Knit Wits Blue is a state of mind, blue makes you colourblind

I need to start updating more! The days seem to slip past me so quickly, I never seem to get the chance. I have been working on my home based business selling “natural” family gear. I’m excited to be the only West coast vendor for Storchenwiege wraps and Suse’s Kinder gear. I have had a Storchenwiege wrap for nearly 4 years now and use it nearly every day, so it was an easy choice when it came to picking product! I also have pads from Pampered Mama and the stuff I make myself. It’s an exciting venture–not too stressful. I hope I can keep it that way.

The rest of my time is spent with H and F. F is 10.5 months old, says “hi” and toddles for a few steps. She is head over heels in love with her big sister still, and Hannah is wonderful with her. They are quite the pair. I am really and truly in love with them both. I could not be luckier. The absent minded professor is still absent minded (he wouldn’t be himself if he wasn’t!), but our marriage is still wonderful and improving all the time (if that is even possible). That isn’t to say it isn’t a lot of work. It is. But we are a package set.

We have continued to work on “greening” our lives. I’m learning to cook new things (a lot of which are vegetarian). We get a box of vegetables and fruit every week from the farm, along with fresh bread, free range eggs, and fresh pressed apple juice. Felicity is my kangaroo baby, living in the wrap or the Ergo, taking all her naps and going to bed in them. We still cloth diaper, EC, and we are making the switch to family cloth. I hope we can continue with this trend for the long term.

Hannah is thriving in pre-school and continues to grow into an affectionate, empathetic, largely well-behaved little girl. She is a little firecracker and remains as spirited as ever.

Hope it won’t be so long before my next entry!

Felicity is well over 8 months old now, and I still haven’t posted anything that resembles a birth story. I thought that I should before the whole thing becomes too hazy, while I can still remember clearly how it played out.

It started at 9 days overdue. I wasn’t in labour, but my cervix was soft and dilating. Nothing much was going on. We had been really proactive from about 39 weeks on, trying to get labour started, because with Hannah I was two weeks overdue before I was induced with pitocin, an experience I did not want to repeat. Stretch and sweeps, walking, we tried it all!

So, when I hit 9 days over and had gone through the usual round of non-stress tests, including another ultrasound, the pressure was really on. By 42 weeks my midwife would have to transfer care to an OB; and while I had a good relationship with a good OB, I knew what that meant. Intervention (including induction), and the possible outcome of a caesarian. Indeed, this OB encouraged caesarians after my first birth because of the severe third degree tear I’d had. Time was running out.

I had badly desired a homebirth and had prepared well for one, but that desire would not be met with Felicity’s birth. We had decided to be prudent and birth in Victoria General, because my OB and family doctor felt so very strongly that a vaginal birth would quite probably have a disastrous outcome. My midwife felt it would be good to have the hospital in the event we did need it, but would have accepted either choice. We made the decision to birth in the hospital rather than risk transferring in the event of an emergency with some regret. And as it would turn out, homebirth is an entirely safe option for me, and will be the one I choose in the future. The fact that there would be a future chance for a homebirth played heavily in our decision to test my body’s ability to birth without catastrophe.

So, after another uneventful visit with the midwife at 41 weeks and 2 days, we asked her for the “concoction” that we had briefly talked about in the past to get labour started. She gave me two drops of lemon verbena, and instructed me to make it into a shake with 2 tbsp. of almond butter, 2 tbsp. of castor oil, and 100mL of Ceres apricot juice. I took it that afternoon, and we went home for the day.

After a few uneventful hours, aside from some minor cramping, I went to bed early, just in case. I dozed off and on until 10 or 10:30. When I woke up, I decided to have a bath, because I was getting quite uncomfortable, and there was a pattern to the contractions I was starting to feel. Hannah was already asleep in bed, and we had called my mom to come over to stay with her. Jay sat on the floor of the bathroom writing down the times of my contractions (and making funny letters) while I sat in the tub. We joked around like we always do. I got out of the tub after a little while and we decided to get ready to go to the hospital. I asked Jay to call our midwife, but he didn’t want to until we were leaving. When he did call, she bugged him about the fact he was supposed to have given her some notice! I’m not sure he’ll ever live that one down.

