Dogs Steal Yarn

The kindness of knitters

Thumper has received an amazing knitted gift from my friend Andrea:

How gorgeous is that?! I lovelovelove this sweater and can't wait to dress the kid in it this winter. Billy and I are both so touched that Andrea would dedicate this much time and effort to a sweater for our little guy. Yay Andrea! (She's the one who got me started knitting, by the way. It's all her fault. The huge stash, the piles of knitting magazines, this blog...all her fault. She's a terrible influence and I love her dearly.)

A while back, Thumper received another package--an adorable hat and bootie set and a washcloth from Rabbitch. I promised to post a photo of that gift soon, then promptly forgot that I hadn't already done so. Sorry! Mom Brain! Here it is:

Lucky kid, yes? He's going to be damn cute (and quite colorful) this winter. Now I just need to manage to get that donkey jacket done before he outgrows it...

My friend Michael Deibert, journalist and author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti, has a new blog. Please do check it out.

Also, Michael will be appearing on the Leonard Lopate show Thursday, August 24th, at noon EST on WNYC. No need to actually be in New York to hear the show. You can listen online. Access to the live feed is on the homepage of our most wonderful local public radio station. I've kind of got a thing for Leonard Lopate, so I'm very excited that Michael will be on the show. He says he'll open the segment by telling Leonard I love him, but I suspect he's just saying that to make sure I tune in. (Truth be told, Brian Lehrer is my true public radio love. Mostly because Ira Glass doesn't live in New York.)

Later: Okay...so apparently Ira Glass now lives in New York. Sorry, Brian Lehrer.)

happy birthday to me...

Hmmm. Birthdays are quite different once you're a mom, aren't they? For some reason, I didn't anticipate it. I should have, though. There's no way a day can be all about you when everything is actually all about the baby (as it should be, of course, especially at this age).

I'm having a great day, though. This morning we lounged around and nursed in bed and listened to NPR. Then we headed out to Prospect Park.

Billy wore Thumper. Aren't my guys cute? Yep...time for a bigger hat for the kid, I'd say.

I was very happy to sit in the park and watch people and hang out with my guys:

Though Thumper got a bit bored:

The guys are napping now, and get this... I'm going to knit! Remember when I used to have time and free hands to do that? I'm very excited.

Thirty-three... I think this is going to be a good year.

PS: Remember that IK sweater I've been coveting? Billy bought me the yarn for my birthday! I'm choosing to do it in the pictured colorway, because I think it's just perfect like that. I got enough yarn for a larger size and will see what size makes sense to knit after I finish the kiddo's donkey jacket.

PPS: Thumper went to the doctor on Friday for his two-month checkup. 13 lbs 7 oz and 24 inches long. That's a good-sized hunk o baby.

Frankly, Mom, I'm shocked by the appalling lack of blogging

Sigh. It's hard to remember to blog when the days run together, isn't it? Let's see...what's been going on...

Thumper is now two months old. I swear he grows a little bit every time I nurse him (and we nurse A LOT). He now bats at the toys overhead when hanging out on his play mat and amuses himself by chattering to the ceiling fan over our bed. The ceiling fan races are quite exciting, apparently. We like to nurse in bed and then watch the fan for a while. Great fun.

This past weekend I finally got my hair done, so I look like myself again. Cherry red with mulberry low lights. I'll maybe take a picture of it this weekend, when Billy can hold the baby while I actually take the time to wash my hair. (My birthday is this Sunday. Surely even moms are entitled to clean hair on their birthdays.) The hair salon visit on Saturday was my first separation from Thumper. He and Billy dropped me off at the salon and then walked two big blocks away from me to the Hudson River. They hung out there until I was done. (I didn't want the baby around the hair dye fumes at the shop.) It was all of two hours apart, but I was nervous the whole time even though he was in excellent daddy hands.

