Ryan's First

Here is a pic from Ryan's first birthday. You can see he is doing well and is growing up nicely! Still has some torticolis that gets worse and better, but not yet completely away yet.

Thanks to Jen for the nice comment on my last post. It is great to hear good stories. Our neurologist is such a piece of work. You would think Ryan has two years to live due to the hypotonia. Jen, is your friend's hypotonia a symptom of any larger disorder, or is that the only problem her son has? I keep praying this is a stand alone condition for him. Ryan is very kinesthetic, so I don't imagine he won't be able to keep up with the other boys, either.

Yesterday, I died some sock yarn at Northwoods. It turned out beautifully, and I received many compliments on it. When I can bring it in from drying, I will take pics and post. Who knows, maybe someday I will let out my color sense and become an indie dyer, too.

The latest...

(As you can see, I originally started writing this post in May! I am only getting back to posting it now. Thanks to Ryan's busy medical and birthday schedule, and lack of internet.)

Stitches South was great. I took classes with JC Briar of STR fame, and Beth Brown-Reinsel.



Traditional Knitted Gansey - Beth Brown-Reinsel

Great class and instructor. Friendly, works the room well, shows you all of the techniques needed to do your own gansey and makes sure you can do them before you leave (as long as you are willing to try). Would take a class from her again. Good handouts.
Sock Design - JC Briar

JC has a dry sense of humor, but I think we all joked around enough to where we felt more comfortable. She is a great instructor also, showing you new techniques and making sure you can do them as well. She is really good at building up your confidence so that you feel that you can be a designer, too. She is a self-proclaimed tech junkie, and loves sharing her knowledge with others, so she is a great instructor for those who aren’t afraid to take on the technical side of knitting. Good handouts.



I have waited to post until I had the latest good news about the last round of testing on Ryan. All of his bloodwork, urine tests, MRI and CT Scans show that he has no known disorders. The neurologist says we just hope now that he grows and develops well despite his hypotonia. So far, he has done just that, meeting milestones on time or ahead of time. He is quite a determined little guy, so happy and smart. I just pray that he continues to have a great life. It is just a shame that we have had to wait 8 months to find out that he is probably fine. It has been a huge emotional rollercoaster this entire year, and I would not wish it on anyone. However, the next step is to visit the geneticist for more testing. When will this end? I just ask that my friends who pray to please include Ryan in their prayers. We keep praying that he is healthy and will live a productive life. That his challenges won't be too great that he can't overcome them.

Hello? Is anyone there?

I can't believe how long it has been since I have posted. I have been pretty busy. I spent a couple of weekends teaching mommies in my mommies group how to knit. That was interesting, but good. I have such a demand for the class that I will probably be teaching knitting for the rest of the year! It is a little tough of a schedule though, as I host it in my home. So it keeps me busy with the weekly freak out of, "OMG! People are coming!" cleaning.

We are on an emotional rollercoaster with Ryan's medical status for months now. Whether there is something serious going on with him or not. Some doctors and therapists think he is fine; others do not. Every time we think he is okay, we get news that we might have to worry. He seems fine and normal, but the doctors want to do more testing. Granted, it took us six freakin' months to even get in to see a Neurologist. Now we have to wait another 6 weeks for an MRI? My husband flipped. Please don't ask what it is about, because even we don't really know until testing is done.

Leaving for Stitches South today. I hope I see you all there.

I know, I know...

...it has been forever since I have posted. I have been sick since Thanksgiving. I have had colds and viruses that have really kicked my butt. So, I apologize. Life gets in the way sometimes.

My prince is now 6 months old. I love him so much.

I have been trying to clean and organize my office and other parts of the house again. I seem to go through cycles where certain rooms get neglected. Other rooms get more daily pickings up and all. I hope to try to stop doing this (the neglecting of rooms for 2-3 months, piles of filing, ugh). I now have all of my knitting stash in the office. Except for two baskets that have yarn in the living room, so they are serving a decorative function as well. I need someplace to hide some of this sock yarn so my DH does not get overwhelmed by the sheer quantity. Actually, I think he already was yesterday. I showed him my new queue in Ravelry which is now something like 40 projects, not including all of my sock yarn, today. He was like, "Jesus.". I probably have at least 50-60 pairs worth of sock yarn right now. At least he knows we will have plenty of socks when the economic apocalypse comes. I am seriously squashing my purchasing, even at Stitches South. Spending money on baby formula has made that easy. Some people are fairweather friends and don't understand being economically constrained. They can get over it. I am not such a person. My friendship is not conditional. (Well, unless your condition is that you are a beeyotch.)



