My giant baby boy is growing so fast I suspect we could capture the change with a few hours’ time-lapse photography: two inches longer, two centimeters more massive around the noggin, and already up to ten pounds. He can drink himself full to bursting in just a few minutes, then push himself up off my chest to execute a U-turn back to the taps when I make him pause for a breather, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn just how much bigger he’d gotten. The ways in which one baby is not like another astound me daily. My firstborn took about two months to reach this size. Here, by way of illustration, is my Tour de France 2010 project on Ada when she was almost six weeks old:

… and here it is on Jolly three days ago:

For this year’s Tour I’m mostly working on a Mitered Crosses blanket that I’ve told my parents will be ready by the time they move into the house they’re building. (Happily for me my parents are craftsmen who like to get all the details just so and they aren’t in a tearing hurry to leave their current house.) But I think I might be better employed in knitting a series of ever-larger hats to keep up with this strapping laddie of mine.

(Lovely blanket courtesy of my sweet neighbor Barb, for whom I made the quilt!)

Jolyon himself can clearly think of a higher purpose for Mama’s arms than either knitting or photography. But just now he’s sound asleep beside me and I think my eyelids might stay open for just a few rows. Tomorrow my beloved bike race heads into the mountains. I think I’ll celebrate with a 16″ circular, some stash wool, and a nice stretchy ribbing. Isn’t there a saying about variety being the spice of life? True of knitting and of offspring, I reckon.

I love due dates. I like the casual whistling they make as they saunter by.

I thought maybe you were the punctual sort, baby. But you didn’t come on Tuesday. Then I thought maybe you wanted to share a birthday with Granny (happy birthday, Mom!). But unless we both bust a move in the next two hours and forty-five minutes, that’s not happening. So just in case you actually are waiting for this:

Seriously, kiddo. The weather’s fine out here. But you are going to live in the Pacific Northwest, so you might want to think hard about letting too many more days like today pass you by.

I’ll say this in your favor: you appear to be the considerate sort, having waited for Mama to get (mostly) over a cold and Daddy’s back to feel better before putting us all through labor. Maybe you know exactly what you’re doing in there. I trust you.

Little baby things have been flying off the needles around here, as I’ve wanted to be sure this second child would have some special garments created just for him/her. It’s also the only way I know to get ready: make stuff. And a soon-to-be-big sister mustn’t be forgotten in the flurry of preparations, so on a whim I cast on a little top a few weeks ago. It’s a sweet pattern called Neighborly; I snapped a hasty photo before Ada wore it to school in case it came home covered in glittery fingerpaint:

Pardon the bouffant that happens when Daddy gets fired up about brushing those curls. Not my favorite look for her. And yes, apparently we like to pose for photos with spinach — her idea. My little schoolgirl is not often so formally attired, though. When the vest survived its first foray to Montessori nursery (it was a water table day, so Ada’s clothes needed some drying but were otherwise unusually clean) I took some new photographs that show Neighborly as she is more likely to be worn:

(Hair is back to normal, too.)

Now you can see the chief detail, the ’60s-style button at the neck. Since I scaled down in yarn weight but still followed the pattern (it’s a single size intended for a child of 3-5 years, so I just crossed my fingers a DK version would fit a toddler), the button band is less prominent in my version and the neckline is tighter. This was intentional; I wanted a summer-weight vest we could throw on over cotton shirts on cool days, and for someone who’s less than two a big open boatneck would just be slipping off a shoulder or trapping stray food more often than not. I used Manos del Uruguay Serena, an alpaca-cotton blend, in a color called “sea urchin” that I couldn’t resist. It reads as grey, but there are pleasing undertones of purple — just the thing to bring my girl’s burgeoning wardrobe of pink hand-me-downs back into a realm Mama can tolerate. When it came off the needles it looked tiny and I thought we might have to gift it to our wee new friend Ingrid to wear as a dress when she gets to be six months old or so, but it blocked out to the perfect size for Ada.

