One Year

Baby Mine

 

Happy 1st birthday to my sweet baby boy! 
 
I love you more than anything (including yarn)!

 

Time Keeps On Slipping Into The Future

Being without a traditional job any longer is sometimes kind of surreal for me.  Deeply ingrained, after years of getting up early and making my way to work, is that feeling of needing to go to bed on time.  No staying up late on a school night!  You would think that freedom from that routine would make time stand still; no schedule but the rhythm of life with my son.  Instead I find that I blink and 2 weeks have passed.  Where does the time go?  Lately I’ve been feeling really anxious about the things that I don’t get around to doing during the day. Little chores, correspondence, always having to apologize for not getting something done.  It’s keeping me awake at night and it’s insidiously robbing me of my sleep.  To combat this I’ve gone back to my mainstay: listmaking.  I know that there is no possible way I can ever have a clean slate, things will always accumulate faster than I can complete them, but having them on paper rather than creeping around in my mind really helps put a lid on my anxiety.  I’ve promised myself that I’ll complete one thing off the list each day, no matter how big or small, and hopefully this will make me feel better about the time that seems to be slipping through my fingers.
 

Let's Eat!!

 
We did have a bit of an interesting event this week though, to break up our little homey routine.  Viruses, viruses everywhere (and maybe a little Bacteria too)!  Now don’t get me wrong.  I loves me some pink.  But not when that pink precedes eye, as in pinkeye.  Ugh.  Little Mister woke up Wednesday morning with his poor little eye all crusted shut :(  I wiped both eyes clean, but after an hour they still looked a little swollen and his right eye was tearing like crazy.  I got us an appointment with the pediatrician and had a momentary surge of maternal pride when the doctor told us that Knittymunchkin was the happiest baby she had ever seen :)  She told us he probably has pinkeye and wrote us a prescription for some drops.  No idea where he might have gotten it. We don’t take him many places and he’s not around other children at all.  I’ve never had it in my entire life!  Anyway, Little Mister is so sweet.  Other than being more tired than usual and wanting more cuddles, you would never know that he wasn’t feeling well.  What a trooper!  We started the drops Wednesday night and by the next morning he already looked better and was back to his busy little determined self.  So back off Señor Pinkeye!  There’s no room for your kind of pink around here.
 
Though the time since I last posted has blurred together for the most part, it’s been a happy, and often sleepless time, mixed liberally with countless joyous moments.  Knittymunchkin is truly a blessing in my life and I am so grateful that I finally figured out how I felt about having a child and being a mom.  At the risk of sounding trite, there really is no greater experience left that I could ask for.  This is it.

 

Happy Mother’s Day!

Little Mister & Me

 

Happy Mother’s Day to all the fantastic Moms and Grandmoms out there!

 

7 Weeks! Also Known As 101 Things Progress: 1 of 101

Knittymunchkin - 6 weeks and sleeping

 
Wow.  It’s been 7 weeks and 1 day since our sweet little boy was born!  When I look back, it’s astonishing to me how quickly the time has gone.  Our month spent in the Special Care Nursery, each moment feeling like a year of agonizing anguish and effort that would never end, seems like nothing but a blip on Knittymunchkin’s monitor screen.  We are so happy to have him home with us finally, and though the last 3 weeks have been a maze of sleepless nights, dirty diapers, restless baby noises, and checking our sleeping baby 1 gajillion times through the night to make sure he’s still breathing (paranoid new parents that we are), there have been lots of laughs, and plenty of love to go around.  R. Darling was able to spend 3 more weeks at home with us before having to go back to work yesterday and I feel so lucky, not only to have his amazing support and wonderful help during those weeks of adjustment, but also grateful that he was able to be here to experience everything and make lasting memories for himself of that first part of Knittymunchkin’s life.
 

