Neverending

I've been working on the itty bitty practice Little Sky Sock for-eveh. It's been so long you'd think the sock was going to be a men's size gazillion. In fact, I'd been working on it for so long that I decided to test it out to make sure it would fit.





It does fit and, surprisingly, Lady Bean was pretty cool with me putting the sock on her with the needles to test the size. I was happy it fit and so I motored on and finished.



Now, I just need to crank out the other one. Pronto. Mucho pronto. So pronto that they both will fit for at least one wear. Otherwise I am just going to have to chew off her toes to make 'em fit. Baby toes ... yummmmm!

Obvious

You know your life is taking a downward turn when you actally have "do NOT wreck car ... AGAIN" on your to-do list.

Bits

I haven't been real good about updating me blog, mostly because I have nothing of import to say; but also because my twenty-three inch, twelve pound boss cracks the whip and doesn't like me to futz around on the internet. Tyrant!

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I haven't done anymore work on my sock. Joan was here for several days and loving on Lady Bean so I had many breaks but I found myself gazing at my navel during those breaks. I don't really get to naval gaze anymore so it was totally worth it but it means my mini sock is stalled.

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I've discovered a great product. What could it be, you must be wondering (or not), this product so good I am willing to hock it for absolutely no consideration from it's manufacturer (Not that wouldn't like some swag ... call me Crest!)? Why it is Crest Pro-Health Night Toothpaste. You see, I've always been a Mentadent kind of girl but during all of those random intervals in the middle of the night where I had to wake up and feed   the tyrant   my darling daughter, I was having some wicked dragon breath. Breath so bad I feared it would wake her all of the way up which would be NO GOOD. So, bowing to the power of advertising, I got me some Crest Pro-Health Night Toothpaste and started using it before I went to bed. And it worked. I mean, I don't have fresh minty breath when I   am violently snapped out of slumber by shrill demands for food   wake up, but I'm not going to gag a maggot either. Which leads me to my next thought: Crest isn't doing a good enough job advertising this product. Instead of the clinical aspect as the hook, they should be using the whole morning nookie thing as a hook... you know, freshens breath so well that you won't kill your partner if he/she wants some morning nookie before you've brushed your grill. I know there is an awesome tag line in there somewhere ... breath so fresh you can get fresh in the morning? Right, well I am a lawyer, not an ad-man.

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Have you seen Wedding Crashers? If you answered no, well, you need to change that. Anywho, you know that scene where Hotty Hot Vince Vaughn is making balloon animals and the bratty kid yells, "Whatever, make me a bicycle Clown!" This scene ...


Well, I often think Lady Bean is looking at me and thinking, "Make me a bottle Clown!" or "Walk me around the room ... faster Clown!" Whenever I think this it makes me laugh. I suspect she will call me Clown instead of Mom.

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How about them Canes and their ACC championship? Now we are ranked Number 1 ... Sweet!

First

In the past, Mother's Day has been kind of a downer for me so I usually just ignored it. Or made jokes about being a mutha, a muthafucka. This year, however, I find myself the honoree, not the honoror. This shift in my stature has made the holiday a little less sucktastic and so I decided to celebrate. How you may wonder (or not) do I celebrate when the person that would throw the celebration, Lady Bean, is only five or so weeks old and has not yet mastered her opposable (or prehensile for those of you medically and scientifically inclined) thumbs and her accomplice, Boo, is out of town until this evening? Well, at 5:30 a.m., I had cake for breakfast. Crazy, I know. But wait! There's more! At 9:15 a.m., I had a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup for brunch. Also crazy, and good for maintaining a nice sugar buzz. But that is not all. There is even more celebrating going on!

Lady Bean has decided to sit, peacefully, in a half awake/half slumber state NOT ON MY LAP so that I can knit! She doesn't like when I knit with her on my lap as the needles tend to smack into her a bit. So picky, but whatever. I'm getting to knit. Actually, I think that the reason she is being so biddable is because she knows I am knitting for her. I've been wanting to dive into the new, well not really new anymore but I am slow, Cat Bordhi book. Instead of just jumping in, which is usually my preferred method, I've decided to actually knit the practice socks since I now know someone with a foot small enough to wear them. Though, at the rate I am plodding along, they are going to be for her children instead of her. Either way, it doesn't matter because I get to celebrate Mother's Day doing something I enjoy. So, for all of you moms, or you muthafuckas, Happy Mother's Day. Try to enjoy it and do something fun.

Inished-fay Object-ay

I is for Inished-fay object-ay? What? Is that cheating? Pig Latin doesn't count? Well, it should!



I finally finished the Lacy Summer Socks I started in March. The pattern was quite simple so under normal circumstances these puppies would be a quick knit. Heck, I finished the first sock in a day! When life interrupts, they take a bit longer, but they are still pretty brainless, and painless, to knit.

I did run into a glitch as I hate the short row heel and that is what the pattern wants. I mean I really hate the short row heel. Hate it with a passion reserved for things like bugs and cheap vodka. Nonetheless, I gritted my teeth and used the short row heel in the pattern. I didn't use the short row method for the toe because I always do the same toe. Also, me, not a masochist. One short rowed thing is enough. The pattern also called for using the design on the sole which seemed like it would be uncomfortable. Since I did the stupid short row heel, I felt good about just knitting the sole.



The design part of the pattern is pretty and reminds me of a feather and fan type deal. Even though I didn't modify that part at all, for some reason mine do not look like the socks in the pattern's pictures.



I am not sure if it was my yarn substitution or something else more ethereal. Either way, I am not too bummed. They are nice summer socks that I can wear with my sneakers on a regular day.




Yarn: Socks That Rock, medium weight, color unknown, I thought it was Nodding Violet but a browse on Ravelry makes me think not so much, half a skein.
Needles: Addi Circs, size 3.0 mm (US 2)
Pattern: Lacy Summer Socks
Modifications:to be a ped and modified to have a stockinette sole.
Time: 37 days.
Care: Machine wash, dry flat.

I is for ...

Sanity saving Infant formula.



You may have noticed that things have been pretty quiet here. If you chalked it up to having a new baby, you'd be right. Sort of. Until this week, things were kind of grim as Lady Bean was CONSTANTLY screaming and I was losing my mind. Though she was thriving as far as weight gain, Lady Bean was not a happy baby, and I was not a happy mommy. For the first three weeks of her life, Lady Bean didn't sleep and when her eyes were open, so was her mouth. From the beginning we had had problems with my milk supply which left us supplementing my milk with formula. It also had me attached to a pump every two and a half hours and taking herbs and prescriptions trying to up my supply. I was pumping, adding formula to the pumped milk, and praying Lady Bean would be full and soothed. Initially we thought that Lady Bean was so unhappy because she was starving. Later we figured out she had reflux. Reflux that made her every meal painful and sleep impossible. It also made our stress levels skyrocket.

Now I've dealt with stress. And, I think I've done pretty well with it. I grew up with alcoholic parents who didn't get sober until I was 12 years old and divorced shortly thereafter. Then I buried both of those parents, as well as my aunt, my FiL, my second mom, cousins and friends. I think I handled the stress of these events pretty well. I feel like I am someone who rolls with the punches for the most part and don't lose my shit in an untimely manner. Not that I don't lose my shit, but I wait until after I've dealt with the crisis. In any event, this is why I never thought the stress of having a baby would knock me off my keel. Would I be stressed? Absolutely. Would there be rough times? Bad times? Hairy times? Sure. Would I lose my mind and suffer from postpartum depression? Nope. No way. I suspect it was this mindset that kept me from realizing that what I was feeling was not the normal baby blues or new parent stress but instead was postpartum depression.

