Dear Peanut,

You will discover one day that your father is the creative parent, and not I.  But while his creativity will seem quite cool and entertaining and glamorous at times, you may learn to lose appreciation for it when he tries to use ketchup as a decoration on one of your future birthday cakes or when he decides to mend a pair of your pants with duct tape.  Just saying.

Peanut, we were so very excited to discover that we had successfully created you during our earliest tries.  So very very very excited! We have been waiting so long to start a family.  It’s a crazy world we live in now – the polar bears are rapidly going to polar bear heaven, and child care costs almost more than rent.  Even before your father and I got married, an authentic baby-sized Brett Favre jersey was bought for you.  Though Favre no longer plays for the Packers, your father intends to pack that jersey with us to the hospital when we welcome you into this world.  I’m sorry, it’s not going to matter if you’re a boy or a girl, you are going to be a football player when you grow up.

Since discovering the great news, I have been so eager to start showing you off in a nice round pregnant belly bump.  Your father accused me of purposely sagging my posture out to exaggerate any roundness in the front.  This may or may not be true, but I do have to admit to wearing maternity blouses even though I couldn’t fill the belly sections out at all.  You can imagine how happy your mama was when she FINALLY got offered a seat on the bus not once, but TWICE in the same week when you were 15 weeks old.

Your father and I listened to your little heart beat gallop for the first time when you were 12 weeks old.  We just just sat in the doctor’s office, grinning from ear to ear, completely speechless.  Just these last couple of days, mama has finally been able to feel your movements.  One of the first times, your father and I were just dozing off into slumber, when you did a little dance.  I laughed out in excitement and your father woke up right away to put his hand on my belly, where you then decided it was time for bed as well.  The last couple of days you’ve been dancing and flipping away in mama’s belly while she’s at work, happily in time to the click clacking of her keyboard.  Mama called your father right away yesterday afternoon when this happened, he was more than happy to receive the interruption at work (even though he was in the middle of an extremely busy, 12 hour day).

Your father has been so, so great and involved so far in every aspect of this pregnancy, Peanut, you really have no idea.  Your mama has officially taken up 3/4 of the bed, leaving your poor father squished off to the very edge to get a good night’s rest after a long hard day at work.  He wakes from deep slumber immediately when your mama’s legs start to cramp during the night to massage them.  Your father has also safely stored away a multitude of items for your arrival – including 4 strollers.  Why we’ll ever need to transport you around in 4 different strollers is somewhat beyond me, but this is how excited your father is.  I am sure he can’t wait to tote around and show off his little bundle of joy.

So far, the majority of us have been convinced that you are going to be a boy.  Mama has a “feeling”, and your father is just hopeful (really, it doesn’t matter, but I think he’s still stuck on the whole football player hope).  We will be hopefully finding out if you are going to indeed, have a peanut or not, very soon.

One last thing, the whole calling you “Peanut” thing, is relatively new.  Mama wasn’t sure how to address you in these future letters.  Like I said, your dad is extremely creative and I just wasn’t sure of some of the nicknames he’s used.  The one he calls you and I both the most, is monkeys.  And as silly as it is, it always brings a giggle out of mama everytime he comes home from work, opens the door and goes “Hi monkeys!”.

As much as you’re going to dislike your future nicknames, please remember you are also going to dislike and resent a lot of things we’re going to make you do – like homework, chores, watch football, ketchup (don’t worry, mama is on your side), and curfews.  I promise that 99% of the time you get angry with us is only for reasons stemming from the fact that we love you to bits and pieces.

Love,

Mama

Started showing (well, enough to get offered a seat on the bus, twice) in my 15th week.

Starting my 17th week today, and I can feel the baby “fluttering”!

!

I saw that on a t-shirt.  And those who know me well enough would know that I heavily oppose statement t-shirts.  But verbally stating something like that is still pretty fun.

I am currently in my 15th week and doing very, very well (with the exception of the weird aches and pains, gas, head aches, heartburn, CONSTIPATION, inability to sleep for 2 consecutive hours, and did I mention constipation? I’m talking constipation that requires such effort on the ceramic throne that almost makes you pass out).  But yes, the pregnancy is going well.

I’ll apologize in advance to the many mothers that went through first trimester hell, but I would have to say I smoothly sailed through the first three months.  I only came close to throwing up a few times (which none resulted in actual throwing up-ness) and only experienced bouts of nausea and queasiness when I found myself not eating enough.  I took advantage of the extreme fatigue I felt by all-you-can-eat styled napping.  The only other nuisance was my superb sense of smell, but c’mon, am I really going to complain about smelly people when I know in a few more month’s I’ll be giving birth to a baby with a likely gigantic forehead?

