Take My Hand

Thank you so much for following me here at Fibreholic. Please take my hand and join me in my new space at Four Boys and a Girl . I have a lot left to share!

Full Moon Rising

There are a few things in life that I absolutely, positively do not regret.

Moving back home is one of them.

This was the view from our living room windows Wednesday evening.

Parenthood

Anyone who knows us personally knows that DH has a rotten work schedule. There are many things that bother me about that schedule. The little amount of time DH is able to spend with the boys, the behaviour issues that arise from Daddy being away so much and the fact that anything that can go wrong with the house, car or weather is going to happen when he is away (case in point: The Purolater dude noticed that the siding on one end of this house is coming off. He noticed THIS morning when he was dropping off packages. Naturally, I dropped DH off at the airport this afternoon). Most of my complaints about DH being away are very me-centric though. There is the lack of time off, the 24 hour days and just the general size of the responsibility to name a few. I have suffered from pretty serious depression since Iain was born so we have tried to set up our day to day activities to ensure that I get a bit of a break - thus the full time daycare (and I have no idea how you do it if you are a stay at home parent full time with no break at all. You are my heroes. Seriously.). However, I still find the mostly-single-parenting gig hard.

Enter a newborn into the picture. One of the things I love most about having a new baby is nursing him. The fact that I can nourish and so effectively GROW an eight pound baby named Finn into the eighteen plus pound baby he is today is such a miracle. And, one of the things I find hardest about having a newborn and nursing full time is the absolute lack of a break.

Maybe my expectations were too high when we started our family. I certainly have an ongoing struggle with how much of a commitment this job really is (and considering the amount of time I ask my parents to help out, it is painfully obvious that my time being spoken for by my children is not a short term contact). Time used by children = 100%. My time = what's leftover.

With all of this in mind, please tell me why am I so upset about the fact that Finlay turned five months old today marking one month to go before he starts solid food which, in turn, means the start of me gaining more freedom?

Parenthood. It'll make you crazy.

I love you, Little Boy. Please stop growing so freaking fast.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes..

When I began writing this blog, I was inspired by the many knitting blogs that were available. DH and I had no children, three pets and I was gainfully employed outside the house on again, off again. I also had a little more time on my hands to both type and knit and, she gasps mournfully, even do other craft like things.

Five years later, things are a little different and a lot busier. Three very young children, two pets (more on that in another post) and finite time has meant that my focus has changed from knitting and other fibre arts to trying to make loving, kind, generous human beings. Therefore, I am going to be making some changes here at Chez Fibreholic, starting with the blogs name, layout, etc..

Yes, there will still be the occasional knitting/fibre related content. However, I want the blog to reflect what I am currently concentrating on which I hope will also inspire me to write more blog posts without feeling me like my posts should concentrate on fibre related content (which is totally in my head anyway but there it is). It is my space so I am going to do what I want with it.

Hope you like it.

My Mother's Love

Every week I lose socks when I do laundry. Every few weeks, I go through the socks, match pairs, and put the singles back in a bag for the following week. In a household where I find socks down heater vents and stuffed in the cabs of toy trucks, matching a pair can take months.

 I used to just keep the extra socks in the the bottom of one of the laundry baskets until this past Fall when I had my C-section and Mudder was here full time helping out. 

 Now let me let you in on a secret about my mother. She LOVES to do laundry. Loves it. She will also get a load completely washed, dried, folded and put away whereas I tend to fail at one or more of these steps along the way resulting in unfinished loads of laundry in various stages scattered around my house like small hills waiting to be tackled. The fact that she can stick to completion what I consider to be such a difficult task amazes me. And nothing says love like crisply folded laundry waiting for you at the foot of your bed to put away.

 I guess our odd socks piling up at the bottom of the laundry basket was driving Mom a bit nuts so she put them in a plastic bag and found great satisfaction going through it from time to time and making the occasional pair.

