September Issue

Sweet Beatrice :: September Contents

Editor's Note: Personal lessons

Column: "Weaning Into Daycare" by MaryP

Column: "I Never Intended To Be A Mother" by Thordora

Make this: Hannah's Dress (Knitting!) by Rilana Riley-Munson

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Upcoming themes:

October: pretending

(dress-up, Halloween)

November: coming together

(family traditions good & bad, how to feed a large family on the cheap, blended families, step-, foster- or adoptive parenting)

December: celebrating

(birthday parties, holidays (not just Xmas), making new traditions)

January: keeping out the cold

(cold or rainy day activities, keeping the family close)

Febuary: loving

(sex after kids, dating as a single parent)

If you would like to contribute anything, big or small, to one of our issues (you don't have to be "on-theme"), see our submission guidelines for details.

Make This: Hannah’s Dress

Hannah’s Dress

Pattern by Rilana Riley-Munson (copyright 2006) http://knitlani.blogspot.com/

Design Description: A sweet little Spring/Summer dress for girls of all ages. It’s knit entirely with acrylic yarn, which makes this dress durable, washable and kid-friendly. It makes for a nice play-dress. It can be worn with a t-shirt underneath or without.



Difficulty Level: Easy to Intermediate. Most of this dress is done in the knit stitch. The bodice is simple garter stitch with a few decreases and bind offs. The skirt/dress portion is also knit in the round. The only time the Purl stitch is involved is at the bottom trim. This project is good for beginner knitters to learn the K2tog decrease and knitting in the round on circular needles.

Materials needed: 3 skeins of Red Heart Super Saver. 2 skeins of main color and 1 skein of contrast color for the bodice. (The colors I used: Lt. Sage- bodice, Cornmeal-dress/skirt.) Red Heart Super Saver is a worsted weight yarn, 100% acrylic, 7 ounces and 364 yds per skein and comes in an array of colors.

Needle size is flexible for this pattern; it depends on whether you want a tighter knit or a loose and stretchy fabric. It does not alter the sizing that much, just the finished fabric. You can use needle sizes #US 8 for a tighter knit or #US 10 for a loose knit. You will need a pair of straight needles and circulars in your chosen size. The finished dress pictured was knit in the largest size with #US 10 needles. The sample bodice pictured was knit with #US 8 needles and the small size.

Other materials needed: A stitch marker to mark the beginning of rounds, small stitch holder (optional), yarn needle for sewing in ends.

Yarn substitutes: Any worsted weight yarn will do. Some ideas: TLC Cotton Plus, Lion Brand Wool Ease, Caron Simply Soft, Bernat Super Saver, TLC Essentials. Remember when substituting yarn to look at the yardage per skein and adjust accordingly.

Sizes: Chest measurements, around ; Small – 20-22”, Medium – 26-28”, Large – 30-32”

The pattern will list the small first and the other sizes in parenthesis. Ex: sm (med, lrg) Follow the instruction accordingly for the size.

The lengths of the dress will vary and the length I give for the sizes are approximate. You can adjust the length of the dress to your liking or child’s height by either knitting more rows in the round, or decreasing the rows.

Approximate lengths for the dress part, not the bodice: Small – 14”, Medium – 18”, Large – 23”

Gauge: approx: 16 sts = 4” in Garter St with # 10 needles

Some stitch explanations:

The decreases on the bodice are made by K2tog at the beginning or the end of the round, depending on which side you are working on. (ex: K2tog, Knit to end of row; Knit to last 2 sts, K2tog)

Kf&b means to Knit in the front and back of the same stitch. It’s a form of increasing. You can also do a M1 increase if you are more comfortable with that. It doesn’t matter. The Kf&b leaves a little ripple effect right under the bodice. The M1 would not show that. It’s just a design element. So, increase as you like.

PU (pick up) sts means you pick up stitches along an edge. What I do is insert my needle into the stitch and pull up a loop and onto the circular needle, repeat until desired number of sts have been reached. I am left handed and a self-taught knitter, I have no idea if I pick up sts correctly. You can pick up sts as you like.



