(Note: I didn’t take this photo, it was sent to me in an email).
Here’s Mommy with Jakob at 48 weeks. We’re at work, and this is proof that I do occassionally wear my hair down. (I always regret it. Jakob is FASCINATED by my hair and can’t leave it alone when I wear it down. He always stares at me like he’s amazed, and can’t stop touching and pulling it).According to What to Expect the First Year:
…will probably be able to:
-play patty-check (clap hands) or wave bye-bye CHECK– he’s been waving for over a month now, and all of a sudden on Monday he started clapping his hands. All you have to do now is say “clap clap” and he’ll clap for you. My little trained seal…
-walk holding on to furniture (cruise) CHECK – his favorite thing to do!
-point or gesture to something to get needs met NOT REALLY – does reaching count?
(I don’t know why Yannick always looks like a deer caught in headlights in these photos)
…may possibly be able to:
-pick up a tiny object neatly with tips of thumb and forefinger CHECK – for months now
-stand alone momentarily CHECK – but not of his own will. It scares him.
-say “dada” or “mama” discriminately NOT REALLY – sometimes it sounds like he’s trying to say “papa” or “cat”, but he’s not really calling anything by a name. He says babababa and dadadada and blablabla all the time, but no “mama” or “papa” yet.
-say one word other than “mama” or “dada” NOPE
…may even be able to:
-stand alone well NOPE
-indicate wants in ways other than crying CHECK – among other things, he shakes his hand when he wants his bottle (we sing “shake shake shake, shake your bottle”)
-“play ball” (roll a ball back to you) CHECK – we play fetch. He throws it, we chase.
-drink from a cup independently CHECK – he drinks from a cup alone at every meal, and only spills it when he turns it upside down to look at the bottom of the cup.
-use immature jargoning (gibberish that sounds as if baby is talking a made-up foreign language) SOMETIMES – he’s definately babbling in a more speech-like way lately
-say three or more words other than “mama” or “dada” NOPE – unlike the girl in our playgroup who is 9 months old and can say “book” and “duck” (with comprehension), Jakob is still wordless.
–respond to a one-step command without gestures (“Give that to me” – without hand out) CHECK – if you ask for a kiss he’ll grab your face and kiss you. He’ll also clap when you ask him to, or wave hi/bye.
–walk well NOPE
All in all, not bad for 11 months old, I think. I won’t go on and on about how big he’s getting, and how time flies, because you can imagine it yourself. But I will say that he’s absolutely my favorite person in the world right now. Every time he wakes from a nap, while a part of me wants a few extra minutes alone, the rest of me can’t wait to run into his room and see him smiling at me. Can’t wait to pick him up and get smothered in kisses. Can’t wait to see what he’ll surprise me with today. 
Some of you guessed right! There were 3 of me in the old Zellers photos. I tried to trick you by putting photos that weren’t taken the same year, but some of you figured me out anyways. For those who need help:
There were 2 of me in the upper flyer photo.
I was 2 years and 1 month old when this flyer was printed, so I was probably a few months younger when the photos were actually taken.
I see a lot of Jakob in my old baby photos. I have some others packed away somewhere that look exactly like him! He definately has my mouth, that’s for sure.
I think he’s going to end up with my buck teeth too. 🙂
There was only one of me in the second flyer:
I’m not sure when this was printed, but I would guess that I was between 4 and 7 years old.
Uhm…so I’m not a natural blonde.
I was going to post these last night, but instead chose to take a really long shower and curl up in front of Big Brother with my knitting. (I know, I should have taken the shower after Big Brother to get rid of the dirty feeling, but I hadn’t thought all the way through).
In any case, here’s Mommy with Jakob at 47 weeks.
I swear he looks like a teenager sometimes.
It doesnt’ help when we dress him like this. Holding him in this vest is like trying to hold a cuddly marshmallow that gives you kisses- it fills up your arms and you can barely hold on…but it’s worth it!
Things have been getting done around here, I promise. For some reason, though, every night around 8 or 9 pm I’ve been getting a headache and all I want to do is go to bed. I haven’t gotten as much accomplished as I would have liked, but here is some of what I’ve been doing:
I was commissioned to do the finishing work on this baby sweater that my mom’s manicurist knit. This is the sweater that (did I already blog this?) I had to go help her fix when she realized after finishing the two sleeves that she’d knit the cuffs with the larger needle, instead of the smaller one. So I showed her how to slip the stitches of one row onto a smaller needle and cut and unpick 1 row, then unravel the now-released cuff and reknit the cuff in the opposite direction. Anyways, she didn’t feel up to doing the finishing work, so she asked me to do it for her, and handed me the pattern and a bag with the fronts, back and sleeves. I sewed it up for her, and this is the result. It’s a really cute sweater, and it just needs a button to be all finished.