I talked to her for a minute on the phone while we were in the car. The contractions were strong, but I was able to talk through them. I have a pretty good pain tolerance, you could say, I think from years of being an active kid with a love of horses–and an induced labour with no pain medications already under my belt.

My doula was already on her way to meet us at Victoria General, and when we arrived, we all went through emergency to get to L&D. It was a bit of slow going thanks to the contractions, but we made it there. We went through the routine monitoring stuff–checked the baby’s vitals, checked mine (no lengthy EFM this time!) and then I went to the bathroom. Shortly after we had checked in, I was in a lot of pain, and starting to wonder if I could really do it again. I thought that if labour was going to be like this for hours (after all, this was my first uninduced labour) that there was no way I could do it. That turned out to be transition. I got into the bed and tried labouring on all fours (hoping that it would help with the tearing issue), but Felicity didn’t like that position and her heart rate dropped. So I switched to side lying.

I can’t recall ever having had an examination during my labour. I don’t think there was time. We were in action from the moment we arrived at the hospital. From the time we got there to the time she was born was only about 40 minutes. She was born with me in the side lying position (and still in the caul!), and the surprise was announced…another baby girl! Jay, who had had to sit down (thanks to some bad flashbacks to our first birth at Victoria General), got to cut the cord once it stopped pulsating. She was checked briefly and handed to me. We were then shown the umbilical cord–it was in a true knot! Felicity’s birth held two “good luck” omens!

I had a minor second degree tear that was easily stitched at bedside by the OB on call. My midwife had called him because she was concerned about a minor cervical prolapse, but he assured her it was normal and offered to do my stitches since he was already there. She was glad to accept, and we had begun to enjoy our time with our new baby girl. Felicity was and is the spitting image of Hannah, and holding her for the first time I had major deja vu. One of the first questions I’d had after she was born was whether or not I was okay. I was so scared I would have a repeat experience. I was so grateful for a promising start to our lives as a family of four. Our midwife offered to check us out at 3 am, but because my mother was asleep in our bed at home, we decided to stay overnight at the hospital.

In the morning, the nurses refused to let us leave because Felicity had no “evidence” of a wet diaper. A quick call to my midwife remedied that, and we were home by 10am, less than 12 hours after being admitted. We enjoyed a week of babymooning with Jay at home before he returned to work, and Felicity became my kangaroo baby. She still takes all her naps and even goes to bed in the baby carrier. And I experienced for the first time the joy of a new babe and motherhood without the feeling of hurt and trauma that I had experienced the first time–experiences that hindered my ability to bond with Hannah as a small infant. I was so grateful for the outcome, even if it was a compromise over our original plans.

Probably a year or so ago, I ordered some undyed yarn thinking that I would eventually try dyeing it myself. It took a while to work up to it, but a week or so ago I decided to get the food colouring next time I went to the store. We went yesterday, so I picked up 2 vials of each of the food colours they had–blue, yellow, red, and green. I opted to just use the three primary colours and see what kind of rainbow I could make with a three year old helper.

The first thing you have to do to dye yarn by this method is to soak your yarn for a while (at least a half an hour–I did overnight) in a mixture of tepid water and white vinegar. I did about 50/50, but I don’t think the proportion matters exactly. Then I gently squeezed out the excess and laid it out on the towel.

The kid and the yarn

I was almost giddy about how vibrant the yellow turned out!

H squeezed the yarn like a pro to ensure the food colouring was distributed throughout.

She is totally into it at this point.

