So, rhetoretician beat me too it, but we've got very little cross-over between our flists, so I figured it was worth posting again.   This had me rolling on the floor:

I know I have been woefully lax about posting updates on my sweet one.  Things in my life may not have been exactly stellar of late, but Leah is wonderful and deserves an update of her own.  The past several weeks have been a whirlwind of developmental milestones, so here's a quick run down of what she's been up to, and some appropriately adorable photos ;).


 

I know, I know, I'm a terrible bloggermama.  Life has been a bit hectic recently, to say the least, so you'll just have to deal.

Just a quick post to provide all the rabid Leah fans out there with photos of the babe at 6 weeks!
She's doing lots of smiling now - not reliably, but regularly (as you can see!)

Well, I was all set to post this ready-to-pop photo late last week:







  40 Weeks (January 24, 2008)

But it seems I didn't quite get around to it in time...

So without further ado, I present my beautiful LEAH!
Born Saturday, January 26th, 11:46pm Pacific Time


                  Being weighed at the hospital (Day 2)

               
                          Ready to come home
(we call this her "grumpy old man" photo) (Day 2)


                       Asleep on Mama's lap (Day 5)

So far Leah is a very mellow little girl, and seems to have some mysterious weather-related properties (the night she was born and the following day, the hospital and surrounding area were blanketed with ice and snow, but the rest of the city was not).


These first few days have been overwhelmingly wonderful and challenging, to say the least.  I have plenty to say about what new mamahood has been like for me so far, but this post has already taken me about two days to write so I'd better just get it out there now.  Many thanks to everyone who has sent good thoughts and wishes, and apologies if I haven't had the wherewithall to respond.

I had such a nice day on Saturday!

H told me he'd been e-mailing with someone about a stash of baby clothes for sale, and that he'd made an appointment for us to go check them out.  So I immediately started organizing my plan for the day around other errands we could run while we were out: getting groceries afterward, making sure to go to the ATM beforehand to get cash, etc.  He humoured me. 

So imagine my surprise when the place he ended up taking me was knitfish's house and the people inside were the fabulous bitchybees, all gathered for a surprise baby shower!  (Apparently I am the epitome of clueless.  Not only did I not have an inkling this was in the works - to the point where wendymc was knitting her gift literally under my nose on Tuesday and I didn't suspect a thing - but I wasn't even paying enough attention to recognize the house when we got there despite that fact that I've been there several times.  It didn't dawn on me at all until several seconds after knitfish opened the door that we were not, in fact, going to buy baby clothes.  Yeah, I'm quick.) 

Well, the party was wonderful and since the guests were all talented and generous knitters most of the gifts were beautiful, handknit baby clothes and toys.  The whole thing was really touching and made me feel very special and loved :).

Then that night we went to the Monkey Tree Pub for Music Bingo with M & J and K & P, which was SO FREAKING FUN I can't believe it took us this long to make it there.  They do it every Saturday night and you have to get there really early because it's so popular (it's a full-evening commitment!), but luckily M & J were there around 5:00 to snag us a table.  Basically it works just like regular bingo, only instead of numbers there are songs listed on the cards, and you have to identify the songs as they play them (and, of course, sing along at the top of your lungs).  Since I'm a sucker for any kind of sing-along embarrassment, I had a great time even without any alcoholic lubrication, though I wish I'd known about it back when I could have a drink!  Our group was hard-core committed to the game, which came in handy when other patrons who were clearly more concerned about the booze than the bingo would desert their cards in the middle of a round - I mean c'mon, people, priorities!  Sadly, none of us won anything - it did look like P and J were going to have to duke it out for 3rd place during the first round but some tall guy beat them to the front and narrowly edged them both out.  Meh.

I did get some strange looks hanging out in a pub on a Saturday night and looking SO VERY pregnant (particularly since most of the other women there were in full-on hoochie apparel), but hey, I had to get my bingo on!

All in all, a pretty terrific day.

Here's the latest.  Hold onto your hats...







37 1/2 Weeks (January 7, 2008)

So here we are, somehow, miraculously in the home stretch.  I'm considered full term now, which means that there wouldn't be any particular concerns if the Monkey came now, even though s/he isn't technically "due" for another 2 weeks.  I've been having very mild contractions from time to time for the past week or two - nothing indicative of anything imminent, just sort of warming up the ute for the task ahead.   (So please, please, don't assume I'm in labour just because you haven't heard from me in 24 hours or so... while it's true this could technically happen tomorrow, it could also be another 4 weeks.)  We had our tour of the hospital on Monday and are actually feeling somewhat prepared for the birth experience, inasmuch as one can actually be prepared. 

