Cleverbit

stay at home mom - week 20 - 23

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Normally I think of November as Thanksgiving month but since we stayed in England this year and we didn't actually get any turkey or stuffing or pie it feels as though we missed the whole month. Rowan was mostly working on grabbing things and once grabbed there is really only one thing to do - stuff it into one's mouth.

Yes, its a spider. She loved the spider because he was so easy to grab. If mammals with cute, cuddly faces want to be favorite toys they should grow some bits that are easier to hang on to when you only have a tiny fist.

stay at home mom - week 17-19

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

As Rowan reached 3 months she moved out of the "fourth trimester". Life was no longer just about figuring out how to survive in the cold harsh world with its bright lights and sensations of fatigue and hunger but about discovering all the numerous ways to get into trouble in her new environment.

Step 1: discovery of fingers. Not only are they entertaining to look at and manipulate but they're tasty too!

stay at home mom - weeks 15 and 16

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Knowing that we would be traveling to America for Christmas, Kim and I decided to send away for Rowan's UK passport well in advance of our travel date to make sure we had plenty of time to get a passport and deal with any unforeseen complications (unfortunately we didn't foresee the complication of needing a US passport as well until much closer to our travel date but that is a different story). Conveniently, I only read the part of the passport photo taking instructions which said that you have to have a color photo with a cream or gray background with neutral expression on your face with your eyes open and your mouth closed and no shadow and no other people visible in the photo (i.e. you can't sit in a photo booth and hold your baby). Right, how hard can that be? I bought a large piece of cream paper from the stationary store, spread it out on the coffee table, scattered a few lamps around the table to combat shadow, and plopped down the baby.

As you can see, my problems were numerous. We had several photo shoots but as Rowan makes clear in this photo: enough is enough.

Fortunately upon further reading of the passport photo instruction pdf I discovered that there are special rules for babies (ie no neutral expression, eyes open, mouth closed rules) and I took her to a local photo shop where they held her up, snapped a photo, edited out the shadow, and printed the results in just a few minutes.

stay at home mom - week 12 and 13

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

I've been stuck on this blog entry for ages and so many funny things have been happening lately that I've decided to just get it done so we can move onto such stories as "death by mashed potato," "that's not where I left my baby" and "why wearing your baby on your back seems like a good idea until you suddenly realize it isn't". It was around this time that we found out that Rowan is deaf and I've been trying to figure out how to slip that into a blog entry while maintaining my generally lighthearted blogging atmosphere yet not appearing flippant and I certainly don't want to start waffling on about my feelings nor do I want to seem cold and unfeeling so I've finally come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is just blurt it out and continue on with life/blogging as normal. Which is a pretty good description of how things have been since we found out. Obviously there are added challenges like fitting hearing aids on a baby, learning sign language, trying to remember to use sign language, and attending loads of hospital appointments but really I think we're mostly focused on normal first time parent issues like how to tell the difference between a tired and a hungry baby, how to catch up on sleep while being awakened every few hours at night, figuring out how to fit 3 hours worth of chores into one 40 minute nap, and answering the age old question " to cry or not to cry".

stay at home mom - weeks 10 and 11

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Clearly thinking I was going to blog weekly after having a baby when I didn't even blog weekly before I had a baby was a bit silly. So I'm just going to have to do some group updates if I'm ever going to get caught up.

At the end of August and the beginning of September Rowan was still pretty tiny (not like the huge baby she is now). She started smiling around then, not so much as a response to our smiles, but whenever she thought something was amusing. She invented her own exercise regime which mostly included waving her arms and legs about when she was laying on her changing mat. It most certainly did not include tummy time. Tummy time, for those of you who don't know, is when you put a baby on their tummy to play specifically so that they'll strengthen their neck and back muscles at roughly the same rate children used to when they were put to sleep on their tummies thus not interfering with the sitting up and crawling milestones found in baby books everywhere. (Putting babies on their tummies to sleep often helps them sleep better but increases the rate of cot death/sudden infant death syndrome and is thus out of fashion.) Somewhat by definition babies in need of tummy time aren't really strong enough to hold their heads up for very long, and also haven't really worked out that they can use their arms to prop themselves up and generally seem unimpressed by the whole idea.

More importantly my parents came to visit for these two weeks and my Dad spent lots of time trying to get photos of her smiling although mostly he got photos of the expression she makes right after she smiles :). Some of the photos are a bit blurry but here are a few of my favorites:

And here is one of her doing some exercise. She always had a very serious expression on her face when she exercised.

stay at home mom - week 8

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Check out our matching long fingers :)

stay at home mom - week 7

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

This was the week when Kim went back to work and Rowan and I were left to figure things out on our own. As you can see the realities of being an actual stay at home mom had not yet set in for me and I was enjoying such frivolities as dressing Rowan up in pretty dresses and staging photo shoots in our bedroom. At least I managed a photo that shows off her super long legs - she is rather super long which explains why all the midwives kept calling her a 'good sized baby' when she was still in my belly. For the moment she seems to be maintaining her long, thin shape although she's developed some proper chubby baby cheeks.

