Another Lacevember Meme

What are your ideal lace making conditions?

First and foremost there can be no children awake or at least in the same house as me. The stress of having to stop mid-row is too much. Will I remember where I was? Won't I? Will I drop a stitch because I wasn't paying close enough attention and then lose heaven only knows how much work?

Besides that, I love to sit in my big ole chair/recliner (although I don't recline in it often, especially while I am knitting) and watch reality TV. Well, listen to Reality TV, because, let's face it, if you are watching something else while you are attempting to knit lace, whcih means following a chart and following your own needles, then you may as well try to knit with a toddler in the room! If there is a fresh latte next to me the more the better so that I can sip between rows. It better be decaf though because, as I mentioned, I'll be drinking it post-kids bedtime and while I enjoy knitting lace, I don't want to be up all night doing it!

A little Lacevember photo session

Because I am pathetic and cannot figure how to get pictures off of my real digital camera onto my computer, I must torture you with cell phone pics. Hey, at least they are something. They prove I am knitting. Or at least someone near me is knitting and I'm taking the credit. Blame? Anyway. It's me and here are the photos of the Trellis Scarf to prove it. Well, 3 repeats of the trellis scarf anyway.

The knitting questions, or the usual suspects (a Lacevember post)

How long have you been knitting? 4 years

How did you learn to knit? taught myself from Melanie Falick's Kids Knitting when I signed up for a parent and me class at a Waldorf school and found out we weren't covering knitting until the spring. I wanted to learn now! thankyouverymuch. So I did.

Favorite thing about knitting? the challenge of learning a new skill. I don't think I have approached one single project without planning for it to teach me something. First knitting in general, then purling, then in the round, then socks, etc. It is a real sense of accomplishment. And then I seem to give everything away. So I guess it is also a built in gift system?

How long have you been knitting lace? 1 1/2 years

Favorite thing about knitting lace. Lots of holes in my work that hide the accidental ones...? No really, probably the delicacy of it. I am not a lacy person in general in both style and my physical person. Knitting lace is a feminine feeling thing and it reminds me that I am delicate too.

The yarn questions, or flash your stash

Favorite lace yarn? Don't have one. Least favorite is Rowan 4 ply cotton. Makes a good hat, but is tough to continue to knit with throughout the whole project. Also? Booooooooooring.

variegated or solids for shawls? Wow. Totally depends on the shawl. Generally in lace I like solids, in heavier yarns, variegated.

Favorite lace color? Must be blue since I keep knitting lace with it! Although I didn't realize it until this question.

Technique, or show us your skillz

Circs or straights? I prefer straights. I like the longer needles in my hands

Favorite lace knitting trick? I just don't have one. Or if I have one I don't know that it is a trick! Are there favorite tricks out there that I'm totally missing?

Lifelines? If so with what? I have had friends recommend this to me and I totally considered using it for this project, but this yarn is completely unfroggable, so I figured "what's the point?" So short answer? No. But I am keeping it in my future tricks to try file.

Fancy blocking wires, or just sewing pins stuck in your carpet? Sewing pins. Carpet. Toddler. Really it is a race against time. Block it at night after bedtime and hope it is dry first thing in the morning and pull it up before he finds it. It adds an element of suspense to blocking that I think it is really lacking LOL

Pattern, or can you follow directions

shawls or lacey items? shawls and scarves. I like hats too, but they are harder to find patterns for in lace.

triangle, rectangle, or circular shawls? What do I like best? Rectangle absolutely. At least if I'm going to wear it.

Charts or printed instructions? charts for intricate things, but printed instructions are fine for simple repeats.

Favorite lace you've knit? The one I'm working on now - IK Spring 2006 Trellis Scarf

Favorite lace you want to knit? Shetland Shawl.

Just Fun, yup that's right, just for fun

Favorite jelly belly flavor? A toss up between toasted marshmallow and sizzling cinnamon but I enjoy occasionally grossing myself out with the Bertie Botts flavors (eeeewwww earthworm!. Bacon?)

Tell me everything you know about Eric the Red..... Oooooo that movie with Tim Robbins and John Cleese? Oh wait. That's Erik the Viking... It's funny though. Or at least it used to be when I was an adolescent.

Coke, classic or with lime? Dr Pepper. Coke is a poor substitute but will do in a pinch.

Holiday carols, sing along, or wish they would be banned from all public airwaves? Banned except for like a two week stretch. Especially as piped in sound in stores!

