4 Comments

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. πŸ™‚

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!


6 Comments

happy day after valentines day

I forgot to mention that I went to see a great show on Wednesday night. I saw Houdini the Musical at the Saidye – whoops, I mean at the Segal Center for the Arts. I met up with a bunch of moms from Jakob’s playgroup, and I brought my mom, and it was so much fun! Our tickets included a “petit souper” (light supper in hors d-oeuvre form) and wine and a raffle. Oh yeah, and I won a prize! $50 gift certificate at a local spa. That will be fun! It was strange seeing these women without our kids but it was so nice to have a little time together as grown ups. We HAVE to do it more often!

Here’s yesterday’s progress on the Silk Rumple. Everything from the orange marker is new. I feel like all these photos look alike, because it is growing so slowly! At least the first ball is showing signs of depletion (the single skein turned out to be 2 smaller ones together).
And here’s the progress on the Noro striped scarf. 144 rows as of last night’s TV watching marathon. Speaking of last night’s TV- any one else super annoyed with which team won on Celebrity Apprentice? Piers or Omarosa need to go home!
In other reality TV complaints- I find I’m kinda irritated at Big Brother for splitting up the real life couple with other “soulmates”. I know they probably did it on purpose to try and trigger some drama, but I still think it’s tacky.


Leave a comment

thursday’s stuff

Mommy with Jakob at 38 weeks. One more week and he’ll be at the same number of weeks of my pregnancy he was born at (he was delivered at 39 weeks).
The next photo isn’t the most flattering of me, but I have to share it.
Jakob gives kisses. It’s the cutest thing ever- he actually takes your face in his hands and plants one on you. It’s usually open-mouthed, and mostly slobber-covered, and occassionally he bites, but they are kisses just the same. Sometimes he grabs me for a kiss at least 10 times in 3 minutes, and if I don’t get my face up to his fast enough, he grabs me by my hair and pulls me to him. We were at my cousins’ store this afternoon and Amy caught this photo of him kissing me.
He’s so delicious!
She also caught a photo of his other latest thing:


He waves!


I forgot to post this yesterday, but last night Yannick helped me wind these two skeins of Woolly Bully by hand. Um, yeah. Two skeins. This is a case (Maaike) where a yarn purchase ISN’T a yarn purchase. I already HAD one skein, so I only bought a second one so I’d have enough to make something worthy of it. (I asked Yannick, he said it was ok). πŸ™‚ These balls are huge! Each one is the size of a cabbage!

Here’s the latest on the Silk Rumple shawl. Again, everything from the orange pin (on the right) and up is the new stuff from today.
And finally, here’s tonight’s final view of the striped scarf. I’m at 118 stripes, but realized this am that it doesn’t really matter if I beat Maaike in the stripe count unless I beat her by a lot. I have only 41 sts per row, whereas she has 45. So for example, last night she’d knit 92 or so stripes and had finished the first 2 balls, but I’d knit 98 and needed another 10 or so stripes to finish them. I finally finished mine, though, and am about 10 stripes into the new balls. This officially makes me more than halfway through!


5 Comments

thursday’s stuff

Mommy with Jakob at 38 weeks. One more week and he’ll be at the same number of weeks of my pregnancy he was born at (he was delivered at 39 weeks).
The next photo isn’t the most flattering of me, but I have to share it.
Jakob gives kisses. It’s the cutest thing ever- he actually takes your face in his hands and plants one on you. It’s usually open-mouthed, and mostly slobber-covered, and occassionally he bites, but they are kisses just the same. Sometimes he grabs me for a kiss at least 10 times in 3 minutes, and if I don’t get my face up to his fast enough, he grabs me by my hair and pulls me to him. We were at my cousins’ store this afternoon and Amy caught this photo of him kissing me.
He’s so delicious!
She also caught a photo of his other latest thing:


He waves!


I forgot to post this yesterday, but last night Yannick helped me wind these two skeins of Woolly Bully by hand. Um, yeah. Two skeins. This is a case (Maaike) where a yarn purchase ISN’T a yarn purchase. I already HAD one skein, so I only bought a second one so I’d have enough to make something worthy of it. (I asked Yannick, he said it was ok). πŸ™‚ These balls are huge! Each one is the size of a cabbage!

Here’s the latest on the Silk Rumple shawl. Again, everything from the orange pin (on the right) and up is the new stuff from today.
And finally, here’s tonight’s final view of the striped scarf. I’m at 118 stripes, but realized this am that it doesn’t really matter if I beat Maaike in the stripe count unless I beat her by a lot. I have only 41 sts per row, whereas she has 45. So for example, last night she’d knit 92 or so stripes and had finished the first 2 balls, but I’d knit 98 and needed another 10 or so stripes to finish them. I finally finished mine, though, and am about 10 stripes into the new balls. This officially makes me more than halfway through!


