Birthday Bean

Gasp! It's been a year that Conrad was born. Really? Yes! We celebrated his first birthday on Sunday.

We started with a special pancake breakfast, then opened presents (among them a German Bobby Car--a model very similar to the one I and my brother rode many many years ago) before making cupcakes and different party food yummies. Woohoo--my little baby, who's now a toddler, had a real party! He loved the company (but hated the party hat), and he thoroughly enjoyed his birthday cupcake while his guests sang "Happy Birthday" in German, English, Russian, and Greek.

The biggest moment for this momma? Conrad stood on his own and without support, for the first time. The boy's growing up!

'Tis the season...

Christmas stockings are a first for me this year. I haven't had a stocking before, nor have I ever had a traditional American Christmas morning, despite having lived in the US for ten years. In the past DH and I opted for a German Christmas (the exchange of gifts--Bescherung--happened on Christmas Eve), although a very stripped down version: the few times that we were not visiting family over Christmas and spent it by ourselves we didn't even have a tree, since our old apartment was too small to fit one, and neither one of us owned any tree decoration.

This year will be different. The lure of a baby is irresistible, which is why we are hosting Christmas at our house for my parents and parents-in-law. It will be a German-American Christmas, with bits and pieces borrowed from both traditions. There will be goose and ham; the Vienna Sängerknaben and Bing Crosby; egg nog with and without alcohol; a real tree with fake lights; new pajamas and my great-grandma's Christmas pyramid. Most importantly, we'll do Bescherung on the 24th but also have stockings and stocking stuffers on the 25th.

Which brings me to today's picture.

I'm knitting Conrad a stocking. I asked my in-laws to mail their and DH's stockings, which they have done, and I'll have (cheap-ish) "souvenir" stockings for my parents that they can take home to Germany. But the Bean, the little Bean, he doesn't have a stocking yet! So I decided to knit him one. I started a few days ago and am almost halfway finished (I knitted a lot this afternoon, after I took the picture). I haven't done stranded knitting in a billion gazillion years--and it shows. The stitch definition leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm getting better, and perhaps--big question mark there!--I'll tackle the Insanity Closet project next year.

Back to the needles....

Check the correct answer

The boy in blue--that's Conrad. Judging by the (admittedly poor cell phone) picture below, is he:

(a) wondering where his momma is
(b) afraid of other children
(c) crying his head off
(d) none of the above.

The correct answer is D.

I cannot believe it! Today's first experience of daycare went so über-well that I'm almost shell-shocked (in a good way, if that's possible). The moment I put Conrad on the floor he darted off to check out all the unfamiliar toys (tasty book, anyone?) and hang with the other babies. That's little Sam he's playing with; Conrad's way of introducing himself was to pull off Sam's socks. And why not.

I stayed for an hour, per recommendation, during which Conrad looked at me twice, then I left. His teacher called me, per my request, and reported that Conrad ate his food without putting up a struggle (huh?) and went down for a nap without putting up a struggle (and again: huh?). When I picked him up three hours later he crawled over to say hi, then turned around to squeal in unison with his new pal Lily. I think I could have left the room again and he would not have noticed. My little hero didn't shed a single tear all day long, and neither did I.

And now it's time to thank you. You gals rock. Thank you so much for your comments and emails.
Vicki, by the time I read that you were on your way to Salt Lake City you had already left again. I hope you'll come back and that I'll be at the retreat next time around (I know some retreaters through the amazing knitting group at the amazing LYS Blazing Needles).
A-L, CongratulationsCongratulationsCongratulations! A January baby!! You're almost there, so be well, the two of you!
Meeries, vielen Dank für die lieben Grüße!

TDC

I'm an inspiration to my husband! I'm his muse!

