House Arrest

30 Weeks: Crabbiness

A huge thanks to everyone who commented on my "Swelling" post. My sister-in-law — who died at the age of 27 — had pre-eclampsia during her pregnancies and lost a baby girl because of it. So it hits a little closer to home for me and it's just one of those amplified fears that I have that I shouldn't. (Hell, when I told my brother I was pregnant, he kept telling me to make sure I got monitored for pre-eclampsia!) I know that some level of mild edema is normal for pregnant women... I just thought that maybe I lucked out and was going to miss out on it completely. I have an appointment on Wednesday — this one kicks off the weekly visits! — so I'll definitely be asking about how normal this all is then.

I'm just not used to having to force my rings on or for my clothes and sheets and chair to so readily imprint themselves in my flesh. And let's not talk about the ankles. They're not at cankle stage yet but it's disconcerting to see how fat they appear to be. And of course, for a woman who's struggled with weight issues her entire life, appearing fat is a huge blow to the ego — regardless of how "cute" everyone insists pregnant women are.

Oh and that's another pet peeve. The whole pregnant women being "cute" thing. For the record, waddling is not fucking cute. I waddle cause I can't walk normally. I waddle cause it fucking hurts to walk any other way. So telling me how cute I am or look when I waddle just frustrates me. Watching me waddle slowly down the hall towards you with a half-knowing smile on your face makes me want to smack you when I get to the end. I'm in pain and your smiling at my misery, you dolt. There's more to this rant, but I'll leave it at that.

Okay, yeah, I'm crabby. I've been pretty crabby lately. And no, my crabbiness isn't cute either.

I'm pretty sure that this crabbiness is being brought about by my frustration at being unable to do normal things like, oh, bend over to pick something up or shave my legs or take off my shoes unassisted. My belly has gotten heavier and much more uncomfortable to walk with lately — even with the sling — and I can feel that the twins are getting more than a bit crowded. More often than not I can feel a solid baby body along my sides. It's definitely a neat feeling but unfortunately it's usually accompanied by some other pain like extreme backache or the sensation that your bladder is about to fall out.

Adding to the crab is my depression over my upcoming 38th birthday on Saturday. I have absolutely no plans for my birthday. Part of me feels that this is the last birthday I will have all to myself for a long time. Starting next year, my birthdays will revolve around the kids (at least until they're in their pre-teens) so I kinda was hoping to make this one special somehow. Of course, most of the things I would normally do are either off limits or take too much physical effort and I can't think of substitutions for them. I'm not a spa or manicure person — I hate people touching me, my favorite restaurant closed two years ago, and I can't walk around and explore the city like I used to. Having a few drinks is out of the question, I don't want to go to the movies cause I have to pee every 20 minutes and there's really nothing I want to see, ditto with going to a concert, and I've already bought myself enough stuff. That basically leaves staying home and either lying in bed watching TV or sitting in the glider and knitting, since I can't lie down and knit comfortably. Sounds like a fabu time, no?

And of course there's this growing and gnawing anxiety over getting ready for the twins. Getting the car registered in NYS was a freaking three day nightmare for Mark but now we legally have wheels so that we can go places if we need to. And we will.

I wasn't feeling well this weekend, so we didn't go look at apartment sized washer / dryer units. That's our next big major purchase and I guess we'll have to go shopping for it on my birthday (joy) since we really need to get that lined up. On top of that, we still need to pick up absolutely everything — clothes, crib, stroller, diapers, etc. The cloth diaper service we were going to use (Tidy Diapers) stopped delivering to Brooklyn and the other diaper service I knew of appears to be out of business. At least that's what the disconnect message I get when I dial the number tells me.

Aside: It took three unreturned phone calls and three e-mails over the course of a month and a half for Suzanne, the owner of Tidy Diapers, to deign to reply to me. My last e-mail was marked urgent and had a paragraph on what our needs were, how highly recommended they were and how I'd really like to set up an account. This was answered by a curt "We are no longer delivering to Brooklyn. Suzanne". SIX contact attempts on my part and that's ALL I get? Great customer service on their part, no? Makes me kinda glad that I don't have to deal with them at all. I definitely will NOT be recommending them to anyone based on this experience.

