the look of awe

this is the first time she's seen the kelp forest at the aquarium.

curls! i need curls!

and mia has the most perfect curls ever. here i am playing with a new lens i got for my camera (for school purposes, of course)... i just want to remember these curls forever :)

mia eats cupcake

just wanted to show a picture of my little one and her pumpkin cupcake ;)

my baby cries when she hears this song

when i was very little, around mia's age, there was this one song that used to make me tear up and cry every time i heard it. very recently, i found out mia also has a song that makes her cry... this one :(

mine love

i just found this one story that survived The Great Computer Crash of '08 in which the entire contents of my computer save two stories i wrote for a creative writing class. i wrote this one for an assignment that asked me for a story about the most important person in my life.
------------------

They told me I would love her the moment I felt her. I honestly don't think I did. She felt a lot like indigestion and really, how much can you love the stomach pangs of indigestion?

Sometimes people would ask me how she was doing. Like I had some sort of window straight into my belly where she squirmed and stretched and stuck a big foot straight into my rib. She had a nasty habit of pointing her toes and making me double over to my right. When I doubled over, I looked like I was about to fall over dead but really, bending over made her move positions, so that she'd draw that little foot in and press it against something much less painful -- my kidneys, my pancreas... wherever she could wedge herself.

I never wished pregnancy on anyone. I hated it. It was possibly one of the most uncomfortable ten months -- yes ten! they tell you it's nine, but if you do the math, 40 weeks divided by 4 weeks in a month... -- of my life. The first three were spent hunched over a toilet every morning, or trying to eat something before I got there so that I'd have something to throw up because the alternative was to throw up bitter green bile that looks like loose sludge with little yellow bubbles to accent its disgustingness. No toothpaste on earth gets rid of the taste of bile in your mouth. How much can you love a bout with bile after your morning bagel?

They told me I'd forget the pain of labor when I saw her. But twenty four hours that felt (again) like the worst indigestion ever (like when I eat that pizza with the Louisiana hot sausage I so love, but that kicks my ass every time), coupled with an epidural that only worked on half of my body and a catheter that ended up giving me the worst UTI known to man is just a little difficult to let go. I still shudder when I think of being on that hospital bed, my legs heavy and numb, my stomach growling and my mouth sticky because Nurse Ratched doesn't even let me have a glass of water... only ice chips. I hate ice chips.

When we met, I was exhausted and STARVING and although I felt something, I wasn't sure it was love; i had never had this type of relationship with anyone before and she was sweet and cute, yes, but was this love? They told me I would love her immediately and I worried because I didn't know.

Three weeks of crying -- both of us -- and changing diapers and all the stuff that happens after labor they never tell you about (and I won't either, because it's SO not right what happens to you) and I was getting the hang of things, of the colic, of the weird schedules, of everything. But I still wasn't sure because she was a lot of work, and what is there to love about feedings every two hours and 12 dirty diapers a day?

I don't know exactly when it happened, really. I thought it would be like falling in love with a man, where you got a rush and butterflies in your stomach; I thought I would moon over her and love would be love and would sweep me off my feet. It never happened that way. All I know is that one day, after I had already loved her a long time, almost forever, I woke up and opened one eye and my love smiled at me and cooed, drooling on my nice, freshly washed sheets, and I knew I was in love.

copyright sandra isla 2007

My big one year old!

my big girl turned one today! we had a big butterfly themed celebration, with a fairy who came to entertain and face paint, and a live butterfly release! it was tiring, but fun, and the big girl got tired and crashed toward the end. i know she won't remember it, but she'll have TONS of pics to remind her :) this one is my very favorite :)

i made a doll!

so mia is turning one on the 31st and i decided to make her a special "mommy" gift from me to her. so i made this doll for her :) yep, i sewed it with my own two hands! and embroidered her face and all :) she's "waldorf"-style, which means that her face is almost blank so that the kid can use her imagination and project onto the doll itself... it's all very theoretical... :) anyhow, so i bought this kit and followed the instructions and VOILA! here she is :D i hope my little girl loves it!