 In my world where I seem to do okay with the bigger details (children fed, warm, clothed) but feel like I fail miserably at the smaller ones, it was such a comfort to have someone else look after and create a lost sock system. This may seem silly but I find the concept of taking the time to match pairs of socks over the course of weeks is representative of my mother's love for me and my family. Mom taking care of my laundry certainly makes me feel mothered myself - a comforting feeling at the age of forty one.  I want my boys to feel that level of comforting and attention so I am going out to find a special box or basket just for lost socks. Turns out those socks are very important.

Catch Up - The Big Boys

• Iain is now four years old and Aidan is two. Iain continually reminds me that he starts school next year. He finds that concept exciting; I am terrified.
• Both boys started full-time daycare at the end of May. It was great timing as I was getting very uncomfortable with the pregnancy (I continued my habit of extreme 'all day sickness' the entire pregnancy). Iain is blossoming there and I am so glad he has had this opportunity to branch out especially before he starts school. He is a quiet, serious and deep thinking child. The daycare environment has worked wonders on him. Aidan, on the other hand, fears nothing and needs to learn how to sort out his differences with other children such as alternatives to using his teeth/fists or pushing! He has a quick temper which immediately diffuses once he lashes out but, hey, he is two!

• Upon Iain's suggestion, both he and Aidan now share one room. Their beds are pushed together at the moment and they can often be found snuggled up next to each other in the middle of the night. That helps to make up for the amount of time they are screaming at and fighting with each other over the course of the day. Fun times.
• Iain describes Aidan as having 'no brakes'. That is the best description I have ever heard to describe my second son!
• Because of the difference in ages, Iain is in the four year old room and Aidan is in the two year old room at daycare. When I pick them up and they first see each other after a days separation, they run into each other's arms. It is adorable!
• Even though they exhaust me at every turn, I cannot get enough of these two hooligans.

Happy holidays from the two biggest boys (taken at their daycare centre - what a great job! Thanks, Samia!) at our house to yours!

Introducing...

I am pleased to announce the newest addition to our Clan. Meet Finlay Alexander! Finlay was born on October 8, 2011 and weighed in at a respectable 8 lbs, 10 ounces. His two older brothers are thrilled with him and his parents are so glad that he has finally arrived.


There were some complications related to his birth - one of which required an emergency Caesarean section however we are now both doing fine (I still have three weeks to go on the 'no lifting' policy).


Unlike with our other two angels, this little boy did not come with a move so I managed to have a photographer come in and take newborn picture of him. I am so pleased with them. If you are in my area, I would highly recommend Maggie to come and take pictures of your family too (www.langerphotography.ca). 


Blogging sabbatical officially over. Yeah!

Happy Halloween!

Happy, happy Halloween from our most ferocious Panda and Polar bears!

Trick or treating is very serious business. Off with Daddy to hunt some treats.

Jack o’Lantern by Iain and DH. Supervised by Aidan. What a team!

Hope you had your fill (or more!) of chocolate tonight too!

BOO!

In the rush of every day when the laundry is always piled up, dishes always need to be washed, and even DH’s usual patience at the state of the place wanes, I sometimes forget why I wanted to stay at home with my children.

It was so we could do things like this.



I feel like this post should be entitled ‘Bad Mommy’ because this is the first time I have ever baked with the children when icing was involved.





That isn’t to say that I don’t involve the kids in baking. Well, to be honest, I haven’t been involving Aidan yet. His big brother is a baking pro as he insists on making pancakes Every. Single. Morning. Luckily, the stone pan I make them in leaves enough leftovers for the next day so we don’t have to make them quite every day unless it’s a weekend and DH has some too.

Iain had fun decorating.



Aidan had fun making himself into a ghoul.



I watched the sugar induced rampage that followed with horror!



BOO!

Gone Green

While we were away in September, a wee bit of green found its way to our front lawn.



During our first couple of weeks back, it grew!





