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the one that should have been posted on sunday march 16

Sunday seemed to be off to a good start. We thought Jakob was feeling better, so we braved bringing him out. We deliberately skipped his swimming lesson in the morning (that would be the LAST place we’d need him to have a tummy problem!) but things were looking good, so we took him to the Purim carnival at my parents’ synagogue. (Purim is like the Jewish Hallowe’en, and they do a mini carnival for kids, with games, prizes, etc…).

I waited until we got there to put him in his costume, and was very happy to know that it still fit him. It’s actually still a little loose, but he’s very slim, so I am relieved to know that my estimate of it being a 9-12 month size was accurate.
Here’s Jakob and I with Chicken Little. You’ll be happy to know that no sky was falling. 🙂

We left the synagogue in time to get to another Purim carnival at the Jewish Y, but planned on stopping at a nearby shopping center first. Yannick and I would have lunch, we’d feed Jakob, and before leaving there I wanted to show him the animals they had on display for Easter.

Well. Luckily I had changed him out of his costume before putting him into his carseat. I had intended on only bringing Jakob and the stroller into the mall, leaving the carseat itself (the bucket part) in the car. Except…when I moved to take him out of it…I saw that he’d had another tummy incident. This gastro sucks.

I’d been prepared for such an event, and had lined his carseat with thin blankets. I had to bring the whole bucket into the bathroom, but it wasn’t too difficult to clean him up, and once the dirty clothes and blankets were safely in a sealed Ziplock, at least his bucket was clean and dry and he was able to go back into it. Needless to say we decided against going to the 2nd Purin carnival. At his age it wasn’t even worth the risk to the costume, as all of the events were geared towards older kids.

In the end I fed Jakob some lunch while Yannick shopped for more funky t-shirts at Winners, and then we introduced Jakob to some furry little friends.

Bunnies! I see a theme developing here.

Should I mention that I’m currently designing a bunny? It’s nothing like Kate’s or the Swatch Bunny or any other bunny I’ve seen, but yes, it is a bunny. These things do multiply fast!

Jakob had a good bath when we got home, and he looked so cute in his little bathrobe that I couldn’t resist snapping a photo. He went to bed without too much fuss, and I made a note to call his doctor in the morning, as he was still having the gastro symptoms and I needed to know if he would be able to go to playgroup the next day, or if he was considered contagious.

More soon!


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the one that should have been posted on saturday march 15

Saturday was more of the same sicknesses as Thursday and Friday, with the main difference being that I was able to leave Jakob at home with Yannick when I went to work. This was the first time since Jakob’s birth that he’s been alone with Yannick for more than 3 hours, since the previous times they’d spent the day together I was still breastfeeding and Yannick brought Jakob to me to feed every 3 hours or so. My boys spent the day together on the couch, watching tv while Jakob slept in Yannick’s arms. He (Yannick) loved the feeling so much that he never got off the couch to do any of the tidying up I’d hoped for…but I can’t fault him. As much as it sucks when Jakob is sick, it is really sweet the way he cuddles.
The gastro had the poor kid soiling his clothes so often that we got tired of doing laundry, so for a little while in the morning we gave him breakfast in only a bib and diaper. I can’t get over how tall he looks in this photo. He’s average height, but I find his arms and legs look so long!

Saturday night we went to the Biftheque with my family to celebrate last years’ birthdays. (We’re a bit behind). After dinner they all came back here to open gifts, and I FINALLY was able to give my mom the Montego Bay scarf I’d knit for her. It had been sitting in my drawer since November when I thought I’d be giving it to her on her actual birthday.

In other knitting gift news, my inlaws have both requested socks for Christmas this year. Everytime they were with Yannick when he was wearing his handknit socks, he kept raving about the fit, the comfort, etc. Could it be? Could I finally wind up with some family members (besides Yannick) who *gasp* appreciate my knitting?


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march birthdays

March has been a busy month! Last weekend we celebrated my immediate family’s birthdays. None of us have a birthday in March, but we had to finally get around to celebrating our 2007 birthday before any of us had a 2008 one.

This week is my father-in-law’s birthday (Happy Birthday Marcel!) and my…well, I guess my nephew (Yannick’s sister’s son) Justin’s birthday. (Happy Birthday Justin!). Justin is also Yannick’s godson, and we will be celebrating both of those birthdays this coming weekend.

Finally, there is one more special birthday in March.

A very big HAPPY BIRTHDAY! goes out to little RJ who made March 13th her birth day. Congratulations JayJay!


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the one that should have been posted friday march 14

BUNNIES!

I tried to knit just one…but you know how they multiply! 🙂

I have an old friend from high school who moved away a few years ago and got married. She came into town recently with her 2 and a half year old daughter, and I had a chance to catch up with her for the first time since she’d moved. I brought Jakob with me and was pleasantly surprised when my friend presented Jakob with a gift. I also felt bad, because I was empty-handed. I emailed her that afternoon to ask what her daughter’s 3 favorite colors were, and I cast on for the bunnies as soon as I heard back with a reply. (It was pink, purple and blue…I think those are the obligatory favorite colors for all girls under the age of 8).

