Mother's Day Part II

I tried to get this up yesterday, but: mom duties.  (Happy Mother's Day! Enjoy 2.5 minutes all to yourself!)  

With a non-walking Boo and 7-day-old Birdie in the carrier. Oof. Those were hard days.

I ended up looking through baby photos of my kids while looking for photos of my mom, and so in honor of Mother's Day (yesterday), here are some favorite photos of the kids who made me a mom.

With newborn Piglet

Piglet, around 4 months

With Piglet in Moscow at Gorky Park, around 16 months

With newborn Boo.

This is a particular favorite of mine.  Piglet and Boo, 2 and 2 mos. respectively.

Boo, 7 mos. 

Newborn Birdie.

With newborn Birdie. Photo by Emily Photography.  (Em is a college friend and her work is gorgeous!)

Newborn Birdie.  She was such a stinker during this photoshoot--refused to sleep, wanted to see what was going on all the time.  Radioactive brain already at less than 10 days old!  Photo by Emily Photography.

Birdie on Pascha morning, around 8 mos.  This was the first or second time sitting in the Bumbo for a few minutes and able to hold her head up!  She had been on medication for about 2-3 weeks at this point, but still landed inpatient for a week a day later.

Birdie, probably around the same age.

With preemie newborn Ponchik.  She was about a month old here.  Photo by Emily Photography.

Newborn Ponchik.  Photo by Emily Photography.

With Boo at Ponchik's baptism.  She was just over 40 days old.

Birdie and Ponchik, in one of my first sewing attempts for the two of them using a random remnant from my gram's stash.

Birdie, right after Ponchik was born.

With Ponchik, around 2 months old.  Unintentionally matchy-matchy.

Double baby wearing with Birdie and Ponchik.  I did this a lot with Boo and Birdie, because Boo wasn't walking when Birdie was born, but I don't have any photos.  Suffice to say, it was the chief reason for my stress fracture that year.

Da girls.  Ponchik was around 6 months here, I think, and Birdie just over 2.

With Ponchik.  She was my first true Mama's girl (although Boo sort of was/is) and couldn't stand to be separated from me.

Boo and Ponchik around Pascha just before her first birthday.  Boo was close to 4.

The only ultrasound photo I have of Philip.  It is pretty grainy because we received the actual x-ray film and had to photograph through a window.  His head is to the right side of the image.  He was waving his hands the whole time.

Ponchik, about 13 mos.  It was her first time on grass and she was very perplexed.  What you can't see in the photo was Boo sitting nearby to keep her company because he could tell she was nervous.

Boo sitting nearby to provide moral support.

Da boys.  That same summer.  Boo was four and Piglet was 6.

A lot of these photos are or were framed on my photo wall in the stairwell, and remain favorites.  I remember the chaos of having all babies and toddlers, and am glad that the kids are all weaned and potty-trained, and we are now in the "older" kid phase, but sometimes I miss the squishy softness of their younger days. 

Mother's Day Part I

Happy Mother's Day!  Go hug your mother if you can.  

(Or go for the awkward side shoulder squeeze if your mother is weird about hugs like mine--ha! She's great at lots of other important things, don't worry!)

Where to start with my mom?  She has worked through many hard things through her life, and I get my dogged persistence from her, among other things.  (For better or worse--sometimes I don't know when to let something go).  We had a hard time understanding each other when I was growing up, but as adults, we've figured some things out, and I'm so glad to have a mom like her.

She gave all my kids their first at-home baths.  With Piglet.

With Boo.

With Birdie.  I'm not sure why I can't find Birdie's first bath photo!

With Ponchik.

She is hardy and resilient, a tireless caretaker, maker of many crafts, lover of flowers, crosswords, puzzles, chocolate (the sweeter the better!), wedding cake frosting, and lemons.  She will be the first to rush head-long into a raging storm to save someone she loves from drowning, heedless of the danger to herself.

With Birdie (who had just soaked my mom! Hence the grin.) Photo by Emily Photography

With teeny-tiny preemie Ponchik

 When my sister had her first baby, she wasn't sure she was ready to be a grandmother, but by the time my children arrived, she was an old hand, and very happy to be called Grandma Honey.