Pattern:

The Bodice: (make 2)

With your chosen pair of straight needles and the bodice color, cast on 40(50, 60) stitches. Knit even in Garter stitch for 16(18, 20) rows.

Bind off 5 stitch at the beginning of the next 2 rows. – 30(40, 50) sts remain on needles.

Knit 5 rows even in Garter stitch, ALL sizes.

Next row- Knit 10(12, 14) sts, Bind off 10(16, 22) sts, Knit across the remain stitches. You should have two sections of 10(12, 14) sts on the needle. You may now place one set of these stitches onto a stitch holder if you wish.

**Next row- Decrease 1 stitch on neck edge (k2tog) on every other row, (ex: decrease row, knit row; repeat) 3(2, 4) times. You will have 7(10, 10) sts for the strap.

Knit in garter stitch evenly for 10(10, 15) rows.

Bind of all stitches. **

Place the second strap stitches back on the needle and repeat from decreases to bind off, to match the other side. (from ** to **) Remember decreases are on neck edge only, which would be opposite from other side you just worked.

Repeat the entire bodice pattern once more.

Take the two pieces and sew together the shoulder straps and the side seam.

Bodice sample knit on #US 8 needles and size small (20” around)

The skirt: With your main color and your chosen circular needles, turn the bodice sideways and pick up stitches from the bottom edge all the way around. You will pick up 80(100, 120) stitches around. Place the marker and join. You will now begin knitting in the round.

Knit 1 round even on the stitches you “picked up.”

Next round- *K1, Kf&b; repeat from * around. (This is the increase round, if you are not comfortable with Kf&b, you can M1 instead. Alternatively it would be *K1, M1; repeat from * around) – 140(160, 180) sts are on the needle.

At this point you knit every round until desired length. Approximate lengths for the dress part: Small – 14”, Medium – 18”, Large – 23”

The bottom trim of the dress is knit in the Garter stitch, but in the round. All sizes will have the same bottom trim.

Purl 1 round

Knit 1 round

Purl 1 round

Knit 1 round

Purl 1 round

Bind off all stitches.

Finishing: Take your yarn needle and sew in any loose ends. You may block the dress lightly if you wish.

Options for decorating the dress: Pick up 3 sts along the side of the bodice in the bodice color and I-cord for 12” on each side for a back tie. You can embroider flowers, ducks, etc on the bodice front too. Add ribbons, beads, whatever floats your boat.

(Finished dress is knit with #US 10 needles and size large, approx 31” around)

Questions on this pattern? Please comment. If you try it, let us know!

====================

Rilana is a 30-something stay-at-home mom and domestic diva, resides in lovely Portland, Oregon with her husband, 2 daughters and 2 fat, spoiled cats. Her addictions include alternative rock music, juicy novels, knitting and coffee. When not enthralled with the previously mentioned four, she studies and practices her Pagan ways with a bit of tarot and herbs for spice.

About this pattern:

Hannah's Dress is named after my youngest daughter of the same name and who the original dress was made for. I had originally planned to make her a summer top, with the same design. Hannah and I discussed the summer top idea and she dictated to me what she wanted and the colors she liked. I picked up the needles and created the top, bodice portion of the dress first. Hannah tried on the top part and said, "It would be cool if you could make this into a dress, instead of a top." That made my brain turn. In keeping with the original summer top idea, I thought...why not just lengthen the bottom skirt part and make it into a dress? Hannah's main requirement was that the dress reach her knees.

The entire time I was knitting her dress, Hannah would come in excited, "Is it finished yet?" She is an impatient 10-year old. Finally I finished it one afternoon. I called Hannah into the living room and held it up for her to take. "WOW!" She said. Hannah immediately tried the dress on and loved it. She wears the dress as much as she can. Hannah even asked me, last night, if she could sleep in it, rather than her normal Power Puff Girl pajamas. I will have to sneak the dress out of her bedroom at some point to wash the poor thing.

