March 28, 2016 ~ The Day Before A Full Hand

Almost five

 

This one.  She’s turning five tomorrow.  A full hand.  For a while, she was nervous, scared even, about turning five.  It was a new number, she’d never been five before.  Eventually, she decided she was excited, and only a little nervous about it.  She is always a bit tentative about new things, even fun and exciting new things.  Still a very big snuggler, thankfully.  If at all possible, I really don’t want her to grow out of that.

She’s finally understood that she’ll always be my baby, even though she’s not a baby any more.  There may be a bit of baby fat there, but she’s not a baby.

She’s a sensitive soul, quick to feel big feelings.  One day she’s asking when I’m going to die.  (Nice, kid.  Just because you don’t like quiet time). Two days later she’s crying because she doesn’t want me to die, because I make the best sandwiches.  (I’ll take that, food is love).  She’ll cry if an animal is hurt in a show, or if someone is mean to someone else.  Watching Star Wars with her was an experience, as was Toy Story 2 (and Toy Story 3, and …)

She can count to 1,114 (just ask Stu!) and loves getting math questions right, though she thinks she doesn’t know how to do math. Frustration comes quickly to her, but can easily be banished with a few encouraging words.

I’m very much enjoying watching this little person develop and grow.

I love my peanut.

See also:

• March 4, 2016 ~ Can You Die Now, Please?
• March 30, 2015 ~ Ashlin’s On-Going Birthday
• March 27, 2015 ~ Dribbling With No Hands
• March 21, 2014 ~ So Big
• March 29, 2013 ~ Birthday Girl
• March 29, 2012
• March 29, 2011

March 28, 2014 ~ One Day Shy

Brand New

Deep Thoughts

One

Two

Three

So fast!  How can she be three?  Well, one day shy of three.  Crazy.

January 17, 2014 ~ Distractions

Sunny Blanket in Blue

So this is the latest knitting project I’ve finished.  It’s the Sunny Baby Blanket from the TLC website.  I worked it up in the blue as it will be gifted to a co-worker who has a baby boy a few weeks ago.  A baby he hadn’t told us was coming, so I wasn’t able to get it to him earlier.  I finished it over the holiday, and will be seeing him next week.

Blocking seems to have evened out the stitches a bit, and made the lines straighter.  I love my makeshift blocking table, though my husband would probably appreciate it if I could do it somewhere else.  He likes using the dining room when he plays his race car game. (To be fair, the game sounds like fun, real race tracks, realistic cars, actual race procedure with qualifying and test runs).  But he gave it up for me.  Sweetie.

I’m almost done with another blanket, Simple Lines, which will also be for a co-worker.  Though this one is expecting a boy, to arrive sometime in February.  I’ll also be seeing him this week.  I started this one on a set of circular cubic needles, but got a belated (self-chosen) Three Kings present…

New Toy

… and switched over to one of the new tips to finish.  They’re lovely.  I think after this blanket, I may switch over to something smaller, maybe something on double pointed needles.  Maybe even my first pair of socks!

November 25, 2013 ~ X-Box

X-Box with Hat

A few months ago (yeah, I know!) I made a blanket and hat for my cousin’s baby. At the time, they didn’t know/weren’t telling the gender of the baby.  And baby blankets are so much fun to crochet.  I googled around and found an interesting pattern – X-Box Stitch. It looked like a fun pattern, not too gender biased.  It would work well!

I had a big skein of Loops & Threads in Pee Wee Prints, a lovely blue and green variegated baby yarn.  I had bought it on sale because I thought it was gorgeous.  As I needed something neutral, I decided to use that.  Besides, it’s a really soft yarn.

The pattern was fun.  Almost like a box stitch, but not quite as structured.  It’s a very difficult to see how lovely this pattern is with the stripy yarn.  It’s a series of crossed double crochets following regular double crochets.  Easy.  Fast.  I will use this pattern again in a solid yarn.