stay at home mom - week 6

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Fortunately all of the early weeks are a bit of a blur to me now - which is probably a good thing. If any family is going to grow beyond one child forgetting the difficult bits in the early weeks is essential. I think it was about this time that we made the agonizing decision to introduce a dummy (pacifier) since she seemed to want to be sucking on something ALL the time and I needed a break. We hemmed and hawed worrying that she'd get nipple confusion and forget how to nurse properly or end up sucking on the dummy too much and not gain weight properly or still be using it when she's three years old but finally we decided to give it a try. As it turns out she gained weight just fine and has already rejected the dummy so no chance of her still sucking on it at the age of three years - she's already had enough and she's not yet three months. Anyway Kim was still on paternity leave then so here's a photo of the two of them relaxing on a warm summer afternoon.

stay at home mom - week 5

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

By the time this photo was taken we'd finally escaped the hospital, Rowan had lost 20% of her birth weight and gained it all back, and I'd probably had about a dozen or so hours of sleep.

stay at home mom - week 4

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Well this post is a bit belated so I'm sure you've all already guessed what happened in week 4. Meet Rowan:

She weighed about 7 pounds at birth and was about 21 inches long.

stay at home mom - week 3

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Do I really need to say anything else?

stay at home mom - week 2

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Week 1 of being at home was, I'll admit, a bit stressful. Sort of that 'hurry up and relax' feeling I get when I'm on holiday for a week and I know the time is going to go quickly and I don't want to miss out on the relaxation so I spend the whole first day thinking to myself "isn't this relaxing?" every time I'm standing still for two minutes even if I'm just waiting for a bus in the rain. I tried doing some knitting but knitting baby clothes for a baby who's size I'll actually know in just a few days at which point I'll be too far into the project to want to rip it out is tough to get excited about. I could start a new project for myself but the only part of my body I can reliably measure at the moment is my arms, and possibly my head. Hat with sleeves? I do have a knitting project going for Kim but its a winter sweater and this is July. I also tried to do some work on cleverbit.org but I spent an hour trying to make a tiny change thinking to myself "who wrote this crappy code, and where are the comments?" which made me think I should just start from scratch (again) although there's very little chance I could actually finish anything before the baby shows up (even if she does persist in her plant of being late) so I was having trouble getting excited about that idea as well. I did manage a trip to a few charity shops (wow are used books expensive these days!) and a couple of walks just for the sake of getting some exercise but mostly I just kept switching tasks trying to find something worthy of my precious pre-baby relaxing time while distracting me from my guilt of having quit work so far in advance of actually having a baby.

This week I think I'm getting into the swing of things a bit more. I've settled into a rotation of entertainment including a few knitting projects (baby blanket and a sort of grown up blanket with sleeves in anticipation of lots of cuddling on the couch this winter with my baby who will surely be on the outside of my belly by then), a few books (of the light/summer reading style - nothing too deep or intellectual), cooking (so nice to have dinner just ready to put in the oven and the kitchen mostly cleaned up already by the time Kim gets home) and of course a bit of nesting (you have no idea how disgusting the inside of the kitchen trash can really was before yesterday). I also re-potted the houseplants and started a herb garden (from seed, I have no idea if it'll actually grow into anything) and celebrated Independence Day with a West Wing/fruit salad marathon (fruit salad being an essential part of 4th of July barbecues which I was able to reproduce with no actual barbecue).

Things haven't gotten so desperate yet that I've resorted to anything crazy like alphabetizing our dvd collection although it looks like we'll be entering week 3 with baby still on the inside...

stay at home mom - week 1

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Today officially starts my year as a stay at home mom. Well at least the stay at home part, I need my baby to move to the outside of my belly so I can start the mom part. Anyway I've already made some good progress adapting to my new life.

I've

Taken my phone out of silent mode.
Been shopping in one of the local corner shops where I did my best to get in the way of the man trying to re-stock the shop and the two administrative assistanty looking women who were buying food for some kind of luncheon while I picked out some lovely fruit, a box of cereal, and a container of milk.
Chatted with some random old English guys about how hot its going to be today (conveniently we have the hottest days of summer right after I quit working in an air conditioned office).
Reorganized the wine glasses and tea pots in an effort to find the perfect arrangement which defies the laws of physics and allows me to squeeze them all into the cupboard at the same time.
Been to see the doctor for a mid-morning appointment where I did my best to blend in with all the other non office workers (a bit tough to do with a Terry Pratchett fantasy novel - next time I'll take something with a celebrity on the cover). The doctor said that my belly is rather 'neat' which seemed to mean 'is sticking out all in front' as apposed to 'without ice' although strictly speaking this is true as well.
Updated my blog.

And its barely even lunch time!

the Bump

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

By popular demand here is a series of photos of The Bump. I haven't really been taking regular photos although I don't think I was showing much before 20 weeks anyway. Lately I feel I have been growing every day at an alarming rate and with three more weeks to go that is a bit disconcerting to say the least.