[Edited to add - 9:11 PM]: Suzanne called my cellphone today to return a call from two weeks ago. Unfortunately I was in a meeting and had to let it go to voicemail. Also, I just read an email I got today from a woman who uses Tidy Diapers. Apparently the company has been having experiencing some serious delivery personnel problems which might be the reason why the cut their Brooklyn service out. So, that being said, I won't personally be recommending them but I won't be dissuading people either. 

This has of course thrown a huge wrench in my "save money any which way you can" plan — cloth diapers for both twins would have come out to under $100 per month based on what the other twin moms in Manhattan were paying — but it is what it is. My guess is that Mark and I will do disposables for the first six months or so and then figure out how to do cloth on our own. It's going to take a bit of research on our parts and I don't have the energy for that right now. I'm more concerned with our non-existent nursery at the moment.

In knitting news, I've officially killed the Elven Cardigan and the Classic Cashmere Leggings. I made the decision this weekend and frogged both pieces, storing the yarn for future unknown projects. The leggings didn't make sense to me anymore because the babies would have to wear them during the summer (not likely) and while I liked the Elven cardi, I was already making the similarly styled Hooded Pullovers in the same size. Also, as much as I liked the Andean Treasure when I started, I'd kinda fallen out of love with it for that particular project. After all, I'd bought nicer yarns recently that I'd rather use for the kids' knits.

I haven't scrapped the Alphabet Blanket or the Candle Flame Shawl, though, because I can keep working on these after the babies are born. Ideally I'd like to have the blanket finished by Thanksgiving, which actually seems doable. And as for the shawl, well, I can cast off where it is right now and easily call it finished. Still I have another ball of yarn and would like to get a few more pattern repeats in there.

I've managed to knit through both fronts and one sleeve of the second Harvey Kimono. I'm halfway through the second sleeve and should be finished with that by this evening:

By the way, see that cute "project bag" from Piddleloop (an Etsy shop). That was one of my birthday presents to myself. I've bought two so far and am completely in love with them. They have a grommet to feed the yarn through so I can keep my knitting in my messenger bag while I commute. They also have an inside pocket for notions (I use it to keep ball bands and stitch holders) and an elastic knitting needle holder which is just perfect for me to keep the different size needle tips I need for my projects. The best part is that two of them fit in the front of my messenger bag so I can always have two fully ready projects (needles, notions and all) at the ready. I'm totally wanting one or two more and I'm only waiting until they put some up in fabrics that I like.

The knitting on the second of the Oz Vests was finished on Saturday. It's now in the "to be blocked and finished" pile with the rest of the sweaters:

Last but not least, I started the last of the newborn sweaters — the second of the Hooded Pullovers. I should be finished knitting the second Harvey Kimono either today or tomorrow so I will be able to concentrate my efforts on finishing that.

Behemoth

Where do I begin with the "Thank Yous"? Once again, everyone's generous comments have helped make a difficult time more bearable and provided valuable perspective to us. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and share your experiences and opinions with us.

While we're kinda "over" the scare, it still lingers in the back of our minds. My next ultrasound is next Wednesday (22 weeks) and I'm hoping that they get some of those missing parts in and clear up some of the remaining ambiguity. But if that doesn't happen, we'll still be soldiering on.

Our new king sized bed arrived this weekend:

Now before you think that all Mark does is sleep, I must point out that I almost never remember to take photos before I blog. I always take pictures as I'm composing posts and it so happens that I write first thing in the mornings...

