I Fought the Octopus and the Octopus Won...

So I saw the coolest scarf for a little kid online on this way cool website http://www.etsy.com/ and had to make it for my best friend's little girl, Eliot, for her third birthday. It came out so cool and I had enough yarn I decided I had to make one for my nephew, Greg, too!

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The scarf online looked like a sea monster had swallowed the little girl's neck and with my pinkish yarn it looked more like a octopus. It was a hit with Eliot and it was so easy that I had another one made a week later. When I finished it I couldn't wait to see how it looked because I had made it smaller to accomodate a babies head. I put it on Padon and couldn't stop laughing. I lauged so hard I cried. Both Walter and my Dad thought it was pretty funny.

(This is really the last picture I took but with the look on his face it looks like it is starting to swallow his head so I had to put it first. )

When I made the scarf for Eliot I included a tag with a limerick on it so she would know what to do with this strange scarf and I did the same for Greg. I think I will have to do this for each scarf I make, if I make more, because it is just too fun.

In Monroe lives a girl Eliot;

Who kissed an octopus without regret.

When the octopus swallowed her crown

And around her neck did slide down,

Not afraid she just smiled and pet it.

(not Eliot, but the picture I put on her tag)

In Frederickson lives a boy named Gregory

Who saw an octopus for a small fee.

Entralled it hugged and caressed his face,

And around his neck did find a place,

To sit and snuggle; a site you see most rarely.

OMG, Why Didn't Someone Tell Me??!!

Oh Ma Gawd readers! Why is it that someone will point out your necklace is on backwards with the clasp hanging down but they won't tell you they can see your breast pads through your shirt?! I so wish I had a camera with me right now.

I got to work this morning at 7:30 and at 10:00 went down to the designated private room in my building where you can take a short cat nap, or use a breast pump and as I turned to shut the door behind me I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. ACK! You could see them so clearly through my pink blouse there is no question to what they are. Now, I had spoken to at least 6 people this morning between arriving to work and making my excursion downstairs to relieve the pressure. Why didn't anyone tell me, "Hey, did you know you can see your breast pads?" I once spent 20 minutes walking around Bellevue Square Mall before a lovely woman pulled me aside and told me that my skirt was tucked in my stalkings in the back. Lucky for me my skirt was layered and some how I had managed to tuck the top layer into my waist band and so my bottom was covered by the second layer, but 20 minutes people?! Do you know how many hundreds of people I walked by?

Lucky for me I keep a suit jacket at work, in the event I have to go to the executives floor where if you care about your job and ever moving up in the company you will wear a suit jacket, and I was able to put it on and then dash to the bathroom to confirm that everything was appropriately concealed.

I implore you sympathetic readers, please don't let people pass you by with huge wardrobe malfunctions; unless of course you know the person and you have some personal vendetta.

How is it that I could be pregnant and go 6 months with people telling me my clothes were getting smaller, I was looking bigger, and that my baby was going to be a big baby and not a single person could get the guts to say today " I can see you breast pads so well that it is obvious that they are two different sizes. You might want to do something about that."

Believe me the humiliation of someone telling you that you have inadvertently flashed the world will be much less then hours passing by and then discovering it on your own.

Warren War Was Great!

I forgot that Warren War was in Ferndale this year. Ferndale is roughly 1/2 hour south of the Canadian border which sounds really far north but is only about an hour north of us. So the event was much closer than the last one and allowed us to stay longer. Since it was closer, Walter and Padon left without me and I met up with them later that evening, after work.
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Padon again was great and the people in our group that were unable to make it to Honey War were able to fawn all over him while Walter put up our tent and put away out camping gear.


Katelyn is holding Padon in the picture and she has a little girl, Ally (6 yrs old), who is such a lover of babies that she boasts owning over 100 baby dolls at home. Needless to say she couldn't wait to see and hold Padon. I was totally cool with it because she might have died from the torture of not getting to fawn over and play mother to Padon and she always is a pleasure to have in camp. She was very gentle and worked hard at holding Padon's 12 lb (?) weight corretly, supporting his head the best she could in my camping chair. After our camping trip the whole group went to Red Robin where Ally had to sit by Padon and I swear Padon is going to marry Ally when he grows up because he adores her. He laughed and smiled at her the whole time we were in the resturant and all she had to do was stick a piece of lettace in her mouth. I don't know what it was but he couldn't get enough of her and woulnd't look at anyone else.