Her favourite part, though, was squirting that food colouring until the yarn was well saturated! And yes, I’d recommend rubber gloves if you have any–we didn’t, and my husband will be mocking us endlessly until it wears off, I just know it.

After all the squirting and squeezing was done, our yarn and rag towel looked like this:

The yarn then got put into a glass bowl (which I covered with a plate) and then microwaved for 5 minutes on high.

After the first round in the microwave, I dribbled some water on it and zapped it again on high for 5 minutes. I am going to let it cool off, and then run it through the tap until the water runs clear (using tepid water). Then I’ll wash the yarn with Eucalan, hang it to dry, and wind it into a ball. Then I get to choose what sort of wonderous fluff I want to knit it into.

I’m going through a hard time with my little H-bomb. She is so many wonderful, wonderful things. Empathetic, caring, expressive, sweet, honest, energetic, innocent, kind, affectionate … I could go on and on. There is a gentleness to her. But sometimes (lately it feels like a lot of he time), she is…well, exhibiting less desireable traits.

She can be rude, defiant, impulsive, tempermental, destructive …

I have found myself, quite often, blaming myself. Realistically, it’s not my fault. She’s almost three. I know she’s pushing boundaries. She is asserting herself. She sees me not as trying to keep her safe and teach her things. She sees me as trying to “control” her. When she is running away from me when I try to get her into the house, or screaming bloody murder when I pick her up to bring her in, it is hard to remember these developmental “details” that are causing this kind of behaviour.

So, in the last week or so, I have been feeling a little bit down and a little bit stressed about it. I’m home with her all day. I have found as the week has worn on, though, that I feel a little more pensive and reflective about what it is to be a child, and what it is to be her mother. I consider myself privileged to be utterly loved by my sweet, cherubic little girl. The tough times are the price I pay for the good, and it’s not a price I resent by any means. I remember being small and feeling that utter “need” for things like, right freakin’ now, not in five minutes or two days or whatever. To her, it’s a physical thing, and it’s understandable that my being in her way would make her temper flare.

Today is mothers day, and a couple of days ago I had the sort of realisation that there are things I would change about my day-to-day life that would make me a better mother to her. I know there will be days where I am below my own standard, but today I tried to be what I expect and want myself to be. I wanted to spend “my” special day with the two people that make this day special for me: my daughters. We went to see Rio at Silver City, and H loved it. At the beginning of the movie there is a short about the squirrel from Ice Age, and she burst out laughing in a quiet theatre as soon as she saw him. Half the theatre laughed at her laughing! She was impeccably behaved through the whole movie, and not too bad when we did our errands at the mall. All hell broke loose when we stopped at Cannor Nurseries to pick up some supplies for our garden. And then a miracle: she fell asleep in the car.

At the theatre, F was on my front in the Beco, staring up at me. She was tired, but resisting going to sleep. At home, I usually rock with her and pat her bum or walk around. I stroked her fuzzy little hair and looked back down at her for a long time, watching her eyelids droop shut and open wide again. She fell asleep for a few minutes, and then woke up and spent much of the movie in my or Jay’s arms. When the movie got loud, she squealed along with it. She fell asleep nursing for a little while.

Baby F is talking a lot these days. Lots of cooing, and lots of shrieking and other kinds of noises, too. It’s wonderful most of the time (the shrieking isn’t so great if your head hurts or it’s the middle of the night!). I’m so excited to continue to watch her grow and thrive. She was 17 pounds, 5.5 ounces at just shy of 4 months old. I can’t believe she’s that old already. She is a baby, not a newborn.

Today is “one of those days”. Unfortunately, I feel like I have a lot of “those” days. I seem to be constantly at odds with my two-year-old, who is endlessly pushing boundaries and asserting her so-called independence. It’s frustrating. Add to that the fact that she stopped napping before she even reached two years old, and it seems like every day she gets tireder and tireder by the time 3 in the afternoon rolls around… and it’s a nightmare.

