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9 months and a fo

According to What to Expect the First Year:
By nine months, your baby

…should be able to:
-work to get a toy that’s out of reach CHECK
-look for dropped object CHECK
…will probably be able to:
-pull up to standing position from sitting CHECK
-creep or crawl CHECK (rolling/creeping)
-get into a sitting position from stomach NO
-object if you try to take a toy away NO
-stand holding on to someone or something CHECK
-pick up tiny object with any part of thumb and finger CHECK
-say “mama” or “dada” indiscriminately CHECK
-play peekaboo CHECK
…may possibly be able to:
-play patty-cake (clap hands) or wave bye-bye CHECK
-walk holding on to furniture (cruise) NO
-understand “no” (but not always obey it) CHECK

…may even be able to:

-“play ball” (roll ball back to you) KINDA- he doesn’t roll it back to me, he picks it up and gives it to me to roll back to him

-drink from a cup independently CHECK but makes a hell of a mess

-pick up a tiny object neatly with tips of thumb and forefinger CHECK

-stand alone momentarily CHECK

-stand alone well NO

-say “dada” or “mama” discriminately NO

-say one word other than “mama” or “dada” NO

-respond to a one-step command with gestures (“Give that to me”, said with hand out) CHECK

Here’s Mommy with Jakob at 39 weeks. He has now been out for just as long as he’s been in. ๐Ÿ™‚

There haven’t been enough “Jakob with Daddy” photos lately, so here’s one from our trip this past weekend to Ottawa. More on that in my next post…it’s a long story and I want to finish posting before Big Brother starts.
Hey look- a finished object! What’s funny is that Maaike and I both finished on the same day.

Striped Scarf details:

I used 4 balls of Noro Silk Garden, 1 each of the colorways”8″, “251”, “258” and “264”.

I cast on 41 sts with a tubular cast-on and a 4mm needle, and did 1×1 rib, changing balls every 2 rows (first using balls 1 and 2, then when they ran out I switched to 3 and 4).

I did a slipped stitch on the first and last stitch of the 2nd row of each color (copying Jared’s, whose scarf was the inspiration for this one), and I bound off with the sewn/Kitchener bind-off.

Cast on: January 29 2008.

Bind off: February 17 2008.

I am so happy with this project! I love how it looks, it is comfortable but most of all, my favorite thing about this scarf is the colors. Not any one in particular- but how they ended up meeting each other. I’m calling this my “inspiration scarf”. There are so many spots of inspiration in this scarf- areas where two colors meet that I never would have thought of pairing, and yet they look just amazing together. I have so many ideas brewing in my head just from looking at how certain colors play off of each other, and I know it will only inspire me further.
And it makes a great valance too!


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this is for wednesday

98 stripes done. I really wanted to finish the first 2 balls last night- do you see how little is left? But at around 11:30 I just got too zonked. I couldn’t do it. I gave up and went to bed. Hopefully tonight’s progress will delve into the 2 new balls!

p.s. Jakob waved for the first time today! We were at my LYS and the owner and some of the staff waved and said “bye bye” as we were leaving, and Jakob waved back! Then later he did it to a stranger too. It was the first time he’d even ever tried, and I almost started bawling in the store, I was so shocked. :}


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more stripes done

Mommy with Jakob at 37 weeks
This is the face I get to stare at all day long:

I swear I don’t think I can get enough of him. I’m in love!

I’m also (somewhat) in love with the Noro Striped Scarf. This is my first time using Silk Garden and I really enjoy it. I have enough for a Klaralund which I think might wind up on the needles sometime in 2008 (never mind that I’ve had the yarn since 2005-ish).

This is my progress as of tonight. I think it’s 51 stripes. I just got an email from Maaike saying that she’s at 53 stripes. I feel a challenge brewing!


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a scarf and a meme

Oops- I don’t have the weekly photo to show you ‘cus I forgot to take one with Jakob while he was awake. I’ll take one tomorrow instead.

On to the Striped Scarf. I’d restarted it yesterday at Robyn’s while watching Juno with her and Angela, but between giving Jakob his bottle and having him sleep in my arms I got very little actual knitting done. Therefore all the rows I’d shown last night were done after he was in bed last night. Much the same thing happened today. I started tackling cleaning the spare bedroom since Yannick’s parents are sleeping over on Saturday night, and between cleaning, taking care of Jakob and making more purees, I knit my first stitch of the day only tonight once he was in bed. Once he went to sleep I left him with Yannick and met up with Maaike, Robyn and some other West Island knitters for a knit night at a local cafe. It was my first time there but it was quite good, and I didn’t realize until after I’d left how much I missed the knitting get-togethers.

