We braved an 8 hour drive up north to spend the Holidays with both sides of our family. I don't remember half of it, but we made it there and back without to much trouble! My BFF Laurel gifted me some cute knitting note cards and a knitting pattern box with baby knits. I'm to lazy to photograph them however.
Here are some highlights;
That's my mom, I look a lot like her huh? That side of the family is Russian and German! See my cousin and my aunt. The best part of this trip was mom making her very special Schulman family soup! She hasn't made it in probably 10 years, it was her mothers recipe.
My sister's boys liked their snow sled:
Here is Laurel with Baby Girl:
Sydney spent a lot of time with her cousins on DH's side and did very well socializing:
We spent a lot of time in the car:
Baby Girl & Me
I meant to knit, but I never knit a stitch. I had high hopes I would even finish the sweater I am working on. WTF was I thinking? Even if other people held her I was to tired to really even think about doing anything but sitting and just... sitting! We are back home now, I tried to buy some champaign but forgot it was sunday and so it looks like we will be toasting with Corona this year, have a Happy New Year!
WARNING: The second part to this entry discusses controversial baby stuff! If you aren't deeply interested in babies then stop reading after the knit hat video!
Check out this adorable hat knit by an old co-worker of mine named Shelley. I decided to try it on Baby Girl today and not only did it fit perfect but it was sooooo cute on! i took photos but the video is better I think at showing the cuteness (baby and hat!).
Elimination Communication
I learned about EC via this cool website which was given to me from one of the nice women I met at the baby wearing group up north. I was talking to her I think about how Baby Girl would cry right before she would pee. I worried if something was wrong with her. Indeed something was wrong with her but not like I was thinking, she was uncomfortable because she had to pee.. I soon learned through reading "Diaper Free Baby" and other stuff online that when a baby is first born they have a natural inclination to pee outside the diaper, which is why when you change a newborns diaper then often will pee right on the changing table. Turns out it's a natural instinct to stay clean. Here is a video I made today of Baby Girl and I using the little Bjorn potty, she is 3.5 months now and has used it from 2 months on.
I'm not the type to go "nappy free" or diaper free as we would say here in the states... but I found it so interesting that in other 3rd world countries where either A) Disposable diapers don't exist or B) they can't afford them, the mom's are not covered in pee. Another interesting fact is that in other European Countries I have been told as well as even in the United States not that long ago it was common practice to let kids wee over a sink or toilet at a very young age. Today in our society where we like things to be as "effortless" as possible, it can be controversial.
After I read about it I felt very curious... they call it EC because it is truly about communication with your child, it is NOT potty training. It's about learning why your child is uncomfortable. As a first time mom, once I realized that she was fussing BECAUSE she had to use the bathroom I felt like some great understanding had been opened up for me and Baby Girl. So for a first step, as I am not going to go all diaper free, I'm just to lazy, I went the super-easy route. Everytime from about 4 weeks to 8 weeks, when she peed on the changing table and I saw her do it, me or the husbeast would go "pssssst" and smile at her. by 2 months I could say psssss and get her to go when I made the sound. It was then that my little Bjorn potty arrived in the mail, just the size for tiny bottoms. The first time I put her on it she went pee, it was amazing. It's just. plain. cool. Being in that position with her knee's up give her the natural urge to go, and my "psssst" sound just basically helps her along.
The most wee I caught in one day has been 7 times. It's effortless. Anytime I change her diaper I offer a chance, always after feeding and after waking up. On an average day I catch 3, and on a day when I am tired and she's extra fussy we seem to just get 1 and again I never let it stress me out and it's never much of an effort at all.
It's liberating. She could be on the floor playing and about 20 or 30 minutes pass and she begins to fuss. I take her right to the potty and she goes, all smiles and then she goes back on the floor and plays happily again. I would say 50% of the mystery of a fussy baby was gone as soon we started recognizing when she had to go. I can't catch number two's and I don't try. She has gone a I think twice in the potty that way after a wee, but I just personally found it to much effort to be able to tell when she is going. She doesn't make a lot of noise like some babies do. Also its a bit gross to clean up, hah!