The only thing that I have to say about the bed is that the fucker is huge (and tall; that is indeed a step stool you see on my side of the bed). Mark swears it's the most comfortable thing ever, but I'm pregnant, and nothing really feels all that comfortable to me. (And it won't until I can sleep on my back again...) I expect that once the sea monkeys are born I will fully appreciate the behemoth. I've come to love and rely on Moby (my body pillow) and now the 4 of us (Mark, Maia, Moby and me) fit comfortably on the bed with no space issues. In time, we'll ditch Moby and add two toddlers to the mix so while I'm grumbling about the size now, I know it will turn out to be a worthwhile investment.

The arrival of the new bed sparked our first bout of getting the apartment baby-ready. We had to relocate three of my bookshelves into the hall to make room for the behemoth, which was minorly traumatic. I had to reorder a bunch of my books so nothing of value was out where the evil cattens could easily destroy it. For example, I had all of my photo albums on one of the shelves so those had to be swapped for other books.

After the bed arrived and was in place, we moved my yarn stash / pile / wall of knitting stuff and the Metro shelving thingie I dumpster-dove for in the early 90s that we use as a TV / DVD / electronics stand. I tossed like 8 bazillion exercise VHS tapes, managed to damaged both of my knitting notions storage cases in the process, and had to clean the resulting dust and crap that was everywhere which put me in a not so good mood about reorganizing my life.

Unfortunately, I like to do things all at once and not move things one weekend, then do something else the next. Life doesn't always work that way — especially when you have to make HUGE financial outlays in order to have the convenience of minimizing the disruptions to your life. Doing stuff piecemeal requires patience so I'm learning to be flexible although Mark can attest that I have been more than a little crabby during the learning process.

This coming weekend we're going to

• measure the windows for new blinds — the ones we have don't go all the way to the bottom of the sill and won't darken the room enough for babies to sleep in — and either buy them at Tar-jay or order them online,
• order the glider, side chair (for Mark to assist with feedings) and side table (again from Tar-jay) that we're going to need for our nursing area,
• plan and order our Ikea Pax wardrobe unit (to house my yarn, Mark's wardrobe, etc.),
• get a new TV / DVD / electronics stand with a MUCH smaller footprint than the Metro stuff we have now, 

Aside: Mark suggested we also get a new flat-panel TV because a) we can't find something that will support my mega-ancient one because it's heavy as fuck and b) who knows when we'll be able to upgrade our TV in the future? I'm insisting that a new box is not a necessity when there's so much other stuff to buy, but I see his point. I did buy my old box in 1995 or thereabouts but I'm teetering because spending the cash on that seems impractical to me.

• and, the piece de resistance, move my computers and the home networking setup from one side of the room to the other.

Yeah, I'm probably gonna be a little crabby next weekend too.

Once I'm past 24 weeks — the time a fetus becomes viable and is able to survive in intensive care if born prematurely, we'll start getting the stroller, car seats, crib, etc. That's 3 weeks from now. It feels like both an eternity and no time at all.

Knittingwise... The Alphabet blanket has not been feeling the love. I'm putting an end to that this week, though. (Yeah, I know I said that last week.) I've decided that I'm not buying any more infant care or pregnancy-related stuff until 24 weeks so I won't have any new material to read. This will free up my evenings to actually work on the thing. Also, I can actually sit upright in our new bed, which is something I couldn't do in our old one and this should actually make knitting it a lot easier.

The blue sweater has joined it's mate in the UFO pile:

And the first pair of leggings has been started:

I'm starting to feel a little of the pressure to knit faster now...

Keep growing sea monkeys! Daddy wants to feel you kick...

20 Weeks

I'm 20 weeks today — halfway for a normal, singleton pregnancy. At 24 weeks, I'll be at the stage where if, God / universe forbid, the sea monkeys were born early, they could survive with LOTS of medical intervention. 24 has become the new number to obsess over and shoot for, if you hadn't guessed.

Mark and I have started laying some of the groundwork for getting ready for the twins. Yesterday, we plunked down a wad of cash on a new king-sized bed with a REAL mattress AND boxspring to replace our current 10+ year old, stuffing coming out of the sides, lumpy futon and its rickety frame. (Now you know why we have bad backs!) It arrives next Sunday and will precipitate our first bout of room rearranging.