Well, probably all wives (husbands, partners, etc.) are inspirations to their husbands (wives, partners, etc.), so I need to clarify. The resurrection of my blog inspired my husband to revive his own. For a long time he blogged about what he considers to be interesting dinner party conversation topics (thus his blog's name, The Tuesday Dinner Club, or TDC), such as food, books, arts, but he stopped writing in 2010 and didn't blog for a year. His most recent post is a very short summary of the past twelve months, and I'm going to copy & paste his entry to bring you up to speed (a lot of this you already know, and I apologize for the redundance). Here we go, I'm plagiarizing quoting DH:


What happened between last November and this one? I had hoped to build blogging momentum through NaBloPoMo, but I quickly fell off the wagon. We were yet again struggling (mentally and physically) with job applications on top of our regular teaching and research duties, and this time around we were also preparing for the imminent arrival of The Bean. TB made his grand entrance at the end of January 2011 and promptly began keeping us exhaustingly and exhilaratingly busy tending to his every need. M. naturally took point in terms of Beancare, while my normal work duties continued unabated, along with the job search, which thankfully turned out much more more positively this time: I landed a nice job in Salt Lake City.

The new opportunity meant an immediate amplification of stress and disruption, of course. House hunting, renting, packing, loading, trucking, flying, unloading, unpacking, shopping, repairing, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and so forth. And a conference in the US, half the summer in Germany, a conference in Sweden, new employee orientation .... and suddenly a teaching job for M., so last minute that there was no time to find daycare for TB. Up to this point, we have been juggling two full-time jobs, one full-time Bean, and an incomplete house. What spare time we've had has been largely devoted to sleeping.

But we've made steady progress and things are finally seeming to settle down. It seems reasonable to start writing in this space again. With some effort and discipline, regular TDC blogging may even prove sustainable.

I'm still thinking about what to write about in the rebooted TDC. The old categories, of course: writings read; art and music appreciated; movies, plays, television watched; items eaten, imbibed, and cooked. (...)

(See, my blog takes off where his ends: books, art, movies, food... it's all good and well, but what about "things knitted"? Well, for that you have yours truly. [Add to the list: "things sewn." Did I whet your appetite? Good.])

At some point this month I will go into the "suddenly a teaching job for M." and "a conference in Sweden" bits. Not now though. Now I need to go to bed and cry myself to sleep: the darling "TB" is starting daycare tomorrow morning. I'm a mess because of it; I hope he will fare better tomorrow than his momma.

My first

Happy Mother's Day!

Mine couldn't have been better: we walked, we talked, we laughed, we ate, we read, we cuddled.

I blinked, and three months had gone by

Happy three-month birthday, little guy!

I don't like mashed potatoes, especially not in my head

I vow to never, ever dismiss someone who is complaining of having a cold with the thought, Dude, get over it, it's just a common cold. Because, dearies, I have a cold, and I feel close to death. Well. Perhaps I exaggerate. But I do feel pretty awful. Like my head is stuffed with mashed potatoes, and mashed potatoes are in my nose, my ears, my throat. Yuck. I don't like mashed potatoes, not even when in perfect health.

So, while I did finish the knitting part of the lace scarf, I haven't grafted the top edge to the body. Kitchener stitch and mashed potatoes simply don't make for a winning combination.

I'm hoping for a better (knitting) day tomorrow.

Fortunately the Bean hasn't caught my cold and is as happy as a clam. Here's Conrad at 11 weeks:

King

Just give me one more week and I'll present you with a finished object. No, not the fair isle project, dear dw, which I haven't yet started, as you very well know. :) I'm almost done with the red lace scarf for my advisor, just in time, I might add, since I'm seeing her in two weeks.

