An Aran Peek-A-Boo

I'm finally finished!!!! It only took me a year and a half, having to be put on halt due to carpal tunnel and adjusting to first-time mommy hood, but I am finally done with Ainsley's baby blanket!

I started it shortly after I found out I was pregnant--so excited to have a baby to knit things for and a reason to purchase more expensive yarn from the specialty shop. I just love going to the yarn store! I could spend hours just perusing all the different colors and touching all the different fibers. For this special project, I wanted to do an Aran blanket, something that dug into my Irish roots, and I knew it would be a challenge. I picked this pattern off Ravelry and decided on a soft neutral gray yarn that would be suitable for either a boy or girl.

I was having so much fun knitting this blanket and was pretty bummed when my carpal tunnel got so bad that I had to put it down for a while. (Well, I mostly blame the carpal tunnel, but it was also partly because any free time I had after Ainsley was born was spent trying to sleep!) I've decided that blankets are my favorite thing to knit: they are mindless enough that you are not glued to the pattern every step of the way, but still challenging enough to keep things interesting. And best of all, you can cozy up in it as it grows!

I think Ainsley had as much fun playing with her new blanket as I had making it. See, her favorite game these days is Peek-a-Boo (what 9-month old's favorite game isn't?) so naturally, when you give her a blanket, the first thing she does is hide herself in it. It's so funny, because usually in the game, it's the adult who hides and pops out from behind the blanket. Not in this case. Our daughter just loves to cover herself and hear us say, "Where's Ainsley?". I tried to capture her playfulness in the photos below...

I just absolutely LOVE being a mother these days! She brings such joy to my days with her giggles and baby chit-chat. She's not an overly outgoing or super friendly baby with strangers or people she's not around all the time, but man, when she gets comfortable with you, she'll talk your ear off in her own babble language! 

She has started to say Mama a lot lately, and I may take this back in a couple years, but right now, I can't think of anything I like hearing more than those two little syllables come out of her mouth. I still find it hard to believe that I am a mom sometimes and when she reaches for me and says, "Mama," my heart skips a beat. I get butterflies, like what you'd get in middle school when the cute, popular guy you were crushing on finally noticed you. It's like, "OMG, SHE'S FINALLY NOTICING ME!" It feels so good to get that reassurance right from the source.

When she's not directly interacting with me, I also have a ton of fun watching and spying on her from afar. We spend a lot of time in the kitchen (not by choice, but because Mama needs to eat) and I let her roam around. It gives me a chance to get the annoying things done, like cook, while she explores her surroundings. Her little developing mind is always going, and in addition to Peek-A-Boo, she loves other baby games like Patty-Cake (aka bang & hit everything repeatedly) and dress-up. I caught her yesterday going through her diaper bag, pulling out every article of clothing and trying ridiculously hard to put it on. Stretching her shirt around her back was cute, but the diaper on her head was just too much! She's just so darn cute! And speaking of the cutie-pie, she has just woken up from her nap, so I better go!