Week 21 - Spain (our "last trip to the continent pre baby"). Feeling quite proud of my just barely showing bump and hoping people would notice it, although I don't think many did.

Week 26 - Random trip to the park. Still feeling proud of my bump and now sure that it is obvious to the world (in retrospect possibly not so much).

Week 32 - Home, Barefoot in the Kitchen. Happy with the size of bump, feeling lots of wiggling. Life is good.

Week 33 - Home again having grown too much in the last 10 days for previous photo to be reliable. Becoming slightly concerned with rate of growth. (Please ignore dirtiness of miror - hoping to sort that out when nesting instinct kicks in.)

Week 35 - Bath (our "last trip away from home pre baby"). Feeling huge but still proudly managing reasonable length walks while on trip (although downhill only).

Week 37 - Huge and still growing. No longer a fun game - smiling for the camera optional.

mosaic monkey blanket

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

A few friends and I recently decided to start a joint baby project and I've been wanting to learn how to knit 'mosaic' designs thus the mosaic monkey blanket was started. We picked the monkey square pattern out of my friend's knitted mosaic tiles book and I really like how they're turning out (although in retrospect we could have picked something a bit simpler and made the knitting go faster). I picked out the colors before we started and the purple/brown color combination has turned out a bit lower contrast than what I would have liked - although in this photo it looks quite good. We're having a good time and we're running out of yarn so it looks like another trip to the lys for me :). I don't think our gauges are quite the same but they are pretty close and I'm hoping with a bit of blocking and easing we'll have a roughly rectangular blanket at the end.

teddy bear

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

I made this bear over Christmas because we went to Plymouth to see the Harries family and I took half a knitting project (I know, I have no idea what I was thinking). Kim's mom kindly let me look through her patterns and steal a bit of yarn from her stash. I don't think making toys is going to become my new favorite knitting genre because its generally much trickier and time consuming than it seems it should be and there is definitely an art to making faces but I'm generally happy with how he turned out. I'm thinking once the baby outgrows some of her first sweaters one of them might get donated to the bear as he's looking a bit naked.

baby hats and socks

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Who doesn't love making baby socks - they are so quick and cute!

hoover baby blanket finished

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

It was my original plan when I started this blanket to knit until I ran out of yarn but this project was getting so tedious and taking so long that I finally gave in and finished it off. I will think twice before I make anything using this technique again. It is nice that the middle is double thickness but the fact that you have to knit extra middle row ever so often to keep everything growing at the same rate makes it look less polished than I would like. Also having to knit twice as many rows to get the height for the middle section does make it crawl along at a snail's pace. Anyway, here is a photo. It does have a bit of a vintage look/feel to it which is pleasing since it is a vintage pattern and that's why I decided to make it in the first place.

Roman Baths

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Of course no trip to Bath is complete without a trip to the actual Roman Baths. The baths consisted of several buildings including a large temple devoted to the goddess Minerva (although the guy in the center of these bits of stone left from the entrance to the temple is not Minerva).

Since the baths were only discovered in the late 19th century they are largely underground which makes one feel more like you are visiting a cold, solemn cave like structure rather than a religious place of healing with outdoor courtyards and separate buildings and hot steamy baths. Nevertheless I took a few photos of the underground bit since it was Super Old.

Here is some actual Bath bathwater. It was steaming when I took the photo but it looks like my camera left that out. We never did figure out why the water turned the rocks orange but they were really orange.

Here is a healing bath where people would have sat up to their chins in the super hot water while they thought healing thoughts.

They also had rooms which were heated from underneath the floor by servants who crawled around between these pillars and tended fires. Unfortunately this well lit section of the museum was also behind glass which is where that bit of blue in the center of the photo came from - I think its a reflection of the special effects from the cold pool also shown below.

They encouraged us to throw money into the cold pool while making a wish but earlier in the tour when we were back at the temple section there was a description of how people used to write curses on bits of metal and offer them to the gods to get back at people for doing things like stealing a bit of clothing or fruit from a stall. Some of them were really mean.

Here are some arches which I'm sure the audio guide claimed were especially old - like the oldest standing Roman arches anywhere - although bits of them look suspiciously not old.

And finally, here is the main bath filled with actual Bath bathwater. Which wasn't 'safe to touch' although Kim dipped a few fingers in and they're still attached and not growing anything scary as far as we can tell.

Prior Park Landscape Garden

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

We decided to take one last quick trip before the baby comes for our anniversary and I picked Bath because it looked nice, relaxing, and wasn't too far on the train. The trip was everything we'd hoped for. We spent some lovely time outside on Saturday while it was warm and sunny and we had a stroll around town to do some shopping and see the sites on Sunday when the weather was a bit wetter. We also ate two lovely dinner meals at local Bath restaurants and had two fantastic home-made breakfasts at the b&b we stayed in on the edge of town. Here are some photos of Prior Park where we spent much of Saturday. We read something in the pamphlet about the park but we were so distracted by the woman at the ticket booth giving us mis-information about gift aid that I don't really remember what we read.