Happy Holidays

So where were we? Oh yes, it was the end of July, shortly after I had broke a couple ribs, Gillian and Nick were about to come home for a wedding, and Annie was still pregnant.

Um yeah, a few things have happened since then. Gillian's visit turned into a whirlwind of activity with having no less than four extra people sleeping here which continued to grow in number until the climatic night where there were 14 young adults slumbering under the sheets and blanket fort they had created in the livingroom.


It's the simple pleasures in life that mean the most and create lasting memories, whether it's building a fort in the livingroom, playing Simon Says, Twister, Wiffleball, or Hide and Go Seek after dark, regardless of your age.

Fast forward to the month of September and my ribs are finally mended, and Annie's pregnancy took yet another turn. She was put on modified bedrest, meaning no activity, just sitting. I sure could have used her help during her move out of my sister's house and into the home of her childhood where her brothers live. A little cleaning, sanding, plastering, painting, plumbing, etc help wouldn't have hurt either, not to mention grocery shopping, laundry, and nursery set up. :o) Most days in September and October found me doing one or more of the aforementioned chores each day at the kids house with the hopes that the remodel would be completed before the baby was born.

We almost made it.

Due to all the other complications Annie had with her pregnancy she was to be induced on Monday November 1. We were thrilled when it looked like she was going to be able to carry this baby full term. (Oct 30 was the beginning of her 39th week). Not sure why I thought the end was in sight at that point, apparently it was just wishful thinking.

Midday Thursday Oct 29 , while I was painting, Annie went into labor. As any of you know who have gone through labor yourself, in the beginning it wasn't bad, we (Annie) worked through it until they were coming at 4 minutes intervals and were getting a little intense. Off to the hospital we went, it was now early evening on Thursday. We stayed in the OB triage unit until late night (11:00 pm-ish) and they sent us home. Contractions 3 minutes apart. By 6AM Friday her contractions were 2.5 - 2 min apart and we were still at home. We stayed home until sometime Friday afternoon. (memories are kinda foggy I hadn't slept for more than 30 hours by then) By Saturday early early morning (pre-dawn? dawn?) I was ready to hit the wall, I can only imagine what Annie truly felt. That's when they gave the OK and she got an epidural. She was finally able to catch a catnap here and there, I was more concerned with other issues and couldn't sleep. The baby was showing signs of distress with each contraction and Annie's blood pressure was very unstable. The decision to take the baby by c-section was made at 8:30ish. At this point I'm sure there are plenty of you out there thinking they should have done that sooner, but they couldn't. Annie had been on blood thinning meds throughout the pregnancy because of that blood clot in her chest so any kind of surgery (including the epidural) until the meds were out of her system was too great a risk.

At 9:38 AM October 31, 2009 William "Liam" John was born.


7 lbs. 15 oz, 19.5"....I remember cuz I wrote it on my hand, see below. giggle/snort



How about another picture with some knitterly stuff?


All the babes in the nursery got pumpkin hats for their Halloween Birthdays. :o) I can hear your collective "awwww". Thanx to the stealth knitter who made these hats.

While Liam is a very easy baby, calm and peaceful, healthy eater, good sleeper, and just the most adorable baby ever, (no grandmotherly bias here) the last two months haven't been easy. I really really figured the tough stuff was over. Annie's pregnancy had been a long one, punctuated with lots of problems and difficulties. I had really thought she had had her share and it was going to be smooth sailing from here on out. I thought wrong. After being discharged Mom and babe were healthy and happy. I was staying with Annie to help out where I could and maybe just maybe get some of those last minute house remodel things done too. It didn't work out that way. After a few days Annie was admitted into the hospital due to complications with her c-section incision and a large hematoma beneath the abdominal wall. She was there a week. I was at her house with a nursing newborn who couldn't nurse, cuz of the IV meds his mom was on. I remember one particular night 'round about 3:00AM while I was changing a diaper and Bart came in to see what was going on. He grinned and said something like, 'Gee Mom this is the 5th time around for you' I replied that yes while it was the 5th time I was taking care of a brand new baby all by myself, the other 4 times I didn't have to make up bottles in the wee hours nor was I 50 years old, there IS a reason people my age don't have babies. I'm pretty sure its mostly cuz of that lack of sleep thing.

Liam and I while the kids were down stairs eating dinner, apparently I was tired.


It is now Christmas day. I have been at home sleeping in my own bed since Dec 16, having been staying with Annie and Liam since Oct. 29th. Even though Annie's hospital stay was only a week, she had come home with a drain in one side of her abdomen, and portion of her c-section incision re-opened. A nurse came to the house twice a day to change the dressing, the packing within the incision wound and drain the drain. The extent of baby care Annie was able to do was minimal at best, at times even nursing was too much. A week later the drain was removed. After a few more weeks with her incisional wound continuing to worsen, her care was transferred to a surgeon who immediately re-opened her entire c-section incision. The wound is still open, healing from the inside out. The nurses still come to the house every other day now due to a new type of packing they were able to get for her. It will take several more weeks at best to be healed to the point where Annie is on her feet again, doing anything much more than baby care, but at least she is healing now.

