House Arrest

83: When I Knit

Angela mentioned in the comments to 85 that she didn't know where I found the time to knit.

I think I've mentioned in the past that I have an hour commute to and from work. Crown Heights to Midtown West and back again. 50 minutes of that is spent on the subway and that is when I get the bulk of my knitting done. I usually get a seat but I have been known to knit leaning up against the door. Heck, I knit while waiting for the train to arrive. I'm not shy about whipping out my project given a nanosecond of free time. Just don't ask me to work on complicated lace or charted projects -- the Storm Water Scarf is super easy so it's an obvious exception to the rule -- as referencing charts is next to impossible.

I also knit at night and on the weekends. This knitting is less reliable than my 5 day a week subway KIP cause either my hands hurt from carpal tunnel or I'm too tired to focus or the babies are hungry and demanding attention or I'm trying to cram something else in my life.

On weeknights at home, I usually knit between feedings. You see, the schedule works out a little like this right now. Hunter can sleep 4 hours at a shot. Aden, on the other hand, is up every 1 1/2 hours or so. He's a fussy sleeper; she's a fussy eater. (And how!)

So, I usually knit a few rows between when they go to bed (around 9:00 if we're super-lucky!) and when I get drowsy (around midnight). Some nights I spend this time opening mail or reading email or checking out blogs so no real knitting gets done. Other nights the babies want constant attention so the needles don't even get a chance to come out. And then there are the nights that I'm knitting along to Arthur (new guilty pleasure) on PBS Kids at 11:30 pm.

However, the bulk of the knitting is not done at home.

So, honestly, if it weren't for my commute, I'd probably knit half as much. (Trust me, if I had to be at home, I would find an hour to knit each day, someway, somehow.)

And Angela, you're right. It IS therapy. I have been saying this for years.

I always tell my co-workers that my knitting keeps me sane and in their world.

[Edited to add:] P.S. Here's the pic of the day:

I thought I'd have time for another post. What was I thinking?

84: CaFfEiNe

WANT! WANT! WANT!

Why? Well...

That just about sums it up, doesn't it?

85

Things are going more as less as usual. Work is. Mark's looking after the babies who have a lot of fussy moments as of late. And we strive on.

Hunter has the most amazing look that she gives you. It's like you get absorbed in her eyes and can look at her forever. And Aden is our little crocodile, now that he's taken to death rolling on the changing table.

It's an amazing feeling when your touch soothes them, makes them feel better, makes them stop crying, makes their eyes light up.

I'm not lying when I say that I'm looking forward to the rest of our lives.

P.S. I started something from stash because stockinette was getting way to boring for me. It's the Storm Water Scarf and it's being knitted in nummy delicious Handmaiden Sea Silk.

Sadly, I've been cheating on all my other projects with this one. I need to get back on the ball with my other WIPs.

86

It was a slightly easier day for Mark today. The babies napped so he got to sleep and they were a little less demanding of undivided attention.

Of course, that changed when I got home.

I'm now on baby duty, trying to get the kiddos to sleep so that I can get 40 winks myself.

I really hope this stage passes soon!

87

It was a rough day today.

We'd decided a few weeks ago to go out to dinner with the babies in hopes of getting them used to being out. Their day to day routine consists of them being in the nursery practically 24 / 7 since we  never go out. It's just too hard trying to wrangle both babies alone and the weekends are spent just trying to deal. However, we both realize that they're not going to be babies forever and that eating out will eventually come up.

The restaurant we'd chosen has a kid-friendly Monday night schtick. We planned on Mark coming by so that my coworkers could see the babies and then we'd head off for an early night of Tex-Mex.

Mark smelled trouble early on as the babies were mega-fussy and needed to be held practically constantly. He spent most of the day playing with them in the playpen, struggling to get them to take a nap. Still, we decided to soldier on and try.

Well... the babies were overwhelmed by the sights, sounds and people at my office. They eventually calmed down but there was an underlying fussiness to them that Mark and I knew would just spell trouble later.  We ended up bagging our long awaited outing in favor of rushing home. (Let me tell you, we could not rush back fast enough! Hunter melted down for the first twenty minutes of the trip home, poor baby.)

