7 August 2010
Whatever happened to my baby girl? Somehow, in the blink of an eye, Leah has turned two years old.
Leah, you continue to delight me in new and completely unexpected ways each day, bringing a certain spontaneity to my life that I never knew was missing before you joined our family. The way you bounce between maniacal laughter and uncontrollable sobbing, alternately cuddling your dolls and beating their heads against the stairs certainly keeps me on my toes and I wake up each morning never knowing what the day will bring. I live for your contagious giggles, tiny kisses and hugs so tight they have the ability to cut off circulation to various appendages.
I feel so blessed to be your mama.
Happy birthday, Cupcake!
Tags: leah, leah's birthday, whittamore's farm
4 August 2010
While I don’t have easy access to a CSA, I love the idea of just about any sort of community-supported endeavour. So when I heard about Chrissy Gardiner’s Indie Socks Community Supported Knitting, it took me only half a second to consider before I clicked to join. The concept is similar to a traditional CSA in that you invest upfront and reap the harvest, so to speak, later on: this time in the form of sock patterns. I’m excited to support an incredible sock designer and am planning on pairing up each month’s offering with sock yarn that has been sitting in my stash waiting for the perfect pattern.
This month’s pattern is Tulip Socks, which I am knitting with Dream in Color Smooshy (in Nightwatch). The bobbles that form the scalloped cuff just about made me pull my hair out but I persevered and finally conquered the five-stitches-into-one decreases.
I’m finding the execution of the S2KPs to be rather fiddly but that’s mostly due to my incredibly tight knitting. After four repeats I now have the leg pattern mostly memorized and I expect the rest of the legs to knit up reasonably quickly. In theory, I’ll have the socks off the needles by the end of the month so I’ll be ready to work on September’s pattern when it becomes available… but this will depend on my ability to refrain from casting on too many more projects. Time will tell how faithful I’ll be to the ones already in progress!
Tags: chrissy gardiner, community supported knitting, csk, indie socks, tulip socks
29 July 2010
Since I have taken to spending Leah’s daily nap time attempting to catch up alternately on email and sleep, Adam has been left to his own devices on a regular basis, which usually ends up in a mess of paper, markers and glue.
Today, however, I managed to keep myself awake and away from the computer long enough to have Adam assist in making a mess in the kitchen!
I vaguely remember eating chocolate-oat bundles as a kid, but after scouring the Interwebs half-heartedly searching online for a vegan version, I decided it would be more fun for us to make up our own recipe. And so, Cocoa-Oat Bites were born!
Cocoa-Oat Bites
1-1/4 cups old-fashioned oats
1/4 cup cocoa powder
smidge of salt
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
In a medium bowl, combine oats, cocoa and salt. Set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together coconut oil, agave and vanilla. Pour over oat mixture and stir to combine.
Drop by small spoonfuls onto parchment paper and refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.
Tags: adam, recipe, vegan baking
27 July 2010
Despite my best efforts, life continues to be more than a little insane and so I am taking great pleasure in the simplicity that is garter stitch.
There’s something very appealing about the mindlessness (save for counting rows) of knitting the Moderne Baby Blanket (for my best friend’s due-in-less-than-two-months baby) when everything else is feeling so crazy. Nothing like knitting to stay sane.
Tags: moderne baby blanket
23 July 2010
It’s been one of those weeks best summed up by bullet points.
The Good:
- We met again with the dietitian at SickKids on Tuesday and Leah has gained 170 grams since her last appointment and she’s grown one-point-something centimetres taller! Tough love apparently yields results (including less food being spit out — there’s nothing quite like reaching into your purse to discover a sticky mass of chewed up cheddar and raisins).
- Tuesday was also Todd’s birthday. Adam meandered into our bedroom first thing in the morning to wish Todd and happy birthday and then exclaimed “Wow! You really look 32 now!” Out of the mouths of babes.
- Some days all the world’s problems can be solved with toasted english muffins spread with Earth Balance and sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon. At least in Adam’s eyes.
- For the first time, Leah’s weekly speech class actually seemed useful with strategies to implement at home. The facilitators feel that Leah actually has issues (beyond just a lack of cooperation which has made itself glaringly apparent during the sessions) with making the correct mouth movements so we’ll likely be receiving further therapy after this round of classes concludes.
- Adam and Leah have mostly been playing nicely together and often team up against me (I’m mostly thrilled for the sibling togetherness even if it does result in them ganging up on me). Leah will often bring a pile of books over to Adam and he very sweetly reads each one until her interest wanes.
The Bad:
- Tough love is hard. On everyone. Leah is frustrated that she can no longer eat and drink whenever she chooses and screams to let us know just how frustrated she is. Adam yells at Leah to stop screaming because it makes his “ears ring like Jingle Bells.” I wish for a pair of industrial-strength earplugs.
- Todd and I have both been swamped with work which makes our generally peaceful days way less peaceful as we attempt to juggle email, snack requests, meetings, time-outs, client demands and bedtimes without completely losing whatever sanity we’d been tenuously gripping on to. (Also bad: ending a sentence with a preposition but I’m too brain-dead to figure out a way to reword it.)
The Ugly:
- Nobody is sleeping well. Adam has taken to waking up — full of energy — between 1 and 4 a.m. and then stays awake for hours. Of course this means he’s cranky by mid-afternoon. Todd is startled awake every time Leah wakes up (which used to be around 5:30 a.m. but now she’s been waking up around midnight and it takes a while to get her back to sleep). I’ve fallen into a horrible cycle in which I wake up early, nap with Leah during the day and then am too wired to fall asleep until nearly midnight. Ugh. We’re all operating on a less than optimal amount of sleep and fuses are pretty short. I’ve had a headache for days.
- Leah is teething as her two-year-old molars attempt to break through her tough little gums. Need I say more? To keep things easy, she and I are now following the same Advil dosing schedule: pediatric drops for her and extra-strength liqui-gels for me.
The only thing keeping me going right now is the knowledge that Todd will be home in about five hours, at which point I plan to turn over the kids to his care while I hide out in the office with my knitting and a (large) glass of wine.
Tags: sickkids, speech class, teething