I don’t go to the ones on Monkland any more because it took too long to drive into town during rush hour to go for a few hours then drive back so late, and once I go back to work I won’t be able to go because I’ll have Jakob with me and will need to get him home, fed, bathed and to bed. Maybe once in a while if my mom picks him up from the store, but not the majority of the time. So it felt really good to get out for a while and be in the company of adults.

Don’t get me wrong- I love hanging out with my little guy all day, and I love getting together with the other moms in our playgroup. But it was really nice to sit somewhere and not have a diaper bag with me, and to not have a wash cloth and toy within arms’ reach “just in case”.

Here’s the scarf as of tonight. That’s what…32 rows? I think Maaike is at 34 rows. I’ll have to knit a few more tonight to catch up. ๐Ÿ™‚

Before I go to bed, Tara tagged me for a meme so here goes:

Here are the rules, (they must be posted to your blog).

Link to the personโ€™s blog who tagged you : Tara

List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog and also so they can look at your blog and not tag the same people all over again!

My 7 Random Things:
1) I’m competitive. Really. I’m more competitive than you. I AM.
2) I can tap dance. I did the ballet thing as a child and in my teenage years I was part of a dance school that had annual shows, did competitions, etc. I wasn’t part of the competition groups, but I was pretty good. I was in the jazz and tap classes. Yes, in heeled tap shoes, and yes, I can do that thing where your arms both go out and your feet are both off the ground at the same time.
3) I love doing paperwork. The thought of spending a few hours at a desk doing paperwork (with or without a computer) gets me very happy.
4) I sing along to the car radio ALL THE TIME. Ever see The Heartbreak Kid, the movie with Ben Stiller? Remember the scene (they showed it in the commercials too) where his new wife sings along with the radio and it’s really fun and cute at first…then it cuts to 4 hours later and she’s still going? That’s me. And I get really annoyed fast when the radio plays a song I don’t know and can’t sing along with. I’ll switch stations until I find something I know.
6) I used to want to be a romance author for Harlequin. I have a few years’ worth of writing magazines, all the books and an AlphaSmart. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my packed boxes are thirty or so poems, the beginning chapters of 4 novels and notes for a few dozen more. My target lines were the now-defunct Duets (romance/comedy) and Blaze (romance/erotica).
7) I don’t like chocolate. I’ll eat it, and there is some that is tasty, but I really prefer salty snacks. Give me salty foods over sweets any day! (If you really want to make me happy, show up with some *good* chips or movie-theater popcorn, extra butter please!)

Here are those I’ve tagged to participate (if they want to):
1. JayJay
2. Maaike
3. Amy
4. Faith
5. Dianne
6. Nicole
7. Peggy


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something for everyone

I’ve been informed that some of you (*cough* Jackie *cough*) don’t come here for the knits, you come here for Jakob photos. And apparently I’ve been slacking off in my Jakob photos. Well, voila!

Makes “hitting the bottle” seem appropriate, huh?

I thought it was only older kids who preferred to play with the boxes gifts come in!

This was from Monday. We didn’t have anywhere fancy to go, just playgroup, but I loved this outfit on him when he wore it to the bar mitzvah in Toronto and that was the only time he wore it, and now it’s getting too small. The pants still fit okay, and I can probably pull off the vest a while longer, but the shirt length is way too short- when he brings his arms up it’s a belly top.

Ha ha- see what I did there? I snuck some knitting in atcha. ๐Ÿ™‚

It’s funny- he looks so blonde in this photo but it’s not like that in real life. He looks much too grown up though!

Now, back to the knitting. I’m really enjoying knitting the Noro scarf even though I made one mistake. For the first 8 stripes or so I forgot I was stranding the unused color up the side and began each new color row as usual- tugging the yarn up to knit with it. Silly me forgot that tahis would make it pull up, and sure enough there is no slack on the right edge of those first few rows. Now to make sure I include enough slack to avoid this, I wrap the yarn once around my needle before making the first stitch. On my return row I just drop the wrap off the needle, and it leaves me with enough yarn loose on the side to match the looseness of the other side of the work. It’s quick and easy and avoids me having to remember and pay attention to leave some slack when I start each new colored stripe.

Maaike– this part is for you. Here’s my progress from last night on the Striped Scarf.

Total stripe count as of Wednesday, January 30 – 20 stripes. You?

Today’s stripe count and my Thursday photo with Jakob later.