Acorn Head Toddler Shedir

so being in italy, you would think i'd have plenty of time to just sit around and do nothing, happily vacationing, reading books and sleeping in, knitting away (yes, in my sleep, that's how all great knitters do it!) but alas, i have an almost one year old, which means i probably won't get a vacation for another... oh... 17 years. so i've basically been taking care of her this whole time (with help from marco, of course, and my mom and aunt when they were here). so it took me forever to finish this, my second shedir, for my little one. it's unseasonable, it's totally going to be outgrown before she can wear it, but here it is, my acorn-head toddler shedir. acorn-head, 'cause i made some modifications for size and that caused the end of the hat to get pointy a la acorn. so that's what it's called :)

ah and let me just say that i love the goofball picture of my goofball at the end. it's.just.perfect. and exactly how i want to remember her babyhood.

strawberry toddler hat

nothing terribly original about a strawberry hat but i've always wanted to make one and since Mia can't really wear the incredibly wintery fake isle hat i made until next winter, i decided to make her something more "immediate" to wear. enter the strawberry hat :) it's simple and fits into her various berry hats (that barely cover her head now -- my baby is growing up so fast!) and she seems to view it as acceptable as she doesn't rip it off her head for a whole two or three minutes.

nakey nakey

i just wanted to take a nakey picture of my little one, as all mothers should have of their babies because they will need one (or more) for future blackmail purposes. :)

porkshops & appleshauce

so yesterday we tried applesauce for the first time. let me say i don't like applesauce, so this is not wholly unexpected. ;) i don't think she likes it either.

the wee wig

i finally got around to making a hallowig! i've been wanting to make this forever but haven't gotten around to it. give me two weeks of being completely shut in my home, first due to my being super sick and now mia being super sick (but getting better)and here is my wee wig, a little toddler version of the original adult hallowig. i love it! my little one has always had a ton of hair but never like this! it looks so cute on her! and for a girly-effect, i made a little flower (no pattern, just winged it) to go on the side! i love it.

i didn't care that much for the way the pattern because i couldn't visualize how it came together (and some of the directions were sort of confusing) but making it made me realize that my modifications for my toddler size (100 stitches total) had to be modified mid-pattern. it took some improvisation but i managed through it. i did get some good directives on modifying the pattern, however, from this post on this blog.

before i attached the flower, i did get my poor rusty (my little BOY dog) to model the flower i made and then tried to put it on mia but she quickly crawled away! my girl is getting big in no time :( she even took her first steps today! i was super excited but scared at the idea that she's now MOBILE! oy vey!

finally! some knitties!

i'm finally done with some knitted stuff! to get me back in knitting i did a black and gray kitty hat for a swap (which i forgot to take a picture of!) and a basic cable hat from stitch 'n bitch. the hats then put me in the mood for yet ANOTHER kitty hat, one that i've been meaning to do for a while! here is my little one, in full kitty hat-love. i thought it was kind of appropriate that she was wearing her halloween pajamas (well, i bought them after halloween 'cause they were on sale for a dollar, and who was going to see her pj's anyway? lol~ i guess, the world) i love seeing my sweet girl giggling like this (which she usually does) and i finally have a brown and pink hat which replaces the one i lost that i made her :(

is it just me or...

do they look exactly the same???

Halloween 2007 - Mia's First

so for halloween we originally had a costume but it didn't quite fit her right so i decided it was her first halloween so we would go with a costume that i made myself! so miss mia was a Monarch Butterfly and i was her prop (the Twig She Landed On). it was so much fun to make this costume! it was basically a skin on a baby carrier we have (a beco) and it came out great! i was wearing a brown tracksuit and had green leaves to show my twig-ness. she was a hit at the boo at the zoo and a hit trick or treating last night with her cousin, emily. we had so much fun and she was pretty comfy in there (she was only wearing a onesie, some baby legwarmers, her antennae, and some black socks). and best of all she got (me) a ton of candy :) the first pic is the whole costume, the second is my little ones' antannae, and the third is us in the pumpkin patch! more pics here.

roll over

mia rolled over yesterday for the first time! i think this is the first "first" that i'm super excited about. especially since she's been really trying hard (making cute grunting noises and such) for about three days. and finally yesterday she did it!!! today she perfected it and now she's a pro :) i guess this is the beginning of the end of the messy house now that my little monkey has figured out mobility! To see the animation again, click on the picture!

the hat, full circle

i absolutely love it when she wears something i made her. and this hat (remember it?) just happens to match our new wrap :) i love the way it looks on her :) what a cutie! she wears it when we go on our walks at naptime.