Doing counted cross stitch with Birdie in her lap.  Classic multi-tasking.

 But to me, she is, and will always be simply: Mom.

Happy Mother's Day! 💗

Yarn Along: May

~knitting~

Finished my Sorbet Doocot!  I blocked it over the weekend and took it out for a (brief) spin yesterday morning (while it was chilly, it wasn't quite cool enough for the mid-weight wool).  

I dropped the front neckline a bit from the pattern, and I think this is perfect now.  Basically, instead of casting on the connecting stitches where the pattern says, I continued to decrease rows A & B an additional 3 times so that when I got to rows C&D I only increased 17 x instead of 20.  

I also made the neckline ribbing narrower, which I also prefer.  I still think I could have gone down to size 1, but this is fine too.  

Chickadee doesn't grow like Swish, so it will be okay.  The color is really hard to photograph and describe--it is a pinky-purple color that looks really dull in some lights, and nice and bright in others.  

Me attempting to be elegantly artsy like Kate Davies (or flying on Titanic like Kate Winslet. You pick).  And failing. 

I have a couple of scarves and cowls that will coordinate very well with this sweater next winter, so I'm glad to add it to my woolies.  

Cheesy action shot.  Because: kid photogs.

After that, I started working on a shawl using the tonal yarn I mentioned last month.  I had thought it was self-striping, but after swatching it, I realized it wasn't really that, so looked closer at the label and realized it was hand-dyed tonal.  (Stroll from Knitpicks)

 After dithering over the pattern for several days, and then dithering some more after I realized it wasn't self-striping, I decided to go with the Simply shawl, since it has some interesting texture, and works with the tonality quite well.  I'm pleased with how this is knitting up, although I do worry about it looking fuzzy right away, as it is haloing quite a bit even just with the knitting.  (That's what I get for falling in love with sock yarn and hating to knit socks).

~reading~

This one is kind of funny.  I ordered this book sometime in March, after Brian Kaller recommended it (it's a great post more generally, go read it!), and I should have bought it long ago, given the number of crazy children in my household and general medical neediness of them.  I'm quite adept with medical glue and have avoided a number of Urgent Care visits as a result.  (Being asked to apply medical glue to Ponchik's eyebrow at an Urgent Care center convinced me of the ridiculousness of not keeping it at home).

I've had a stethoscope for years, and recently upgraded to a slightly better one after I missed Piglet's pneumonia in December.  It also made sense to get a blood pressure cuff, since I know how to use one after several years of taking vitals in the ER a long time ago, and some of the kids' docs want that monitored and we have to do telemedicine visits for the foreseeable future.  I'm considering learning how to suture too, for the ones that get away from me. (Obviously, when medical intervention is necessary, I'm all for it and am quick to seek it; I've practically got our pediatrician on speed dial and we text a fair amount during crises with the kids.  But there is a lot I can manage at home too).

Anyway, the book arrived, and both of my boys eagerly snatched it away from me and began devouring it almost whole.  Last night, Boo informed me solemnly that you shouldn't use antibiotics to treat a common cold and why (yes!), and also that tapeworms are a result of poorly cooked food and why (also yes!), and Piglet told me that I must be in menopause because I have so many hot flashes.  I laughed and said it was perimenopause, the long slide into the real thing.  Oh, he said, and went back to reading.  Ha!

On my own stack, I've finished the All Souls Triology, as well as Time's Convert.  I loved the Triology and am eager to see Seasons 2 and 3 of A Discovery of Witches, which follows the books, but Time's Convert was a bit...uneven.  It could have used some additional editing, and while I really enjoyed reading Marcus' story, and getting to spend a bit of extra time with Diana and Matthew, I thought the book meandered a bit.  Perhaps that was the point, as it sits well outside the main plot lines of the triology, and is just a side trail.  I would love to read Phillipe and Ysabeau's story, though!

I pushed Circe to the top of my stack and will start that next.

My kids are on a Looney Tunes kick again, so I'll just say: That's all folks!

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!

