my feet up and knit, and wouldn't you know all the pain and pressure I've been feeling at the end of this pregnancy went away (as did the daily contractions I've been having)
*6 days of sleeping in until 8am
*A very active baby
*A very happy son
*Watching S play with his grandparents

Week 37 Lowlights:

*Saying good-bye to G & G (but they'll both be back to see the new family member in a few weeks).

Midwife update: Had my Strep B test this week, which came back negative. Baby is head down and very low, but I'm not effaced or dialated yet.

By the way, I found a picture of me in week 37 with Seamus:

I never posted a week 38 picture on this blog that year because I ended up giving birth before I could. Wonder if I'll make it past week 38 this time?

Yarn-Along

2011-11-30T11:11:00.002-05:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things this Wednesday for another Yarn-Along...

On the Needles: Finished the Pimp My Longies pattern, which turned out beautifully (will post photos soon) and cast on the R2D2 Hat for T. R2D2 has been frustrating to say the least because the directions aren't the clearest. If you're experienced in fair isle knitting and reading colorwork charts you probably wouldn't have a problem with this pattern at all, but since this is only the second time I've tried my hand at color stranded kniting it's been a struggle for me. I had to rip it out and start over four times, but I've finally got the hang of it and it's now become a project that I look forward to. I love watching the design come out and this time I'm very aware of my tension as I knit, so I won't have the puckering I had the first time I tried color stranded knitting. You can't really see it in the picture, but the bottom of the hat reads: May the Force be With You. T is very excited and keeps saying he'll be the envy of his co-workers. The maroon edge is a provisional cast-on that I'll eventually take out and put a lining in its place. This should be one really warm hat.

Reading: The newest issue of Poets & Writers, which has a great interview with Joan Didion.

Check out the Linky List on the Small Things Blog to see what others are knitting and reading this week.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-29T11:22:00.001-05:00

During the week of Thanksgiving I was thankful for...

Grandparents and the constant smile they put on my boy's face

Time in the kitchen with my Mom

Homemade whipped cream

Yummy food in our tiny apartment with people we love

Sharing my maternity pillow, or the "nest" as the whole family refers to it

My guys

Week 36

2011-11-26T10:07:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the long blog silence. We've been busy with Thanksgiving and relatives all week. My parents are in town, and I've hardly been on the computer since.

Here I am last week at week 36. I'm at the point where regular clothes that used to work just fine for maternity don't fit at all now and many of my maternity clothes are getting tight. I had to pair this dress with jeans because it was just too short in the front.

Week 36 Highlights:

*Another surprise baby shower at work, this time from my knitting circle. I love those ladies and will miss them while I'm on leave.

*All the pieces are falling into place with work. It looks like I'll get a six month leave and be able to return to work part-time, working weekends and one weekday.

*Lots of sweet moments with both of my guys. Snuggly mornings in bed, fun at the park, yummy Saturday dinners at our favorite diner.

*Anticipating my parents' visit and counting the days until they'll be here.

*Baby seems SO big now. I love feeling little legs stretching and feet in my side. Lots of hiccups these days too.

Week 36 Lowlights:

*Regular old discomforts of pregnancy increasing during these last few weeks. Lots of pressure and belly button pain, indigestion, round ligament pain, more contractions, varicose vein pain.

Despite the complaining, I still LOVE being pregnant.

Week 35

2011-11-17T19:41:00.001-05:00

Highlights of Week 35:

*A surprise baby shower from my Circulation staff! Even though my last day of work won't be until December 6th, I was shocked (big time) when I came back from a meeting/luncheon to find my department decorated in baby stuff and full of yummy foods (homemade apple cake, a raspberry chocolate mousse cake, homemade cupcakes , cookies, cheese and hummus and crackers). They even brought in plastic champagne glasses and organic sparkling apple cider. I don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but I work with some amazing people. All the people in my department I'm happy to call my friends, and a couple of them have become some of my very closest friends. I'm a very lucky lady.

*This week my boss made me a wonderful deal that I just don't think I can pass up. Hoping it works out because if it does it would mean getting to stay home with my kiddos four days a week if I decide to come back from my leave.

*Also this week I found out I was approved for a six month maternity leave.

*Making and decorating gingerbread cookies with S.

*Warm fall weather, perfect for swinging with S at the playground.

*T helping with the housework and laundry.

*Late night Uno games with T.

*Daily hiccups from baby and little feet always stretching and kicking in my side.

*Getting excited and nervous about labor and meeting this new person; daydreaming about it constantly.

Lowlights of Week 35:

*Oh, so tired and feeling like there's waaaay too much left to do before baby arrives.

*Extreme belly button pain. Sometime the pain is so intense I feel nauseous. I remember getting this with S too but not this often. Everything I've read says belly button pain is normal, but I'm going to bring it up with my midwife on Monday.

*Lots of round ligament pain and pelvic discomfort. Feels like my body is definitely getting ready for labor.

*My long walks to the train station in the morning and long walks home at night are the worst part of my day. I'm counting the days until my maternity leave begins.

*Feeling guilty for snapping at and being short with S and T a lot this week. I don't know if it's hormones or general discomfort but I've not been the most pleasant person to be around the past several days.

Yarn Along

2011-11-16T13:34:00.000-05:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things for another Wednesday Yarn Along...

On the Needles: About to finish up a pair of longies for babe, using the Pimp My Longies pattern. One leg down and one to go. (It's a terrible photo, I know. I took it in my office with my awful fluorescent lighting.) This has been a super simple and fast pattern and it's free! Next in the knitting que, a Star Wars Hat for T. I'm hoping to get it done before the babe arrives or at least before Christmas.

From the Library: Just checked out Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut after a great conversation about him with a co-worker (and dear friend) at the Circulation Desk this morning. I remember every Vonnegut book in my parents' bookshelves from my childhood and this was one of them. I've only ever read Cat's Cradle, and I figured it was time to read a few more of his. Every copy of Slaughterhouse Five is checked out at the moment since it's required reading for a class. Yep, every once in awhile this fashion and design school assigns students reading material other than a draping pattern.

To see what others are knitting and reading this week check out the Small Things Blog.

Nesting

2011-11-14T11:20:00.000-05:00

I'm antsy. And have been for a few days now. My nesting instinct kicked in full force the other day, and even though I'm tired most of the time and could and do fall asleep at the drop of a hat, I've been washing and folding and putting away all of baby's clothes, blankets, diapers and diaper covers and generally getting the house ready for our new arrival.

Making room for the new family member, required a lot of clever space finagling. Since our apartment is only two bedrooms and S's room is too tiny for much more than his bed and toys (his dresser lives in his closet if that tells you anything), T and I have made a baby "area" in our room, which consists of a mini-crib--since the normal size wouldn't comfortably fit in our room--with a mobile and some wall hangings for baby to look at.

In order to fit the mini-crib into our room, we had to move T's dresser into our closet, which meant cleaning out said closet and reorganizing all of our clothes and shoes. There was no room for baby's dresser in our room, so we had to move it into the living room. This move also entailed a furniture shift, requiring us to relocate S's craft shelves that were next to the couch into his room, which meant moving his bed to the other side of his room. But, I'm happy to say, it's all done now...thanks to my wonderful husband, who did it all in two days and managed to refinish a beautiful old dresser we found on the street side waiting for the garbage truck. This became my dresser because I gave up my cherished cherry wood dresser for the baby. It's a child's dresser after all.

The baby's dresser is a special piece of furniture, handmade by my great-grandfather and given to my mother when she was a girl. You can even still see my mom's little girl handwriting in the bottom of the top drawer where she wrote her name in green crayon.

This was my dresser for many years, most of my childhood and all of my adulthood, and I'm so happy to give it to this baby who will hopefully keep it in the family for a few more generations.

There's still quite a few things to do before the baby arrives: sew a mini-crib skirt; finish up some last-minute embroidery to go on the wall above baby's bed; sew a nursing pillow cover or make a nursing pillow from scratch; whip up a few batches of diaper rash ointment; buy a nursing gown for the hospital; pack the hospital bag; purchase a breast pump (my old one has disappeared from the face of the earth); purchase a Christmas tree; purchase another vehicle and finally obtain a New Jersey driver's license; make a couple of test drives to the hospital where I'll be delivering...and I'm sure a few other things I'm not thinking of at the moment.

In the meantime, I'm tackling as much as I can on my days off and enjoying all the daydreaming that goes along with this sweet nesting phase.

Week 34

2011-11-10T19:14:00.004-05:00

This may very well be the most pathetic belly pic ever. With S sick over the weekend we didn't venture out of the house much, and I realized much too late that we never took a 34 week belly photo...so to the back yard I ran with the tripod and the camera and snapped this photo of me looking very tired and a little sloppy.

Highlights of Week 34:
* The beginning of week 34 marked Halloween! And I had a wonderful time wandering around the neighborhood with my guys, and watching S act like a Ghostbuster. This year he was big enough and brave enough to go up to most houses by himself, while T and I stood at the edge of the yard and watched.

* Yummy falafels (with rice and beans, lettuce, tomato and olives) with a friend and co-worker from a street vendor outside our workplace. Another $5 NYC lunch.

* Sweet late-night talks with husband discussing all of our dreams, worries and goals. Several times last week and this we've stayed up talking and catching up well past our bedtimes, and I've felt groggy all the next day. But it's totally worth it.

* Feeling baby feet, hiccups and a little baby bum.

* Falling asleep with S while he holds my hand nearly every night after his bedtime story.

Lowlights of Week 34:
* Wobbling a bit more than walking to the train in the morning.

*Heartburn morning, noon and night.

* Just being pregnant and caught up in rush-hour train service, not getting a seat on quite a few trains. For some reason I always take this personally.

* Having to buy more maternity clothes, sweaters and long-sleeved shirts, even though I won't need them in a few weeks.

* Missing Tennessee and missing my family.

Yarn Along

2011-11-09T11:58:00.001-05:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things for another Wednesday Yarn Along...

On and Off the Needles: Finished up one Vanilla Soaker and will probably make a few more. However, I just found out my mom has been knitting soakers like crazy for this baby, and I may not need to make more. We'll see what handknits she brings up at Thanksgiving when she and my dad visit. Still have lots of Fisherman's wool left over and may knit up some longies with it.

In the meantime, I've started knitting a three-month-sized pair of longies in Crystal Palace's Taos. I'm using the Pimp My Longies pattern and so far it's knitting up nicely. I love the Taos yarn, with it's myriad of colorways. I love babies in bright primary colors.

From the Library: Still Reading...poetry. Actually I'm not reading too much these days as I fall asleep every time I do, but on breaks at work I've been reading more poems from Mr. Simic.

To see what others are knitting and reading this week check out the Small Things Blog.

Week 33

2011-11-04T08:44:00.002-04:00

Highlights:
*Snow in October! A record-breaking snow storm hit our region, with some areas seeing up to 18 inches of snow at the beginning of fall. My little town only got about an inch or two. This is a highlight for me, even though it was a slushy mess and over 1 million people in our region lost power. The snow was beautiful, and I don't think I've ever seen it so soon in the season. Also, our town was very lucky. Even though we had some downed limbs and trees, no one lost power and the weather very quickly warmed up.

*My sweet mom ordered me a new maternity pillow that arrived at the beginning of week 33. Now that I'm well into week 34 I can tell you the maternity pillow is one of the best pregnancy inventions ever. I'm sleeping soundly through the night, only getting up for the bathroom and not because I'm in pain. AND every bit of hip and back pain I'd been experiening is now totally gone. It's also been great for propping up my legs and helping with my varicose veins.

