Knitters-Knitters

Getting a Life

Today I was reading one of my favorite blogs, and saw that the blogger had posted photos of a sweater she had designed, knit, and even made the buttons for from polymer clay.  It's absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait until she offers the pattern for sale. I will buy it, and, if I'm being realistic, probably never complete the sweater myself.  But that's a whole 'nother issue.

In her blog today she made a passing reference to an IRL friend telling her she spends too much time on her projects and needs to "get a life." 

Reading that stopped me short. To my eyes, it looks like she has a very full life: her children are grown.  She knits, crochets, weaves, draws beautiful and whimsical little animals, designs knitwear and now, apparently, makes her own buttons.  If her project requires a skill she does not already have, she learns it.  She is clearly in love with her art, and I imagine she wakes up every morning excited to jump into her current project.

There was a time when I was in love with sewing.  I made children's outfits and sold them on eBay.  Every now and then I'd have an outfit sell for a high price, but I lost money overall: especially when you consider the hours I spent.  I didn't care because I loved those hours.  I would take apart Hanna Andersson dresses or any outgrown dress that I liked, then design my own pattern template from the pieces. I thought of my sewing room as my laboratory.  Every morning, the thought of what I was currently sewing got me out of bed.  I mean, I had to get up because I had all those little children and they had to be fed and taught and all that, but it was the sewing that made leaving the bed palatable. 

Occasionally someone would tell me to get a life, or more often, ask the question, "How do you do it?" which is really just a more polite way of saying, "Why do you do it?"  Both remarks conveyed the fact that the speaker did not consider what I was doing to be compelling, satisfying, or even a valid expenditure of time.  I didn't mind it, but sometimes I'd pause and wonder why being very engrossed in a particular hobby implied a lack of life.  It sure felt like a life: I had a family I loved, and something extra that made me happy and had nothing to do with them. 

My love for sewing disappeared as suddenly as it had started, and now I have a whole lot of fabric and machinery locked in a storage closet in the basement.  I feel envious of my former self: the work and care that I was happy to put into a garment, that feeling of being inspired.  It isn't that I had more time then or more energy.  It's simply that my enthusiasm created its own energy, which in turn made me find the time -- even if it was 2 a.m.  And yet, how I was spending my time involved much less outside world and was thus deemed Not A Life.

I do love knitting, but it's not the same as what I felt for sewing. Knitting and I are long past the honeymoon phase.  And as much as I enjoy it, knitting is rarely enough to make me skip the siren's call of the nap.  Years from now I'll probably feel like I gave myself way too much grief over these naps, and that I shouldn't have wasted energy on the question of, did I have the right to nap?  Should naps be based on a meritocracy?   I would say that I'm in love with napping, except that -- right or wrong -- napping makes me feel too guilty to enjoy in that same, pure way I enjoyed the sewing.

Now I'm more in the world, and I don't much care for it.  There are lots of meetings and conferences, and lots of assisting in the growing lives of growing people which translates, somehow, into driving and waiting. 

I miss being so excited about something I'm going to make that I actually attempt a drawing of it in advance.  That last year on eBay I used a photographer and a model (Olive became less cooperative with age) and I would wait for the photos to appear in my inbox, so eager to see what my work had inspired on the part of the photographer.  Then do it, you might say.  Set up a sewing room  and dig in.  I have the time, and I have the equipment.  I'm simply missing the desire: the only part that matters.

So, what is Having a Life?  If I get one, would someone let me know?  I have a feeling it's the sort of thing where if a person's not paying attention, she could easily miss it.

Etta in her Swetta

It's fun to look at the finished product, all perfectly blocked and photographed in the best light I have at my disposal in the Great Lakes, just slightly enhanced with the "saturation" feature on Picasa. 

 

But there is nothing as satisfying...

...like seeing it on the baby herself.

I had a difficult time saving and resizing these photos when they came into my inbox because I kept passing out cold from cuteness, hitting my head on the keyboard, waking up and then forgetting what had caused me to lose consciousness in the first place.

Etta, as the Faithful 163 know, is the second baby of Teacher Emily, Olive's first teacher at Autism Academy.  Emily sports the original blonde ponytail, and was the keeper of the Sacred Notebook

She is the good experience that led to ready acceptance of this good experience...

...and this one.

When I look at Etta in her sweater, I wonder what it must be like to cut one's mothering teeth on teaching special needs children, and then, give birth to a neurotypical child.  It must be like learning to drive on a stick shift with manual steering, windows that need to be rolled up and down with a crank handle, and no turn signals so that you actually have to hang your arm out the window in the manner most people only use once: during the driver's test.  