What is the definition of irony? The fact that the Alannis Morrisette song about irony doesn't include even one example of actual irony?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop? I have never licked a Tootsie Pop. Who licks a Tootsie pop? It is a sucker. You suck it. And you suck it until it is thin enough to crunch and then you chew it so it mixes in with the Tootsie Roll center. Any other way is blasphemy. Licks. Girlfriend, please. That was always a misguided commercial.

Why is my cat always puking in front of my son's bedroom door? Boobie trap.

What is your superhero power? bedtime! I can get a houseful of children (and occasionally a husband) asleep by 7:30, 7:45 at the latest! (watch that come back to bite me in the butt!)

If the laundry is 9 foot by 11 foot (just dreaming, that's a big laundry room), and the walls are 8 feet tall, and you are going to tile the entire room in tiles that are 3 inches by 5 inches, what color should those tiles be? Anything but white. And make them mildly textured so when water drips you don't get a closeup of them right before you black out.

What's for dinner tonight? Leftover turkey meatloaf made into burgers. And corn and salad.

What is clogging my children's bathtub drain? non skid strips. They love to pull them up from the bottom of the tub and then must dispose of them in an inconspicuous place. The drain is obvious really. It is handy and under the water, so the evidence can be disposed of without even coming above the surface of the water. And they are often clear. Mark my words...

My first Knitalong!

I have joined the Lacevember Knitalong. Eek! Now I actually have to actually do what I say I'm gonna do and knit this darn thing!

And "this darn thing" is the Trellis scarf from Interweave Knits Spring 2006. Gulp. It has 23 repeats and I can do one repeat a day because it takes two hours to do a repeat of 16 rows. And I can only do it after kids go to bed because it is a complicated lace pattern and therefore not conducive to putting it down mid row to chase a 1 1/2yo!

Well, I have two repeats done. Just 21 more to go!

Fall Nature Table

With special thanks to Papa and Safta who sent such beautiful leaves all the way from Tennessee!

Love Thursday

I love

-post bath candlelight bedtime with the boys

-seeing DH more now that he works closer

-making new friends

-Peet's caramel lattes - now 10 cents cheaper!

- B's toddler words
pum-pum pumpkin
birbee birdie
Ama Mama
Mama for Daddy (I'm sure that'll get straightened out!)
and a brief appearance halfway through Trick or Treating on Tuesday night that was some approximation of trick or treat, but untypeable and probably will never be repeated again. and speaking of...

-Trick or Treating with the boys. OMG did B have a blast. who knew a 20 month old would enjoy that so much. Z loved it too. He really got into discovering the neighborhood with us and was bummed when we canvassed all of the neighborhood we intended to.

-freshly roasted pumpkin seeds

-luminaries. I had no idea I liked these so much!!! They made our front path look so inviting though.

A week off

So Ez has had this past week off from school for Fall Break. We've had fun painting and keeping house and we even got to go to where Daddy's new office is gonig to be and help lay out chalk lines for where the desks are going to be. I think he's going to be a combo of bummed and glad to be back at school on Monday. They are actually going on a field trip to a farm on Monday, so that should ease the transition. And then there is Tuesday - Halloween. They are having a costume parade on Tuesday morning followed by their first Integrated Arts Day. I have no idea what that entails exactly, but I guess I'll know soon enough. The boys are going to be train engineers for Halloween - Ez's idea. The plan is also to turn the Sit N' Stand Stroller into a train engine with the aid of a large cardboard box. We'll see how that turns out. If that turns out.

Challah Boys

Challah Boys
Originally uploaded by woolfairy.

Thought you'd like to check out the latest Flickr pics

Well, I think I'm back at blogger. Xanga just wasn't working out for me. And I figured out my blogger problems (which involved self-hosting and a wonky template)

For a Z funny, try this one out:

Z has been battling (along with his brother before him and his mother after him) Hand foot and mouth. The mouth sores *really* hurt and keep you from eating and make you feel generally awful (and I can tell you this from current experience) Anyway, this is what he said the other day:

I'm telling on G-d for this. I'm gonna tell Moses!

Kids are funny.

Just a test

Just seeking if this works

I am mostly posting over at Xanga nowadays since blogger hates me, but I wanted to do a shout out to myself because I have FINISHED the French Market bag (that I had to put on hold all through my pregnancy and which I never really returned to after B was born.) And all of a sudden I am in a knitting renaissance. Now that I finished it, I finally feel cleared of all that dead weight and I have all these new project ideas. And what's more, I actually like the bag, so I will use it (I thought I would never want to see it again, but felting it changed everything)

Now on to some baby socks and longies...