*Baby is still moving around like crazy and now responds when you scratch his/her back by arching that little back up and closer to your fingers, just as S used to. The whole family has been having fun with this new little trick.

*T and S have been treating me like a queen. Fetching things for me, giving me lots of hugs and kisses and generally making me feel special all day long.

Lowlights:

*The only lowlight I can think of is having to pay $80 for a maternity coat, even though I'll only need it for seven or so more weeks. I'd tried oversize non-maternity coats but they just didn't work and my old workhorse Marmot (which is the warmest coat I've ever owned) won't even zip over my belly. The problem with maternity coats is they aren't warm and they're usually cheaply constructed out of polyester and rayon, which won't cut it in these extreme Northern winters. But if I layer and layer the coat I purchased works out ok. Fortunately, real winter temps shouldn't hit NJ until after the babe is born, and then I can go back to my trusty Marmot.

T took these photos in our backyard at the last minute. We had a busy week 33 and forgot to take belly photos on our usual Sunday. While my photo was being taken, Mr. S was running around the yard looking for evey available metal surface to attach his new Bakugan toys to. I should say new-to-him toys. A co-worker gave me a small bag of toys her boys no longer played with, as if we needed more toys in our small apartment.

Yarn-Along

2011-11-02T08:40:00.001-04:00

Yarning-along this Wednesday with Ginny from Small Things...

On the Needles: The first of many Vanilla Soakers. Sorry guys, but this is mostly what I'll be knitting for the next few yarn-alongs. Although I promised T a Star Wars hat or socks for Christmas and that might spice things up. For this soaker I'm using Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool. I like the idea of using a virgin wool with no dyes for a soaker. Although I'm also on the look out for inexpensive organic wool with natural dyes.

Last week I finished up the Toorie hat I was working on, but I've not had a chance to take any real pictures of it. If you look at my Halloween post you'll see me wearing it like a beret and looking like the Great Pumpkin. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. At least two people in my knitting circle have decided to make it as well. Very fun and fast pattern.

From the Library: Still reading poetry and working on getting my writing back on track. I keep reading and re-reading this Charles Simic book. It's amazing, and I can see why it won the Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Head on over to the Small Things blog to check out what everyone else is knitting and reading this week.

Homemade Halloween

2011-11-01T10:44:00.002-04:00

Halloween just keeps getting better each year. Now that S is old enough to enjoy a costume, help with cookies, trick-or-treat and stay up late watching scary movies, we try to stretch the holiday out as long as possible.

This Halloween S wanted to dress up as Ghostbuster Peter Venkman. Ghostbusters is one of T's favorite movies and S is starting to know it just as well as T.

We decided to make his Halloween costume this year, and I have to say we ended up spending less money and got a much cooler costume than we would have if we just bought a Ghostbusters costume.

First, we ordered a real flight suit from an army/navy surplus store online (this was the most expensive part of the whole costume, but still cost less than anything from Party City or Halloween Express). T made some iron-on transfers for the Ghostbusters patch and the Venkman name tag. But most of T's work on this costume went into the proton pack, which he made mostly out of spare pieces of wood we already had around the house. A nylon rope and a little spray paint and acryllic paint finished it up. He also added a few last minute glow sticks to make S more visible in the dark.

S LOVED his costume! I have to say I married a truly handy man; he never ceases to amaze me.

I made a big batch of sugar cookies and spent nearly a whole day decorating them with a little of S's help. I have such a love/hate relationship with royal icing. It's a once or twice a year thing for me, but after this batch I may only do it every other year.

We gave cookies to S's class, T's co-workers, my midwives and one of our neighbors. We also ate quite a few ourselves.

T and S carved the pumpkin together this year...

After trick-or-treating, we all shared S's candy. It just wouldn't be right to let a 4-year old consume all that junk food; T and I had to save him from some of it. We still have quite a bit left over, which we'll dole out over the next few weeks.

In the midst of all that trick-or-treating, S stopped to pick me a flower. I love that boy so much! He's such a little charmer.

We also stayed up late Halloween night bobbing for apples and watching Halloween movies. This year we saw, Disney's the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Monster House, and a few days ago we watched The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

It was such a fun Halloween! Can't wait until next year when we'll have two costumes to make.

Week 32

2011-10-27T18:36:00.001-04:00

Highlights:
*More baby dreams. This time I dreamed I gave birth to a red-haired boy, but in the dream he kept changing into a puppy. Reminds me a little of when I was pregnant with S and dreamed I was pregnant with a kitten.

*Still marveling over baby's movements. This week baby's legs seem so long and I can feel them stretching throughout the day. More little feet shapes under my hands too.

*I won a contest, and received the most beautiful yarn from Ellen over at Hurrayic Seriously, I don't how she could give it up. The scarlet colorway in each skein is gorgeous. Now what to knit with it?

*T and S put the baby's bed together and it fits beautifully in our room.

*Watched Ghostbusters, a childhood favorite, in the theater with T and S and a bunch of his friends from work. Guess what S wants to be for Halloween now? Peter Venkman. T has been building his proton pack from wood all this week.

*Each week S says so many amazing things. He gets more and more clever each day. This week's funny was after he finished eating an orange and said, "Damn! That thing was good." Guess I need to stop saying the one and only curse word I use these days.

Lowlights:

*More pregnancy aches and pains...but this will improve in week 33 when my sweet mom sends me a maternity pillow in the mail.

*Getting nervous about all the stuff that needs tending to before baby arrives: getting my FMLA straightened out, getting baby's space ready in our bedroom, washing all of baby's clothes and diapers, lanolizing tons of wool soakers, preparing for poverty--if I quit my job, buying a used car, finding a new place to live (this last one could wait until after baby arrives).

Midwife Appointment:
Measured small this week and midwife ordered an ultrasound just to check on growth of baby and amniotic fluid. Baby looked great! The tech estimated he/she weighs about 4 lbs. and 5 oz. (though I know those measurements are never accurate), and my amniotic fluid looks perfectly normal. I guess I'm just one of those ladies that measures small for dates consistently. But try telling that to the countless strangers that keep stopping me on the street to ask if I'm due tomorrow or having twins.

I've not had an ultrasound since I was seeing an OB, and since I've switched to a midwife I have a new ultrasound tech as well. The old one wouldn't allow children in the ultrasound room, but the new one does. So, S got to see the baby for the first time and that alone nearly had me all choked up. S was so excited when he saw the baby open and close his/her fist and turn his/her head. T was also looking closely at the ultrasound, but not so much at the profile or the fists or feet. He swears he saw testicles and is now convinced we're having a boy. But I don't know how any lay person could read a grainy black/white ultrasound. This makes me all the more anxious to meet this little person. Keeping the gender a surprise has been pretty exciting to say the least!

Pumpkin Picking

2011-10-26T18:17:00.001-04:00

Missed the Yarn-Along today to chaperon a pumpkin picking field trip with S's school. We spent the day in lovely Holmdel, New Jersey (home of the Boss and Jon Bon Jovi).

It was a fun day, but now I'm utterly exhausted. I'll be around tomorrow to have a look at what everyone's been knitting and reading. In the meantime, check out Ginny's linky list on the Small Things Blog.

Fall

2011-10-25T10:50:00.001-04:00

Each fall I take a whole bunch of pictures of S playing in the leaves. I think this year's photos are my favorite...

Muffin Monday

2011-10-24T10:15:00.000-04:00

This morning S and I made Cranberry Applesauce Muffins, which we made a little healthier by substituting grape seed oil for the vegetable oil and using half whole wheat flour. We also added some orange zest just because we love orange and cranberries together.

Then I made a big pot of Barry's Tea (decaf for both of us) in the teapot my friend Peggy gave me for my birthday and used the tea cozy she knitted as well. And S and I had tea and muffins in our pajamas (we're still in our pajamas as I write this--we may not put real clothes on until this afternoon).

It was so yummy! The last time I had Barry's Tea I was 19 and spending the summer in Ireland. I should drink this more often.

S also loved his tea and muffins, especially since I added rice milk and sugar to his tea.

Week 31

2011-10-20T22:19:00.000-04:00

Highlights this week:
*Spending time with my guys in Rhinebeck, driving through the country, looking at the leaves, petting sheep at the Sheep and Wool Festival, eating yummy food, fiber shopping.
*Watching Seamus discover his love of honey, and the next day laughing at him pretending to be a honeybee for hours with a long straw for a honeybee tongue.
*Marveling over something S said: I haven't seen the whole world yet; everything is new to me.
*Dreaming more amazing baby dreams, including one in which I gave birth to a dark-haired, blue-eyed baby girl with chubby cheeks.
*Feeling baby move more and more and feeling the shape of a little foot, small as a stone, by my belly button.
*Having a helpful husband who will ask me to rest while he loads the dishwasher and does the laundry even after working an extra-long shift.
*Having a husband who will drive our family all over New Jersey and New York for my errands and whims with minimal complaint. Oh, how I love that husband of mine!
*Starting to write more.

Lowlights:
*More minor pregnancy discomforts: variose veins spreading (so far it's just the right side of my body), the usual hip achiness, heartburn and so on.
*Still measuring small for dates, but week 32 brings good news about this.

T took these photos of me at the Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Festival on Sunday.

Yarn-Along

2011-10-19T08:38:00.000-04:00

Yarning along with Ginny from Small Things again this week...

On the Needles: The Eyelet Baby Cardi from last week is finished and blocked and now it waits for the perfect button. I'll post pictures once I find one. I've just started knitting the Toorie hat, a little treat for me before I go full-force into knitting up soakers. So far I've just made the casing for the drawstring, but I can already tell this is going to be a fun pattern. I'm using some handspun alpaca that I purchased at the fiber festival on Sunday.

From the Library: Still reading poetry. See those little bits of paper sticking out of the Charles Simic book? Yep, that's the beginning of a little story I'm working. It may amount to nothing, but it's the first thing I've written in awhile and that makes me happy. Poetry always pulls me out of my ruts.

I've also been flipping through my library's copy of Weldon's Practical Needlework, a facsimile edition of a series of knitting books originally published in the 1880s. There are some exquisite items contained in its pages, including petticoats and Venetian lace, gentleman's drawers and baby bonnets. Unfortunately, needle sizes were different back then and there are no gauges given for any of the patterns. But I'm sure an advanced knitter could figure things out.

Check out Ginny's blog to see what others are knitting and reading this week!

Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Festival

2011-10-18T18:27:00.001-04:00

Sunday finally came. I'd been waiting for it since last month and day dreaming about getting out of the city and heading up to Rhinebeck, NY for the Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Festival. All week I've been thinking of scrumptious hand-dyed wool, the smell of clover and hay, the small towns we'd be sure to drive through, the fall leaves, but move than anything I'd been thinking about the food. If it's one thing sheep and wool festivals always have it's great food, and Rhinebeck had the best.

But first let's start with our drive into upstate New York and the not-so-great pictures I snapped out the window. New York state is incredible. Our two-hour drive took us through picturesque farms, rolling hills and gold and red mountains. S kept staring out the window hoping to see a bear.

On the way to Rhinebeck we crossed over the Hudson River on the Mid-Hudson/FDR Bridge and drove right into Hyde Park, FDR's home town and home to his presidential library (as well as several lovely mansions including a Vanderbilt mansion). Hyde Park was so lovely I'd like to stay there for next year's sheep and wool festival.

