Thursday, September 6, 2007

Squishy things.

Like my heart these days. I swear that I bust out into tears at the smallest thing - was watching CSI last night and was crying because there was a little boy asking for his Mommy (murder victim). Mr. Ninja eyeballed me oddly, then gave me a hug. Even though he knows that I'm technically insane, he loves me still. Very reassuring. But onto the crafts.

Had a bit of a blast from the past yesterday - was possessed by the need to make some cloth diapers. Most of you wouldn't know this, but I came to knitting through a rather circuitious route. I started making cloth diapers when Mr. Munchkin was very young, and even had my own cloth diaper business for awhile (www.bubblebums.ca - now defunct, but if anyone wants a magnet with the logo, lemme know. I'd love to get rid of some of them.) I gave it up when I moved to Halifax, as I didn't have my sewing equipment set up for the longest time when we first moved here.

And the knitting, you ask? How does that figure in? Well. A little personal history first.

My Mum had a yarn store in a small town outside Toronto when we were growing up. So, many a Saturday afternoon of my youth was spent in the back of a yarn store. I think that the resentment from this involuntary induction into knitting (and living in homemade sweaters when I yearned for the storebought sweaters of my contemporaries - what? I was a fickle teenager and just wanted to fit in) made me swear off knitting for a long long time.

(Mom, if you ever read this - I just wanted to say that I still have several of the sweaters that you knit me and that they're amongst my favourites now. They are treasured because everytime I wear one, I know that you really are the best mother ever. No one would knit a sweater with intarsia roses with 8 shades of pink unless they really truly loved the person wearing it.)

Anyway, I started knitting again after Mr. Munchkin was born, because I was absolutely determined to keep him in cloth diapers. I would launch into a tirade about how bad disposable diapers are for babies and the Earth, but that's another post entirely. So. With cloth diapers, you need the actual diaper plus a cover. Enter knitted wool covers. If treated with lanolin, they are waterproof, breathable and pretty darn cute. I got sucked into knitting "soakers" (what the wool covers are called in the bizzare little world of cloth diapering), and it just all snowballed from there.

So now that I'm gestating again, I have an inkling that this time around it'll be a girl. (What is WITH Nova Scotia hospitals not telling you what gender the baby is? Last I checked, this isn't the medieval ages - gender doesn't mean squat.) While I know that it's silly to start making things for someone I'm not going to meet for another 6 months, I can't help myself. I had these diapers cut out ages ago, and finally decided to sew them up. Cute, no? I can't wait to see these on a squishy baby butt.

And as for knitting? Best knitting spot in the world.

On the deck, looking out over the ocean and enjoying the breeze. That's the second sock of the pair that I started last week. Christmas gift #1 almost done!

8 comments:

FrozenExtremities said...

Cloth diapers rule (coming from someone who has never had to actually wash cloth diapers, but that's besides the point.) And those are some wicked cute diapers.

I'll take a magnet or two off your hands!

Megan said...

I think the rationale for the not telling you what the baby's sex is was made for two reasons:

1. some ultrasounds were taking a long time if the baby wasn't cooperating using up technician time with fewer patients

2. To prevent selective abortions for people who already had 6 boys and really wanted a girl, but alas, was pregnant with another boy - or something like that.

Great di-dees!

Steph said...

Love, love, love the new diapers. They're adorable.

I sent Lesley a link to a site called Crankypants - if you search the name it's the first hit - I think you'll like them, nesting mommy.

Squishy squish.

Alison said...

I'll take a magnet! And I think Meegiemoo is right about the rationale, I have heard both of those reasons. Also, that people were having unnecessary ultrasounds because the baby wasn't cooperating in the first ultrasound. I know before they started (stopped, actually!) doing that, I'd heard horror stories about how long you ended up waiting for your ultrasound because they'd be running so late. There is a clinic that you can go to that will tell you gender (for a cost of course!. I know at least one person who was impatient enough to do that! And if you go upstairs to the 7th floor for any reason (ie if you're high risk), they'll tell you there.

Me, I had already decided that I wouldn't want to know gender before I ever got pg. So it didn't bother me much when they stopped telling you. In fact, it just removed the temptation to give in!

Alison said...

Meggiemoo, di-dees? That's what they say in Rolie Polie Olie. Is that where you got it, or is that something that people have always said but I'd never heard until Rolie Polie Olie?

Anonymous said...

Squishy baby bums :)

My parents' have an adirondack chair that's shaped like a fish (head at top of back rest, and a foot stool makes the tail). My dad will not sit in any other chair on their deck. Its that awesome.

AvenSarah said...

I was really mad that the hospital wouldn't tell me the gender (in NS) -- because they made it clear that they *could* tell from the ultrasound, but wouldn't tell me. How is it right for the technician and doctor to know, but not the parents? (If they want to know, of course). I would have accepted if they'd said they couldn't tell, but really. And (for other reasons entirely) I had to have three ultrasounds, anyway, before I was 24 weeks -- so that was hardly an issue!

Of course, then we moved back to Toronto, and had another ultrasound (again for medical reasons) and the technician told me right away, and was shocked that I'd been refused the knowledge.

And really -- how many people have abortions for gender in Nova Scotia? And if they want to -- it's legal, isn't it? (Not that I would do it, in fact it creeps me out to think about it -- but where does a hospital get off deciding what *legal* things I can or can't do?)

Sorry, that rant's been on my mind for a while. But I love the diaper covers!

lulubelle said...

I'm not so sure about the whole abortion answer (especially since most ultrasounds happen after the deadline for abortion)...but there is a story going around about a hospital that was sued because parents were told one gender, prepared for said gender and were suprised by the other. Don't know if it's true or not, but there you go.
Most techs and nursing staff will tell you that it's a stupid blanket rule they wish would be discarded. One of those "I see your point, but really it makes no sense". A better solution would be to only tell the gender if it was seen during the course of the routine ultrasound exam and not spend extra time looking for it.
Anyway...
love the diapers :)