The Peanut Gallery

Today.

2011-09-03T18:56:21Z

I keep trying to come up with something cute or snappy or witty to say, but apparently my wit is broken. Or perhaps it's hibernating. Either way, I think I've run out of ways to say, "Oops, meant to post, got too busy, here's some pictures of the baby to make up for it." So, yeah. That.

July 28, 2011: Sporting the awesome handmade!! clothes he received from one of the Ravelry October Moms.

August 15, 2011: One of our new favorite games is eating the camera.

August 18, 2011: Grandmama came to visit and she bought Schondy Tot's first shoes!

August 21, 2011: This is Schondy Tot's first balloon. He spent hours with it, until the dog popped it. He had so much fun, I'm wondering if I need to invest in a helium tank.

August 28, 2011: Carlton is the source of much fascination.

August 28, 2011: Bathtime, always an adventure.

August 29, 2011: When Irish eyes are smilin'... they're usually up to something. See also: when babies suddenly get really quiet...

August 29, 2011: Baby's got blue eyes

September 1, 2011: Our newest trick, first begun on his 10-month birthday (8/31), is standing unsupported. Yes, I'm helping in this picture, but only so we could get a picture where his tongue isn't sticking out in concentration.

Where, oh where am I tonight?

2011-07-02T04:24:28Z

Why did I leave you here all alone? Well, you see, life happened. We've had a lot of life happening lately. You've heard the saying, "I try to take things one day at a time, but lately several of them have attacked me at once," right? Well, We had a whole mess of them. For better or worse, we have a whole herd of them bearing down on us as I type, but the baby is sleeping and Schondy is playing video games, so I felt like I could take a few minutes to bombard you with baby photos.

So what's been happening? Well...

June 9, 2011: Schondy Tot and I played outside for a little while in the glorious weather we're having.

June 13, 2011: Schondy Tot had a playdate with one of the other babies from the October group. These two are 3 days apart in age if you can believe it.

June 18, 2011: We went to a wedding in Napa. He was a real trooper and looked like such a big boy in his button-down shirt and kakhis.

June 22, 2011: He's a big fan of food. In case you couldn't tell.

June 2011: We bought a house. (Yes, really.)

June 24, 2011: Schondy Tot started packing up toys to put in his new room.

June 2011: I finished off a new quilt.

June 26, 2011: Schondy Tot approves. That's good, since it's his.

June 27, 2011: Lulu and Schondy Tot shared some yogurt.

June 28, 2011: Bound and determined to crawl.

We also celebrated our first Father's Day and yesterday, my beautiful baby boy turned 8 months old. In the last month, he graduated out of his infant car seat, and he's started saying both "mama" and "dada" (though not really with any meaning behind them), clapping his hands and pulling up on everything in sight. He's not crawling, but he doesn't let that slow him down - he can wiggle/roll/army-crawl faster than you'd believe. In the last week, he's cut his first two teeth, mostly mastered eating yogurt from a spoon, and started laughing when we laugh. I wish you could all be here to enjoy it.

6 Months Old!

2011-05-09T19:30:00Z

So........ hi.

Yeah.

I have no excuse other than...

Ooh, look! Pictures!

For Mother's Day, Schondy and the Schondy Tot did a photo shoot. I was there, but I was just the costume and props lady. Anyway. Pictures.

With the Easter Bunny Grandma Judy sent

Easter outfit 1

Easter outfit 2

Easter outfit 3

Yarrrrrr!

Yo, ho, ho and your little dog, too!

Pirate-y

Surrounded by Lubies

Lulu's never been very good at keeping her tongue to herself.

Hiding under the blanket Mama knit.

Hmmmmm.

Ooh! Blanket!

5 months

2011-04-02T19:06:27Z

By some strange occurrence, my baby boy has reached the ripe old age of 5 months. I'm not sure how that happened, only that he's glorious and adorable and I can't believe what a person he is. He's beginning to sit on his own, though not for long and if you leave him there too long, he kind of slumps forward and ends up with his head between his feet. While yoga instructors might be thrilled with that position, he's not sure how to extricate himself and just gets frustrated. He's rolling back-to-front, though he's still having trouble with getting that one arm out of the way. And he's beginning to figure out how to really make use of the doorway jumper, which he hurtles around in at top speed while squealing in glee at the top of his lungs. There's an awesome HD video of him doing this over at my MobileMe gallery (Sorry - I'm not going to post a link. Trying to keep things as anonymous as possible. Email me if you don't know where my gallery is).

I've started work on SchondyTot's quilt. I'm now in the final phase of piecing together the top, where I actually have to make some decisions about final size and placement of things. This is the exciting part, but also the part that scares me. It's where it becomes obvious if you've lined up all the seam allowances right and cut all the previous pieces the right size. If you cut corners (pun intended) earlier, this is where that bill will come due. Otherwise, I'm working, driving back and forth to daycare what feels like a hundred times a day and trying desperately to keep up with life.

I haven't been able to participate in the last couple photo-of-the-week challenges due to my work schedule and not having enough hours in the day where we're all here, all happy (and not sick) and all awake, but I do have a couple to share, as well as some just random adorableness, of which there's no short supply.

So 3 weeks ago, the theme was Water Babies and.. I won!!

Since I won the week, the theme of the next week was my choice and I chose to feature Chew Toys! A lot of the babies in the group are now teething, and all of them have discovered the joys of cramming things in their mouths, so I felt like it was perfect timing, but then life happened and I just couldn't catch a picture that worked, beginning my streak of not having an entry, though I now have a couple photos that would have been perfect if they'd happened a bit sooner. For the most part, I can usually fulfill the challenge on Monday when I'm home all day with SchondyTot, but if I miss it on Monday, it's just not going to happen. So, had I taken the photo earlier, this would have been my entry for Chew Toys:

Last week, the theme was All Dressed Up. Missed that one, too, but I have several outfits that are needing some photos so I'm going to take the pictures and post them even if they're totally at the wrong time and don't count.

This week, Flying Baby. SchondyTot doesn't fly around too much, though it's more because he's so heavy than because he doesn't like it (he loves it). If I manage to catch one today, I'll enter it and it will be super late (the week ends on Saturday night, winner and new theme announced late on Sunday), but more likely I'll take a picture today and then won't actually post it. That's kind of what keeps happening to me.

So. Random cuteness!

Love my Grandmama and my new shades

Freedom!!!

Oh, hello!

Mom got a new carrier.

In case you needed proof

2011-02-20T06:46:02Z

that I am insane, I made a quilt. I started it when TheSchondyTot was just shy of 11 weeks old and finished it on Thursday when he was just shy of 16 weeks old. Because clearly what every new mother needs is a project the size of a quilt to work on while she's learning to take care of her infant. On an impulse, I bought a quilt kit that was on clearance, thinking I'd use the fabric to dress up some burp cloths, but then realized that I've always said I wanted to make a quilt and, well, no time like the present.

I worked on it primarily after he went to bed, even going so far as to move my sewing machine and all the required parts and pieces down to the kitchen table so I wouldn't make noise near the sleeping baby and so I could hang out with Schondy while he played video games. I took very few pictures of it in progress, but I did capture the blocks while I was still trying to figure out how they should all fit together.

It's far from perfect. Far, far, far from perfect, and I daresay any serious quilters would be horrified at some of the decisions I made and some of my ham-fisted attempts at artistic elements, but this is the first quilt I've ever made and I think it's pretty good given all the extenuating circumstances.

When I was done with the top and needed to pick fabric for the back, I took scraps of all the different designs of the front and pieced them together to make a "swatch" that I could take with me to the fabric store. Partly because I didn't want to lug around that huge top and partly because I just liked the idea of a little block made from all the random scraps. When I was done with my swatch and after I'd picked out the back, I just fell in love with it and knew I needed to use it for something. I had a million ideas - make a pillow, make a wall hanging, make a bag, save it and combine it with others to make another quilt. Ultimately, I decided it would look really nice to put it in the middle of the back. This meant that I had to then piece the back together patchwork-style, but I think the result is really nice.