After ten days of herbs, I started taking the milk supply prescription. Lady Bean was constantly awake and constantly screaming, even though she was no longer starving. Reflux was kicking her itty bitty ass and her prescription wasn't helping. I figure the angst, the insomnia, the sadness, the desperation, the soul sucking ickness, the inability to get a deep breath, the desire to just go away, these things that I was feeling, they were from being overwhelmed and over-tired. This was life with a fussy baby. I mean, you can't sleep when the baby sleeps, if the baby doesn't sleep. So I took each day minute by minute, sometimes second by second, chanting "keep her alive," and forced myself to do the things I needed to do.

I figured that I was just feeling the new parent stress and disregarded the big fat warning all over the milk drug and it's instructions that said that rare side effects include (both bold and underlined or basically saying "pay attention dummy") anxiety, agitation, depression ... or difficulty breathing. So for seven days I took the milk drug and slipped further and further into myself. I felt less and less engaged in my life and more and more agitated at the thought of spending another second alone with this little screaming person. I didn't want to pump. I didn't want to feed her. I didn't want to cuddle with her. I didn't want to change her. I just wanted to be alone. I counted down the time until Boo came home and I could give the baby to him. I was introspective and gave some thought to how I was feeling since Boo would ask me multiple times a day if I was okay. I figured, I didn't want to hurt Lady Bean, I didn't want to hurt myself, I just wanted to be left alone so I was overwhelmed and not depressed. I convinced myself, my husband, and my friends that I was okay, just tired. Even feeling totally incapable of getting ready for guests to come meet Lady Bean seemed normal-ish to me. It wasn't until I found myself sobbing in the shower for no apparent reason and unable to stop that I realized that I was not normal and something was really, really wrong.

I am lucky that I have a husband and friends who care about me and were able to step in and help when I said something along the lines of, "Um, I think I might be fucked up." When I walked into the family room wearing a towel and tears Boo knew that I was not okay. So with his, and some really good friends' help, I talked to my doctor and the pediatrician and worked on fixing me and our baby. I stopped taking the milk drug and Lady Bean started taking a special formula for reflux babies. Now Lady Bean is no longer awake twenty hours a day, screaming and inconsolable. And, with the drugs out of my system, I've been able to regain me. With the help of friends, I have been able to rest. I'm still not one hundred percent. I still have some anxiety (after all, if Lady Bean isn't screaming she must have stopped breathing since screaming was her modus operandi for three weeks) and some insomnia. But, I can breathe. I can laugh when I flick the air bubbles out of the baby medicine dropper like a heroin addict getting ready to shoot up. I can pick up Lady Bean and snuggle with her. I can sit her on my lap while I surf the internet and laugh with her about the latest celeb gossip. I can leave the house with Lady Bean knowing that if she has a melt down, I won't.

So, I is for infant formula. Infant formula has saved my sanity. Infant formula got me off the milk drug. Infant formula feeds Lady Bean in a way that soothes her reflux, allows her to sleep, and when she is awake, allows her to act like a baby and not a writhing, screaming banshee. Infant formula got my mind back in a place where I can say yes when people offer to help because I am not worried about me or the baby driving the helping person nuts. Don't get me wrong, I aspire to having a breast fed baby. I may not be able to feed her fully with my milk supply, but I have hopes that Lady Bean and her wicked reflux will be able to tolerate my milk in the near future. I am still pumping. I have storage bags of the stuff in our crisper waiting for a chance to be her dinner. But, I also have perspective. If she can't tolerate the breast milk in the next week or so, if she is a formula fed baby forever, well, it is okay. Some people might disagree. Some people might see me as a failure and instant death for my baby, but to them, I am enough of my old self that I can say fuck off. And, for good measure, kiss my ass. Lady Bean being formula fed doesn't mean that she is going to be sickly. It doesn't mean that I am a failure as a mother.



It does, however, mean that on those days when she is fussy, a normal fussy baby, and I need a break, I can pass her off to my husband, call a friend and share a bottle of wine (preferably while eating sushi) without worrying about Lady Bean getting loopy. Silver linings, if you will.