all buttoned up.

The First One

Truly turned one last week. I know.

Sam's first year took ten. I'm glad that I was blogging during Augie and Manny's because there was some good stuff in there that I've totally forgotten already. This child's first year has felt like small wonders all lined up. Starting with my pregnancy there were a thousand things that might have gone wrong. But mostly they didn't and the important stuff stayed intact. I try not to take any of that intact stuff for granted. She brings out the sweetest and the best in her brothers, with no signs of flagging. She smiles so much. And more than any of her brothers, she is at once thrilled and terrified by life. This probably just makes her more like her mother than anyone else.

I made her an Apple Cake (Smitten Kitchen) for a tiny party we had on Sunday. I'm trying to instill a love of fruit desserts in her early.

(polaroid by Ann McGarry, of course)

This New Year

We have begun the new year with sun. We also began the new year, as we do most years, with donuts (Portzelky). I asked for permission to skip last year as I was pretty close to delivering Tru, and had decided to repaint the interior of the house and remodel the basement. Donuts skipped. This year we got back on track with the friends and the deep fried dough.

I am hoping to spend this year learning a couple of new things and more importantly, getting better at stuff I already (sort of) know how to do. I am, thankfully, becoming more focused with age, even as there are more things (children mostly) to distract me. I wonder how much of that focus comes as I surrender to parts of my life that are mostly unchanging: the day-to-day things, the less sleep than I'd like, the near constant needs of small children.

It is not a bad place to be, really. Happy, Good, New Year, everyone.

Stop Gap

 

(Manny took the top one, August took the bottom one)

Somehow, in the next few weeks, I will have both a new four year-old and a new five year-old. By "somehow", I mean that I will have no control over the sun and these two boys are going to grow, and Augie will lose a tooth this week, and Manny will learn all the letters in his name. While I say "don't get big! be little!" to them, I silently wish them to be bigger, smarter and wiser. I don't know. I'm having a hard time putting all this stuff down in a meaningful way. I feel it coming, though.

Six Months and On (Some Baby)

(Pola by Ann McGarry. Of course.)

We are closer to Truly's seventh month, than her sixth, but you know-- six months is sort of a deal in babyland. She's scooting a little bit. She's drooling almost constantly. Her imaginary teeth are causing a great deal of consternation for both of us. Compared to her brothers she is a near constant smiler, unless you touch her. (Don't touch her.)

Manny likes to sing to her. I could die.

The rest of us are hobbling along, trying to negotiate the chasm of summer. I know that adults tend to romanticize that blissful feeling of nothing to do, but it is my experience that there is really nothing harder for the under 10 set (and their caregivers). We should all be so lucky, right? I know. School starts here the day after labour day, and this year August will be going, too. We are deep into backpack negotiations and end of summer trip planning. We also made the decision to list the bakfiets for sale. We still family bike, but it's looking a bit different these days, with all three boys riding two-wheelers. By the time Truly is happy on the bike, she'll be ready for a seat of her own.

But for now: I'm working my way through a short list of canning, some small sewing, and being the arbiter in the near constant small people conflicts. Truly squirms above it all. She is the only neutral party these days.

Reprieve

Paul was saying that he felt like these first few weeks of Truly's life are a sort of reprieve given that she came a few weeks early. She is easing us into newborn-dom easily, even though she has a cold at the moment and is pretty snarfley. Thank you for all your kind words and encouragement. We are so happy to be six. 

The night I checked into the hospital, Ann brought by her Pentax loaded with 3200 speed black and white film. She took some fantastic and funny (but only to me) labouring photos and then gave Paul a quick tutorial on the light meter, etc., and left the camera with us. 

Annie picked up the camera on our first day home with her and had the film developed right away. The prints are a rare and wonderful gift to have. I shot a lot of film with Sam. These make me want to begin doing that again.

(Or maybe just hand the camera over to Paul, since he seems to have the knack. You are so busted, dude.)

In the End, There was Only One Kind of Cookie

The week leading up to the 25th went a little Crazy Town up in here. Saturday, the 24th, had me standing in the kitchen slowly turning circles wondering what exactly I could cull from the list. This December has not exactly found me smug, but it had found me happily laid back and mostly un-rushed. I had thought ahead! The baking for neighbors and friends was finished! The gifts had been done and wrapped for days! I was nearly annoying myself.

