Jen's Blog

our week in review

On Sunday we went to visit our friends Scott and Rose and their new baby, Gemma. She's very cute and so tiny! And she has a lot of hair, too. Even though Lexi is only a few months older, I had already forgotten just how small she was as a newborn.

I went to a local knitting group Monday evening called the Funky Fiber Fellowship. I heard about it from one of the women in my new moms' club. I brought Lexi with me; she slept for part of the evening while I knit. After she woke up and nursed she got fussy, so we left early. I was really jazzed about the group! There were only 3 other women there, which they said was typical. But they were all very friendly and welcoming, and I definitely plan to make this a regular activity.

Tuesday was Lexi's 4 month well baby check. She weighs 15 pounds (75th percentile) and is 24.5" long (50th percentile). By contrast, Elliot was 13lbs 13oz and 24" long at his 4 month check! She can't roll over yet, or sit up on her own, but I expect she'll start trying to do both in the next month.

I'm still on a no-dairy diet (it's been about 2 months now!), but Lexi still has occasional bouts of excessive spitting up and discomfort. I think she may also be sensitive to soy and possibly sesame, but I haven't cut either from my diet completely. I do avoid a lot of soy (e.g. I put rice milk on my cereal instead of soy milk), and I may start avoiding sesame (especially sesame bagels and hummus).

I had lunch with my friend Lisa after Lexi's appointment. She is lactose intolerant, which I didn't realize before (or if I did I had forgotten), so she was very sympathetic to my diet. Lisa is also a fellow knitter, but as it was a warm day neither Lexi nor I were wearing anything we could show off.

I did lots of knitting this week! I am finished knitting Lexi's Viking hat; now I only need to sew the wings on. I finally felted a bear I knit over 10 years ago! I finished a pair of socks for myself, and I started a hat for Elliot.

(This is the bear before I felted it.)

I've also been working on my C# class. I turned in my first homework assignment last weekend. We had to write a program to calculate how much change to return, in coins (i.e. quarters, dimes, etc). Here's a screenshot:

The professor said he couldn't find any major errors, so I'm expecting to get full marks for the assignment. I am almost finished with the second assignment, but I need to review it before sending it in. Even though we are only supposed to send in the executable (the .exe file), I think the professor has the ability to open it to see how we wrote the code. This means that even if the final product looks correct, I shouldn't be sloppy in how I code it.

Eva and I went yarn shopping today. I bought a few magazines at the first shop we went to, and some green yarn for a sweater for Elliot. Like I needed more yarn!

(eta: link to page on felting)

My other blond baby

Blondie

The hat is not quite finished, but I had to take a picture. The thick blond hair is from the Scandinavian side of the family I guess.

self portrait with baby

tongue (photo)

New socks

I finished knitting a pair of socks yesterday.

I started them back in 2004. Most recently they've been living in my car as my car knitting project (I try to keep something in my car in case I am out somewhere and the kids fall asleep). One of the knitting forums I am on is having contest to beat "Second Sock Syndrome," so I was inspired to finish them.

tongue

Lexi has started sticking her tongue out a lot recently. As I recall, Elliot went through this at a similar age. Pics soon....

Naked Knitting

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Quilt

Michael helped me hang Elliot's quilt today. Actually, he did most of the work; I provided the quilt and drove him to Home Depot for supplies.

I started coming down with a cold late last week; I'm still sick, and it seems that Lexi has it, too (although not as bad). I'm not sure if it's the same thing that Elliot had.

Mothers' Club

I joined a local mothers' group last month, called the FUN Mothers' Club (the FUN stands for Fremont, Union City, and Newark). So far I've been to two events: the September general meeting and a new members social. The general meeting was a talk by the Red Cross about emergency preparedness. We (Gary and I, that is) are only partly prepared. I've got a long list of stuff to change or add to our earthquake kit. The new members social was at another member's house, and was just a small gathering to meet some of the board members and learn more about the club. There are playgroups, weekly children's activities, sub-clubs for different hobbies (knitting, running, etc), and a babysitting co-op. Even though Gary and I have lived in Fremont for nearly 7 years now, we hardly know anyone around here, so I am hoping to meet other parents from the area.

I tried to meet up with the knitting club this afternoon, but it seems not to be active anymore. I am going to try to get it going again, since I'd love to meet some other knitters and have an hour or two every week devoted to knitting.

I started working on my C# class yesterday, but I was so tired that I fell asleep on the sofa after only reading about 10 pages of the text.

photos of Lexi

(in Yosemite)

(wearing her new cute socks)

return to health

Elliot seems to be doing better, at least yesterday afternoon he had more energy and wasn't constantly asking to be carried around. Gary joked that Elliot had "carry-you" disease, as for the past 4 days that is almost all he said. He was happy being outside, but not inside, and not being still. He hardly ate anything all week, and while he did take short naps during the day, he also woke up a lot at night. Michael arrived a few days ago, but since Elliot's been sick we haven't done anything except stay home and carry him around.

We are heading to Yosemite for a couple of days; there's more outside there than you can shake a stick at!

No one else got sick, although now Gary says he has a stiff neck. That could be from sleeping on the couch with Elliot a couple of nights ago, though.

There's Lexi

A game Gary and I were playing with Elliot and Lexi.

Elliot is still sick, but seems to be getting better. I took him to the ped on Thursday; she said it looked like a viral infection, so there's not anything we can do about it except treat the symptoms.

Croup

Elliot has croup again. Bleah.

school days

I signed up for an online C# class at UC Berkeley yesterday. I've never taken an online class before, so I'm not sure exactly how it will work. I have 6 months to complete the course, at my own pace, so taking vacations won't be a problem. Since it's a holiday weekend I won't be able to start until some time next week.

Last winter I learned a little C# on my own; I wrote a few little games for Elliot for the Xbox360, but nothing very exciting. I'm hoping to be able to pick it back up and write something more challenging, both for myself and the kids.

Rapid Roy

A different perspective from the same weekend.