Saturday, October 31, 2009

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Anyone know a toddler with a really small head?

I made the toddler aran sweater from Tina Barrett's Natural Knits for Babies and Toddlers. I'm posting it because despite the fact that the pattern was written poorly, and despite the fact that it took me forever to troubleshoot the mistakes and make the body and sleeves come out correctly, I stuck with it because I really liked the pattern. Now I'm finally finished, and the neck is so small there is no way this sweater is going over the head of any child over the age of 6 months. So annoying! So, if you got here because you googled the designer name and the pattern, my advice is to skip it. There are plenty of adorable toddler cable knits out there, and this one is more trouble than it's worth. I'm supremely annoyed that I spent almost 3 weeks making this, and there's no way Owen can wear it. If you have any use for this, let me know. it's yours.

now I need to find another pattern - and buy more yarn - for Owen to wear at the holidays. knitters, any suggestions?





Edit to add: the color is really off in these photos. The sweater is actually not that putrid yellow. It's more of a cream. Dunno what happened with the camera.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Dr. Y solves all your problems.

I've posted about it before, and I'll say it again: I love, love love Owen's pediatrician, Dr. Y. I also consider the good doctor to be the final word bar none on any baby health and wellness related issue. Sometimes, I'll admit it, I make appointments with Dr. Y just to talk about my baby. Oh, I give him a snuffle and a cough just to get it by the sniff test of the triage nurses on the phone, but Dr. Y usually knows as well as I do why I'm there. And he never minds indulging me, so after he's cleared Owen of his imaginary ear infection he says, "so what's going on with Owen?"

What is going on with Owen is that he doesn't sleep. He will not sleep through the night in his crib. I've posted about this extensively and I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about it, but it is significantly negatively impacting our quality of life. I don't mind working, keeping up with a toddler and generally trying to keep my arms around life, but I do mind doing it when I can count the number of times on one hand in the last 19 1/2 months that I've slept through the night. Some nights are ok (one major wakeup), some nights are horrible (three or more). On balance, I'd say we're weighted toward the horrible.

So this is how I ended up in Dr. Y's office blubbering about Owen's sleep problems today. (Definitely not the first time I've blubbered in there. There was the infamous "my baby nurses every 40 minutes and I think I'm going to die" episode at 3 months. yikes.) And Dr. Y looked very seriously at Owen and said, "Owen, my beautiful boy, why you are not sleeping?" and then he asked me, "when he wakes up, what does he want? To eat? To drink?" I said, "no, he wants to be cuddled. He wants to come into bed with me." And this is true. Most of the time, I fight with Owen (unsuccessfully) to stay in his own crib for a couple hours before I eventually give up and let him come into bed with me, after which he is usually quiet until the morning. Not necessarily not bothering me, but quiet. (and yes, we've tried the hard line approach of just not. letting. him. in. bed. It doesn't work. He cries till morning on and off, and we get zero sleep for weeks until we give in and let him back in bed again). I told Dr. Y all this and more. It's been a long battle with the sleep.

Dr. Y said, "Jenny, I love this country, but there is one thing I do not understand. Why do Americans think their babies should sleep away from mama and daddy? Of course he wants to come sleep with you. You have a smart baby. He knows it is nicer to sleep with Mama. In my country we sleep with babies and we are not a country of psychopaths."

"well, ok, Dr. Y". I said. "It's not so much that I have an aversion to cosleeping. We've been doing it more or less since Owen was born, after all. And if everyone was happily sleeping, we'd keep doing it. the problem, though, is that after we bring him into bed, HE'S happy. But we are still up because he flops around like a flounder on the dock, kicks, squirms, wakes up every couple hours to find a better way to position himself and generally takes up approximately 3/4 of our queen size bed by 5am. So Andy and I are hugging the edges of the bed for dear life while he's snoring spread eagle in the middle. We really, really, REALLY need a way for everyone to get sleep, not just Owen."

Dr Y seemed, finally, to understand what I was saying. "Ah!" he said. "I got it. I know what you need to do."

Finally! I thought to myself. This is what I've been waiting for! I should have come and cried to Dr. Y sooner. He ALWAYS knows what to do.

"Jenny," Dr Y said, "what you need is a bigger bed."