New Babies are Time-Consuming!

I know that seems like saying that the sky is blue, but I really forgot how little time I have to do things, especially if they involve typing. Plus I have a few IRL projects going on that I really need to finish up this weekend and get into the mail - late as usual.

Bobo is a busy baby, he isn't quite 4 months yet and he is starting on the path to crawling. He scootches all over the house backwards in an attempt to go forward! I keep rescuing him before he disappears under furniture. He can get across a big room in minutes. He passes toys hand to hand, has a tooth and blows raspberries like he's Archie Bunker. lol.

Ezbug is busy too. He's ready for school although kindergarten isn't ready for him yet (His birthday falls 10 days past the cutoff) and DH and I don't know what to do about it. We can't afford preschool, especially the JCC's or WSOC's, and even if we could, we have missed the enrollment period and now we would be wait-listed. *sigh* I try to be busy with Homelearners, but because of the Lact-Aid, it is hard to be out for any length of time. We did Disneyland the other day before the passes went black for the summer and nursing is SUCH a hassle out of the house. Warming the thing up, getting a good position to nurse in where I can juggle a wiggly baby, a tube to put into said baby's mouth and of course large nursies, which don't help at all. And don't forget keeping an eye on a 4 1/2 year old. It sure would be easier to have people come over to play more, but that doesn't seem to be working out well. I don't know if people just feel uncomfortable meeting at people's homes or if it is just my home, but it sure would be awesome if I could get that.

One of my best friends and I have started to drift apart because our kids, who used to be very close, no longer have much in common. Ezbug loves his friend dearly, but there is an 18 month difference in their ages and his friend is much more into computers and TV and video games, etc and we don't have the same access to thos things as his friend. We aren't completey 100% media free here in our house, but Ez watches maybe a hour of TV a week at most (and that is entirely Blue's Clues or Dora) and he is very occasionally allowed to play on the computer (paint program usually or a music game at VMK).

Baby's awake. More later. Maybe in a week or two. LOL

I haven't totally disappeared

I just keep losing posts and even entire temmplate updates when I try to publish. Either I try to post when everyone else at Blogger is or I just need to move this darn blog somewhere else. Boo!!!!!

Everyone is well. Boaz is growing like a weed. So is Ezra for that matter. We're heading over to Disneyland tonight to catch the parade and fireworks since Michael will be home earlier than usual due to E3 going on in LA. He went, he saw, he was bored. At least he didn't pay $50 for parking. Yikes! He got the last $10 spot in the Convention Center lot (literally. They closed the gates after he drove in) But they sized up the competition and saw what their publisher is doing to promote their game.

No progress on the milk supply thing yet

I didn't figure there would be. We had major supply issues with Ezra and I guess it is my lot to need to supplement. But at least there is something like a Lact-aid or SNS so I don't have to give up altogether.

In preschool news for Ezra, registration at the JCC was during the time when I was 40+ weeks pregnant and had a newborn, so of course we missed it. And now they are full up for next year. Not that we could afford it anyway. Unless the whole school voucher thing is revisited and implemented, it will be public school for Ez. Blech. Best case scenario on that front: public Waldorf charter school. Or homeschooling. Pretty much all of our friends are doing it. We are involved with a homeschooling group that has many of his friends in it so that is something. Downside? We're the token Jews. We are so distanced from the Jewish community here that I have actually given thought to moving back to Los Angeles so we can be involved with the Jewish community there. But then DH would have a hellacious daily commute (1 1/2 hours each way) and that isn't good for our marraige or our children. We had gotten involved with a lovely Modern Orthodox shul there before we moved here and would love to pick back up.

Purim and Other Stuff

So Friday was Purim and I overdid it this year what with having a baby 3 weeks ago. Ezra and I made Shaloch Manos for a few friends (I didn't go insane with it this year. I scaled way back from my intentions.) We even got a Shaloch Manos from DH's Aunt Ellen. Ezra was tickled to get one. It does make me wish we lived in a more Jewish area and therefore knew more Jewish people though. I have to struggle to come up with Jewish friends and acquaintences that live within a driveable (for a 3-week old) distance. Around here it is because we can't seem to find a place that fits our needs that we can afford anywhere near an Orthodox shul. And while we aren't frum by any stretch, that is where we are most at home.

