Ruby's painting

My grandmother Doris was an artist. She was a great artist, a fabulous painter. 

I'm lucking to have a few of her paintings that I treasure. Some are on the walls. Others are waiting to have new frames put on them. Others are waiting for me to find the perfect wall space.

My Aunt Julie, Doris' daughter is also an artist. She inherited her mom's wonderful artistic ability. And I'm also lucky enough to have a painting or two.

And now, so does Ruby.

She gave Ruby this sweet little bunny as part one of the gift during a visit last summer.

Then recently, part two of the gift arrived.

It's perfect! And it fits in beautifully with Ruby's room!

She loves it too! She likes to sit in her chair and turn around and point to her painting. She also loves her sweet little bunny! Thanks Aunt Julie!

this moment

~
Over at SouleMama, she has a Friday ritual called this moment - a single photo, no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor & remember.
~

Do you have a moment this week? If so, leave a link in the comments. I'd love to see it!

Patching Politeness

Ann over at Little Four Eyes has a great post this week about what not to say to young kids in eye patches. I think it's well written and very helpful. Especially now as our patching adventures have improved and we're venturing outside our house with the patch on.

We were at a play area at the mall on Saturday and I couldn't help but notice every kid that passed Ruby did stare a few extra moments, but not one of them said anything to her. She just laughed and kept climbing up the little slide, watching the big kids and then giggling as she made her way down.

(Ruby at our first out of the house adventure with the patch)

Thanks for the great advice Ann & LFE!

Progress!

Somethings happened recently. I'm almost afraid to put it out there in universe for fear it might change. But I'm willing to take a risk as it's been a long hard journey thus far: We Are Patching. 

 It started out slowly. What used to be 10 minutes of thrashing and screaming and crying (by both Ruby and me) with her squinting the bad eye so that she wouldn't even open it, has now turned into what I'm calling a symbolic eye patch protest for about 3 minutes, and then it's like, uh. ok, the patch is on, let's go play.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still on her the entire time. I have to keep my eye on her and my hands have to be faster than her speed of light toddler hands. She seems to forget the patch is on if she's occupied and happy. But if she touches it, it's back to square one.

When we venture out of the house, I'm in the back seat with her, keeping her happy, keeping her occupied, keeping her from ripping the patch off in the car.

And when I get cocky and think I've got this imom thing down, and get her patched and the two of us head out. I hear a little bit of laughter coming from the backseat as she rips it off and waves it around. (OK, maybe she doesn't laugh on purpose but I feel like she does. Like look mama, I'm totally in control - no patch for me!)

We've been able to patch anywhere from 1 hour to 3.5 hours. I'm still aiming for a 4 hour goal which is still low for our 4-6 hour a day recommendation from our PO. But as my hubby keeps reminding me on days when I'm bummed about a 1 hour patch session, this is a huge step from where we were two weeks ago. And he's right.

We had a visit to her PO about two weeks ago. The visit went well (I didn't cry for the first time, so really, there's a victory there). But we had the hard talk again about being strong with the patch. And this time, I think Ruby heard her doctor. The very next day she patched for 30 minutes at daycare. I almost cried when her teacher told me about it at pick up. We were both so excited! And it's been at least 30 minutes a day ever since.

Tomorrow we head back for the second part of her appointment (sometimes her appointments are really long and we have to break them up.) We are getting a new lens with a prescription that's not as strong as her current one (hopefully it's in so we don't have to go back a third time) and her glaucoma test. Fingers crossed we get good results on that one! Children who've had a cataract removed are at a higher risk for developing glaucoma.

But for today, we'll keep up the patching battle and be happy with what we have! Stay strong patchers! And stay strong imoms!

this moment

~
Over at SouleMama, she has a Friday ritual called this moment - a single photo, no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor & remember.
~

Do you have a moment this week? If so, leave a link in the comments. I'd love to see it!

Coming up for air

It's been a rough couple of weeks. There's been a lot on my plate, both at work and at home. I'm not going to lie, it's been hard. 

Being a working mama is hard work.

But things are finally beginning to settle down. I'm beginning to look around for ways to get more relaxation and exercise into my daily routine. 

Because the current routine of stress, downing chai tea lattes and playing with my favorite wee one isn't quite enough. I'm wondering what you all do for relaxation in your busy schedules?

Hey baby....nice coat

Pattern: Baby + Toddler Coat & Jacket

Yarn: Berroco Vintage Chunky

Size: 0-3 month

For: A sweet baby girl who will be here soon! She'll live in Seattle so she'll always need a good coat pretty much year round!

Vogue Knitting Live: Seattle

Last weekend Vogue Knitting Live was in Seattle for their first show in our area. It was full of classes, lectures, fashion shows (in true Vogue fashion) and of course, a marketplace.