The next request from Hannah is that her stuffed Build-A-Bear gets a matching "Hannah Dress" too. It would seem I am not only knitting for my kids, but their animal pals too. A mother's work is never done...

Photo hosting by Flickr

Columnist: Thordora

I never intended to be a mother.

In fact, I figured I had things set out pretty clearly, a course set in my head. Amazing what 2 bright pink lines on all 3 of the tests in the sale box can do to a life.

I was the girl who never ever planned on having children, didn't like kids, had no desire to deal with kids, etc. I had these marvelous plans for my life, for becoming the crazy cat lady whose house smells like curry and has a tone of fragile glass. I really wasn't prepared for the headfuck that motherhood presented. The pregnancy itself was easy, but along with the usual "what the hell do I do with it?" after giving birth, there was also a massive "mommy adjustment". Do mommies listen to hardcore? Read BDSM erotica and porn? Want corsets and more tattoos that cost as much as a monthly salary?

Now I have two cool-as-beans little girls, and yet I still sometimes find myself asking these questions. Now that I have kids, should I still find the stuff at T-Shirt Hell so damn funny? Should Mallrats still be so damn entertaining?

The current state of the "Mommy Blogosphere" isn't helping either. In my browsing, I've noticed two very distinct groups of "mommy blogs"

1.Hip Mom
2.Cute Mom

Now, Hip Mom has tons of readers because she's endearingly self-depreciating, witty, has interesting fun hair and she still has her original copy of Nevermind on cassette -- hash stains on the case and all. These blogs tend to be anecdotes about rude things their spunky, advanced toddlers have said. Added features tend to include "interesting" pictures that have been Photoshopped and the obligatory "Dooce" link.

Whereas the Cute Mom has tons of readers because she's honest about how totally hard being a SAHM to a child is while trying to scrapbook, garden, lead the Strollercize group and maintain their "mani" while nursing drinks after everyone is in bed. These blogs tend to include so many pictures of children swimming, eating and hugging that you might begin to wonder if you're a bad mom for never taking that many pictures. Added features of the Cute Mom blog include blinkies that will induce epileptic fits, avatars in bikinis with the weather forecast and the obligatory "Dooce" link.

It's not that I have anything against either of these "Mommys". They just aren't me. I take a look at these blogs and see what I saw before I had kids: two "cliques" of people, different only so much as "Parents" and "Parenting" are different. The covers are slightly different, but inside? It's the same old boring, pandering crap.

My quest for motherhood, for my sense of place within it, led me to wonder how I'd ever integrate "me" into “Mother.” My own experiences had been woefully inadequate; my mother died when I was young, and prior to that, she had been a fairly old school, conservative Christian mother, who worked part-time outside of the home once I was older.

My mother never seemed to have a personality outside of the home. She dressed like a Mom. She had her colors done. We had no nearby relatives, so I had no female cousins or aunts. The one older girl I knew who dared put eyeliner on me brought the wrath of my mother down on my head, with a lecture that in some way equated eyeliner to rotting eyeballs and Sodom and Gomorrah. I had no idea what being a woman meant, let alone being a mother.

Eventually, after the birth of Vivian, I made some headway, and stopped asking if it was okay to like all the things I liked before. I learned to allow myself to enjoy being a mother, to enjoy sharing all the weird things I like with my kid, who shockingly, like some things even more than I do.

Then, 10 months in, I found myself pregnant again.

Nine unpleasant months later. I was the poster child for Mothers Who Do Not Glow. I should have figured that something was up at that point, but I really didn't. Rosalyn was born.

The two months after that are a blur of anger, sadness, suicidal thoughts and numbness. I was watching my life go down the tubes, two kids. What in hell will I do with two kids?

Even worse, how can I actively hate this child I just gave birth to? How could I hate her, want her dead, or at least gone, want everything to return to the way it was: just Viv & I. I could handle that; we had reached a middle ground there.

After about six months of this not going away, and a near-divorce, we decided that something wasn't right. Not only was I not "cute" or "hip", I wasn't there. I wasn't connecting to Rosalyn in any way. I was constantly thinking about death the way other people thing about having a ham sandwich.