Then, suddenly, you're driving a late-model Lexus with power everything and a built in GPS and keyless start.  Or maybe you're sitting in the backseat of a town car while someone else drives -- it's that easy. 

Or maybe you're a little extra concerned about your child's development since you know stuff that the average first-time mom doesn't.  That one morning when you're baby's just in a cross mood and doesn't give you the level of eye contact you expect, maybe you panic for a moment and need to be reminded that even 'nother kids have their "off" days.

I'm currently at work on a baby blanket for a baby-boy-on-the-way.  He will be the first child of one of the aides in Olive's classroom.  This aide has spent much of the past year in the ladies' room with Olive, which is a hard enough task when one isn't in the midst of a pregnancy that involves morning sickness.

The front of the blanket is all Kidsilk Haze, done in a slip-stitch pattern and limited to colors that feel boy-appropriate.

I made a similar blanket for baby Baley two years ago, but as you can see, on that one I went crazy with the pink and purple and ruffles.

The backing of the boy blanket is Swans Island merino, just a simple combination of stockinette and garter stitch. 

Here you can see the tacked down mitered edge border, which will continue all the way around the blanket. 

After blocking, I'll probably sew a big X in the middle of the blanket (using tiny stitches that are hidden by the slipstitch haze), going from corner to corner, to hold the two layers together.

Blinking in the Sun

Let's move onto another bodily function: weeping.  Diarrhea has always been my piece of emotional real estate (and an accurate indicator of my feelings) but SOME people have comfort zones that are this big and have a squeamishness that rivals that of the average Perlman: no small accomplishment.  So we'll talk about what makes me weep, what makes me want to weep, and hopefully, what makes you weep.

Lots of things make me feel weepy, but bring forth no actual tears.  When my son interrupted me while I was on the phone the other day with Aunt Marilyn and I waved him away, only to discover later he'd been trying to hand me a Valentine's card, I felt weepy.  I signed up for yoga classes this week and felt weepy after both the sessions I attended: something I attributed to a release of endorphins.  When Pam and Clover hear me pouring chicken grease onto their kibble bowls and then jostle through the doorway like Archie and Meathead it makes me feel weepy, anticipating a time when it'll be just Pam.

Things that make me weep, but just the odd tear or two: the frustration of picking up sick Olive from school, only to find that upon arrival in our home, she is now healthy Olive with no...er...bowel issues whatsoever. 

Hearing this Jane Siberry song:

Seeing Nicholas Cage on Live! with Kelly and remembering how when Sabina was born, I took comfort in remembering the lupine heart-throb Cage played in Moonstruck, and how his one hand just made him all the more appealing.

Last week LB and I had an argument -- the one, long argument that threads its way through our marriage -- about which burners to use on the stove.  He feels the burners in the back are larger, boil water faster, cook faster in general, and are therefor preferable.  I am short and cannot see into the pots as easily when they are on the back burners, so I use the front burners exclusively. 

Our general rule is that whoever is cooking gets to choose the burners, but last week LB moved all my pots around even though I was one doing the cooking.   Usually a small growl and snap on my part is enough for him to back away from the stove, but this time he felt the choice of burner was a battle worth fighting.  Pots were flying, and boiling water splashed on my hand in the melee.  It was a day when Olive had been sent home from school early, so I was In No Mood for this argument.  I was so in no mood that instead of getting hostile I got plaintive. 

When LB left the room, Sabina gently approached me and said, "I really don't think the burners in the back cook any faster than the ones in the front."  The argument did not make me weepy, but validation from my one tall child did.

There are things I don't let myself weep about for fear I'd never be able to stop, but we all have those.  I'm trying to remember the last time I really, really cried, and I'm pretty sure it was on July 23rd, 2011. 

Now that I think of it, I should add ham sandwiches to the list of things that make me weepy.

Solid

I was on the phone with Lo today and I said to her, "As unlikely as it sounds, I fear I may have come to the end of people's interest in reading about Olive's bowel habits." 

Lo said, "Oh, I'm good for a few more entries."  She was kidding, just as she was when she suggested the name "Olive" to LB and me as a name for our sixth child.  But that's the thing about Lo: she's always right, even when she's not even trying.

This past week I've found myself with one word in my head, a Mantra if you will.  Having LB as Nurse Keshet's contact person hasn't lessened my own concern over Olive's bowel movements at school.  Are they formed?  Are they frequent? 

The word is there when I wake up, when I pick Olive up at the end of the day, and when I, in spite of my oath to take a week off from this worry, ask her teacher how the day went.  We pretend I'm asking about Olive's behaviors, but we both know what I really want to hear.