Other than that big excitement, it's just been a blur of diapers and spit-up and kisses and giggles and a rather crusty case of cradle cap. I did two freelance jobs in the past three weeks and so now the next two weeks will be all about novel revisions when the baby naps.

The novel...oy vey. When my agent took me on last year, she and I disagreed about two MAJOR aspects of the book. I stood my ground and she agreed to send it out as it was, because she believed in the strength of my writing. (I love this woman.) Well...it went out to editors and it didn't sell. And now, with that awful clarity that time and distance give you, I can see that she was right all along. The revisions are going to bring the book in line with the direction she wanted for it nearly a year ago. I could kick myself and say that if only I'd listened better and trusted this very experienced professional, the book would have sold the first time round and I wouldn't have to take freelance right now. I'd just be raising Thumper and working on the next book--the book I abandoned in order to do these revisions. I mean, I landed a serious first-class agent (she represents Michael Cunningham, Julia Glass, Ursula Hegi, Scott Turow... and...uh... me. Yes, I do pinch myself every once in a while and it seems I am mostly awake.) and yet I couldn't take her feedback?

I wasn't ready to hear that two aspects of the book that I dearly loved weren't working. I can't beat myself up for that. It was necessary for me to go through the experience of collecting those rejections before I could come to terms with the work I now have ahead of me. Not only CAN I do it, I'm actually excited to do it. It will be a stronger book when I'm done. The collateral damage? Well, remember this tattoo of the first line of the novel?

That line has been cut.

Whoops. Next time I won't tattoo anything until the book has shipped to the printer. I still love that line, and it's a damn good reminder of the lessons learned (and yet to be learned) with this first novel.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to it.

Thumper explains it all, part one

I'll let you in on a little secret, folks.

Nothing is funnier than when Mommy pretends to eat your feet.

Attention, judgmental omnivores

No, not YOU, darling. You're wonderful. I mean those OTHER omnivores. The ones who insist that a vegetarian mother can't possibly nourish her baby on breastfeeding alone unless she gives up her herbivore ways and starts eating meat. Or at least starts eating fish. (Though fish is meat, and most certainly not a vegetarian food, thankyouverymuch.) THEY said the same thing during my pregnancy, and the kid was 8 lbs 6 oz at birth without even a morsel of anything that had had a mother passing my lips.

Well, I most certainly have not started eating meat. Vegetarian for nearly 18 years and I'm not going to change that now. And yet, in spite of my vegetarian ways, please do note that my child, one Thumper Dogs Steal Yarn, is seven weeks old today and has now (literally overnight) outgrown his 0 to 3 month clothes.

Does that count as thriving, or is it just freakish? I swear, this kid is huge. Wearing 3-month-size clothes at 7 weeks! I mean...seriously. It certainly explains why yesterday was one long breastfeeding session peppered with regular intervals of screaming (his) and desperate chocolate-eating (mine). He's gotten very fussy and hungry with each growth spurt. I shoulda known. Today he's still ravenous, but I've coaxed a good number of smiles out of him and he's more content between feedings (Though still mostly wide awake all day. So much for getting any work done on that freelance job. Ah well. He's asleep right now in my lap for the first nap of the day lasting more than ten minutes. It's nearly 6 pm. This is the flip side to the fact that he sleeps through the night.)

Nothing soothes our fussy boy quite like a dance with Daddy. They were dancing to Al Green.

Clearly I need to rethink the size I'm going to knit for the little coat I've planned for him for this winter. Check it out. The Debbie Bliss Donkey Jacket. How cute will he be in this, assuming I actually do manage to find the time to knit it?

I want to use stash yarn whenever possible, so that probably means making this one out of Mission Falls 1824 wool. I don't have any black or white Mission Falls, so the jacket will most likely be in two shades of oatmeal. I love the kid more than anything else on earth, but if he's going to grow this fast then stash yarn of whatever color I have on hand will do just fine for his jacket. Especially since he may well outgrow it before it's even finished. And every donkey I've ever met was tan, anyway.

Mother's little helper

It's been one of those days...