Pride goeth before the fall, friends.

So, on the 24th, while slowly turning circles and alternately wanting to cry and to laugh, I realized that in my planning I had left all the merry making and family cookie baking to the days we had just lost. I pulled out the only recipe that I felt like making and tried to channel some cheer. The recipe was for Peppernuts, which in my family are little crunchy bits: mildly spicy and tasting a bit like orange. I realize there are 100 different variations on these (some are an entirely different cookie all together) and the recipes vary even in my own family. So, for the record, this is my mom and my great grandma's recipe, but not my grandma's. This recipe involves Roger's Golden Syrup and lots of orange rind. We are a picky people.

Pickier still, are my VERY OWN CHILDREN who claim to not even like peppernuts (lest you think this was some kind of love gift for them). I made them anyway and I prepped for lunch the next day. The cookies for Santa were cancelled and there were no cinnamon rolls to wake up to. Last minute handmade gifts had long been abandoned and the stockings were a bit narrow. Still, we opened gifts, we laughed with friends, we marveled (and continue to) at our good fortune, and I ate more than my share of those damn cookies. They were good (and they still are, as most of them are now in the freezer).

Now it's New Year's Eve and I'm just catching up. And I still feel a little behind. But I didn't want this last day of the year to pass without letting you all know how grateful I am that I can come here, check in, write some stuff down, and be the recipient of a whole lot of good love and good humour. This space, with it's never changing header and occasional silliness, has been the source of so many good things and so many good people in my life.

Thank you, thank you. Happy New Year.

Dispatch From the Porch

I stopped rocking Augie to sleep the day after I got home with Manny. He felt huge in my arms. He was ready. A month ago we started rocking again. Instead of bedtime routines, lights out and all to sleep, we've been staying all together-- rocking, back patting, and telling stories. They are all so much bigger now.

In the past, this might have felt like a never ending cycle we were perpetuating (at best) or an exhausting and maddening ritual (at worst). It's a cycle that will pass quickly. And if it doesn't? Then we give Sam the memory of all of us together in one room while he falls asleep and we give the little boys the only thing I have left after a good day of living.

***

Sam is reading like a boy possessed. I told Paul that Sam's ability to rip through chapter books at an alarming rate might be the only outward identifier of his genetic relationship to me. That, and his propensity for sleepwalking and peeing in strange places. But he'll grow out of that one (AS DID I). First grade is a mixed bag. His wrap up of the day usually rests entirely on what happened at lunch.

***

The Jayhawks are back at it. I listened to Tomorrow the Green Grass for the first time when I was 20 and it changed the way I felt about all kinds of music. Did anyone go to one of the shows in Chicago in January? Feel free to tell me they were awful and not awesome at all.

The March list is looking good. The taxes have been filed (that is a bold faced brag) and we have a little trip planned. We had friends stay this weekend and it was a lot of fun. I bought daffodils the other day and the ones in our yard are nearly up and open.

I'm putting in the peas this weekend.

Go Forth into Spring

February was too much. TOO MUCH. But March is my month. And if I were to say this to you in real-life I would replace the little "my" with a "MY" and maybe swing my hips a little. Here, in no particular order are the annual events that I claim:

• Daffodils (my favourites)
• Longer Days
• Getting the peas in and moving dirt around
• Spring Break and maybe a little trip
• Swap out sneaking out to the fabric store with sneaking out to my favourite nursery
• Tax season (I know that this gives most people a stomach ache, but I like seeing everything on paper-- no matter how depressing.)
• People are happier. Especially the sort of people who are my children.
• Hope. I feel so much hope in March.

Paul has moved from working a graveyard shift over to a fancy admin day job. He is well liked where he works and I could not be prouder of him. He wears a lot of sweater vests and nice ties. I have been sewing quite a lot, trying to work through some of my accumulated fabric and patterns. I'm trying to look honestly at the clothes I've made and how they look on me and what I actually wear regularly-- it appears there will be some more knit tops in my future.