The kids couldn't get over Padon's play time consisting of his little legs and arms sporadically moving all over the place. Ally, Talon, and Matthew all felt they needed to hold his legs down to keep them from kicking and it was hard to explain why (I don't know why) it was that he felt in enjoyment at wriggling all over the place.
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Saturday night I sat with the kids during children's bardic and while I didn't participate it was cool to think that Padon was attending his first children's bardic.

Children's bardic starts at 8:00pm and consists of some "period" children songs, and the kids telling stories and singing songs they have heard or made up. It lasts an hour and then they have to go to bed so we can have our own bardic circle which usually includes alcohol and lots of bawdy songs; hence the need for the kids to go to bed.

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Walter fought again in Warren War and had a blast. The idea behind Warren War is that our Barony, Aquaterra (Snohomish County), does not want to reclaim land that the Barony of Lionsgate and Shire of Shittumwoode (Watcom County) also do not want to relaim, but have had to maintain. Whom ever looses has to take responsability for the land (can't remember what it is called) until the following year when we all battle it out again. (There is more to this story, I just can't find the run down for it.) For the past two years Aquattera has won hands down and Shittimwoode has had to keep the land. We kicked butt again this year and won all the war senarios but lost almost all the "small stuff" as one of our household dubbed it (Siege Cooking, Archery, Throwing Weapons, and some drinking game I have forgotten the name of). Each "contest" however is worth a war point and at Court the points are added up and the Baron and Baroness from both Baronies announces the winner and hands out all kinds of prices for all the contests. Because Aquattera had done so poorly in the other contests, regardless of the fact that we won all the war senarios, the Barony of Lionsgate won and we now have to take responsability for the unwanted land.Walter felt like he had done some of his best fighting, though, and came away feeling really good. He is the guy on the right hand side and Jason, his friend, is on the left. Jason had helped him remake his armor which had been all stainless steel and weighed roughly 80 lbs. Now it is 3/4 heavy leather and 1/4 stainless steel, including his helm. I think this had a lot to do with his success as he couldn't get over the amount of mobility he regained now that his armor wasn't pinching him and weighing him down.

Roadie wasn't as good as she was at Honey War. She started out good but then during the night, on Saturday, she caught wind of the four dogs that had gotten away from their camp and who had been coming and going all night long looking for garbage to get into and she wouldn't behave after that. When I let her out to go to the bathroom she wouldn't come when called and ran off and peed in the middle of someones encampment. I was so pissed and she knew it. She came running back to our camp when I told her to come and hid in our tent. I so wanted to find those other dog owners and give them a talking to. Rumor was they all came from the same camp.

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Next weekend we travel back down to Randle for September Crown.

The Smiles Just Keep On Coming...It's Just So Awesome!

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GQ Daddy

Whats up with this pose? Doesn't he look like a natural?





Here we have Walter; he is sporting a 100% lambs wool, cranberry red, sweater with an accent of ash gray on the trim around the neck and wrist. He brings out the color in his ensemble by carrying the hottest new accessory to hit the market yet, a cornflower blue baby, slung comfortably over his right shoulder; ready to hit the streets at a moments notice.

If I Lend Out my Baby Does That Mean I Get A Raise?

My boss threw a fabulous BBQ for our department as a Summer Party and a lot of my co-workers brought their families. It was really great to see everyone dressed down and I really love the opportunity for people to see me as I really am and not in business dress which really isn't my character.

Everyone was super excited to see Padon since last they had seen him was when he was 8 days old. He, of course, was passed around and my boss and his wife had to take a moment to take a picture, joking that the picture was going to be their Christmas card. I jokingly offered to let them keep him for a week and was promptly turned down.


Padon was fabulous! He didn't throw up on anyone, only cried because he was hungry and smiled and smiled and smiled at my boss and anyone who would smile back at him. He managed to contain all his usual copious amounts of mucus until we put him in his car seat to go home and then he appropriately spit up all overhimself twice like a baby gyser. It couldn't have been more perfect.

He Just Keeps Getting Better and Better

It is true. The over whelming sense of love that you have for your own child is amazing and makes the thought of a second child mind numbing. How could you share the love you have for this one with another?
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Padon warms my heart and everyday gets better and better.

Honey War - First Camping Trip

Honey War was the first SCA event that we were able to go to since Padon was born and we were super excited to go. Our desk top computer died leaving us without access to the internet and we hadn't been able to check our groups forum to see if anyone else was going but in either case we knew we were going.
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Walter was amazing and packed up, all by himself, our beast of a vehicle, a 76' GMC Jimmy, with a plethora of car camping paraphernalia (SCAers are serious car campers and often come with a full car and trailer worth of items for one weekend) and came and picked me up after work for our 3-4 hour trip to the camp ground where the event was being held. The truck was so full you could barely see that there was a baby mixed in with the items.

