night night

So, following the recent sleep issues we've been having, I instituted the night-night circuit. We say goodnight to all the animals and bye-bye to all the lights, then night-night for Mama and in to bed with whatever lovvey of the day he wants to bring. This has been working wonderfully. If it doesn't work, we wait a few minutes and repeat the process topless so the nursing can begin before going in to lay down. The fact that this helps has helped me understand some of the feelings the Razz is probably having, as I get the same thing: I'm exhausted but for some reason have a non-specific anxiety about actually going to sleep. That's a horrible feeling and if that's what he feels, I'm into doing whatever I can to help him deal with it.

But that's not really the point here. The point is, the Razz is freakin' adorable. He has a fascination with vacuum cleaners, brooms, and more recently, air conditioning vents. In the last couple of weeks his choices of lovveys has included a toy broom, a real broom, and the dirt devil cone vac twice. Last night, as we made the rounds the second time, he directed me to both the full-sized vacuum and the little cone vac to say good night to them (complete with night-night kisses) and then to the air conditioning vent. Thankfully, he settled for waving bye-bye to the vent. I wasn't looking forward to hoisting him up there to give it a kiss, especially if it was going to turn into night-night kisses for ALL of the vents!

C25K, 100 pushups progress

I'm currently working through the couch to 5K beginning running program from coolrunning.com. I've started this program before, but never made it to the end. Right now I have finished the first three weeks, and my knees are killing me. Since several other programs I've looked at have a week off during the third week to avoid injury (with no-impact activity instead, such as biking or swimming), I've decided to go ahead and take a week off and let my knees recover a bit. My plan is to jump back in and repeat week three after this week of rest and move on with the rest of the schedule. That makes this Wednesday my first day back on. Hopefully I'll be ready by then.

One of the problems I had with C25K last time around was the off days. I get really enthusiastic at the beginning and taking days off makes me lose steam. So, to avoid this situation, I'm also doing the 100 pushups thing from hundredpushups.com on the C25K off days. I'm doing this on an incline using the stairs, as I'm completely unable to do a single pushup at the moment (or at least I was when I started, not so much now!). After making it through the first two weeks, I wasn't able to make the cutoff to move on but I did do well enough to move over one column, so I decided to go ahead and start from the beginning again in column 2. I'm loving the way this is going. I'm up to 40 pushups (not all at once!) and I am actually starting to believe that eventually I will be able to do the promised 100, even if it will take more than the scheduled 6 weeks. My prediction is that after I finish weeks 1 and 2 for the second time, I will move back to column 1 for weeks 3 and 4, and then repeat 3 and 4 in column 2 before moving on to the final two weeks (which I will also probably need to perform once in column 1 and a second time in column 2). We'll see.

The Razz's Cousin is CRAWLING!!!

I can't believe this little cutie-pie is crawling already! I love her little pony tail too!

the Razz's new cousin

The Razz has a new cousin, born today around 2pm :) !! I can't wait to meet her.

Will Sits

A "Will Grows Up" Filmstrip

>

9 Weeks

10 Days

first longies :)

Well, we are officially waiting until I'm healed from the c-section before we start cloth diapering, but in a fit of annoyance over poor fitting newborn disposable diapers (and a puddle of pee that missed the diaper entirely) I put the razz in his first prefold last night, with the first pair of longies I knit him for a cover. I'm really pleased with the outcome. I can't wait to get better so we can get to the cloth diapering full time!

more pics

Baby Pictures!

wow, snow storms really do make babies!

Or at least they make your water break! Mine broke at 1 this morning, with 6-8 inches of snow down and not a plow in sight. I was having a few contractions per hour over night, but nothing very strong, so at least we didn't have to worry about driving in that! This morning, they stopped completely. They got going again after a while and they seem to be a bit stronger now, but still not much to shout about. I keep telling the Razz that at this point, it's much better if he comes out on his own soon, because he'll probably be born today whether he wants to or not. I mean, they're not going to let me go that long with my water broke. I'm pushing off the moment when we actually tell the doctor that my water broke to increase my chances of getting started on my own, but there's only so long you can let it go. I mean, "yo, doc, yeah, umm, my water broke 4 days ago" is not really a great way to start a conversation. And I don't really want my doctor mad. I mean, she *is* the one with the needles and IV bags afterall.