The sheep and wool festival itself was amazing but a little overwhelming. We stayed for about 3-4 hours, and even in all that time I never saw all there was to see. I was very happy they had a huge section of the fairgrounds devoted to children, with a carousel, slide, bouncy castle and lots of lots of kids activities including a petting zoo, a science show, a frog and bug show and a man taking requests for animal balloons.

The highlight of S's day was petting a giant toad and this turtle:

He also loved his balloon snake....

...until it popped. We had to go back and request a dinosaur.

I left the boys to their own devices for a little while and walked around by myself. I knew S would only be able to stand about 2 minutes of yarn shoppping before he'd be bored. There was so many gorgeous fiber everywhere.

But I was specifically looking for an orange or mustard colored DK yarn for the hat I'm making. I found a lovely handspun, hand-dyed alpaca yarn that fit the bill and was just about the right shade of orange. When I saw that it was only $18 for 350 yards I had to have it. I was also looking for some handspun, un-dyed wool for soakers and I found plenty of it but everything was either too rough or too expensive. I did find some crazy self-patterning worsted weight yarn from Crystal Palace that I thought might make some cute baby pants.

I also walked away with a bunch of tiny bags of roving in bright primary colors. I'm planning on making these felted acorns for our Christmas tree this year. Maybe this is something I could do with my mother-in-law when she comes to visit for the month of December. (She's coming to help out with S while I'm in labor and afterwards. I love her!)

And I bought a lovely basket to hold all of my yarn. As part of the massive de-cluttering of our house, I've made it my goal to never exceed more yarn in my stash than this basket will hold. Right now it's filled to the brim, which means I better get to knitting so I can buy more yarn.

Before leaving we had to just pet some sheep.

This little guy took a liking to me and Seamus and was eating the hay right out of our hands and letting me pet behind his ears.

I can't end this post without mentioning and showing you the yummy food we had. I had Fried pickles and squash soup for lunch, both of which were the best of each I'd ever had.

Then after all the shopping was done I was hungry again and made a beeline for the apple cider doughnuts, which I had with hot apple cider.

And then we saw this...

When you see something like maple sugar cotton candy you just HAVE to eat it. I think I devoured most of the bag. Guess who was squirming in my belly all the way home? I think I made the baby very happy this day.

Can you spot the cotton candy among the roving?

Before we left, T purchased some local honey and bee pollen as well, and S has already made a pretty big dint in the honeypot, drizzling it over apples and slathering it on toast, eating it by the spoonful.

We had a lovely time, and upstate New York was so beautiful we'd like to vacation there sometime. But I have to say, as this was the second rather large sheep and wool festival I've been to, I still prefer the smaller festivals. I've had just as much fun at the Garden State Sheep and Wool Festival and the Southeast Animal Fiber Fair in Asheville, NC. Somehow the smaller ones are more my speed, but that won't stop me from going back to Rhinebeck next year.

Week 30!

2011-10-13T11:34:00.001-04:00

Woo hoo! 30 weeks down and only 10 more to go (I hope).

Highlights this week:

*Celebrating my 34th birthday with my guys
*Receiving an unexpected birthday gift from a dear friend and co-worker: a beautfiul teapot with a handknit (by my friend) tea cozy
*Feeling lots of baby movement. Baby seems to respond to my voice and always to S's voice.
*Meditating everyday and learning to focus on deep breathing and releasing tension--hope I'll be able to use this in labor.
*Seeing a deer at the Great Swamp and standing just a few feet away from him
*Miso soup and rice (a $3 lunch in NYC) with a friend at our favorite Korean restaurant

Lowlights this week:

*Need more sleep! I'm tired all the time, but when bedtime comes I can't sleep. I can't get comfortable, moving and repositioning all night is awkward and I must get up to pee a million freakin' times.
*Wrestling with the big decision about whether or not to quit my job. I want to be home with my kids more than anything, but need the insurance that my job provides. And frankly my income is more than my husband's. It'll be a big financial blow if I do this, and I'll have to work from home to supplement our income.
*Feeling Braxton-Hicks contractions. Midwife says this is caused by stress and is a sign from my body to take it easy and that I should sit down and drink some water and relax every time I have one. Too bad they always happen at work.

Midwife Update:
My Monday midwife visit was great. My glucose test was perfect and my iron levels are very high (surprising since I don't eat meat). Baby's heartbeat is great. I gained two more pounds in as many weeks. My uterus is measuring small--28cm instead of 30cm--but Rachel, my midwife, thinks this is because babe is positioned longitudinally in my uterus. She asked me to come back next week to double-check measurements. This worries me a little because I measured small for weeks with S and then ended up being induced due to low amniotic fluid. But my midwife is not worried at all, just wants to play it safe. So I'm trying not to worry as well. Have I mentioned how much I love my midwives and their practice. I do! I love them. They seem like family when I visit them.

T took these pictures of me at the Great Swamp on Saturday. That was a perfect day I'll remember forever.

Yarn-Along

2011-10-12T08:26:00.001-04:00

Yarning-along with Ginny from Small Things this week...

On the Needles: About to finish up the Baby Eyelet Cardi; only two rows and one sleeve left to go. Next on the needles will be a little hat for myself, and then it's off to soaker land I go. With only about two months left before my due date I need to get crackin' on some diaper covers.

From the Library: More poetry! I've put Faulkner aside for awhile and started reading poetry in a desperate attempt to fire up my fiction writing again. So far it's sort of working; I'm at least thinking of stories I want to write and jotting down little sentences that pop into my head during the day.

Check out Ginny's Small Things blog to see what others are knitting and reading this week!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2011-10-11T10:45:00.001-04:00

My 34th birthday was Tuesday of last week, but we celebrated it on Saturday since our weekday schedules are so chaotic. We have a birthday tradition in our family: the birthday person gets to sleep in, receives breakfast in bed when they wake up, can request the family make them any cake they desire and gets to chose that day's event.

So after sleeping in until 9am, my boys woke me up with breakfast in bed. Croissants, strawberries, bananas, an apple danish and a tall glass of orange juice.

Then we all headed to the Great Swamp. We'd never been there in the fall and it was gorgeous with red, gold and orange everywhere but plenty of green still left too.

We saw the usual suspects:

And played Boardwalk Bingo, finding nearly all the animals and plants on our game piece. Afterward, S was asked to be a Junior Park Manager and is now working toward earning his badge.

Then we had lunch at a little Mexican restaurant right outside the refuge area.

For the cake T made me a Devil's Food Cake from an old, maybe 1940s, recipe. I was surprised with the birthday gift of a new Kitchen Aide Mixer a few days earlier, and it was T's first time using it. We'll never lament the fact that we won't have to cream butter and sugar by hand again. Although T did make homemade whipped cream by hand but only because he prefers to do it that way.

T's cake was beautiful and incredibly scrumptious. It was so rich S and I had to share a piece. Usually I can woof down a couple of slices of cake with no problem, but this stuff was decadent!

We spent the next day at our favorite park, watching the diving birds catch fish...

swinging...

and looking for fossils...

Week 29

2011-10-08T10:18:00.001-04:00

Phew! Made it just in time for week 29's post--week 30 has been a busy one!

Highlights this week:
*Seeing the shape of little feet pressing against my belly
*Feeling even more and even stronger movements from baby
*Getting to drink 15 oz. of orange juice for my glucose test instead of that nasty artificial orange crap you usually have to drink
*Enjoying my last week of being 33 years old
*Lazy days, baking, knitting and playing in the park with my boys

Lowlights this week:
*Finding out the college where I work denied my year-long maternity leave because I'm 6 weeks shy of getting my tenure
*Using nearly every pillow in the bed (that'd be five) just to keep comfortable while sleeping
*Heartburn from 10am until bedtime every day
*Aching hips

T took these pictures of me at our favorite park on a brisk fall Sunday. I must apologize for my hairdo--the result of unwashed hair and a lazy mama. Had I know it looked like a rooster when I left the house that day I would have just put it in a pony tail. Regardless, we had a wonderful day, swinging at the playground, looking for fall leaves and running around the park.

Yarn Along

2011-10-05T09:43:00.000-04:00

Yarning-along with Ginny from Small Things this week...

On the Needles: The Baby Eyelet Cardi, a lovely free pattern from ClickertyClick. I just started knitting this, but so far it's fairly simple and fast. For yarn I'm using one of my old favorites: Malabrigo Silky Merino in Spring Water.

Off the Needles: I finished S's dino hat. The exact hat he wanted didn't exist, so I just made one up based on a couple of patterns. I used the spikes from Kate Oates's Roar Hat pattern and the basic measurements from the Cozy earflap hat pattern. I adjusted the ear flaps so they'd be longer and rest under the chin when tied (have I mentioned our mean Jersey winters), and I also added a border of thick garter stitch in a contrasting color.

S LOVES it, probably more than he loves his Diplodocus sweater, and this makes a mama so happy.

From the Library: Still working on Faulkner's Light in August, which I left in my office over the long Jewish holiday (the college where I work always closes for the Jewish holidays; so I ended up with a four day weekend). And I also picked up a book of poetry: Charles Simic's The Voice at 3:00 A.M. I love reading poetry when I'm in a rut with my writing. Even though I'm terrible at writing poetry, I find that reading it really helps my fiction, and since I've had a long block I need all the help I can get right now.

Lazy Sundays

2011-10-04T10:07:00.002-04:00

Lately our Sundays together have been so wonderful and relaxing, mostly because we have nothing in particular planned and just hang around our apartment baking and making things, playing and acting silly and maybe venturing out to the park.

I've had a million things going on simultaneously the past few weeks and big, life-changing decisions to make regarding working with the new baby and maternity leave. That, and work has been hectic and crazy as it always is at the start of the fall semester. All this coupled with the fact that I'm really tired these days and super-duper hormonal has me feeling overwhelmed. But our lazy Sundays always unwind all of that.

This Sunday was especially nice because it was finally cool enough to wear sweaters to the park. So we bundled up, after a full morning and most of an afternoon of kicking back in our apartment, and headed to our favorite park. The leaves were still mostly green but we found a few yellow Sweet Gum leaves on the ground. The squirrels and groundhogs were busy, busy, busy and there were a few straggler migratory birds still hanging around.

After chasing a few squirrels and playing in some very small piles of leaves, S was ready for the playground. He's really enjoyed swinging lately, something he never had the patience for in the past, but this kid could swing for hours now.

Me and T enjoyed swinging for a bit too. I love how I still get that ticklish feeling in my stomach when I swing really high. I told S the baby probably loved feeling me swing too, and he got a kick out of that and wanted to know what the baby was saying. He's convinced the baby talks if you put your ear to my belly.

I can't wait to come back to this park in a couple of weeks and play in all the fallen leaves.

Muffin Monday

2011-10-03T10:27:00.000-04:00

Happy fall y'all!

This morning S and I made pumpkin muffins using this recipe!

Fall and winter are my most productive times in terms of baking and knitting. Something about cool air and sweaters and falling leaves makes me want to stay in my kitchen all day. Anyone else do this?

Finished Object: Diplodocus Sweater

2011-09-30T08:31:00.000-04:00

Hooray! The Diplodocus Sweater is finished blocking, and most of the puckers and wrinkles from my too tight tension in the color chart are smoothed out. S and I are very pleased.

