A quick, in the car seat, photo for Rose’s five month update.

The recent growth spurt is over, thankfully, though it won’t be long before there’s another. It also won’t be long until she starts getting to taste different things other than milk which is quite a scary thought; it was only yesterday that she was a tiny baby, surely?!

She’s discovered that she can blow raspberries now, as well as being quite a nifty little mover. Put her on her play mat, and she’s turned 180 degrees in a matter of minutes. And she’s had her first “proper” laugh, a real chuckle. I don’t know what triggered it – I was getting her dressed and suddenly she laughed. Now of course it’s a favourite game of her brothers to try to get her to do it again.

The combination of baby brain and post-Christmas confusion means that I have no idea what the date is at the moment. When I posted a couple of days ago, it didn’t register that it was an important date. Which it was, being Rose’s 4th monthiversary.

The days are going so fast right now. I’ve found it’s best to go with the flow and not hope to achieve anything other than get through the day without collapsing in a wailing heap of misery. Such is the delight of the four month growth spurt. But each day is also filled with magic as Rose discovers new things. A few weeks back it was her hands and then discovering that she could use her hands to put things in her mouth. Now after spending a few days suddenly stopping what she was doing and staring transfixed at her toes, she grabbed hold of them this morning. There are also signs that she’ll be able to roll over on her own soon, although currently she just gets halfway and then cries.

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I also wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has bought one of my patterns since Tuesday. So far enough patterns have been bought to pay for 3 families to have basic water kits, which is just brilliant. I will post a final total after 31st January.

Not surprisingly, things are a bit disorganised here at the moment, and I missed posting on Saturday, which was the day that Rose became exactly three months old.

Looking back over the previous photos, I can see how much she’s changed. She’s now incredibly alert and interested in what’s going on, although obviously in the above photo she looks a bit perplexed. She normally smiles a lot, but not at a bunny in a carrot-shaped car, apparently. She is also starting to make little cooing noises which is adorable. Her big brothers think she’s much more interesting now, as she will smile at them and wave her arms about in an encouraging manner and isn’t just obsessed with when her next meal is coming . I’m really looking forward to what changes will happen over the coming month.

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The snow has almost disappeared this morning. There was a brief snowfall yesterday afternoon, but it didn’t settle and now there’s just a few icy bits left on the garden from last week. Though there’s still a chance we could get a white Christmas here, I’m not holding my breath!

Rose is two months old today. She’s started smiling a little bit, but only when the mood takes her, and smiling at her doesn’t always get one in return; most often she just looks surprised or faintly disgusted.

On Monday she was weighed for the first time in several weeks and is now 10lbs 5oz – almost 4lbs heavier than her birth weight. I’m not surprised, really, as I’ve noticed that she’s not swimming in her clothes so much, though still fits into the newborn size. And she has lovely little rolls of chub on her wrists and knees. Though I am probably the only woman in the world who puts on weight when breastfeeding, so the fact she’s eating like a horse isn’t having a positive effect on me.

ETA: Anna asked about Rose’s cardigan. It’s Helena from Knitty and one of the many baby things I knitted this year. I think if I made it again, I’d make the sleeves longer and roll them up as there’s still plenty of room in the body, but already the sleeves are beginning to skim her wrists (could possibly undo the hem to make these longer, though). Perhaps she’s part orang-utan…

Rose is one month old today already. It’s a cliché, but I don’t know where the time has gone. Admittedly, most of it has been spent sitting on the sofa feeding and the days have tended to blur around the edges, but things are getting slightly more organised and I can actually get dressed and go outside without it taking all day.

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments on my last post. I’d love to be able to reply to them all individually, but my two-handed typing time is very rare and as I spend most of my time surfing one-handed it would take forever to reply. But to answer the most frequent comments, of course she is gorgeous.

I am even trying to get a bit of knitting done while Rose sleeps and of course wishing I had knitted even more during my pregnancy because there’s so much I want to make.