We plan on re-evaluating our storage (wardrobe, TV unit) needs next week after the bed comes. I'm sure the size of the behomoth will affect some of our previously made decisions so we'll need to make sure that we had planned actually works out. Then we'll order whatever we need online from Ikea. Why online? Well, whenever I check our local stores' inventories, they show that they don't have any of what we need in stock. I'm not wasting a car rental on an unnecessary trip! I'd rather spend the car rental cost on shipping the goods we need.

The part that I have been mega-stressing over is the non-essential configuration of drawers and shelves. I've finally made peace with not getting everything right from the get-go. This has freed me up to concentrate on how to best lay out the room. If I find I need a few more baskets instead of shelves, so be it. I can always order them or trek to Ikea on a weekend to pick them up.

My guess is that once the storage system & TV unit are in place and the room rearranged somewhat, we should be at the 24 week mark. By then we will then start setting up for the sea monkeys in earnest. A few sources say that you should be ready for twins by 30 weeks, so that's another number to shoot for.

Aside: Oddly enough, I don't really think I'm going to go too early. Partially because I'm being monitored really closely to prevent that but partially because I just have a gut that things are going to be okay for the most part despite all my worrying. Still, it's better to be prepared.

In the meantime, I need to put my nose to the grindstone on the Alphabet blanket. I am only halfway through the second set of letters and need to make more progress. My main problem is that I've never really been a "knit at home in the evenings" person. I get my "knit on" during my evening commute and unless I'm working on something with a set deadline, I opt for vegging in front of the TV instead of knitting. Basically, I'm usually too drained by the day to want to work on anything taxing.

While the blanket isn't really difficult, it is charted and takes a bit more than I have to give in the evenings. Since it's "puffy coat season" on the trains and space is at an absolute premium, I can't really work on it while commuting. I don't have a real lunch hour to speak of, so that is also out. I've been leaving it for the weekends when I've been able to devote hours at a shot and have made mega progress on it. However, the past few have been difficult for me, so I need to get back to working on it during the week. That means working on it at night so I'm going to try to get one row done before bed each evening. Slow, yes, but better than nothing. I do have to remember that I am, after all, on a deadline with this.

On the other hand, I have been making excellent progress on the 2nd of the Classic Cashmere sweaters:

This one is a little over 3/4 of the way done and should be finished by the end of the week. Next up will be the booties and mittens. Those should take a couple of days, max, so I might as well get them out of the way quickly. Once those are done, I'll decide whether I want to tackle the leggings or the wrap kimonos. My guess is that I'll want to do the kimonos because then I'll get to use some different yarn colors.

Don't get me wrong... I love the khaki and blue but a girl needs a little variety every now and again.

See you Wednesday morning, lil sea monkeys! I can't wait to see how big you've gotten...

Pleased to Meet You...

Mark channels Steely Dan. I channel the Stones. The twins... well I'm sure they'll have fairly eclectic tastes.

The ultrasound yesterday went hunky dory. Both babies are measuring at about 17 1/2 weeks, had heartbeats in the 144+ range and most importantly had all of their important parts -- hearts, livers, brains, kidneys, etc. They had two of what they needed to have two of and all of their fingers and toes. My cervix looked good, according to the tech, which I assume means it was all nice and closed up.

The tech was an Eastern European woman who obviously took lots of pleasure in her work. She kept grinning and smiling while coaxing the babies to move into position for the camera. There were moments when the babies' movements were a little surreal but I had to bite my tongue a few times so I wouldn't burst out laughing when she addressed the moving fetuses.

The funniest thing to me was that she saw the babies' sexes and didn't even blink. When we asked if it would be able to determine the sexes, she was like "Oh, you want to find out?" I guess lots of parents don't want to know. Mark and I assumed that she was getting the doctor so he could check her findings and find out the sex because she couldn't tell but she said, "I already know. I just need him to confirm." The doctor came in and basically stated that our babies were doing fine, and that I'd be having another ultrasound or two in the future to check in on them. He also told us that we were having (drumroll please) a boy and a girl.