X’s and border

I ended up doing a white border using a stitch combo from the book I had on borders – Around the Corner:  Crochet Borders. I’ve used this book often for edging ideas.  It’s always fun to try something new.  I picked edging #150, but added an extra row of half double crochet between the second and third rounds, just to try to make it feel a bit more substantial, more in line with the blanket itself.  I hadn’t done any stitches on the back post, (or front post) before, so that was a bit interesting, but gave the edging a bit of extra texture.

I had a bit of yarn left over after the blanket, so decided to knit a hat to match.  I like trying to use up the extra yarn with something fun and useful. And well, knitting was still very new.  So, a simple umbilical hat.

Hat

This was only the second hat I’ve knit in the round, so getting that first join done was a bit tricky.  But it went fast once that was done.  Up to the point of the decreases, and the double pointed needles.  They were so not fun. I also had problem with the I-cord, but was able to get something that worked well enough!

Getting the cord long enough to knot wasn’t much fun.  It was awkward, and unweildy.  But at last, it was done.  This had was enough to make me want to avoid DPN’s as much as possible.  But not enough to put me off knitting!  More projects to follow!

DPN’s and i-cord

almost there

Related articles

• November 24, 2013 ~ Purple (Not Quite) Socks (lisasff.wordpress.com)
• October 23, 2013 ~ Lacy and Lovey (lisasff.wordpress.com)

June 11, 2013

So big!

So big!  My baby has gotten so big, almost overnight.  Or at least over the past week.  She’s now working on potty training, and though she’s a bit hit or miss now, she’s interested and trying.  As we did with Teagan, she gets her reinforcement in the shape of a mini-marshmallow.  Yesterday, she earned three marshmallows.  True to herself, she also asks for a high-five, or fives, as she says.

This morning, she walked into day care, proud as a peacock.  As soon as she stepped into the room she threw her arms wide and bellowed out “Ashlin pee pee potty!  Marsh-a-mallow!  Fives!”

I love how she says marshmallow:

Today, again, three marshmallows, which she decided to trade in for a dum-dum lollipop.  I was hoping to make her count out the marshmallows, one at a time.  I love how she says marshmallow.

So proud of her.  A bit sad that some of the last bit of my baby is going away.  But so proud of my little peanut.

Also, it will be nice to not change diapers any more.

March 29, 2013 ~ Birthday Girl

Cool girl

Look at her.  She’s so big!  She’s two now, and I’m amazed at how quickly she’s gotten this big.

She’s become quite the little personality.  In height only, not size.  Like her appetite, her personality is super-sized.  Tonight at her birthday pancake dinner, the waiter was impressed at how much of the Grand Slam she put away.  (One big pancake, half the eggs, half the hash-browns, one sausage, chocolate milk, and one pancake pop).

She has so many words and loves putting them together.  Sentences.  Many of her words end with a -tch, Russian sounding.  Animals?  She has them down, and their sounds too!  Reading?  She’ll read a book to you, if you ask her just the right way.  She loves giving hugs, and must hug everyone at the day care before we can leave at night.  She hugs them all hello too!

She has little fear, going down slides and giggling for more before her bigger sister finds her own courage.  Swings are still a big treat, and she will ask for more tickles and raspberries.  Then ask you to stop, barely getting those words out before she asks for “more, please!!!!!!”  Sometimes she does get scared, crowds, loud noises, strange people.  When she does, she’ll cling to you, asking to be picked up, to hold your hand.  That simple act seems to give her strength and she’ll end up running off to play soon.  She’ll also ask to hold hands when she’s tired.  Maybe that small comfort helps her relax to sleep.

She loves music and will dance dance dance.  Yo Gabba Gabba and Fresh Beat Band are two of her favorite shows, though Steve and Blue and Timmy rank up there too.  She thinks Steve and Blue live in a house on our walk.  She and her stuffed Foofa will sit next to each other on the sofa (foofacouchtch!) and watch a show before bed, usually while she holds her giant strawberry or her tiny sheep.

If she hurts you or anyone, usually by mistake, she’ll apologize, saying sorry while making the sign on the person she’s apologizing too.  Then she’ll give you a hug and a kiss.

She’s quieter than her sister, but not quiet.  She will sit and watch, planning, plotting.  She’ll let Teagan get into trouble and while we’re distracted she’ll dive off the sofa/chair/slide.