I don’t know when I’ll be blogging again more regularly. I think I can at least promise to blog when I have some knitting to share. Til then, there’s baby photos to look at and marvel how podgy she’s starting to become. I was worried that she’d never fit into any of the knits I’d made, but she seems to get bigger every day and is already more interested in looking around and not just eating and sleeping. Won’t be long before she starts school…

Rose Erica Lise Blackburn arrived at 16.29 on 19th Spetember, weighing 6lbs 12ozs and 4 weeks early. After all my worrying about having a giant baby, she’s a wee thing who doesn’t fit into any of the clothes or knitwear I have for her, but she is a sweetheart.

I should have known something was up last Friday when I got the urge to clean out the fridge! The following morning, I started having mild contractions but because I was convinced that she would be late like her brothers, I ignored them til lunchtime when it became clear that it was probably the real thing. Because the acceptable range for a homebirth is 37 to 42 weeks, I called my wee sister to come over and look after the boys so that Mr B and I could go to hospital. Wasn’t happy about this at all, but I was getting past caring.

Unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps, by the time my sister arrived and I managed to get dressed to go to the hospital, it became obvious to me that she wasn’t going to hang around and so Mr B called the hospital to get the midwives to come out which they did, with the advice to call 999 if the baby started arriving before them. Which she did! *gory bit coming up which you might want to skip over* My waters broke at that point, so Mr B called 999 and then had to get down the business end to see if he could see the head. Which he couldn’t, but he could see feet..! Everything went a bit mad at that point as the midwives and paramedics all arrived and seeing that she was breech, it became a bit hairy. I was fortunate because I couldn’t see what was going on as I wason all fours concentrating on pushing, whereas Mr B could see that she was coming out all blue.

After what seemed like forever, she slipped out and after another age, she started crying. She was whisked away in one ambulance and I was taken away in another one. I had to be wheeled onto the ambulance on a stretcher which I felt was a bit unnecessary, but I think made the best entertainment the street had seen for ages, baased on the large group of children watching from across the street!

Despite her unconventional arrival, Rose was fine and after staying overnight on the maternity ward (where I got not a wink of sleep thanks to various comings and goings and the women on my right snoring like a warthog) we went home on Sunday morning.

Now I just plan to spend the next couple of weeks being waited on hand and foot.

I’ve been having a non-knitting few days due to feeling like a whale. I suspect that bump has also decided to settle into position and this basically means I can’t walk far without feeling as if my insides are going to fall out of my bottom. I have spent a lot of time arranging baby clothes instead, which I can do sitting down!

I’ve dabbled with a couple of baby things, but am now being a faithful knitter and concentrating on the outstanding projects which really need to be done. So I’ve been working exclusively on the grey Having Hope socks and have just four pattern repeats left of the cuff. Not that exciting to photograph so imagine this:

almost doubled. I don’t want unfinished sock guilt when I go into labour, after all.

I’ve been building furniture for a couple of days and now have somewhere to store all my baby clothes. Hurrah! This also means I can be a domestic goddess and have a jaunty row of tiny sleepsuits and vests on the line.

I’m 32 weeks and 4 days now and TBH, I can’t see the bump staying put for another seven weeks. Though I think I said that last time and ended up waiting past 41 weeks. Right now I mostly miss being able to walk in a non-ducklike manner.

Today started off very badly. It began with a ‘phone call from my bank telling me that there had been fraudulent activity on my debit card, so I went through the last month with them and apart from the fact that I only ever seem to buy yarn or food (!), all was well. But still they wanted to cancel my card and reissue me with a new one, leaving me with the £3 I had left in my purse, and this on the one day that Mr B isn’t working from home. Fortunately, that was enough to get the bus to and from my midwife appointment and to buy a pint of milk so I could have a fortifying cup of tea when I got back home. Although then the midwife was half an hour late so I spent a long time waiting in a very boring corridor trying not to fall asleep, which was actually pretty easy as I was sitting on probably the world’s most uncomfortable chair.

But the midwife, when she arrived, was lovely. I know the systems vary even in different parts of the UK, let alone other countries. Here there are a team of community midwives who exclusively cover the homebirthing mothers. No idea how big the team actually is, but I have seen about six different midwives so far, so ideally I should have someone for the birth who I’ve met at least once before. But now I really do want to have this midwife at the birth. She was a lovely tiny grey haired Irish woman who reminded me of my grandma (who isn’t Irish or a midwife but is tiny and has grey hair) who looked like she must have delivered thousands of babies and kept patting my hand reassuringly at random points during the appointment. Sometimes it’s nice to be mothered a bit, even when you’re thirty four years old and also going slightly grey around the edges.