tassel pixie cap (sans tassel)

so to ease myself back into a knitting habit, i started out with a sweet hat for miss mia, called the tassel pixie cap by she's crafty. i love the pointy-ness in the back but i'm considering whether or not to put on the tassel. right now, it's sans tassel, but who knows? i may change my mind. oh and look! i finally have a model for tiny baby creations. i must say though, she's quite a reluctant model and can only take it for so long. eh, i don't blame her. it's july and i put her in a wool hat for the sake of modeling cuteness. yes, i'm mean mommy.

the many faces of mia

sandra + mia + camera = utter baby craziness.

see more faces of mia here!

the family bed

i was the last person in the world who thought i wanted to have a family bed. the concept behind the family bed is just that -- the whole family, including the children, sleeps together. intellectually, the whole concept was a little weird for me -- it sounded too child indulgent, too new wave. i mean, we have a bassinet in the room literally six inches away from my side of the bed -- wasn't that going to be enough? apparently, not for miss mia. she only wants to sleep with either of us. truthfully, though, emotionally, i kinda feel more at ease when she is sleeping with one of us. bringing her into our bed, though, turned out to be less emotional or intellectual, more just a matter of exhaustion. mia won't sleep well when put down. she sleeps a grunt-filled 20 minutes and then starts shrieking (did i mention our little angel is a fussy one?), so the only way we've been learning to sleep is... well, together. with us she sleeps up to four blissful hours. of course, i'm always worried about her suffocating or something similar so we bought this kind of in-bed bassinet thing where she basically has a walled off area to herself. we'll see how it works out... meanwhile, here's a shot of our angel actually sleeping (part of the a picture a day photo album for june)

marco & his first father's day

i took these two pics in the last vestiges of father's day. marco and his little girl were enjoying those last few minutes of father's day together seeing as marco had to work the whole day. don't they look absolutely adorable together? :)

the long-awaited post

meet our little daughter, mia, born Thursday, May 31, 2007 she's our absolute joy, and we are completely in love :) her newborn pics are here!

yes, i'm finally back. well, "back" is kind of a relative term. technically, i'm back from the hospital, from giving birth, from pregnancy. but i don't really know what's been going on in the rest of the world since last wednesday. honestly, i've talked to very few people (mainly family)and my whole life revolves around the little one. actually both marco and i have wondered how two completely independent, self-sufficient adults have been reduced to the equivelent of one baby-slave. we live our lives in 3 hour cycles and if you get to sleep for longer than two hours then you're super lucky. we haven't really done much more than take care of her. seriously.

oh and just for the record, i took a pic of my very last week (week 39) with a belly. i don't miss the discomfort but kinda miss carrying her around with me...
last but not least, i had yet another baby shower! this shower was thrown by my aunt lupe and cousin debbie and their families. they couldn't make it to my first shower, so they were kind enough to give this one right before little mia was born. i was as big as a house by then, so forgive the huge pics :)

Two baby showers and a monkey

so it's a few days after the last days of school and let me tell you i feel loads better. not just because i don't have to go to school, but because i've made an effort to sleep and eat well and exercise more. my feet are no longer super swollen and the pregnancy is feeling much smoother (still uncomfortable but not as much). who knew that stress was that bad for you? i am grateful for having the opportunity to rest up before the birth.

one of the things i've done in my few days off was learn how to make a sock monkey (like i said i would! hooray!) i went to the maker faire with marco who really wanted to go. i mainly sat around at different crafty workshops 'cause i didn't want to overdo it; so this was one of the results of my workshops... my first sock monkey! i call him gerardo. like rico suave ;)

additionally, i've been meaning to put up the pictures of the baby showers (yes, plural, i've had two) -- both a family one and one my friend beth threw for me for my school friends. they were both really great. my aunt and mom put together a huge baby shower with everyone in the family circle invited (and a few good friends of mine, too). click here or the first picture to see the album :)

the next picture is of my school friends at an SF restaurant where my good friend beth (receiver of the crochet poo) organized a small dinner/baby shower for me. it was full of pasta and fun conversation :) for more pics, click the 2nd pic or find them right here.

baby things

so first of all here's a belly shot of myself at 36 weeks. i am one week from full term :) and the doctor says the baby can be born any time from here till my due date and she'd be fine. my mom practically wants her to come right now! but i think i can wait at least another week. i reaaaaaallllly want to finish the semester so i can concentrate on her when she gets here.