The next great thing about it is how many diapers I save, for each wee I catch I save 1 diaper. This means less negative impact on garbage dumbs and also saves me money. I have some bumGenius cloth diapers but they where huge on her and most of her onsies wouldn't fit over them so I am going to save them for when she's a bit older and goes less often. I am in no way attempting to potty train my child. I think it's neat that she will have an early association with the potty and many EC children are able to use the potty and not soil any diapers by a year old, the ones who really do it all the time can have that happen much earlier and even use hand signals form the child to let them know when to go. It's all about you and your baby communicating with each other.
People's reaction to my telling them about this ranges from "WTF" to a blank stare, sometimes I get a "wow thats cool, how does it work?". I felt like I could use this blog as a way to share my knowledge and experience, it's been very rewarding for me and my daughter!
i was reading my Kindle Edition of the Wallstreet Journal and what do you know but one of the very first articles is about knitting? It's a funny article.
Here is Sydney in one of her lovely gifted knits. Finally she fits into something. I held up the other knitted sweaters and none of them are going to fit until size 3-6 months fits her, which is not yet. I am thinking mid-january and they might start to fit her so I hope to have lots of cute baby-knit photos to show off that month!
Knit by Erika, a long-time online knitting buddy. Thanks again Erika, Sydney likes it :)
It was hard to get a smile out of her today, she's sporting a temperature of 99.5 for at-least 24 hours now and I don't really know why, but she's one cranky baby who doesn't want to nap and loves to fight sleep. I'm still knitting away at the minamlist cardi, knit knit knit. I want to wear it, I hope it fits!
It's an overcast day, though oddly enough the forecast claims it's going to be 68 degrees today, and 72 tomorrow. But the sky is white and through the windows it looks cold out, like it would snow if it could. I'm trying something new in our house, no more TV while Baby Girl is awake. This is a big new/hard thing for me. The Husbeast and I both are fairly attached to the TV, but I hope this leads to more reading and knitting on my part. For example this morning;
I knit, Baby Girl played, and the Husbeast slept in. He's back from Seatle where he got to meet and even ask Bill Gates a question, click here for the cool photo. He came back from the trip with a sore throat and I've been feeling a but under the weather myself, but Baby Girl seems to be in good sorts, besides some seriously stinky farts (TMI, I know!) and being crankier then ushual. I'll take it though, because last night she slept 10 hours straight in her crib. She woke up at 6am after going to bed at 8pm. She only slept 5 the night before so I was seriously celebrating. She also now loves to FULL ON laugh at our dog Willow, we have no idea why willow is such a source of comedy for her, but each morning we make sure she gets a good laugh out at the dog, hoping if she gets in the habbit she might start laughing at other things.
I'm loving knitting with that Art Fiber's Satori from San Fran, I might have to order up some more if I ever finish this sweater. I am very determined.
My Kindle arrived on my birthday, good timing huh? I had sent through two knitting PDF patterns a few days ago and was anxious to see how they rendered on the Kindle after being "converted". The results are mixed, one totally perfectly rendering, and one totally botched and unreadable rendering. So weird! The photos are a tad dark, sorry.
As you can see it didn't even render any words, just symbols. I have no idea why. I probably could just copy and paste into a text file and get the pattern that way but I prefer having the photos so I would probably have to re-recreate the PDF myself if I was that gung-ho on it. I think it would depend on the pattern. It would be really nice to have for techniques such as kitchener etc, in that case the photos would be very helpful.
Here above is a perfect rendering, it's so much easier to read then even on printed out paper because there is less on one page so it's bigger. It's perfect and means I don't have to print stuff out anymore and can have all my knitting patterns in one place. I am very happy to know it CAN render a knitting pattern perfectly! The black and white photos are really nice on it.
FYI there are currently some adorable "Holiday Knits" stamps out, I got mine at publix. They are of some pretty fairisle/intarsia knitting!
I got a new haircut last saturday and got to knit while my hair was being done, that was nice!
