Month: April 2006

Lots Of Progress!

Sarah Crafts

Remember the doll bassinet I mentioned making for Carrie? Well, it’s done! I still need to make the little toddler-sized diaper bag to go with it, but all things in good time.

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Some of the neat details are that I actually quilted the blanket and stuffed the pillow – the pattern called for each of those to be one layer of batting and two layers of fabric. I also skipped sewing a piece of cardboard into the bottom. That would make a well-constructed, washable project completely un-washable, plus when the cardboard inevitably got bent it wouldn’t look so great.

I started a simple stripey sleeveless sweater for Carrie to wear for the spring and summer. It actually went so quickly that I finished the back in two days. The benefit of no sleeves is that I can’t succumb to second sleeve syndrome. And the best part? I dove into my stash and came up with the yarn! Yep, if I keep doing stripey projects like this and the bunny, I’ll have knit through my stash in, oh, maybe 73 years?

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Don’t be fooled into thinking that because you can’t see all those ends that I’ve already hidden them. They’re just tucked under the edges. But that’s because I’m planning on sewing them into the seams, really!

And although I am trying to stick to doing one project at a time, after I started the sweater for Carrie I got the yarn I had ordered for a Mother’s Day gift, so I’m switching between those two for now. Luckily, the mystery project is pretty small, since I only have a couple of weeks to finish it!

I also finished the June cross-stitch and brought that and November to the framer’s for stretching the other day. I’m on a roll for finishing things, and it’s a lot more fun than having tons of unfinished projects haunting me from my knitting bag. Now I just have to get up the nerve to pick FLAK back up and see if I need to rip the sleeve back…maybe after I’ve finished another couple of projects…

18 month well-baby visit

Sarah Growing Up

Vital stats:
18 months, 3 days old
21 lbs. 13 oz.
33″ tall

Carrie only gained 4 ounces from three months ago, although there didn’t seem to be too much of a concern over that – she’s still tracking along the 25th percentile curve for weight and around the 80th for height. This explains why all of the pants that fit her waist are more like capris, and the pants that are long enough fall down over her teeny-tiny rear. I should have such problems.

Only two shots today, which weren’t too traumatic. Carrie was pretty much mollified with a sticker and a cup of animal crackers. Oh, and the nurse got a good look in Carrie’s mouth, and that fourth 15-month molar is finally coming in (which explains the last couple of wakeful nights). So now Carrie has 11 teeth – we’re more than halfway there! (Right? A full set of baby teeth is 20, isn’t it?)

We were “warned” not to push Carrie too quickly with her letters and numbers when we mentioned that she’s starting to recognize and say them. Um, I have no problem not pushing her – in fact, until a couple of weeks ago I had no idea she even knew what letters and numbers were. I certainly haven’t done anything to force that knowledge into her head. Since she does seem to be interested now, I’m giving her opportunities to count and I bought a magnetic letter set so she could play with that while I’m doing stuff in the kitchen – but it’s not like I’m planning on drilling her on letters and numbers for hours every day!

Stuck Valves And Sousa

Sarah Music

I think I need to bring my horn to the repair shop. The trigger that switches from the F horn to the B flat horn isn’t working properly. I thought it was just that I hadn’t oiled the valve recently enough (though I knew I had) but my band director thinks it’s actually something mechanical about the valve. Sigh. I really hope it doesn’t cost too much, but it needs fixing for sure – there were a few times I was scrambling to use a different fingering since the valve just wouldn’t work. That’s fine for slow passages or notes that I have a rest before playing, but not so great for eighth-note runs!

And speaking of band, we got our music for the June concert tonight. And we’re playing my favorite song of all time again! (You really need to read that last sentence with a healthy dose of sarcasm.) I think at this point I can play Stars and Stripes Forever with my eyes closed. Heck, I can even play it with only three out of four valves working on my horn!

April Showers

Sarah General

On Sunday we all went to a baby shower for Tina’s daughter Lauren. It was a lovely shower, and Lisa and I had fun making the little jungle animal cupcakes for it. I gave Tina a little sweater set I knitted a couple of months ago but never blogged about since I wanted it to be a surprise!

