My Hope

New Print Pile!
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

I haven't printed since the 31st of July and I am itching to soon. And I think this week may be the week for me, though probably not until Friday or the weekend. That is when Jon's parents will be here and they can help us with the baby. While she is a very good baby it is hard to find the hours that I need to print. Carving is something that I can pick up and put down at any time during the process. Printing is a little more difficult. Not impossible but I really don't want to get ink on my baby! So having enough time to clean up is pretty important to me. I might start wearing disposable gloves except my hands get so hot in them I really dislike them. Instead I have always used barrier cream which makes washing up pretty easy.

My hands are already so dry, especially my fingertips from all the hand washing and hand sanitizing I have been doing with the baby. While normally I am not really on the anti bacterial bandwagon since I do think it may lead to problems in the long run with the bacteria that can stand up to it. But with the baby it is different. When the baby went down for awhile I put on my best hand moisturizer but still my fingertips feel dry and rough. A side effect of having a baby that I never imagined. I am a printmaker and work with my hands and ink yet I have always managed to have nice hands and nails despite that, possibly because I don't use a chemical solvent.

Blee has been a wonderful baby these two weeks. We've had moments of great difficulty for us here and there but we learned from our mistakes (such as me drinking a latte bad bad no no!) and have learned what she likes. What she likes more than anything is us. Being close to us is very important to her, she is so snuggly that sometimes the best way to calm her and get her to sleep is to lie with her next to you. Sometimes Jon simply puts her in the co-sleeper on the sofa next to him while he watches TV or whatever and she's happy sleeping next to her daddy. I also learned the trick of letting her sleep on her tummy on my chest until she falls into a deep sleep then I am able to carry her over to her bassinet and put her to sleep on her back.

I hope all is well and that this week will be a good week for us and for everybody I know. I know that I have been in a bit of a cocoon lately but I do try and catch up with people when I can. Speaking of catching up I have a couple of emails that I should reply to.