I've tried not to get too graphic in the explanations of what is happening to Annie right now. I hope I have not been guilty of TMI, but I just wanted to let you know what has been going on in and around the Hermitage, and in it's secondary locale, cuz truly the kid's house in town has been nothing more than another hermitage within the city. I've been seeing and doing nothing outside its four walls for a very long time other than taking Annie or Liam to their doc appointments and maybe getting out to grocery shop every now and then.

Hermitage II is also filled with the people I love most so it too is Home even if Joe wasn't there, and it wasn't my bed. Gillian came home earlier than planned for the holidays to help out with Annie and Liam so once again I found myself living in the old homestead with ALL my kids. It's nice to know that I wasn't the only one who had a tough time staying awake during her turn of baby care. :oP


At Home just like before, just me and my kids, before Joe, before they grew into adulthood, cooking meals for 5, doing one or two loads of laundry a day, playing games, and changing diapers. Home, where three simple stomps on the floor means drop everything and come running someone needs help upstairs, where Mom's car is never parked on the street, and where a good nights sleep means you only wake once or twice through the night.

Home IS where the heart is.

Happy Holidays

Another To-Be-Finished

One more item to be thrown upon the TBF* pile.


Made with one skein of supersocke 100. I had just a teeny tiny bit left. So little left in fact, I wasn't absolutely sure I was going to be able to match the shoulders. Oh well, the goddess of yardage and I go back a long time. You know that sickening feel in the pit of your stomach when you think you might run out of yarn at the very end? It is becoming a required ritual for me. The goddess of yardage and I are so entwined I don't think I could knit anything and bypass that stage.

I have a couple of other things on the needles as well as a few at the ready to begin. I'm still sorely lacking in babyboy appropriate yarns but I'm making due. One thing on the needles is a little surplus sweater (original pattern from 1957). I don't really care for surplus style sweaters but the construction caught my eye. The bodice is knit in one piece and then a round yoke is picked up. Of course I had to change it before I even started, but it's coming along nicely. I'm working it in garter stitch, I think the juxtaposition of the garter ridges at the bodice/yoke transition might prove to be interesting.

Also on the needles is a size 2 "snowsuit", (original pattern from same book as the surplus sweater). Of course I had to modify, and size it down to a 6 month-ish size. I'm using Caron Simply Soft. Sheesh, I didn't realize how snobbish my fingers had gotten. Everyone knows this workhorse, stand by, dependable, been around forever, yarn is nice for baby stuff. Super soft, washable, and cheap, what more could a person want? Um, yeah, I can only handle working with for so long then the plastic-ness begins to creep me out. Who knew I had such delicate finger tips!?! You'd never be able to guess such was the case if you ever saw my never manicured much abused hands.

I've also found what I think is to be the perfect "lace" blanket/wrap for Babyboy. I have a few "normal" blanket patterns planned but I really wanted a lighter than usual weight blanket too. Something drapy and light weight either means 8-12 stitches per inch with thread-like yarn, or lace. Sure thing, me, the one who has issues with project completion coupled with a short attention span knitting a blanket at 8 or more stitches to the inch. That's not going to happen. So lace it is. But a manly man lace nothing frilly or girly. Something geometric would be good. Plans now are for a blanket worked in garter (a manly stitch) with a couple of plain borders separated with a row of simple eyelets and a center panel of eyelet diamonds. I think it will work. I haven't started it yet, not even sure what yarn I'll use, but I am keeping my eyes and options open.

I've also been playing around searching for that perfect sloper for babyboy pants/shorts. Do other people do this? Find/create a pattern for a given garment that is simple-no-frills and then use it as the basis for all variations. It's like having a muslin sloper but instead of sewing the garment I'm knitting it.

*TBF to-be-finished. Knitting is complete seams and/or buttons needed.

Kicking

Just had to make note of this momentous event....

BabyBoy is kicking his mother. Granted he's been kicking for a while now, but it wasn't until today that Annie actually felt it.

btw, I think I forgot to mention the other day when I posted the latest sonogram pix, he weighs 6 oz. That is about the equivalent of 1.5 sticks of butter. :o)

It's a BOY

Today Annie had another appointment with her High Risk OB. It was a very quick visit with the doctor telling her everything was just fine, and a glorious hour of watching Baby Boy flip, twist, turn, punch, and kick his mother. :o) The super thorough sonogram detected and measured all major organs and limbs....including that third leg which told us, he is a he. giggle/snort

See? (the angle of the pic is upward through the pelvic girdle. The arrow indicates his boy bits on either side of that (above and below in the photo) are his hip bones or perhaps they are his knees??? :0P


Hopefully this will be the only X-rated pic that will ever be published of him. :o)


I know these pix are often difficult to decipher but here is a one of those cute baby toes. Toes of his foot are nearly centered in the photo. You can see the 5 little toes and the complete sole of his foot.