I have had a cold for a couple days, which by now is little more than the odd residual ache and some congestion. And the baby isn’t the greatest sleeper, which is no surprise, given that she’s only 9 weeks old (as of yesterday). So between frequent night nursings and the cold, and all the things that I need to at least try to do in a day, I’m feeling pretty worn out.

I wish that she understood the simple fact that, if she were easier on me (ie. listened better and obeyed more), I’d be able to do more with her (ie. take her for longer walks or to the park, on the bus, to the store, etc) without it being so much more stress and energy. I know that’s an unreasonable thing to expect from a 2.5 year old, but man oh man it would be nice and we’d both have so much more fun.

Today I just wanted to have a lie down, so I took both girls up to bed and managed to get the baby to sleep. H was a no-go, so I told her she could play quietly or read books while the baby and I slept (I baby-proofed our room really well and she can’t get into the other rooms). Well, “quietly” wasn’t something she could handle. Sigh. She is the only one in our family who doesn’t like to sleep. I just don’t get it.

I know this is a phase but I just can’t wait for it to be over. H, I love you, and you are sweet, intelligent, empathetic and extremely loveable, but you are driving me crazy, especially when you are overtired and cranky and won’t have a nap.

With baby F, I’ve done a number of things differently than I did with H when she was a baby. With H, I had all the fundamentals of my attitude toward parenting in mind, but as you move ahead you figure out what works for you and your family and what doesn’t. With F, those fundamentals have grown into more extensive “practice”, I guess you could say, and I have learned new things since H was a baby and integrated them into my parenting style. And F is a different baby, very different from H as an infant, so that means different things work (and don’t work) for her.

I have battled with a little bit of mommy “guilt” over these things. I wear F probably 75% of the time during the waking hours of the day. She takes at least 2 of her 3 naps in the Storchenwiege or the mei tai. I didn’t wear H so extensively. When it was time for her to nap, I nursed her down in our bed, or I put her in the swing, or when she was a little older, the crib. H was always a lousy sleeper right from the get-go, and the only place she’d sleep consistently (and for long) was in the swing. Maybe that’s because I didn’t wear her. Or maybe wearing her wouldn’t have made so much of a difference. I don’t know, and at this point, I can’t know. But I wish that I had worn her more, and that I had never ever let her sleep in the carseat, and that I hadn’t relied so much on a swing to soothe her. F sleeps well compared to H, as well as any newborn can be expected to (sometimes 3 hour stretches), and she won’t sleep in the carseat (she cries a lot in the car, unlike H), and she likes the swing but doesn’t sleep well or long in it (she is merely mesmerized by the fishes). And I hope with her to never even bother with a crib.

So, times change and things shift and I feel more strongly that these things are best for babies, or at least my babies–to be “attached,” close at all times, and not stressed. I feel some guilt that I didn’t know these things or do these things as much with H, but you can’t go back. I guess guilt and regret are normal parts of every day life, but I feel like as parents we are often our harshest critics. My husband tells me to lay off myself, and he’s right, but it’s not that easy. Especially when H and I have a bad day and don’t get along, or she’s not listening, I wonder if I should be blaming myself or if it’s something I’ve done.

Well, F is fussing so I have to go and tend to the small one’s most pressing need–sleep!

So, in our typical fashion, my husband and I decided to turn our world upsidedown for a few days. My computer was dying (like, really dying), so we decided to order a laptop to replace it. We had been talking for a while about doing that–now that I’m done my B.A., and taking care of the two kidlets full-time, it just didn’t seem like a good use of space to have a big computer desk and take up half the office for something that isn’t getting used so much these days. No more typing up lengthy papers and working on presentations or doing statistical analyses!

So, when it became reality that my computer was on its last legs and the laptop was on its way, we decided to go ahead and rejig our household arrangement. We have a two bedroom townhouse with ample storage, but my goodness, all the kids stuff you accrue! And my craft supplies are certainly not minor in terms of their space consumption as well. My husband donated the old computer tower to the University (minus the hard drive), gave my old desk to one of his fellow grad students, and we finally brought my sewing table over from my mom’s.

