House Arrest

Life and Knitting Update

Life's been a bit of a scramble but we're finally settling into routines, both at home and at work. It's a bit of a crapshoot most of the time since the babies' level of fussiness is what ultimately determines whether we have a good day or bad.

This morning I took over my shift at 4:15 and the babies were "noshy." I gave them both as much of a bottle as they wanted and miraculously they fell back asleep with minimal fussing. I wound up getting another couple of hours of light sleep. So, today, thus far, has been a good day for me.

But, honestly, fussy or not, every day is a good day in the long run...

In knitting news, my projects sidebar is sadly out of date. I've been spending way too much time updating my projects at Ravelry and haven't been focusing on mirroring the changes here. However, I'll be updating this site over the Labor Day weekend — along with adding the pictures that are missing from my "365" project pages. (Believe it or not, I do have a picture of the kiddos for every single day. I just have to wade through them and pick the ones that I am going to use for the site.)

I finished the knitting and seaming on the Baby Surprise Jacket last Wednesday and only need to sew the buttons onto it. I actually had no buttons for it until last night when I "stole" some from a blouse I no longer wear. I realize that I can't do this for every knitted piece of mine so I'm going to have to find a good source for buttons somewhere.

I did the finishing work — seaming and crocheting the neckline a la Yarn Harlot — on the subway and found it easier than I thought it would be. So now my goal is to work on a new project during my morning commute and to do the finishing needed by my UFO baby knits during my evening ride.

Of course, this morning I found myself with two knitting projects and no finishing work in my bag. You see, I organize my projects using some nifty project bags I bought from Piddleloop. (These are totally awesome for organizing everything!) Last night I packed two of them in my work bag thinking that I knew their contents. Turns out I didn't.

Instead of bringing along my almost completed blue Hooded Jacket, I packed the project bag that had the makings for my Three-Piece Layette (pattern from Fall 2007 KnitSimple) and the one containing the Saartjes' booties I'm making from the leftover Baby Surprise Jacket yarn. I'd started the booties on my commute home on Friday and planned to bring this as my knitting project since they would be a quick knit to finish. (Aside: I have to frog my progress to date since I messed up the increases on the first bootie this morning.)

Tonight I'll make sure that I actually look in each bag so that I can take the right projects with me.

I've also recently started the "Charming" Cape that was in the Vogue Knitting 20th anniversary issue. It's a tough knit for me because it's on size 15 needles. I've discovered that my preferred needle range is on the small side. I feel most comfortable with needles smaller than size 4. Size 00000. Yeah, bring it. Size 6. Sometimes sucky. Size 10. Ugh. Still, I really want to make this cape to wear during the fall since I think it will look absolutely smashing with my suits. So the goal is to finish all the current baby knits and to work on this in the evenings until I can make it my commuting project.

Oh, and as you can see above, I started a bib this weekend using the Baby Bib O' Love pattern from the Mason-Dixon Knitting book. I'm going to make two for starters so that we can see whether or not we like them better than the ones that we're currently using. I hate the dishcloth cotton yarn because it hurts my hands to knit with it, but if Mark prefers these I'll knit up a few dozen for us.

3 months

The twins will be three months old on Thursday.

Time is rolling merrily along.

Missing

So this guy that I really liked working with disappeared.

I kinda considered him my "work husband" as I could be completely honest around him. We could talk anything from religion to tarot to geometry to intelligent design to Lord of the Rings. I admit that he had a much deeper perspective on some things that was hard for me to grasp at times, but our conversations were lively, intelligent and occasionally unexpected. He was quirky and funny in ways similar to many good friends of mine and was generally a pretty damned good employee. We were becoming closer over time and I fully expected our friendship to develop and grow into something more; something full of a LOT of in-jokes; something cool and geeky and special... (Kinda like what happened to me with Mike, Matt, etc...)

He didn't come in the Monday I came back from maternity with nary a word to anybody. He came from MN so there were all sorts of rumors and stories and conjectures flying around about how someone in his family must have been in that horrible bridge collapse. Those started cause he was a really responsible guy who would always call in but that Monday we were left wondering until we heard from the agency. They told us that he went back home and would be away a week.

I called him on Wednesday or Thursday of that first week and left a message on his voice mail asking him to give me a call whenever. I'd only called him once before on a work-related project but I put aside my doubts about appropriateness — this was the first time I was making a personal call to him — and found the balls to check up on him. I wanted to make sure he and his family were alive and okay. I didn't get a callback but I didn't think it too unusual at the time, figuring he must be really busy with his situation.

The week passed and the following Monday dawned. I walked into the office expecting to get see him at his desk and get caught up with him. Instead, he didn't show up. There was no phone call. No e-mail. Nothing. By noon we'd contacted the agency and they hadn't heard from him since he last called. No one knew where he was.