Which brings me to Purim night. Since Purim is a holiday where we can drive and is kid-friendly, we took full advantage and went to Chabad where there was much going on. They had a theme night and had singing, karate demonstrations, someone doing kanji writing (basically phonetically calligraphing the kids' names), skits, etc. Plus there were kids to play with and of course the megillah reading complete with noismaking (and the Rabbi read it faster then I've ever seen before - 17 minutes!!!) Ezra had a blast. An absolute blast. He dressed in an Israeli policeman's uniform costume that my SIL sent him from Israel which arrived about 30 minutes before we left for megillah reading. She has a photo on her blog: http://members.cox.net/jenniewoolf/

As for Boaz, he seemed to do pretty well. And of course, everyone oohed and aahed over him. He is 3 weeks old after all! Who can resist that? We're still haing nursing troubles, but the difficult part is that he is not doing well on the formula supplement, poor kid. It hurts his tummy. So we're going to try a new one today and if this one doesn't work out, we are going to explore donor breastmilk. We've had a volunteer, and I may take her up on it. In the meantime, I'm going to try some herbal things in addition to the domperidone to try to increase supply. Wish me luck.

Nursing Difficulties v. 2.0

So, for those of you who have been keeping up with our nursing struggles, today we got put on supplementation by Dr. Bob (Sears for those of you who don't know me personally). *sigh* So I picked up a Lact-Aid today and we had our first feeding with it about an hour ago. And the baby took about 2oz from the supplementer (Obviously I don’t know how much from me) and passed out cold. A nice change from the frustration he gets at the breast, especially in the evenings.

We were put on supplementation because Boaz only gained 1 oz in a week, not a good gain by anyone’s estimation. Michael is actually having a harder time with this than I am, believe it or not, probably because I have been feeling it coming and he has been extremely committed to not feeling it coming. But he isn't at the other end of the nursing pair and doesn’t feel the frustration that I feel from Boaz when he is hungry and not feeling satisfied.

Anyway, I may be in denial about this, but it mostly feels like I’m okay with it, well, as much as I can be. And the good news is – I am experienced with at-breast supplementers, so there is a significantly lower learning curve for me then there would be for someone else. Plus, I know I can do it long-term and continue on to have a good toddler nursing relationship sans supplementer. There will be bad days and emotional issues as there were with Ezra I am more than sure, but I do what I can do, right?

Our Baby is here!

And he has a name: Boaz! Of course when it was announced at his bris yesterday we didn't get a single "Wow, what a cool name!" But we did get quite a few "Boaz, huh?"

He was a big fellow - 10lbs, 8oz and 23 inches long - and we had some minor shoulder dystocia, but he was born at home after a very quick and intense labor (1 hour and 20 minutes)

Anyway, that's all for now since my computer time is WAY limited, but I wanted to update!

B'Shaah Tovah

I would like to thank YajB for saying this in the last comments. I had forgotten that in all the fuss about induction and whatnot. In good time. That's when babies come isn't it? I have been forgetting one major thing in all of this - to trust my healthy body that Hashem has given me. I've been popping herbs and having NSTs and taking castor oil all to no avail with each new thing entered into with promise and ending with nothing. And I realized, there is one major thing missing here - trust.

I am trying to get outside influences to bring my baby and what I need to do is to truly believe that my body will do what it was made to do, and that is to grow a healthy baby and then to birth it b'shaah tovah - in good time. It isn't the atmospheric pressure or the cohoshes or the castor oil that will bring this baby - it is me. It is the body that Hashem gave me that has grown this beautiful strong healthy baby inside me and will bring him forth into the world when he is good and ready and when I am as well. My mother, under the influence of OA, used to tell me that she needed to "let go and let G-d." And this is the same thing. Trust my body, trust my baby, trust in G-d who made them both.

Here's a quote from Jewishpregnancy.org:

What many women find most challenging about birth is its demand that we
relinquish control and accept that G-d is orchestrating the process. Like life,
childbirth is a lesson in accepting our limitations, and shatters the illusion
that we control the situations in which we find ourselves. It is as though G-d
insists that we learn to let go of our attachment to seeing the results we want,
when we want them, and allow Him to guide us through the process of expending
pure effort instead. Birth can then become a lens through which we view our own
lives more maturely, more honestly.

So perhaps it is a good solid combination of learning to trust and learning to give up control. Because my efforts to date are examples of both not trusting and trying to grab control over something over which I have none.

Still Pregnant

Just thought I'd let you know since I haven't updated in awhile. There's been a touch of healthcare drama, but nothing dangerous, just more hoops to jump through. I tried a bit of acupuncture today to see if we can get this labor going. I'm already ripe and ready at 4cm and 90% effaced. My membranes are loose enough from the sides that they are unstrippable so it is strictly a waiting game at this point.

Come on baby!