I met up with some dear friends for an afternoon of catching up, knitting and yarn "browsing." Upon our arrival, Rebecca and I quickly decided we need to walk through the entire venue before making any purchases. A tactic employed by our friend Monica - who shows great restraint at all yarn shows for day one. Then on day two - stand back and just take it all in. It's that impressive. So we decided to try "The Monica" and wander and just marvel at the soft, pretty yarn.

That lasted maybe 20 minutes before one of us broke down and bought something. (It was Rebecca).

I at least waited about 30 minutes and 10 minutes of knitting before dashing back to the Cascade 220 booth for this beauty.

It'll be turned into this beauty.

I also learned that Cascade 220 has a huge inventory of lovely and FREE patterns on their site.

Knitting shows are so educational.

Then, after another 10 minutes of knitting I returned to the Cascade 220 booth and took advantage of their special: 4 skeins of Cascade 128 Superwash for $25!

Yeah, that's right...no typo there! That's enough to make this coat for Ruby that's on my knitting list.

(For great pictures of VKL Seattle, check out Rebecca's blog. I had my camera but was clearly mesmerized by all the pretty to take any pictures.)

this moment

~

Over at SouleMama, she has a Friday ritual called this moment - a single photo, no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor & remember.

~

Have a photo for this moment? Put it in the comments, I'd love to see it!

FO: Rusbud Hat

Pattern: Rosebud Hat by Jared Flood

Yarn: Brooklyn Tweed Shelter

Not yet on my Ravelry page. Took me this long to get it on the blog...so...yeah....Ravelry is up next!

Easter Fun

We had a lovely Easter. Just the three of us. 

There were eggs to find.

With lots of treats inside! 

Eggs in shoes! What a funny Easter Bunny!

The sunshine led to a walk.  A hike through the woods by our house. Just down to the beach. 

And some swings. A walk that ends with a trip to a park and swings is the best kind of walk ever!

(Note her knitted hat; it's the pumpkin hat I made her before she was born. She's out grown it but refuses to wear the one I made her this winter. She always grabs it when I say, get your hat. A lady today thought she looked really cute in her carrot hat. I went with it. Maybe next winter she'll wear the one I made her this year. You know, when it's clearly too small for her.)

I hope you had a lovely day too!

Happy Easter!

What's missing from the blog?

I've been looking over my blog lately and I realized what's been missing from Meg's Knitting Knot: the knitting.

I entered 2013 with just a few goals: do more writing (such as getting my blog going again) and to knit for myself. While the first goal is going somewhat well (I'd like to post more but due to lack of time/energy/mostly nothing that interesting to say I don't), the second isn't going that well. But I am knitting.

I'm almost finished with a baby gift for a dear friend who's expecting her first baby (a girl) in early May. I'm making the Baby and Toddler Tiered Coat. It's pictured here in a rare moment of quiet. The wee one was asleep. The hubby was out of the house. And I either finished the chores or chose to ignore them and sit in the sunlight on the couch. It was glorious. I'll post a photo once I'm finished with the gift.

Oh, and my hat obsession may have come to an end. I finished Rosebud by Jared Flood. It's gray, it's slouchy and I love it. I just haven't taken any photos of it. I'll work on that for you all. I know you can't wait!

this moment

~
Over at SouleMama, she has a Friday ritual called this moment - a single photo, no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor & remember.
~

I thought I'd start doing it as well.

Have a photo from your week you'd like to share? Leave it in the comments section, I'd love to see it.

Patching, bracing & another guest post

I've written another guest blog post for Little Four Eyes, a great blog and resource for parents of children with a variety of eye issues.

This post is particularly important to me as it is heart wrenching: to brace or not to brace Ruby's arms in order to keep her from ripping off her eye patch after 25 seconds of wearing it. It's a tactic that does work. It's just one I was hoping to avoid.

I've been showing Ruby that her baby doll (the blue one) needs to wear her eye patch in order to see well. Each night when we come home, we patch her doll and give her a big kiss and a hug for being so brave. Now she's beginning to think all of her dolls have eye issues as well. This is going to be an expensive training lesson. 

A little "eye" obsessed

A while ago I started teach Ruby about body parts. 

We started with "Where's your nose?" and quickly moved on to "Show mama your toes."

She got pretty good at it. She can tell you where her head is. Her ear. Her tummy and of course belly button. She'll show you her teeth and pucker up her lips when you ask her. She knows her knees and she did look at me funny yesterday when I started explaining where her elbow was.

But, boy is this girl ever good at finding her eye.

Perhaps it's because we pay more attention to her eye than pretty much any body part in the house. And she knows it too.

She'll just look at me now and point to her eye and say "Eye!" She has no problem walking up to you and sticking her finger in your eye (when one is at her level) and letting you know that's your eye.

She points out eyes on all of her dolls and her teddy bear. The other night, as I read her a book, every time I turned a page we had to stop and point out all of the eyes on the little duck and little goose as they went on their merry way to find a pumpkin. (It's a holiday book but she loves it so much we keep it out all the time.)