I made this up in a size 6, one size larger than S's current sweater size. This way there may still be a chance that he'll fit into it next fall. I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in worsted weight and US size 4 and 5 circular and double-points.

This was my first time knitting stranded color work, and I learned a lot from this project. First and mainly, color knitting is fun and nothing to be afraid of. I'd shied away from it for years thinking it was too complicated, but it's insanely simple and watching the pattern emerge as you knit is incredibly gratifying and addictive. I can't wait to knit some fair isle hats, mittens and sweaters now.

But the most important lesson I learned was to be more relaxed and a little loose in my tension when working color charts, or you'll end up with lots of puckering and pulling and your pattern will look warped. Then I learned that most of these problems can be fixed with a good, hard, aggressive blocking.

This sweater was so much fun, but the best part was seeing the excitement on S's face when he looked at himself in the mirror in his new sweater.

Week 28

2011-09-29T15:17:00.000-04:00

Hello third trimester!

This pregnancy sure is going fast for me. It seems like I was just trying to hide my bump at work, and now I'm already in the third trimester and the final countdown is on.

This was a pretty good week aside from a bit of discomfort. On Monday, I had my first real midwife appointment. I had another one this week as well, and their practice already feels like home. I absolutely LOVE it there. When I walk in the door everyone knows my name, including the front desk staff and all the nurses. My appointments are very thorough and so far have been with the same midwife, whose name is Rachel. At my first appointment she told me she took her midwifery exams in the same small Tennessee town that I'm from. She's probably around my age, maybe a couple of years younger, and has a really comforting and steady bedside manner. On my way out of the office that day, Mary at the front desk took a family photo of me, T and S, something they do for all of their patients, and I noticed at my last appointment that it was clipped to my chart. I can't wait to have a baby with these ladies!

My only complaint this week is that I've been experiencing the same uncomfortable sensations that I experienced only in the very last couple of weeks of my pregnancy with S. I'm already getting that heavy feeling in my belly, and occasionally when I stand up it feels like a bowling ball might fall out. But the biggest discomfort happens at night when I try to sleep. I've been uncomfortable sleeping for awhile now, but this week it got a lot worse. Because of the varicose veins in my right leg I have to sleep in a most awkward position, on my right side with both feet elevated. This feels great for my legs but not so for the rest of my body. My left hip aches all day from sleeping this way. But it's a small price to pay.

T took these photos of me at the park we call the Dog Park. It was a humid, sweltering day. We'd just gotten used to the fall weather when it warmed up again. But starting this weekend, it's back to fall temperatures and blustery days. I can't wait!

Yarn-Along

2011-09-28T09:53:00.000-04:00

Joining Ginny over at Small Things for another Wednesday Yarn-Along...

On the Needles: An earflap hat for Mr. S that will eventually have Stegosaurus spikes on the top. S requested a hat just like I made him last year but with earflaps and in different colors. So I've been consulting a few patterns for size and shape and basically just making it up as I go along. So far it's coming along fast and looks like it'll fit just right.

I'm happy to report that blocking last week's Diplodocus Sweater appears to be taking all the kinks out of my crumpled up colorwork. It's on the blocking board now and should come off tomorrow. I'll post pictures of it and its recepient later in the week.

From the Library: Still working on Faulkner's Light in August, which is really wonderful so far. The writing is so incredible that I want to read it slowly and savor every turn of phrase.

I'm also about to return Vintage Baby Knits back to interlibrary loan but not before I make copies of about a bunch of patterns that I must place in my knitting queue. I know I should just buy the book.

Bedtime Reading

2011-09-26T12:49:00.000-04:00

Hiking Sun Fish Pond

2011-09-23T11:08:00.001-04:00

Last Saturday we spent the whole day hiking in the Delaware Water Gap with old friends from Tennessee. It was the loveliest fall-feeling day, with bright, cool skies and a constant breeze, and the higher we hiked the cooler it got.

We've known Chase and Shauna for years. Chase and T used to live together in a big, old house with a bunch of other guys. And Chase and I used to work together in a wonderful public library. I can remember when Chase first met Shauna and how in-love he was. The two of us spent many a workday talking about relationships in between patrons at the circulation desk. As luck would have it, we all ended up moving from Tennessee to the same part of the Northeast U.S. around the same time. Chase and Shauna only live about an hour from us in Pennsylvania. And now they too are expecting a baby just a month or so after us! This will be their first babe. We're so excited for them! This will be one lucky baby to have the two of them as parents.

We hiked up to Sun Fish Pond on the Douglas Trail on the Jersey side of the DWG. It was a rigorous few miles up the mountain with lots of rocky trail, but coming down was a piece of cake...such a piece of cake that we got lost in conversation and didn't realize we'd taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up on a parallel trail that landed us 1.5 miles further down Old Mine Road than we needed to be. Luckily, a couple of good samaritans stoped and picked up the two pregnant ladies and little boy and drove us back to our cars. I think Shauna and I were both a little worn out and couldn't fathom another half-mile of walking.

We saw lots of flora and fauna on this hike, but not much in the way of mammals (though we were stalked constantly by chipmunks)...

T and S spend a lot of time turning over rocks and looking for salamanders.

All total we hiked for about 6 hours that day, and S handled it like a champ, many times leading the way, but most of the time meandering behind everyone and looking at every flower and spiderweb and colorful leaf we passed.

It was so still and quiet once we reached the top of the mountain, and we could see the very beginnings of fall starting with a few treetops already turning over to gold and red. There were acorns everywhere. Mr. S filled his pockets with them and then tossed each one into the lake once we reached the top.

This was one of the best weekends we've had in a long time. Great friends, beautiful weather, lots of wildlife.

And I have to say the Gwyns are really turning into an outdoor family. I think living in the city is what did it for us. We've become real hikers with real hiking shoes.

Week 27

2011-09-22T09:01:00.001-04:00

Hello, hello and welcome to Week 27 of my pregnancy. This week was lovely in every way. The baby continues to move A LOT! Just as I typed that last sentence I felt a little leg stretch against my abdomen. And now that the babe should be over 2 pounds, I'm feeling it constantly. It's so wonderful to rub my belly and instantly feel a little butt or back or head; sometimes I can feel the whole length of his/her shape.

This week was particularly wonderful because we finally got to escape the city, after several weekends in a row of staying put. Last weekend we went hiking with friends from TN on a beautiful trail in the Delware Water Gap. Anytime we get to hike the Appalachian Trail we're happy...reminds us of home so, so much. And it was lovely to be around familiar faces, familiar accents and a happy couple who are getting ready to have their first baby. Look for more on our hike in tomorrow's post.

Even though fall isn't quite here yet, all of week 27 sure felt fallish. I wore sweaters, flannels and tights all week, and enjoyed my cool and windy morning walk to the train.

Speaking of tights...support hose rock! Or in my case opaque graduated compression tights rock. I've only purchased one pair so far, which I wash at the end of each day and hang up to dry (brings back sweet memories of my Nana when she was younger and her bathroom full of dripping panty hose). I wear them every workday, and have no pain from my varicose veins whatsoever until the end of the day when I peel them off. They were quite costly but well worth every penny I spent on them. I'm definitely buying an extra pair or two.

T took these pictures of me at the top of Kittatinny Ridge on our hike. That's Sun Fish Pond behind me, a 41 acre glacial lake that is considered one of the seven wonders of New Jersey.

Yarn-Along Wednesday

2011-09-21T08:30:00.000-04:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things for another Wednesday Yarn-Along. Check out her linky list to see what everyone else is knitting and reading this week...

On the Needles: I'm just about done with the Diplodocus Sweater. I'd hoped to finish both sleeves and start blocking this past weekend, but the Gwyns spent one whole day hiking on top of a mountain and most of the next day stuck in traffic on a bridge. So zero knitting got done on my days off. But I'm now almost done with the last sleeve and it's coming along nicely. I can't decide what to knit next...more soakers, a new winter hat for S or a new winter hat for me. I wasn't even thinking of a winter hat for me until I saw this one and now I'm obsessing over it.

From the Library: I just picked up William Faulkner's Light in August from my library. There's something about fall that always makes me want to read Faulkner, even though most of his novels and stories are set in the Mississippi summer. Last fall I read The Sound and the Fury for the first time ever. Can you believe I have an advanced degree in literature and had never read a Faulkner novel until last year? (And I went to grad school in Mississppi at a school that happened to have one of the country's best Faulkner scholars on faculty.) I should start a list of all the classics I've never read. It would be incredibly long. Anyway, so far I'm really enjoying Light in August. It doesn't compare to The Sound and the fury, which blew me away, even though it was much, much harder to read. But from what I've read, the story should pick up once the character of Joe Christmas is introduced.

Week 26

2011-09-16T10:09:00.000-04:00

Week 26 was a crazy week, not so much as far as pregnancy goes, but work-wise it was nuts! Normally, I'm able to leave the stress of my job behind when I get home, but this week was the second full week of the fall semester and the week that's always busiest for me. In week 26 I interviewed, hired and trained about 9 students aides. And I'm still not done filling all of the vacancies in my department. Don't get me wrong, I love meeting new students and getting to know them, but it is exhausting setting up interviews in between my normal meeting schedule (my library has A LOT of meetings). Between meetings, interviews, training students and setting up course reserves for tons and tons of professors (who always wait until classes have started to put their materials on reserve--even though we requested the materials back in the summer), I have been thoroughly useless when I come home. Luckily, this hectic pace usually only last the first 2-3 weeks of the semester, and I think the worst of it is behind me.

During all this, every member of the Gwyn Family came down with bronchitis. Since moving to the NYC Metro area three years ago, bronchitis is a seasonal ocurrence for all of us, even though none of us had ever had it before. Usually we get it in the spring and fall, although the first year here little S had it year round and had to start taking nebulizer treatments. Usually the guys come down with it first and have it for about a week, and then I come down with it and have it for about a month. And somehow it always coincides with the exact few weeks that I'm hiring and training student aides and have to do a lot of talking. Last year I ended up losing my voice for a few days. This year though it looks like my bronchitis is on the way out after only a week and half, but poor T still has it pretty bad and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. S is almost over his as well. We're all sick of coughing.

As far as pregnancy goes, I can see that my boobs and belly are eventually going to become one; my belly button may indeed pop this time; and it's going to be harder and harder for me to keep up my exercise routine. With the fall semester upon me, I'm a little more stressed out than I am the rest of the year, and being pregnant that means when I should be doing a little yoga or cardio before bed, I'm more likely to be curled up with a book and settling down. I've decided my body needs the rest and I'm only going to exercise a couple or three days a week now.

The baby is still moving around like crazy, even as I type this, and now that he/she is bigger I'm feeling and seeing little feet and fists a lot more. This is what makes me LOVE being pregnant. Every movement is amazing.

This week marked the first real smidge of fall air, then the temperatures went right back to the 90s. We're all excited about fall. S is thinking about a Halloween costume; I'm dreaming of pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread and apple cider; and T has been making a list of age-appropriate scary movies to watch for our family's annual Halloween slumber party. I'm happy to say so far week 27 has been full of fallish days and record low temperatures. I think it's safe to say good-bye to summer.

Yarn-Along Wednesday

2011-09-14T09:42:00.002-04:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things this week for another Wednesday Yarn-Along; check out her blog to see what others are knitting and reading this week.