That's when I started to seriously worry. When a mofo is reliable, you come to expect some things.

My co-workers worried too, to varying degrees. We tried calling his phone only to find his voicemail completely and utterly full. They emailed him. (I'd found out during my leave that he never checked that e-mail box. D'oh!) My boss called the agency daily, trying to get word and went so far as having our company's security look into finding him.

Folks googled him in hopes of finding an alternate means of communicating with him. By Thursday, several of my co-workers were volunteering to go knock on the door of his apartment. There was talk of filing a missing person's report.

By now folks were getting really worried.

Finally, blessedly, I got an e-mail from him on Friday. I should say, he sent a fellow co-worker an email and directed her to share it with me since he didn't know what mine was. (Our system autofills in folks' emails when you start typing their names so it's difficult to really know anyone's address.)

It was a goodbye email with special messages for everyone he worked with. He only wanted each person to see their bit. I took on the task of complying with the wishes in the email and informing everyone that he wouldn't be returning to work and delivering his personal message to them.

Long story short, he'd decided to stay home, be with his family and pursue his lifelong artistic dreams. It was an unexpected turn of events but one that EVERYONE had been encouraging him to make happen.

It was a sad and surreal day.

No one could believe he was really not coming back.

This dude was a friend. Maybe not a close "call you whenever something happens and let you in on all my details" kinda friend, but a friend nonetheless. The piece that he had written for me literally brought tears to my eyes. (This happened to a lot of people on Friday.) On top of this, I was having an incredibly hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that I might never see him again. And, quite irrationally, I felt / feel a bit abandoned by his leaving.

Well, maybe not so irrationally. We kept touch throughout my maternity leave via company IM — I would log in to say hi and check in to make sure folks were okay. He and I chatted frequently about everything going on. In some ways he kept me better informed about what to expect than most. We also talked spiritualness and progress and other things and I was really looking forward to picking up where we left off.

And now, he's gone.

And while I wish him the best, I have really selfish moments when I want to see him walk through the door. For things to be like they were.

There's just been too much change at work lately. I hope things settle out real fucking soon now.

Edited to add: I wrote this post on Friday night, left it as a draft in hope but he really did not come back. I knew on Sunday when I got a quick email from him that it was not gonna happen.

Still, I'm glad that he did leave the door of communication open to me. I'm hoping that I'll hear more from him one of these days and that our dialog will continue for years and years and years...

It's Like I Never Left

After being gone for 14 weeks, I went back to work last Monday. Aside from the extreme sleep deprivation, things have been pretty much as they were when I left. Work-life is still in a state of flux because of new management and there's a general apprehension and sense of walking on eggshells from the crew. I feel I need to prove my existence all over again to a bunch of folks who've given me the impression that they could frankly care less about who I am or what I do.

New management aside, the rest of my workmates welcomed me back with hugely open arms. It has been really cool to hear, "We're glad to have you back, Ms. P..." It's been even cooler to actually feel the welcome. It's made being back a bit easier, despite the changes.

And even with the changes, it's all been pretty much the same. The same people go to lunch together. There is drama as only designers and web-folk can come up with. Oh, and there is gossip to go with the drama along with camaraderie and friendship and really good fucking work.

Life is.

Each day brings a new lesson, both at home and at work. Balancing time and energy has never been more difficult but I'm getting there.

Today I gave the twins' baths when I got home. It'd been my intention to take establishing a bedtime routine on as my own when I went back to work but I'd been unable to get it together during those first days back. But tonight I got to do a trial run of it...

Hunter and Aden had gotten really fussy a few hours before I came home, and despite all his tricks, Mark was having a difficult time getting them settled. (Mark is a rockstar and I love him more and more each day because of what he does.) That meant no naps for ANYBODY so he was extremely happy to see me when I walked in the door, ready to take my shift.

I'd picked up some lavender-scented baby wash (marketed as "calming" or "bedtime" formula) on my way home and decided that today was the day I would try to start a bedtime routine.

I bathed them, gave them bottles and rocked them while they fussed. And miraculously, I put them to sleep. In under an hour. Even more miraculously, they are still asleep two hours later.

As cool as making a living is, learning how to be a mom is the coolest thing yet.

P.S. I promise to add some knitting content in my next post. The first (and possibly ONLY) Baby Surprise Jacket is almost done and I've taken one a few new projects...

A Quick Dispatch From the Front Lines

I'm in the cat room. A fan is blowing on me and I am content. I am also feeling guilty about having time away from the babies. I'm supposed to use this time to sleep and rest. I'm not sleepy right now though I should be.