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I-5, however, was under construction and in such a way that it promised to make our trip home miserable so we decided to try out the alternative route I had mapped online at work. It worked great until we reached the north side of Mount Rainer National Forest and drove by a sign that said the connecting hwy, HWY 123, was closed. We drove by the sign so fast, however, that it was more like a "hummmm.....did that sign say 123 was closed? Well if that's the case there has got to be another sign between here and there that will confirm it..." There was, 1/2 mile before we needed to take the highway. It was a bit of a shocker because the only way then to get to the camp ground was to drive two hours out of our way to drive around to the camp ground. This was a great test to Padon's strenghts as a roadtripper. Walter had left our house at 3pm, picked me up at 4:45, we had then fed Padon, and intended to be at the camp ground about 7:30. We didn't roll into camp until 11:00pm. Padon was awesome. When we would slow down to roll through a small country town you could hear him start to smack his pacifier with telltale signs that he was on the road to a hungry melt down and then we would be out of town picking up speed and our bad shocks and loose steering wheel would lull Padon back to sleep. We did have to make one last stop, in Naches, to feed him, but I couldn't get over how awesome he was for the trip.

When we rolled into the camp ground, in Randle, we were pleasently surprised to see, through the fog that there was a camp with flaming torches and that half of our household had made it to the event. They were super exicited to see us and even more so because we had brought the baby. They helped us unpack and set up our canvas pavilion and soon we were sitting around the fire chatting. It was colder than I had hoped it would be but we bundled Padon up in two layers of clothes, including socks on his hands and feet, and then wrapped him in two fat and fluffy receiving blankets with a hat on his head. We went to bed on our air matress with Walter in his mummy bag and Padon and me in mine. It couldn't have worked out any better.



The next morning everyone got ready for battle. The site for Honey War was 300 acres and they had opened up a large part of the camping field for people to come and camp. They had opened up way more space then there were campers, however, and so everyone was really really spread out. It was kind of a bummer because usually everyone is in relatively close proximity and it inspires people to come around, chat, and hang out. Everyone seemed secluded and it made the feel of the event a little ackward. Not ackward enough not to mock battle to their hearts content in various senarios, however, and by 11:00am everyone was suited and ready to have their armour inspected by the marshalls for saftey.

A good time was had and everyone came back satisfied, albeit frustrated with the knights for giving the fighters flack about having archers in the mix of fighters (awe things that bug SCA people).

Padon and I hung out in camp which was really wonderful because I could sit in the sun and/ or shade and knit and soak in the realxing vibes that being away from the modern ("Mundane" to an SCAer) world brings. Walter and I had bought a little baby tent for Padon to keep him out of the sun in the event we wanted to go outside and work on our yard and this tent worked great on the camping trip too.



He was so funny because as the wind blew through our camp it made his tent wiggle around and he got endless enjoyment out of watching it sway over his head. He just smiled and smiled until he fell asleep.
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On Sunday I slept in. Well I tried to in between playing pacifier catcher and soother, but it was nice not to be getting up at the crack of dawn.



I had forgotten how many of us had a long trip to go to get home and everyone started packing up early so we could all go have lunch together and make our way home. It felt really "period" with Padon strapped to my front in the Maya sling clutched on as I helped Walter break down and fold our tent. He slept through the whole thing.

Roadie was amazing the whole weekend as well. Usually she whines a lot because she is used to being off leash in an acre running and running. Also the inability to control the coming and goings of the group makes her herding mind go batty and sometimes the incessant whining makes you want to go crazy. But this weekend she lounged around with our friends dog, Chaos, and was really really well behaved. I don't know if this was because she had to lay in the wheel well, where my feet were, for what must have felt like an eternity for her, on the way down to the camp ground , but we made sure she got a lot of special and wonderfully doggy scrumptious treats to let her know how super grateful we were that she was so mellow and well behaved.

We get to do this all over again (without the 8 hour trip) the weekend after next for Warren War (nope, not named after us) and we are really looking forward to it. It was so easy this time we hope that it be this way everytime.

The Many Stages of Baby Picture Taking

When all you wanted was a smile...

Grandpa's Are So Snuggly

I love seeing my Dad with Padon. There is just something so cool about it and I love seeing Padon enjoy being with him.