So there you have it. Perfect instant family according to many of our friends and co-workers. (Mark's dad even went so far as to say that I am his hero because of this.) We're still going back and forth with names but the boy's first name will definitely be Aden and I'm hoping to talk Mark into Hunter for the girl's first name. I really love the name and think that a feminine middle name will help make up for the genderlessness he doesn't seem to like.

I have my follow up visit with my doc today -- I had the ultrasound yesterday but my doctor is only in on Wednesdays -- so I'll get weighed and measured and generally checked. I'll also probably get another small sypnosis of yesterday's results and what they mean. Basically, I already know that I'll be going for cervical sonograms every two weeks now to monitor me for signs of my cervix length changing or it opening. I'm hoping it stays nice and tight for 20 more weeks.

So without further ado, meet the twins:

This is Aden:

And this is Hunter(?):

You're doing just fine lil sea monkeys! Keep growing babies!

P.S. Adina had her baby yesterday! I can't wait for the full update...

P.P.S. Knitting progress is being made. I'm up to casting on the sleeves on the second of the two sweaters and the Alphabet Blanket is coming along, albeit verrrrry slowly. I have Knit Club with my friends tonight so hopefully I will have good pictures to show you tomorrow.

17 Weeks

I'm tired this morning. I can't seem to catch up on rest and my dreams have not been easy as of late. Over the weekend I dreamt that a co-worker tried to kill me -- it was the evil psycho that got in my face last December -- and that one of my babies didn't make it home from the hospital. The one that did make it home looked an awful lot like my nephew, but that's neither here nor there. It seems that my underlying worries are invading my dreams and making it impossible for me to relax and rest. That and the "no lying on your back" thing is making getting and, more importantly, staying comfortable a bit difficult.

I've taken to holding my growing belly and thinking at the sea monkeys that they'll be okay, that I can't wait to see BOTH of them, to hold them BOTH. It helps shake the bad feelings, in a New-Agey-goofy sort of way.

Aside: I sometimes refer to them as Merry and Pippin in my head. This may seem like a bias towards wanting two boys, but Merry is traditionally used as a girl's name and Pippin is a German boy's name... Of course this doesn't take into consideration a Girl/Girl pair but, you can't always win 'em all. Hopefully we'll be able to figure out the sexes next Tuesday and be able to start identifying them by their future names.

Healthwise, I'm good, overall, aside from the usual pregnancy complaints which I'll spare you from hearing. The one I will mention is that my carpal tunnel seems to be getting worse. I'm going to start sleeping with my brace again in hopes of keeping it in check. After all, I have things like this to complete:

It's the first of the two sweaters. I'm about 20 rows away from joining the neck split, casting off the sleeves and finishing the back. My guess is that I will be done with this by the end of the week; sooner if I don't work on the Alphabet Blanket and if I make it to Knit Club.

As for the blanket, I've made pitiful progress on it -- only 4 rows! -- mainly because I wasn't able to get good seats on the subway last week. The cold sent everyone underground in their puffy coats, so I found myself squished on more than one occassion. It was too difficult to pull out the chart and follow it in these situations so I stuck to the sweater which is fairly mindless to work on.

I'm ready to start working on it again this week though so I promise you progress pics on it soon.

X-Z

As you can see I've updated the sidebar to truly reflect what I'm working on. Okay... I'm not really working on the Candle Flame Shawl -- at least not steadily -- but it is a baby knit of sorts. It's actually at a point where I can stop if I feel like it but I want to at least try to finish the ball that I am on. As to how it's a baby knit... well, I'll divulge that in the future.