Corona Days: Bright Spots

Some bright spots this week:

One of our neighbors have had a series of Westie dogs over the years, and their current dog is a white one they call Ramsey.  They need some temporary help walking him (she broke a small bone in her foot and he is supposed to be staying indoors for health reasons), so asked us if one of the kids could do it.  Boo eagerly volunteered, so now he is walking a dog twice a day and happy as a clam.  He is absolutely transformed around that animal, and it makes me wish we lived in a bigger rural space so we could have an outside dog (Piglet and I are both allergic), but I'm also mindful of my own limitations with pets, so I'm grateful that Boo can have this opportunity to look after Ramsey and serve our neighbors. 

I also made what I would consider to be a peak quarantine meal yesterday.

I had a few random ingredients bought by mistake at the corner store by Boo, an extra tube of crescent roll dough, as well as shortages of things we use a lot of in this house (bread and croutons). 

So we had leftover beef roast from the weekend, carrots from three absolutely GIGANTIC carrots my husband bought at a local produce stall, salad with homemade croutons (I may never go back to buying them!), baked brie with jam, and fresh warm bread from the bread maker (because who are we kidding here?  I already told you how things go around here.  Plus: involuntary homeschooling). 

In addition, the weather has cooled significantly to British-worthy, and I'm loving it.  Longtime readers will know my feelings about hot weather, and I never welcome its return to the city, for it means months of misery for me.  I was feeling tetchy and out of sorts when the temps and humidity began climbing last week, despite forecaster's predictions of a cooler-than-usual April and May, so it was a great relief to me when the chilly breezes swept through. 

I pulled my new Doocot off the blocking mats (i.e. the top of my dryer) yesterday and took some photographs of it this morning.  (I didn't end up wearing it today, because it wasn't quite cool enough for a midweight wool sweater, but might have a chance this weekend!)  I'll share the full photos in the next Yarn Along post; today you get a weird sneaky peak photo of my hand, courtesy of Birdie.

 

Our local corner store has stayed reasonably well-stocked for its size, and I'm ever so grateful to them for keeping their doors open, and to having things that many of the bigger stores have been out of since late February or early March (i.e. flour and lemon juice and some root vegetables of normal size, instead of the bitty seed crop I'm seeing elsewhere.  Photo above for scale.  I wear gloves when I cut onions).  There is a local stall market not far from my husband's chambers that has also stayed extremely well stocked, and is currently keeping us in meat, dairy, and veg, for which I am incredibly grateful.  Keeping a household of six in food plus everything else is a job under the best of circumstances, which these are not.

Speaking of not, Tuesday night, I noticed that the fridge was hardly cold at all, and the food inside tepid.  The freezer was still running, and stuff was still frozen, but it all just seemed off somehow.  I turned the thermostat down as far it would go on both fridge and freezer, but in the morning everything was still tepid, even more so.  I wasn't sure if we could even get a repairman to come look at it, and it isn't cold enough to put stuff outside any more.  (In any case, the closure of restaurants has forced all the garbage-feeding pests up into the residential areas, so I wouldn't dare leave anything out back anyway.  My husband saw what he thought was a possum the size of a large cat the other day, running nochalantly down our street.  I said it was probably a rat, given our previous experience with the water/sewer pipe replacement). 

In any case, I decided to see if I could figure out the problem myself.  So I googled a few DIY fridge fixes, and set about getting the fridge away from the veryveryveryvery tight space between the wall and counter.  (I do this every year or so to clean behind and under, but man.  It is a Job).  Vacuumed the vent at the back and underneath, and then emptied the freezer to get at the access panel for the compressor fan, which two sites suggested might be the culprit.  The kids helped ferry tools and cover the cold stuff with blankets to keep it from defrosting too quickly, while I unscrewed the panel and took a look.  There was a fair bit of frost and ice on the copper coils  and aluminum bits, which began to thaw almost immediately, so I brushed away what I could and pulled off the rest with my fingers (gently!) into a bowl.  Cleaned and dried the whole thing, plus the inside of the freezer itself, turned it back on, and voila!  The fan worked fine.  Put everything back together, and it all seems tickety-boo now.  I'm feeling rather Hoss about the whole thing myself. 

Boo's birthday cake from the weekend.  He turned 10!!

I could share more, but I'll leave it there for now.  These are strange days, to be sure, full of stress, uncertainty, and anxiety, but there are some moments of sweetness, which I try to keep on my tongue to balance out the bitter.