And just because I think it's a requirement to photograph any finished crafty project with the youngest critter in easy reach, gratuitous baby photos!!

Chaos reigns

2011-02-16T19:29:15Z

...mostly because I'm back at work and SchondyTot is now in daycare 3 days a week. I didn't get to do last week's photo challenge (Upsidedown) because I just couldn't get it all moving in the right direction. And this week's photo challenge is to do something "out and about". We'll see if I can figure something out there, too. Since I'm at work until 5 or 5:30, it's awfully tough to get out during the evenings and the challenge runs from Sunday to Saturday night. Maybe I can do a late entry Saturday morning, but that's pretty much my only option. Never enough time.

For Valentine's Day, the wonderful Schondy gave me a gift certificate to one of the few specialty shops that combines my current two crafty obsessions - knitting and quilting - The Bobbin's Nest, AND he gave me a beautiful caffeine necklace from moecularmuse. Does he know me well or what!?

SchondyTot's growing so fast. Here he is in the Exersaucer, shocked to discover that there's a cow there!

And here he is with Grandmama (and Granddaddy in the background) when we traveled home to visit a couple weeks ago.

Photo of the Week - My Boys

2011-02-04T08:23:07Z

This week's challenge was for the baby and his/her other parent. I was running out of time to get my entry together, so presented without comment, here's my boys:

12 weeks! And a Sleeping Baby

2011-01-26T01:47:51Z

I can't believe it, but here we are. SchondyTot is 12 weeks old. He's discovered his hands and sucks on them noisily - especially when he's hungry. He loves crinkly toys and walking the dog.

He thinks it's his personal mission every bathtime to make sure I get drenched, too, and then protests loudly and with much gusto when we pull him out of the bath to put on his pajamas.

On Friday, he rolled over from his front to his back - we're convinced it's because he just hates tummy time that much. Today he spent 10 minutes pondering the receiving blanket I had in the car. And when we sing to him, he will occasionally "agoo" along with us between smiles.

I didn't win last week's photo challenge, but the winning photo was truly awesome so I don't feel so bad. This week's photo challenge was for a sleeping baby. Here's my entry:

Photo of the Week - B&W Baby

2011-01-18T23:04:04Z

I know I've mentioned in the past that there's an online community similar to Facebook for knitters and crocheters called Ravelryand that it's a site I visit... way too much, probably. One of the great things about Ravelry is that users can join groups pertaining to specific interests - dachshund lovers or Harry Potter fans or people who really like knitting with purplr alpaca yarn. Understandably, the membership is primarily female, so it stands to reason that there would be groups for mothers - especially new mothers. There is a group for mothers of babies born in October 2010, of which I am, of course, a member.

The group started back in March of last year, about the time most of us found out we were expecting, and is still going strong. After almost a year of chatting with these women from all over the world, I feel like some of them - the core group that has been consistently active - are my online friends, and I've even had coffee with one of them who lives nearby.

All of this is just backstory/explanation for what I hope to be able to do for at least a little while here. A number of us have access to nice cameras and are interested in improving our skills, and now we have the perfect subjects - always cute, always changing, and always in great demand. Some of the women have challenged themselves to take and post a picture of something - often their children - every day. I'm not so crazy as to think that I could commit to something like that. But from that idea came the weekly photo challenge, where each week anyone who wants to can submit a photo matching a theme chosen by the previous week's winner. We all vote for the one that's the cutest or "best" or whatever.

So last week my submission was for the theme "Baby Knits" and you've already seen it:

This week, the theme is black & white photos of our babies and this is my submission, documenting the second nap I've managed to secure in the Pack & Play in a couple weeks. He slept almost an hour and a half, much to my satisfaction and surprise.

