Oh look I made something cute.

I made the baby a sweater:

I took that picture on my kitchen floor with my new phone (ask me sometime about spending two and a half hours on a Friday night in a Verizon store) so sorry the quality is shit, but damn, it's a cute sweater.

I made it from this pattern in a bulky wool-blend yarn (Bernat Roving, which is garbage and which I won't be using again) and knit it up in like two days. I wove in the ends last night and sewed on the buttons this morning. I just put a picture up on facebook and already have two requests for full-size versions. (That's an interesting thing about being a knitter - acquaintances think nothing of asking you to spend hours of your life lovingly crafting something for them.)

Up next I'm knitting the baby a dress out of the yarn we got at the fiber arts festival, then this sweater (probably in brown and cream), and then finally finishing the sweater that was supposed to be my mom's Christmas present last year.

The baby decided that today was a good time to learn to put herself down for a nap in the Pack and Play (she did so while I was sewing on the buttons), so that means I will probably get to squeeze in extra knitting time! Is there anything more delightful on a fall weekend?

What's your deal, Wednesday?

Today did its best to bring me down, y'all. It started 45 minutes earlier than it needed to, with a baby who was super mad at me because I can't make teething any easier and who would NOT go back to sleep. That threw off my morning pretty hard (Andy's too, since I needed him to corral her while I was in the shower instead of leaving while she was still asleep like he usually does). We were out of breakfast foods, so I stopped for an apple fritter, which made my stomach mad, which is bullshit because I'm a grown-ass woman and will eat a fritter for breakfast if I WANT. The coffee machine at my job ate my coffee money. The worker didn't call to tell me if there was a visit, which usually means there isn't, so when the daycare called to say Medical Motors had showed up I told them not to send her. Oh, but hey, there was a mix-up with the worker being in court and our usual clerk out, so the backup clerk called daycare and was snippy about YES THERE WAS A VISIT, so I called and then she was rude to me too.

Also, there was a big customer meeting at work all day, and my old biddy coworkers love any excuse to get excited, so there was a lot of noise in general, followed by the customers being given a tour through the office, including the usually-silent area in which I was trying to work. This isn't a huge deal, but it's a low level of constant annoyance.

Oh, and I'm fighting the cold that the baby brought home from daycare, which is putting a cramp in Operation Get Me Pregnant Again.

Andy knew I was trying to figure out a way to punch today in its face, so he stopped on the way home and got me flowers and a harvest pumpkin chocolate chunk cake (which is the best cake ever, duh). Then we left for our WIC appointment and while we were gone Pancakes somehow got on the kitchen table (climbed the high chair, maybe?) and ATE MY CAKE.

So when we got home, I gave the baby her bath and Andy went to Wegmans and got me another cake. No joke. And we just had a piece and watched an episode of Parks and Recreation, and we're going to bed early. I'm calling a do-over and starting again in the morning.

This post was a hell of a downer, right? Sorry about that. Here's some awesome news: My sister is having a girl! I'm going to have a third niece! I've been pushing hard for this one to have Rachael for a middle name too.

Hippie weekend and nine-month checkup

We had a pretty awesome weekend. On Friday night, we did nothing. We had an invite to go out to dinner and we turned it down to stay home and hang out quietly. We watched a movie called Extract, which we had never heard of but which stars Jason Bateman and Kristin Wiig and Mila Kunis and Ben Goddamn Affleck. Better than expected.

On Saturday we spent the day in a family friend's log cabin, making pickled beets. No joke. We made a smallish batch earlier in the year (May?) and absolutely flew through them. Turns out people like pickled beets - even Andy, an avowed beet hater. We brought a pint camping and they were gone that same night, and two people asked if we had any more. We've gone through six pints since May, so we decided to make a bigger batch to take us through the winter. We went a little overboard, though: we canned 10 quart jars and 14 pint jars full of chopped beets. (The recipe we used was from the Ball Blue Book, but it was a lot like this one, plus three cups of onions.) They get processed for half an hour so they're silky and spicy and delicious. Try them, even if you think you hate beets. Try them. Don't even halve the recipe if you think you hate them, because you'll find people who will happily snatch up your extra jars.