The word comes to me in song.  I often sing this ditty to Olive when she is on the toilet:

Or this one. I don't know what it means to be on the "solid" side of the line, but it must be good.

YouTube searches of my Mantra yield some interesting results, like this classic, actually written in my lifetime:

I've never seen this cartoon before, but apparently, I'm not the only person obsessed by this turn of phrase:

 

Be Nice and Clean

LB gave me roses today, but that was not my Big Valentine's Day Gift.  The gift was for him to be the contact person for the week, when the school calls to discuss the ongoing concern of Olive's bowel habits.  Naturally, Olive's psychiatrist did not get this memo and I was fated to spend a good chunk of today focused on the issue of Olive's inability to make ... good chunks.

Apparently the changes in diet, medication and the negative blood test results have not changed that Olive needs to spend too much time in the bathroom at school, to the detriment of her learning and socialization.  At home she does her business in a solid and timely manner, but she's a much different person at school.  I was under the impression last week had been much improved -- an upward trend, a harbinger of good bowel movements to come --- when it was more like a good snapshot in an overall bad film.

I am trying to view this as a difficult chapter in a very long book, a wind-sprint in the marathon of understanding and helping the complicated little person that is Olive.  I am trying to find humor somewhere, anywhere, in this situation.  Benny Bell helps a little.  But I don't think the roses are what I'll remember about Valentine's Day, 2012.

Urnvy

Today I was watching an internet service provider ad that illustrated a metaphor of other ISP's robbing their customers blind, and in one scene two thieves walked right past the homeowner carrying a seven foot-tall urn.  I was transported to the place where advertisers never, ever want you to go -- a million miles away from what was happening onscreen. 

"Urns," I thought. "I'm never going to have urns like that."

It's sounds silly and hardly worth comparing to the pain of realizing one is never going to be a ballerina, a fighter pilot, a circus performer or the person who patents a system for car windows to roll up from the bottom instead of from the top down, but I had assumed my adulthood would include giant urns.  They rounded out the plans I had for my future.  This future:

I saw this painting "in person" once in its 87.6 x 87.6 inch glory, I'm not sure where.  It may have been on loan at the Chicago Art Institute (very likely, but I can't find a record of where this painting traveled in the late seventies and early eighties), or maybe even at at the Louvre but I did see it in person -- and many, many times in books -- and it filled me with longing.  I wanted to walk into it and live it.  I could never be one of those four girls, but perhaps I could have a hand in creating my own version.  I could have four daughters, dress them in matching pinafores, and people would say, "Hey, just like in that Sargent painting, you know the one."

Over the years I realized that I was quickly and easily achieving what one might consider the more difficult part of the painting: the four little girls. According to Wiki, my four girls even share some personality traits of the girls in the painting (though I hope some of mine will marry).  But today, watching that ad on television, it occurred to me that I am never going to have the part of the painting I took for granted: the urns.

It's not a matter of having the room: Leah and Larry's living room cries out for enormous urns, as did Ashraf's, and as does that house in Chicago we still own (Dieter and his family, our tenants, do not have urns or four daughters).  And it's not the cost: I'm not married to the idea of having priceless antique urns.  I'm sure I could find nice-looking imitations at Pier 1 or Cost Plus.   

The problem, as it is so often, is Olive.  Heavy urns would be true hazards in our house.  Instead of The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit I'd be more likely to recreate something from the unpublished works of Edward Gorey: O is for Olive who fell head-first in an urn.  Or perhaps an alternate ending to Gorey's The Hapless Child, where the protagonist is crushed by heavy falling porcelain instead of getting run over by her own father.

What about fake urns that are really made of tin or some equally light material?  Possible, but then I envision the living room as an off-scale and incomplete bowling alley, with the two pins lying on their sides more often than not.  Mommmmmy, Olive's knocked over the urns again...

After reading about the painting's history and the interpretations of the critics, I realize I see it much differently than Sargent may have intended.  I see no melancholy there or foreshadowing of bleak futures, and certainly not, "four corners and a void." 

The daughter in the back who we see in profile is obviously my Daisy, and the sister right next to her is Agatha, narrating what the painter is doing, in real-time, for her sister who's too shy to look directly at him.

In fact, here's a photo of Daisy, looking very Boit-ish, taken by Agatha.

For the past several months Agatha has been working on her own painting from the photograph, and she's allowing us...

...a sneak-peek...

...at the work...

... in progress.

She's made me promise to let you know it's not done yet. 

I'm not sure what makes me more proud: Agatha's talent, or the fact that she looks at her sister's face and thinks, "I would like to spend many, many weeks painting her."

