Well, I’ve been home for three weeks now. How are things going?

Griff is doing great. He remains the cutest baby in the world, which is a good thing, because he’s still waking up more than once on most nights.

He’s still not a great fan of “tummy time”, but he’s slowly becoming more tolerant of it, and holds up his head and upper body pretty well. (Sometimes I wonder if this “back to sleep” stuff isn’t taken to such an extreme that 95% of babies end up with a total complex about being on their stomachs. I suspect that very few SIDS cases are actually traceable to sleep positioning alone, with no other factors like soft bedding, history of breathing difficulties, etc. I’d love to see data on this.)

We got the all-clear at his 4-month appointment to start giving him solids, so we’re moving forward with that at a leisurely pace. Given the recent recommendations from various organizations (WHO, AAP, ACOG, etc) that babies should only consume milk/formula until 6 months, we’re being very casual about the process, offering solids just at dinner time and only a few times a week.

Since I’m home and have the time, we’re doing homemade baby food. Our pediatrician recommended feeding him veggies and fruits with the same level of spice/seasonings that we would use. So far we’ve done “rice cereal” (brown rice whizzed to a powder in the blender, cooked up with water, and thinned with a little milk), and peas (steamed peas pureed in the blender, with a teeny bit of butter). He’s been very enthusiastic about both foods. Here’s a video of his reaction to his first solid food ever; he seemed to enjoy it quite bit.

Griffin’s First Solids from Heather Sarik on Vimeo.

How about me? Well, I’m still adjusting. A lot of days it’s all I can do to take care of Griff and get the cleaning, laundry and cooking done, and I’m too tired for much else once he’s in bed in the evening. Griff is an awful napper, so I can generally only count on one good 45-minute stretch during the day to get things done. I’m also running over to my townhouse at least once a week to deal with the renovations we’re doing to get it ready to put on the market. Boredom is definitely not a problem! I’m still figuring out how to balance the baby/household stuff with fitting in a little fun time for me.

Speaking of, here’s the Three Waters Farm merino/(tencel? bamboo?) blend I spun on the drop spindle. I got 490 yards of fingering weight from 3⅞ ounces of fiber. I’m really pleased with the yardage! Definitely enough for a small shawl.

I also got a few stupid but useful projects done today, which makes me happy. First, I modified a too-small onesie into a t-shirt. We got this from Jag’s parents recently and it was just too small to snap at the crotch, but plenty long enough to be a shirt. I used the overcast foot on my sewing machine to do a poor man’s serging on the chopped-off edge. It looks pretty similar in size to the Dharma t-shirts that I bought to dye.

Second, I turned an old guest towel and washcloth into a hooded bath towel. We have a ton of cute hooded bath towels, but they’re getting to be too small, and they’re all quite thin and not very absorbent. For this project, I cut the decorative embroidered edge off the guest towel, finished the raw edge with overcast stitch, cut the washcloth in half diagonally and finished that raw edge, zig-zagged one of the embroidered motifs onto the washcloth, and then sewed the washcloth onto the corner of the towel. Et voilà!

The best part is that Griff looks like a hilarious little gnome wizard when he wears it. 😀

Well, as Mr. Loaf famously said, two out of three ain’t bad.

Superwash merino: check.

The I-can’t-remember-if-this-is-merino/tencel-or-merino/bamboo-but-I-know-it’s-from-Three Waters Farm fiber, spun on the drop spindle: check. I’m looking forward to tallying the yardage on this stuff.

The Corriedale Grafton batt: not finished. Just barely started, in fact. But at least I tried!

Griff had his 4-month checkup today. He giggled through the exam, handled the injections much better this time, and hopefully won’t have the low-grade fever again.

His stats:

Weight: 17lb12.5oz (95th percentile, average for a 7-month-old)
Height: 28¼ inches (98th percentile, average for a 9-month-old)

Yay Griff, and yay for being able to nurse him so successfully so far!

Griff is 4 months old today! He decided to celebrate by waking up approximately every 2.5 hours overnight. When we weighed him this morning after he’d made a big, uh, deposit, he’d still gained 4 ounces in less than 2 days, so we can’t really blame Mr. Growthspurty McSpurterson for being hungry. He tips the scale at 17lbs, 8oz.

One good thing about getting woken up early by a baby, you get a heck of a lot done on weekends. After we dragged ourselves downstairs, Jag headed outside to do some yard work while I made coffee, unloaded the dishwasher, and made some blueberry muffins (blueberries are BOGOF at HT this week). By the time Jag had finished up and showered, and we had eaten breakfast and cleaned up, we noticed it was still just barely after 8am.