As far as that post-birth part, people keep asking me if we have everything set up, to which I reply a resounding "No."  Still have lots of furniture to move around, more furniture to buy and set up, and all kinds of niggly little preparations to make before this place will actually be in the state I want it in.  Which is not to say that we'd be woefully unprepared if the baby came, say, tomorrow - we've got a car seat and some clothes, and any other immediate needs could be met with a quick trip to the drug store.  (I hear a laundry basket makes a great bassinette...)  Still, uncomfortable though I may be I hope it decides to stay put until things feel a little more settled (and until H has a chance to wrap things up properly at work, which will be at least another week or so).

Meanwhile, though, obie119 along with Mr. obie and the Oreo threw us a wonderful "virtual shower" on Saturday - that is, they had a party in Boston including most of our east coast friends, which we attended via the miracle of iChat.  They really made it a lot of fun.  They had bought a bunch of onesies in varying sizes which our friends decorated in all kinds of fun and marginally inappropriate ways.  People kept running up and presenting their finished masterpieces to the camera.  And though we were sad not to have more face time with uridium and cavedwellers, for the most part we got to spend at least a little time chatting with everyone.  The party was supposed to last for 3 hours, but in typical form a core group of 7 or so ended up staying a lot longer, and by the end it was really just like we were all hanging out together.  Eventually we all even ordered Chinese food (a late supper for them, early for us).  And there were only a few technical difficulties over the whole 6 hours.  I feel like we actually got to hang out with our old friends this weekend; it was so good for the soul, I can't even tell you.

I leave you with this gem of a screenshot from the latter hours of the party:

(For the record, that blue thing is a banana holder.  Don't ask.)

First off, happy birthday to vermilionsun!!

Now, time for more belly shots! Here I am at 34+ weeks:





34 Weeks (December 15)

Things have definitely gotten to the uncomfortable stage. Citrus fruit is no longer my friend, as heartburn and acid reflux have become my near-constant companions. I remember when I was a kid asking my mom what happens to your stomach and intestines when you're pregnant - I was afraid they would be all squished! Turns out I was right, though it didn't occur to me at the time that the stomach would also be in direct contact with the kiddo's feet. Nothing like getting booted in the belly to get those gastric juices churning...

This kid has already started to surprise me. Lots of babies flip-flop all over the place in utero, but not mine. For the entirety of its existence (or at least, for as long as I've been able to actually feel it) s/he has been quite content to hanging out on the right side of my torso, with the bulk of the weight on the lower right. Lots of wiggling, kicking and stretching, to be sure, but never any major bodily shifting. So imagine my shock last week when s/he decided to move over to the left side (though thankfully still head-down)! So already one of the few things I thought I "knew" about this little monkey has gone out the window. It's also done a number on my sense of balance (not to mention making all the internals shift around to accommodate, which probably accounts for some of the heartburn, too).

Meanwhile, though, I am trying to take it easy and an doing some serious nesting (as defined by bouts of compulsive cleaning and organizing, which is good since those are things we can definitely use...) And if we ever get bored, we just watch my belly bucking around as the Monkey makes futile attempts to find more space. (Sorry, kid, it's only going to get worse...)

I'm sure everyone will be relieved to know that we did, in fact, manage to find some candles at the JCC - Hanukkah has been saved!



We celebrated the 8th night last night by attending a candle-lighting celebration outside the legislature (which might have been a little more fun - and hopefully well-attended? - if it had been indoors), and then returning home to make latkes.


Mmmmmmm... nothing like a little potato fried in oily goodness.


We served them up with sour cream and homemade applesauce (why yes, I am nesting), not to mention some yummy butternut squash with maple and chipotle.

And I managed, somehow, to get through the whole night without getting oil on my clothes - hooray!

So last night was the second night of Hanukkah and I have yet to light any candles. Why, you ask? Because apparently I'm the only Jew on this freaking island.

Well, no, that's not true, but I've certainly felt like it for the past day or so.

I knew I had some Hanukkah candles hanging around from previous years. I was planning to light them on Tuesday, the first night, but it somehow slipped my sleepy, pregnant mind. So Wednesday morning I got out the menorah and checked my stash, to find that there were only two candles left. No problem, I thought, I'll just pick some up while I'm out today. But three stores later I was no better off and getting frustrated. I decided to call around before making any other fruitless trips (or sending my sweetie on any). Well, in total I called or visited more than fifteen stores, everything from supermarkets to drug stores to last-ditch attempts like Linens n' Things. The people at Thrifty's (our local grocery chain) claimed to have had them at some point, but apparently now there were none left to be found in the entire chain. They get points, though, for at least having a clue what Hanukkah is, which is more than I can say for at least half the people I spoke with.

