Tuesday, December 20, 2011

V is for...

Venture.

Ven-ture (ven-cher): noun 1. an undertaking involving uncertainty as to the outcome, especially a risky or dangerous one.

(Insert hysterical laughter here.  For a whole minute.  I knew I wanted this word but didn’t realize this was the exact definition – perfect!)

OK, where was I?  Oh yes… so, when Dearest and I first decided to adopt we really had no idea of the entire scope of our little ‘venture’.  Thankfully, it didn’t pan out all at once and steamroller us!  All we really knew about Girlie, at first, was that she’d been born at 30 weeks gestation in very healthy condition, only needing a little blow-by oxygen for the first day or so.  She was kept in the nursery for a month, as she weighed less than four pounds at birth, and then went to a foster home.  Girlie had some developmental delays, as one might expect, and by the time she was a few months old she was having an ear infection or pneumonia almost monthly.  She was actually in the hospital when we met her a couple weeks before her first birthday, when it became clear that she needed to be placed into an adoptive home before too much more time went by.  I like to tell people when I brought my third child home from the hospital, she weighed nineteen pounds. :-)  Even when she was ill, she was the most cheerful sick baby I’d ever known.

Girlie was only 2 ½ when Boyo came to live with us at the age of six months.  It quickly became obvious he was precocious, determined to be where he wasn’t and grab what he shouldn’t.  Boyo was up and running at 9 ½ months, and he was exceptionally strong and agile – keeping him and everything else safe was a full time job!  His activity level was higher than average; his sleep patterns and frustration tolerance lower than average, and the tantrums started at about a year or so.  By that time, Girlie had only been saying a few words and not meeting the physical milestones, so we suspected there was more than the usual delay due to prematurity.  Thus began our journey of learning and discovering: parenting children with challenges.

Have we ever wished we’d never taken on this venture?  No.  In fact, there were times even after we had an idea of what we were dealing with that we considered getting more children (but we both realize that wouldn’t have been practical in our situation).  There have been plenty of times when we worried we were doing all the wrong things, and wished we’d had more information, but these two kids couldn’t be any more our own if we’d given birth to them.  So far, a very successful venture.

I did something crazy recently – I deliberately chopped the ends from a pair of gorgeous laminated hardwood knitting needles.  These particular needles are marketed both in the US and in Europe by different companies; the interchangeable parts work together but the pieces available are slightly different.  I had a short European cable, but long US tips, and they couldn’t be used together to make a 16” circular needle.  I decided to try shortening my size 8 tips: if I was successful, I’d have a great needle, perfect for the hat I am knitting.  If I failed, I could buy a relatively inexpensive set of replacement tips. 
What I really feared was the nail clipper being dull,
and crushing or splitting the wood. I was lucky!

A little careful use of the guillotine-style dog nail clippers, a few turns of the pencil sharpener… a little more clipping, a little more grinding, followed by plenty of sanding and smoothing… Success!  I don’t know how many more of my tips can be shortened; I think only a few of them would work well in our pencil sharpener.  It's nice when a risky little venture off with such a big reward!
Shorter size 8 needle shown next to original length size 10.

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