Eatting With A Baby Is Doable

While I have realized that I have digressed to having to once again have my food cut up for me, into small bite size pieces, so I can better multi-task eatting and taking care of a baby, I find the hair at the back of my neck stand up as my food is handed to me in a juvenile fashion. And just as juvenile I want to stamp my foot and say "I can cut up my own chicken, steak, pizza, etc. myself thank you very much!" So when I can complete a meal without any help, and cutting, while balancing a baby on my lap, with bottle, and not cause harm to anyone I feel pretty proud. ( I know, I will get over this...) I found Walter in just a situation; enjoying his dessert. While these small adventures may see catastrophe 70% of the time it is still fun to see how eatting can be achieved this time, albeit frustrating.

Male Animals Are More Likely To Eat Their Young

Why is it that male animals are more likely to eat their young? I find it hysterical that the two new Dad's in our family, who are both hugely responsible for taking care of their babies, have been both caught acting as though eatting their young is both a possibility and something that could happen at any moment.

Thank goodness we know they both are silly and very loving and responsible Dads.

Now That I'm Not Pregnant Any More I Can Say...

I was huge!

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Anyone who knows me well, or probably even just a little bit, knows that by the 5th month of my pregnancy I was very hypersensitive to people's comments at how big I was and how big my baby was going to be. I tried to let it go and not let it bother me but I couldn't help but take it as an affront to my ability to have a healthy baby. People around me were commenting on how much they had gained and over gained in their pregnancies and I couldn't help the need to justify myself every time someone commented on my girth.

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I did a fantastic job of gaining weight, meaning, I gained exactly as much as I was supposed to. They say on average you should gain 25 to 35 pounds. I entered the hospital at 32 lbs. I also didn't carry high or low, but straight out in front. I felt judged. I felt like my baby was being judged and he didn't even get to prove himself yet. Even when the baby had dropped in my abdomen so low that my doctor was concerned he might come out faster than I could make it the 10 blocks to the hospital, from my work, coworkers were commenting on how they didn't think he had dropped enough.

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Come to think of it, a couple weeks before I had Padon I passed, at the Bus Transit Center, some strange man who took one look at me and said "Hhheeeeyyyyy!" (Like Wanda from In Living Color; for those of you old enough to remember the TV show) "Hang in there girl!" I have no idea what face I was making as I weeble-wobbled myself through the station on my way to work, but I hadn't realized that I was exuding my tiredness and achiness.

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So now that Padon has been born a small (to me), 7 lbs 2 oz, and two months later I have just about lost all of my pregnancy weight I look back at the pictures and see, well yes, I was rather large. In some pictures I do look down right huge. I can tell you now, though, that were I to get pregnant again I think I may be as sensitive again. I know that I shouldn't be but I can't get over people's audacity to comment on weight and looks when otherwise it would be culturally unacceptable.

All fairness to Walter, in this picture, he is being silly and making himself look pregnant.

I love him!

Baby Shower Pictures

My very fabulous and extraordinary friend, Erin, threw me a fabulous baby shower on the 20th of May. Ton's of pictures were taken but until recently I hadn't seen any of them.

That'll teach me not to bring a camera....

Looking back over them brings great memories of all the wonderful people that were able to come and the good time that we had.

Erin put out such a spread of delicious food: Fresh enormous strawberries, her mom made a delicious walnut cake (yumm just thinking about it), asparagus, cheese and mushroom quiche, and other wonderful things I can't remember...

Not only was it awesome having wonderful friends like Liz , Leah, and Judy come , but my Aunts, Mom, and Sisters too were able to share the special day with me. My Aunt Barbara came out from New York and I was so touched that she was able to come.

Milred, Barbara, Mom, Me, Jane, Sarah

The party also made for a wonderful opportunity to get an updated picture of myself and my sisters, together.

I can't believe how awesome everyone was and Walter and I were given everything we could possibly need for Padon. We have yet to buy him clothes and have only purchased a couple things, making him, so far, a pretty cheap baby.

My friends and family are so awesome, I just love'm!

Dad's Birthday

Happy 53rd Birthday Dad!

Back together again!

I don't think that's milk he's drinking...
Often the best way to console an inconsolable and gassy baby is to fly him.
No really! Just try it!

Did you see me swimming in the lake??!! I was swimming!
Did you see me getting eatten alive by the mosquitos? They were every where.....
Nice comfy snuggles...or my hair is stuck in your beard like velcro....

Yep, time to go home...