I've finished the first row of the Alphabet Blanket:

Here's a closeup of the Y & Z:

This is actually a much simpler knit than it appears to be. Yes, every row is charted but most of the even (WS) rows are plain rows (i.e. all purl). I think it's something like every third even row or so that you have to pay attention 'cause you have to work yarnovers but you don't even really need the chart for that. You can just read the stitches to see when you have to do your decrease / yarnover dance and call it a day.

I thought that this was going to be really slowgoing because the rows were tremendously long but truth be told, it's actually not that bad. So far I'm up to row 50 and that's only because I didn't work on the blanket on Sunday or yesterday. (We spent Sunday trying to come up with some names for the sea monkeys and I had to do some work-related stuff yesterday.)

I'm really hoping to work a full character row per week, and then to spend another week or two on the edging. If I continued to make steady progress like this, I think I'd be able to put this in the completed pile towards mid- to late March.

Being that the blanket is not always the easiest knit to pull out and work on while commuting, I decided to start the first of the Classic Cashmere Sweaters. I'm making two, of course -- one in French Blue and the other in Khaki. Since I'm already working the blanket in blue, I decided to cast on with the Khaki for the first sweater.

I'm using my KnitPicks' Options size 5 needles with a 24" cable. (Note to self: Order more 24" cables! You've miraculously found a use for all 8 you own...) I didn't cast on for a gauge swatch frankly because the sweater is small enough to be an expanded swatch! Instead I cast on for the full thing, worked the first 20 rows or so and checked my gauge, planning to rip out and change needles if it was off. My gauge was spot on. I love it when that happens. Of course, I do plan to check again when I've worked a more substantial bit more but I usually get gauge with the needles the pattern specifies so I'm not too worried about having to start over.

The sweater is knit in entirely one piece -- you knit the front, cast on sleeves, knit a bit more, work a neck opening, knit a little more, cast off the sleeves so that the number of remaining stitches matches the front, work the back to the same length as the front and VOILA! So this will be one of the easier baby knits that I do. If I wind up unable to knit nothing else during my pregnancy, I want to complete these two sweaters (and a pair of matching booties) and the blanket.

I'm planning on those for the sea monkeys' coming home outfits.

Today I'm at 16 weeks and can't wait for my doctor's appointment on Wednesday. The last time I was there (three weeks ago) the visit was entirely focused on me. This visit I definitely want them to do a Doppler and check the sea monkeys' heartbeats to make sure they're okay, something that they didn't do last time. I've discovered since then that is fairly standard practice to do it so I'm going to insist on it at this visit.

It's scary to think that in as little as two months I could be put on bed rest. At 24 weeks they're going to check my cervix and start the monitoring. Hopefully I'll be able to keep working for a bit longer but if not, so be it. The sea monkeys' health is what's most important.

Incidentally, one of the books that I've been reading mentions that there are three levels of bed rest. Guess what the first level is called.

House arrest.

The irony of that is not lost on me.

Keep growing sea monkeys!

Names

People keep asking us if we're going to find out the sexes of the sea monkeys. At this point in time, Mark and I are leaning towards doing this.

The reason behind this is that we can only agree on one name. Finding out the sex will NOT cause us to:

1. go stock up on blue or pink outfits -- I'm planning on fairly unisex / gender-neutral outfits only because they don't make many baby clothes in black. Otherwise I'd have cute little goth babies. Kelly, keep this in mind...
   or
2. "decorate the nursery" in a gender-specific motif -- Um, hello? The nursery will be an extension of our bedroom. There won't be any redecorating aside from moving furniture around and making it a cat-free zone. We may opt for a few bright colors for things like comforters and play mats... and if we MUST get something thematic, settle for alphabet-related stuff. But seriously, what the fuck is wrong with plain white crib sheets? People act like I'm high for wanting that.
   or
3. be disappointed because the sex is "wrong." -- All we care about is them being born healthy and strong...

So, yeah, one name. No middle name even, just a lonely first name. That's it. And it's for a boy. God help us if I'm having two girls. They'll both be forever nameless at the rate we're going.

