jennanddave.com

In honor of Henry turning nine months old last week, I thought I would apprise you of his current state of being, in list form.

1. He's 25 1/4 pounds. Enough said.

2. He squeals loudly at dogs, particularly Flash, because she's the dog he sees the most. Flash does not squeal back. She gets up and walks away. The couch used to be her safe haven until number 3.

3. Henry can stand up and cruise along the couch, among other things. Yesterday, he walked along the coffee table, grabbed onto Dave's leg (he had his feet on the coffee table, bad boy!), cruised over to the couch, then walked its length. There were many rowdy claps on the back and exclamations of "Good job, Old Chap" being bandied about.

4. He's crawling everywhere. It took one trip to Virginia and a few minutes spent on a very plush, cushy carpet and off he went. He'd crawl to the hardwood floor then belly flop and "swim". Now he just crawls. If he wants to get somewhere extra fast he swims, but for the most part, he likes to search and destroy at his own leisurely pace.

5. He's been sleeping through the night for the last two weeks. Yes!

6. He has to have his hat when he naps or goes down for the night. He plays with the two knots or pulls it off altogther and hugs it until he falls asleep.

7. He loves board books. Give him a board book and he's happy. He chews and flips the pages to his hearts content. If you read to him, he likes to flip the pages as you're going along. It's devastating. His current absolute favorite is "The Very Lonely Firefly" by Eric Carle.

8. He's hit the stranger anxiety stage full force. It's very sad. We're talking big, fat tears rolling down chubby baby cheeks. Sigh.

Posted by Jenn at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We have many things to celebrate here. Dave and I both had our annual physicals today and both of us escaped without having to get stuck with any needles. You know you're getting older when you actually have a list of things you'd like to have checked out when the doctor asks if you have any concerns. Anyway, Dave has to go back next week to have his cholesterol checked, so I suggested we head to the Fence for dinner because nothing says good cholesterol like a fried fish dinner. I brought my camera. Check out the pictures here.

Posted by Jenn at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday we all returned home from a trip to Virginia, where we spent the weekend visiting Dave's parents. There are four big reasons to love going to VA, besides the obvious one of getting to see family, and those reasons are (in no particular order):

1. All of the ethnic food we get to eat. Over the course of two and a half days, we had Indian, Thai, and Japanese. It was all amazing.

2. Not having to pick up the dog's poop. Dave's parents have a huge plot of land, part of which is referred to as the Meadow. Along one side of the meadow runs a fence, and on the other side of the fence, a nearby farmer's cows can often be seen grazing. Along this fence is Flash's favorite spot to "use the bathroom". She loves going for a crowd, even if the crowd is made up of cows.

3. The view. They have an amazing view of the Blue Ridge mountains. Amazing.

4. The pond. Dave's dad built a pond in their front yard. From scratch. It has a frog fountain. There's nothing more relaxing than sitting on the patio and listening to the water. When we were about halfway to VA, I told Dave I couldn't wait to settle down for the duration on the patio, which is basically what I did.

Besides all of the eating and relaxing, we did a lot of shopping. I picked up a couple of cute skirts and shirts, and Henry got lots of great summer clothes from Target. We bought fireworks which we set off Saturday night, plus some goodies for Flash. Dave got a shirt. That I picked out. I think he'd still be wearing his 1996 wardrobe if I hadn't come along. Henry had a very good time playing with his grandparents. He also had a good time terrorizing their cat. There was one good tail grabbing incident, and after that, Sophie smartly kept her distance.

The big excitement in the area is the giant ark that's being built down the road for the movie "Evan Almighty". We drove by it. It's truly giant. I was bemoaning the fact that I'd left our camera at home despite the fact I thought I'd packed it because the ark was definitely something worth documenting. In true Jenn fashion, I discovered it under the passenger seat three minutes after we got home. I guess you'll just have to see the movie.

Posted by Jenn at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Can you believe even more amazing and fantastic things have happened since I wrote yesterdays post? Let me fill you in:

We're going to be moving back to the Boston area soon so that Dave can spend his sabbatical doing hard-core research stuff at MIT, although most likely he'll be spending most of his time hanging out and talking to John, the guy who owns the lunch truck that stops in front of the lab a few times each day. This is also, by the way, where Dave and I spent lots of time falling in love over a shared cup of macaroni and cheese. Anyway, we decided that since we love Salem so much we would try and find a place to rent there, and we just got final confirmation today that we have succeeded. Not only did we find a place, we found a place that's got a heated pool, is right next to the commuter rail, is across the street from historic downtown Salem, and has a mini theater that you can "rent" for three hour time increments. I sense many private viewings of Brokeback. And probably Ghostbusters.