Our Sweet Boy

 
And now I am officially a “Stay At Home Mom”.  What a bewildering transition this has been for me.  I have never once considered myself ambitious or career-driven, nor have I ever felt that my occupation defined me in any way.  I have always been content knowing that I do what I do and that makes me neither better or worse than someone else.  People inevitably find my occupation interesting though, so perhaps I found more confidence in myself through that interest than I realized.  But I’m finding that I am uncomfortable telling people that I stay at home now, that I’m unemployed.  It makes me feel mysteriously “less than”.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have always had the utmost admiration for stay at home Moms and really do feel that it is a choice you make out of love for child.  And how can someone possibly think less of that sacrifice?  I certainly don’t.  And it is most definitely more work than a conventional full-time job. Yet, when the title is applied to myself I feel anxious.  Less interesting.  Maybe that will change as I get more comfortable in my new role.  But either way, I know that I’m making the right decision for myself and our family and that gives me great consolation.
 

We spend a lot of time doing this.....

 
For now, we are spending lots of time napping when possible and getting used to our days at home together.  It’s been another big adjustment for me to have someone so completely and totally dependent on me being there at every moment.  I was prepared for this challenge, but it still takes some getting used to.  I sometimes don’t change out of my pj’s all day or even get out of bed for hours at a time.  Forget makeup. And showering every day has even become a forgotten prospect; something low on my list of other “have to’s”.  I rarely, if ever, leave the house and I’m afraid I’ll forget how to talk to other humans if I’m not careful. But I’ll get there. I’m already getting better about letting the baby fuss a little bit if I’m doing something, rather than dropping everything to comfort him.  That one’s still a struggle because I hate to have him crying, but I know it’s not the end of the world if he does it for a little bit.  This mothering thing is definitely exhausting!  But it’s all worth it in the end when I’m rewarded with one of these…..
 

It's all worth it for one of these!

 
And now, I am free to cross the first thing off my 101 Things in 1001 Days list:  “Grow a Munchkin”!  And boy do I think he’s a cutie ;)

 

In For The Long Haul

Just chillin'

 
Hard to believe that Little Mister has been with us for close to 2 weeks now.  He gets a bit stronger every day and I’m constantly amazed by what a little personality he has already developed.  I never would have guessed how deeply I could fall in love with someone else (other than R. Darling) in such a short period of time.  Oh sure, people told me that would happen, but I found it hard to believe the quality and strength of that bond could emerge so quickly.  I could lose hours just staring at his sleeping face and it kills me to have to leave him in the nursery each night to go home.  He already knows my voice and his eyes search my face when I hold him.  I watch each expression ravenously, soaking in his sweetness and laughing at his emerging animation.  I used to say that all newborns are ugly and that it would take them a few weeks to finally get cute, but I figured that every parent still thinks theirs is the cutest of all no matter what other people think.  And boy was I right!  These pics just don’t do him justice.  Yes, I’m a proud mama!
 

Bundle of joy!

 
All this makes up for what is most definitely going to be a long haul.  I have been given a “camping out” room which is basically a closet I can pass out in, between visits to the nursery to try to tempt Knittymunckin into breastfeeding, and pumping like all get out to supply him with what he needs to get big and strong.  I spend at least 14 hours a day there, only going home after his 8 PM feeding.  And once back at home I continue the cycle of pumping every 3 hours throughout the night.  I’m lucky if I get 2.5 hours of sleep at a time and it’s usually much much less.  It’s rough, but I do it for our little guy and I’m trying my best to hang in there.  We probably have at least 2 more weeks of this before we can bring him home and by the end I will be in my “camping room” 24-7 since he should (hopefully) be able to breastfeed for all his meals.
 
Until then, I wake up in the nighttime darkness to go to the milking parlor.  That’s what I’m calling our spare bathroom because that’s where spend my nights hooked up to the pump.  It’s important to have a sense of humor about these things I think, and the similarities to Old Bessie hooked up to the milking machine are just undeniable.  If I don’t laugh about something daily, it’s too easy to cry instead.  My husband, hearing me refer to the milking parlor, made me a couple signs for the door as a surprise one day.  I laughed so hard I forgot how tired I was.  Isn’t he the best?  Not only that, but Tuesday when he was home doing chores while I was at the hospital with Knittymunchkin, he completely cleaned and rearranged our bedroom the way that I’ve been imagining it for the past year or two.  What an amazing surprise to come home to that!  Do my boys know how to take care of me or what?
 

The Milking Parlor entrance

 
Hope all of you have some wonderful Valentine’s Day plans today!  Me, I have a date with two boys in the nursery ;)

 

New Arrival!