On Sunday, we spent the day at the Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Festival. It's my third time going but Andy's first, and by the time we left he was slightly less enthusiastic than I was. There is so much to see and touch and to lust after. My goal was to not buy any roving this year, and I'm proud to say I succeeded. I only got one skein of yarn, and I had Andy pick it out! He and I use color in very different ways, so it's neat to have him pick something out and see how it knits up. We got a skein of Bitsy Knits sock yarn in a colorway called Midnight Bells, which is grey and yellow and orange and red. It's destined to become a dress for the baby.

Today we had the baby's nine-month checkup, and she's doing fantastically well. The baby's dad didn't show up, despite being told about the appointment at least ten times. I was a little surprised that he didn't come, since he has been told that involvement in her medical care will be a factor if/when he files for custody. (Her mom was invited too but we didn't expect her to show up, since she still can't hold the baby since she's never proven she's been treated.)

Our girl's hitting just about all of her milestones and the doctors don't have any concerns. She got very, very mad about having to be stripped down to her diaper and even madder about getting a shot. The doctor got to see her have a little hissy fit, and when we asked about that (she throws herself around when she's super mad, which is scary as hell when she's slippery from her bath and doesn't want to be lotioned), the doctor laughed a little and said, "Good luck when she's two."

Permanency hearing

Today we had a permanency hearing at court. This is a fun meeting where the parties involved get to go over the permanency report compiled by the social worker a few weeks ago. Basically, it's a review of what progress has been made so far, and today we also dealt with the dispositional plan  for the mom and with the grandma's custody petition.

First, the progress report: no real progress by the mom, very minimal progress by the dad (and his progress is pretty much all since the report was written). The mom has actually missed some appointments and stuff, so one of the facilities involved won't even give her an appointment for six months. She's not in a great place right now, and all the possible interpretations of that sentence apply. The dad has had sporadic visits. He has to be in the building an hour and fifteen minutes before the visit starts, and he has managed that when he has to be there at 11:45, but not when he has to be there at 9:45. So he has had half of his possible visits in the last two weeks. He responded to a note I left him in the notebook we send to visits with a very positive note about how strong she's getting and how it must be the solid food, and thanking us for all we've been doing. After court today he came over to say hi and said that he was going to try to catch the worker and see if she could come inspect his house today, but then he walked right past her on his way out without saying a thing. He's very good at saying things that he thinks people want to hear, but we'll see what his longterm follow-through is like.

Second, the mom's dispositional plan. I think these are typically settled before the baby has been in care for eight months, but the custody issues with the brother complicated things, I guess, so this was just settled today. The short version is that this is a document that was drawn up months ago detailing the goals the mom would have to meet to get her kid(s) back. The mom officially consented to the plan today. Nothing on it changes but now she agrees that she must complete the items on it if she wants custody.

Third, the grandma's petition. She has officially withdrawn her custody bid for our baby for now. Her life has gotten more complicated in the last few months and she realized it 's better for her to focus on finding stable housing for herself and to resolve the custody stuff going on with the baby's brother before refiling the petition for her granddaughter. This is actually really self-aware and mature of her, and it means we don't have to go to trial so that's convenient for me.

So to summarize court: nothing changes for us. No surprise there.

It's been really trying for me to know that the dad could really file for custody at any minute. That uncertainty is especially rough when he does this pseudo-involvement. If he keeps up the regular visits and does the few things the county asks, he could get her back without much fuss, and that's his right. I do think that children belong with their families of origin when that's safe, and I think it's possible, even probable, that her dad could keep her mostly safe. But it gets complicated because of my head-over-heels bottom-of-the-deepest-ocean love for this girl, and my resentment that she's not important enough for him to make time for. I want him to want her enough to work really hard for her, and he totally isn't. I know that if I were asked to do anything to keep this kid, I would make it happen, and as quickly as possible. It's hard to convince myself that it would be in her best interest to leave us for him, even at the same time that I recognize I'm being selfish.

