Knitting (and Life), Interrupted

This blog was created to chronicle my knitting journey, but I have not done much knitting lately so there has been no knitting to chronicle. Thus my absence. The other big reason for my absence is taking a much needed nap right now, and he has grown so much since my last post.

Baby S is now 9 months old and easily the best thing to ever happen to me. He is beautiful and is a constant source of wonder as we watch him grow and discover new things everyday. His adoption will be taking place within the next couple months and you can expect to be bombarded with pictures as soon as the ink is dry on the adoption papers (It is illegal to electronically transmit photos of foster children in the state of California).

Though my knitting has been interrupted, I have not forgotten how to do it (I guess it is kind of like riding a bike) and I have picked up my needles and been working on a sweater I started last year, Jesse's Flames. You may remember that I started to work on this project as part of the Knitting Olympics last year. Needless to say, I didn't get it done before the flame went out. Oh well, not everyone can win a gold medal. I am almost done now and photos are to come soon.

Well, Just here to make sure you knew I didnt fall off the face of the earth and I am back in the knitting (and blogging) business!

Dreams, Revisited

Once again, I have not been posting for quite a while, but I have a really good excuse this time. He was born three weeks ago and he is our new son!

I got a call on Friday, April 21, about afost-adopt case of a newborn baby boy that was in NICU at the local hospital. To be truthful, I was really scared about it, he had some medical issues that frightened me on the surface. But on closer examination, the issues were not really a big deal and we decided that this was a case that sounded appealing. After a blur of a weekend, meeting the little guy,telling our families,shopping for essentials and a slew of calls from social workers, we brought him home Monday, April 24. He has a name given to him by his birthmother, but we are going to change the name after we adopt him to Baby S. Though the law may say that he is not ours, he was my baby the moment I laid eyes on him. As far as legal stuff, Mom doesnt want him and she didnt give any useful information on the father. We believe that God put him in our home for a reason, and he will work out the custody.

And, no, I am not sleeping all that well, but who cares...My dreams have come true.

D is for Dreams

I know that this is a photo of a crib. An empty crib. I maybe should have chosen to put this photo under "A" for adoption, "B" for babies, or "C" for children, but this is my blog and I am putting under "D" for dreams.

If you would have asked me 11 years ago how many children I wanted, I would have told you a dozen, mostly because my mother wanted to have that many when she was young and I wanted to be like her. After a short stint working in a preschool full of 3 year olds, my number of children was amended to 2 or 3. But nature has had other ideas for me. My husband I wanted to be parents early on so we could enjoy our children and do things with them while we were still young. After a couple years without conceiving, we sought medical help, to find out that I will most likely never be able to bear children. After many years of trying to beat the odds and riding a emotional/physical roller coaster, we decided to get off and consider other options to fulfill our dream of building our family.

My husband and I are both adoptees. We had actually talked about adopting one child in the future regardless of whether we had children on our own. But adoption is expensive and the concept of open adoption made me uncomfortable. Still, We felt that we had a unique understanding of the adoption experience and with that we began the process of becoming Foster-Adopt Parents (adopting through the foster care system). This process included probing interviews and home studies not to mention over 80 hours in training. We completed our classes and received our licence last spring. It seemed that our dream was coming true at last.

On June 30th of 2005, we received a call wanting to place 2 children in our home. A 4 year old and a 2 year old. I treasure the memories I have from when these two lived in my home, but it was quickly apparent to me that I had bitten off more than I could chew taking 2 children at once. We had these kids for 2 weeks before they went to a new family. (These children were eventually returned to their parents) Still my dream of being a mommy was far from dead.

Everyone has told us that we would be getting a call for a new child soon, but as summer faded to fall, and fall gave way to winter, still we have had no calls. This is probably the most frustrating part of the whole process-waiting. I feel like my life is on hold, waiting to start my family and everyday that the crib goes empty is chipping away at the dream. I will say that I have not given up and I am still waiting anxiously for my dream to come true.

B is for Brother

Family is the most important thing in my life (knitting comes in second place). I count my brother, T, among those people in my life that I can count on. While I would not say that we are super close, I think that we both know that we can lean on each other when we need it. T is six years older than I am and is very goal oriented. He set a goal for himself to get involved in Scuba diving and has turned it into something profitable by becoming a diving instructor. He also is an EMT and teaches classes in CPR and First Aid.

Eight things I love about T:

1. Whenever I call him, he calls me "seeeester"-not sister.
2. He is the first guy I have ever met that keeps a cleaner house than I do. I think he may even keep it cleaner than our mother.
3. He knows something about cars (I dont know anything except how to make them go fast)
4. He makes the best tacos in the world! (Maybe even better than Uncle Don. I don't know, the jury is still out, but if he made them for me again, I bet that would tip the balance)
5. Using a sewing machine is not an assualt to his masculinity. Really. You should have seen us together as we repaired his Scuba wetsuit.
6. He is the father of a really cool young man who also goes by T.
7. He has an 11:00 o'clock rule. Since he works on the ambulance and works 24 hour shifts, he gets off work in the early morning. He goes home and sleeps. No one is allowed to call him until 11:00. If he is still asleep after 11:00, that is his problem, but if you call before 11:00 and wake him up, be prepared to face his wrath. OK Not really, but he does get grumpy. The world would be a better place if everyone had an 11:00 o'clock rule.
8. He knows how to slice prime rib like an expert(seen here on Christmas 2005).

If I Only Had a Camera.....

There are moments in life that are here and gone in the next instant. For those times I wish I had a camera to capture an expression, a gesture, or something else that strikes my fancy.

Here is a brief list of "If I Only Had A Camera" moments that have occured recently:

1.As I was working on my upcoming blog facelift using my old, overheating laptop, my darling cat, Noel, came along and parked herself on top of the keyboard, thus hindering my efforts. She stayed there for quite a while, purring and snuggling on my laptop. What I didnt understand at the time was that she was actually hanging out there not to be affectionately close to me, but rather to get warmth from the laptop. A cozy computer...who knew?

2.Another cat moment (I can't help myself, there are so many to choose from). After Kool-Aid Dyeing my wool yarn this last week, I had a hank setting on the carpet getting ready to wind up. Noel came along, layed down and began to fondle the yarn in her paws. She sniffed it (It was a brightly colored orange yarn and had the faint smell of orange Kool-Aid) and ran her cheek back and forth over it, letting the yarn caress her whiskers. I think she takes after me.

3. While aimlessly wandering the aisles of JcPenney, I was pondering the question: Do those male mannequins have male anatomy? I mean female mannequins have boobs, but with the loose fitting clothing draped on these poor dummies, it was hard to tell if they were real men at all. I asked my dear husband if he would check for me and he pulled the boxers down off one poor fellow to see that he did in fact have what resembled the male anatomy. Pretty soon, with all his inhibitions gone, my husband could be seen groping the other "man-equins" to see that they too were well endowed. This had me thinking of the hit song from Da Vinci's Notebook entitled "Enormous Penis" . If we were seen by the folks on the store security cameras, I am sure that we looked like perverts. My husband, incidently, is likely to kill me for posting this.

Serious Knitter

After begging me with little success to knit him a Harry Potter Scarf, my dear husband, Kyle, has taken up the needles. After mastering the cast on and the knit stitch, he is ready to begin his project. I am so happy. Now I have a real human that I can share my yarn addiction with. Doesn't he look angry? The darling kitty in the background keeping Kyle company is Noel Christine. She is also pleased that he took up knitting. Now there are twice the yarn balls to chase around and and chew on!

I'm sorry, honey, I couldn't resist!