Plath’s Adventures

We Survived

August 22, 2008 by Lisa

We survived our first road trip as a family of four (including Marzipan), but I think it will be a while until we attempt another. We had a few things to take care of with our house in Michigan that’s for rent, so we loaded up the Jeep and headed north for a week, visiting both sets of grandparents. Ellie did pretty well, although there were a few hairy moments, like the massive shirt-soaking spit-up ordeal (my shirt, not hers. go figure) while stopping for lunch, and then the poop blow-out episode, but we all survived and we’re happy to be home.

Eleanore had lots of firsts while we were on the road. She rolled from back to tummy for the first time outside under a pear tree in Michigan, and had her first big, squealing laugh that was so loud Jason heard it from clear across the house and came running. She’s really starting to notice the world around her, and *loves* Marzipan and Patches. Every time she sees Marzipan now, she smiles.

Here’s a video of her with the dog this week:

I finished one soaker while we were gone, and have almost finished the shorties I started while in Michigan. Both out of Purewool, the soaker is in the Lima colorway. I love the stripey color gradation.

I think I’m going to have to start knitting larges soon! I ordered the peace fleece for her Christmas stocking, so hopefully I can get started on that soon. I ordered enough for a pair of rainbow striped longies, too.

I found this adorable turtle soaker pattern while browsing ravelry this morning. I think it’s going to have to be my next knit! I also bought this cute gnome pattern the other day. I’m going to try and knit a few for Christmas, even though I abhor seaming.

Tags: cloth diapering, knitting, motherhood, shorties, soakers
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Hide the paypal…

August 19, 2008 by Lisa

Three Irish Girls has 10% off and free shipping if you spend over $50. Go figure… I just spent $50 in a Peace Fleece co-op last week and can’t afford more yarn right now. Must resist…

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Lots of Excitement

August 7, 2008 by Lisa

Eleanore is growing up so much. She rolled over for the first time two weeks ago, she gave us her first real giggle last night, and is rapidly outgrowing her six-nine month clothes and size medium diapers at four months. Yikes! I guess that mama’s milk is doing her good Speaking of diapers, I found my new favorite ones, even for nighttime, when my little girl can soak and leak through ANYTHING. Cricketts are our new nighttime solution with a hemp doubler by SMJAE, then topped with a Bummis Super Whisper Wrap (we save our wool for daytime). Finally we’re waking up with dry sheets! They’re a little plain, but I’ve dyed all of her infant size. She’s beginning to outgrow the rise, so I ordered six of the toddler size new from cricketts and picked up two from FSOT on diaperswappers, and I’ll probably eventually dye those, too. I love that there are only two sizes and they’re inexpensive. Not like those other one sized diapers out there… too pricey for me!

After those milestones, it almost makes my next bit of news lackluster. We’re buying some property down here with the plans to build. 2.1 acres in a nearby town will (hopefully) soon be ours. It just needs to pass the perk test, which hopefully it won’t have a problem doing.

And in other news, we’re taking our first road trip with Ellie, and are driving up to Ohio and then Michigan this weekend. Wish us luck, I’m so nervous traveling with her for the first time. She’s pretty good in the car for the most part, but it’s still a very long drive, even for us, let alone for her. I’m trying to sort out how to pack now…

Still soaker knitting. Finished this pair out of peace fleece. Love the way the yarn worked up, but I’m not happy with how tight I kitchenered it.

I’m really happy with how this purewool one turned out:

And this pair of shorties just came off my needles this week from Three Irish Girls in Conor:

I just cast on a quick soaker out of Purewool to work on during our trip (and packing 2 more skeins for another if I manage to finish), but when we get back I’m going to work on something else: a stocking for Eleanore for Christmas. Haven’t decided on a pattern yet, but I added a bunch to my ravelry queue to sort through later. I’m thinking either cables or simple stripes.

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A new crafting obsession

July 8, 2008 by Lisa

Just what I need, right? Oh boy. I just received dying supplies from Dharma, and I’m hooked. I don’t believe we have anything white left in our house. Socks, t-shirts, onesies, diapers have all been consumed by the dye pot. I haven’t yet attempted tie dying, although it is in my plans, but I’ve been doing low water immersion dying using this tutorial. It’s so easy, and not as messy as I expected it to be. I meant to snap some in process pictures, but with a little one in the house, I find myself doing one step here and another step a few hours later, so I didn’t get a chance to get any pics. It’s very addictive though, and I already have more dyes and blanks on order…

Here are some diapers I dyed (so great for covering stains!):

And here are some shirts/onesies for me and Eleanore:

The new soaker still isn’t finished yet, although Ellie tried her best to help me:

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Yummy yarn

July 3, 2008 by Lisa

I just got a shipment of Purewool in from a co-op group I’m in. Yummy deliciousness.