Today's post, then, is not about knitting (surprise!) but about our first overnight outing with the Bean. I'm lying, of course, since we spent two weeks with him in Mississippi, but his grandma got Conrad a car seat, a bed, a bouncy chair, and a bathtub, so it all seemed just like home. Last weekend, however, we went to Pittsburgh and stayed at a hotel, which was quite adventurous. Since Conrad had proven himself to be an excellent air traveler (he's completely unfazed by airport- and airplane noise) we went about flying to Pittsburgh cool as cucumbers, only to realize once we got there that we needed a car seat for the rental car and that the Bean had nowhere to sleep, to bathe, and to have his diapers changed. Getting a car seat was wonderfully uncomplicated and not worth the tears I had shed in frightful anticipation (apparently every car rental place also rents infant seats); the solution to the bathing problem was also easy: we simply didn't bathe the Bean. Diaper changes, sleep, and play? Here:

Owning a full-sized bed ourselves, we've always been in confused awe at king-sized beds. Now that we're traveling with a Bean in tow, king size is making perfect sense. For a little Bean, that's plenty of room to play, sleep, and get one's undies changed, all the while the parents are hanging out with ya. (Co-sleeping did make me a tad nervous though, and I was happy that the hotel provided us with an infant travel bed the following night. I was almost shocked by how accommodating the hotel was.) We ended up spending a lot of time in bed even during the day, as it was rainy and gray the two-and-a-half days we were there, and our plans to go for long walks and such went to naught.

And the reason for flying to Pittsburgh in the first place, the curious reader asks? A million years ago, last September, I agreed to speak at a conference, foolishly assuming that at the age of two months Conrad would stay at home with his dad while I traveled by myself. Foolish was the thought not because Dear Husband can't handle the Bean for a weekend--he's proven himself to be a very independent babywearing/-feeding/-changing/-soothing sort of dad--but because it would have broken my heart to be separated from the Bean for so long. So, we all went to Pittsburgh, and while DH and Bean rolled around in bed, I spent the mornings conferencing (but I skipped the afternoons).

And (1) to talk to adults and (2) to talk to adults about topics not related to babies was almost mind-blowing. Although at some point I couldn't help myself but dragged this poor guy into a conversation about pumping breastmilk, only because he had mentioned the word "bottle." Except for that one instance I did pretty well, and no-one can accuse me of mommyjacking.

Now, we had been very excited to go to Pittsburgh, but as it turned out, while we sort of were in Pittsburg, we weren't really in Pittsburgh. The conference location was great, but the conference hotel was squished into a strange dystopian American landscape: looking out of our top floor window, we saw an interstate to the left, a row of chain restaurants in front of us, and a Walmart superstore to our immediate right. It was sad. The only afternoon stroll that the weather permitted took us to the Pittsburgh Strip, and that made up for the otherwise unfortunate impression we got of the city: the Strip has a gazillion of restaurants, and we ate ourselves silly on Enrico's biscotti and the best baklava ever. (The baklava alone are worth a trip to Pittsburgh, I kid you not. We were told that the secret was butter--isn't butter always the secret?--for these baklava [and what, please, is the plural of baklava?] were Syrian and not made with honey. OMG, so good!)

And now I going to catch up on y'alls blog posts and see what's happened in your lives recently. I haven't really followed anyone in, well, two months.

Two Years

We traded cold & snowy (rainy?) Boston for warm & sunny Mississippi to visit a newly minted set of grandparents (the Hubs's parents). It's been in the 70s for the entire two weeks we've been here, and I just love taking the Bean for walks through the hilly forest that is my in-law's neighborhood. It's good for both of us: Conrad is getting his much-needed dose of vitamin D and I'm walking off a few of those pregnancy pounds.

Yesterday I remembered that the last time we were here, Christmas 2009, I picked up the knitting needles after many years of neglect. I don't remember what triggered it, but it was with some urgency that I went to a Michaels store, picked up a bulky yarn and knitted a scarf, all in stockinette and with rolled-up edges. That's how I got hooked to knitting. The following March I began blogging, and once I remembered that, I realized I had forgotten about my second blogiversary, which was a few weeks back. Argh! To celebrate the occasion appropriately (if belatedly), I strapped the Bean into his car seat, took my FIL along to babysit the offspring, and went to the local yarn store (Mississippi's largest), The Knit Studio. And lemme tell you, The Knit Studio is making it on my list of favorite LYS. It's a spacious store with lots of room to walk around and daydream of future projects (as well as tables and chairs if the knitting bug bites you right there); the yarn selection is awesome and ranges from basic and affordable stuff (think Cascade 220 in a gazillion colors) to more luxurious and rare goods; and the owner is lovely and very helpful. The library is impressive, and if you have a husband in tow (or any other non-knitter who's rolling his [her] eyes at you for stepping into a yarn store), there's a "media room" where you can park your companion to read the news or watch TV. I'm totally won over by The Knit Studio.