If you had asked me two months ago, I would have said something like

“Oh, we don’t mind living in a gravel pit. It’s very low maintenance!”



It was not until I was looking at the new swath of green in our front yard that I realised how much I missed the colour that used to surround us.





Para approves.



A lot!

Pet Report

The pets have been complaining, and rightly so, that their face time on the ol’ blog has been pathetic of late. Here is a brief update on their lives:



Tobi, our 17.5 year old feline, is still feeling and acting very spry for her age. She does not approve of the new leather sofas we just added to our living room. However, she has managed to find other suitable resting spots around our house so I do not think she is too hard done by. She and Checkers still race around the house at night and she is loving the fact that the construction workers are more or less finished so that she can explore all reaches of the house.



Checkers, the youngest of the four legged crew, is still living up to the name Mudder usually calls her by – ‘Crackers’. She is cracked (is that only a Newfoundland and Labrador expression???)! Checkers is turning into a real lap cat which we really appreciate. She continues to be wonderful with the children, still never scratching them even with Aidan is a little over exuberant with his loves! Iain is trying to teach Aidan to be more gentle with the cats and it is so cute to see Aidan trying to live up to his brother’s expectation as those lessons progress!



I’m saving Para’s story for last because our dog is quite sick. She has an inner ear imbalance which the vet tells us is common among older dogs and we are hoping she will pull out of it soon (she is supposed to, according to the vet). She is a sorry sight to watch as her head is cocked over to one side and she staggers and falls when she walks. We have rugs all over the house from place to place because she keeps slipping and falling on the hardwood floor. On a happy note, she can sometimes make is across the floor on her own when Aidan is in his high chair! That being said, we are very, very worried about our 15 year ten month old Para and are unsure what the next few weeks will bring for her and us. It is a sad time at Chez Fibreholic at the moment.

Proof of Life

I know, I know. It has really been ages. I have missed you. Truly. I have been busy, much like you I suppose. I would imagine that you are better organised than I as many of you manage to write blog posts a little more often than, say, once every two months. As usual, I bow to your superior ability to be able to live life in a balanced way. It is a goal I strive towards.



One thing I have noticed is that the amount of blog posts I manage to write is almost directly proportionate to the amount of knitting I am doing. I believe this to be because when I have time to knit, I usually have time to be introspective. When I find no time to knit, I usually find myself with a catcher’s mitt, catching whatever life is hurling at me at any given moment. Not so much introspective because that would mean a ball in the face.



To show that we are doing well and that we have not quite dropped out of the world of technology, here is some proof taken on part of the East Coast trail close to our house just yesterday (Thanksgiving Monday to us Canadians. Happy belated Thanksgiving! We had a hoot; did you?!?).



This was our goal - beautiful Torbay!

Geo Centre

We had such a great time when our friends were visiting. They were very tolerant of a slightly crazed stay-at-home mother and two children tagging along with them most places they went. I got to enjoy the ‘mothering’ of our twelve year old twin God-daughters who had a boy each when it came time to put them into or take them out of their car seats. I also don’t think I pushed the stroller the whole week they were here! Even their 10 year old boy – and his mother was very surprised by this – was very tolerant of Iain following him everywhere and watching over his shoulder as he played on his DS.

One of the nice things about having company is having the opportunity to play tourist in your own town. One of the places we re-visited during their trip was the Geo Centre. It is a great any day place to visit for a variety of ages and, as before, we also ended up in the Kidzone (the younger children's play space) for awhile.

This particular day was Family Fun Day. We were late getting there so there were very few other families in line for the festivities. There was bean bag tossing, goo making (which Iain did under the supervision of a staff member) and face painting. Unfortunately, the staff face painter was a little slow. When the boys and I lined up, one of the mothers had volunteered to paint some faces to help with the line up. However, she had already decided to finish by the time we arrived. This was the first time that the boys had ever had the opportunity to have their faces painted and, though I have never face painted before, I decided that was not going to stop me from trying my hand at making my three year old into a tiger.