Mark doesn't want me in the nursery / bedroom when he is "on duty" at night so I comply. When I sleep in that room I invariably wake at the sound of loud fussing and complaining from the chillins. Mark's been utilizing different tricks to calm the babes but with me in the room it winds up being harder for him to implement said methods. He doesn't want to wake me as I can be a crabby ass biatch (as some of my coworkers rightly know) when that happens. Hence the "banishment" to a different part of the apartment.

And as we develop our parenting / management styles, we realize that they're slightly different in some ways. It's a learning curve, both ways, and I struggle with it.

So, for me, this means letting go. A lot. Mark has the con. And I have to let him have it, fully, completely and with absolute authority. I have to trust, beyond fear or anxiety.

But it's become easier for me to relinquish this type of control. In some ways, Mark is a lot better with the babies than I am. And basically, I trust my husband, despite my completely non-rational, paranoid misgivings.

So he does what he does and I feel good about it. However, now, more than ever, I realize how precious any downtime is to me. I can watch crappy cable that NO ONE else wants to watch while in this room. I can sleep. I can contemplate the new shape of my navel. (SOB! Never to shrink again! ) I can indulge in memories of time spent with Mark before we were married (the New Orleans trip has been springing into my mind lately). I can walk down the hall and hug and kiss and be with everyone feeling like a sappy-ass loon until I feel tired enough to sleep.

I take advantage of sleeping in a balls-hot room until our shift change at 4 am. Mark gladly suffers between 6 and 10 at night as well because it allows him to fall into a full deep sleep that he needs.

And through this all our babies are growing. Developing. Thriving.

And it is simply amazing to me that they are even here.

P.S. I have a week or more worth of photos to put in the 365 albums. I guess I just wanted you guys to know that we're still doing them.

P.P.S. I am knitting.

P.P.P.S. I am finally tired. Good night!

Down the line (guest post by Mark)

Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Today is the first day I stay home with our children alone.

Liz just left for work. She got me up from my too-short nap (I foolishly read the latest Harry Potter for an hour) at 6:30, and both babies went off as soon as she left the room to shower. So instead of drowsing for another half hour or so, it was fuss and feed and change from the get go.

The most either Hunter or Aden sleep at a time is about four hours. Our routine is for me to stay up for them from 10:00 in the evening until 4:00 in the morning so Liz can sleep enough to be coherent during the day. Then I sleep for a couple of hours, get back up, and care for them through the day, then sleep for another three hours after Liz gets home. With luck I'll be able to nap off and on during the day.

So until the twins actually can sleep in the night, I will be one sleep-deprived mofo.

Anyway, after her bottle and having her diaper changed, Hunter has settled right down, dozing in her boppie pillow. Aden on the other hand is wide awake and having none of this quiet-time shit. So he's strapped to my chest in a Baby Bjorn, which in general he thinks is the Best Thing Ever.

And just to do something, I start singing to him:

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.

Way back in the early 80's I would occasionally take the train between Charleston WV and Baltimore where I was going to school. It was one of those old-style trains, with the ancient leather seats with an amazing amount of legroom. That train was called the Cardinal, apparently because the Cardinal is the state bird of most of the states the train ran through. As I recall it ran from Chicago to Boston, taking a leisurely, scenic loop in the process. Hence the stop in Charleston.

As far as I know it still does, but I wouldn't bet on it doing so for much longer. Which is a shame, because I would like to take my family back to West Virginia on that train some time. It was a beautiful way to travel.

But now I have a son and he's curled on my chest, and I am singing to him about trains, and I'm remembering being young in a time that was already really past the time of trains, but riding a comfortable old dinosaur into a future I would have no presentiment of whatsoever, and thinking how lucky I was, have been and am.

And I started crying for the first time since they were born.

Life is good.

Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

FO: Oz Vests

Pattern: Natural Knits for Babies and Moms
Yarn: Rowan Tapestry, Rainbow & Rustic

Sweater 1 (Tapestry):
Knitting started: 03.30.07
Knitting completed: 04.07.07

Sweater 2 (Rustic):
Knitting started: 04.07.07
Knitting completed: 04.21.07
Blocking and finishing for both: 08.02.07

And another two bite the dust...

The Oz vests are done and looking rather festive, if I do say so myself. I think I originally decided to make them for the twins to wear at Thanksgiving with little white shirts. They'll definitely look cute in them when the time comes.

You may recall that I talked about changing the pattern after making the first vest. It called for a decorative (read: non-functional) button flap on the right shoulder which I omitted on the second go round. I think the vest knitted up much better without it — there weren't like 8 bazillion ends to weave in from all the casting on and off — but, truth be told, the little pearl buttons on the Rainbow one add a festive touch.

I would make one more change if I had to knit this all over again and that is to convert the pattern into the round. There's really no reason for it to be knit as two separate pieces and knitting it in the round would have prevented my headaches with trying to get the stripes on the back and front to match up.

P.S. Just three days of maternity day left! Gulp!