Up until the first week of my second trimester, I had only gained 3 pounds, upon weighing in at the doctor’s office at my last monthly check up.  3 lbs, pfft, are you kidding me? I have to say, I was almost disappointed with this peice of news, most likely since we’ve had to empty our savings account to buy warehouse sized stocks of Dorito Nacho chips.  All those calories and only 3 measly pounds to show for it? 3 pounds can’t even be considered real weight gain, due to water retention (and constipation).

The disappointment quickly turned to fear last night as I stepped on the scale at home out of curiosity.  I haven’t weighed this much in a long time.  In less than 3 weeks, I’m now nearly 10 lbs heavier than when I first discovered I was pregnant.

Eep.  And here I was, worrying however I was going to gain the minimal recommended 25 pounds…

So back to the heartburn and no sleeping and gas and constipation and back pains.  From time to time, I try to deeply share my sorrows with anyone who is willing to be polite and listen to me for a whole five minutes about these pregnancy symptoms.  You know they only asked “So how is everything going with the pregnancy so far?” just to be polite, not to be sucked into having to stand at your desk for a full 20 minutes while you explain how badly a leg cramp in the middle of the night hurts.  But of course I indulge in the whining anyway.  After all, how many times will I get to be pregnant? (note to self, this is not an excuse to shove a McCain Deep ‘N Delicious Chocolate Cake into your shopping basket everytime you hit Safeway with husband).

Here is my secret confession: I don’t find any of these pregnancy symptoms that bad at all.  I can deal with being uncomfortable, I have gone through worse things and they certainly haven’t killed me yet.  I know my tune will probably change come February, but I’m not even that scared of the forethought of the labor, birth, and aftermath.  I KNOW I can and will handle it all.

But here is another thing.  I am only this confident because I have the love and support and understanding of a wonderful, wonderful man, my lovely husband K.  I am glad we waited until we did to try for this baby.  This is the start of a wonderful, new and exciting chapter in our lives and I certainly could not imagine experiencing this all with anyone else but him.  It’s going to be crazy, but crazy in the happiest way possible, and I can’t wait.

This blog is facing the altogether familiar bout of neglect again due to the fact that I’ve been too busy growing a baby bean inside my belly.  Yes, a baby!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I *think* I’m slowly making spinning progress.

This was the first bobbin, spun this while testing out the wheel. It’s the crossbreed sliver purchased from Birkeland Bros., at the same time I bought my Turkish spindle.

Then I decided to spin with some nicer stuff. This is Romney roving ordered from HelloYarn. It’s really soft and lofty and lovely:

I know it doesn’t look like much on the bobbin but I am keeping my fingers crossed that once plied and set, it will make a lovely yarn.

This takes me to a picture of my third (bobbin at left) and fourth (bobbin at right) attempt with Agatha:

I broke into some BFL roving hand dyed by YummyYarn. Summer weather is non-existent here in Vancouver so I had to break into these lovely colors.

There are some chunky spots that happened when the Husband decided he needed to come over to demonstrate a childhood antic of his on my dear Agatha. He had a credit card in his hand and had to lightly run it against the spokes of my spinning wheel to show me that’s what he used to do with his bicycle. Sigh.

I’m so, SO proud to show you my very first skein of self-spun yarn:

There’s plenty more of where that came from – I still have another 100g in the same colorway. Definitely knitting with this (here’s to hoping it holds up).

I’m so excited!

First off, a quick update. I am happy to report that the crocheting endeavor was a complete bust (just like it was all the other times I tried). Thank god.

However, I bought some fibre and a spindle and that has resulted in a newfound fibre stash…and slowly growing spindle stash.

I attended WWKIP day in Port Moody, BC on Saturday (14th) and had an absolute blast. It was my first knitting/fibre social and I can’t believe I let my shyness keep me away from my kind. It didn’t help that one of the lovely members brought along a bunch of her wonderfully beautiful spindles out for me to try.

This resulted in (2) further spindle purchases later that evening.

On Sunday, we met the Husband’s parents in Nanaimo for father’s day, as well as to pick up my wheel.

At the request of a dear friend, I have named her Agatha. I am in love with Agatha, and so far each moment I’ve spent away from her, I’ve spent missing her.

Here is a shot of my new Houndesign Dervish spindle, bought at Three Bags Full:

The roving is BFL and handpainted by Kirsten at YummyYarn.

So…knitting. What’s knitting again?

Right now I’m trying to hurriedly finish the other half of my mom-in-law’s belated mother’s day gift so I can start on some new schemes of my own.