We now have our entire family of four in one bedroom. That might seem like a lot, but H has been wanting to sleep with us for a long time, and my husband and I didn’t think it was fair to say “you can’t sleep with us, but your little sister can”. So we put her twin sized bed right next to ours, moved some dressers around, and made her room an all-purpose sort of space. Ample room for drying laundry, sewing, and storing fabric and yarn or what-have-you. Hannah was so excited about how “pretty” her room was (mostly because she so badly wanted to play with my sewing machines) and to sleep in her bed in the new arrangement. My husband was excited to have the office to himself (he is positively giddy over making himself a chalkboard). I’m excited to be sharing a room with Hannah again (I love the family bed concept), and to have a functional sewing space again.

All in all, everyone wins, but then… as expected, it’s had a bit of an adjustment period. Last night baby F did not want to sleep. She woke H, who then did not want to go back to sleep. It was a long night. Learning how to make things work is always the hard part, though, and for the most part, I think it will work for us, as we learn to get over these hurdles.

One thing that has really wowed me about my biggest little girl is her language. Holy smokes can this kid communicate. At 2.5 I think it absolutely mind-blowing. She told me yesterday when she heard an airplane that it was “going to Vancouver”. Then a friend who was visiting with her baby, born 4 days before baby F, got told “I’m too young to drive”. Hannah then laughed and said “Nooo, I’m not too young”. At dinner time, she gently stroked her daddy’s arm, looked at him and said “I’m keeping you safe”.

Even though she drives me nuts at times (more often, I think, because I am tired!), I am eternally amazed by the growth and empathy of her. And as much as I love the baby stage with little F (and I do, boy do I, I am a baby addict, I think), watching them grow and develop through the toddler stage is pretty wonderful too.

Well, it’s February now and starting to feel a little bit like it would be nice for the winter to just end already. Of course, the last two days we’ve been blessed with gorgeous sunshine (but a strong nip to the air), so I’m not really complaining, I just miss the warmth and not having to dress in layers just to take the kiddos outside.

Contributing to the general malaise I’ve been feeling is a bit of a head cold. Not sure where we acquired it, but I suspect the absent-minded professor brought it home with him (I can’t say he never brought us anything). H always, always, always starts showing “signs” of illness by not sleeping well, and suffice it to say the last week or so has dragged on with her being under the weather. I think F has had the bug as well, but not as bad, so she’s only had a couple of  those nights (and really, even without a bug “long” nights are to be expected).

I have just gotten a bit of a dry cough, runny nose and sore throat. Hoping it doesn’t turn into much more. And looking oh-so-forward to the summer months…

Baby F has been having trouble with diaper rash. She seems to be very sensitive to any wetness on her skin at all. It is a disappointment to me to not use the dozens of hand-made cloth diapers I had for her for much more than a few weeks, but she will have outgrown them by now (five weeks) anyway. I haven’t had the chance to make her the next size, which might well be for the better. It is against my preferences to use disposables, but we have been using Seventh Generation ones during nap times and over night (or excursions outside). During her wakeful times, we have been ECing. Wakeful times are sort of few and far between (she sleeps a lot!) but ECing is going really well.

Between my hand-knit soakers/longies and the diapers, there is not much I made her that she can wear while pottying easily, so I have been designing and plotting some new patterns for myself. I also have now finished knitting her a beautiful eyelet twirl skirty.

So, in the typical style of my day-to-day life, I got busy and forgot I was writing this. While I was distracted, Hannah got a container of beef broth out of the pantry and used it to soak one of the living room blankets, her pants and some diapers. Also, since when are 2.5 year old girls almost the same as teenagers? She’s already telling me to be quiet, stop talking, and slamming her bedroom door!

Better get moving!