We are so excited to be able to announce that Knittymunchkin has arrived! 5 weeks early, at 8:05 AM on February 2, 2010, our little boy came into the world. We are doing pretty well, all things considered, and though I’ll be able to go home tomorrow, he’ll be staying at the hospital for just a bit longer. But he’s making phenomenal progress each day and we are looking forward to when we can bring him home and share some photos with all of you.

I’ll be busy the next few weeks, going back and forth to the hospital, so it will be hard to thank you each individually for all your wonderful support, kind wishes, and touching generosity for a while. But just know that we do appreciate it so much and your thoughtfulness has touched us all during this time. Thanks so much for everything & we’ll be in touch soon! With pics too ;)

All our best to you,
The Funky Bunch

 

Reflections

Dad & Me - October 1979. Can you say Daddy's Girl?

 

Some summer evenings R. Darling and I will take a trail near the lake, he on foot and me astride Bluebell.  As the sun lowers itself into the velvety hills for the night, the last dying rays suddenly illuminate the chill waters of the lake and reflect back to us a vision of a world upside down.  A world like the one I’ve come to know, in which things you thought were solid and infinite shift and waver beneath you, only to be shattered with a splash.  The sudden loss and resulting emptiness spills over me as the ripples recede into infinity.

Though my mind has adjusted to the facts, my heart has not.  When I dial the numbers I still, for a moment, expect to hear that familiar voice on the other end, “Oh hi honey!  How’s my favorite daughter?” And I say something like, I’m OK.  But you know I’m your only daughter, Dad. And he says, per usual, “I know.  But you’re still my favorite.” It’s just not fair that Dad’s don’t live forever.

We picked up his ashes on Tuesday morning.  When they placed the box in my hands I wanted to feel something momentous and worthy of the moment, but all I could do was marvel at how heavy the box felt as my hands encircled it.  A lifetime of love, experience, joy, and heartbreak, reduced to this small box of ashes.  The sadness swooped in later.

But I’m here and I’m still living.  I’m returning to my blog because, well, Dad would have wanted me to.  The forever aspiring writer, he would have encouraged this life I have here, this exercise in narrative.  I wish now I’d have let him read it instead of keeping it secret.  But perhaps somewhere, his soul knows and approves.

Many heartfelt thanks to all of you special people out there who e-mailed, commented, wrote, or just spared a moment for a positive thought for me and my family through all of this.  You know who you are, and I am so grateful to each and every one of you.  Your kindness has touched and comforted me in ways I can’t even begin to express to you and I am so thankful to have you all in my life.  Here’s to hoping I can make it up to you someday, though hopefully under much happier circumstances.  You are simply the best. I know Dad would agree.

 

Crush

Well hello handsome.

 

Ella Rae Lace Merino - Color #110

 
You caught my eye that Friday, casually unaware of my presence in the shop.  You weren’t my type at all, but I stood transfixed. My heart fluttered with the impact when I brushed against you. Did you feel it too?
 
Our future together billows out before me like a blanket on sunlit grass.  Will you keep me warm on diamond bright winter mornings? Or will you wrap yourself around me as we dance the night away in our evening finery?  Whatever comes to pass, I know you will feel glorious across my skin.

 

Valentimes

This year there were no flowers, no chocolates, no expensive dinners, no jewelry, no dressing up, no gifts & not even a single card.  But I don’t need all that tradtional stuff when I get to spend the whole day with my sweetheart, celebrating the day of love in our very own special way.
 
Instead, there was some cuddling, a couple coffees & some breakfast burritos, about 80 miles of pavement and some knitting, $7 for parking and a two block walk to this………
 

Seattle's Iconic Space Needle

 

……..then there was some waiting in line, admission, sitting in a giant chair, a smooshed penny, a visit to the treasures of Ethiopia and a glimpse of our ancient grandmother Lucy – majestic under glass, the butterfly house……

 

Inside The Butterfly House

 

……where multi-colored beauties fluttered in the sunshine, then fish & chips, more coffees and this……

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

…….back to the car, breathing in the sunshine, finding the gigantic REI and a darling sculpture on the way…..

 

If Only Pacific Northwest Rain Was This Lovely!

