Fall fun

We went to the NY sheep and wool festival and visited with Marisa and with Eric's alpacas. I've been sewing a lot, including the baby pants featured above (I love JoAnn's fabrics for fun corduroy).

It finally feels like fall here, but too late for me to salvage Halloween. I kept putting off Halloween crafts, waiting for it to be cold, and now I've got three uncarved pumpkins on my kitchen counter and a brand new (unused) pumkin carving kit.

The pictures above are all jumbled up, but also include Sarah and David's fabulous party in celebration of their marriage (NOT a wedding, as David kept reminding me) an apple pie I made, and a visit with Penelope's best friend Rosie.

Al is requesting that I assist with the kitchen clean-up, so no more time to post--it really is hard to find a moment!

I have been away from the blog for so long! I've been reading a lot of other blogs, which is taking up the time I would usually be writing. Plus I've been unhappy with the camera and not excited to post pictures, etc.

Anyway, lots of doings around here. Penelope turned one. We had a pool party in our back alley (who says you can't hav?e it all in the city... As the picture shows, it was freaking hot! But both sets of grandparents came down which caused us all to realize that they hadn't seen each other since our wedding!

Diego started his new school--Monetssori, which he seems to really enjoy. When I ask him what he did at school, he says stuff like "I did pouring work today" and then he will describe in great detail (first you get the tray and carry it very carefully with 2 hands) what pouring work entails. I'm really glad he's there rather than at the Waldorf school, which was the other option that tempted me a lot.

More news: I turned 30. We spent a week out at the beach.

I've been sewing more. I made each kid a pair of flannel lined corduroys and have a pair of corduroy overalls in process for Penelope. I've been finishing up some old quilt tops and have been contemplating buying more fabric (gasp) for bumpers and a quilt for Penelop's cage (I mean crib) where she now sleeps at least part of every night (see http://www.reprodepot.com/whmtr.html) to understand why I'm so obsessed.

I'll be in NYC for Sarah and David's marriage celebration party (not sure what else to call it for a post-elopement celebration) and am hoping to have a chance to get down to Purl in Soho to visit with some of the fabrics in person.

I'll post some pictures of the stuff I've been working on when we get our new camera. In the meantime, some pix of the kids to keep folks happy...

Last week I went to a meeting of folks who are interested in opening a birth center in West Philadelphia. This is a fabulous idea. Here's why I think so. There are no free-standing birth centers in Philadelphia and no home birth practices in the city run by nurse-midwives. The prenatal care offerings are pretty slim around here too, if you want to see a midwife. The moms in the playground seem evenly split in getting their care at the Bryn Mawr birth center, 5 Penn Tower and Pennsylvania Hospital. There is also a smaller, but still sizeable home birth contingent.

At the meeting, it became clear that the whole idea is still in the conceptual stage with very few concrete issues decided. Here are some questions that I have come up with in thinking about it since.

1) how many births per month does a birth center need to do to be profitable?
The answer to this is probably more complicated than just a simple number. I imagine that it depends a lot on the patient population and their insurance coverage. Medicaid reimburses fairly well for births, but medicaid HMO's are terrible. But I imagine if you serve primarily a low-income population, then you would be eligible for grants etc.
2) Would a birth center in the immediate neighborhood (with very close proximity to HUP for emergency transport) attract primarily a low-income or middle class patient population? Which would be more desireable in terms of the needs of the community and preferences of the planners and clinicians who would ultimately be working there? Could it serve both? I feel confident that a good proportion of the middle class white playground moms that I know would go to a birth center. Others, not so sure. There are a lot of African immigrants in the neighborhood--would they like a birth center or do they like to be in the hospital? Ditto with the African-Americans and Asian immigrants in the neighborhood.

I have (of course) already found the perfect location. It is Rosenberg Hall on the USP campus. It is actually smack in the middle of Clark Park, has parking next to it and is handicapped accessible. Plus, it's spitting distance to the tot lot.

That leads to question #3 which is: how do you get an institution like USP to give/sell you a building.
Which leads to question #4 which is where does one get money for a project like this?

Sarah said that Diego looked like a teen idol i nthe wedding pictures, so I just had to post this one too--the most teen-idolish of them all.

Diego has been using the word "absolutely" a lot--as in "This is absolutely too hot for me to eat." It works.

Penelope continues to ignore the pressures of trying to meet any major developmental milestones. Instead she just sits and waves. It seems to be enough for her...

House Bill 1255 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollow

Oh beautiful day! This can't be Philly in July--it's about 72 degrees with a breeze and no humidity. Tonight the Philadelphia Orchestra is playing in the bowl in Clark Park (gentrification anyone?). But it's free, so how elitest can it be, really. We'll be picnicing with our friends from the neighborhood (Sylvia--one of the best cooks I know), her husband Michael (who is eccentric but as excellent taste in imported wines) and their daughter Alessandra who is Diego's age. Al and I will be bringing a sheet to sit on and the pleasure of our company.

Yesterday Penelope and I got up early and walked to Penn to witness a historic bill signing that will at last give midwives in PA prescriptive authority. Here is Tony Soprano signing the bill:

Just kidding, he just looks like Tony Soprano. It's actually Ed Rendell, the governor of PA.

Behind him are the states reps from various counties who worked on the bill. The dean of the School of Nursing who is Egyptian and the most fabulously put-together looking woman is beside him. Her name is Afaf. Isn't that great. Anyway, it was a very exciting thing to see as PA is the last state in the country to allow cnm prescriptive privileges and so many people have been working on this for so long. Funally. The medical association with their turf wars and their expensive lobbyists lost to a bunch of nurses! Hah!

So that's the big news here. Because this is supposed to be a crafty blog, I'm posting some pictures of finished objects: 2 pairs of socks. Both are knit with Lorna's Laces. The blue pair is from Nancy Bush's excellent book "Knitting Vintage Socks." I probably picked the ugliest and most boring pair of socks in the whole book. Don't ask me why. The pink pair is from yarn that I first saw on the Harlot's yarn crawl in NYC. Some significant portion of the monaey for the yarn goes to breast cancer research. I didn't buy it on the crawl (told myself I had enough sock yarn...hah!) but then craved and coveted so much that I made my dad go back to the store and get it for me. He actually got me 4 skeins, so I have 2 and a half left! The pattern is the Jaywalker Socks from MagKnit which was a total internet craze last winter. Now that I've knit the socks, I'm not sure that I get what all the fuss was about. But that won't stop me from embarking on another internet-fueled knitting project: the Rogue pullover (google it if you're curious, since I don't know how to post links...)

And look what just arrived special delivery:

It is a good day.

Well, my brother is married. Sniff. His wedding and mine were about as different as he and I are. His was fun. I posted some pictures below so the folks at work could see how my dress turned out (sorry, but they had to hear about my preparations for weeks, so they wanted pictures). I'll post some of everyone else soon enough.

It's good to be home again. It always seems as though it takes a few weeks to get completely unpacked from a big trip like that. Probably because I spend most of my time checking my email, reading mothering.com and various blogs and reacquainting myself with all my fabric. Plus having to go to work cuts in to my free time. It's a problem. I have had a run of really nice births at work lately. I had to scrub in on a c/s the last night I was there, and I realized it has been ages since I'd been in the o.r. Lots of nice vag deliveries lately.

I just spoke to Christine and poor Silas has coxsackie.

It's 10:30 here and I'm taking a break from watching Law & Order SVU and knitting on my Jaywalker Socks to make buttered noodles. I did already eat dinner (in case you were wondering). If Al were home he would probably have tried to stop me, but he's at a movie. So buttered noodles it is. With parm and fresh ground pepper. MMMmmmm