Archive for the 'Baby' Category

June 27, 2008 @ 6:35 pm | Filed under: Baby, Family Adventures

Have you noticed? Seems like everywhere I click lately, there’s another happy announcement.

Well, here too.

When I read Suzanne’s post in May, I grinned big. I wasn’t quite ready to share our news yet, but Suzanne and I must be just about on the same schedule. Bairn number six is due to join this party in early January. Given my due date (New Year’s Eve, or Hogmanay to you Martha fans) and my track record (all five babies born somewhere between 41 and 42 weeks), Scott is fully confident I’ll be delivering on Elvis’s birthday. That’s January 8th, as if I need to tell you that.

We are all immensely excited. One of us is also fiercely ill, but that shouldn’t last too much longer. Here’s to our first California baby!

P.S. Whom did I miss up there? I know that sentence in blue has more linky potential.

UPDATE: I knew I was missing someone. Because I am a knucklehead, for real. “I’m not a smart person; I only play on on the internet.” I missed one of my best friends, of course. Whose big day is now only days away, and I’ve been counting down in giddy excitement. Ah, Sarah, how do you put up with me?

(And check the comments for other expectant moms. So awesome!)

April 5, 2008 @ 4:06 pm | Filed under: Baby, Photos

February 15, 2008 @ 8:11 am | Filed under: Baby, Organization, These People Crack Me Up

I asked Rilla to put some pasta away in the pantry.

Hours later, I discovered this:

Maybe she thought I said "plant-tree"?

February 3, 2008 @ 9:58 am | Filed under: Baby, Handcrafts, Photos

I learned to crochet when I was eleven, but I took about fifteen years off. And I’d never made anything but blankets, I think. This was my first attempt ever at a sweater (either knitting or crocheting).

Here’s the pattern I used: Baby It’s Cold Outside.

Rilla drew a lot of compliments at the park, but honesty compels me to confess what a mess I made of the project. First of all, it was supposed to be a present for a newborn. Of course, since I spent over a year on the sweater about ten newborn friends grew into toddlers before I had a chance to give what I thought was going to be the perfect new-baby gift. Hee. As I (finally, at long last) crocheted the final stitches, I had two dear friends who were counting down the days to the arrival of wee daughters, and I was delighted with the timing. The only difficulty was going to be in deciding to which baby girl I’d send the sweater.

Then I began whipstitching the sides together and it became clear that this sweater wasn’t going to work for either one of the newborn lasses. Rilla bopped past as I held it up by the sleeves, biting my lip doubtfully. The sweater looked more like her size (and she’ll be two in April) than newborn size. Hmm. I am sure I followed the directions meticulously. I can’t possibly have been at all distracted during the year and a half of sporadic bursts of hooking, right? The year and a half in which I packed up and moved to the other side of the country? No cause for absentminded mistakes there, surely?

Humph.

The sizing problems, it turned out, were the least of my mistakes.  I mean, there are worse fates than accidentally making a sweater the perfect size for your own child. Of much greater concern was the fact that the front left panel was some two inches longer than the back of the sweater.

Whoops.

I unraveled the extra rows, but now the two front panels are different sizes. As I said, you can’t tell from this picture. Since one panel buttons over the other, the discrepancy looks almost intentional—sort of boxy and chic.

At least, that’s the story I’m going with.

I haven’t made the buttons yet but when I do you’ll see what I mean. If you compare mine to the picture, you’ll see how terrifically I blundered.

Fortunately for me, Rilla doesn’t give a hoot about following instructions to the letter.

January 8, 2008 @ 8:40 pm | Filed under: Baby, Family, Photos

(Scott hasn’t seen these yet, but when he does, forget melting. His heart is going to shatter into a thousand pieces. Completely smitten, he is.)

July 12, 2007 @ 12:57 pm | Filed under: Baby, Photos

I kept meaning to post about what happened with Rilla’s newborn hearing screen back when she was born, but I forgot. I have finally remembered, and it’s over at Lilting House, and it’s a piece of advice I think is  important enough to want to point any readers who happen to read this blog and not that one toward.

And also: could she be cuter?

April 14, 2007 @ 6:46 am | Filed under: Baby, Family, Photos

And this

turned into this.

Happy birthday, Rilla-my-rilla. Your big sister isn’t the only one who finds you irresistible.

March 3, 2007 @ 12:10 pm | Filed under: Baby

Oh, sure, you can toss off a nice "Mama" or "Dada" when you feel like it, but your REAL first word, and the word you prefer to use ninety percent of the time, is "This." As in: I want THIS or I’ve got THIS or THIS is mine. Such a useful word, adaptable to so many purposes.

THIS can’t be beat.

November 18, 2006 @ 11:34 am | Filed under: Baby

Per your request, baby photos! Wish I could take credit for these but the glory goes to Kristen. Does she have an eye or what?
 

Seven months cute

Boy or shark?

Definitely shark.

Toes or fingers?

Speaking of baby toes…have you seen the carnival of little feet over at Babylove?

August 12, 2006 @ 4:59 am | Filed under: Baby, Photos, Unschooling

"Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants—doing nothing but living and walking about—came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning: would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child’s way of learning. This is the path he follows. He learns everything without knowing he is learning it, and in doing so passes little from the unconscious to the conscious, treading always in the paths of joy and love."

—Maria Montessori

(With thanks to Donna G., local Montessori teacher and my fellow speaker at a recent alternative education panel, for bringing it to my attention.)

And in that vein, here’s what Rilla learned yesterday.