Chenille sheepie postponed no longer

This chenille sheep with wool embroidery is for our baby. Snuggly! The bottom photo is of its rear end and nubby little tail.

I began knitting this fella about four years ago, when our now-apparently-fully-formed-and-ready-to-debut baby was, as they say, but a twinkle in the eye. Four years! That's how long it takes me to finish anything that calls for multiple knitted pieces to be assembled with thread and a needle, because I kind of hate sewing; the finished pieces knit up quickly enough, but then sat in my closet* for years. Also, embroidery is not my strong suit, so even after assembling him, I put off giving this sheep a face. But there's nothing like the approaching birth of your baby to prompt the eleventh-hour finishing of a variety of long-deferred knitting projects. No more dithering! This week I've got two pairs of baby Mary-Jane bootees to bring onto the front burner!

* At least two different closets in two different cities. Pathétique!

Pompoms and earflaps and stripes

This is the first hat I've made for our baby -- pink and red and peach stripes, fluffy red pompoms, and warm earflaps, 'cause in my mind, our little one deserves the whole nine yards. I'd have sewn on an actual bell or whistle or it weren't a choking hazard.

Two bentos

Our treasured digital camera has been out of commission,* plus I've been a little too busy over the last few months to document the daily bento situation. But here are a couple from over the summer. Lately we've been doing more salads (especially veggie couscous!) and dips (namely a seriously delicious roasted red pepper and cannellini dip that is SO GOOD with tortilla chips and carrot sticks!).

Top: baba ganouj, couscous salad, chocolate chip cake, grapes, homemade bread.
Bottom: cherries and melon and blueberries, chocolate muffin, carrot sticks, veggie-hummus wrap.

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* Now we have a new camera with double the megapixels, and I don't like it half as much as the old one. But we couldn't find anyone to repair the first camera, and I suppose we can't very well show up at the birthing center to have a baby without a working camera.

38 weeks pregnant

Here's me, looking grumpy and disheveled in my studio. I'm burning those pants in two weeks.

Sausages and elephants

I no longer have ankles; in their place are a couple of sturdy, sausage-looking things. Only slip-on shoes fit on my feet. I've also developed third-trimester carpal tunnel (not great for an illustrator) and I feel enormous. Truly, truly, truly enormous.

But I'm not wishing for this crazy time to be over, because I know I'll miss many things about pregnancy when it's done: the mysterious movements in my belly -- the fun of imagining what our daughter will be like, and the anticipation generally -- not having to give a damn what I look like or if my clothes are flattering (they're not! deal with it, world!) -- and the momentousness of these final days during which Ben and I are still Just the Two of Us (sort of).

I've been working hard to finish up a large-ish freelance job for a children's magazine (featuring a number of elephants, to whose size I can wholly relate these days), and I admit I was pretty nervous all week about the possibility of the baby making a slightly early debut -- because I was pretty sure I couldn't finish the illustrations from a bed at the birthing center.* Thankfully, it looks like the freelance job will be wrapped up before long (like, tomorrow) and I can proceed to the delivery room without a care in the world (except for the colossal anxieties associated with GIVING BIRTH and then CARING FOR A NEWBORN HUMAN!).

In other news, Ben rescued a cat from a tree yesterday! Honestly, my fella is something else.

* Or maybe I could. They are pretty cool there.

Exercise, belated

I made the interesting choice of doing essentially no exercise during my pregnancy until the eighth month. I have a diaper bag full of excuses -- we were buying a house and moving and packing, and I was busy with illustrations and finishing my third and final degree, and then there was and is the unpacking. (See, they're not terrible excuses, right? But still, excuses.)

Lately I've been swimming once or twice a week at a fabulous indoor pool, and going to a prenatal yoga class once a week. I'm certainly not exerting myself significantly, but it does feel good to get a bit of physical activity. I think I sleep better after exercising, too!

I do wonder if I'll ever have time to exercise after the baby is born. My sources say no!

STOP LICKING, OH MY GOD!

If you're not familiar with the widespread phenomenon of women who become pregnant and start hating their dogs, you have the option of catching up here and here!

Because the dog is driving me freaking bananas.

She smells like a gas station bathroom. Having lost some marbles in her old age, she compulsively licks herself.* She whines almost constantly whenever Ben isn't home, which, since the man has a job, is ALL DAY LONG. I can't go into the bedroom and take a goddamn nap, because the dog will find something that belongs to me, in another part of the house, and utterly destroy it. She deliberately pisses on our bathroom rug when I have the audacity to go to the grocery store. And yesterday, while I walked to the post office and back, taking the liberty of leaving the house for twenty minutes, she found a handmade merino wool scarf I'd recently finished knitting for a friend, and chewed the hell out of it. It's ruined! And I can't stand the dog!

P.S. I wasn't going to include the above photo of Bella (R) and her buddy Alexander (L), precisely because you'll look at it and think, "but she's so cuuute!" But recall ye, outrageous acting-out and occasional cuteness aren't mutually exclusive.

*I don't like that my unborn baby is constantly hearing her mother scream, "STOP LICKING!