And my one year old into a rather possessed looking clown.



Here’s a gentler clown picture.



This particular photograph is very moving for me as it characterizes Iain’s personality so much. Another family with small children arrived to the Kidzone (we had previously had the space to ourselves) and Iain was studying them carefully.



He always thinks before he acts unlike Aidan as you can probably tell from his picture above. Aidan jumps first and lives with the repercussions later.



Despite my reservations about his skin reacting to long term wear of face paint, Iain loved being a tiger so much that I let him wear his painted face to bed. Luckily, the only thing harmed was his pillow…:)!

Knitting at the Most Easterly Point in Canada

When I was juggling cooking supper and keeping the children happy/fed/entertained (and failing) one afternoon last week, I glanced out across the bay and saw the drift of a whale spout drifting in the wind. That is a first for me in this house.



This is supposed to be a very good year for observing whales (mainly minkes so far). When the boys and I went to Cape Spear the week before last with our company (and Iain and I stayed in the van and I knit while he slept), our friends came back thrilled with the fact that they were watching minkes from the Cape. During a hike along the trail in front of our place (a hike which is quickly becoming a favourite for all of us especially Iain who can be heard crying ‘Let’s go for a hike!’ on a regular basis) the following weekend, we saw many, MANY pods of whales spouting and dancing in the waves. The food fishery started last weekend so there were also a lot more boats out compared to usual too. Both were a fine sight.



July 18th has come and gone and still, I knit on. Progress is being made though. It took me all of last week to get over a very bad case of second sleeve syndrome but I have managed to break through that barrier.





The only thing that would have made this spot any more perfect for knitting than it already was would have been a rocking chair!



I am certain that a lot of knitting happened at this very same site when the lighthouse keeper and his family were in residence (heck, at least one of the lighthouse keepers and his wife had eleven children so I can rest assured that there were, at the very least, a lot of socks knit on this very same spot!). However, I am almost equally certain that I was one of the few adding to the location's knitting heritage this day.



Have you knit anywhere interesting yet this summer?

Typical Conversation With My 3 Year Old

Just heard at our house:

Me: “Iain? What do you want for lunch? Meatloaf or a hot dog?”

Iain: “Hmmmmm. Chicken.”

Is it any wonder that I often feel like I’m losing my mind?!?

Basement Renovations Part Four

The basement workers are on hiatus while we have guests this week this week. DH and I (and our builder) felt that the dust, hammering, paint drying smells, etc might put me completely around the bend while trying to be a calm and considerate host. A construction break seemed worthwhile (the space couldn’t have been finished before our guests arrived regardless). Our builder was also considerate enough to hope that we could use the space as is (with a little bit of damp mopping). We aren’t though. We are using the camper and the campervan. Our guests are, three out of five, Newfoundland and Labradorians (one is 50%, born in the UK and the other is 100% British stock, now Canadian). They haven’t complained yet – much – because camping in a gravel pit is a rite of passage, isn’t it? I think the British stock boy is having some back trouble as a result of van sleeping but I believe such troubles may have come about before sleeping in our van. I think...

Here is where we’re at and, after watching things go so quickly, it now seems like the same old, same old down there now. The green will be slightly toned down upon completion.

Two weeks ago, the following conversation was also heard in our basement:

“Do you want to think about glass doors on the upper cabinets so that you can show off your yarn? I know you like to (probably in reference to the basket of brightly coloured skeins that graces our stairwell)?” DH asked.

“Oooohh.” I managed to get out and then very, very quickly agreed. Sorry, you can’t have him.

The stairwell - reworked due to putting french pocket doors between the already finished family room and the new space:



The new doors before priming:



The new office space:



Looking back across the office space towards the bathroom and wine closet:



Looking back towards the storage room, from the craft room:



Bathroom:



Guset room one:



Guest room two:



Storage room:



Wine closet:



Our builder is hoping to be finished around mid-August. Fingers crossed!