Step Into My Thimble

Another one of those days…I can feel the wall rushing at me at about 100 miles a second. At least my applesauce turned out pretty.

We closed on our house on Sept. 9, 2005, and moved in on the 25th, so it’s been one whole year of home ownership. Um…the appearance hasn’t changed much since we bought it, there’s a half-whiskey barrel with some decaying plants where the for-sale sign used to be, and the neighbor got a different car. But we still love it.

I have lots to say about frogging my Ballet Wrap Cardigan (done, yarn washed and dried and ready to become a generic 3×3 ribbed turtleneck for me), knitting a couple of baby sweaters (taking forever, but soon…), and also, making 16 pints of the most delicious applesauce.

Unfortunately the applesauce is cooling in a less than scenic location at the moment, and my mother says NEVER MOVE HOT CANNED GOODS, but there will be pictures. We got beautiful dark red Cortland and Golden Delicious apples from an organic farmer this weekend. The Cortland flesh is white, sometimes with red streaks through it. That means pink pink pink in the finished applesauce. It’s all natural, just a tad of lemon juice and nothing else. Perfect for little girl babies who will be moving on to solids in the next few months!

My goal is 60 pints for the season so I have a ways to go. I want a lot for Maeve, but I’ll be giving it away to my various mommy and non-mommy friends.

Two posts in a row (and even time to tweak this one repeatedly!). It is a miracle. This miracle follows closely on the tail of another one: Maeve fell asleep all by herself for her p.m. nap! I didn’t even do anything, just put her on the bed and walked away to fill up my fully caffeinated coffee, and moments later, she was out.

Of course, we did just host the daytime La Leche League meeting at our very small house, and I think we probably had 15 or 20 moms and at least 25 kids in attendance. That was a lot of stimulation, enough even for a caffeinated grownup such as myself to instantly doze off. During the meeting, my phone rang, and it was dear friend Tom calling from L.A. where he has traveled for his advertising work. (He lives in Manhattan.) He wanted to tell me about rubbing elbows with Paris Hilton and Donatella Versace last night! Such a funny thing…here I am in a room full of nursing babes and moms, culturally miles and miles away from that world. But I guess I sort of keep a foot in both.

America’s Next Top Model starts tonight with a two-hour season opener. This throws a serious monkey wrench into my baby routine enforcement, because bathtime happens to be right in the middle of the show. I am thinking about building a bed on the living room floor in front of the TV, turning off the lights, and nursing her to sleep after the bath. Rodney can go read in the bedroom, right?? I do not have high hopes for the new season, because I thought the last one really sucked and they had worn out the paradigm. (Is ANTM a paradigm?? whoa.) Maybe they are coming back way more fierce or whatever, I don’t know, it just seemed to get cheaper and tackier, and Jay Manuel is like everywhere now. Bleh. Speaking of TV paradigms, how terrible is that show Style Her Famous?

Finally, the cable company we selected is the only local carrier of the new CW network. Ordinarily in little old Kalamazoo, we do not have this kind of luck. It means that we can watch ANTM and the Gilmore Girls at normal national times instead of at 5pm on Friday or some other inconvenient time. The truly dumb thing, though, is that the newspaper’s TV schedule hasn’t been updated to include the CW. Nothing is ever organized to suit my anal, librarianish need for order.

Just like on America’s Next Top Model, I’ve decided that the judging on Project Runway is based on a lot of arbitrary factors. I mean, who can really, really, define “fashion-forward”? Anyone can use that term, I think. Also, sometimes the decisions are clearly based on reality-TV ratings issues rather than talent, otherwise why would the wonderful Alison Kelly have been cut in favor of that nutcase Vincent? And…I think I love Laura. Her quote about having another kid and throwing it on the pile with the other ones was priceless. She just seems to be such a caricature of a human.

Anyway…Maeve has a new fashion-forward onesie, shown here. It is a plain shirt that was dyed with Rit “Dark Green” dye (not stirred in the dyepot to get a slightly mottled look), and then I used a tiny zig-zag stitch to apply this scrap of barkcloth.

Actually using the sewing machine was a real feat. It took probably a good two weeks for the planets to align…the fabric piece cut out, the right lights and the machine plugged in and ready for use, the right thread on the machine, and a baby willing to sleep for slightly more than 45 minutes. I did it. There is hope.

[You know who hasn't made an appearance on here in a really really long time? Stanley the cat. It's sad what becomes of a beloved housepet when you bring a baby home.]

Rodney has returned from his fabulous trip up north with friend Brian. I thought maybe some of my extremely bad luck while he was gone was an indicator of how potentially troubled his own week was, but lucky for him he only came back with a little boot-worn spot on the back of one foot. At least one of the family is in decent shape. He stepped right back into his role as father-entertainer last night, making Maeve pantomime clubbing seals and throwing them into her “dogsled” (his knee) as he bounced her along. I think there was some whale harpooning as well, and a whole lot of baby giggling. He surprised her with a Green Bay Packers teething toy (phthalate-free!) and a book and temporary tattoo of the Hodag.

We went to the eye doctor yesterday since she’s quite cross-eyed, and that person’s opinion was that she’s probably on the path to corrective eye surgery. However, someone pointed out this web site that talks about alternatives, so I’m going to look into that and also see about a second opinion. We have been asked to see the first eye doctor every two months to see how things are going, and if after she’s a year old the situation hasn’t improved, that’s when we’d be scheduled for the operation. My little brother was the only one in our family who had anesthesia as a child, and he was also the only one with asthma and a lot of other respiratory illness issues…could the two be related? Well…Rodney’s pretty much an asthmatic himself with a history of ear infections as a child, and I want to work on avoiding all that if we can. Of course, vision is a thing you need to rely on for a lifetime as well, so we’ll have to think hard about what’s best.

I thought of this the other day: The first five months of raising a kid have been filled with more and harder tests than the 21 whole years I spent in public school. And it’s also pretty darn laughable how much I obsessed about labor and delivery. Sure it was painful but it was NOTHING compared to the things we deal with now. I may never sleep again.

For that reason I’m so glad the Internet invented BitTorrent. The only thing that got me through the week was seasons one and two of Project Runway. I am so obsessed with Tim Gunn that when I do sleep, I dream of him. I thought Daniel should have won season two…of course! He’s from Michigan!