these next set of pictures are right after my baby shower last saturday. it was so nice! a lot of people came and it was pretty fun for us all. we got a ton of stuff for the baby but the thing that we had to absolutely put together (just in case we needed the carseat) was the travel system (the stroller & carseat set). so marco and i put this baby together... it only took about 20 minutes and it was fun to see it together. we even put our first baby in it to test it out for weight ;) i had read reviews that a lot of people didn't like the weight of the carseat when the baby is in it. so we took rusty and put him in to test out an 11 pounder. it seemed ok, not too heavy for me. and it was easy to click it into the stroller so it all worked out. we love this stroller! hope it is as cool when she's finally here. i can't wait.

An experiment and the Green Piece baby hat

thanks to amy of amysbabies for making the cell phone on the stomach suggestion! amy suggested that for maximum entertainment, i could play various ringtones from my cell phone on my stomach and lo and behold, the baby has a favorite ringtone :) ironically, it was the ringtone that sounded like a salsa song, so at least we know the baby has taste and has inherited her mother's rhythm ;) she wiggles every time she hears that particular ringtone which is an endless source of entertainment to me, really! thanks again amy :)

i also finished this hat this week along with a teeny tiny something for my partner at the one tiny thing swap over at craftster. i don't swap that much anymore because frankly, i have no time. but it's only one tiny thing i have to send out so i'm happy about that and am willing to participate gladly. anyhow, about the hat, it's again a made-up pattern based on some cabling on a sweater that i have. the design came out ok, but i don't like the yarn i used at all. i used crystal palace cotton flamme, which looked divine on my screen but ended up being kinda ugly in person. i thought it would be good for the baby since it was cotton, but the fact that little floofy things come off of it (off of cotton???) is kind of disheartening. it's not my best knit by far, but perhaps i can get her to wear it once or twice.

on pregnancy...

so i had a rather poo week last week where i felt like i was done (mentally) with the pregnancy. i am getting to a point where its getting uncomfortable to carry such a big baby (well, actually she's a normal-sized 4 1/2 pound baby, but i have a small torso and it's getting tight in there). i dunno, i was just thinking that i wanted to have this kid ASAP (granted, not at the risk of her health, but you know).

today i made a mental list of all the things that were good about being pregnant (besides the baby herself):

• i'm liberated from the idea that i'm overweight. i've started really looking a lot thinner (around the face) than i was at the beginning of pregnancy when i looked pretty chunky. this could be due to my diebetic diet, as i haven't gained any weight in the last 5 weeks (but the baby has.) also, my belly just sits out there for everyone to see and it's perfectly OK.
  
• my stomach has become a source of entertainment. i can seriously sit and watch it for a good half hour as some parts go up and others down and the baby moves across it. sometimes, i put the remote control on my stomach and it goes up and down. yes, i'm easily amused.
  
• i have someone for whom to knit tiny things. seriously, baby stuff is gratifying to knit. i can't finish an adult sweater, but a baby one is perfect and only a matter of a week.
  

so i guess it's not so bad being pregnant. and at the end of it all, i even get a baby out of it!

i made a happy poo! and a baby cable baby hat

i love saying i made a happy poo. it is for my friend beth who is having a really poo type of semester... and since we always use the term poo, well, then this seemed really appropriate :) i got the pattern at puchitomato. my poo-colored yarn is red heart soft yarn and the color is called "toast." (a friend said if she ever got toast that color she would immediately revolt in terror).

the second is yet another hat i made for the baby. truly very gratifying, making teeny tiny hats that are done in a flash! to make it cuter, i stuck a huge pink & toast (poo-brown) pom on the top. as you can see, i've been very apt to use the poo-brown toast colored yarn. i don't know, i think it's growing on me! (ew. ew. ew.) this hat is of my own design, using baby cables in a certain pattern which didn't exactly come out like i had thought (i was hoping it would look like some cables were higher than others, but the cables just look the same). while i was knitting it, someone commented: "babies and poo! what else could possibly go better?" nice.

