Easy Peasy, and My New Life as a SAHM.

Lo and behold, I actually managed to finish a knitting project since Dom has been around!


Peasy by Heidi Kirrmaier
Rowan Felted Tweed in Water, 6 balls
Size 4 Needles
Raveled

I just adore this. I started it back in December and finally got around to plowing through the mindless stockingette portion thanks to the untold number of hours I've been hooked up to my pump. I used to hate pumping, now I kind of love it because it's 20 minutes that I get to knit un-interrupted. Especially the 6am session, it's cool and quiet and it's just me and the knitting. Ok off topic, back to the sweater.



I added an extra button hole for coverage, and about 3 inches in body length. SWOOOOON. Love.

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So as the 2nd part of my title indicates, I have made the leap from working woman to SAHM. That is actually why I've been so silent around here, I'm back at work part-time training my successor, AND caring for the kid full-time (taking him to the office has been QUITE an adventure.)

I am not exaggerating when I say this was the hardest decision I've ever made in my life. Luckily DH has been doing great at work so we can afford it, but giving up my career was not a decision taken lightly. I mean, I used to think "I didn't go out and get my Masters Degree so I can stay home chasing a kid, doing laundry, and other domestic things." I've been in my industry for almost 10 years, and finally had built my skill set to a level that would allow me some upward mobility. But hey, that kid comes along and it's AMAZING how your priorities change, right? All of a sudden I got caught up in this emotion that I just couldn't leave him in the care of someone else. Just couldn't. And while my income allowed us to do lots of fun things, none of them were worth it when compared to spending my days with Dom.

So I've been spread a little thin right now, but October 1 is my last day and then I'm officially a SAHM. It's still weird to say it. Expect to hear a lot more about my domestic endeavors, since sitting down to blog is actually something I can now fit into the day. And I may even have more time to knit, too ;).

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Update on Dom, 12 weeks.

Hanging out in Fish Camp


Mom got me this awesome onesie:


Hand is GOOD. Nom Nom Nom...


Going for a ride in the swing (sorry it's sideways!!)

The Birdman

We are at 8 weeks... and the little guy is definitely becoming a little man.



People stop us all the time to comment about his skin tone. DH is 100% Armenian, and I am happy to see that Dom will get his skin coloring, instead of my pasty genetics. His eyes still haven't really picked a color yet, they are sort of a hazelish-brown.

Dominic has been making these little squeaky noises sometimes when he breathes, so we started calling him the Birdman. What was cute turned into concern around 6 weeks; it turns out he has laryngomalacia, and hopefully he'll grow out of it.

Here's a video with the bird noises, and showing off his new "reaching" and "grabbing" skills.



Other milestones this week:

- Drooling

- Chewing on his hands

- First trip out of town (to LA, I was attending my SIL's bachelorette party and Matt was a TROOPER and babysat all weekend)

You can really see how much darker his skin-tone is than mine!

- Holding his head up for 45-60 seconds unassisted.

- Started cooing and smiling


- Sleeping for longer stretches. 6. Hours. Let me repeat - he slept for 6 hours! It was beyond glorious!

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I've also found some time to start knitting again and in a weird way, it makes things start to feel normal around here. It's a nice little "me" thing that I had to give up for about 6 weeks, and having it back in my life is a reminder of the way things were PD (pre-Dominic!)

So I finished up Peasy, and it's blocking right now:



I loooove it.

1 Month

I've sat down to write a post about 5 times, and haven't been able to finish it! Dominic is already a month old and he's already changed so much, and I really wish I would have recorded more of it here. I'm going to try and be more diligent about it, and my apologies in advance if you are just here looking for knitting content. He's sleeping right now so let's see how fast I can type (apologizing in advance for spelling and grammatical errors)


Sleepy baby


I'm one month old! Mommy and Daddy celebrated the event a little extravagantly...



It's amazing how much he has changed in 1 month, from his physical appearance to his alertness level. He already has pretty good neck control and strength in his legs. Matt keeps talking about how he thinks this means he'll be crawling early; let me tell you I am not ready for that because it's a nice luxury to not have to watch him every second to make sure he doesn't get into something.



He loves the Baby Bjorn... but with the top folded down so he can look at everything. Still a little too early to face him outwards, but I'm sure he'll love it even more once we can do that.

We are on somewhat of a schedule which is nice. He's sleeping for five hours at night, from 11pm-4am, waking up to feed, then sleeping for another two hours. I take the 4am feed and Matt takes 6am, which is allowing each of us to get some decent rest.

Of course, this is possible because Dominic decided early on that breast feeding was not for him. It broke my heart at first, but I got over it quickly because I hated fighting with him and watching him scream every time we attempted to feed. He's much happier with the bottle, and I've gotten used to pumping 6 times a day. We give him formula every now and then (it helps him sleep better at night), but he's eating about 95% breast milk. I'm not sure how long i'll be able to keep doing it, but for now it's working for us.


We take him out of the house almost every day, and in turn he's been doing great in noisy places - he'll just sleep! Hey if he's going to bottle-feed, mama is going to enjoy some wine! His first trip out of the house, he was only 4 days old. I can definitely say that doing this has really helped my recovery and dealing with the looong days of pumping, feeding, washing bottles, soothing baby, repeat.

I'm just loving being a mom, and I can't believe how fast it's going. He's waking up now so I'll end this post here... but one last photo, of Dom is his first handknit: