jennanddave.com

My parents, my grandma, and my aunt and uncle came to town for the weekend to celebrate my grandma's birthday. I went into the weekend three pounds lighter than I came out. It was totally worth it. The weather was great so we did a lot of BBQ'ing. My dad and I went down to the river to get a little bit of fishing in yesterday afternoon during Henry's nap. We didn't catch anything except for a couple of trees. My mom chased Henry around for a few hours in the afternoon while I mowed the lawn. She looked exhausted by the time we all sat down to dinner. Mowing the lawn is tiring, but it's not as tiring as chasing after my kid.

Posted by Jenn at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night at dinner Henry was thumbing through his "My 1st Colors Board Book".

Dave: We should do a whole line of "My 2nd..." board books. No one's thought of that yet.
me: Like what, "This is the color "puce"?"

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I bought Softsoap handsoap in "Pure Cashmere", partly because they were out of SpongeBob Squarepants foaming handwash, and partly because it was the only soap on the shelf that wasn't antibacterial. It smells delicious, like coconuts and beaches and other yummy things. It smells so good that when I was at the store on Tuesday, I noticed they were selling a bodywash in the same scent. So I bought some because I want to smell like the handsoap ALL THE TIME. The first few minutes I used it I was in heaven, but as the minutes passed, so did the smell of coconut. The new scent was somehow familiar. I pondered as I lathered until suddenly it hit me: playdoh. Today, it was the same thing: great first few minutes, followed by the scent of playdoh. I really like the stuff, and the first few minutes are pretty great, but is it worth running the risk of being attacked by a band of rabid pre-schoolers?

Posted by Jenn at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

- Getting my hair cut, but where oh where can I go to get a cut that will not make me feel grumpy, schlumpy, and dissappointed afterwards? The answers: Salem or Portsmouth. Must start thinking about going northeast sometime soon.

- Squeezing and smooching my kid until he cries because he's been twelve thousand different kinds of cute over the last week or so. I can't explain how or why, it just is what it is.

- Trying to figure out how we can possibly afford to go on any kind of trip to the beach this summer, a task which is made even more difficult by the fact that we're planning on going to Asilomar next spring, and Hawaii next summer. I know that the answer to this particular problem is "We can't go anywhere because we can't afford to," but that answer does absolutely nothing for me. I choose not to accept that answer. That answer can go jump in the river.

- During Henry's nap this afternoon I watched "The Break-up". I want those hours back. Last Saturday night Dave and I watched "The Departed". I want to relive those hours. Maybe I can work some kind of exchange out.

- I finished reading "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" last week. Best book ever. Wait, let me rewrite that in unabashedly grammatically-incorrect blog terms that better emphasize how I feel about the book: Best. Book. Ever. It made me want to go back through all of my archives and fix all of my grammar mistakes. Then I got over it.

Posted by Jenn at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I got three hours of sleep last night for no reason other than I just couldn't fall asleep. Dave called right after I put Henry down for his nap (How did he know?) to tell me to not go check my email because then I'd spend all of Henry's nap online which means I'd be cranky by the time he got home (Again, how did he know?). However, I feel a little guilty about not having posted anything at all for a few days, and I'm dying to show off the sweater I finished for Henry. I'm thinking a short and sweet post with lots of pictures of my cute kid wearing a handknitted garment never hurt anybody. I'd like to point out again that I'm really tired so if what I'm writing (or have written thus far) tends to skirt the edges of making sense, go easy on me.

First a picture of the front:

Next, a picture of the back:

Finally, a picture with the hood up:

That last picture is a little too cute isn't it? Henry looks a little too happy. Don't be fooled; he's not happy about the knitted sweater, he's happy because I just told him we're going to be going to the park as soon as I'm done taking his picture.

I'm really happy with how the sweater came out. There was a lot of seaming which was a pain but I spread it out over Wednesday and Thursday so I wouldn't rush through it just to get it over with. If I make the sweater again, I'm definitely going to be picking up the stitches for the hood from the edge of the back piece instead of casting on a bunch of new stitches.

I've already started the socks. I couldn't find a pattern I liked so I decided to try making a cuffed sock. I cast on the appropriate number of stitches from my basic sock pattern and instead of working a 2X2 rib, I purled for an inch and a half, then switched to the knit stitch so that the top folds over to form a cuff. So far I think it looks pretty good. The yarn is knitting up beautifully; I love all of the colors. Pictures next time.