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Oh, and Jenny posted pictures of the shower including a few of Carrie after eating half of a chocolate-frosted cupcake. Amazingly enough, no clothes were harmed in the eating of that cupcake.

Eighteen Months Old!

Sarah Monthly Updates

Dear Carolyn,

Today you are 18 months old! We celebrated by going to your last session of Babies Love Books at the library. As of today all of our scheduled activities are over for the summer, with the notable exception of playgroup.

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This morning you absolutely shocked me by picking up your letter “D” alphabet block, pointing to the letter, and saying and signing the letter “D”. Then I showed you “A”, “B” and “C”, and you named those as well. I stopped there, because I’m a little frightened. Aren’t you too young to start recognizing your letters?!? You’re starting to really get good at counting as well, and will often count your toes when you’re barefoot. Sometimes you end up with 6 toes on a foot, but I think it’s just because you can’t wait to get to “8, 9, 10!” I have to admit, I haven’t kept very good track of what new signs you know this month, but you’re starting to try to sign the letters and numbers, and we just got the next set of Signing Time DVDs with all kinds of animals on them so I bet you’ll learn a lot over the next few weeks. I can think of 100 words you say now – I know there are some I couldn’t remember when I wrote them all down though, so there’s probably quite a few more. I can’t believe that just three months ago you barely said three words.

Now that the weather is warmer, we’ve been going outside and playing with chalk and bubbles, and swinging on your swing – it’s very cute when you say “wheeee!” every time I push the swing. The funniest thing in the world to you is when we’re on the deck with the bubbles and the dogs, and Molly jumps up on her hind legs and snaps at the bubbles. You love being outside so much that when I have to take the dogs out and it’s raining, and I leave you indoors, you cry like your little heart is broken in two. I think I’m going to have to get you rain boots and a slicker so you can go out and play in the puddles.

“No!” has become a rather frequently used word in your vocabulary. Sometimes you get in a mood where you’ll say “no” to everything, even things that you want. Luckily, it’s still cute. We’ll see how cute it still is in a few months!

You really want to do everything yourself now. You point to your chest and say “tee” – which is your name for yourself apparently – when you want to do it instead of letting me. So far you can get your pants on most of the way, your shirt on with a little guidance, and your socks on pretty much on your own. You blow your nose – and toss the used tissue! – and wash your face on your own, and you get a turn at brushing your teeth and hair after I do it. And if it’s bath night, you can feed yourself an entire container of yogurt!
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I love hearing you wake up every day. You almost immediately start calling for “Moddy” and “Mercy”, and you talk to your dolls and laugh at whatever they say back to you. You’re always so happy to see me when I come to get you each morning, and your smile brightens up my morning too!

Love, Mommy

Another Sunday Night

Sarah General

I think I’ve literally spent the entire weekend doing laundry. No joke, we did 6 loads in the past two days. And it’s not as though I hadn’t done laundry for weeks or anything – in fact, we were caught up as of this past Wednesday. And somehow, despite having done 6 loads of laundry in 48 hours, I have more to do tomorrow. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

And now it’s Sunday night, and although the laundry is sort of caught up, I don’t feel like I really accomplished much at all this weekend. I suppose I don’t know why I think weekends should be this super-productive period of time. It’s not like when I was working, where weekends meant a break from doing all the things I had to do all week – now I still need to feed, dress, cuddle and play with Carrie, no matter what day of the week it is. And yet I still expect that I’m somehow magically going to find time on a Saturday that I can’t find on a Tuesday to do things like clean out my closet or reorganize my kitchen cabinets. Or vacuum.

I don’t know if I need to become more organized or what, but it’s all I can do to just keep the house relatively dog-hair free (and relatively is a very relative term), stock the fridge with healthy-ish foods, and try to make sure everyone has a clean pair of underwear (or onesie) to wear on a daily basis. That doesn’t really sound like much, does it? Are my expectations too high for myself, as a stay-at-home mom? I’m really committed to making sure that Carrie is my top priority, where most of my energy for the day goes, but I wish I could just get an extra thing or two done around the house occasionally!

