The Love, Blood, and Rhetoric School

This is a wedding sampler I made for my cousin and his wife. It was a little challenging to come up with a design; he's very casual, and she's a lot more formal, plus I don't know her well. She is from Japan, so I wanted to reflect that. The cranes are from the design book Oriental Cross Stitch by Lesley Teare, and the border design is modified from that book. The alphabet I designed myself. The entire thing is backstitch, except for the red on the crane's heads and the gold on the borders. I'm planning on finishing it with a red mat and a narrow black laquer frame.

Stitched over 2 on 28 count linen. DMC floss and Kreinik #8 braid. Finished size 9.5"x6".

Happy week all around!

Tuesday I woke up feeling really good. Like normal human being, not sick crazy pregnant woman good. So, naturally, I panic. Last time I started feeling really good at the beginning of the second trimester it was because the baby died. So I call the doctor, call Bruce's mother (I'm still carless and can't even call Bruce at work) and then sit around waiting for my 245 appointment.

Anyway, super Nurse Practitioner Jennifer, who is a sweetie, comes in basically saying "no time for small talk, we need to look at this baby". Ultrasound shows what is recognizably a human baby with a great heartbeat! Then, apparently annoyed by the pressure from the ultrasound, baby starts jumping, kicking, and waving. We spent almost five minutes just watching it bounce around.

I'm very glad Bruce's mom got to see her grandbaby. She's been very anxious this time around...my miscarriage last winter brought back a lot of awful memories for her about her miscarriages and baby Josiah, who died of SIDS before Bruce was born. We bonded, and it was really nice. The best part is that I don't feel anxious any more. I actually feel like this is really going to happen. The baby's placenta is on-line and doing what it's supposed to do, which is what the issue seems to have been last time. Plus the fact that I don't feel horrible all the time. Still a bit nauseated off and on, and lightheaded, but it's not like the perma-flu feeling of the past two months.

Then Wednesday was our 3rd wedding anniverary and Bruce actually had the day off. So we went to Bravo for lunch, where we just happened to run into his mother, aunt, and Mumsie. Bruce hadn't even known his grandmother was alread moved up from Georgia. So it was a very nice time. Then we played in the Honeytree, which is a very fancy children's clothing store next to the restaurant. Bruce is so convinced the baby is a girl that he bought a little bathing suit for her. It's light blue with yellow polkadots, and a little ruffle around the bottom. Appliqued on the front is a big yellow ducky with a pink butterfly on its nose. There's also a little pink butterfly on the ruffle on the back. It's the cutest thing ever, and now the baby's almost sure to be a boy.   ;-)



After the ducky suit, Bruce wanted to go out to Chesapeake and take a look at the Babies'r'Us store. (Apparently I'm not the only one who now feels it's safe to get excited.) I was amazed at his capacity for stroller shopping. I ended up buying a protein bar and taking a nap in a rocking chair.

Just a nice few days in general. Yay!