I’m going to see how it wears before passing judgment on the yarn. It’s sheddy up front, releasing a lot of short alpaca fibers in the bath before blocking and still having enough left over to adhere to a small damp chin at first wearing. But when she wore it today I didn’t notice any problems, so maybe it’s let go of all the fibers it needed to. The drape and hand are undeniably pleasant. And the color range is strong. If the shedding problem doesn’t persist and it doesn’t show a strong tendency to pill at this loose gauge (I used a #5 needle, I think), I’d be tempted to use it to knit myself one of those drapey, open cardigans that seem to be so fashionable.

Oh, my not-so-big big girl. How is it you can count and read letters and load the dishwasher and tell yourself the stories in your favorite books and cross the suspension bridge on the play structure at the park and sing me little tuneless songs about slippery fish while still being so small? Will you suddenly seem like a giant in a few days or a week when you become my eldest child?

I’ve loved your babyhood, dear one. I’ll love your girlhood, too.

Dear Little Dipper,

It’s now a matter of days until we meet you. (The oddity of that statement still strikes me just as strongly as it did when I carried your sister, both as regards the peculiar slippage of time when one awaits a new baby and in the queerness of anticipating a first meeting with someone who already shares my blood, my food, and my innermost space.) I have not come this far without trepidation and doubt. Am I ready to commit my body to the all-consuming effort of bringing you into the world? Can I be a good mother to two small people at once? Can I tend my relationship with Ada while developing one with you? You are shifting our family forever; I will rejoice in your presence and in our new dynamic… and I can’t say goodbye to the threesome we have been without a lump in my throat.

Your sister is just developing the imaginative capacity to see things as other than they appear. Eating a string cheese this morning, she prodded a strip of it on her plate and exclaimed, “Wom! Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.” (Then, with an enormous grin, she bit it in half, which I’m glad to say she hasn’t tried with an actual worm.) I believe the translation of Mama’s round belly to a tiny and demanding baby is still beyond her, though. Frankly, I’m not sure it isn’t a little beyond my far more experienced imagination. Who will you be? An astonishing live miniature person with punching, pedaling limbs, we certainly hope. An endlessly questing mouth. What qualities of your nature will you show us right away, and which will you reveal as you grow? Will you sleep for longer stretches than you seem to in the womb? (A mama can dream.)

This week you’ve dropped lower in my body, and having lowered my center of gravity, you’ve helped ground my mind as well. My first set of questions is the flighty set, heavy as they are. Those nervous wonderings won’t roost in content. Welcoming you is a thing I must do with no divided heart, to lift a line from Ivan Doig. So I choose curiosity and humor and incipient magic. I choose you and the family I have, all of us “gadda,” as Ada says — together — with a circling finger when we perch on tiny chairs around her little table in the kitchen for supper. Come when you will, little one.

And look, I have handknits for you:

Milk Infant Top by Brandy Fortune; matching cap improvised by your mama

These colors remind me of cinnamon toast and I expect they’ll be quite fetching on you. The hat will probably only fit for a week, and the jacket not a great deal longer, but I can’t wait to bundle you into them.

This quilt isn’t for you (more on that soon), but it’s ahead of yours in the queue because it’s for someone who already had a birthday, so if you’re waiting until everything I’m making for you is complete you might be stuck in there for several weeks more. I’ve discovered I can handstitch a quilt binding at a rate of about one yard per hour — that’s with good light and no interruptions — and there are seven yards remaining. I don’t expect you to tackle that kind of math for a few years yet, so I’ll interpret for you: your mother doesn’t lack vision or enthusiasm for this craft, but she’s by no means an adept. Then I’ll need another five or six hours to bind yours. But you’ve got a lovely quilt from Great-Aunt Jennifer just waiting to tide you over. It has birds on it. (Your sister thinks it’s hilarious to point at them and chortle, “Fried eggs!” but any object in the house is fair game for that treatment right now. The only thing funnier than fried eggs is purple eggs.)

I’m going to finish your Baby Surprise Jacket tonight. That’s how ready I am to meet you, smallest.

Love,

your mama