"Gee, I could just jump in front of the bus there. I'm hungry."

Cute Moms and Hip Moms don't have these thoughts.

About two months ago, I was diagnosed as bipolar.

I now believe that my second pregnancy was the nail in the coffin for my mental balance. A disorder that was already there, but being handled, compensated for, was suddenly thrown into the forefront. Again, I couldn't see myself mirrored anywhere. Everyone else was so bloody normal, and they loved their kids, and never had a bad word to say about them.

I say bad words about them often, and tend to be honest about wanting to drive them into a wall. My brand of "nutbag/attachment/authoritative/oh I don't care just shut up and let's enjoy Ladytron together" parenting just isn't out there in any media forms. Instead, I find stories about how little Bobby is just so cute when he hands out the playdate cards, and how little Jenny is excelling in her preschool class. I see nothing about the etiquette of being a lonely mother, wanting to invite another obviously lonely mother over for a playdate. I see nothing about how you handle telling your kids that Mommy gets sad sometimes, and it's not your fault, and it's okay.

So I figured I wanted to be the voice for mothers like me. Moms who aren't quite right in the head, but don't really mind. The mothers who hear voices sometimes. I want my brand of "Mom" to exist.

'Cause, dammit, I'm cute and hip!
==================================
About Thordora:
Thordora is currently exiled in the wilds of New Brunswick after spending her formative and fun years in Ontario. She likes ketchup but not tomatoes, grapes but not raisins and hates other people's children. She's officially crazy (and medicated) -- with Bipolar Disorder and currently works at not laughing at Americans. She has two cute spawn who never cease to make her laugh, cry and have runny poos everyday.

Weblog: Spin Me I Pulsate

Columnist: MaryP

"Weaning Into Daycare"
By Mary P
a version of this column originally appeared at It's Not All Mary Poppins

A couple of years ago, children started with me at five or six months old. Now they start at a year. Although I firmly believe the year-long parental leaves are much better for the family, for me it was easier with six-month-olds. I cannot speak through direct experience to caring for four- or six-week-old babies (except my own!) but my educated guess would that it would be still more straightforward. More hands-on, yes, but straightforward. These children don't know where their bodies end and the rest of the world begins. They're not likely to make strange.

Six-month-olds, bless them, tend to coo when a new person holds them, and reward the smiling stranger with radiant smiles of their own. Year-old children tend to cling to Momma's thigh, view the smiling stranger with a frown of suspicion and wail when Momma leaves. This makes my working environment a little stressful for the adjustment period, indeed. Fretful clinginess is the norm, to be juggled with the normal needs of three or four or five other tots (the others are generally quite concerned and solicitous but New Baby doesn't generally appreciate their attention!). However, awkward and labour-intensive as it is for me, it is the parents who truly suffer.

The parents. Oh, the poor parents. Their tot suffers in their own way, it's true, but it's the parents who agonise. The parents, who remember the tear-filled wails at drop-off all day long. The parents, who worry throughout the day, staring at that picture of baby on their desk, hearing the cries echo in their ears through their working hours, who yearn to sooth and reassure -- and can't. Who know that, were it not for their decision (even when it really wasn't much of a choice), Baby would be safe in their arms, not wailing at a stranger's house. Baby has his/her moments of anxiety at the door, then gets a lovely cuddle, feels better, maybe a has snack and a bottle, goes out to play in the park, swings on the swing, listens to a story, gets fed some more. Whenever the newness of the situation hits them afresh? More snuggles, more cuddles, more lovin'.

Meantime, who's loving Mom and Dad? Who's telling them it'll be okay? Who's rubbing their backs and giving them their binkie? Who's taking away the guilt -- the nasty "I-should-be-with-my-baby, how-can-I-abandon-him/her-like-this, what's-more-important-than-my-baby" guilt?

One of the things that can ease the transition to daycare is a weaning-in process. It may surprise you to learn that I do not think a weaning-in process is necessary for most children. After over ten years in this business, it is my firm conviction that the weaning-in is only secondarily about acclimatizing the child to the daycare. Primarily it is to reassure the parents.