the belly -- 31 weeks

here it is! the long anticipated belly shot. i'm not actually for belly shots, per se, but my mom convinced me. actually this first shot is a bit on the crappola side, so i will most likely have another soon. i haven't really done a belly shot since 18 weeks, so this is quite a difference. the second picture shows how big both marco and i are. i am carrying a four pound baby right now though... what's his excuse? as we like to say, i'm due in june and he's due in july :)

Faire Isle Dreams Baby Hat

last night i couldn't stop myself from knitting. i know i shouldn't have, what with the wrist thing and all but i couldn't help it... one little hat couldn't hurt, right? also, it was a newborn sized hat, so that's the way i rationalized that. anyhow, i couldn't find a pattern to inspire me so i made one up... and ta da! the Fair Isle Dreams Baby Hat was born :) i really like the way it came out and i haven't seen similar fair isle hats for small babies, so i was thinking i would sell the pattern on etsy... i think i will hold off on that, though until i figure out the sizes :)

other *late* ultrasounds of the baby

so a few weeks ago i got a call from the doctor telling me i had gestational diabetes. this is a temporary form of diabetes that will go away after i give birth (which, according to my ticker, only is 72 days away!). i was initially upset about the diagnosis, but actually i was also somewhat relieved as it gave me a lot of motivation and professional direction as what i was supposed to be eating. actually, with this diabetic menu i eat ALL DAY LONG. i eat six meals every day and check my blood sugar levels 4 times a day. it's not as bad as it sounds and really, i could probably take this as a lifestyle change.

the one thing i was really worried about is the one thing most gestational diabetics are worried about in pregnancy: a HUGE baby. uncontrolled diabetes can lead to humungoid 12 pounders and i was NOT looking forward to that. so i had to go in for an ultrasound to check my girl out and see if she had reached humongoid yet. happily, she's progressing as any 7 month old baby in the womb should be, at a whopping 2 pounds and 12 ounces. i'm happy she's ok, and i'm doing well on the diet so my doctor said everything should go as planned.

these pictures are not the ones of the ultrasound i just took because sadly, they didn't give me any of her this time around. these two are actually from january from when she was *much* smaller. but at least they're interesting to look at!

baby superstar: the starghan

ok now that i've weaved in the ends of the starghan, i'm posting it! first things first: i HATE knitting/crocheting blankets. when i finished this baby i decided that it would be the last one i ever made (although i might talk myself into another one later on, i doubt it). it drove me insane!!! double crochet all the way around. and it sucked up yarn like a hoover! for this one i used FOUR SKEINS of yarn. i don't think i've ever used anything like four 200 yard skeins on a project. it definitely is not yarn-light. what's more, it's not evident in the pictures, but i ran out of the brown toward the very end and had to substitute a random brown from my closet (it matches well enough but not super well). i ended up with 23 rounds if that's any help (i was trying to make it to 25 but then gave up on it as i was out of yarn, out of steam, and was sick of working on it). any how the first shot is the blanky itself (green, white, and brown like the baby room), the second one was with a model (a sweet monkey i got from a swap). and the third was an ugly shot with a water bottle, for showing scale.

i'm happy to report that my wrists are starting to feel better. it's actually weirdly unpredictable, as one morning i'll wake up without the ability to pick up a pencil, and the next morning only one wrist will hurt and one won't, then sometimes it's really good and sometimes it's really bad. weird! i've been also fighting the tylenol but i might do it if it gets too bad. we'll see how it goes.

oh yes and one more thing: my crafty goal now that i'm on spring break is to learn how to make a sock monkey! i have the stuff, i just never got around to it. and it's not a wrist-intensive thing, so hopefully it'll all work out!

the first day of school

is always kind of a mixed day for me. while i'm glad to be leaving the house for a higher purpose than just mailing stuff, i miss my days being for myself. today is my first class of the spring semester, and being pregnant and stuff, it should be interesting how things go.

on the productive side, i've been kind of a baby knits nut lately. this little pair of mary janes are my latest baby knit (ok, baby crochet). unfortunately, due to the pregnancy and such, my wrist is giving out to carpal tunnel (at least it hurts like crazy) so i'm probably going to slow down the knitting and crocheting a lot, which is a bummer as i just got this booklet called baby bootie boutique. i got the little mary jane pattern from there :) anyhow, enjoy, 'cause this will be the last of it!