On the Needles: The Diplodocus Sweater is nearly done! I've just about finished the body and have only the sleeves left to knit. Last week I mentioned the trouble I had with the colorwork puckering around the dinosaurs, and I'd read that this could be fixed with a good blocking (or two). The ladies in my library knitting circle suggested I just rip it out and start over, but I decided, and maybe I'll regret this, to just keep knitting and see what happens with blocking. The pattern has been so much fun to knit; if blocking doesn't fix it I don't mind knitting it again.

Off the Bookshelf:I've not been reading much for myself lately. I've been so tired during my commute that I knit for awhile and then fall asleep on the train. The only reading I've been getting in is Spiritual Midwifery, which I've been reading at night before I fall asleep, and the books I've been reading to Mr. S. We came across this great book of stories illustrated by Eloise Wilkin in a clearence bin last week. I'd never heard of Eloise Wilkin, but I couldn't resist the $5 bargain especially when I started flipping through the pages.

Her illustrations are amazing. Most of the stories in this collection were published in the 50s. And even though the stories are a little young for S, we both really enjoy reading them and looking at the beautiful illustrations.

Lately...

2011-09-13T09:49:00.000-04:00

We've been enjoying the last few moments of summer, playing outside as much as we can...

digging for fossils...

having epic light sabre battles in the park...

Notice S's Jedi face?

...and taking in the few warm days we'll have for a long while.

You have to enjoy the Jersey summers while you can because they're so incredibly short and fall and spring are just a blink. The rest of the year it feels like winter here.

Week 25

2011-09-08T10:18:00.006-04:00

Week 25 was great! This week I met with the Midwives at the Childbirth and Women's Wellness Cetner. I loved this practice right away mainly because it's very family friendly, unlike my OBGYN. There were lots of children in the waiting room and a huge toy box full of toys for them all, as well as a shelf of children's books and a big bowl of lollipops. S, of course, loves this place and can't wait to go back. The midwives met with both me and T and allowed S to take a couple of toys back to their office (which was a brilliant idea as it kept him totally occupied the whole time we talked). They asked me about my birth with S and asked what I wanted for this birth, explained their birthing philosophy and one of them told me her birth story. I was impressed by several things: First, a bunch of the midwives graduated from Columbia University and most of them have over 30 years of experience delivering babies; second, while I was in the waiting room there was a pregnant woman sitting next to me and the director of the center came up to her and said she couldn't believe she was seeing the little baby girl she'd delivered all those years ago. Turns out many of the women now having babies with these midwives were delivered by the same midwives themselves. Third, their director is good friends with Ina May Gaskin and is going to visit her on the Farm soon. And last, their director is a knitter. She showed me the hat she was working on and said that she got a lot of knitting done waiting for babies to be born.

Most important, however, I agreed with their philosophy completely. When the time comes for this baby to be born, I'll call the midwives and they'll meet me at the hospital they're affiliated with and stay with me throughout the entire birth (unlike a doctor who only shows up the last five minutes of everything). I'll be allowed to wear my own nightgown, eat and drink as I please, walk around, take a shower and get in whatever position necessary to make me feel comfortable during labor. Also, if an emergency arrises the midwives are affiliated with a doctor who will take over if necessary, in which case the midwives will stay by my side until the baby is born. With this kind of support (and the fact that I no longer have to worry about arguing with hospital staff to be able to birth the way I want) I think I can do this whole natural birth thing. In fact, I'm getting really excited about giving birth. And I'm so glad I got to experience most of the pains of labor with Seamus, even if it was because my epidural didn't work, because now I have a taste of what I'll be in for when this baby comes along. So, I'm happy to say I'll be sticking with these midwives for the rest of my pregnancy.

The only downside about the midwives is their office is not nearly as convenient for me to get to as my OBGYN in Hoboken. There is no train that goes from my town to Clifton, NJ. And with only one car between the two of us, I have to rely on T to take me to all of my midwife appointments or I have to borrow the car while he sits at home, which means in either case he'll be late to work on numerous occasions. But we both agree it's a small price to pay. Thankfully, he has a very understanding boss who lets him make up his time.

The only yucky thing about this week were the varicose veins I mentioned last week, which are getting worse the longer I go without compression stockings. I just haven't broken down and purchase them yet. They're quite pricey--especially since I have to by a special maternity size, and I just haven't wrapped my head around paying $57 for one pair of tights. But I will because these things are painful and I don't want them to get worse, or God forbid, develop clots. Yikes!

T took these pictures of me at our favorite usual park. I'm so happy fall is on its way, but I'll miss all these long weekends playing in the park with my guys. Once winter gets here we'll all be cooped up in the house again.

Wednesday Yarn-Along

2011-09-07T08:14:00.000-04:00

Joining Ginny at Small Things today for another Yarn-Along...

On the Needles: The Diplodocus Sweater! Ok, so colorwork isn't so bad after all. Actually, I really like it and have been looking for any excuse I can to work on this sweater. I've finished the short rows and the diplodocus chart, and now I'm moving onto the stripes at the bottom. It's a great pattern and I'm having great fun making it, but this sweater is not without its problems. If you look closely, actually you don't have to look too close to see it, you can tell my tension is too tight on the chart part. I was so nervous about leaving gaps or holes between color changes that I must have held my yarn too tight, and now all the dinosaurs are puckered. I freaked out when I first noticed this and worried that I'd have to rip it all out, but from what I've read a good blocking will probably fix it. Here's to hoping. I'd hate to make this sweater twice when there's so much more winter knitting I need to get done for both of my guys, and lots of baby knitting as well.

Off the Bookshelf: I've been consulting The Essential Guide for Color Knitting Techniques for lots of advice the past few days, and reading more from Spiritual Midwifery. Still working on Simplicity Parenting too, but I'm almost done.

On a different note but still related, I've been trying to talk T into a family road trip to the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck in October. I know this is one of the better sheep and wool festivals in the country, and it's only 2 hours from us. Anyone ever been to this one before?

Week 24

2011-09-01T13:22:00.001-04:00

This was a pretty great week overall. I found out that my insurance company will indeed cover midwives, and I made an appointment with a great group of midwives not to far from my town. I actually had a wonderful visit with them this morning, but you'll have to wait until week 25's post to hear that story.

This week I had some minor discomforts: More belly button pain, (I guess my uterus is having a growth spurt) and varicose veins on my thigh and also in a most intimate place (yes, where you're thinking). I never got varicose veins with S; so this is all new to me. They're quite painful at times even though they aren't that big or unsightly. Yet. I've been elevating my legs at night and looking into purchasing some old lady compression tights. I hope these go away after pregnancy.

The babe continues to move and kick and turn at all hours of the day and night. And S is growing even more in-love with my belly, hugging and kissing it all the time. He's also been coming up with baby names. He's not fond of the ones we've picked out. Here's his list of names:

Boy: Adam (as in Prince Adam), Smoky or Junior
Girl: Adora (as in Princess Adora), Penelope or Michaela

Wednesday Yarn-Along

2011-08-31T09:19:00.001-04:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things this week for another yarn-along...

On the Needles: With all this knitting for baby I nearly forgot that it was getting to be about time to start knitting a little someone's annual fall sweater. In falls past I just picked out a pattern I thought would look nice on Mr. S, but this year S is old enough to pick something out himself. So when he told me he wanted a dinosaur sweater, I immediately began searching Ravelry and found this sweet Diplodocus Sweater (which also has a KAL going on right now). S loved the pattern and so now I'm knitting away on it and getting closer and closer to the color-stranded knitting part, which has me a little nervous since I've never done color-stranded knitting. It looks easy, but if I'm suddenly switching to a different patttern you'll know why.

I'm using Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in these fallish colors. I hope it turns out, and I hope S likes it!

Off the Bookshelf: The wonderful thing about these yarn-alongs (and read-alongs) is that I get such wonderful book and knitting pattern recommendations. I guess that's one of the main points. And so I ordered Simplicity Parenting since so many in this group are reading it. I absolutely love it so far, and since our family is already doing so much of what the author suggests I feel pretty good.

However, there remains one deep, dark secret that our family has needed to wrangled with for some time now, and that is the overwhelming amount of toys in our household. This is harder than you'd think since husband is a toy designer by trade and an avid toy collector. Thankfully most of his toys are in storage, otherwise our house would be nothing but a shrine to Star Wars, Star Trek and He-Man, with lots and lots of comic book figures interspersed.

We definitely have the problem of aunts, unlces, grandparents (and ourselves) buying toys for our kid, but we also have the unique problem of having easy and cheap access to all manner of toys. One of the perks of being in the toy industry is free or deeply discounted toys. When T worked for Hasbro a couple of summers ago he came home with bags of toys all the time that he got for at least 50% off in the Hasbro employee toy store. So, S shares his father's passion for Star Wars and toys in general and our home is overrun with action figures and light sabres (we have three of the real sounding, real looking light sabres and multiple other plastic push-button light sabres--I just asked why we needed so many and received a very logical, detailed response from T that I won't go into here). Luckily, T has thrown toys out before and is willing to go through and help me get rid of a lot of stuff that doesn't get played with. When it comes to throwing things out he's more ruthless than I am.

So this is the long, rambling way to say that Simplicity Parenting hit the nail on the head when it comes to our toy problem and opened up a whole dialogue that desperately needed to take place between T and I. Before this new babe comes along 3/4 of the toys in our household will make a slow disappearance to either the garbage can or the Salvation Army. And if S asks what happened I'll blame it on the Dark Side.

What to do in the Event of a Hurricane...

2011-08-29T13:53:00.004-04:00

1. Before the hurricane arrives, drive around town running last minute errands and enjoy being outside of your home while you can.

Our little town was prepared for Irene with taped up and boarded up windows and sandbags around doorframes. Most of the stores closed early on Saturday and remained closed Sunday. Since the NYC transit system shut down, my college closed and I got a three-day weekend.

2. Fill spare containers in your house with filtered tap water. Fill the bathtub with water as well; this way you can still flush the toilet in a water outage. Make sure batteries and flashlights, matches and candles are all out where you can find them.

3. Then, relax. Wait for the storm. Make hurricane cookies, and be sure to deliver some to your neighbors.

Peanut Butter cookies in our case...and some with M&Ms as requested by one little Gwyn.

4. Make sure your wild animals have a proper watering hole.

5. Make sure your Lego town has an official Space Patrol Paddy Wagon.

6. With all this time on your hands, make a super-delicious homemade dinner. I made a big batch of pizza dough, some of which I froze for next week and some of which we rolled out topped with our favorite sauce and cheese.

7. Enjoy slice after slice of 9-grain bread homemade by your upstairs neighbor.

8. Knit. Finish up some mending and button-sewing. Prepare for new knitting projects.

9. Make sure your Brachiosaurus has plenty of eggs in her nest.

10. Stay up late watching movies and listening to the storm move in.

11. Wake up early and assess the damage. Try not to watch too much news. Once it's safe, take a walk around your town and feel lucky that you have no downed trees, no flooding, no exposed electrical wires.

We were very lucky. The only evidence Irene was here were the branches and leaves all over the roads, the waterline where the bay overflowed its banks and all the garbage that washed ashore. We were happy our resident geese weathered the storm just fine. Much of the surrounding areas had terrible flooding, including parts of downtown NYC, Hoboken and Jersey City. The Jersey Shore also got hit pretty hard, but thankfully Hurricane Irene was fairly gentle and didn't deliver the blow the media had us all prepared for.

