Spotlight on KayPea

[Jaimee]

This is the Spotlight Thread for KayPea

KayPea, please copy the questions below into a new post and bold them.  Answer them as you feel comfortable, adding any extra information you'd like to share.

DDC members, please feel free to comment and add your own questions to keep the conversation going!

1.  What is your first name?

2.  How did you choose your screen name?

3.  Where do you live?  Where were you born?

4.  What is one of your favorite books?

5.  What is your favorite season and why?

6.  If you could visit anywhere in the world where would you go and why?

7.  What is your most and least favorite household chore?

8.  What is your current job?  What did you do pre-motherhood?

9.  What is one thing you like to do in your free time?

10. What's one thing you're looking forward to doing differently with this baby.  What's one thing you plan to do the same?

We look forward to getting to know you better! 

[KayPea]

1. What is your first name? Kirsten

2. How did you choose your screen name? My initials are KP, and a coworker used to call me by my initials, but spell it like this when he'd send me e-mail. 

3. Where do you live? Where were you born? I live in Vancouver BC, Canada. I was born in Edmonton, but I grew up in Thunder Bay Ontario. Vancouver is a beautiful place to live, I wish we could afford to live here the way that we'd like (property values are very very high here, comparable to New York or London.) 

4. What is one of your favourite books? So hard to choose! Anne of Green Gables was my favourite as a kid, and I still go back and read it from time to time, so it would be my longest-running favourite. Lately I've been digging Radical Homemakers. 

5. What is your favourite season and why? In the summer, I say it's summer. I love the gardening, the fresh food, the swimming, the bonfires, going camping, watermelon, everything. In the fall, I say it's fall, because I love sweaters and mittens and scarves, and soup and tea and hikes and I also get really energized in the fall, and feel really creative. The autumn feels like the new year. Spring is lovely in Vancouver too, so living here, I have developed an appreciation for spring too. I basically am not a fan of winter. 

6. If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go and why? I think I'd want to do a contemporary art/craft/food tour of Europe, including Scandinavia, if I could be really extravagant. I feel in the need of inspiration. I'd also love to do the Squam art workshops in early summer, and this is pretty extravagant too, because of all the time I would need away from my family to spend on JUST ME. But it sounds wonderful, being able to be creative, make things, and also be at a retreat by a lake. 

7. What is your most and least favourite household chore? Most favourite: does organizing count? I like anything detail-oriented - cleaning a dirty garbage can, cleaning out cupboards etc. And I actually really like doing laundry. Least favourite: pretty much anything else, I am a terrible housekeeper. I have a special dislike for dishes though, as we don't have a dishwasher. Luckily, my husband is amazing, and does the dishes for me.

8. What is your current job? What did you do pre-motherhood? I'm a SAHM. Pre-motherhood I was an artist working in arts administration (theatre) to pay the bills.

9. What is one thing you like to do in your free time? Knitting. Though I'm terrible at following patterns. I love inventing my own patterns to make animals, and wonky clothes too. If I had MORE free time, I'd also be working on other creative pursuits - drawing, textile work, sculpture. But knitting fits best in my life right now because I can pick it up and put it down in small bursts. I haven't yet learned how to do that with other creative stuff. 

10. What is one thing you're looking forward to doing differently with this baby. What's one thing you plan to do the same? Out of necessity, I plan to deal with sleep differently with this baby. DD didn't sleep on her own until she was over a year, and by that I mean she was NEVER alone to sleep. I had to be touching her, or she wasn't sleeping. I will make it a priority to have naptime, and bedtime be baby sleeps alone time. I don't mind nursing to sleep again, but I have to be able to leave once baby is asleep. Most other things I'd like to do the same - cloth diapers with ECing, babywearing, nursing on demand, nursing well into toddlerhood, gentle discipline, etc. 

[tank]

Did you knit the little guy on your avatar?

What kinds of clothes do you knit?

[Jaimee]

Do you pronounce your name Ker-sten or Kear-sten?

I felt the same way about sleep with my second.  Turns out he's a different kind of sleeper.  While he was still a frequent waker, he was much easier to put back to sleep.  He found his thumb very early and could put himself to sleep sometimes and he was always fine being put down for naps and bed b/c of his thumb.  My older one sucks her fingers, but she didn't start doing that until she was a bit older so she was used to being comforted during her sleep by then and didn't successfully sleep through the night until she was 2 years old.  I hope you get a different kind of sleeper too!

[KayPea]

Did you knit the little guy on your avatar? I did! He was a gift for a friend with the same due date as me (with DD.) He is improvised - I think it gives them personality, to be a little wonky. 

What kinds of clothes do you knit? Small projects - hats, mittens, socks, booties, baby sweaters, cowls, soakers, longies, etc. I have yet to make an adult sweater, because I would have to follow a pattern. Plus, I lose interest in big projects. I'm working on a 3ft x 3 ft baby blanket right now though, which is the biggest thing I've ever made. 

[KayPea]

Depends on who I'm talking to. My mom and anyone who has known me since childhood calls me Ker-sten. So I guess that is officially how to pronounce it. But in highschool I started introducing myself as Kear-sten, because I thought it was prettier, and it was harder to confuse with KRIS-ten, which was a big pet peeve of mine. So anyone who has known me since then, which is almost everyone, calls me Keer-sten. I don't know how, but my DD also calls me Ker-sten, when she wants to figure out how names work, even though DH pronounces it the other way.

Complicated!

I'm hoping that this one is a different kind of sleeper than DD, too. At 26 months, DD has JUST started sleeping through the night in her own bed. Moving to her own bed was the key. Apparently DH was a super champion sleeper, and my sister was the kind of baby that would fall asleep wherever she was if it was time for sleeping, so this mythical kind of sleep does have the possibility to exist in this baby's genes. DD was an all-around high-needs baby and spirited toddler, so if I had another just like her the universe would be cruel indeed. Though she is a sparkling, dazzling force, and the light of our lives, so it has its compensations. 

Originally Posted by Jaimee 

Do you pronounce your name Ker-sten or Kear-sten?

I felt the same way about sleep with my second.  Turns out he's a different kind of sleeper.  While he was still a frequent waker, he was much easier to put back to sleep.  He found his thumb very early and could put himself to sleep sometimes and he was always fine being put down for naps and bed b/c of his thumb.  My older one sucks her fingers, but she didn't start doing that until she was a bit older so she was used to being comforted during her sleep by then and didn't successfully sleep through the night until she was 2 years old.  I hope you get a different kind of sleeper too!