the five hour baby sweater for my baby

so i've been going a little bit crazy with the baby knits! yes, i'll admit it... some say it's because i'm sentimental, but really i think it's the satisfaction of finishing something so fast and the fact that a lot of stuff only uses one skein of yarn, which is both economic and stash-busting. not that i don't love to make teeny tiny little things that will end up on my baby :) i just love the instant gratification of it all. so the latest thing i've made, since the hats, is this five hour baby sweater (i got the pattern here, although i revised it a little). it was supposed to take 5 hours, but i think it probably took me a little bit more than that. anyhow, now that it's done it's very satisfying and super cute! i love it. and i made it with some knitpicks yarn i had leftover from my mom's hat & gloves -- which was supposed to be a clapotis-- i made about a year ago for her birthday.

prolific? or just inspired?

so after the disappointment with my flore hat, i decided to make a hat that the baby could wear right away after she's born. i have this funny daydream where people are looking for her through the nursery's glass and she's wearing a funny little hat that makes her easily identifiable. so i made her a little fruit hat with the leftover yarn from the flore hat. it's really teeny tiny! it fits a little head from 13 inches to 16 inches so basically a very newborn baby.

i've also made a couple of other things lately. the second item is a 4 inch turtle i made for the one tiny thing swap, where you put a lot of effort into one little thing for your partner. my partner, peihan (who has a cool etsy store), likes toys but can't crochet so i made her this tiny turtle. it's super cute and since turtles are my favorite too, i'm gonna make myself one too.

last but not least, marco has been harassing me for months to make his friend tim a hat which i refused to make as i prefer to good-humoredly jingle the idea of a hat in front of tim. but finally i said ok, and i made him a crochet boy beanie from the happy hooker :) it came out pretty good :)

the flore was supposed to be for the baby

so when i found out i was having a little girl, the first knitted thing i thought about was this hat, flore, pattern by knitwhits. i've always wanted to make it but never had a reason. so the baby gave me a perfect reason, and i ordered the pattern and some yarn from knitpicks... i really wanted to make this perfect little hat for a baby girl.
unfortunately, i have no idea where i went wrong but this hat is pretty big (which is weird 'cause i had the right gauge). so big that it fit my glass head which is adult sized. :( i'm pretty disappointed 'cause i really wanted that infant size to be, well, INFANT SIZE. the hat is also a bit floppier than i thought it would be but i guess it's still pretty cute. problem is, it fits me!

on a happier note, yesterday i felt my baby move! it was weird, kinda like my stomach was making waves and something was swishing back and forth. i mean, i guess it could've been some sort of stomach function but others keep telling me that it was the baby so i guess that's what i'm saying now too :)

the countdown

tee-hee! i found a ticker to countdown my due date!

a belly and a blankie (oh and a hat)

good lord, i'm a beach ball. i am indeed carrying a lot in the front instead of all over, just like the old wives' tale. people tell me it's pretty hard to tell i'm pregnant from the back. oh well, you see for yourself (my belly at 18 weeks):


also, i've made my little girl a stroller blankie and matching hat, crotcheted from a pattern from the Happy Hooker. i love it as i think it will match the stroller we've picked out! :) and it has a little hole in the front for the seatbelt to go through. i finished it during the america's next top model mega-marathon :) yay i knew watching ANTM would work to my advantage for something! here's the blankie & hat:

the big news

so, it's official.

it's a girl :)

well, the doctor is 95% sure it's a girl. we are overjoyed that she is currently growing at the correct rate and weighs 1/2 lb already! that means it would cost something like $4.05 to mail her (i keep thinking of it in terms of mailing stuff because they kept telling me her weight in ounces and i keep sending stuff out for my etsy store in ounces).

i've been purposely hoarding this info because i wanted to tell everyone myself but since i've told my grandmother (otherwise known as the Western Satellite), everyone i know in person already knows. but my friends who read my blog don't! so there you go.

waiting for my next ultrasound

so we're supposed to find out squirmy's sex this coming wednesday. a lot of people have said, hey why don't you keep it a surprise? well, because i believe that pushing something the size of a watermelon through a hole the size of a lemon is surprise enough. anyhow, i've been checking out all these old wives' tales to play-guess at squirmy's gender. well, so far, they all say it's a girl, but i still don't know (???). i don't want to get my hopes up either way!

so, in the desperation to give myself something else to do until then, i've adopted another pet. i'm silly, it's a virtual turtle but it makes me happy, dammit.