Which is why I brought this home:

That's a lot of fuzzy stuff (angora! mohair!) for pre-summer knitting (who am I kidding?) and some cotton for (baby) knitting during the summer. Hooray!

***

Thank y'all for leaving such nice comments. Conrad is doing very, very well, and so am I. I love being a mom, and I seem to be doing a pretty good job, since the Bean is mostly happy and smiles and coos a lot. He's got some stomach issues, but supposedly (hopefully!) that gets better soon. In the meantime we take his mind off of his tummy by standing underneath his grandparents' ceiling fan--which he just *loves.* He gets a total kick out of watching the fan move.

Six Weeks

What they teach you in parenting class is that the first six weeks are crazy-slash-hellish, but that thereafter a routine develops and normal life resumes. Well. Conrad's almost seven weeks old, and if we were to take stock I'd say that (1) things never got as out of control as we had anticipated and (2) we're far from having a routine down. Sure, there have been obstacles and challenges (who knew breastfeeding is so damn difficult? I got the lactation consultant's phone number memorized in no time and consider the most useful parenting tool a device appropriately called My Brest Friend), but mostly it's been smooth sailing. Routine, however, I would not call the nightly circus of getting the baby to sleep: the only wisdom we've gathered is that whatever worked last night won't work tonight.

I suppose you know what comes next, namely that I'm going to tell you that I haven't knit a single stitch in over six weeks. And you're almost right. I have knit, but only one pattern repeat of that lace shawl I mentioned, oh, when was it? a lifetime ago? (Yes, I made up my mind, went against y'alls recommendation, and decided on... duh-duh-dum... the Lilac Leaf Shawl.) Of course there's no photographic evidence of the shawl, even though it's halfway done, thanks to that one extra week I spent waiting for the arrival of the Bean. Instead my camera is full of baby photos, so I'm going to slay you with cuteness and hope that this will distract from this post's lack of knitting content (as if that were to return any time soon! How some women nurse and knit at the same time is beyond me):

That's C at three weeks, all prim and proper. And a week later he really learned to smile and started to show his true nature, which is, at times, characterized by mischief:

And that's all for today. Happy St. Patrick's!

PS: Thank you so much for your good wishes and congratulatory comments!

The Bean Has Landed

And you guessed it: the Wollguts have had their baby!

Our little baby boy Conrad was born naturally January 29, weighing eight lbs, twelve oz (3958 g) and measuring twenty-two in (56 cm). He's a very social, sweet, and calm baby, and the past ten days truly have been the most amazing, most wondrous, and most beautiful in our lives. I don't have the words to describe how much I love this little guy, but to quote another new mom: "This love thing is AMAZING." So true.

*and the most sleep deprived.

Here Are the Goodies

Let me begin with a photo to illustrate my previous point that in December I knit up a storm:

That's ten finished objects! (I had planned to blog yesterday, and make it a Ten on Tuesday post.... Instead I knitted some more.)

It's all baby clothes, and none of these little cutsies took a long time to knit. But before I show you the goodies, lemme tell you that finishing these little cutsies took roughly the same amount of time as knitting them. Between Christmas and New Year's I had to multipurpose our dining table as "finishing station":

Do note that my copy of Sharon Brant's Ultimate Knitting Bible is open to the page illustrating the mattress stitch. I confess without shame that I suck at finishing techniques (which is why some of the FOs didn't get finished until December, even though I began knitting them in October). I don't like to seam, I don't like to graft, I don't like to sew on buttons, I don't like to weave in ends, I don't like to make decorative i-cord loops (y'all see what I mean in a minute). My little knitting marathon taught me two lessons: (1) don't trust Debbie Bliss, (2) read ahead in a pattern for the magic phrase "button band," and if you don't come across it, think of a different pattern or make adjustments to the design.