So I felt much better after being poked and prodded and I have lovely lace to share as well.

Though I do say it myself, this shawl is looking good.

Clue 1 of the Aurantium Shawl was released Monday evening, so I spent yesterday in the lace zone and managed to come out of it with my brain intact and not having torn my hair out in frustration.

I did change yarns after all: I think the seasilk is gorgeous, but it wasn’t showing the pattern well and I wanted something floatier. A quick stash raid revealed a skein of Knitwitches Cashmere Laceweight, which is a heavier laceweight at 930m to 100g, knits up beautifully and is so soft I keep stroking it against my thigh cheek. And it’s purple. The yarn was a present from Kai back in 2007 (!), so definitely not the oldest yarn in my stash, but proof I do tend to hoard stuff for a loooooong time…

Now that I’m using a finer yarn, I will probably have to enlarge the shawl to make it a reasonable size. Not talking about a tablecloth-type shawl, but just something a bit bigger than a neckerchief. But having a set portion to do each week will hopefully mean that I don’t get too bogged down with it and it’ll be done before smallest person puts in an appearance.

First of all, I just need to point somewhat frantically at the countdown ticker on the left. 100 days to go! When I say the baby is due in October, it seems like ages away, but it’s less than 15 weeks (assuming she arrives on the due date, ha ha ha). *knits faster* I should have got a bit of a clue from the sudden explosion of bump that has appeared:

I’ve given in and bought maternity jeans after wearing my old, big girl trousers for the past few months and ironically I feel slimmer because they’re not flapping around my legs. And the comfort of a huge stretchy cotton tummy panel cannot be underestimated.

So, to the knitting. I really do not need to make any more hats, but when they have ears on, it’s hard to resist! Plus I had suitable yarn in my stash. The pattern I’m making is from the Dale of Norway #135 I bought last week; picture of hat here top right, page 7. I wonder how many other animals I can make this poor child look like?

It’s an interesting knit. Partly because there’s no real symmetry to the cow print pattern, which means paying attention on every row. And though the directions for the hat itself are clear, the total stitch count for the hat doesn’t match the stitch count for the pattern chart and there’s no indication of where to start on the chart. So I just winged it! The randomness helps as it’s impossible to tell that it *isn’t* supposed to look a certain way.

The worst part really was having to knit the ribbing on 1.5mm needles. I needed to go down to 2mm needles to get the correct pattern tension, so following the convention of going down two needle sizes for the ribbing, that’s what I ended up with. Though it was over quickly enough, it’ll be a different story when/if I choose to knit a cardigan from the book and have to cast on around 200 stitches on 1.5mm needles. I’ve prepared for this by buying a 1.5mm circular needle, which is really just two toothpicks held together with dental floss and frankly gives me the willies. I may go and dig out some aran weight yarn instead.

…bigger blob than before, but very uncooperative. The head is on the right and facing downwards. But I do know whether it’s a pink or blue one. Let’s put it this way – I’ll not have to worry about whether a knitting pattern is too girly or not..!

Mr B and I have tentatively chosen a name, but it remains to be seen if she actually suits it when she arrives. DS2 was going to be Archie until he came out looking nothing like an Archie and ended up being nameless for about three days until he was given an name which suited him far better.

I suppose it’s time I came clean.

After feeling really ill back in late February, I eventually decided that I should really drag myself to the doctor because whatever it was, it was more than just a nasty cold. Before I went, I did a test just to check I wasn’t pregnant because I had all the symptoms and knew that would be the first thing she asked. But I couldn’t possibly be pregnant, I thought.

Which leads me to Exhibit A:

First scan, taken this afternoon. So much for not being pregnant. My due date is 16th October, so I’m currently only 11 weeks.

I’ve been feeling really ill for the past month, unsurprisingly. And my knitting mojo really has disappeared, which is a nightmare when all I want to do is knit tiny clothes. I’m hoping that in a few weeks I’ll feel less bleurgh and can start nesting and blogging again!