The kiddos are now sleeping and will hopefully sleep soundly. The poor babes are all tuckered out from their hard day... and so is their dad.

88

Long day. Thank God for the power of Daddy:

89

90

Tired tonight, so just a pic for you:

Oh, and I watched Aden pull himself fully to standing. All by himself.

Incredible.

91 (Guest post by Mark)

Every day Hunter and Aden become less like wonderful little lumps, and more like wonderful little people.

There are a lot of reasons I wanted to be a stay-at-home-dad, but maybe the biggest was the selfish desire to be able to watch my kids learn. For years I worked as a trainer and technical writer, and I've always gotten a huge kick out of helping people learn new things. But I never worked with kids, and I knew that would be the biggest kick of all.

And it is.

Let's face it though, new babies just aren't all that much fun in the way of intellectual repartee. (I know, you can teach your baby sign language, but the conversations are limited to "I'm hungry, dammit" and "my diaper is locked and loaded", so why bother?) Sure, it's fun soothing the baby by feeding, changing, singing, talking, walking, rocking, etc., but the conversation, as it were, is all one way. The parent does for the child, the child accepts and is soothed, or doesn't and isn't. In which case said parent tries Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, etc. until satisfaction is achieved.

That's life with newborns.

For the past few months though, Hunter and Aden have been becoming much less passive receivers of stimulation, and more active participants in their own lives.

Now the activities aren't yet what you'd call sophisticated. Aden's consists mostly of pull-ups, lunge-crawling, and face-planting, while Hunter is big on the old smack- whatever- this- is- in- my- hand- against- the- nearest- available- object- hi- daddy! trick, blowing raspberries, and chanting "ba ba ba ba".

Oh, they also love taking each others' toys from the other; Aden is more mobile, Hunter has better eye-hand coordination, so for any given contest it's a toss up on who ends up with the toy-in-hand. Fortunately, they haven't gotten to the stage where they get all ticked off at losing the toy and instead just turn to something else with kind of an "oh well, stuff happens" attitude.

I'm really going to miss that attitude when it passes.

Then of course there's the hair-pulling. No mellow acceptance when that happens, no sir. So one of the first things I'm teaching is "no, let go" but I suppose that's to be expected.

Anyway, this is just a long and drawn out way of saying it's frickin' cool watching our babies grow. This is the hardest job I've ever had in a lot of ways, but it's also the best.

Thanks Liz, for letting me do this.

92

Hunter still doesn't know how to get into a sitting position on her own. What I've noticed happen is that she backs herself into a corner and winds up plopping onto her butt. Delighted, she hangs out in this position until she falls backwards or forwards out of it.

We know that she's going to get it soon but it's still hard to watch her get frustrated when she can't get back into a sitting position. She really likes sitting up and looking around, and according to Mark her interaction with her toys and brother have changed because of this ability.

Mark has been helping her sit when she's hollered but he's decided that he's gonna let her tough it out for a few in hopes that she will learn the skill quicker.

We both know that it's gonna happen any day now, just as crawling will. Still, it's hard to watch her struggle with it, especially when it makes SUCH a difference to her enjoyment of things.

Edited to add @ 11:27 PM:

BTW, I started another baby sweater. (Debbie Bliss' Ribbed Baby Jacket [UK pattern link here] to be exact.) I started writing about it earlier during the day in the interest of actually posting about my knitting. Um, yeah.

Remember when I said this was not gonna become a baby blog. (Cough, cough!)

Anyway, I'm currently traversing what feels like miles of stockinette land and I really didn't think that my 30 odd rows were interesting enough to post about so I'll update you when I'm not ready to poke my eyes out with my knitting needles. The only plus to this project is that I'm knitting with silk. Raw silk, but silk nonetheless.

Oh, and I'm knitting two of them. Again.

I think that I'm about to learn the "matchy matchy" / knitting for kids lesson real fast now.