Posted by Jenn at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I know it's pretty lame to post other people's youtube video's on your own blog, but this song has been all over XM Kids and Dave and I totally dig it, so I just couldn't help myself. In other news, I finished Henry's sweater yesterday. He'll hopefully be modeling it at tonight's knitting group. I'll post pictures of it later.

Posted by Jenn at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I disliked being pregnant. Not because of the changing physical discomfort that ranged from the mild nausea I experienced during the first trimester to the insanely itchy pregnancy rash I was blessed with for the last month before I gave birth. None of that was fun, but they were all short-lived inconvenciences that eventually passed and frankly, the end result was worth it. What I really disliked was everyone knowing I was pregnant. It wasn't something that could be easily camoflaged, not when, techinically, the first thing that greeted people was my massive bump.

A friend of ours is a geography professor and when Dave and I told him we were pregnant one of the first things he said was (I'm paraphrasing but I'm also putting it in quotes because I'm cheeky.) "Isn't it interesting how pregnant women suddenly become public property, even to the point of complete strangers thinking it's okay to touch your belly? Everyone suddenly thinks they have a say in what you do, how you do it, and when you do it." By the time he had finished talking, I had a real problem with being pregnant. Woe be the day someone I don't know feels somehow informed enough about my life just because I'm expecting a baby to have any kind of opinion about how I should live it. Very few strangers ever touched my belly, perhaps thanks to the years I spent practicing looking unfriendly while traipsing around the big city. I did have an infamous run-in with the guys who sell watermelons at the local farmers market, as well as a few other interesting experiences, enough to prove that Prof. Geography was right.

I just read an article on CNN about the ban on Intact Dilation and Extraction abortions, also known more popularly as "partial-birth abortions" (Kudo's to whoever came up with such a purposefully inflammatory moniker.). The fact that this ban exists implies that the decision to abort so late in pregnancy is made easily, lightly, frivolously, when chances are they were mostly, if not all, wanted pregnancies in which complications arose. Late-term abortions make up a small percentage of all abortions (ie. in 2002, 16 weeks' gestation or later, 1.9%) and Intact Dilation and Extractions were performed on a small percentage of that small percentage. Why do politicians care about a procedure that is performed so rarely? It's all about the big picture, slowly chipping away at a woman's choices until she's left with no choice at all. Win the battle, win the war. Some in Washington are so giddy over today's success that they are already looking ahead to a broader abortion ban. This is from a group of politicians who claim to care so much about giving unborn babies a chance at life, but who somehow don't care enough about women's lives to have made an exemption for the health of the mother in the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act". I can't wait to see what they come up with next. Scratch that, yes, I can, because frankly I'm scared.

So much of what we're presented with today politically and in the media seems to hinge on who can create a catch-phrase that appeals most to people on an emotional level. We're consistently defined by how we do or don't buy into the boiled down mess that's presented to us on a platter daily in the newspaper or on television, and it's always black and white. If we don't support the war, then we must not support the troops that are fighting on our behalf. Not true. If we're pro-choice, we must be anti-life. Not true. "Pro-choice" doesn't mean "pro-abortion", it means pro-having-a-choice.

Posted by Jenn at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Jenn at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Friday night knitting group I've been going to has been great not only for all the girl-time but also for all the knitting I'm getting done. Henry's sweater is coming together so quickly, I've already started to think about what's next on the agenda, but more about that later.

Last week I took a picture of the sleeves after I had knitted up about seven inches, but before I got my act together to actually post an update featuring the aforementioned sleeves I had finished them and moved onto some shoulder seaming and hood-knitting. I'll still show you the picture of the pre-finished sleeves because I know you're dying to see what they looked like once upon a time:

Meanwhile, I'd like to get a little something off of my chest in regards to how the hood is dealt with in this particular pattern. It has you leave ten stitches on either side of the front of the sweater on stitch holders. To work the hood you knit the ten stitches on one side, cast on a bunch of stitches, then knit the ten stitches on the other side, then work X amount of inches worth of a 2X2 rib. After completing the first few rows of the pattern, I looked at the huge gaping hole that was created by casting on all of the stitches between the two sets of ten, thought it was weird that Debbie Bliss didn't have you just pick up the those stitches along the back, then carried on knitting the 2X2 rib. About four inches into it I looked at the pattern and saw that later on I'd be seaming the cast-on stitches to the top of the back. It just seems like picking up the stitches would have been a little more elegant. I briefly contemplated ripping out what I'd knitted, but I decided I'd rather do a little extra seaming than have to reknit all of that ribbing.