The Carseat Thing

OK, consumer reports just crash tested a bunch of carseats at slightly higher speeds than required for the national safety standard. By slighly, I mean the standard calls for tests at 30 mph, and they did frontal crashes at 35 mph and side impacts at 38 mph. I'm really annoyed by their write-up at the moment. They tested each of 12 seats against front and side impacts, while secured using the LATCH system and again while secured with the car safety belts. As a result, they recommend only 2 seats, which performed well in all of these tests. Now, I understand we're using a math model here, and those are the two seats that performed the "best" but take a look at the RATINGS, and tell if you notice anything.

Anything?

Perhaps you notice that the Evenflo Embrace, an inexpensive and readily available seat, performed BETTER than the Graco Snugride with EPS foam when installed using the vehicle safety belts. Now, I know I'm only going to install my car seat one way...so, why should it matter to me that it would perform poorly if I installed it the other way? It shouldn't and it doesn't, and I think it's crazy that they didn't acknowledge that fact at all in their article.

Another glaring oversight is the fact that they tested the Snugride with EPS foam, but didn't point out that most of the snugride models don't have the EPS foam. They didn't give enough information about how different seats failed to help us sort out whether that makes a difference or not. One thing we can deduce, however, is that at least the Snugride base should be safe, since a separation from the base or an overrotation shouldn't have anything to do with the EPS foam. The third criterion for failure was grave injury detected by sensors on the dummy. The EPS foam may have made a difference on this one, but at least we can be pretty sure the seat won't be flying around the car in a crash.

Oh, but wait, there's more. The Graco Safeseat with EPS foam failed miserably. Another factor not pointed out, though, was that it was tested with a 30 pound dummy while the other seats were tested with a 22 pound dummy. This is because the dummys selected were of the maximum rated size, and the safeseat has a higher weight rating based on the less rigorous national standards tests. This is a reasonable choice, but the distinction should be pointed out. It's completely possible, though we can't know from these tests, that the safeseat would be safe with a 22 pounder, even though it failed with a 30 pounder. Small difference, you say? Well, there's not much difference between 30 and 35 mph either, but the extra 5 mph meant catastrophic failure for the seat most highly recommended based on the 30 mph tests. And it, of course, brings up another issue: Is my baby safer in the infant car seat at 10-15 pounds than at 22 pounds? I would love to see another round of tests where they test many sizes in the range. Maybe my baby is totally safe from birth to 12 or 15 pounds. At that point, maybe it's time to switch to a convertible seat. As usual, these tests leave a lot more questions in my mind than answers.

34 Week Belly Picture!

Christmas Knitting

Now that Christmas is over I can post pics of this year's gifting. I didn't make much, but that meant it got finished on time!!

	For my Mommy. This hat and the gloves match a scarf I made for her last christmas. It was the wavy from knitty, slightly modified for cleaner edges. It didn't get finished until the end of January, so I'm very proud that this year's gifts were wrapped and ready before Christmas Eve!
The gloves and above hat are made from KnitPicks Andean Silk on size 7 bamboo needles. I'm completely in love with Andean Silk. Super warm, soft and not itchy! Hand wash only, technically, although I often wash my wool in the machine on cold. It gets a little fuzzy and felted, but doesn't shrink, so that works for me.
	For my sis, before felting the second slipper. Normally I would have felted them at the same time, but this was my first time working with SWS and I wanted to be sure it would felt ok before I bothered knitting a second slipper.

Wow, he's growing fast!

hiccups!

Yay. I've been wondering all pregnancy if I was just not noticing the razz having hiccups, but last night, he definitely was. It was really fun. I had been up with the dogs and was trying to get resettled, when I felt a gentle kick. Followed by 30 or so more in rhythmic succession. So cool. The other razzmama was awake, too, so she came in and got to feel them with me. Toward the end, we think he was getting irritated with all the hiccuping, because he started kicking hard after each one. I know the feeling, kid!

Baby Socks!

I'm busy with Christmas Knitting at the moment, so it's mostly been small projects for The Razz. I knitted the umbilical cord hat from Stitch 'n' Bitch, and here are some socks I knitted for him.

recycled wool longies :)

These are my first 3 pairs of longies for The Razz. They won't fit for a while, but they were fun and relatively easy to make, and incredibly cheap. Each wool sweater at goodwill: $2.50. And I should be able to get at least 2 soakers out of the body of each sweater.