Now is the time of year to review our knitting resolutions, and make new ones.



2008 Resolutions:

1. Design and publish two of my own patterns. --> Ah, no. I have been a little busy.
2. Complete another Morehouse Farm Sweater kit (from Stash). --> See #1.
3. Restart fair isle projects and finish them, with good gage. --> See #1.
4. Start and complete a project in continental. This should be combined with resolution #3. --> Do dishcloths count?
5. Dye on my own. --> See #1. (I see a sickening trend here.)
6. Use of some of my insane sock yarn stash by knitting baby items. --> You know, I really did try. But when I had to frog a single EZ Baby Surprise Sweater for the 20th time, I decided to stop banging my head against the wall. Seriously, pregnancy hormones made me a mental fruitloop in the knitting department.
7. Put more of my stash and projects on Ravelry. --> OMG. I just did some of this today. I did the project queue. Don't hold your breath for the yarn stash.
8. Knit and/or quilt two baby blankets. One for stroller and carseat, one full sized. --> See #1 and #6.
9. Avoid Christmas knitting requests. This year, I will just say no. The only knitted Christmas presents will be surprises. --> Yay! SUCCESS!



Okay, so I did not get far. The pregnancy hormones squashed my knitting desire (I was too tired) and also made me so horrible at keeping track of where I was in a pattern, so that I made too many mistakes. So I think we will keep the resolutions simple this year.



2009 Resolutions:

1. Reduce Ravelry Queue by 5 projects (this is quite ambitious, considering I don't remember completing anything but a pair of socks this last year).

2. Knit something(!) finally for my son. Please don't give me the bad mother award.

3. Maybe glance at and fondle my fair isle, in hopes of learning better two-stranded tension by osmosis.

4. Avoid Christmas Knitting requests again. I really hate deadline knitting. It brings out the knitting procrastinator in me.

5. Teach others to knit. I am already setting this up for one of my mommies groups, based on another's request. I never even thought of it before. How brilliant! I can make my contribution to the mommies group Mom's Night Ins (MNIs) in an inexpensive way. And I hope to make it fun with nibblies and wine. Because, like Patsy and Edina, everything is better with a drink and nibbly bits.

It's that time of year...

...where we all migrate to SAFF. I hope to see you guys there. If Ryan cooperates, I will be heading up with my husband on Friday. Now, my husband said he is going with me, and I hope he does but you all know how guys are.

Here are some of the latest pics. He already has his first tooth! I swear to God he will be starting college tomorrow at the rate he is going. :) He is also in a growth spurt.

Isn't he dreamy? Too cute for words. I am just all a-squish.

I have started knitting. It is only a hat for my husband, but at least it is something that I can manage. Ryan is funny as he likes to watch me knit. He stares as if he is trying to figure it out. I let him touch the yarn and the knitted fabric. But not the needles! He is at the grabby stage, and I do not need him poking his own eyes!

Gloriously Delinquent...

...is how I would describe myself. My mom just left town from her first visit to see her grandson. I have also been sooo busy running around to Doctors and therapy appointments for Ryan. We are still seeing an OT for eating (though we have started practicing spoon feeding to get ready for the next step) and a PT to address his development. He has challenges because he is hypotonic and has reflux. But he has made amazing progress in the last two weeks. He has already rolled over many times, is feeling and grabbing things with his index finger and thumb, and so many other things I can't remember them all. So he is really catching up.

As you can see, he is really a character. He is quiet, observant, and social. Every day, I am more and more convinced that babies are a miracle. Each and every one.

Every now and then I get to see a few knitters. I have to avoid one knitting group because people have shingles in it, and I can't risk exposing Ryan to the chicken pox at such a young age. If I can get my yarn out of storage, I hope to start knitting a hat for my husband in his school colors.

Things are getting better...

...the little guy is finally managing his acid reflux, thanks to Prevacid and formula with rice cereal in it. He is finally sleeping better, and is smiling alot! I think he was delayed on smiling because the acid reflux put him in so much pain that he did not feel like smiling. Now he smiles all the time! He gets his 2 month old shots tomorrow morning. I am so proud of him and I am looking forward to getting out more after he has the shots. Maybe I can finally start making it to some of my old knitting groups once in awhile!