This morning, because I really like to kick myself when I'm feeling down (actually, I wasn't really feeling down; I just wrote that because I liked the way it sounded), I decided to try on my pre-pregnancy, size 10 jeans. And guess what? They fit. I didn't even have to lay on my bed and wiggle into them, that's how much they fit. Sadly, the ending of the story that was today involves two pieces of KFC original crispy chicken, lots of mac and cheese, three biscuits, some mashed potato and gravy, and a chocolate parfait. Methinks they won't be fitting again tomorrow.

And finally, this afternoon, after rooting around in the contents of Henry's diaper, I found this:

That little piece of history is getting taped into Henry's scrapbook.

Posted by Jenn at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So, what amazing and fantastic things have happened over the course of the last 24 hours? It's been an exciting time, let me tell you. Yesterday afternoon Henry and I were videotaped sporting some handknit sweaters and a hat at my local yarn shop. We're going to be in a commercial for Mad About Ewes that'll be shown before movies at the Campus Theatre. Yes, we're going to be famous, and yes, it really was only a matter of time.

After the filming, I went to pick up our car after having it's oil changed and tires rotated. On the way home I decided to run it through the local automatic car wash. I paid $8 to have "The Works", except once the undercarriage was "blasted" and the soap was sprayed on, the entire thing shut down. I waited for a bit in case someone was running maintenance and accidentally stopped it, but no one was around. I drove out (fortunately the doors to the wash had stayed open; during the winter when it's cold out they close so the water won't freeze) and looked around to see if there was anyone besides customers on the property, then had to drive home in a sudsy car. I felt fairly stupid. Fortunately it rained last night.

At 8:30PM last night, after putting Henry to bed, he kicked up a bit of a fuss and sustained it for a long enough time that Dave went up to check on him. When he went into his bedroom, Henry was standing in his crib, peering over the edge, hanging on for dear life. And so it begins.

This morning, Henry managed to get the "=" sign off of a calculator and swallow it. He choked on it a bit but managed to get it down. The keys on the calculator are rubber and not terribly big, about 3/8th's of an inch. Dave called the pediatrician who said it's fine as long as he's not having trouble breathing or swallowing. He just blasted through his breakfast so apparently all systems are working fine. The Dr. also said we didn't have to bother to look for it in his poop, but I probably will anyway for peace of mind. While we were waiting for the doctor to call us back, Dave looked at Henry and said to me "There's a calculator key in there somewhere." Argh.

Posted by Jenn at 08:06 AM | Permalink

I've been meaning all week to post some pictures of my latest knitting project, Debbie Bliss's Shawl Collared Jacket from her Baby Knits for Beginners book. For whatever reason, I was on a major humbug to finish it, possibly so that Henry could wear it a bit this Spring before the really hot weather officially sets in. The thing about knitting stuff for kids is it goes really fast. Instead of "continue working in stockinette stitch until you have 24 inches", it's "continue working until you have 9 inches". Guess which one I'd rather have to do? Anyway, every night I took pictures, thinking I'd post them the next day, but instead of using Henry's nap time to write a new entry, I would knit instead. Suddenly all the pieces were done and I was facing seaming everything together. So I went ahead and did that and now Henry has a brand spanking new sweater that turned out huge and which he won't be able to wear until he gets at least four or five more months of growing done. Oh well. It'll be great for the Fall. Here are some of the pictures I took along the way:

Finished back piece.

Two front pieces of the cardigan. You can't see it really in the picture, but I don't love how the slip, slip knit's came out. They look clumsier than the knit two together's. I don't think I'll ssk for that kind of decrease anymore.

The finished product. Dave picked out the buttons.

Closeup of the collar.

Posted by Jenn at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I talked to my mom a couple of days ago and she put in a request for me to add a new entry post haste so her tuckus isn't the first thing people see when they come to jennanddave.com. As a belated Mother's Day gift, I'm going to do just that.

Yesterday was my first Mother's Day both being a mom and having a mom. Dave let me sleep in (which he actually does quite often because I'm the luckiest girl in the world). I slept through all of Henry's awake morning hours as well as the fire alarm going off. I woke up in time to give him his pre-nap bottle and smooch. When I came downstairs, Dave had made me raspberry pancakes and coffee. Scratch that. He made me *amazing* raspberry pancakes. Truly unbelievable. I never would have thought of putting raspberries in pancakes, but I have to tell all of you that you should drop whatever you're doing right now and make some for yourself. I want to eat them every day for the rest of my life. He also got me a scratch ticket (I didn't win anything) and a Mother's Day card, which both he and Henry signed. Dave said Henry's head nearly exploded from the excitement of being in such close proximity to both a pen and a card, but he somehow managed to hold it together to sign his name to it (with help from his Dad, naturally). It was a very nice relaxing day. Dave spent a lot of it grading and procrastinating. He managed to get through all of the stuff he needed to do *and* go to bed before midnight, which is an amazing feat. He had planned on making me a chocolate cake but I told him he shouldn't stress himself out about it because he had so much to do. He said he'd make it for me today when he got home from work, so the celebration carries on...