Re: item (1): Theoretically I love Debbie Bliss. I totally agree with her (and all the other designers insisting on knitting flat and weaving pieces together at the end, rather than knitting in the round as much as possible and thus reduce or altogether avoid seaming) that many adult-sized garments have a much more flattering fit and drape more nicely when knit flat. For a cardigan on which one has worked for weeks, if not months, it doesn't matter that seaming flat pieces together takes an additional two four hours. Now, with a baby sweater the story is somewhat different. First of all, who cares about drape or a perfect shoulder fit, especially since babies outgrow their clothes in, like, three seconds? More importantly, aren't (bulky) seams on the inside a bit uncomfy for little ones? It was soooo frustrating to spend a day's worth of knitting time seaming together that little white sweater you see on the table. Seriously, a stockinette stitch sweater in four flat pieces??

But here it is, Debbie Bliss's Star Sweater:

(The model is my old baby doll. Please disregard the black smear on her right cheek: my techniques for applying mascara have improved over the years, I promise. Do, however, notice the very cool, black-and-white cloth diaper. Yup, we're going to use cloth. That's not out-dated but apparently super hip.)

Complaint (2) is less severe. In a second you'll see three cardis that all came without instructions how to fasten the front openings, leaving me to experiment, rather disappointingly, with snaps and hooks and the like. I prefer old-fashioned button bands, that's what I learned.

From top to bottom: Snug (Cascade Eco Wool), Ribbed Baby Jacket (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran), and Peach Blossom Baby Jacket (Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino).

Snug in particular is a bit of a disaster, button-wise, and it needs some extra work. The pattern itself is awesome, and before I tried to come up with a way to close the fronts the cardi looked great:

The other two cardigans are held together by snaps; the i-cord thingies and the button are purely decorative.

I love the Peach Blossom Jacket so much I made a bonnet (Top Down Bonnet) and a pair of booties (Oh Baby! Baby Booties) to go with it, and I'm super happy with the set!

The booties are so darn cute, and so quick and easy to make, that I knit a second pair to go with the Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap (both made of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino):

The Sweet Baby Cap is totally awesome, in fact, it's so awesome that I made it three times. But only to get the size right... the pattern is sized for a six month old baby, and since I was hoping to make a hospital hat, I reduced the number of stitches from 121 to 91, as suggested by other knitters, but the resulting hat turned out too small (I assume that babies have heads bigger than ten inches? This baby is supposed to be nine pounds at birth). So I tried 121 stitches on smaller needles, and that yielded too big a hat. Since I don't sleep very well at night and am usually up between 3 and 5 am, and since at this point I had memorized the pattern, I made the cap a third time and started with 103 stitches. The hat fits the doll, who's got a 16 inch noggin. I'm hopeful it will fit the Bean! And just in case the Bean's head is smallish, I made yet another hat, the Welcome to the World Newborn Hat (Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino):

You think this concludes today's show? One more, peeps!

That's an Owlie Sleep Sack (Malabrigo Worsted), and if you can't guess how to use it, this should give you an idea:

The doll is bigger than a newborn baby, and I'm hoping the sleep sack fits the Bean long enough for us to take a few pictures. Check out the Ravelry Owlie photo gallery for some very cute, very sleepy babies chillin' in their sleep sacks; really, it was some of these photos that made me decide to knit the sack, even though I'm a bit skeptical regarding its practical value.