Some more gratuitous Griffness:

I didn’t get a whole lot of spinning done this week, just a little drop-spindling. While spinning with the drop spindle is very portable and relaxing, getting the yarn off is kind of a PITA. This giant cop of yarn is getting pretty heavy, but I’m not really feeling like winding it off.

I’m not sure I’m still feeling the love for the third fiber I had picked out to spin for the Tour de Fleece, so I may make an emergency substitution. This Corriedale batt has been calling my name, for example…

Well, I’ve just completed my first week at home with the little man. Along with the general childcare, this encompassed starting a morning walking program, cleaning most of the house (mopping! scrubbing!), making solo runs to the grocery store and farmer’s market with the baby in tow, driving out to Raleigh to check on the townhouse renovation process and visit with the grandparents, and doing a lot of cooking and laundry.

I am freaking exhausted. Griff has had a couple bad nights this week, and he is a horrible napper, which makes getting the day-to-day tasks done rather challenging. Staff at two different day care centers weren’t able to get him to nap more than around 30 minutes at a time (if that), and neither were we, until I got desperate and started swaddling just his arms for naps (we already swaddle him in a Miracle Blanket for overnights). Score!

Other thoughts: I’m really enjoying having the time to cook again. I miss the socializing with coworkers I used to get at lunchtime and our 10am meetings. I love being able to spend time with Griff and watch his skills and personality develop at an amazing rate. As much NPR as I listen to during the day, Griff’s first words may involve the phrase “BBC World Service” or “This is Morning Edition”. I’m still adjusting to my new role and I’m trying to get over feeling guilty if I do something during the day that’s not directly related to housework or baby care, something that might possibly qualify as “fun”.

Well, I managed to get the first batch spun and plied this week. One down, two to go!

Here it is, a 2-ply superwash merino, fresh off the bobbin. Very colorful and should be great for kidswear. No idea on yardage yet; I think it’s around a DK weight.

And here it is drying on the porch after a wash and whack. I use highly specialized equipment for this process (only size LARGE plastic hangers, thank you).

On a totally unrelated note, I have very few pictures of me and Griff. Here’s one Jag took today while I was trying to get him settled down for a little nap.

I made this gnome stuffie as a gift for a new baby of our acquaintance. It’s a free pattern that I modified heavily. I think he turned out pretty cute, but my embroidery skills are best described as “laughable”. Luckily, babies aren’t too critical about their toys. 🙂 I’ll be making one for Griff, too!

Reading stuff like this, this, this and this makes me feel a little better, but man is it tough going from a baby that sleeps 6-7 hours in the first stretch and only wakes once/night to a baby that wakes up 3, 4 or more (gah!) times. It’s like having a newborn again.

The two mei tai carriers have definitely been the best baby-equipment investments we’ve made. We still don’t own a stroller, and probably won’t bother until he’s just too heavy to carry or we go somewhere that involves a lot of walking on paved paths (like the zoo or an amusement park or something). This newer one is from Mei Tai Baby, which turns out to be local (it shipped from Hillsborough). We like this one because it has adjustable snaps to narrow the crotch width, since Griffin is just out of the froggy-leg carry and we don’t want to hurt his hips by spreading his legs too far.

Around this time last year, I started the Tour de Fleece and ended up giving it up halfway through for some silly reason (like, I found out I was pregnant and was completely freaking out, along with having the first trimester tiredness and nausea kicking my butt). This year, as a completely confident, serene, and centered new mom (HAHAHAHAHA) I’m going to try again. I’ve scaled back to what I feel like I can reasonably complete with an almost-4-month-old in the house. I’m not joining any Ravelry or other groups, I’m just doing this as a personal goal for me.

I’ll be finishing 2 in-progress fiber projects and starting a new one. Clockwise from top left, we have some superwash merino that I dyed in crazy bright colors. It’s intended as a 2-ply worsted weight, and I’d like to use this for some kind of project for Griff, maybe a Baby Surprise Jacket. I’m over halfway done spinning the singles for this. Next up is the merino/tencel I started spinning on my wedding-gift-from-Jag drop spindle during our honeymoon back in October. I’d like to get this finished up and maybe knit someone something gorgeous and lacy as a Christmas gift this year, since money will be a bit tight for a while. And last, some of my hand-dyed superwash Corriedale (I think I called this colorway Koi Pond or something similar) that I’ll probably spin up as another 2-ply worsted for Griff, since it’s superwash. It would also make some nice socks, so I’ll need to think about this before I start.