2 Comments

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. :}


2 Comments

title goes here

I would have posted this last night but I went to bed too late and was too tired. Just pretend you are reading this last night. If it helps, you can go put your jammies back on, brush your teeth, take out your contact lenses, then come back.

Yesterday we went to my friend Maia’s house for a mini-playgroup. I know you can’t tell by these photos but there were other babies there! I think we were about 7 or 8 moms, plus 1 extra baby (Maia has twin boys).

Jakob had a blast pulling her foam alphabet mat apart. I MUST get him one of these, it entertained him for so long!

He would pull off a square and then separate the letter from the background.

Of course, eating them was fun too! I also want to get that pig she has- when you turn it on, one ear flicks and the jaw works back and forth grumbling and talking about eating some nice slop. It’s too cute!
So my hubby came home with some yarn yesterday. I asked him what he was trying to get out of. He swears it was just an “I was thinking about you” gift. Cue the “awwww”. πŸ™‚ The yarn is Estelle’s Woolly Bully, and this one skein is freaking HUGE!
Seriously- that coke can is included for scale. This is BIG. I don’t know what I’m going to make with it yet. I love the colors and it is really soft. The thing is, I’m currently in the middle of 2 scarves, plus I have a half-finished Clapotis somewhere. I don’t need 4 scarves (especially since I’ve made it this far in the winter without wearing even one), so I think I’ll swatch it for a bit and maybe try to design something with it.
Here’s yesterday’s progress on the Silk Rumple shawl. Everything from the orange pin and up is new. It’s slow-going, but I only worked on it for an hour yesterday.
Here’s the Noro scarf progress. I took a quick count last night, I think I’m at 78 stripes completed. I’m also thisclose to finishing the first 2 balls which means I’m almost halfway done!

Today we only have some errands to do once Jakob wakes up from his nap, so I hope to have much more progress to show off tonight.


3 Comments

don’t bother me, i’ll be reading

I have six minutes to sqeeze out a post. (That sounds vaguely dirty…) I promised Yannick I’d meet him in bed at 12:30. No you pervs, not for that. We still haven’t finished reading the last Harry Potter, and I have so far remained remarkably unspoiled in terms of who dies, etc. I did find out one little tidbit by accident (if “by accident” includes reading Stephen King’s column on the last page of my EW magazine where he blurted something out), and that tidbit, for those of you who have read it, implies that…oh how can I put this for the unspoiled? It implies that one of the characters had a lot in common with the original actor who portrays him/her in the movies. Is that vague enough?

I had to share this with you.
Isn’t that cool? A HABS holiday decoration! I kept meaning to blog about it, and when over at Maaike’s on Saturday I snuck a quick photo. If you go over to her blog to comment on it, send some love over to her hubby who made it!

I didn’t post my stripe tally over the weekend because I had none. Yannick’s parents came over Saturday morning and we spend the day putting up new window treatments in the bedrooms and preparing the heated floor for our (eventual) den, then they slept over that night. Sunday I didn’t get any knitting done either, as in the morning we had swimming lessons, then around lunch time Julie and Rich came over with adorable little Kayla, and then we had plans later that night.

Sunday afternoon Jakob was being really kvetchy and his toys weren’t holding his interest. Out of desperation I popped in a Baby Mozart dvd. Think he liked it? He didn’t move from that pose for the entire video, except to laugh out loud every so often and turn to look at me as if to say “did you see that?”. It was too cute. I know I’m going to have to stop keeping the tv on for me soon, as he constantly turns to see the moving shapes and colors, and I don’t want him watching once he’s old enough to understand what he sees. But I approve of the videos and I don’t mind him watching those. He was never able to sit through a whole half hour, so I only played each of the 3 videos we have once or twice each. Now that he pays attention and enjoys it, I think I’m going to sit with him maybe once a week and watch it together.
On Friday I re-started an old project. Remember the Silk Rumple from HandMaiden that Yannick bought for me? I was having a hell of a time trying to knit the shawl on the label, because none of my needles were sharp enough for the k2togs in the boucle-y yarn. I had even bought needles with special “precision points” but they were too blunt. On Saturday I gave Maaike’s Options needles a spin, and they worked perfectly! I am now able to whip through a yo, k2tog row almost as fast as a regular k row.

This is where I am as of this afternoon. I only work on this project during the day when Yannick isn’t around. Last week when Maaike and I started our Noro scarves, I mentioned to Yannick that I was working on a cool scarf. He asked “is that the one with the yarn I bought you?” I felt bad that his yarn was still sitting in the project bin, so I decided to work on it behind his back so I can surprise him one day soon by wearing the finished shawl and praising him on his taste.

This closeup shows off the subtle color variations and the stitch pattern. It isn’t actually supposed to have a wavy bottom, but I was feeling too lazy to weave another needle in the bottom edge to hold it straight, so this is the result of my quick pinning-for-the-photo job.

 

This closeup shows the texture of the yarn. Now do you see why I needed sharp needles? I was almost getting nauseous at the “stuttering” effect those yo, k2tog rows were having on me. I’m used to knitting in a rhythm, and those rows were throwing off my groove.