I used Kate’s Bunny pattern, and a 4.5mm needle. (Or a 4mm. Shoot. My notes are downstairs. If anyone really cares, email me and I’ll check). The first one was knit with purple Fun Fur only, and while it was fast and easy to knit, I HATED the seaming. I think I’ve mentioned here before that I enjoy seaming, and my preferred method is to mattress stitch. With this fuzzy yarn mattress stitch is not an option (at least not without some really good light and a magnifying glass), so I had to seam with a whipstitch on the wrong side of the work. It came out ok, but I didn’t want to have to do that again. This wasn’t Kate’s fault, it was mine for forgetting that I hate to seam with Fun Fur.

I also wanted a bigger bunny. The pattern comes in 3 sizes (Baby, Mama and Papa), and the purple one was knit to the Mama size. I didn’t want the Baby bunny to be any smaller than the Mama already was, so I went stash-diving and came up with some white Bernat baby yarn.

This blue bunny was knit to the Papa sized pattern. Same needle size as the purple one, but this time I did 2 rows of the smooth white yarn only, and 2 rows of the white with blue Fun Fur carried along. I wound up with a bunny that was much bigger than the first one (which was what I wanted) and also with a bunny that allowed me to see the stitches so I could work a mattress stitch seam (which was really what I wanted). The nature of knitting fur-type yarns has most of the fur wind up lying on the purl side of the work, which was the wrong side for this pattern. I had the option of turning it inside out before seaming, but I liked the less-fuzz/more-stripes look of the right side.

 

The pink bunny was knit exactly as the blue one, but with (duh) pink Fun Fur carried along. She is also knit to the Papa bunny size.

I was going to give them eyes but I didn’t feel like embroidering them, I don’t know where my sew-on googley eyes are, and sewn-on buttons made the bunnies look dead. So they will remain eyeless.

I tried to get something in the photo that would show scale, but I couldn’t figure out what I owned that would be standard everywhere. (Now that I’m typing this, I am coming up with a ton of items I could have used. Ah well. Hindsight/20/20 and all that). Here you have the Bunny Family with Yannick’s sunglasses.

And yes, it was done deliberately that a blue Papa and pink Mama make a purple Baby. ;]


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getting there

I’m catching up slowly. I thought I’d do more but it’s late and I want to go to bed. I’m going to try to get through the rest tomorrow. In the meantime, there are 2 new posts below this one to keep you busy until I get back. Good night!


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the one that should have been posted on thursday march 13

Remember how I mentioned the Shiva in the last post? Here’s where it becomes relevant. Three of us from playgroup went to the Shiva house (house of one of the mourners where family/friends come to pay their respects. We each brought our kids. One woman’s son spent the entire time sleeping in his portable car seat. He was the lucky one. The other 3 kids (Jakob and 2 little girls) all ended up with GASTRO.

Oh I am so sick of gastro. There’s nothing worse than watching your helpless little baby’s body heave and shake while he throws up, and you know he doesn’t understand what’s going on, and he’s scared and sick and sad.

Jakob woke up fine Thursday morning, drank his bottle, played with us as usual while waiting for Yannick to wake up enough to give him breakfast, when suddenly he started to throw up. I stayed home from work with him and when he continued to lose everything we gave him to eat/drink I made an appointment for him at the doctor’s that evening. By the time we got to the doctor’s office he had a fever of 101F, and by the time he went to bed that night it was 102.5F.

When he wasn’t actively sick he was in relatively good spirits. At one point I had put him down, seated, in his crib to play so I could have my hands free for a few minutes. When I came back to get him I found him like this:
For the first time ever he pulled himself to stand up in his crib. He was so proud of himself! Unfortunately the excitement didn’t last long, as the sickness had completely exhausted him

He ended up spending the rest of the day and all day Friday like this:

(Mommy with Jakob at 43 weeks).

I felt horrible that he felt so bad but at least I got to spend 2 days curled up on the couch with my sleeping baby. Nothing beats that.


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the one that should have been posted tuesday march 11

I’m going to try and recreate a week’s worth of posts tonight before I go to bed. I had a lot of stuff I wanted to share but didn’t, and I know if I keep putting it off then I’ll never get around to it, so I’m going to try and get as much out as I can remember.