This little person has changed our lives.  Love her so much.  Happy birthday baby, mommy loves you.

January 23, 2013

The pictures tell it all.

Sigh.

She’s a big girl.

Sigh.

July 19, 2012

Arrrr. Happy birthday to me!

PS. Teagan picked the card out.

April 5, 2012

Teagan's Spring Flower

Looking back on the year so far, I’ve done pretty well with my heretofore unstated challenge for writing a Post a Day.  But lately I’ve been feeling that I’m reaching for material to write about.  That it’s becoming a chore and not something I want to do.  Something I like to do.  I don’t think I’m improving my writing, but writing for posting’s sake.

I’m glad I’ve done it though.  I have some posts I know I’ll go back to as time passes.  Some moments that I’m glad I recorded, even with my mediocre writing.

So, maybe it’s time to stop the daily posts.  I will still post…  this has been a sort of journal of mine for over six years.  There will be so many little bits of life I won’t want to forget, so many cute things that the girls will do that I won’t want to forget.  So many things I’ll want to share.  If I don’t write them down, I know I will forget.  They’ll fade.

And then I won’t have lovely things to embarrass them with when they get older.  I wonder how many times I can post pictures of their bums or them picking their nose or a video of them farting.  Maybe just sharing their artwork, or simply posting a picture of them sleeping.

Everyone loves a baby sleeping, don’t they?

Ashlin sleeping hard at day care

 

March 29, 2012

Tower

So, my baby turns one today.  I can’t believe it’s been a full year already.  It zoomed by in the blink of a bleary eye.  I was a bit bittersweet this morning watching her eat gold fish (and toast, and cheese, and fruit, and, and…), knowing I was sending her off to day care today, sad that I wasn’t going to be spending the day with her.  But, I got over that bit of sadness quickly.  She was home yesterday, and will be home with me tomorrow.  But the melancholy of today being her birthday is still there.

She’s grown so much, changed so much from the little (big!) peanut I had to wait to hold.  It’s been a year of challenges, for both of us.  She’s overcome so many of them.  At first it was her breathing and glucose levels.  Then it was the possibility of  hip dysplasia, thanks to her being breech for so long.  Then she was caught in the PKU screening, then nursing too much, and refluxing.  Not nursing enough, losing weight. And losing more weight.  Throwing up and almost needing to be tested for pyloric stenosis, a bout of croup, an ear infection, rash, allergic reaction, and another more impressive rash.  Stomach flu with severe dehydration, which lead to two ER visits, with an IV for fluids during the second one.  Sleeping through the night.

Swinging Birthday Girl!

No, wait.  She hasn’t overcome that yet, still up at least once, usually twice a night.  Though she will sleep around four or five hours in a stretch now.  More, if she’s been stuffed with macaroni and cheese, saltines and gold fish.

But there were good things that happened too.  Her first smile, her first laugh.  The huge laughs that Teagan can get from her, the way she looks at Teagan, and Teagan at her.  Her first party, staying up to see the Royal Wedding.  Many walks on the beach.  Rolling over, finally getting out of the swaddle.  Finally saying Mama. Standing.  Crawling.  Cruising.  Supported walking.  It’s all going by so fast.She loves imitating you, putting things on her head, playing peek-a-boo, talking on the phone.

She will say LaLa now, and NayNay, though her preferred word is still DaDa.

She gives hugs.  When being rocked to sleep, she wants to be up, with her head on your shoulder, snuggled in, instead of reclined in your arms.  She loves her glowing seahorse, and will usually go down easily, though still doesn’t stay down all night.

She’s got five teeth now, all came up within the past six weeks.  At least three more are just waiting to break through.

She sits back and watches, happy to be on the side lines.  If she wants attention she will ask – cry – for it, unlike her sister, who will be a dancing monkey for any attention.

~~

I had this post open, revising it, adding to it, all day.  Maybe to keep my baby in mind today.  To hold her a bit longer.  I know the time she allows me to hold her is limited.  She’s going to grow up so fast, and want to run, run, as soon as she can walk.

I am looking forward to finding out who she will be as she grows older.