Finally, here’s my Noro Striped Scarf progress as of tonight. I’m laughing at myself because on Friday Maaike told me she had 74 stripes knit, and then she didn’t get a chance to knit at all over the weekend, and she let me know today that she didn’t knit today either. So she’s stalled at 74. I knit my fingers off from 8-11:30pm tonight while watching my tapes and when I finally called it quits I counted up my stripes- I have 73 done! Yet again I could force myself to sit there and do just a few more stripes to be in the lead, but I’m not. I’ll let her think she’s winning…for now. πŸ™‚

p.s. as you can see by the time this post records it was posted at, I didn’t come close to being done by 12:30. We’re going to put the reading off ’til tomorrow. I’m aware that now my post title makes no sense, but I’m too tired to fix it.


Leave a comment

don’t bother me, i’ll be reading

I have six minutes to sqeeze out a post. (That sounds vaguely dirty…) I promised Yannick I’d meet him in bed at 12:30. No you pervs, not for that. We still haven’t finished reading the last Harry Potter, and I have so far remained remarkably unspoiled in terms of who dies, etc. I did find out one little tidbit by accident (if “by accident” includes reading Stephen King’s column on the last page of my EW magazine where he blurted something out), and that tidbit, for those of you who have read it, implies that…oh how can I put this for the unspoiled? It implies that one of the characters had a lot in common with the original actor who portrays him/her in the movies. Is that vague enough?

I had to share this with you.
Isn’t that cool? A HABS holiday decoration! I kept meaning to blog about it, and when over at Maaike’s on Saturday I snuck a quick photo. If you go over to her blog to comment on it, send some love over to her hubby who made it!

I didn’t post my stripe tally over the weekend because I had none. Yannick’s parents came over Saturday morning and we spend the day putting up new window treatments in the bedrooms and preparing the heated floor for our (eventual) den, then they slept over that night. Sunday I didn’t get any knitting done either, as in the morning we had swimming lessons, then around lunch time Julie and Rich came over with adorable little Kayla, and then we had plans later that night.

Sunday afternoon Jakob was being really kvetchy and his toys weren’t holding his interest. Out of desperation I popped in a Baby Mozart dvd. Think he liked it? He didn’t move from that pose for the entire video, except to laugh out loud every so often and turn to look at me as if to say “did you see that?”. It was too cute. I know I’m going to have to stop keeping the tv on for me soon, as he constantly turns to see the moving shapes and colors, and I don’t want him watching once he’s old enough to understand what he sees. But I approve of the videos and I don’t mind him watching those. He was never able to sit through a whole half hour, so I only played each of the 3 videos we have once or twice each. Now that he pays attention and enjoys it, I think I’m going to sit with him maybe once a week and watch it together.
On Friday I re-started an old project. Remember the Silk Rumple from HandMaiden that Yannick bought for me? I was having a hell of a time trying to knit the shawl on the label, because none of my needles were sharp enough for the k2togs in the boucle-y yarn. I had even bought needles with special “precision points” but they were too blunt. On Saturday I gave Maaike’s Options needles a spin, and they worked perfectly! I am now able to whip through a yo, k2tog row almost as fast as a regular k row.

This is where I am as of this afternoon. I only work on this project during the day when Yannick isn’t around. Last week when Maaike and I started our Noro scarves, I mentioned to Yannick that I was working on a cool scarf. He asked “is that the one with the yarn I bought you?” I felt bad that his yarn was still sitting in the project bin, so I decided to work on it behind his back so I can surprise him one day soon by wearing the finished shawl and praising him on his taste.

This closeup shows off the subtle color variations and the stitch pattern. It isn’t actually supposed to have a wavy bottom, but I was feeling too lazy to weave another needle in the bottom edge to hold it straight, so this is the result of my quick pinning-for-the-photo job.

 

This closeup shows the texture of the yarn. Now do you see why I needed sharp needles? I was almost getting nauseous at the “stuttering” effect those yo, k2tog rows were having on me. I’m used to knitting in a rhythm, and those rows were throwing off my groove.

Finally, here’s my Noro Striped Scarf progress as of tonight. I’m laughing at myself because on Friday Maaike told me she had 74 stripes knit, and then she didn’t get a chance to knit at all over the weekend, and she let me know today that she didn’t knit today either. So she’s stalled at 74. I knit my fingers off from 8-11:30pm tonight while watching my tapes and when I finally called it quits I counted up my stripes- I have 73 done! Yet again I could force myself to sit there and do just a few more stripes to be in the lead, but I’m not. I’ll let her think she’s winning…for now. πŸ™‚

p.s. as you can see by the time this post records it was posted at, I didn’t come close to being done by 12:30. We’re going to put the reading off ’til tomorrow. I’m aware that now my post title makes no sense, but I’m too tired to fix it.


2 Comments

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!


4 Comments

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. πŸ™‚

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 person’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