But back to the Sargent painting: that's Sabina on the left, making her own way, giving Sargent a bit of a stare-down.  She may be about to correct his technique.  And seated on the floor, we have who is indisputably Olive.  If you look closely, you can even see she's doing askancers-askancers.

I'd say she looks as if she's about to jump to her feet and give one of those urns a giant shove, but considering that the urns are still on display in Boston, this must not have been the case. 

Perhaps she was content to simply pull Dolly's hair from the roots.

Here

Olive has been gluten-free about a week now, and has continued to improve.  No more diarrhea.  In fact, no more loose stools.  This morning she did something in the toilet that a mom with less self-control might have photographed and posted for all the world to see, then printed out and framed.  Instead, I'll share with you a picture Olive's teacher emailed me this afternoon, of Olive being happy and not distracted by her tummy and present.

Miss Tricky-Pants

Olive's tummy seems much improved these past few gluten-free days.  No more of the watery stuff, and she's been in an especially good mood.  Here she is with her beloved Teacher Julie, today at school:

This, this is Olive.

Suspenders

Whenever I hesitate before giving Miss Susan some bit of news she's been waiting to hear from me, she says, "Don't keep me in suspenders!"  Miss Susan says other folksy things like, "Hope springs infernal," and, "They get along like calico cat and gingham dog," and I admit we were a good two years into our friendship before I spoke fluent Susan. 

Once, early on, Susan wrote at the end of an email to me, "It's always nice to hear from you."  I immediately sunk into an abyss of depression since we all know, "It's always nice to hear from you," is just another way of saying, "Best of luck in all your future endeavors."  That is, "All further correspondence from you will be interpreted as harassment."  You can imagine my confusion when I confronted Susan and she insisted that in the strange world she comes from, "It's always nice to hear from you," means, "It's always nice to hear from you."

But today we'll just focus on the suspenders. 

It's not nice to keep people in suspenders, and Olive's doctor's office apparently agrees.  The nurse called me Saturday to say that Olive tested negative in her blood work for both Crohn's and Celiac disease.  In the light of day, I can see now that Crohn's was unlikely given that Olive does not present the main symptoms that sent me to the GI doctor: waking up in the middle of the night with diarrhea, unexplained fevers, weight loss, and bunny-stomping abdominal pain.  Also, Olive has grown in both height and weight since her last well-child visit, holding steady in the fifth percentile (much like her Mommy).

No results on the stool sample yet and no solid (groan) clue about the cause of the diarrhea, but it's a tremendous relief to take Crohn's off the table.  We have switched Olive to a gluten free diet anyways, and for the past two days she's had close-to normal BMs at home.  This is her usual pattern though, with the watery stuff being reserved for school.

I saw Olive's psychiatrist on Friday, who feels the diarrhea is anxiety-related.  He switched her (it's a gradual tapering process) from Zoloft to Paxil, since apparently Zoloft has been linked with diarrhea for some people.  One could argue that if you're holding a hammer every problem is going to look like a nail, and that as a psychiatrist he's always going to go to look to the brain as being the source of all problems.  But if switching SSRI's can spare Olive from a series of barium studies, it's Something To Try.

If you're shopping for Gluten Free foods, Trader Joe's is a terrific source. They even gave me a print-out of all their gluten free items.  It's interesting that Olive's favorite foods -- chana masala, basmati rice, fresh salsa, beans, meat, meat and more meat -- are all gluten-free.  She never eats the bread part of a sandwich.

The only trouble with Trader Joe's is that the check-out staff is chatty.  I really, really didn't want to talk, and the clerk was not happy with my short answers.  No, I'm not having a party.  Yes, I have a lot of children.  Yes, one of them is gluten free.  No, I've never had the flourless chocolate cake before but I'll take your word that it's delicious.  Yes, it's been a long week.

Finally, she leaned in close and whispered, "Would you like me to check you out extra slowly, to delay the time until you have to go home?"

I may be reserved, but I'm not made of stone.  That question completely disarmed me and unleashed a lengthy monologue about my youngest child's bowel habits that perhaps went into more detail than the clerk had expected.  Hey, she started the conversation.

But you didn't, and given the amount of times I've made you read the word "diarrhea," I feel obligated to show you some pretty pictures.

Here's a baby blanket in progress, for a boy on the horizon.  Kidsilk Haze is my favorite thing these days; I love how light and airy it knits up.

All the same, I'm going to knit a backing for this blanket using smooth, Swans Island merino. Some people don't like the feel of fuzzy against their skin.

Looking at Lene's baby hats makes me want to try my hand at piping. Some people just don't like dressing their boys in ruffles (go figure) but piping, I believe, requires slow laborious work and picking up stitches: just like ruffles.