Posted by Jenn at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A couple of months ago my mom and I were perusing various free knitting patterns from knitty.com and elann.com when we came across the Victorian Lace Shawl. My mom indicated that it sure would be a nice thing to have in her wardrobe, so I offered to knit one for her. After knitting the Charlotte's Web shawl (pictured below), a shawl that required every synapse in my brain to be firing at all times while I was working on it, I figured every other knitting project I could possibly work on from then until the day I die would be easy by comparison.

Charlotte's Web

That's not to say I didn't enjoy Charlotte's Web, because if I hadn't then I wouldn't have offered to knit another shawl. Anyway, what I'm getting at is this shawl was a lot of fun to knit, and was pretty easy to keep track of while working on, which means only half my synapses were firing at a given time, which left the other half of my brain to think about other stuff, like does my lip gloss really taste like strawberry. I've worked on the shawl fairly steadily for the past three months. I had a few mishaps along the way, but generally everything went smoothly. Two things I learned from Charlotte's Web that helped tremendously with this shawl were: 1. embrace stitch markers, they really are your best friends; and 2. after a few pattern repeats I would run some thread through the stitches on my needle so that if I screwed up after that point, I wouldn't have to unravel the entire shawl.

Note the pretty pink threads running through the shawl.

Last night when I reached the point of being able to bind off, I debated whether I should go to bed or get the shawl off the needles. I decided to bind off. It took me an hour. I sat through an entire episode of CSI: Miami, something I've never done before. The pattern has you use a funky bind off that's supposed to help accent the scalloped edging created by the final lace pattern. Here's a picture of where things stood at 11 o'clock last night:

Note all the ends I have to weave in. The pattern uses three different lace repeats, starting with English Mesh Lace at the neck, Horshoe Lace, and ending with Mini Vine Lace, which makes up the majority of the shawl. The pictures don't do justice to the color of the yarn which is an indigo blue. The yarn itself is Peruvian Collection Uros Aran. Now the big quandry is where to block it out because once it's stretched out, it's going to be huge.

Posted by Jenn at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's been hot here the last few days. I'm not a hot-weather-loving type of person. There's nothing worse than being too hot. I wouldn't be as grumpy about it if the following items were not the case:

1. This past winter was terrible in the sense that we didn't get very much snow. It also didn't seem as cold, but that could be because we didn't get much snow.

2. It seems like it's warmer earlier than usual, which apparently is true since farmers are saying the corn is a full week ahead of schedule. One of the perks of global warming? I liked my climate the way it was, thankyouverymuch.

3. I still haven't lost all of my pregnancy weight, so as I walk by the cute college girls in their tiny skirts, I feel like a heifer. *snort-snort*

Speaking of college girls, I screamed at a couple of them today, but I don't think they heard me. Dave and I were walking towards our house when two girls stopped by our trash cans and started throwing something out. They were there for a while, long enough to me to be filled with rage at these girls who have the audacity to use our innocent trash cans as receptacles for whatever junk they needed to shed themselves of. It's small things like that that really fill me with rage. I'm serious. I yelled at them from down the street not to throw their trash in our cans but I don't think they heard me, although Dave swears otherwise. You should probably feel very sorry for Dave for having to put up with me. When we got to our house, I looked in our trash can and there was a bandaid stuck inside. What I really wanted to do was put on rubber gloves, take the bandaid, hunt them down, and throw it at them all the while yelling "You left your biological waste in my garbage can and I thought you might like it back!" but I didn't. Instead I went to the neighbor's house and complimented them on their front door which they just painted red. It looks really good! Obviously being a mom has made me a more mature person.

Earlier this week I read an article on CNN that said a ridiculously high percentage of kids couldn't point to Louisiana on a map, much less foreign countries. I find that really depressing. Never mind the fact that I was late catching a joke in the Dukes of Hazzard last night because I didn't know where Beijing was, but then again, neither did Bo apparently so that makes me feel better; at least I knew it wasn't in Japan. I've taken certain steps to ensure that Henry is not one of those kids: I got him a Hugg-A-Planet. Anyone know why there are two "g"'s in "hugg"?

Posted by Jenn at 10:32 PM | Permalink