Last Tuesday Jakob and I left work in the early afternoon to attend the Shiva for the grandmother of one of the other moms in my playgroup. I mean Jakob’s playgroup. Yeah – it’s for him. I mention this because it will become relevant by Thursday. This was my little guy all dressed up for his big day. (Thanks for the vest Debbie!)
p.s. these are Yannick’s legs!!
Anyhoo…Tuesday night was the March MKG meeting.
This month instead of having a topic discussion we were all encouraged to bring some random stash yarn that would add up to a chunky weight, and we were to knit 1 hour hats which would be donated to a charity. I brought these yarns:
I know the thin glitter strand is from my Bubbie’s stash that I inherited. I’m pretty sure the burgundy tweed is from there too, and the peach polar fleece was a thrift store find. The two thicker yarns were not ones I could ever see using on their own, and I threw in the glitz to keep myself awake while I knit the hat. Because I spent most of the meeting helping one of the members with a crochet pattern I didn’t get the hat knit in one hour, but I DID finish it when I got home that night.

Voila-
I wasn’t consistent about what order the yarns landed in on the needle (sometimes the peach was first, other times the darker one) which is why the hat doesn’t have a uniform color. When the peach was first the burgundy became the predominant color on the following row, and vice versa.
It is a simple stockinette stitch hat, knit flat and seamed up the back, with a rolled brim.
This is why I’m glad it will be given to a charity, and is not intended for me to wear. Man I look stupid in hats. :] I’m 1 step away… LOL

(Although I think this one came out kinda cool).


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today’s post brought to you by the letter "and"

27 letters in the alphabet. Yup. That’s right. What? You only counted 26? Oh, well, you forgot the letter “and”.

This is a clip from Sunday night’s episode of Big Brother 9. Oh. My. God. That Natalie is really something huh? They cut out the part of the exchange where she couldn’t count to 4 (she thought that the red, blue, yellow and green bars of a toy in the hamster cage were “3 different colors” and how that was very significant), but at least they kept in the alphabet thing.

(p.s for those of you who don’t feel like watching the whole clip, once it loads you can skip ahead to somewhere around 3 min 45 seconds and just watch the end from there. That’s when Natalie shows up).


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today’s post brought to you by the letter "and"

27 letters in the alphabet. Yup. That’s right. What? You only counted 26? Oh, well, you forgot the letter “and”.

This is a clip from Sunday night’s episode of Big Brother 9. Oh. My. God. That Natalie is really something huh? They cut out the part of the exchange where she couldn’t count to 4 (she thought that the red, blue, yellow and green bars of a toy in the hamster cage were “3 different colors” and how that was very significant), but at least they kept in the alphabet thing.

(p.s for those of you who don’t feel like watching the whole clip, once it loads you can skip ahead to somewhere around 3 min 45 seconds and just watch the end from there. That’s when Natalie shows up).


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presenting…

…the swatches! I am so happy with how the yarn turned out! I think I’ve been over using the word “love” lately (I love the yarn, in love with certain patterns, love the way things come out) so I don’t want to sit here and say there’s yet another thing I love. I might have overstated my affection for some other projects. There might be projects that I merely like, projects I wouldn’t mind seeing again, and projects I think I might have a future with. But this yarn? This yarn I really do love!

I did the swatches with a 2.5mm needle (my usual for socks) and on 64 sts, which, depending on the pattern, is roughly my size.
Here’s the Black Cherry. This photo shows a pretty good variation of color, but is lacking the deep tones of wine that permeate every strand, even the deep blacks. This will be stunning with either an open lace or a cable pattern. Yannick would like to claim it for himself but it is mine! This is one side of my Oxford swatch. I took a photo of each side to show you how the yarn will behave on a larger swatch (or a sock). You see how the black-striped section starts at the lower left and moves up on a diagonal to the top right? And how the colored section with no black seems to do the same?
Here’s the other side of the same swatch. # 1 had one dark section in the middle. # 2 has 2 dark sections, one on top and one below, with a lighter middle. What I’m trying to show here is that the two areas of color will spiral around each other, and around the sock.
Look at this! It worked! I can’t believe it worked! I made a self-striping yarn! There is so much I enjoy about this one, especially the palest row of green right above the darkest one. Something about the way one looks near the other really tickles me. If I was to do this again I would only change the concentration of dye to water to try and get another shade in there, as I feel 2 of the rows look the same. It might be related to where I cast on from and how the yarn is wrapping around itself, though.

I have been knitting Bunnies for the last week. The pattern is great, but I’m knitting in Fun Fur which is such a pain! I knit the first one only in the Fun Fur stuff, but seaming it was NOT fun, so I knit the second with the FF held along with a strand of white dk weight acrylic. It made the FF somewhat more bearable.

I’m knitting the Bunnies as a gift for a friend’s 2.5 year old daughter, who brought a gift for Jakob when we introduced them, and I unfortunately showed up empty handed. I found out her favorite colours are pink, purple and blue (is there any 2.5 year old girl who doesn’t have those as her favorite colours?) so I’m knitting a pink mommy bunny, a blue daddy bunny, and a purple baby bunny. As of tonight only the pink is left to knit. Photos tomorrow after the Guild meeting.