Week 23

2011-08-25T13:09:00.000-04:00

Week 23 was a little disappointing (but so far things are getting better in week 24). This was the week my insurance company told me that midwives were not a covered benefit. I'd been thinking of switching from my OBGYN group to a local group of midwives that deliver at a hospital fairly close to us and was starting to get excited about meeting with them when I thought I'd better first call my insurance company. I was so bummed out after talking to one of the Aetna representatives (who was a bit rude) and ended up crying in the bathroom at work. However, just this morning I heard from one of the midwives, who told me they did indeed work with my insurance company and that it was actually illegal for my insurance company to tell me that midwives weren't covered. They are very interested in talking to my insurance company now. She also told me that my first appointment would be free that way I could decide whether or not I want to switch to their practice. So, I'm calling today!

This may be my last baby, I hope not, but if it is I want the chance to deliver naturally with a midwife and not have to worry about fighting with the hospital staff over whether or not I can eat or drink, have to wear a monitor, can walk around, etc. Plus after reading all the stats on medical birth in the U.S. (we have the second highest maternal/infant mortality rate of all industrialized countries), I feel much safer with a midwife.

Also this week we discovered that the crib we were saving up for will not fit in our bedroom. So I had to cancel the mattress I'd just ordered for said crib, and now we're thinking of going with a mini-crib, which will very tightly fit into the space at the foot of our bed. I couldn't find any good eco-friendly options for the mini-crib, not like the Pacific Rim Crib I was saving my pennies for, but I did find a great organic cotton and wool mattress for it. The nice thing about the mini crib is that it converts to a twin size bed, which will save us money down the road.

This week was also the week I returned to work after a few refreshing days in Tennessee. It's always so hard to come back, and while I was gone one of my very favorite co-workers moved to California. I didn't even get a chance to say a proper good-bye to her, and I already miss her sweet face. She's also from the South, which means one less Southerner working at my library (There are only 6 of us out of 70 people). Cheryl, if you're reading this, you are sorely missed around here. Our knitting circle isn't the same without you.

T took these photos yet again at our favorite park. I always love it when Mr. S ends up in the background.

Wednesday Yarn-Along

2011-08-24T09:53:00.000-04:00

Yarning along with Ginny from Small Things again this week...

On and Off the Needles:
Finished up my first Puerperium, and I love every minute of it. If my mother hadn't already knitted me up a bunch I'd make a few more. Now to find the perfect buttons. I had 3/4 of a skein of Silky Merino left over, and so I started the Modern Baby Bonnet from Vintage Knits for Modern Babies. All I have left is the button band and some seaming and I'm done. See Rachel's version for more inspiration. This week I also started making a pair of Tiny Trousers from the same vintage knitting book and using some more anniversary yarn from Hilltop Handspun. These are knitting up so super-fast that I think I'll make a few more pairs to serve as longies. This will be my first time cloth diapering, but I imagine I'll use longies just as much as regular soakers since my babe is due in the winter.

Off the Bookshelf: Reading the new Poets & Writers, which is full of great articles as always. I look forward to every issue. I've also been flipping through Simple Sewing for Babies a lot lately, contemplating my first real sewing project, which I think will be a new nursing pillow since my old one is kind of dingy. But I'm also wanting to make some pants and bloomers. This is a great beginner sewing book, and I'm hoping husband will help me get started this weekend (hint, hint husband). The Barbara Kingsolver I'd started before vacation has fallen by the wayside. I may pick it up later when I'm ready to dive into a long, involved novel.

More Tennessee

2011-08-23T09:44:00.000-04:00

More evidence of our wonderful little vacation in Tennessee, where we enjoyed the flora and fauna...

...camped in Grandie and Grandpa's yard (until a certain little boy became too scared to stay outside any longer, at which point we had a slumber party in my parents' basement)...

...grilled hotdogs (veggie in my case), roasted marshmallows and ate lots of watermelon...

...hiked and enjoyed being far away from the madness of the city.

More from TN

2011-08-21T08:47:00.001-04:00

On our last day in Tennessee we met T's family and spent a full morning and afternoon at the Knoxville Zoo. We were happy to see everyone again, and Seamus had a lot fun playing with his cousins.

We've been to a lot of zoos, but the Knoxville Zoo still remains our favorite, surpassing Turtle Back Zoo and the Central Park Zoo (however that may change since we've yet to visit the Bronx Zoo). Knoxville's zoo is fairly large with exotic animals like an albino alligator and classic zoo animals like lions, elephants, giraffes and rhinos.

The exhibits are well-designed and there's lots of hands-on stuff for little ones, plenty of tree shade and a water misting system that runs throughout the zoo to keep everyone cool.

S loved playing the mist, and was soaking wet for most of the day.

First Fish

2011-08-19T17:57:00.001-04:00

Seamus caught his first fish, a bluegill, while we were in Tennessee last week. I was happy to get a picture of the big moment, along with several other photos of our perfect day.

Grandie and Grandpa took us out to the lake in Clark Park in Oak Ridge, TN. My dad has a trout boat that Seamus loves to climb in and play in while whenever we visit, but this was his first time getting to actually ride in it and fish in it.

We went out on a Thursday and the weather was perfect with temperatures in teh low 80s and a light breeze blowing the whole time. Since it was the middle of the week there were very few other fishermen out and it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. Great Blue Herons kept flying overhead and we saw a few ducks and quite a few turtles as well.

Everyone caught at least 10 fish (including Mr. S)...except me. I caught one measley bluegill which I released. This figures since I was the only vegetarian in the boat.

Week 22

2011-08-18T10:09:00.001-04:00

I have to say week 22 was my very favorite week of pregnancy so far. We spent most of it in Tennessee with our shoes off and our feet in the grass or the creek or the lake. We were only there for four days (we spent that same amount of time driving there and back round trip), but we packed a lot in. We fished, hiked, visited with tons and tons of family members and camped out in Grandie and Grandpa's yard.

We ate lots of watermelon and roasted marshmallows and I drank a lot of Perrier because I'm craving beer like nobody's business...not that I drank a lot of beer to begin with, maybe one or two once a month. But knowing that I can't have something just makes me want it more. Lucky for me the fizziness of Pierre in a cold glass bottle did the trick.

This week S fell more in-love with my belly than he already was. He talks to the baby all the time, hugs my belly, kisses it, sings songs to it every night, yells at the baby trying to get him/her to kick his hand. And the baby is still a jumping bean, kicking and stretching and rolling over all the time. And now that you can feel its movement with your hand, the whole family has been enjoying my belly.

T took these pictures of me after a little hike we took with Grandpa around Norris State Park. I'm standing in front of the Grist Mill where T asked me to marry him 8 years ago.

Yarn-Along

2011-08-17T17:59:00.001-04:00

Yarning-along with Ginny from Small Things this Wednesday...

On the Needles: This should have been done ages ago, but I let my puerperium fall by the wayside while on vacation; I did the same with my new Barbara Kingsolver book. I never find time to knit or read in Tennessee for some reason, and even though I had only a little bit of sleeve left to knit on my puerperium, I'm just now picking it up again.

Off the Bookshelf: T just bought us a new sewing machine and then surprised me with a bunch of simple sewing for baby and kid books. Soon he'll teach me to sew!

Home Again, Home Again

2011-08-16T10:30:00.000-04:00

Back in Jersey after a wonderful and fun trip to Tennessee that left my heart aching to stay there. I truly felt homesick the moment we left. I have over 500 photos to go through but here is a sneak peak of our little trip:

Back in the City today and back to my commute. The people, the noise, the pollution is overwhelming. Really missing the stars over my parents' yard and the cicadias singing all night.

Week 21

2011-08-13T08:08:00.001-04:00

Week 21 was pretty smooth sailing. This week the babe has been moving even more than before and way more than S ever moved. It seems like this kid is always kicking, stretching, rolling around. Sometimes he/she wakes me up at night with all the movement, and whenever my doctor tries to find the heartbeat with the handheld doppler she has a very hard time because the baby just won't stay still.

We're in Tn right now and having a lovely time. I've been away from the computer most of the week, not checking email or facebook or updating here. Instead I've been fishing, hiking, camping and eating roasted marshmallows. Seamus has been barefoot, sweaty and covered in dirt and watermelon juice the entire time we've been here. It's been the BEST kind of vacation.

Week 20! Half-Way There!

2011-08-04T08:41:00.001-04:00

I can't believe I've just finished week 20 of my pregnancy and am sailing through week 21 now. This time around the whole thing is flying by faster than I'd like, and I'm already starting to feel the panic of not having one single baby item in our home. That's about to change however; we're travelling to TN for a few days next week to pick up some of S's old baby stuff from my parents' basement. I can't tell you how excited I am to see everyone.

Week 20 left me feeling pretty good. I must have had a growth spurt however, because when I returned to work Monday more than a couple of people remarked on how much rounder I'd gotten. I can feel my body changing; I have an on/off ache in my hips that means my body is making plenty of room for the baby's entrance into the world.

I've been faithfully practicing my Bradley birthing exercises, along with yoga, lots of stretching and some cardio. I hope I can keep up this pace well into my third trimester. I have no idea how long of a labor I'm in for; though some part of me thinks it may be extremely short, and I'm afraid I won't make it to the hospital in time. With my last labor I was induced due to very low amniotic fluid (S ended up having a congenitive kidney defect that kept him from urinating for a several days. Thankfully that's resolved itself now.), and my labor was less than 6 hours from the first contraction until I pushed him out. I know induction speeds labor up, but I also know second labors are usually faster than the first. Anyone have any experience with this?

Once again T took these pictures at our favorite local park. If you look closely you can see where S soaked my shirt with the squirt gun at the water park. I love lazy summer days with my boys...don't know what we'll do when winter comes and we're stuck indoors most of the time.

Yarn-Along

2011-08-03T09:27:00.001-04:00

Yarning along on another Wednesday with Ginny from Small Things...

Off the Needles: Last Thursday I stayed home from work with a sick little S and cast-off on the Pine Forest Baby Blanket while S slept. It still needs a little blocking and then it's completely done.

On the Needles: Inspired by Rachel's stunning Puerperium, I decided to knit one up for my new babe as well. I'm using the Malabrigo Silky Merino yarn that T got me for our anniversary.

From the Library: Just started yet another Barbara Kingsolver book. Haven't had it this bad for an author since Margaret Atwood and Larry Brown. The Lacuna is Kingsolver's newest novel and even though I'm only 10 pages into it I can tell it won't disappoint. Her storytelling is full of poetry, and when I read her I find myself taking out scraps of paper and writing down my own little bits.

Evening Walk

2011-07-31T10:29:00.002-04:00

Our town is very much what you'd expect from a typical New York City suburb, parking lots and buildings, streets lined with nail salons, mechanics, liquor stores and gas stations. The houses here are so close together you can lean out your window and touch your neighbor. And almost no one has a proper yard with grass and trees (although we are lucky--our back yard actually has a square of grass out of which a Bradford Pear Tree grows).

But our town is also full of beautiful secret spots where Egrets and Great Blue Herons fish and migratory birds stop over for awhile. Little parks and sidewalks along the bays, overgrown places behind buildings--these are the places our family always seek out.

Behind a giant strip mall of restaurants, grocery stores and the movie theatre, there's a nature path that runs along the golf course. Some evenings our family takes long walks there. Yesterday S and I paid a visit...

We came across a Trumpeter Swan...

a Seagull's fresh kill

and a Horseshoe Crab

Along the way S fashioned an Egret call from a hollow reed...