I’ve also been working on Jakob’s Cabled Cardigan lately, and to prove it, here are some progress photos. I keep meaning to block the pieces pre-seaming but I was going to do it after the first front and decided to wait until both were done, then I was going to do it after the first sleeve but am now waiting until both are done. Or I might not block it at all, until after the seaming is done. We’ll see. This photo shows the back, two fronts and 1 sleeve.
Remember when I posted Jakob’s modelling photo and I told you I used to be in the Zellers flyers myself when I was little? My mom found the photos! I’ve scanned them for you here – can you find me?
This is an old post, I had saved it as a draft on April 3rd while waiting to see if it was ok to post Robyn’s April Sock Club kit, and then forgot to publish the post.
Isn’t this gorgeous? It’s similar to the first sock club yarn but still different, and I really, really LOVE the colors. I also think the sock pattern itself is fabulous. It’s so simple, but the effect is really stricking, and I am looking forwards to knitting it.
Here’s a closeup of the yarn. Isn’t it beautiful?
p.s. It doesn’t count as stash purchasing because I told Robyn I wanted to buy it last year.
Other recent stash aquisitions that are not purchases that break my “year of the stash” rule because they are for specific projects:
Black Regia 4ply for Yannick’s mom’s Christmas socks. She wants the Queen of Cups pattern from Knitty.com (I’m too tired to go look up the exact link right now). I have black sock yarn in my stash but one set is acrylic and I’m not giving her that, and the other is Sisu which I haven’t yet washed and I’m afraid to give her something that pills badly. No one is really interested in my knitting and they always hear Yannick rave about his socks and they have admired how well the Regia is after being thrown in the washer and dryer all the time…I’m afraid to switch brands and give them something that doesn’t wear well and have them disappointed with how the socks turn out. (I say “them” because I’m also going to knit a plain stockinette pair for Yannick’s dad).
This is the Dream in Color Smooshy I picked up from Robyn’s shop. I know what you’re thinking, but this really isn’t a purchase. I fell hard for the shawl pattern “Jeannie” from the Winter Knitty, and had Yannick help me choose a color. I wanted black or red but he chose the color “Into the Mystic” from the Dream in Color website. I didn’t think it was what I wanted (I didn’t think it went with black as well as it would probably go with denim) so he said that if I knit it and wasn’t happy with the final result, he’d pay me back for the yarn. I thought I’d ordered it right away but after the New Year I contacted the company and it turns out I’d never placed the order. Right when I was about to order it Robyn told me she was getting some into her shop, so I ended up ordering it from her. In the end the colorway looks NOTHING like what it does online, but I really love the color it turned out to be! It’s going to be one gorgeous shawl.
This is a bunch of Patons yarn that I picked up for my submission to the 2008 Mary Maxim design contest. You have to use yarns from certain brands, so I bought this for my 2 submissions.
Well, that’s it. More yarn added to my stash, although no unlawful purchasing has been done. 🙂
You know that ad that seems to run every so often, the one that has the baby in a high chair all covered in spaghetti and spaghetti sauce? The one that makes you wonder how long it took to stage?
For the first time, I believe it wasn’t staged. I also don’t entirely blame the baby. See this mess?
I did it. It was so horrible, I felt like I was in a sitcom. I was about to put Jakob’s supper on the counter to cool but I must have let my hands relax without realizing it, because the next thing I knew the bowl was on the floor and its entire contents were splattered all over the floor, cabinets, counter tops, high chair and even the patio window. Ugh. I think his supper that night was a mix of pasta, chili sauce, brussel sprouts, corn and carrots, but all I can remember is chasing the little pasta balls around the kitchen. Every time I thought I’d found them all…I’d step on another one.
My local library has a section of used books for sale, and I take a look every time I go in. I realized I’d forgotten to post about the different books I’d purchased, so here you go:
This craft book looks very interesting. The whole book is full of full-page color photos, and the crafts will be fun once Jakob is older.
This one looked good too. Did I mention they were $2 each?
I don’t remember how many I bought, but they were only $0.25 each, and each issue has knitting patterns, crochet patterns and all kinds of other crafts. How cool!