I spent a night and a day in Astoria this last weekend, sewing with a handful of really wonderful women. It was beautiful. And even though I spent two hours unpicking two button holes (they were in french terry and I didn't want anything to snag), the time was super productive. I really love being productive. I have come to accept that getting ahead with things at home is more accurately, barely maintaining or better: dismissing all expectations entirely and moving forward anyway. Maybe that is why I claim March so fiercely-- the light, the flowers, the seeds-- they all grow and move with very little effort on my part.

Of course, lest I get all crazy and optimistic, the laundry does the same thing. 

 

Patterns Worth Tracking Down

All this rain is reminding me big time of the first time I went to summer camp and it rained exactly like this the whole week.  They moved our outdoor camp out night to a barn, where, after a series of unfortunate events I ended up peeing my pants.  In my sleeping bag.  I didn't tell anyone, but I'm sure someone must have figured it out considering it happened on a Wednesday and I didn't get picked up until the Saturday.  I have way too many awesome stories about me peeing when and where I was not supposed to.  It was the curse of being a nervous girl-child combined with a good amount of sleep walking. 

That is all to say that I am all right waiting for summer to get here.  Sometimes it's not all that it's cracked up to be.  Besides, I have more sewing to do.  This is a variation on Simplicity 2798  which I've written about before.  It contains those magic bust size adjustments which makes it worth tracking down even though it's out of print (you can still get it online but big fabric stores usually won't have it).  I made similar adjustments (facing the back and front and doing a button closure instead of a zipper) as I did the last time.  Instead of making a dress, I blended the two side panel pieces together and cut it out as a shirt.  Next time I'm going to try a boat neck and use a print for the bottom instead, because I've been wearing the heck out this shirt the last few weeks.  The print is Liberty Tana Lawn.  That stuff is expensive, but part of the reason to make your own clothes is to use fabric you love.  And I love this stuff.  A little goes a long way.  Jessica made a sweet version of the dress with some great notes on petite adjustments (I'll try not to hate her and her cuteness).

This is another out of print pattern:  Jalie 965 (you can still find it in stores that sell Jalie and from Pattern Review).  I know Jalie makes similar basic T Shirt patterns and in spite of having some crazy photo styling on their covers, these patterns are solid.  All the details about this one are over at Bolt Neighborhood.  

Me Made May did not go quite as well as I'd hoped, but I have worn almost every wearable made-by-me thing in my closet.  The flickr pool regularly blows my mind and is keeping me plenty occupied tracking down patterns for consideration.  Summer will get here when it gets here.  And Sam isn't old enough for sleep away camp, so I don't have too much to worry about.

The Weekend That Was

On Saturday Paul got up with two of the boys before six.  He fed them, rescued the third from his crib, changed some objectionable diapers and made some coffee.  Just like he does every morning.  I came down later-- after lying there listening to screaming and willing the smell of the coffee to somehow fly me downstairs like magic dust.  While I was trying to hide under our blankets, he had decided to clean out the return registers (big holes in the floor covered by grates, where the boys store all manner of food and toys), and then in a feat of heroic proportions he braved the underbelly of the couch cushions with the vacuum cleaner.  He is often twice the mother I am. 

I am largely ambivalent towards Mother's Day (big surprise), preferring to use it as an excuse to spend as much time by myself as possible.  Even typing this makes me giggle because: 1. I realize how different I am from my own mother who desires exactly the opposite and I wonder if that will be me one day, and 2. of COURSE I do not get to spend the day by myself.  Have you met these little people?  They enjoy a lot of togetherness.  It is their way.

But I am not going to look this gift horse in the mouth, especially after spending Saturday night in the company of some amazing people celebrating the complications of family and motherhood-- and we all know it's complicated.  Like most days that merit their own Hallmark commercial, there is always a flip side.  I know that his day heightens the grief of those who have lost their mothers or for those who's circumstances are preventing them from being the parent that they would like to be.  It is heavy stuff, and looking at my own life in comparison, I know that I have been given the world. 

I am grateful for my small people, for the woman my own mother is, and for the people that have come along side my family and myself and mothered us in their own way.  I am grateful for the mother who gave life to my boys and who continues to love them in a way that I'll probably never understand.