It’s all destined to become shorties and soakers. Here’s what I’m currently working on out of purewool.

I swore I would not do the pink thing if I had a girl. There’s an awful lot of pink isn’t there? Harrumph. Dd doesn’t look that great in pink though, so I’ll be pairing everything with either green or blue shirts ~ she looks great in green. In fact, she already likes her green beans.

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I am officially old

June 26, 2008 by Lisa

When you’re a kid and you hear that someone is thirty years old, it sounds so ancient. Well, I am now ancient to a kid. Yes, I am 30 today. Or as Jason so eloquently put it, halfway to 60. Yippee. We’re not doing much for my birthday, but Jason took the day off so we can spend it together as a family.

I finished the Picky Pants shorties. However, they’re longies on dd at the moment. I’m hoping by the time the rise fits, they’ll at least be capris if not shorties. It won’t be long before she’ll be in them though! She’s growing like crazy! I LOVE the Three Irish Girls yarn. It’s so squishy and I can tell it’s going to hold up well. I used their Peregrine Merino in the Florry colorway. I’m already eying a few of their new colorways… Cole and Connemara are beautiful, and Gwendolyn is so pretty, too.

Eleanore loves “crawling” on my legs, and always talks up a storm doing it.

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June 18, 2008 by Lisa

Ok, I have an addiction to books. I’ve always had one, ever since I was a little girl. I just plain love to read and always have. I was the kid who would hide under the covers with a flashlight and read as late as I could keep my eyes open. Well, I figured it’s never to early too try and instill that same love in Eleanore. Already I can tell that she likes the sing-song rhymes of Dr. Seuss. And she loves Where Is Baby’s Belly Button. We also just got The Napping House, which I haven’t had a chance to read her yet, but it’s adorable. Amazon is having a 4 for 3 promotion, so I think it might be time to invest in a few other books, too… It’s important to me to introduce her to books that are kind of crunchy, if you know what I mean… attachment parenting friendly. No bottles, pacifiers, etc.

Books I’m eyeing: We Like To Nurse, Mama’s Milk, Mommy Hugs and Breastmilk Makes My Tummy Yummy. What Baby Needs looks great ~ it’s a Dr. Sears book, as does A Ride on Mother’s Back: A Day of Baby Carrying around the World , since I carry Ellie in the pouch everywhere we go, rather than using a stroller or infant car seat carrier.
Does anyone else have any other recommendations?

It may seem naive, but we really want dd’s exposure to commercialism to be as limited as we can get it. It’s our goal to try and live more simply. We can’t have a garden here with our apartment, but I can’t wait until we can buy a house and grow our own things. We do go to the farmer’s market almost weekly and purchase as much locally as we can. I want our daughter to know that vegetables come from the ground, not from the store, and that she doesn’t need Hannah Montana *everything.* So much junk is marketed to kids these days it makes me sick.

Although I do have an addiction to books, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by all our “stuff” lately, so I decided to join Paperback Swap. It’s a site to list the books you want to get rid of, and for each book that you send out, you get a credit you can use to request a book someone else has listed. Just for signing up and listing 10 books, you get two free credits. So far I’ve already destashed two books! I’ve requested two children’s books for Ellie, too. It’s great because if we don’t like them or just get sick of them, we can just relist them for someone else to enjoy.

Still working on the pair of shorties from Three Irish Girl’s yarn. I love how squishy they’re knitting up. No pics yet, but I’ll post them when I’m finished.

I do have a pic of Eleanore of course… She’s doing great, although we suspect she has a dairy sensitivity. I cut out all dairy from my diet for a while, and then introduced it back, and at first she seemed to be doing ok, but she’s been very fussy and spitting up a lot the past few days. Oh Ellie mama’s going to miss her cheese!
At her two month check-up, she was 11 lbs 5 1/2 oz and 23 inches long, so she’s apparently eating great! She’ll hold things now if you put them in her hand. Here she is with a great homemade wooden rattle I ordered from Earnest Efforts.