Busy little bee

I've finished a few projects. First is the set that will be up for sale on Their Own Knitted World. This is a capri set knit using Lickety Stitch Purple Knit with buttons made by DigitDesigns (on Etsy). The capri's have a bell ruffle and a unique working button detail that allows you to add length in the form of an additional ruffle (which will be an option when they are listed). The shrug is the Little Girls Shrug pattern from Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure and Simple. I think this set is adorable and wish I had knit it in a size we could use if it doesn't not sell, sadly this is all approximately 18 months and wouldn't fit us here.

I also finished a Bel Cloche as part of a trade for Rain City Fibers, it came out amazing and I can't say enough about how amazing Tara's handspun yarn is. This was a merino silk blend I believe but I'm not sure on the colorway name. Look for some of her yarn featured in my instock item for May at Their Own Knitted World!

Right now I have a pair of small longies on the needles, using Yarnnoodles Ponderosa colorway on Cestari. Another project I am really enjoying and hope to having finished tomorrow.

Not much new going on with V she is still recovering well from surgery. It is hard to believe just looking at her that she had brain surgery 5 weeks ago but behavior wise and skills wise it isn't hard to remember. She is still mega hyper most of the time, but at least her sleeping has become better so we aren't dealing with mega hyper 3 1/2 year old until well past midnight. It seem post surgery I spend a good deal of our time in the car waiting for V at various therapies. She has speech twice a week for an hour, PT twice a week for an hour and OT once a week for an hour. Good thing little R is such a trooper and perfectly content to sit in her car seat and read books most of the time (although for a few of those we do go and run errands but they are all just far enough from home that coming home would mean turning around as soon as we get here to head back to pick up V). She is finally making huge amounts of progress in speech, in the last month she has made more progress in her speech therapy then she has since she began it a year ago. We are very happy with her progress and really hope that the auras she seems to be experiencing go away soon and do not turn into seizures.

Something for one of my kidlets

I finished a pair of longies for my youngest. These are WSK Madeline on Mountain Meadow. I've actually had them done since Sunday but I didn't get a chance until today to take pictures. This colorway is so nice and will match so many of her shirts. I'm working on a pair of shorties to list for sale with the leftovers!

I've been busy busy busy keeping up with everything for V. It feels like a full time job driving V to speech therapy, physical thereapy and occupational therapy every week. Oh and don't forget her special pre-k program twice a week. We took today off she is beat and needed a good nap and I have so many things I NEED to get done her but with our constant running I haven't had a chance to. She is doing great though, it looks like the surgery was a success she hasn't had a seizure in nearly a month now. Totally amazing that she has recovered this quickly and is doing so well, everything about her astounds me.

Plenty to show for my time

We are back from V's surgery and it went really well, it was definitely stressful but now that it is behind us I am glad that it is done. While I we were down there I got a lot of knitting done. I finished the pair of overalls. These are done with Cestari in the sage color and knit using the Foggy Mountain overalls pattern in the 12 months size. I have some darling little wooden buttons coming and then I will post final shots of this pair of overalls. I also started working on another pair of longies for our youngest -- they are done with WSK Madeline on Mountain Meadow Wool (my favorite base for my kids it seems to go on forever, it stands up just as well as Cestari and it is far easier on my hands to knit).

A sweater just for tapping.

Another finished project -- a "tap" sweater for my oldest. She picked the dark purple color and has now requested leg warmers to match. A friend gave me some vintage pattern books and there are two entire booklets dedicated to leg warmers so I plan on making her some rocking 80's style leg warmers. She is pretty happy with her new little sweater!

It's me!!

Finally an action shot of the sweater I finished for myself. This is the Elysium pattern and I knit this with some Universal Deluxe Worsted weight yarn I bought awhile ago. I really love the fit and weight of this sweater, it is comfortable and warm without being too much. I wore it to my part time teaching job today and my co-workers loved it, definitely a keeper. I think I've caught the sweaters for me bug, it is nice to be able to custom fit a sweater to my body instead of buying things off the rack the kind of fit. Plus I really love wearing things that I have made. On the needles now is a small Tap Sweater as my daughter calls it (really a ballet wrap), that should be finished this evening and then onto a pair of overalls (the yarn just came today).

The surgery is next week, which is such a mix of emotions. Excited that it is finally here but terrified that we are at this point. Working hard to get everything here at the house squared away for my parents who are watching the other two girls and make sure we have everything we need for our trip. We haven't explained too much of what will happen to V, she knows she is going to see the doctors but we haven't really explained about the surgery. She does seem to understand that this will help her and she is excited about getting to go to Boston again.

Sweet little sweater

Finished the sweet little Manda Ruth and snapped a quick picture, it still needs to be blocked before I post a full shot but this should give you an idea of what an adorable sweater this became. I'm also working on the sweater for me I imagine that will be finished today or tomorrow and then I will probably move on to a pair of overalls and a zip up hooded vest for L.

February begins tomorrow and that means we'll be 15 days out from the surgery. V's behavior is out of control as always, and I really hope things calm down after the surgery. I've been a bit torn lately about writing about our journey and how much to discuss and show. I'm really sensitive to the fact that at some point V (hopefully) will be a typical kid and do something like google her name (or her friends will) and I don't want all of this to pop up for everyone to see, this is her story and her journey and when she is old enough she should have the right to decide who she shares it with. However, there are other families going through this and I know when we knew this surgery was coming I was hunting for other folks who were writing about the process and how they handled everything. I wanted to read as much as I could about everything, so on some level I do NEED to share this now without her permission. So I walk a fine line, that is why I never use her name, and why up until this point there are no pictures of her (although that will change I do plan on putting some pictures up soon). I want to post a few short videos of her seizures because I think folks need to see that seizures aren't always what we think they are, sometimes they don't really look like seizures at all. I do not want to perpetuate that idea that epilepsy and seizures are something to be hidden, but the idea of posting videos of V seizing makes me uncomfortable, it is a private and personal thing and I am not sure if I want to put that out for the world to see. As the surgery date approaches though I do feel the need to share a bit more about V so she isn't just an anonymous person having epilepsy surgery but a real child with real parents, real siblings, and real grandparents and aunts and uncles who care deeply about her.

Mine!

A work in progress shot of the sweater I am knitting for myself. So far I love it and I'm excited to finally get to wear something I've made. I bought this yarn about a year ago and intended to make myself a February Lady sweater with it but when the yarn arrived it was a tad too busy for that sweater. I almost sold this yarn off a few times because I just couldn't figure out what it wanted to be -- then I stumbled on Elysium. It seems this yarn wants to be an Elysium.

On the V front we are still in waiting mode. It looks we can now consider her fifth med a failure, she is back to having almost daily seizures maybe one or two good days in there and her behavior is just as off the wall as it was on Keppra. She is so close to her surgery though that it isn't worth it to wean her off this one and wean her onto another one so for now we are in a holding mode and just waiting for February 16th. This surgery can't come fast enough just this week V has become aware that something is different about her, and it breaks my heart. Every morning she asks why she has to take medicine but her sisters do not, and at least daily she asks me what she is sick and tells me she wants to be better. I am so glad we are just a few weeks out from surgery watching her realize she is different is far harder then I thought it would be. I was naive in thinking that she wouldn't even begin to ask these questions and I really should have prepared better for it. The reality of her what her future holds becomes a bit scarier every day.