"We have these..." one confused woman told me, pointing to a display of giant taper candles.
"No," I said, "I'm looking for Hanukkah candles," as if this distinction would somehow mean anything to her. "They're little. They come in a box of 44..."

"Are they like Christmas candles?" a clerk at another store asked.
"Um, sort of. Only they're for Hanukkah. They come in a box that says Hanukkah on it."
*blank stares*

Is this really so difficult? It's not like I'm in some backwater hick town here, this is the capitol of the freaking province! And it's not like I'm expecting someone to fetch me a lulav and an etrog or even to know whether something is Kosher for Passover! This is the most mainstream and widely known Jewish holiday there is, is it too much to ask that people have a clue it exists??

The best part was that while I was on the phone last night, perpetually on hold while various clueless clerks went to scour the shelves or ask co-workers what the crazy Jew on the phone was talking about, I was treated to an endless parade of - what else - Christmas carols. (As a singer and a huge sap, I generally LOVE Christmas carols - have ever since 9th grade when I started learning harmonies for them all. But the irony was just too much.)

I was finally was able to track some down at the JCC (we do actually have one, miracle of miracles! Visit their very impressive website and marvel at all the broken links!), who have a few boxes left, bless them. But of course, you can only buy them between 11 and 2, so I'll have to go down in the middle of the day tomorrow to pick mine up. In the meantime, I'll be making do with birthday candles from the dollar store.

Of course, the more wise among you will realize by now where I went wrong. If I had had the presence of mind to light those two meager candles on the first night they would, of course, have lasted me for the entire eight days. Isn't that how this *%#@! holiday is supposed to work?

So here's what I look like as of today:







30 weeks (November 18)

For reference, earlier photos can be found in this post.

I definitely seem to have popped a bit in just the last couple of days. Am suddenly feeling VERY pregnant. My belly button is even creeping its way out! The monkey, meanwhile, is doing well and in a good position: head down with its spine up along my right side. I get lots of kicks and wiggles throughout the day (and night...) but it doesn't tend to shift position in any major way, so with any luck (knock on wood!) it'll stay head down for the duration.

The ankle is doing much better. Still sore from time to time and definitely requiring some caution and a relatively slow walking pace, but my physiotherapist has me off of the cane completely - woo hoo! Which means, of course, that now I'll have to rely solely on this mondo belly of mine to get me seats on the bus ;).

(PS - Updated belly photo coming up as soon as I can remember to take one...)

So, what's funnier than a pregnant lady waddling around town?

How 'bout a pregnant lady hobbling around town on a cane.

Yes, brilliant moi managed to sprain my ankle last Friday.  It was a stupid, little, nothing trip on the sidewalk - my foot just rolled the wrong way and BAM.   Sprained ankle.   The doctor says it could be as long as 6-8 weeks before it's fully mended, though I really hope it's sooner than that.  It already hurts a lot less than it did last week, which is great, so my job now is remembering not to overdo it even when it feels fine.  H, meanwhile, has been terrific about picking up the slack for me at home.  The man is a saint.

I know it could have been much worse - I could have (godforbid) taken an actual fall and hurt the baby (I actually did fall a couple of weeks ago, though luckily all I did was scrape up my leg - guess my center of gravity really isn't quite what it used to be), or it could have happened 2 or 3 months from now so that I would be incapacitated while trying to manage a newborn.  And given how blissfully uneventful my pregnancy has been so far I suppose I was due for something.   But still.  Damned inconvenient.  And also?  OW.

Well, I've officially hit the 3rd trimester. Since people afar have been asking what I look like these days I figured it was time I finally did something with those photos I've been so diligently taking.

So here's what I look like now:




       26 weeks (October 21)

I think I look pretty good, if I do say so myself.  I feel mostly great and am measuring right on schedule. But I can hardly believe I'm going to get 3 months BIGGER before all this is over. When you've got no torso, there's really nowhere to go but out.

For comparison, 
Meanwhile, if that doesn't interest you, my office-mate and his girlfriend just finished fostering a litter of kittens.  They've had them since birth and returned them to the shelter yesterday to be adopted.  They're about 7 weeks old, and we got to visit with them earlier this week.