The picture I didn't show you is the one looking across the bay, where you can see Manhattan and Jersey City and a whole slew of condos and strip malls. I also didn't show you the container ships in the bay and all the garbage that washes up on shore. There are things to love about this town, and we go out of our way trying to find them, but for the most part we're counting down the days until we can move out of here.

Baking: Laura's Golden Wheat Sheaf Bread

2011-07-30T14:48:00.001-04:00

On Thursday S was sick and I stayed home from work. I found myself with a lot of time on my hands and, for once, a relatively clean house that didn't require too much of my time. After a few loads of laundry and the finishing touches of a baby blanket, I decided to bake something.

I'd been considering baking the Wheat Sheaf Bread from the Little House on the Prairie Crafts book, but wanted to do it with S. However, as it turned out S didn't want to do much of anything but rest and, honestly when he was feeling better he would rather be fighting dinosaurs or playing Star Wars. He wasn't interesting in rolling or shaping dough or baking bread in the least. So while he slept...

...I made Laura's Golden Wheat Sheaf Bread. Oh man, was it yummy!

I'm not the best sculptor and the loaf came out looking more like a squid, or as one friend on facebook said--Freddy Krueger's hand, but it was still so much fun making this bread, which had two rise stages.

Our family devoured it with a big pot of homemade veggie soup!

For more wheat sheaf bread recipes and some amazing ideas for creating more elaborate wheat sheaf breads check out these links:

*It's Those Little Things has a much simpler recipe than the one I used, with no milk or sugar

*For a rich loaf with a touch of molasses Bread Experience has a great recipe.

*Cornish Garden offers step-by-step instructions for a gorgeous looking loaf.

Week 19

2011-07-28T17:00:00.001-04:00

Week 19 was so much better than the last two weeks. No UTIs, no kidney infections, no colds. And it ended with a lovely visit with a wonderful friend in Long Island.

Today I'm home from work with a sick little Gwyn. S has some sort of stomach bug, but nothing some rest, pop-sickles and Play-Doh can't fix. While S slept today I finished up the Pine Forest Baby Blanket, did tons of laundry and baked a golden wheat sheaf bread (more on that tomorrow).

Weeks 19 and (so far) 20 have brought a good bit of my pre-pregnancy energy back. Even though I can still fall asleep at the drop of a hat (and actually nodded off on a stranger's shoulder on the train yesterday), I'm feeling up to all the baking, knitting and making that I used to do so much of. I plan on taking advantage of it now to finish up some projects for the Gwyn on the way. I haven't even started making soakers, sweaters or booties, and T has promised to tutor me through a few simple sewing projects for the babe. But first he's saving a little extra from his paychecks to buy us a better sewing machine. He says our Singer doesn't cut it.

T and Simona took these pictures of me at the Arboretum. I was wind-blown and a bit disheveled from our afternoon at the beach, but it was the end of the week and we hadn't yet taken a weekly photo. It was a wonderful day with my sweet family and a sweet friend. S was a little wild without a nap that day and we were happy to spend most of the hours outside where he could run it off, play in the sand and splash in the water. And we got to see a beautiful part of Long Island and spend a few hours with one of our favorite people. This weekend we're taking it easy. I see water parks and ice cream in our future.

Day Trip: Glen Cove, Long Island

2011-07-26T13:52:00.001-04:00

It's Tuesday and we survived the weekend of record breaking high temperatures. Friday it was 106 degrees in Jersey, and Saturday we got a little break with 103. We spent most of the weekend indoors and were very happy when Sunday turned out to be a normal summer day with temperatures in the low 90s.

So we took a little road trip to visit my dear friend (and co-worker) Simona at her home in Long Island.

Simona was such a lovely and thoughtful host. When we arrived at her place she'd packed a cooler full of homemade lemonade, fresh watermelon, grapes, rugalach and other scrumptious summer treats. We spent the day at the beach just down the street from her apartment and then later visited the Planting Fields Aroboretum.

This was in Glen Cove, Long Island, where Sabrina, one of my very favorite Audrey Hepburn movies, was filmed. Glen Cove is a charming town full of mansions and old Victorians, horse farms and sprawling greens. And it's only an hour and fifteen minutes from NYC but about two hours from us in New Jersey.

Seamus had a big time playing in the sand at the beach, rinsing it all off in a cool shower and rolling back in the sand again. You should have seen all the sand that came off of him the bath that night. He even had it in his ears.

He also brought home lots of "fossils."

The Planting Fields Arboretum was our most favorite part of the day however. We arrived late but stayed for a good two hours and still only saw a small section of the 409 acre estate.

The arboretum was so breathtaking that the Gwyns felt way underdressed in our beach clothes, salty hair and sandy skin.

Simona was the only one of the four of us who looked like she belonged there in her dress and flowing scarf.

I took lots of pictures of blooming things and fruit bearing trees...much more than I could ever post here without boring you completely.

We let S play in the arboretum's sprinkler systems:

We also played for a bit inside this big tree.

S had fun climbing the trees that didn't have signs saying not to, and pretending to be a deer.

We finished the day with margarita pizza at a cute Italian restaurant and headed the two hours back home through Queens and Brooklyn, over the Williamsburg Bridge, through downtown Manhattan and the Holland Tunnel and back into Jersey. It was late when we got home and I slept like a baby. Now it's already Tuesday and I still feel like I'm on some sort of vacation and shouldn't be anywhere near work.

Pregnancy: Week 18

2011-07-21T09:33:00.000-04:00

Oh boy, week 18 was not so good for me. I hate to complain two weeks in a row, but this one was a doozy! And I have no one to blame but myself.

Remember that UTI I had last week? I tried to treat it myself by flushing my system out with cranberry juice and water. Unsweetened, organic cranberry juice...which is the devil. It's terribly strong and hard to drink without mixing it with something. I'd successfully gotten rid of a UTI last Thanksgiving just by drinking tons of cranberry juice (and that UTI had much worse symptoms than this one). This infection seemed slight and not too bothersome. So, I didn't fill the prescription for antibiotics that the doctor gave me. Big mistake! But let me explain...first of all, I hate taking medecine. Normally I don't even take Tylenol, and I especially did not want to take anything while pregnant, and certainly not an antibiotic, which is not good for the baby.

But the cranberry juice did nothing this time. My infection got worse and worse. Remember that pulled muscle/back ache I mentioned last week? That was no pulled muscle. Starting Thursday the pain in my back increased tremendously. I had to leave work early that day, and by Friday night I could no longer stand up or walk without excruciating pain. I ended up with a kidney infection. I must have had one brewing all along because I had back pain for over a week. Friday night it finally dawned on me. Duh, I have a kidney infection, and the UTI probably stemmed from that all along.

I sent T to the pharmacy to pick up the antibiotics. I didn't want to mess around with a kidney infection, and I knew if I called my doctor they'd send me to the hospital for much stronger IV antibiotics because kidney infections in pregnancy can cause preterm labor. Fortunately I didn't have a fever or nausea; so T and I decided to try the antibiotic overnight and if the pain was still there by morning we'd go to the hospital.

Luckily, the pain was 80% gone by morning and I could at least walk around. I still spent most of the day on the couch however, playing with S from a suppine position and watching lots of Mad Men during S's naptime and lots of Game of Thrones at night with T. By the way, I'm totally addicted to Game of Thrones right now. It's one of the best television shows I've ever seen (and I don't even like fantasy).

T took the above picture at the park on Sunday. I was still not up to par that day, and you can probably see it in my face, but I was almost back to normal. Tomorrow is my last day on antibiotics and I'm hoping the infection doesn't come back.

On a positive note, this babe is moving constantly. He/she seems to be always kicking up a storm, especially on my train rides and whenever I eat. I still can't feel movement from the outside with my hand, so I can't share the experience with T or S. Right now, it's just between me and baby.

Yarn-Along

2011-07-20T10:16:00.000-04:00

Yarning-along again with Ginny from Small Things this week...

On the Needles: About to finish up the Pine Forest Baby Blanket and ready to start some baby sweaters. I think I'll finish up this skein of Knit Picks Organic Cotton and one more then call it quits on the blanket.

From the Library: Friends and co-workers have been suggesting I read In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan for a few years now, and when I saw Ginny post about it the other day, I decided to check it out. Luckily, the fashion library where I work had it. I say lucky because we don't have much in the way of fiction or poetry or novels or non-fiction that doesn't pertain to textiles, sewing, interior design, etc. I'm about three chapters into Pollan's book and I have to say it's fascinating. I'm getting even more riled up about the food industry in our country than I already was. My husband will be begging me to put this book down soon, I'm sure.

Oh, Summer...

2011-07-18T10:07:00.000-04:00

...how I love you. I never thought I'd enjoy summer so much and then I moved up North. In Tennessee summer was never my favorite season, not just because it's so hot and for so long, but because TN has such spectacular springs and falls. Nothing compares.

And then we moved to New Jersey where winter lasts f-o-r-e-v-e-r, leaving only fleeting springs and falls, and the cold is so brutal. I find myself wishing for summer most of the year.

Pregnancy: Week 17

2011-07-14T10:42:00.001-04:00

Ugh. Week 17 was not so good to me. First off, this week was the first week I felt physically pregnant, as in "Hmmm. I could get into that yoga position last week. Why not now?" I've also had a lot of aching in my hips which means things are shifting and opening.

But all those little aches and pains are minor and nothing I can't deal with (just wasn't ready to experience them so early in my pregnancy). It's what followed the rest of the week that made it so bad. First, I thought I had a sinus infection and ended up with horrible, migraine-like pain in my whole head. I used the Neti pot repeatedly and the pain and pressure went away but I was left with stuffiness and chest conjestion. After noticing that everyone at work was experiencing the same symtpoms, I concluded I must have a cold. Thankfully it's mostly gone now.

A few days later I got a UTI. And then a few days after that I pulled the muscles on both sides of my lower back somehow. Probably not making the proper adjustments in my yoga routine, or it could be the mile long walk S and I take from his school to home during the week and all the bags I'm loaded down with at that time of the day.

Anyway, this week I'm still dealing with the UTI and the back pain, but the cold is nearly gone.

On a positive note, I've been feeling the baby move a lot lately. Soon I'll be able to feel it not only inside but with my hand on the outside. It's such a wonderful and reassuring feeling.

T took these photos at our favorite park. We spent that day eating ice cream, playing in the water park and looking for muscrats around the turtle pond. I just love it when S ends up in my belly pictures. He's all about hugging and kissing and talking to my belly every chance he gets.

Yarn Along

2011-07-13T10:22:00.000-04:00

Another fine Wednesday Yarn-Along with Ginny from Small Things...

On the Needles (still): I'm about half-way done with the Pine Forest Baby Blanket. I'm going to have to start knitting at home more in addition to the train just so I can finish this thing. I have a mountain of wool soakers waiting to be knit up for my own babe (not to mention winter sweaters for both S and the new babe and a new hat for S), and time's a-wastin'.

Aren't y'all getting sick of seeing this same blanket every week? That's why this week I've included another little project I'm working on...

On a hoop and a different needle I've started a little embroidered owl for the baby's area using one of the many Aunt Martha's embroidery transfers I just purchased. I say area because for a few months the babe will reside with me and T in our room until we make our move to the NJ countryside (hopefully) next spring. I'd like to make a few wall hangings to go near the babe's crib so he/she has something interesting to look at. We're going with a camping/woodland critter theme for this baby. More on that later in the week.