I don't know if it will win and I really don't care. I'm just enjoying the "assignments" and wanted to share them with you. I hope to post them as long as I'm able to do them. We'll see how long it lasts. I do, after all, have an infant. :)

All's Quiet

2011-01-13T08:20:17Z

Life continues apace around here. I'm still on maternity leave, SchondyTot's growing like a weed, Adam's working too much. Lulu's feeling neglected and the cats don't care. We've reached a new equilibrium, I think, unexpected in this time that we were warned would be so chaotic. I think we were prepared for the worst and have discovered that life can, at times, simply adjust to accommodate one more being when the time is right. He sleeps through the night, but makes up for it by eating all day long. They tell me infants don't really eat more than 30 oz. a day, but I feel like it's 1000.

Napping in the Moby Wrap

I don't feel like I'm accomplishing a lot during the day, though I know that I'm doing my single most important task and, I hope, doing so with some small amount of competency. He's growing like a weed (14 lb. 4 oz. and 23.5 inches at his last checkup), he smiles, giggles and "hoots" when really excited. He loves "The Rainbow Connection" and to have raspberries blown on his belly.

He's not fond of being made to wait for his dinner, but who can blame him, really. He hasn't discovered his hands in the traditional sense, but he regularly gets them caught in the toys hanging from his play mat and he manages to poke at me with a fair amount of accuracy and seeming dexterity. Whether or not any of it is intentional is anyone's guess.

In two weeks, we travel to Kentucky to introduce him to the members of his family who have not met him yet. A week after our return, I resume working and he will begin spending three days a week in day care. This will, I think, be the hardest thing we've attempted yet. Seems so wrong to put someone so young in the hands of a stranger, but under the current circumstances, there is no other choice. He may or may not know the difference, but I'm already dreading the separation - even if only for half a mile.

It's 12:30am, I've been up far too many hours and the late hour has made me melancholy.

10 weeks, 3 days old

Making progress

2010-12-15T00:20:33Z

As evidenced by the fact that I'm writing this blog post in the middle of a work day when Schondy is at work, we are making a lot of progress on a lot of things. SchondyTot is 6 weeks (and 2 days) old today and currently napping (Hooray!!). He's chubby and happy and all those wonderful things you hope for. It's definitely not all wine and roses - some days I could definitely do with a little more wine - but it's also not the predicted misery that so many people seemed to want to torture us with when describing life with a newborn. Maybe our expectations were low, maybe our tolerance is high, or maybe he's just a really good baby. Who knows?

I've been meaning to write this post for days. I've got a thousand little blog post ideas percolating in my head, but nothing that I felt like I could do much with. So in the interest of getting something up, I'm just going to throw you a bunch of pictures instead and call it good.

He's actually a big fan of bathtime. It's pretty much a guarantee for a happy baby.

Note the little black paw on the right side of the seat...

Smiling at the critters on the play gym

Can't believe how big he's getting!

It's the Great Pumpkin!

2010-11-18T02:02:31Z

I wish I could tell you that my almost three-week absence was due to something exciting or life-changing happening, but... oh, wait! There was this one little thing that happened. Usually, no children come to our house on Halloween, but this year we had one come to stay. Yes, 7:01am Halloween morning, little SchondyTot was born at home in a land speed record-setting waterbirth. At 9lbs 8oz, he's beautiful and perfect and... well, see for yourself:

About 12 hours old

Our closest friends brought dinner for us and a birthday cake for SchondyTot that night because, really, you only ever have one TRUE birthday. The rest are just celebrations of that first one.

First birthday cake

Skip a few days... Grandmama brought us some adorable PJs. These were my favorites. SchondyTot likes them because they're warm and everyone else who'd given gifts or hand-me-downs wasn't thinking that this would be a winter baby. Most people also weren't banking on the fact that he'd be nine and a half pounds, either, so that was a bit of a challenge, too.

5 days old

Daddy getting fancy with the pictures. I like this one.

5 days old

I can't believe how big he is already. He'd gained back his birthweight by 1 week and at 2 and a half weeks is now over 10 lbs!

2 weeks old

I'll let you know when it happens. Really. I promise.