The thing that gets me about this is, she only points to her right eye. The bad eye. The eye I'm always fussing over. 

Is the contact still in her eye? Is it actually over the pupil so we can patch? I now have eye patches in easily accesible places on both floors of the house so I can just grab one (or 5) and start the fun once we've looked at the eye.

I wonder if she knows she has two eyes since only one really works and we're always fussing over the other?

Now, if I can only teach her to say, "Mama, my contact has popped out of my eye. We must stop what we're doing right now and look for it."

For the record, when we took our baby sign language class I did ask the instructor to teach me to sign contact and she looked at me like I was nuts. I was the first parent in her 15+ years of teaching baby sign language that had asked that question. Come to think of it, she never really taught me the sign for "where's your contact?"

What the crock?

You know those food blog posts where people praise their cooking abilities? How their recipes turned out just perfectly? 

This is not one of those posts.

By a long shot.

This post is this:

This is what I came home to one night last week. It was supposed to be Asian beef. But instead it was burnt crap. And the house smelled like burnt tomatoes and vinegar. It was so disappointing. Not only was I looking forward to another crock pot success, but I had actually told people about this great new recipe I found, how I had it cooking while I was at work. Yup, I had this working mama thing down people! 

And then I came home.

I think we ended up ordering pizza.

I can't remember. The rest of the night was a blur.

And it took two days of soaking in sudsy warm water to get that crap out of my pot.

Any crock pot winners you'd like to share? I could use a few good recipes please!

Patching update: little victories

Little victories.

That's what I'm savoring this week.

I've got a new eye patching plan. Two new boxes of patches. And new found determination to make us get through this phase of utter shit. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

I've started patching her baby doll. I talk about how important it is for baby doll (she really needs a name) to wear her eye patch so she can have two good eyes.

So far, Ruby just laughs when I put the patch on her. 

Then she takes off the patch and runs to daddy to give him the patch so he can be the hero daddy and rescue her and baby doll from the evil patch.

I also decided that eye patch = iPad time. I downloaded some fun toddler apps. She has zero interest in them. I also downloaded several episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba (all my mom friends swear this is the most adult tolerable show. So far I've seen about ten minutes of an episode and I think they're all smoking crack. This is the tolerable show? Oh lord....)

The other night, armed with my new tools and confidence, I put Yo Gabba Gabba on the iPad, put Ruby in front of it where she was immediately mesmerized by whatever those dancing things are. And then after a few minutes, I put on a patch, held her hands and helped her dance to the music. At first, it was working! She was watching the show, dancing and laughing! I was thinking OK, I did it! We can do this! We can patch! We can have two good eyes! 

And then two minutes went by and Ruby had had enough. Enough of the patch. Enough of me. And probably enough of Yo Gabba Gabba. After a long struggle with her to keep the patch on, she won, ripped the patch off and ran to daddy.

Not ready to throw the patch in, I let her calm down. Put the patch on baby doll. Talked about how important it was and then put the show back on the iPad and waited for her to come back over to me. She did. And I got her with another patch. This time she was on to me. We struggled, cried, wrestled and she ripped it off. Then she ran over to baby doll and ripped it off of her. 

Then, to give me a piece of my own medicine, she came back to me and stuck the patch on my eye and I swear she giggled.

She's right. Wearing the patch does suck.

But I'm sorry my dearest sweet baby girl. You have to wear this patch.

You can do it. We can do it together. You, me, daddy & baby doll.

Luscious Lemons

My in-laws recently came for a visit shortly have their trip to Southern Arizona (ah...the retired life). They brought us a big bag of fresh citrus from their families backyard! Knowing how much I love oranges, they thought it would be a fun treat for me! (Notice how there aren't any pics of said oranges? Yeah...that's because I scarfed those bad boys down so freakin' quickly. Seriously. Love. Oranges.)

But now, I've got these great big lemons that are beautiful to look at and smell even better.

So what should I do with them? 

Cutting them up and putting slices in my water seems like such a waste.

I feel these beauties are destined for something so much better.

Ideas? I'm ready.

Go.

this moment

Over at SouleMama, she has a Friday ritual called this moment - a single photo, no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor & remember.

I thought I'd start doing it as well.

Have a photo from your week you'd like to share? Leave it in the comments section, I'd love to see it.

A hand knit kind of day

I've always loved the Anouk pattern from the Yarn Harlot. When I found out I was having a girl, I pretty much went from the ultrasound appointment to the yarn story to get yarn for this sweet dress. But as life with a baby is pretty messy and now life with a toddler is also messy and much more mobile, the dress got shoved to the back of the closet. Until the recently.

I pulled it out and decided today was a hand knit kind of a day. And you know what? The wee one agreed with me.

Then she decided my hand knit hat Foliage would be the best choice to complete her look.

She was right.

Details of both projects can be found on my Ravelry page.