I love knitting (obviously).  But truth be told, I especially love knitting for others, on the condition that they’re being surprised with the hand knitted gift.  (See, the Husband is a whole other story – he’s extremely picky with what he wants).  I find I do a lot of spontaneous knitterly giving to loved ones because it allows me to start new projects on a whim, go shop for the needed yarn and supplies, and then best of all, receive the reaction they give when they open up their gift.  The best part is when a gift project (conveniently) doesn’t turn out the way you want it to, you have an excuse to keep to add the yarn to your stash

However, my love of knitting surprise gifts for others leaves me very short on time usually.  Case and point, the last project gifted to Oma stemmed from me simply picking up a ball of wool in a lovely yarn shop.  There wasn’t a lot of self control to begin with, but as soon as I whiffed in some of the wool fumes, I decided I just HAD to knit a Hemlock Ring Blanket for dear Oma.  It didn’t matter that mother’s day (I tend to try my best to find an excuse for the random gift giving to fulfill my impulsive knitting needs) was a week away and I needed at least 3 days for the parcel to go through post, technically only giving me 2-3 knitting days to finish the damn thing.  This goes back to Christmas too, hrm I think I’ll knit my gigantic father in law a sweater! For christmas! Just because he’s so great and I love him to bits.  Said sweater took until March to complete, and this even included a lot of bailing out on nice social engagements right before Christmas.

And of course, I don’t only knit to knit for others – I love knitting for myself.  Which adds to the turmoil, of course, when I’ve constantly got a gift project on the go and my Ravelry queue just keeps growing and growing…

So I posted my very first pattern design on Ravelry today. All I have to say is THIS SITE IS JUST ABSOLUTELY AWESOME.

Felted Eggplant French Press Cozy – available as a FREE! Ravelry download!

If you aren’t yet on Ravelry (I’m tempted to smack you if you aren’t), you can also access my humble little pattern via this link.

There’s another one coming soon, stay tuned!

I’ve decided to learn how to crochet. Seriously. But I promise, it’s only to make cute, CUTE toys.

I swear!

*Gulp*

Perhaps my sub-conscious is screaming INTERVENTION!

We went over to the island to visit Kevin’s family over the weekend. I wasn’t as excited as I usually am since it was just a normal 2 day weekend, and not the usual 4 day long weekend we use to go there. I didn’t complain for too long, because the trip there and back promised a few good hours of quality knitting time.

I worked on the Tilted Duster I started:

I’m using my Knitpicks Options needles in the 6.0mm/32″ size. The yarn is some Red Heart McIntosh that’s been sitting in my stash for quite some while. I HATE IT. Yarn snob, I am not (I think) but this stuff does worse than split, it falls apart in your hands. I’m not kidding. Unfortunately the crappiness of the yarn has led to some enthusiasm issues towards the project. I think the pattern is alright to knit – this yarn is just ruining it big time for me.

While in Courtenay, we paid a visit to Uptown Yarns. I’ve been knitting for a good few years now, and sadly this was my first time in an actual yarn shop (I Walmart and Michael’s doesn’t count). I buy a large majority of my stash online, this would probably attribute to the reason for my LYS hopping purity.

I consoled myself for having to work with the crappy acrylic yarn by buying some new, much nicer yarn:

I was running around that store like a chicken whose head just got lopped off. There was so much YARN! everywhere. It did not help that the Husband (acting as my first time yarn store visit chaperone), kept ENCOURAGING me to pick out a yarn and buy it. You read that sentence correctly. He went to school with Jen, who owns and runs the store, and I guess he didn’t want us in there “just looking” (obviously he needs more training…do you really think I’m going to be “just looking” in a yarn shop? sheesh).

I also bought some of this (which I think is just an absolutely lovely yarn):

Which, then and there, I decided was going to become a Hemlock Ring Blanket for Kevin’s Oma, in time for mother’s day no less. We bought the yarn Saturday (I was unable to start the blanket until Monday, and didn’t officially get going on it until late afternoon due to a lovely episode of food poisoning resulting from eating bad ham…but anyway).

I knit like I’ve never knit before. I even kept knitting while eating. I knit and I knit. The night before last night, I crawled into bed, delirious from the exhaustion of trying to finish it fast enough so that I could get it in the post and to Comox in a relatively timely fashion. I didn’t want the same thing that happened to my dad in law this last christmas (he didn’t receive his sweater until March, but he’s huge, so that’s my argument right there) to happen to dear Oma. As I sped through the unending rounds (around and around and around, yarn over, knit, yarn over, knit x 5849057 times) I started panicking and second thinking the whole endeavor. How can I possibly gift something like this to someone who has been knitting more than double my life time? Would she really appreciate something that looks like smelly crumpled up recycling?

We shall find out soon. Oh how I wish the post office offered their priority courier service over the weekends too