Here is an old picture of him smiling. It is hard to catch him smiling on film, as he gets serious anytime a camera is near.

And here is a picture of his chubbier self, rockin' the faux hawk.

Of course, I still don't have time to knit. But maybe I will try to work on that. It is hard to do when you know you need to play with your baby and still get chores done. It is funny that he is so big (already 14 lbs and at least 25 inches), that he would never fit into anything I would have knit for him for this winter, even with all of my best guesses as to how big to make it. So it is a good think I did not finish knitting anything!

I am ecstatic! I found out today that someone finally bought my shirt design on zazzle.com (there is a link on the bottom of my page). I think that means I need to finally get off my butt and design some more. It is the tshirt that I wore to Stitches East last year. I know you all know how tough it is to wear or display your art and receive zero positive comments on it. It is almost as bad as getting negative criticsm. Well, that is what had happened to me. So it feels so nice that someone actually liked it enough to buy it! Thank you whoever you are! You made my day. :)

Don't mind while I do...

...take a break from regular blog posting. The little guy now has acid reflux, and every day is a new adventure with what and how much medication, what to feed and how much, and whether he is sleeping or playing enough. Yes, you can tell this is my first child and he is one grand science experiment (as my mom says).

Anyhoo, here is the picture I used for his birth announcement. I hope you like it. I took it myself. :) I had to take like 80 pictures to get 2 good ones.

Ta daa!

May I introduce to you, my new son, Ryan?!

He was born after 17 hours of hard labor, and a C-section. He was 8 lbs, 12 ounces, 22 inches long, head circumference 14 inches, and feet over 3 inches long. He is a big boy! In addition to his size, my sacral region was shaped slightly flatter such that a vaginal birth would not have been possible. But this is something the doctors don't know until they go in. That is why after the induction we waited so long before doing the C-section. No amount of picotin made my body progress with the labor (though the doctors, nurses and doula DEFINITELY tried), and he would never have been able to make it through anyway. All I can say is that modern medicine is a miracle, that we are able to have babies under difficult physical circumstances and have both the baby and the mom survive. It is a blessing. I wish this was the case in every country. And I don't feel any less of a mother for not having a vaginal birth. It was just not meant to be. I guess our combined family genetics leads to huge babies! :)

All of his nurses thought he was the cutest. And he really is.

I am healing well, but I really should rest more than I do. I am going to try to force myself to rest more today. My feet are swelling so huge that they are scary looking.

He has feeding problems, so we are working with training him to eat faster, more aggressively, stronger. All I can say is, moms, trust your instincts. Even when the doctors and some nurses think nothing is wrong with your baby, pursue it. I ended up eliminating sources of fussiness until I got down to the fact he was probably not taking in enough milk...so back to the lactation center I went. Fortunately, there I found a nurse who figured it out right away and helped us with a concrete plan. I highly recommend using lactation specialists, especially those who support both breast and bottle feeding. The ones I use are wonderful nurses, some with master's degrees, and IBCLC certifications and experience. Their knowledge of breastfeeding led to the diagnosis of his problem (which extends to both breast and bottle feeding). Even if you don't think you need help, chances are that YOU WILL. So try to reach out for these resources in your community. My lactation center understands that we have to use a bottle as part of the baby's therapy to become stronger. Because if we don't use a bottle, he would take so long to eat enough that the feedings would blur into each other and we would never sleep! He may never fully take to breast feeding, but we will try a little every day. But all of this is okay, as we are doing what we can and what is best for him to grow and thrive.

Okay, enough gabbing. I really need to get ready to feed him again and get back to sleeping. I have only slept about 5 hours. And I still need to catch up from missing sleep for about 5 days! Ah, well one more thing. My husband can't handle the sleep deprivation as well as I. It is really quite funny. All of that GREEAAT Arrrr-my training in sleep deprivation has finally paid off in my personal life. I didn't hallucinate once. I have not fallen asleep on the job (though you ladies who breastfeed know that breastfeeding and pumping do their best to make you fall asleep while you are doing it). And I would let my husband sleep whenever he could while we were in the hospital and at home. He is better at powernaps than I. And since I can't drive, we have to keep him in the best shape we can.

Okay, that is all for now. I really must go.... :)

Still preggo....

The baby is nearly a week past his due date. If the hospital has a bed available, we will induce tomorrow.

Wish us luck. :)

On the crafty front, I finished my hooter hider. Yay!