Finally, here’s Mommy with Jakob at 46 weeks.
Look at those teeth! His last top front tooth came in today, so that makes all 4 of his top front teeth, and his center 2 bottom teeth. I was going to leave you with this photo and end this post, but I couldn’t resist showing you the next one.
You’d have to know him in person to know what he’s doing here. See his little mouth? He blows kisses at you! I took this photo right as he started to pucker up. It’s so cute, out of the blue he’ll just look at you and start kissing the air. If he’s really feeling affectionate, he’ll pull you close and give you a kiss right on the cheek or lips.
Coming soon…a recap of Saturday and Sunday with Sally Melville and the latest since the weekend.
8 of you entered my little contest, so I went over to a random number generator and asked for 1 interger betweenn 1 and 8.
The result, as you can see here, is….
6!!!
Congratulations (hold on while I go look up who number 6 was) Robyn! You win a $30 gift certificate to your choice of online yarn store. Anything you want from your own shop? LOL
To everyone who didn’t win, thank you for playing! I had a fun time coming up with a 7-themed contest, and I hope you enjoyed choosing something for each sin. Please know that everything truly was random and I was just as excited to see who the winner would be as you guys were/are. I hope you feel like I did this fairly, and look forwards to more contests in the future.
In keeping with my apparent fondness for throwing in extra projects even when I have deadlines, I present the 2 other projects that made up the 5 that I spent the last week on, instead of the stuff I should have been knitting.
Yannick’s cousins welcomed their second child Emily on Monday, and we were supposed to go to the hospital on Wednesday night to meet her. I couldn’t show up empty handed, especially after making/bringing something for their first-born (anyone remember Elodie’s Sweater and Booties?).
I grabbed some stash yarn and cast on for the Child’s Placket Neck Pullover (Ravelry link) Last-Minute Knitted Gifts
I didn’t do a gauge swatch because I figured it was for a baby…if it didn’t fit her at a year it would fit her at 6 months, or 18 months. Ahem. I *should* have knit a swatch, because after I cast on the number of stitches for the 1 year size and finished the 8 rows of seed stitch border, well, it was big enough to fit me!
That got promptly ripped back. Unfortunately it was now about 9 pm on Monday, leaving me with only another hour or so to knit before bed, and then Tuesday night to make something for Elodie so she wouldn’t feel left out. I had to find something quick. I found it in the Blanket Buddy pattern from Lionbrand. It is a pattern that you can either knit or crochet, and after browsing the Ravelry archives for a bit, I decided I liked the crochet version better. Plus, crochet is faster than knitting (although it does take more yarn), so I knew I had a better chance of getting it done on time.
It came out perfect, with one small flaw. It’s small. It’s supposed to be about 17″ long. Mine? Maybe 8″. I switched yarns and instead of using a bulky yarn I used a dk-weight yarn. I didn’t feel like fussing with the pattern (although it is really easy to make it whatever size you want) so I left it as is.
Here’s a bad photo of it with Jakob to give you an idea of it’s actual size.
I figure that it’s being given to an infant. She’s tiny, so her little toy can be tiny. Who knows…maybe she’ll end up loving it and it will be the “doodoo” that she carries around until she’s 18?
As I mentioned I wanted to give something to Elodie as well so she wouldn’t feel jealous of the attention (and gifts) that the new baby was getting.
After some debate between knitting anothe cupcake, another bunny or another swatch bunny, the cupcake won. Both bunnies only take about an hour or two of knitting, but they each have quite a bit of seaming. The cupcake takes under an hour to knit and really only has 4 ends to weave in once you’re done.
This time I followed the pattern exactly as written. I won’t do that again. There’s nothing *wrong* with the pattern, but my (and Yannick’s) mental image of a cupcake has some overhang where the top meets the base. We’re probably influenced by our love of muffins, and we freely admit that. Regardless…we like my variation on the cupcake better, so when I knit more of these (“when”, not “if”) I will continue to use my increase/decrease rounds in the icing section.
On Wednesday night we found out that they were leaving the hospital in the morning to go home, so instead of running down there we made plans to go see them and their home this weekend. With my now-free time I sat down to knit and by the time the CSIs in New York had caught Suspect X, I had finished all 4 of my swatches for the Sally Melville workshop this weekend.
Yup, I’ll be spending the weekend learning from Mrs. Knit Stitch and Purl Stitch herself. Is it cheesy if I bring my books for her to sign?
jeloca.com 