Project Monogamy

Sarah Crafts

I’m trying to work on one project only, forsaking all others, until completion do us part. So far it’s been working: in the past week I’ve completed my sockapaloooza socks, Carrie’s bunny, the November cross-stitch (I finally found the chart), and a little repair to a hole in one of Carrie’s sweaters. I’m working on another square for my Aran afghan, then I’ll finish up Carrie’s doll bassinet, and then I’d better do the June cross-stitch. After that, who knows? But definitely something that’s already been started. It’s a little tedious at times, but I was starting to worry about my lack of attention span on any one thing, and I have so many projects in various stages of being almost-done it’s starting to get ridiculous. Plus, I started all of those projects with the intention of having a finished object at the end, and some of them have been dragging on (or have been completely ignored) for years.

That’s one way to clean my craft room, right? Just finish everything in there? Actually, there are at least four finished things in there that either haven’t gone to their new homes or should get moved to Carrie’s closet. No wonder the place is a disaster.

Shadow

Sarah Dogs

January 12, 1994 – April 18, 2006
My parents had their dog Shadow put to sleep last night. He had cancer and had been rapidly declining over the past few weeks. It took a long time to get used to visiting their house and not seeing Sylvan…and now, just 14 months later, we have to get used to living without another wonderful dog in our lives. I unintentionally named Shadow when my family brought him home. Sylvan was a month younger and considerably smaller, and when Shadow started getting a little rough while they were playing I asked Sylvan if that big black Shadow was bothering him. The name just sort of stuck. I’m sure Shadow and Sylvan are running around playing at the rainbow bridge, waiting for their people to join them. It does help to think of them there, together again.

Have Mercy

Sarah Carolyn

Carrie’s spoken vocabulary has taken off at an amazing rate. At last count she had over 70 words, but that was over a week ago and I’d guess she’s up to more than 100 now. Some of her more recent additions are “no!”, accompanied by furious head-shaking and – and I can hardly believe this myself but it’s been repeated and witnessed several times – she counts to ten. Well, mostly. She refuses to believe in the existence of the number 7. This is extra amusing because this evening at the bookstore I was looking through board books about numbers so I could encourage this new-found interest and the first one I picked up was misprinted and went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10. I was tempted to buy it anyway.

But the cutest, most adorable thing in her entire vocabulary is how Carrie says the dogs’ names. Specifically, how she says Murphy’s name. If you click on the picture below it should take you to a quicktime clip (638 KB) of Carrie saying the dogs’ names.

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The other morning after Carrie woke up but before I went in to get her, Murphy barked at something. The next thing I heard over the monitor was “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Uh-oh! Mercy!” I hope I never forget that, that when I’m old and senile I can still remember that sweet little voice calling out for Murphy.

A Very Colorful Bunny

Sarah Crafts

For Easter this year I had decided to get Carrie a set of playsilks and a few shaker eggs – the rhythm instrument kind, not made by Shakers! The site where I ordered the playsilks has a number of other really nice toys, including Stripes the Bunny. (Actually, Stripes must have sold out, because I can’t find the link anymore. Luckily, I saved his picture to my computer!) I couldn’t justify buying something else for Carrie, but I do have lots and lots of scrap yarn bursting out of my craft room…

So I picked up a crochet hook and extra yarn from her cousins’ sweaters, and look! A giant bunny!

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This colorful bunny contains yarn from the fun flower sweaters, the patchwork sweaters, the just ducky sweater, the little star sweater, and Carrie’s poncho. I think there are a couple of other projects represented there, but they escape me at the moment. The bunny is an inch shy of two feet tall and he’s super floppy, and Carrie seems to like to drag him around by one ear. (Poor bunny!) I think if I made another I’d make a few changes, but I’m pretty happy with how it came out – I even figured out how to make his hips and shoulders jointed so he can sit and give hugs!