From the Bookshelf: I'm thoroughly enjoying the latest issue of Poets & Writers (thank you Mom and Dad for the gift subscription!). I've been going through some kind of block lately after writing only about 80 pages of a novel and haven't written any short shorts or tried to publish anything in awhile now. My last published story was back in April. This makes me kind of sad because for awhile there I was publishing several stories a month. But I have myself and my own distractions to blame. This issue of P&W is very motivating though...maybe it'll be the push I need.

We're plowing through the birthing books at our house. Just started Ina May Gaskin's Spiritual Midwifery and Dr. Bradley's Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way. T is really digging some Dr. Bradley, and I really need to take to those books with the same relish as Ina May's books. I'm just in-love with Ina May Gaskin right now and not ready to finish her up and move on to Bradley yet.

Special Delivery: Pickle Dreams

2011-07-08T20:37:00.000-04:00

I am one lucky lady to have such sweet and thoughtful friends. One of my dearest friends from Tennessee sent me a surprise box of pickled okra. Six jars!

So far this has been my biggest pregnancy craving, and I've not been able to find decent okra up North, let alone okra that someone else has already pickled and canned for me. My farmer's market and CSA friends said hardly anyone grows okra in our region. I guess it just doesn't do well up here.

So you can imagine my complete and utter happiness when I opened the box on my door step to find these beauties:

And I'm bringing my boy up properly...he's a huge fan of pickled things too, but just like me I think pickled okra is now his favorite, surpassing dilly beans and pickled cucumbers. He and I nearly finished off an entire jar last night. Funny thing though, Mr. S keeps referring to them as "Pickled Oprah," and I just can't bear to correct him.

Pregnancy: Week 16

2011-07-07T10:32:00.001-04:00

Week 16 was lovely! We enjoyed a surprise visit from my parents, celebrated the 4th of July with friends out in Dover, ate lots of yummy diner food, hiked around the Great Swamp and I felt better than ever. Now that I'm in the midst of week 17 and have developed some sort of nasty sinus/allergy thing that's no longer the case...but we'll save that for week 17's post.

T snapped these picture of me at the park, right after we'd spent the day relaxing in the shade with my parents and watching Mr. S run and play in the water park. Aside from the Great Swamp, this park is one of our favorite summer hangouts. There are three (free) giant water parks, an enormous playground, competing ice cream trucks, a turtle pond, lots of wide-open fields for running and picknick areas for relaxing. Plus it's right by the bay and there are birds everywhere. All week I dream of sitting under a tree watching S play and talking to husband, with a melting vanilla cone in my hand.

Aside from still feeling tired all the time, week 16 was pretty great. I'm continuing to have fabulous dreams. I'm keeping a notebook next to my bed so I can write them all down before I forget them entirely. No more Bob Dylan or Squiggy dreams this week, but I did have another incredible labor dream. I don't know that I've mentioned it before but I've had about three very graphic and real dreams of being in labor, and each dream is so exciting and euphoric and blissful. This week's labor dream was just about the excitement of being a day or two over my due date and waiting for contractions to start, knowing that they could happen at any moment and being excited about meeting the new family member. There was also some pretty heavy-handed symbolism. At one point in the dream I was standing beneath a bird nest and could see and hear baby birds hatching from their eggs. I woke up before I went into labor in this one, but with the other dreams I was always in labor, and in one dream Thomas and I delivered the baby ourselves. In all of my labor dreams the baby has been a girl. Even though in waking life I always think of the baby as a boy. I love the excitement of not knowing.

We'll have to start a gender pole on this here blog.

Yarn-Along

2011-07-06T10:24:00.000-04:00

Yarning along with Ginny from Small Things again this week...

On the Needles: Making slow progress on the Pine Forest Baby Blanket. My parents were in for the long holiday weekend, and I had such a great time with them my knitting fell by the wayside. I'm itching to finish this pattern though because I have some beautiful wool just waiting to be knit into baby sweaters and soakers.*

Off the Bookshelf: Almost finished with Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. This is the most informative and fascinating book on natural childbirth I've read, and I'm at the point where I'm making lots of notes in the margins. Can you see the little pin I'm using as a bookmark in the picture? Husband is finishing up Husband-Coached childbirth and really enjoying it. He keeps quoting sections of it and explaining Bradley's theories to me. That's next on my list. I also ordered Ina May Gaskin's Spiritual Midwifery and Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way. Since our schedules make going to natural childbirth classes difficult, all these books will have to do.

Mr. S had fun gathering together all the books we've been reading to him this past week. Over the weekend Grandpa read The Lorax to him, one of our family's favorite Dr. Seuss books, and this past week has also found me reading Beatrix Potter's Tom Kitten stories, mainly Samuel Whiskers. We also finished up Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Cornerthis week. Mr. S is really getting into books without pictures. He leans back on his bed and his eyes stare off into the ceiling somewhere while I read to him. He's completely engrossed. I've been thinking of starting the Little House books with him, but I'm not sure if he's old enough just yet.

Still looking for a good book of fiction and am really on a Barbara Kingsolver kick, but maybe I'll start something new.

*On a separate knitting-related note...to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary, T and I went with the traditional gifts of seven years (we do this every year). This year the gifts had to be copper and wool. Lucky me!

T bought me some Malabrigo Silky Merino (in Acorn and Ankara Green) and some handspun, handpainted wool from Hilltop Handspun.

My ravelry faves list is quickly filling up with baby sweater patterns for the Malgabrigo and soaker patterns for the Hilltop Handspun. I can't wait to start knitting more wee things.

Weekend Surprise!

2011-07-05T11:09:00.003-04:00

Grandie and Grandpa surprised us this 4th of July weekend by finding a last-minute cheap flight from TN to NJ. We were so excited to have them here for three days. We watched movies (The Fighter...which was incredible), played at the water park, ate lots of yummy diner food, drove out to Dover for a 4th of July potluck party and spent a day at the Great Swamp. There was lots of relaxing in between, and Grandie and Grandpa got just what they came up here for, quality grandparent time with Mr. S.

Here are some highlights of their visit...

Water park:

I made Banana-Split Whoopie Pies for the potluck party in Dover:

The Great Swamp:

Wild blueberries (or Huckleberries) were all over the swamp...we munched a few of course.

The exoskeleton of a dragonfly nymph

It was the loveliest visit...very relaxing with lots and lots of play time for Mr. S. Seamus was so happy to have two extra audience members, who'd also get down in the floor and play super heroes or dinosaurs and have tickle and pillow fights with him. He was very sad to see them leave when we dropped them off at the airport and kept wondering all night if they were in their plane yet or home in TN.

We miss you already, G and G!

Pregnancy Week 15

2011-06-30T19:20:00.001-04:00

This week has been the loveliest...celebrating seven years of marriage, eating good southern food, getting lost on old country roads, hiking in the mountains, moving into week 16 of my pregnancy and daydreaming about the future.

My all-day sickness has been a stranger lately, and I've been all too happy to see it go. I'm back to cooking and devouring my favorite meals again: homemade pizzas, lentil samosas, big pots of veggie soup and later this week I'm cooking up some Tikka Masala. Oh food, how I've missed you!

I'm still tired all the time and it's hard for me to sit through an entire movie night with T. Although this week I did manage to watch and enjoy all of True Grit (Cohen Brother's style). Still having trouble sleeping at night though, but when I do I have the most fantastic dreams. This week I dreamed I was dating Squiggy of Lenny and Squiggy fame (not that fantastic), and last night I dreamed I was on the train on my way home from work and Bob Dylan was sitting in the seat across from me reading a biography of Henry Winkler called, Jump the Shark (that one was pretty fantastic).

T took this picture of me on our Anniversary Hike to Dingmann's Falls. We'd just spent a good long time playing the creek and looking for salamanders.

Also this week I whipped up a small batch of belly butter, using the recipe from Stephanie Tourles's Organic Body Care Recipes.

I didn't get any stretch marks with Mr. S, but I'm still not taking any chances. My belly is itching like crazy, so if nothing else this belly butter should soothe my skin. I used avocado oil as my base oil, which I've also been using in my lip balm recipes lately too, and it really does soften better than anything else I've tried. For my belly butter I also added lavendar essential oil and it smells amazing.

Yarn Along

2011-06-29T08:02:00.001-04:00

Joining Ginny from Small Things this week for another Wednesday Yarn-Along...

On the Needles: Joined a second ball of yarn on the Pine Forest Baby Blanket I'm making for a friend. This pattern is knitting up nicely and I'm enjoying it so much I'll probably start working on it at home instead of on the train. The lacy gull stitch repeat is nice and simple...I'm guessing simple enough to knit while watching a movie or being the voice of plastic mama T-rex while my son plays the baby T-rex.

From the Bookshelf: About to finish up Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver and then I don't know what book to start next; thinking of reading Geoffrey Wolff's Duke of Deception; it's a biography written by Tobias Wolff's brother.

In the meantime, I'm plowing through Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and Husband-Coached Childbirth (although husband is about to take this one away from me and start reading it himself). And Seamus has been devouring his Little Golden Field Guides. Whales and Insects are his favorites so far, and last night I walked past his room around 10pm and he was sitting up in his bed "reading" the field guide to spiders and their kin by night light. He told me he was just reading in bed like I do every night.

Anniversary Hike

2011-06-27T10:00:00.001-04:00

For our seventh wedding anniversary T and I decided to take the family hiking. Of course, we'll use any excuse we can find to go hike around the woods and play in creeks. This time we drove out to the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River Water Gap. But not before getting thoroughly lost in New Jersey. Let's just say that when it comes to country roads Googlemaps sucks. Every time we get lost in New Jersey I lament the fact that we don't have a GPS, and every time T reminds me that we do have a good map of the entire state. Consequently we've found some very interesting routes and my map reading skills have vastly improved.

This trip we got turned around on Route 521 South, but it was such a beautiful road we didn't mind being lost. We took in all the old farm houses, found all sorts of little fruit stands and saw someone selling raw honey in their front yard. At one point, we drove past a beautiful little house with white hydrangeas so bountiful they were spilling into the road. T slowed the car down and told me he'd always wanted a house with flowers like those. I have too, and I had no idea he did as well. Also on this road, we came upon this little lady, who practically posed for my photo:

We finally made it to Dingmann's Falls, ate a quick picnic lunch and hit the trail.

Right away we knew this was the trail for us. It wasn't nearly as touristy as Bushkill Falls, had a good mix of boardwalk trail, Applachian Trail and uphill climb. Plus there were Rhododendron everywhere, two magnificent waterfalls to see along the way and a good portion of the trail that followed a creek.

Silverthread Falls was the first fall we came to.

Then we hiked around the base of Dingmann's Falls...

...and up to the top of the falls.

Afterwards, we took the trail along Dingmann's Creek and stopped for a good couple of hours to play in the water.

Mr. S loved looking under rocks and throwing rocks into the creek. He kept hoping to find his own salamander but never did.

When he found this old piece of creek glass, he thought he'd struck gold.

T and I enjoyed looking under rocks too.

We found all sorts of salamanders, including a Red-Back in its lead phase and this juvenile Dusky:

We also found a few crawdads:

It was a beautiful hike and just what we needed after a long week of urban living. And we daydreamed, just as we always do, about moving out to the country and having a little house close to a creek and lots of trees to get lost in, but this time our yard full of hydrangeas.