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

trip to smolak farm

we went to Smolak farms a couple weekends ago and met our friends up there who have a little boy the same age as Owen. Owen had a great time looking at all the animals and discovered the joys of "pick your own" - in this case, raspberries (as a side note, $7 a pint for raspberries is nothing short of usurious, but I guess you're paying for the experience). I was highly amused by our friends' son neatly identifying raspberries and delicately picking them one at a time from the bushes while Owen's idea of picking involved breaking off an entire branch and trying to eat it, stems, leaves and all. I'm a tad concerned about the amount of pesticides he probably ingested during this endeavor, but ultimately, I've let it go. He had a great time and at that price, might as well eat a few stems and branches, if only to get your money's worth.




knitting

As many of you know, I enjoy knitting. In fact, I've been extremely prolific lately and if I get around to it, I'll post some pictures of my latest projects. I've got some cute stuff done for the new baby (so excited he'll be born in the middle of the winter, when lots of knitted apparel is appropriate) and I'm currently making Owen an adorable cable knit sweater for the holidays. However, it's hard to really find the time to get any knitting done when Owen is so adamantly opposed to me doing it in his presence:







luckily that was some junky yarn leftover from some puppets I made and not the $12/ball hand dyed alpaca I bought the other day. but still - knitting is clearly an after bedtime activity.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

24 week malaise

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I'm no fan of being pregnant. First of all, I don't do pregnant well. I'm insanely jealous of the women who manage to look like they swallowed a basketball the entire time, and I've come to realize it's a function of how long your torso is. I've got an extremely short torso, which means I get pregnant basically from my shoulders to my hips, where as women with more length tend to have the more recognizable, low pregnant belly. Yes, eventually (around 8 months) I get to the point where people can tell right away, but before that I could very well just be hefty and carry the extra weight in a really unfortunate way. Given the number of people I encounter that are genuinely surprised to discover I'm pregnant, I've been forced to conclude that's what people are assuming. Note: when someone tells you they're 6 months pregnant, "oh, REALLY? I didn't even realize! That's great! Boy or girl?" Is so, so, so not the right response. The last thing someone who has gained 15 pounds concentrated in the front wants to hear is that no one can tell she's pregnant. Aesthetics aside, I also tend to get testy. My normally misanthropic personality gets positively caustic in the presence of human growth hormone. If I'm the (pre redemption) grinch at baseline, pregnant I'm practically Voldemort.

So, anyway, I'm 24 weeks and sick of it already. Weeks 20-30 are in my opinion the worst. I'm big enough to be uncomfortable, far enough along that the novelty has completely worn off, but there's really no end in sight. This baby is coming near the end of January. That's three major holidays away. Four, if you count Halloween. There's no light at the end of the tunnel yet.

Moreover, I'm back to work full time. Which is crappy. But really, there's no good solution to the work question - any thing less than full time is no good for me professionally (especially if I'm seriously plotting a course out of the trenches and into administration, or looking to take my career in a more managerial direction) not to mention financially. At part time, I might as well have gotten a big sign that said "marginalize me" and pinned it to my (giant) shirt. At the same time, full time is a killer personally. Our quality of life was so much better at part time. We actually had something cooked for dinner more often than not. Cooked. for dinner! That's pretty unheard of when I'm working. Finally, I think (no, I'm certain, actually) what bothers me most about working full time is the fact that it completely eliminates the ability to go to the gym. I will be the first to admit that I go to the gym primarily for the mental health benefits. My mood is affected by exercise the way some people's is affected by prozac. It has a powerful effect on my outlook on life. But honestly, working full time just means it's impossible to fit in. The gym babysitting doesn't open until 8am. No good, as I need to be at work by 8. By the time I pick up Owen from school, we almost never walk in the door before 5:45. Then I have at most 1 1/2 hours to feed him, bathe him, and generally orient him to who his parents are before it's time to do stories and bed. Then at 7:30, I suppose I could go to the gym, but frankly, at that point - by the time I got there it'd be close to 8, and that's just too late for me. On most nights, I am ready to crawl into bed by 9:30 because (have I mentioned this? Ever?) my kid refuses to sleep after midnight. So Andy and I usually get a few solid hours between 9:30 and 12:30 and then we're pretty much awake with bursts of cat napping until 6 or so when it's time to get up anyway. If you can find a reliable way to get a workout in in this scenario, please share. Because I have failed miserably. When I was part time, we went every day. I worked out from 8-9, and then Owen and I either went in the pool or to indoor playground from 9-10. It was great. It's not a coincidence that I started to be extremely resentful of this pregnancy (see beginning) right around the time I transitioned to full time. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that one.

so, anyway. that's the update as of today. I'm large, cranky and overtired, which isn't a great combination. The only bright spot in the crank-fest is that we have weekends back now. My goal is to make sure we do something fun as a family every weekend between now and initiating the launch sequence of baby boy cox #2. Whether I feel like it or not.