I am a slacker.

I'm slacking on -everything- right now. Cleaning. Blogging. Taking pictures of my kids. Keeping in touch with my friends and family.

So, I'll try harder. No promises, of course. Off to make dinner :)

I have been jealously viewing information about a Knitting Cruise to the Carribean. It sounds lovely. Many of the women on my parenting forum are hoping to win the lottery soon so they can afford to go, LOL. I don't know what they'd do with their kids for that long.

Its been quite a while since I posted!

I had a baby boy on November 8th, Liam Alrik, 8 pounds 15 ounces, 21.5 inches long. He was 3 weeks old on wednesday. He's a good sleeper for me, once he falls asleep. It probably helps that he sleeps next to me in bed. Right now he's in the swing. He's wearing a cloth prefold diaper, held on with a snappi, and covered by a pair of wool longies. And one of those t-shirts that wraps around and snaps on both sides of him. Here, I'll add a picture :)

Its really amazing how quickly he's been gaining weight. He was born on a Wednesday night, and we left on Friday morning. When we left, his "check out" weight was 8 pounds 11 ounces. A week later he weighed 9 pounds 13 ounces at his first doctors appointment. And 3 days after that, at our WIC appointment, he weighed in at 10 pounds 11 ounces, although that last one was with all his clothes on.

I guess I'm the equivalent of a jersey cow... high milkfat content!

Our next appointment is on December 8th, and I can't wait to find out how much he's gained.

More knitted projects.

So, I discovered that I can bring myself to knit when the house is really messy, so after a week of no knitting, I finally managed to get things back to a semi-respectable state. The first thing I did was another pair of longies out of the wonderful rainbow yarn. This time I made them the right size! The picture is a little lopsided, because they were laying on the bed, and I was standing at the end of the bed. It makes the right side look bigger than the left side, but they're actually symetrical. This time, the waist is 10 inches (stretches to about 16, I think), the hips are 14 inches, the rise is 14 or 15 inches, and the legs are 5 inches. I did a seed-stitch for the last inch of the legs, because I decided I didn't want a ribbed edge, and I didn't want a rolled edge, and a rolled edge is what I was likely to get if I just finished off with knitting. I think they turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself ;)



My next project was to knit a second pumpkin hat. The first one went over great, and I still haven't posted any pictures of it! Here...





Rowan likes his hat pretty well, and he loves the camera :) The only way I got him to look away from the camera to show the stem was by turning on the tv (clifford the big red dog was on, on PBS).

The new one is just now finished, well, except for tucking in the last little tail of green.

Longie confusion :)

I have now succefully completed (well, mostly... some need yarn ends woven in still), 1 soaker, and 2 pairs of longies.

The soaker looks like it will fit right. Its a from the punk knitters soaker pattern, made to be size newborn.

Soaker: rise=14 inches, waist=maximum of 14 inches (smaller with drawstring), hips=12 inches, inseam=cuffs

The longies I thought I was making of a similar size, but it turns out they're MUCH bigger. At least to look at them.

White-longies: rise=16 inches, waist=12-18inches, hips=16 inches, inseam=9 inches

Rainbow-longies: rise=15 inches, waist=12-18 inches, hips=18 inches, inseam=9 inches

So now I'm asking around on my fluff communities what size of baby they think the longies will fit. I'm thinking maybe 3-6 month size, over a prefold diaper. I guess I need to go back to the drawing board when it comes to what measurements a wee-baby diaper should be. Hopefully the same communities can tell me what measurements I should be aiming for, if I want a newborn or 1 month old baby to be able to wear these :)

Finished Longies! (almost)

I'm going to start typing this post now, even though I still have 1 inch left of ribbing to do on the final leg of the first pair of longies. I just figured if I started typing now, I will actually finish in the next 10 minutes ;)

Okay! Finally, all the needles are out. I still need to weave in the ends, and cover a hole in the crotch area, but they're finished. Well, except for dying them, but that will happen later. I'm thinking of doing red fading to yellow, with the red starting at the cuffs, and the yellow at the waist.


Here is the picture. The string ends are just up inside the legs at the moment.





Now I get to start the legs on my rainbow-yarn longies! Happy day :)

Zoo trip, and other stuff

So, I'm getting closer to being done with the fishermen's wool longies I started while I was in Washington. Closer meaning I have about half an inch of ribbing to go on one leg, then I can start the second leg. Its a good thing too, because I only have an inch more body to go on the longies I'm working on with Aunt Barb's rainbow yarn, and I only have enough double pointed needles to work on one leg at a time, so I have to hurry and finish the legs on the first pair so I can finish the second pair. I'm not positive, but I'm thinking these may be for bigger babies. Like, around the 2 month age. But I could be wrong. Its so hard to judge what size baby these will fit, till I have a baby to try them on.

We went to the zoo yesterday. There were lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Rowan really likes looking at the animal pictures after we get home, because he likes to make the animal sounds. That means he only likes to look at the ones he knows the sound for. Like the bears, and the tigers, and the elephants. Here is a photo tour of our trip to the zoo yesterday.


Rowan is getting a lot better about holding my hand and going where we're trying to go. He usually would rather walk, but thats hard when he starts falling down every 2 steps because he wants to go the other direction!



This is his favourite exhibit. Its a holding pond, so you can look inside and see some "natural" fish (you know, the brown plain kind) and the underwater parts of water lillies, and mud and algae. He likes that these fish think his fingers are worms, and will hang out by the glass when he touches it. This time a really big fish kept chasing the littler fish (of the same species) away from Rowan's hand, and he thought it was hilarious!



Lion skin rug. But I think there might be a lion in it too.


Sleepy tigers.



One of two young bear brothers that was rescued. I forget what it was rescued from now though. But they were afraid it was going to grow up to be a garbage eating, people-threatening, dangerous kind of bear if it was left to grow up where they had been living as cubs. They still look teenager-ish to me. There's a fully grown one in another exhibit that was sleeping today that doesn't have that big headed-big footed look.

The mamma and baby elephants. Rowan can make the elephant noise now, and he raises one arm like the trunk too. Apparently, they had just had a "hay and sawdust bath"



One of the two lovely swans. Rowan makes pig noises at them, because thats how he interprets the sound that ducks make, and he considers this to be a very large duck.


Some people thought this muddy frog pond was a wishing well, because there were dimes and pennies on some of the lilly pads. This was the only frog we saw sunning himself today. Sometimes there are 3 or 4.


It was warm, and very muggy. After a few hours walking around in that weather, its time to go home and have a nap!