I've had three coworkers ask this week, super casual-like, some version of,"So do you still have that baby?" like it's no big thing if I don't. When I confirm that we do, they usually follow with some question about if that means we're adopting her. I know they don't know what they're talking about, but it's hard to explain quickly and politey over and over that we're nowhere near knowing about that.

I have no cohesive warp-up. I love my delightful perfect daughter and life with her is awesome and at the same time life as a foster parent is really hard, but not really hard the way I expected. The end.

On daycare

I really like having my kid in daycare. This is partly because I have a job so I don't have much choice, and partly because I’m a raging extrovert who gets really weird without grownup interaction. I know my limitations, and I don’t think being a stay-at-home parent would be a great fit for me.  My sister and I have been having conversations lately about in-home daycare vs. center-style, and I think there are a lot of benefits to either. (In our county, in-home daycares must be certified, and can choose to work directly through the county to accept foster kids, so we got a list of daycares, both in-home and center, to pick from in our area when we got certified to foster. Our kid goes to a branch of a center-style daycare about a mile from our house.)

All of that said, there are a few things that routinely bug me about our daughter’s daycare:

1. At least once a week, I have to hunt for her pacifier before we can head home. She has a pacifier clip. She enters the building with it clipped to her shirt every morning. Unless they’re changing her clothes (see next item) I don’t have any idea why they’d have to unclip it and leave it, say, on the bookcase, or draped over the arm of the bouncy zebra toy. I’m not in love with the baby being as attached to her pacifier as she is, but that’s our choice, not the daycare’s, and I don’t like having to hunt for it. Especially because I don’t usually notice it’s missing until she’s buckled into her carseat, so I have to unbuckle her, haul her back inside, and find a small item in a large room.

2. Lately, our girl has been resistant to wearing a bib at daycare. This is interesting, since she has never fussed about or pulled at a bib at home, with the very rare exception of when putting the bib on slows down the process of getting food into her face. Anyway, in the last week or so, the daycare has just let her eat without one. We do baby-led solids, which means our almost-nine-month-old gets a lot of chunks of fruits and veggies. So regardless of what she’s wearing, they let her eat peaches, sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli, green beans, whatever, without a bib. And then afterwards, after there’s a bunch of organic matter smushed into her clothes, they just change her into one of the backup outfits from her cubby. And stick the messy clothes into a grocery bag, tied shut. For me to deal with, up to eight hours later. This has meant a huge increase in the amount of Oxyclean I have to use on her clothes, which sucks because the baby has eczema and I try not to use synthetic shit on her clothes (and I haven’t been able to find a natural stain remover yet), and a doubling of the amount of clothes I have to wash for her every week. But I haven’t said anything, because I can’t tell if this is the battle I really want to pick. Maybe I should get a few thrift-store shirts in a bigger size for them to throw on like a smock?

3. This is the biggie. The usual lady who runs the baby room is on vacation this week, which coincides with the start of a new baby. Yesterday, I dropped our girl off to the usual backup lady, who we know and are comfortable with. The new baby was on the floor with a woman who I assumed was her mom. NOPE. It’s a new employee, who made very limited awkward small talk with me but who didn’t bother to even INTRODUCE HERSELF in the ten minutes I was there. She was there when Andy picked the baby up, and introduced herself to him, but no one at the daycare mentioned the baby would be with a new person (which, hi, attachment issues mixed with visits in the last few weeks, would have been fucking cool to have been notified of) and that she would be in charge of my kid. What the hell, daycare?

It feels weird telling people what to do, especially for someone who curses a lot but is painfully polite in real life, and it’s even weirder when you’re telling them to do something totally different from how everyone else does it. Explaining baby-led solids to the usual lady was not fun for me, nor was the conversation a few weeks ago where I realized they aren’t feeding her like we do (i.e., bottle of three or four ounces of formula plus three or four ounces of solids equals a meal – they’d been giving her small bottles at mealtimes and solids separately), especially when I called yesterday about the visit and they were doing it “their way” again.