I'm now working on the trim around the hood. Here's an action shot of me picking up stitches:

Exciting! Soon I'll be sitting at the dining room table with a needle and yarn cursing like a sailor over all the seams to sew and ends to weave in. I can't wait!

Moving on to discussion of the possible next project. One of Henry's current favorite books is "Fox in Sox". Every time I get to the "Who sews Sue's socks?/ Sue sews Sue's socks." bit I get a hankering to knit me some socks. I've got the yarn for it, now all I need is a pattern. I can't decide if I'll stick with the basic sock pattern I always use or try something a little more fancy. One reason I can't decide is because the colors in the yarn are so bright, they might not need the extra oomph a patterned sock would give them. Also, I really haven't found a sock pattern that's really bowled me over. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.

Posted by Jenn at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There's been lots of feeling tired going around in our household of late, and although we've been getting up to all sorts of adventures, it's the exhaustion that looms largest in what I remember of the past week. By lunchtime each day I feel like I'm not going to be able to make it to Henry's bedtime, and every day Henry's bedtime comes and goes, and I'm still up. Even when I go to bed early, my mind alternates between madly jumping from thought to thought and trying to will myself to sleep. It never works, and I end up laying in bed until 1 or 1:30, which means the next day I feel even worse. It's seems to be a cycle I go through: work myself up to such a complete state of exhaustion that I practically pass out in bed for a few nights, then when I start to feel better, I stop being able to fall asleep at night. It's frustrating. Maybe what I need is some white noise to help stop my brain from running around in circles. Reading right before going to sleep used to help settle me down, but it isn't doing the trick anymore lately.

This morning I gave Henry a bagel and after munching on it for a few minutes he threw all of it back up. My kid really doesn't seem to be picking up on the concept that food is something to be enjoyed and savored, despite our constantly haranguing him to "Chew Henry! CHEW!". Instead, he regards it as an Olympic sport: whoever gets it down the fastest wins. The bagel that "resurfaced" was barely chewed. I have a feeling it got gummed up in his throat and got stuck and that's why it came up. Regardless, I now smell like barf. There's a reason no one's bottled that smell and marketed it to women. It does nothing to make a girl feel desirable, although it does a decent job of attracting dogs. Right before I gave him the bagel, Megan said he'd been wandering around the house looking for me and saying "mom". (I left him at her house for five minutes so I could run an errand.) After he threw up, I got his sippy cup of water from the car and asked him if he wanted a drink. He said "No," then walked away. Megan and I stopped what we were doing and stared at each other for a minute. Then we had a "Did he just say 'no'?"/ "Did you hear that?"/ "I think he just said..."/ "OMG, did my kid just say...?" etc, etc, all at the same time, totally excited. And after all of that, after months of asking Henry if he can say this or that, I've realized I'm not quite ready for him to start talking because his inability (which I actually think is less inability and more unwillingness) to talk feels like the last little bit of his babyhood.

Posted by Jenn at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We had a great Easter this year. Not that past Easter's have been bad, it's just that this Easter we happened to celebrate it with a kid who was totally into it.

Saturday night Dave and I doctored a frozen pizza with some avocado, sausage, tomato, and mozzarella, set up a couple of episodes of Psych we had downloaded earlier from iTunes, dissolved some Paas egg coloring tablets, and then dove head-first into an evening of tv watching, egg dying, Easter basket preparing, and plastic-egg-filling the likes of which haven't been experienced in our neighborhood in years. I loved every single second of it, mostly because it felt like Dave and I hadn't sat down and just hung out together since the semester started. We made a vow that we would have to do things like that more often because really, the reason we married each other is the whole love thing, sure, but also because we actually like being around each other so, yeah, we should hang out more often.