2010-10-31T02:00:07Z

I think the title says it all on THAT topic.

So I've been nesting again. Or maybe I've just been bored. Amounts to the same thing these days, now that I'm on maternity leave. As I suspected, I'm only doing moderately well with the whole waiting thing. I've been driving Schondy crazy. He's bearing it well, but I know the waiting is rough on him too.

To pass the time, I've gotten all crafty again. It was inevitable, I suppose. Among knitters, the lore goes that the baby won't be born until the last knitted thing for them is finished. If that's the case, well, I know why this baby is taking its time - I keep picking up new projects. Some of them are knitted, some aren't, but I thought that would a good way to show you what I've been up to recently (aside from serving the baby every kind of eviction notice I can come up with).

Since my last crafty post, I've completed a number of interesting things. I won't bore you with all of them, but here's the highlights:

Percival Long Dog was pretty entertaining to work on and I'm pleased with the result, though if I had it to do over again, I'd probably use smaller needles so the stuffing wouldn't show quite as much. You can't tell from the pictures (Thanks, Schondy!), but the weave is a little more open than I'd generally prefer. Oh, well. The baby probably won't notice.

Because you can never have too many long dogs in the house

He might be French, but who can say for sure?

This isn't necessarily for the baby - it's for me, really - but it's cute and I'm sure that if it lasts until the baby is old enough to care, he/she will like it, too. Since I lost all that weight, I've had a devil of a time keeping my feet warm in bed, so I decided to go the old school route and get a hot water bottle. Now that I'm pregnant, that hasn't been so much an issue, but the heat has done wonders for the various other aches and pains I've been battling. This also makes a killer iPad cover, but I'm not so sure I'm going to go out in public with it like that.

Looks deceptively like a cuddly toy...

...a sloshy, heated cuddly toy, to be exact.

There have actually been a couple of these that I've done. From the Mason-Dixon Knitting book, a great book for functional, hard-wearing patterns, came the Baby Bib O' Love. It has the best quote on the pattern, "...Make a bunch of 'em. Babies are a mess!" So I've obliged. This is actually the third one I've done (I gave one of them away) and it's been great to have something that I can crank through so quickly that's actually useful.

The colors are actually kind of chocolatey, not as dark/black as they look in the picture.

I do have a couple knitting projects on the needles right now, but they're things that take a bit longer. I mentioned before that we spent some time at the Art & Wine Festival in town a few weeks ago and, of course, we found all kinds of cute things that we really liked, but were either too expensive or just not... right. So when I needed some more "instant" gratification than my knitting projects were providing, I decided to recreate a few of those items. One of those things was a tie-dyed onesie that Schondy really liked, but that they didn't have in a small enough size. I did a little research and found out how to do that particular dye pattern and here's the result. They're not fancy, but I think they're pretty good for a first try. Don't think I've tie-dyed anything since 4-H camp a million years ago and I made a huge mess in the process, but I sure had fun. Highly recommend it if you're looking for something crafty to do.

The blue was a little wussy, but the black and red turned out great!

Also at the Art & Wine Festival was this seller with the most adorable baby blankets I'd ever seen. Each one used a couple contrasting fabrics on the front and back and then had animals appliqued on both sides - usually a turtle on the front and a hippo on the back or something like that. But the one I fell in love with was just simple birds on a checkered background with another bird on the back. Unfortunately, she was a little more proud of her work than I was willing to pay ($$$!), so I passed, though I came really, really, really close to caving. So a couple days ago, I made my own version. Love the way it came out, though there are definitely things I'll do differently when/if I attempt this again.

You can't see it very well, but the birds are all sitting on a wire...

The one on the back is, of course, the one that turned out the best.

And finally, the pictures you really came here to see, me, at ever increasing size, including today's shot, where I'm officially 40+ weeks. Forgive the funny expression on my face - I'd just woken up from a nap.

38w1d

39w1d

40w1d

Photo Extravaganza!