Okay, gotta get back to watching the Red Sox kick the Indians' butts!  (The monkey got very excited in the 1st inning when J.D. Drew had an opportunity to reprise Saturday's grand slam  - got in some hard-core "bases loaded" kicks :).)

No, your eyes (and my blurry photography) aren't deceiving you. Those are Red Sox ALCS tickets, and they were in my possession for all of 3 minutes today. Sigh.

I realize many of my readers are non-New Englanders, and therefore may not realize the significance of these little strips of paper. So for your benefit, let me just clarify that playoff tickets are really, really hard to come by. They're something life-long Sox fans like my husband dream about, but rarely get to experience unless they're obscenely wealthy, well-connected or just plain lucky. We were the latter.

Like most good Sox fans, I entered a lottery for the chance to purchase playoff tickets, never dreaming that I would actually be picked. But I was. Of course, being thousands of miles away puts a bit of a crimp in any plan to just jaunt off to Fenway. So with heavy hearts H and I agreed that, if we couldn't use them *sniff!*, better they should go to diehard baseball fans whom we love than to random craigslist strangers. So those two, precious tickets are currently winging their way to obie119 and the Beckster. (They had to be sent here first because of all the complicated anti-scalping hoops they make you jump through.) I hope the ALCS makes it to 6 games so they can actually enjoy them. And hey, at least I got to hold them for a little while.

(For those non-knitting Muggles among you: Please drive thru.)

I'm finally on Ravelry!! Woo hoo!!!

Have already spent way too much time getting my projects up and looking around at other people's stuff.

My username is the same as it is here, so if you're there, come find me!

(And if you're a knitter who doesn't know about Ravelry yet: Get thee to the waitlist!

Because, as rhetoretician says, "everyone's doing it":

( What should I do with my life? )

"2 1/2 months without a post!", you say. "What the hell is going on with her!?"

Well, I thought it was about time I updated with some of the most recent developments in my life. Namely, this one:



Yes, for those of you who were not yet aware, this little monkey is currently inhabiting my nether-region! H and I could not be more thrilled :-). These ultrasound photos are from yesterday, which means I can finally picture what all those little pokes and wiggles actually are. It's sort of changed my whole perspective and made the whole thing that much more exciting :-).

I'm due in late January, which those of you keeping track will note means it's actually been a lot longer than 2 1/2 months since this technically "developed". But we haven't been in the "telling" stage for very long, and there are only so many inconsequential, knitting/Harry Potter-type posts one can write while biting back a mondo secret like this.

Plenty more grainy, slightly-decipherable pics to see if you're interested:

( Click for more! )

At least, my local branch is.

For you Yanks out there, Chapters is the Canadian equivalent of Borders or Barnes & Noble. Like most book stores on the planet, the Victoria Chapters is going apeshit over the Harry Potter release. They've had window displays up for months, are offering a "Knight Bus Tour" contest, and as of this week seem to be pimping out the entire store with themed decorations such as this:


(About five books late on that one, but I can appreciate what they're going for.)

All in good fun, sure.

But did I mention what the display at the very front of the store happens to be?:


Why it's a pallet of books, all wrapped up in cellophane!



That's right, folks, they've put their shipment of untouchable, unreadable-for-an-entire-month Book 7 copies on display just to torture readers.

I was skeptical about whether these were the actual books, b/c the boxes look nothing like the highly stylized ones I remember from the Book 6 release. But then I realized that those came from the American publisher whereas here in Canada they use the straight-up British edition, so the books come from a different publisher entirely. So in all likelihood, these are the real McCoy.

Now c'mon, Chapters. That's just mean.

I just have to state for the record how freaking awesome Massachusetts is :-).

Now if only the rest of the damn country would come around...

I swear, knitting is not the only thing I'm doing these days, though it does seem to be the only thing getting me any notoriety. If you can call a tiny photo on the blog of a world-renowned knit-blogger and author notoriety, that is. It certainly passes for it in my world :).

The aforementioned blogger is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, known to adoring readers as the Yarn Harlot. (That green thing she's holding up in half the pictures is her traveling sock, which has been accompanying her throughout her current book tour. She likes to show it a good time.) The Harlot was in town for the 5th Annual Victoria Fibre Festival and Knit Out - a raucous, weekend-long good time during which I did some serious bonding with my darling bitchybees and spent waaaay too much money on yarn. marydotmusic has a much more detailed account including lots of yummy photos! (I am still too lame to figure out how to upload mine...)