And now the collective "aawwww" baby boy in profile picture with his left forearm and finger visible as he reaches up to give mom a punch.



I know there has not been much knitting content of late. And if the truth be said, not a lot of content period. Sorry 'bout that guys. Still no knitting content for you except to say I began a couple lace projects and well, you know what lace looks like when it still on the needles. Yup yarn barf, it looks like yarn barf so I won't bother with photos.

One of the lace pieces is/was a lace caplet. I'm on the fence as to whether I'm actually going to finish it or frog it. I can't steer you to a pattern cuz there isn't one. It's just a piece where I took a little bit of a lace pattern from one pattern, stole a little from another, cobbled together another lace from yet another couple of patterns and then kinda freewheeled it with generic caplet pattern as a guideline for sizing. I'm not sure at this point if I don't like the play of the patterns of I just don't like the idea of a caplet. Another thing that is holding me back is the fact that I have very little experience with lace and absolutely zero when it comes to making up a lace pattern. Will the patterns play nice??? I think so, but I'm not overly optimistic about it and frankly a little intimidated.

Still having the lace bug within my soul I decided to cast on this Drops 94-14 pattern. It's going well. Worked bottom up, sleeves joined for a seamless lace yoke. About 10cm to go on the body and then onward to the sleeves.

BUT......
Now that I know he is a he?????? I just might have to get some babyboy knitting started. Just kidding, I won't start any babyboy knitting until Sunday, Saturday at the very earliest. And that's cuz I'm having a bunch of knitting buddies out to the house for a day of dyeing. Now that I know he is a he I'll be dyeing plenty of babyboy appropriately colored yarns and fibers, thus the delayed start of the actual knitting. ;o)

Almost FO's

Nope none of these are finished. Some need buttons, some need blocking, some need ends worked in and some need seams.

Ick.

At least for now it is ick. I don't mind the blocking bit, and buttons? eh, if I find/have buttons I like. But the other finishing tasks.....?.....let's just say I have a hate/love relationship with them. Notice the hate part of that equation comes first, and to be quite frank is the typical sum total of my feelings on the matter. Usually. Maybe it's just me, but I can and will let a so-close-you-can-almost-wear FO sit idle for days, weeks, months, and if the whole true be told, occasionally years!

I can't explain it other than to say, as much as I detest the chore of finishing, I do have days (rarely, but they do occur) that all I want to do are finishing tasks. I figure since this baby is still several months away from making his/her debut the chances one of those extremely rare finishing days will come, hopefully. :o)

I've thrown caution to the wind and have just been knitting willy-nilly. Note the various sizes of the above pictured sweaters and socks. It is an undeniable fact that the child will grow, so as long as it is not too small to begin with, it will fit at some point. Another reason for my hit and miss approach to this knitting is believe it or not, massive stash notwithstanding, I have a very small amount of baby appropriate yarn. Darn the luck, I have to do some yarn shopping, sigh. ;o)

There's not much new under the sun up there in that photo. Of course there is an EZ Surprise (red), and an EZ Surplice Surprise (yellow). The center blue/brown sweater is the Seamless Yoke Baby Sweater (Ravelry link) [non-Rav link here] This is a really nice sweater. The sweater in the upper left of the photo is a vintage pattern that is eh, the tiny grey sweater is also a vintage pattern but has a very intriguing construction. This sweater will prob'ly never be worn by the baby to be, but certainly a cousin of this design will be. The grey sweater was worked at a gauge of 12 stitches to the inch, to me that's a just a tad bit ridiculous. The huge "sweater" in the lower right isn't going to be a sweater at all, it's just a bodice for a little jumper I have in mind. I have some purple wool to make the skirt but that will be toddler size.