In my experience, it takes a six-month-old child three weeks of full-time attendance to make the adjustment to care. Year-old children may take a week or two longer. Children who come three or fewer days per week take longer still. At the end of those first few weeks, the tears at the door should be finished (parents who unconsciously encourage tears can be the subject of another column) and the child should be having happy days at daycare. It takes this long whether there was a gentle two-week weaning-in process, or whether it was done cold turkey, after a single initial baby-caregiver meeting. It really doesn't seem to make a great deal of difference... to the child.

It can make a huge difference to the parents. Parents want to see the child with the other children, they want to watch the provider interact with their child, they want to see their child gain familiarity with the new environment. Bottom line: Mom and Dad want to get a sense that their child is gaining comfort in the new place. They want a sense that their child doesn't feel abandoned to strangers.

Weaning-in, then, is mostly for Mom and Dad's benefit and you know what? This is not a bad thing. This is not a second-rate, inferior reason. This does not make it something insignificant and dispensable, needy or selfish. If you want it, you should do it. Conversely, if you don't want/need, or simply can't manage it, you can feel reassured that you will not be guaranteeing layers of trauma to your tot by starting cold turkey.

If you opt for weaning-in, there are a few things you need to know. Having a parent around can make the daycare provider's job more difficult. The extra adult changes the dynamic. It can make some children more self-conscious and clingy to the daycare lady, some may be more prone to act out and show off to the new audience, other will be less attentive to the daycare lady. Why listen to boring old her when there's this new person in town? No matter how experienced your caregiver, you may be making her a little self-conscious, and you are certainly adding a layer of complexity to her day.

If she asks you to follow certain guidelines when you are with her, please do. Do not, as one mother did to me, directly contradict the caregiver's instructions. "Come get your hats on, guys." "Oh, they don't need hats: it's not that cold out there!" Well, thank you for your input!

Also, you need to recognize that group care is different than individual care. Not better, not worse, just different. The daycare lady may respond to the children differently than you. There are different patterns of interactions, different dynamics that need to be monitored and maintained when there are five or six children in a room, as opposed to just one.

Remember, too, your baby's caregiver has multiple children to care for; she may not be able to chat with you. I once had a parent complain because she felt "ignored and snubbed" her during her visit. She didn't think I had ignored her child, mark you, but that I had ignored her. So, if it will make you feel "unwelcome" when the caregiver breaks off in the middle of a sentence to attend to the children, or fails to make eye contact with you because she's busy scanning the sandbox, I think perhaps weaning-in isn't the right strategy for you. Mm-kay?

Finally, and most importantly, recognize that weaning-in does not guarantee no tears at drop-off when full-time care begins. When the child is spending full days with this new person, no matter how gradual the transition, they will feel the adjustment, and there may well be tears. What weaning-in does do is begin the transition, and, most importantly, it can give mom and dad the assurance they're looking for.

You may not get a blankie and a snuggle, Mom and dad, but it is going to be all right!

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About MaryP: Mother of three, stepmother to five, teacher, prenatal instructor, group home counsellor and more, MaryP has made babies and children her life's work for over twenty years. Add to all that experience a strong sense of irony, an irreverent sense of humour, and Olympic-calibre unsqueamishness, and you have a woman who is well-suited to her work and able to reassure the most uncertain of parents.

Weblog: It's Not All Mary Poppins

Editor's Note

Our intended theme for September was "back to school" but as I read our excellent columns and "make this" submission, I realized that wasn't our theme at all. The theme is about The Personal: how we define ourselves as parents by what feels right, by what we do and by what we do for our children.

So it's not so much about a return as it is about a journey. Our journeys as parents, caretakers, creators define us and our children. We learn from each other and from our children, same as they learn from us. Take some time this month to think about your parental journey, the lessons you learn and teach. Write a letter to yourself or your child. Write a blog entry on what you're learning right now. Be creative and flexible and honest. At the end of the month, who knows what more we'll have learned?