If you think I'm tired of baby knits, think again! I had imagined that knitting for baby would be one of the greatest rewards of pregnancy. That my summer and fall kept me too busy to knit saddened me quite a bit, and now I want to make up for lost time. Lined up in my knitting queue are:

That's four more cardigans, a vest, a jumper, a hat, and, in the large bag in the foreground, enough yarn to make a double-stranded stroller insert/sleeping-bag type bunting thingy. Don't call me crazy. I'm fully aware that no baby needs this many clothes, not even if he's a January baby born in New England. His grandparents have sent so many clothes our way that the Bean really doesn't need any handknitted garments. But what the heck?! My only obligations these days are to take 45-minute walks, pop prenatal vitamins, and try to eat healthy food (ice-cream contains protein, right?). Other than that the midwife recommends that I put up my feet and relax. What better way to relax than knit?! And I'm knitting bigger sizes now... for next fall... and... and... and after all, my mom keeps sending skein after skein of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino! Would you say no to that?! The only thing that eventually will get between me and those plastic bags is going into labor.

Happy New Year!

Dearies,

Worry not: everyone is happy, healthy, and well chez Wollgut, and I very much hope the same is true for you and yours and that you have had a splendid holiday season.

May I explain the long blog hiatus in just three bullet points?

--It happened: I'm now Dr. Wollgut. It hasn't sunk in yet! The writing, editing, revising, defending... it's all a blur.
--I'm hugely, enormously, gigantically pregnant, and still have three more weeks to waddle around on elephant feet before the Bean is scheduled to arrive.
--Did I ever mention that last semester I worked not my usual part-time teaching job but had (and still have) a full-time appointment and had accepted an additional part-time teaching gig?

The last seven months have left me breathless and my knitting needles idle. But the past ten days or so--during my winter break, which in January will transition seamlessly into maternity leave--I've been obsessed with knitting, and I have several little things drying on my blocking board. Photo shoot and blog update are to follow! It feels awesome to be back. :)

Happy New Year!

(Moi, on Christmas Day.)

Bean Prep

Howdy! I have great news: carpal tunnel syndrome is on its way OUT, and I started knitting again. Hurrah! I still have to wear a brace at night--apparently I sleep with my head on my left wrist--but typing is no longer as painful, and knitting isn't much of a problem at all. Still, I'm taking it easy (the knitting, that is; I don't have a choice but edit the dissertation like a maniac, and that won't change until my November 5 deadline), but slow progress is better than no progress. After two months of a little bit of knitting here and there I finished a baby blanket:

The pattern is Jared Flood's Tweed Baby Blanket, and there's nothing I don't love about the blanket. Love the garter stitch, love the fan-and-feather border, love the yarn (Knit Picks' City Tweet DK), love the colors, love everything. I had dreaded picking up 440 stitches and making an i-cord bind-off, but neither one was terrible.

Today the third trimester starts (?!?!!), and there isn't much evidence other than my growing belly that soon there's going to be a baby with us. So I made my first baby purchase. Just to have something to look at. I've been staring at these all day long:

So cute! Whether or not we'll use these is besides the point. It was an impulse purchase, but since the pair cost less than a fancy espresso drink--which I no longer buy--I don't feel bad about it.

And now that I'm so close to being completely done with grad work and decided not to do anything but knit baby clothes in December, I placed a huge order with Webs to have everything ready for a post-defense knitting marathon. You heard right: a marathon! I'll be in pajamas all day long, lounge on the sofa, listen to NPR, and knit knit knit. How about it? I've been daydreaming about December for weeks, especially once it became obvious that I wouldn't be able to make it to Rhinebeck this weekend. There's just too much "footnote fiddling" to take a weekend off... *sigh*

Here's recent me (already three weeks old and four pounds behind):

I Got Mail!

International mail at that. And look what was in the big, padded envelope: a hand-sewn bag, made specifically to my liking by DW! Thank you, danke, merci, and kiitos!! I won DW's giveaway of one of her farmer's market bags, and, folks, it is beautiful! Don't know if I want to throw dirty 'tatoes in there or juicy heirloom tomatoes. DW, you made my day!

