Weekend Catch Up

So I'm going to attempt to make a more regular thing of catching up the blog on finished products of the crafted variety. Since I've finished it since the first post, I should share the finished Elsa sweater, yes?

It's done!

I learned a lot about charting while making this sweater. For those interested, the sweater itself minus my charts, is Paper Dolls by Kate Davies. I added some snowflakes to the hem and cuffs, and totally reworked the yoke to depict Elsa, the north mountain and 4 different snowflake charts. It involved two handed Fair Isle, duplicate stitch, and intarsia. It is not a good chart for a beginner.

You'll have to excuse the rushed photo, I was excited.

Elizabeth was beyond thrilled.

Napping baby

As she is known to do on weekends, Rosalyn passed out on Nick's shoulder for her morning nap. The last few weeks we have been settling her down on a makeshift palette on the floor of the living room while she sleeps, but today Nick just sat himself down in a chair and left her cradled in his arms. I looked over at him, and he said "I was going to put her down but I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to do this."

And as I looked at her, legs spilling over his arm, little head barely balanced on the crook of his elbow, I realized, he's right. She's growing up way too fast.

She's only a hair over 8 months old now, but is well over 30 inches tall, has been making her way everywhere with a low crawl that would make any Drill Sargent proud, and pulls up to her knees on anything that will stop moving long enough. She still doesn't have many clear words aside from "mama" and "dada" but she's trying to say "nurse" and "cat" and understands a lot. She's eating solids with more aplomb than her sister ever did, and one of these days might finally cut that third tooth.

Where has the time gone?

I stumbled across an old picture of Elizabeth yesterday while looking for my oldest project on Ravelry. She might have been 2 and a half in the picture. She didn't have her glasses yet, was all bright eyes and short wavy blonde hair, wearing her favorite dress at the time.

I just can't get over how little she is. I've looked at her baby pictures recently. Looking at how much she and her sister looked alike at any given age. (The answer is a resounding "ish") It didn't resound as much as this picture. I can easily understand that she's no longer the pre-walking toothless baby that she used to be. But for some reason there's just this huge disconnect between baby-Elizabeth, and Kindergarten-Elizabeth. Probably for that very reason. I'm in denial. My baby isn't a baby anymore. She's in elementary school. She's hit a milestone, arguably her biggest since she started preschool 3 years ago. (which coincidentally, was shortly after the picture above was taken) 

And now Rosalyn is, with all good fortune, following in her sister's footsteps at a cheetah's pace. Where Elizabeth was perfectly content to just sit and watch and never crawl at all, Rosalyn only stops moving when she's asleep. Both girls are wearing a few sizes above where their age says they should wear. (Elizabeth is wearing a 7 or Small at 5 years, and Rosalyn's been in 18 month size since she was 6 months old)  At times I wonder how tall they'll end up. I'm above average height for a woman at 5'8.5" and Nick's about average for a guy at 5'8". Will they end up taller than both of us? Will they ever stop growing? 

I never understood how people say "I can't wait" when it comes to kids growing up, etc. I hate the idea of wishing time away when you can't go back and pick it up later. Am I curious? Yes. Am I more than a little nervous? Oh yeah. 

Can I wait? Absolutely.

I was drinking my cup of tea this morning and trying to wake up while catching up on Facebook. Any form of social media has been recently swarmed with the news of Robin Williams' death, favorite movie quotes he made, and videos of some of his movies. What happened along side these posts were heartfelt notes about reaching out, talking to someone, anyone if you had suicidal thoughts. And then I came across Matt Walsh's response. 

I could go on and on about what he said, but you're better off going and reading it, and then coming back here to finish this. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Done? Okay. Sorry about that. What you've read is pretty much the furthest from the truth. But it's important, I feel, to understand how some inexperienced people see depression. They may say they see it as a disease, but as Mr Walsh has clearly implied, it's one we can simply shake ourselves out of with happy thoughts and a little faith, hope, and pixie dust. There's always hope, he said. 

As someone who's struggled against depression and suicidal thoughts, let me just say when you're at the bottom of the barrel, there is no hope. When you feel alone in a large crowd of people you don't have hope, you don't have joy, you don't have love. You don't have anything but the bone crushing, lung burning despair, that obliterates every happy thought you've ever had in your entire life. That's the disease. That is what causes lives to end in suicide. Anyone who says it's not the disease that ends the life has never experienced severe depression firsthand. 

I've seen a lot of people say that taking your own life is selfish. 

It's tragic, it's preventable, it's a disservice, but don't call it selfish. Calling it selfish, especially to someone who struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts, it adding more guilt to an already stressed psyche. Depression is riddled with guilt. So riddled in fact, that it's nearly transparent with it. Conquering it, in part, at least for me, was learning to let go of the guilt, to not let it overpower my life. Both literally and figuratively speaking. It's learning to be a little selfish. In a way, depression may be only thinking about yourself, but trying to get over depression is actually thinking about yourself. 

Okay, now for good news; innocent bystanders, you can do something. You can talk. You can listen. You can absolutely not stand idly by while someone you love, like, or even have seen in passing at work spirals out of control. You can smile at someone who looks like they're having a bad day. You can ask people "how are you?" and actually care how they answer it. If someone says "fine" and looks not fine, then try to figure out why. 

Battling depression isn't about giving someone "something to live for", because everyone has that on some level. Everyone, every single person, has the potential to have something fantastic that makes life "worth living". What that is depends on the person. Fighting depression is finding out what works to get you beyond letting those thoughts control your life. For some people it's medication. For me, medication had the opposite effect, and counseling was the way to go. Some people need sunlight, some need faith, and some need long periods of introspection. Everyone's different, that's why people are still struggling with depression. 

In ways, I still struggle. I still have moments of illogical despair. I occasionally have a few lingering thoughts that keep me up at night, but they aren't accompanied by suicidal thoughts anymore. I just have to remind myself that I'm stronger than my depression. That I can and will stop thinking that way, because its not healthy. Being really stubborn helps me 'reset' myself. But my new way of thinking took years to get right. It took talking to several professionals. Deciding that I didn't like their imagery of storing bad thoughts in a trash can. (My thoughts are still not trash, doctor) Discovering my anti-depressants were what were making me act on my suicidal thoughts, and deciding to discontinue taking my medication. Finding a councilor. And seeing years later, that it wasn't a choice. It was a war. One I was lucky enough to win.

The Beginning, a very good place to start.

It occurred to me as I was sitting on my couch this afternoon, trapped under a peacefully sleeping baby, (trapped, because the rule with sleeping babies at my house is that you don't wake them) that I should start a blog. 

Why a blog? Why does anyone blog? To get information out into the world wide web. To vent about this, that, and the other. Oh man, "the other" gets a lot of gossip. There are endless possible reasons for one to start a blog. Being positioned on the precipice of my blog, who can say what it will evolve itself into? A few things I can tell you with certainty: I'm a mom, and I'm a crafter. My girls (5 years and 6 months) take up most of my time, and my husband, Nick, is lucky enough to get the rest. You'll likely hear them mentioned from time to time. I'm active on Ravelry and spend 99.9% of my time there in the HPKCHC. I go by elizabethsmommy, and you may add me if you'd like. I'd be lying if I said I won't post pictures of yarn, or projects I'm working on. 

Oh look, there's some now.

I also tend a garden, bake, sing, and various other things. I tend to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

I can also tell you what you won't find here: drama. At least I hope not. 

Happy reading!