What do you all think? Are these minor issues that I should just let go, knowing my kid’s well cared for and happy, even if it’s not the way I’d do it? Is slight adjustment part and parcel of having your kid in someone else’s care all day? Or do I speak up? Should I talk to the director about the food thing, or about the not-introducing-herself thing? What would you do?

I've missed you, Internet.

I'm typing this on my husband's iPad, which is weird to type on, but my laptop is telling me it can't find my operating system, so that's fun.

Since I last posted:
- We went camping. I'd link to old posts on that subject but I don't know how on this thing so you'll just have to search for them the old-fashioned way. It was exactly as stupid as I expected it to be, with the added bonus of the part where I managed to get stung by a goddamn bee on my goddamn INNER THIGH and spent four hours walking around like Yosemite Sam. (The bee flew between me and a chair I was in the process of sitting in. It wasn't to do with any sexy anything, because camping.) Also, I was the only person the whole time to get stung, and also the only person there who hated camping. Not funny, nature.
- I took advantage of the fact that we were living in the woods for three days to switch to a natural deodorant, because who the fuck cares what you smell like when you're living in the woods? It worked okay, but not terrific, so I finally gave in and embraced the crazy and this evening I made my own deodorant out of arrowroot powder, coconut oil, baking soda, and tea tree, lavender, and bergamot essential oils. I bought the arrowroot from the public market yesterday and the dude asked what I was using it for and I almost lied because I realize how crazy this shit is. He did tell me I was the first person he'd ever have buy it for that purpose. I'll let you know how it works.
- The baby cut her first two teeth, finally, at just over eight months old.
- The new teeth plus eating some acidic foods (ratatouille and pineapple) combined to give the poor kid some fucking awful diaper rash. Every time she poops she sobs. Heartbreaking. We've been doing a lot of naked time (actually, she usually has a shirt on to clip her pacifier to) and we bought extra Burt's Bees diaper rash cream.
- The baby had been visiting with her dad, who had been showing up late or not at all, even though he has to call the morning of the visit to confirm that he's coming. Last week he called to confirm and then didn't show, so starting this week if he wants to see his daughter (my brain just corrected that to "if he wants to see MY daughter"), he has to be in the visitation center an hour and fifteen minutes before the visit starts. If he's not, they call and cancel the baby's transportation. We'll see how he does. I'm really curious to see if he can make it work, because he has literally never been on time to anything I've attended.
- My sister, who is awesome, and her husband sent me and Andy a rosebush to plant in memory of the baby we lost. People have been overwhelmingly kind to us and we're very grateful. This has been especially difficult because I don't know if I mentioned this but said awesome sister is pregnant. Our due dates were five days apart. We were fucking psyched about this, so it was a huge blow to both families when we lost our pregnancy. Thankfully, everything looks really healthy on her end and I can be really happy for her while still grieving our loss. For no particular reason, I think she's having a boy and am psyched to find out in a few weeks if I'm right. I suggested Rachael as a middle name for this baby, regardless of sex, since it worked so well for their first kid (who is my goddaughter and whose middle name is Rachael, duh).
- Andy and I are doing pretty well and are starting to talk about trying to knock me up again. The trying is the fun part, after all, and we know there was nothing we could have done differently last time to change that outcome. We'll chat with my doctors about this at a checkup I have later this week.

As always after I take a short blogging break, this got way longer than I expected, especially because I keep trying to rest my fingers on the iPad keyboard and typing gibberish that I then have to erase. Hope you all are doing fucking fantastically well.

Slowly returning to life

This is going to be brief: We're doing moderate-to-okay, mostly. Some days are rough, some days are fine. Our friends and family have been heroes and very thoughtful and kind, which helps.

Our foster daughter had another visit with her dad, and the worker indicated that she thinks he's going to start stepping up, which means I've been freaking out about losing her too. The worker reminded me that saying isn't doing, but hey, it's something to worry about and we all know I'm good at that.

We're taking a long weekend this weekend and surrounding ourselves with people who love us, so that should be good.

How y'all doing?