Now, part of the reason this isn't easy for us is that we both have pretty stringent criteria for names. It can't be in the current top 50 popular names (no "Kayley" or "Madison"). It can't have an "in" sound at the end because that would sound sing-song with our last name. The initials can't spell something fucked up (I've actually known a "F.U.K." and a "T.I.T"). It can't have a dimunitive that we don't like (like "Lizzie") and it has to be the full version of the name ("Theodore" not "Ted").

I have an additional criteria which may sound prejudiced but the name can't sound distinctly "Spanish" or ethnic. I grew up my entire life worrying about whether or not people would know I was Puerto Rican because of my last name and therefore not hire me or give me better opportunites. Our current last name is fairly neutral but an ethnic first name could shift the balance between being perceived as black, white or hispanic. And living in NYC, I find that those judgments and assumptions are constantly being made.

Mark suggested that I open up the blog and have a contest to determine the sea monkeys' names but I said while we did that for a stray cat, these are our kids we're talking about. I think they should be named by us and not by committee -- although Stranger is an awesome name for my sweet galumph.

In knitting news, I started the Alphabet blanket Tuesday night. Let me tell you a bit about that.

The blanket required a provisional cast on so I opted for the crochet chain cast on and used some neon orange waste yarn. After working 210 chains or so, I managed to drag, erm, I mean pick up roughly a quarter of the 187 stitches I needed before deciding that a) I was way too fucking exhausted to even consider continuing and b) that maybe I had bitten off more that I could chew with this project considering that every row was charted.

Wednesday morning I finished picking up the stitches, much to the interest of three class-cutting black girls on the 2 train. (My guess is that they were wondering why I was dragging loops of navy blue yarn through an orange chain...) They asked me about a half-dozen questions before two of them lost interest. The third kept watching what I was doing, which of course made me fuck up the count at least twice. Thankfully I was using stitch markers to help -- which was one of the things that was fascinating them -- so I managed to get the right number of stitches fully picked up on my 24-inch size 3 KnitPicks circular needle by the time I had to get off the train.

Remember this detail.

I bagged out on Knit Club because I was feeling dogged by the end of the day and instead went straight home where I managed to complete the first 10 rows. Feeling like a rock star, I promised myself I would do ten 187-stitch rows a day. Yeah! Easy peasy, right? I'd be done with the bulk of the blanket in about a month and then just have to work the edging. How cool would that be? It was all suddenly doable again.

Then, this morning, I pulled out my knitting and started working row 11. Tediously. The stitches were more than a bit squashed on the circular cord but they were flowing along until I hit the yarn-overs that made the "Z". No matter how I worked it, I kept coming up with one stitch too many at the end.

That's when I remembered that I never printed the errata for this pattern. (There are in fact a couple of mistake in the pattern for the letters "Z" and "S".)

Ticked off, I decided to put my knitting away until I could get to work and pulled my knitting to the center of the cords... pulling off one of the knitting needle tips in the process!

Green stitch markers spilled into my lap as the stitches fell off the needle. Thankfully, I was on an empty local at this time and was able to get all the markers. The knitting on the other hand started unravelling and was hastily dumped into my knitting bag.

Now... I have dozens of needles, maybe even a hundred pairs at home. How many of those do you think are size 3 circular needles capable of holding 187 stitches? Take a wild guess.

If you guessed ZERO you win the Murphy's Law prize!

It's now 9:20 PM. I am $13 poorer -- I stopped off at The Point on my way home for a super overpriced 35-inch replacement needle -- but I have all 187 stitches nicely back on a size 3 needle, and ready to work row 11 again. There are also two copies of the pattern corrections in my bag.

So far it's Blanket: 1, Liz: 0, but I'm hoping to win this game.

[Edited to add: 10:00 PM - Rows 11 and 12 have been properly worked. Only 246 more rows to go.]

Keep growing sea monkeys! I can't wait to know that I'm definitely feeling your kicks and prods and not something else...