So much so that I thought it's time for a blog post. It's been two months, and the reason for the long hiatus bears the evil name of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Either one of two causes is to blame: (1) dissertation or (2) pregnancy (personally I suspect that a combination of the two was at work).

As to (1): As perhaps mentioned before (ha ha), I had a busy summer. I typed, deleted, and typed some more for about twelve hours a day, every day for two months, but at the end I did finish the darn D. In mid-August I submitted the sucker, and while I'm still in the process of revising it, the dissertation is for all intents and purposes done. The defense is scheduled for November, and I'm in blissful denial about the details. In any event, my left wrist gave up just a few days before I turned in the opus magnum.

And (2)? Things are going really really well. The Bean is the male kind (it's a boy it's a boy it's a boy! Hurrah hurrah!!), and he and I have already made it past the halfway point. Not that evidence was needed, but the ultrasound pictures clearly show that the boy is absolutely adorable. A complete cutie. A couple of weeks ago I started noticing his movements, and by now he's advanced to handing out pretty solid kicks. Even Hubs can feel the boy! The only downside to pregnancy: increased amounts of fluids, which in my case caused CTS. Meh.

Because of CTS I can neither
(1) type nor
(2) knit.

Now you understand why this blog has taken the route of Sleeping Beauty and is temporarily hibernating. Not being able to knit for baby really sucks. Not blogging (or emailing!) sucks, too.

And now you need to forgive me, but that's as much typing I can do in one day... I'll leave you with photo a yours truly...

Surprise Baby!

Quick recap... here's photo of the Baby Surprise Jacket I finished a week ago...

Cute, eh? And soooo soft and cuddly. I asked you to guess who it's for, but no one dared to make a wild guess (chickens!). Since I can't keep mum about it much longer I'm just gonna blurt it out, right after I go through a list of candidates.

'Cause candidates there are many! Besides three tiny ones born to friends just recently, there is big time baby news in the family.

First, there's a November baby on its way. Proud mamma: my step-sister.

Second, a boy is arriving in December. Surprised papa: my little brother (barely out of his own diapers! school).

Third, a January baby is also on order. Its tentative name: Beanie. Its over-joyous, over-the-moonish parents are... drum rolls... champagne cork pops...: moi and the Hubs. We! Us! Beanie parents! YAY!!!!

That's three cousins all being born in the span of three months! My poor father, who says he doesn't much like kids (which we don't believe, since he is a great dad to us), is a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of triple grandfatherhood. Tee hee. I, on the other hand, couldn't be happier--for my brother, my step-sister, but most of all for us! The Beanie--who got its name at the first ultrasound, where it looked like a two centimeter long lima bean--has long been awaited, mostly in talk. When we got down to business, so to speak, we didn't expect that the Bean would turn up within just a few months. We found out in May, and what I remember from our England trip most vividly are the frequent stops to Boots to get more pregger tests: I successfully peed on sticks in London, Oxford, York, and Manchester!

Perhaps now you can guess why there wasn't much knitting or blogging in June. 'Cause I was in the bathroom, thank you very much. Morning sickness translated in my case into afternoon-evening-night sickness, although it's gotten much better over the last couple of weeks. Now I throw up only at midnight. Progress!

I'm totally fascinated by the pregnancy changes. I mean, you hear this stuff about weird appetite and the whole morning sickness thing, and it's all true (creamed herring bites, anyone? Some OJ with that?). But the craziest thing is my sense of smell, which especially during the first two months was über-human: I could smell California from here. Now that I'm in my second trimester things are returning to normal. I suppose this will change again once there's a bump to carry in front of me. (Hel-lo bump.... where are you?)

Good night now. The Beanie needs sleep. 'Cause this week it's growing from "medium peach" to "small grapefruit" size--and that's a lot of growing!

(Oh... the cardi? Yes, for the Beanie. Can't you tell? It's green! Like green lima beans!)