As for the socks, the pink, red, and green socks are just plain old ribbed socks. The yellow socks are The Sweetest Little Baby Socks (rav link) and the blue socks are the Lacy Rib Baby Socks (rav link) [non rav pdf here] Not sure which one of these I like the best, the stitch pattern is very similar. On the needles are baby Jaywalkers, and up next are baby No-Purl Monkeys. (rav link) [non rav link here]

Oooo how do you like my needles??? Yeah I know you really can't see them but I love them! I re-fashioned them myself. I had to, I've been totally obsessed with knitting these little socks. Each pair has been made differently and I don't mean the stitch patterns. I've been playing with different toes and heels, top down and toe up, dpns, 2 circs, and magic loop and having a marvelous time. The only thing that was really bugging me was the length of my dpns. When you've only got 30ish stitches on your needles 7 inch dpns is a little over kill wouldn't you say? So I dove into my stash of needles, yes Virginia, I do have an enormous stash of needles too. A few snips with some wire cutters a little bit of filing and ta da. Now I have 4 sets of 5 dpns, 4.5" long, in sizes zero, one, and two. (I have two sets of size two cuz I made a set out of some vintage casein dpns too.) I know you can buy such things, but making them seemed just as simple, a whole lot cheaper, and besides, all those needles were just languishing in boxes anyway....you have no idea have many needles I have, sigh, and I've even given away more complete sets of needles than I can count, but I digress....

So now that I have all these sock specific shorter needles, plus the fact that a baby sock can be whipped out in an hour or two I needed a bag devoted to tiny baby socks.....doesn't everyone? Tune in soon and I'll show you my new baby sock bag.

Annie/Baby update:
All is quiet and progressing well. No emergencies and aside from a few weepy days (don't we all remember those well?) everything is fine and dandy. Tomorrow we just might learn if this little one is a boy or a girl.

The count down begins

Notice anything different?

Look over there --------->

I'm going to be a grandma again. :o)

This developing bundle of joy will be my daughter Annie's first child.

Annie's official due date is November 6th, an eternity from now, but the birth will be earlier than that. I know this because Annie will have a scheduled delivery for medical reasons. The really strange thing about this pregnancy is that while it is putting her health at risk now, it actually saved her before. Because of a positive at home pregnancy test Annie decided she ought to have a doctor look at her painful, swollen, numb arm, which she had been dealing with (trying to ignore) for over a week. One glance by the doc and she was hospitalized. Diagnosis? A blood clot in her left subclavian vein. Briefly stated, she had/has a blood clot, in a very large vein, in her chest, not very far from her heart. She was immediately placed on a blood thinner, (Lovenox, two injections a day, which she does herself.)

Annie's hospital stay was short (3 days) but for a while there the docs didn't want her left alone, nor allowed her to go back to work. (Annie had two jobs a bartender and a waitress) They also said no to bringing her home with me, the Hermitage is too far from a hospital. So aside from the typical lifestyle changes one must go through with pregnancy, Annie had to give up her jobs, and her apartment. She's now living with my sister in town and my sister's couch has seen a lot of use lately with me sleeping on it. We've had 2 ER visits. Both were false alarms but when someone with a total occlusion of the left subclavian displays classic heart attack symptoms you go to the ER. And when someone on blood thinners displays classic stroke symptoms you go to the ER.

Our weeks and days have been filled with doctor visits and blood tests. Every test ran for the purpose of determining the cause of the clot have come back normal. I guess the cause of the clot is something we may never know. What we do know right now is that the clot is dissipating. A doppler test on the clot Tuesday detected some minimal flow through the vein. (yea!) They told us it would take at least three months for the clot to be completely gone, another doppler will be done in mid-June to confirm that. The Lovenox really doesn't dissolve the clot, Annie's body is doing that on its own, the Lovenox is used so no other clots form.

The doc has given Annie permission to find another job if 1) she's not on her feet all day 2) she's not sitting all day 3) she does no lifting 4) the working environment is such that there is no possibility of slipping and falling (ie wet floors, tile floors) 5) and the job must be stress free......um yeah.......jobs are plentiful right now even without restrictions. Annie doesn't have to be watched 24/7 anymore but she does have to be mindful of her surroundings, what she does and what her body is doing (ie pains, breathing difficulties, bruising etc). I'm trying very hard not to hover, but its difficult to let her do anything or go anywhere with out me.

At this point it is prob'ly unlikely she'll throw the clot, or miscarry, but the risk of bleeding out due to a simple fall (internal hemorrhage) or a bump on the head (a stroke) or a simple cut from a broken glass or chopping onions, could be a problem. Lovenox is a blood thinner that usually is very easy to manage, the dosage is based on weight, but being pregnant with the expected weight increases and the higher hemoglobin levels it's a little bit harder to manage, not to mention they have no idea why she even got the clot to begin with.....Oy, this going to be a very looooong pregnancy.

Soon, if I'm up to it, I'll take some pix of the baby knitting I've been doing. 4 sweaters and 4 pairs of socks. It is amazing what you can get done in a doctors waiting room! LOL No not all of it is for Annie's little bundle, technically the first couple pairs of the socks and a couple of the sweaters are actually for some of Gillian's friends.

So now you know why I've been AWOL for so very long. Lately I've been lucky if I get my email checked every few days. I am seriously considering a mini laptop or maybe just a Kindle. I feel so out of touch with the world.