 

……an hour in the REI playground for R. Darling, then back to the highway, killing time in the Sephora and Borders, 2 tickets for admission to Coraline, 1 large popcorn & 1 large (real) coke, then shivering in darkness, the car ride home, curling up in bed, cuddling and blissful sleep.

 

Thanks for a beautiful day together sweetheart!

 

Brilliant!

 

Oh my goodness!  The Koolaid Mom has nominated me for a bloggy award!!  I am both awe-struck and completely honored.  Thank you so much!!  I am speechless with undeservingness and the only way to get my words back is to share the love……

Though I’m not 100% sure what the award is for exactly, I’m taking it to be for blogs that I enjoy reading, or people I’ve had fun getting to know through the bloggy world.  Because to me, the most brilliant (brillante) thing about blogging is all the lovely people I’ve met who inspire me daily! 

 

Once an award is received, the rules are as follows:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you. (check out The Koolaid Mom)
3. Nominate at least seven other blogs. (7?  Really?  Ooooooh, why do I always have to choose!)
4. Add links to those blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blog.

 

So – in completely random order – I send the award to:

1. Knit One Blog Too – We have so much in common (it’s kind of scary how much really….) and I think she could really use a smile today!
2. Pursuit of Fiber – Chrispy’s projects are always awe-inspiring and I love the way she modifies each of her knits to suit to her own personal style.  Plus, it’s been super fun getting to know her better over the last few months!
3. Yorkshire Lass Knits – There’s always something on her blog that makes me laugh or smile.  She has a way of making the every day seem ever so much more exciting!  And her projects are exceedingly lovely too :)
4. Yarn Crawl – Robin always makes it on my list!  Hers was probably the first blog I really read regularly besides Knit & Tonic, and she never fails to impress and inspire me with the amount of beautiful FO’s she is able to crank out on a regular basis.  Plus, she always has something else exciting going on that I can live vicariously through via her bloggy!
5. Knittlesticks – I adore her sense of humor and am completely inspired by her gorgeous hand-painted sock yarns (check her out at Hazel Knits).  I would love to be able to do what she’s doing and I’m so very happy for her success!
6. Jennyarn – She has a deep and very kind heart and I love reading about her darling kitties and Blythe dollies :)  Oh and the knitting too….  Plus, she needs a smile today as well!
7. Livin’ In The Sticks – I love the sweet anecdotes she has on her bloggy about her little ones, and the knitting is of course, exceedingly lovely too!

 

Thanks so much to all of you for being a brilliant spot in my bloggy world!  Pass on the love & have a Happy Monday!!

 

Happy Anniversary R. Darling!

Happy 3rd anniversary sweetie!  I’d marry you all over again in a second (Vegas in 2 years?).  You are the best husband a girl could ever ask for and I will love you always!  Thanks for always being there for me.  I love you baby!

 

Friday Fill-In: September 14, 2007

Click on the button to check it out!
Here’s my answers for today’s Fill-In: #37
(This is so appropriate because our wedding anniversary is coming up soon!)

1. I met him/her in first grade!
2. We dated for 3 years, 2 of those long distance, before we got engaged.
3. I knew he/she was the one after our first “date” (Which is in quotes because it wasn’t really a date. We re-met at our 10 year high school reunion which we didn’t even go to together! But I left after that weekend, knowing he was special in a way that was different from any other guy I’d previously met) .
4. The thing I like best about him/her is how he always makes me laugh when I’m crying and how he’s never afraid to tell me he loves me and hold my hand in public.
5. When he/she proposed I thought I knew what was coming, but when it actually happened, it all felt like a dream.  There were cherry blossoms blooming and he got down on one knee.  So romantic…….
6. The song we had at our wedding was decided the night before since we didn’t have our own song (unless you count the first song we ever danced to which was “Hysteria” by Def Leppard – yeah, not really wedding appropriate).  We were listening to music we’d burned on CD’s for our wedding and “At Last” by Etta James came on and we knew that would be the one we’d dance our first dance to.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to relaxing with R. Darling and knitting a little, tomorrow my plans include cleaning house for Dad’s birthday lunch on Sunday and Sunday, I want to knit a little more after company leaves!