2010-10-11T04:41:52Z

SOMEone informed me that I didn't have to post any words, so long as I post some pictures of how I look now that I'm eyeballing the finish line in this grand marathon I've been running for the last almost 9 months. So in the interest of fulfilling that wish, here's a whole pile of pictures. And almost no words.

My co-workers threw a huge baby shower for us on Thursday and were so incredibly generous. Because the shower was outside, there was much squinting going on and the lighting was... well, this is California, so it was bright. But a few of the pictures are blog-worthy. The rest I will ceremonially burn so no one is ever subjected to their awfulness.

Baby's first laptop, courtesy of one of my managers

Some adorable books by Mo Willems, courtesy of a co-worker

Check out that belly! No wonder everyone watches me nervously.

The enormous pile of gifts from my shower went the whole length of the bar. All the bags are full. They really, really, really went crazy, but I know how much fun it can be to shop for babies, and I'm eternally gratefully for their generosity and kindness.

When we got all the gifts home, there was, of course, much packaging lying around. Lulu was particularly interested in the Boppy package, so we, of course, put her in it. She was confused.

Help!

And then there's me. What you all really wanted to see. We were kind-of-sort-of-half-way hoping to have the baby today - 10/10/10 - but as the date approached, we realized that we'd both be quite happy with waiting 3 or 4 more weeks. There are plenty of other interesting dates before us, including 10/20/2010 (our 9th wedding anniversary) or even 11/11/10, though in reality, I might consider serving an eviction notice before that.

35w2d
36w2d
37w1d

Time does march on, doesn't it?

2010-09-20T21:07:22Z

Somehow, while I was away... working or something, I passed into the realm of "very pregnant". Not sure when it happened, but it did. Last week, Schondy turned to me and said, "you know, it's probably about time for us to get organized." Smart man, that husband of mine. And he's totally right. Now that we've gotten some other activities out of the way, that's exactly the plan - to get organized. 'Cuz it's time.

Last weekend was the Art & Wine Festival in our town. It's held on the main road about 1/4 mile from our house and it's where I usually do a lot of holiday and birthday shopping. I know that the things I get from there are pretty much guaranteed to be one-of-a-kind and unique since most of it is handmade. Schondy fell in love with the blocks from The Village Blocksmith and decided the baby needed a set of blocks... but I know who they're really for (Hint: not the baby - its father). But they are very beautiful and fun to fiddle with.

This weekend, Schondy and I went to Lake Tahoe to see a good friend of mine get married. It was a beautiful wedding - very short, but beautiful - and neither of us had ever been to Tahoe, so it was nice to go someplace neither of us had been before. I think we'd both like to go back some time when we're not on a super-tight schedule and I'm not 8 months pregnant. We've both gotten in the habit of listening to audiobooks on our various commutes and when one of us has a lot of walking to do when the other isn't around. While we drove to and from Tahoe, we listed to Stuff, a book about hoarding. We tried to find a fiction book we could agree on, but we realized this was in both our wishlists, so clearly that was a sign. Very interesting read/listen if you find yourself with a long drive ahead of you.

This coming weekend, we have plans to finally do some of that "getting organized" thing that's all the rage these days. We have no further outings planned in the next few months - we do have other friends getting married October 23, but will probably decline that invitation. I'm sure the wedding will be beautiful and I'm quite bummed we can't go, but it's about an hour away from home at the other end of a really nasty bit of highway. I'm totally game for going, but somehow we just don't think that's a good idea.

Except for the never-ending treadmill of work, I really don't know that there's anything else going on in our world. The most exciting thing I can think of is the cake I baked yesterday to address the bunch of beets (!) that appeared in last week's produce box. I'd read somewhere that beets made for an amazing chocolate cake and decided to give it a go since the beets were unlikely to be used any other way. Turns out that anything combined with enough sugar, flour and eggs can be made tasty. It's not the most glorious cake I've ever made, but it was made from scratch and with love and neither of us spit it out when we tasted it. Should another pile of beets show up on my doorstep, I'll know what to do. I'd love to have another opportunity to practice.

33w1d
34w1d