Megan, Adrian, and Leo came over for an Easter brunch. We had raspberry pancakes, broccoli and mushroom quiche, cantaloupe, stuffed mushrooms, bacon, and bunny shaped cookies. Leo (who is almost two months old oh my god where does the time go) smiled at me. I believe that calls for the obligatory girlish "squeeee!" that usually follows any mention of a teeny baby smiling at someone.

Later in the afternoon we took Henry outside and thus commenced "Operation Backyard Easter Egg Hunt 2007" wherein we spent the next forty-five minutes helping Henry find the five billion (it really didn't seem like that many when I was hiding them) eggs hidden in plain sight around the yard. He totally got the concept. He got it even more when one of them accidentally popped open and a little chocolate bunny fell out. Later in the evening he dropped a bunch of them on the floor and stomped on them to get them to OPEN ALREADY so he could get at the chocolate inside. He has a great-grandma who's partial to chocolate Easter bunnies; she would have been very proud had she been here to witness the destruction.

Aside from the bubble blowing monster debacle where my kid almost broke his neck, it was a great day. I think we'll do it again next year.

Posted by Jenn at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Jenn at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Once upon a time I taught Henry how to sign the words "cup" and "book". I was very pleased. Then I tried to teach him some others and Henry was all "I see what you're doing over there but I think I'd really rather have you read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" for the four thousandth time." Thus my dreams of having a baby fluent in baby signs came crashing down around me.

Over the winter Henry finally became interested in knowing what the name of everything around him was. Lunch took four years because the tray, the plate, the sippy cup, the fork and spoon, and the fruit all had to be labeled over and over (and over) again. I thought it would be a good time to try the baby signs thing again.

I was hanging out at the yarn shop not long ago talking about it with Libby. There was another woman there shopping who said she thought baby sign language was neat, but was worried that it would discourage kids from learning to talk. I totally understand the logic behind that argument, because if you can talk with your hands, why bother learning how to speak? As it turns out, there's research that indicates the opposite is true, that kids who sign learn to speak quicker. My kid is absolutely no indication of this because he doesn't talk, other than a "mama", or a "dada", or the ever popular "YES!!", although maybe if I'd kept up with the signing he'd be talking by now. Hmmmm....

The other day we were practicing some new signs and I think I may have pinpointed a potential speedbump on Henry's "Road to Talking". See if you can figure it out:

me: Henry! Watch me! This is the sign for "eat"! See? Can you do it? You're "eating" crackers!
Henry: Eat!
me; No, no, no. Do the sign for "eat", don't say it. Watch, this is how you do it. See? "Eat"!
Henry: Eat!
me: Watch me! (signs "eat").
Henry: (signs "eat")
me: Hooray! You did it! Good job! You signed "eat"!
Henry: Eat!
me: Wait, did you just say eat? You said "eat"! YOU SAID "EAT"! GOOD BOY!!!

Teaching a kid baby sign language isn't going to hinder their ability to learn how to speak. Me teaching a kid baby sign language will.

Posted by Jenn at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The three of us were wandering around campus this afternoon after Dave finished up for the day. We passed three guys and overheard part of their conversation:

College guy 1: ...so I'm going to be as tactful as I can but I know however I do it she's just going to start crying...
College guy 2: Seriously, try to be as nice as you can because you still need her to drive you to ---.

The third guy reitereated vehemently College Guy 2's take on the situation.

College guys...sheesh.

Posted by Jenn at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the worst time of year. You get teased with a few warm, sunny days which send you outside to do whatever it is you do when you're buoyed by a fit of spring fever. Inevitably the cold, damp weather rears it's ugly head again and you have cabin fever even worse than you did before the spell of warm weather.

After the excitement of Saturday's Easter egg hunt, Sunday fell like a big, wet blanket. It was cold, gray, and rainy. And depressing. So I sat around and crabbed about how tired and bored I was and how there was nothing to do. It was a bad day. If I could go back and do it over, well, I really wouldn't because the first time was enough.

Then there was yesterday. It was in the 70's! Same thing today! So we went to the park and played! And we kicked around a couple of balls in the backyard! And we blew lots of bubbles! And I bought my first iced coffee of the season! Life is good.

I'm ignoring all of the snow showers that are being forecast for later this week. They're not going to happen anyway. It's going to be mid-70's, low humidity, and sunny everyday from now until September. Or else.

Posted by Jenn at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)