And here's the beginnings of a sweater I'm making for a certain little boy whose having his second "real" birthday on Leap Day.  I'm using Noro Silk Garden sock yarn and a fingering weight merino, with Isager lace-weight alpaca as a knit-along for extra softness.

A Very Serious Game Called Rabbit

Have you ever played Rabbit?  I don't know if it's a game indigenous to Wisconsin, or -- perhaps even more specifically -- a game limited to Flynns and Perlmans.  I just remember playing this game with my friends Amy and Angus, the two younger children of that oft-mentioned Mrs. Flynn. 

Here is how you play Rabbit:  All players sit in a circle. The more players, the better.  One person says, "We are about to play a Very Serious Game called Rabbit.  If anyone laughs, smiles, hesitates, or talks out of turn, we have to start all over again."   Then the leader turns to the person on her right and says, "Jen, do you know how to play Rabbit?"  This must be said in an extremely somber tone, with no smiling. 

That person is supposed to respond, "No, Amy (feel free to substitute your own names), I do not know how to play Rabbit."  Then second person turns to the third person and says, "Angus, do you know how to play Rabbit?"  The players continue in this manner all the way around the circle.  Assuming you're all children and are in a silly mood to begin with, it is nearly impossible to get through even two players without someone laughing.  And when someone laughs, you have to start back at the beginning.  When someone smiles, you have to start back at the beginning.  If someone hesitates because he or she is trying to suppress a laugh or smile, you have to go back to the beginning. 

I had a limited tolerance for the game of Rabbit.  Once the first few outbursts of laughter had come and gone, what started out as fun became pure frustration.  There was always one child (in our group, usually Angus) who simply could not or would not restrain himself from laughing.  The game could not end until we made it all the way around the circle so that the leader could say, "Well, if no one knows how to play a Very Serious Game Called Rabbit, then what are we doing here?"  

On the few occasions we succeed in going once around, there was no laughter at the end, not even a smile.  We were done, thank God, and could now continue with our ongoing project of growing into OCD adults.

When I was sick with Crohn's at the age of twenty-two, I thought about the Game Called Rabbit a lot.  At that time, Prednisone was pretty much the only treatment option for Crohn's and this was my experience with the drug: I would be put on 60 mg per day to arrest the flare-up.  For the first several days I felt great, amazing, full of new-found appetite and a sense of well-being.  After perhaps two weeks at that dose, I would gradually begin tapering off the prednisone, about 5mg at a time, going a week at each dose. At 50 mg, I felt fine.  At 40, I was fine.  At 30, I was still fine.  And at 25 mg, the pain would return.  

Crohn's is different for everyone, but I quickly learned that going back up to 30 or even 35 mg would not stop the re-awakened flare.  I had to go all the way up to 60 mg per day, and begin the process of tapering all over again.  Sometimes I might have a day or two at 25 mg where it looked as if I might actually make it, but by the third day the ache in my gut was impossible to ignore.  So with tears -- and no small amount of rage -- I would start all over again.

I was lucky.  I only had to play A Very Serious Game Called Prednisone for six months.  By that time, it was determined that if 25 mg a day was not enough to inhibit symptoms, there was probably more going on than just inflammation and I had exploratory surgery.  They ended up removing 50 cm of ileum, and an abcess the size of a man's fist filled with all kinds of nasty.  The Prednisone never had a chance against an abcess.  When my Crohn's came out of remission after Sabina was born, there were other drugs avaiable, and I've been -- knock wood -- in pretty good shape since 1995.

But now Olive has diarrhea.  As I've mentioned before here, she has been sent home from school repeatedly for exceeding the daily diarrhea limit.  It's been going on, intermittently, for about six months, increasing very gradually until we got where we are now: Olive is sent home on average 2 days a week with diarrhea.

They tell you that when you hear hoof beats, you should look for horses.  But when your Mommy has Crohn's Disease and your late uncle had Crohn's, you tend to skip the horse search and instead look for Monty Python characters galloping through the forest, banging empty coconut shells together. 

Yesterday Olive went to the pediatrician who ordered a battery of tests.  Her CBC, white count, sed. rate and CRP test were all normal, which is very good news.  Next week we hear about the genetic test more specific to Crohn's, and giardia. 

I'm trying to make all kinds of backroom deals with God.  Dear God, please let it be giardia and I will not buy yarn until 2013.  Or, if it has to be something chronic, please let it be celiac disease.  If it's celiac, I'll buy Elisabeth's Hasselbeck's book and never mock her again.   But, please, God:  Olive has enough tsuris.  Please don't make her have to learn a Very Serious Game Called Rabbit.