out walking

Sometimes being a parent is so all consuming that I forget to look up, have difficulty seeing outside of my own profound relationship with my child. But when I do glance up for a moment I catch these beautiful glimpses of my boy making his own relationships with the world. It is a delight to watch Ari fall in love with his grandparents and to see the joy he brings to their faces. He doesn't want to let them out of his sight and shrieks when they leave the house if even just to step out the door for a moment. He spends his meals watching them intently, giving them silly grins when they talk to him and wiggling in excitement.
It is incredible really, watching a baby grow. A year ago he was still inside me, a part of me, inside my very skin. This was such an intense time, full of quiet anticipation and expectation and excitement and fear. Knowing soon I would get to meet my baby; soon this baby would no longer be a part of me. And this whole year has been an extension and a continuation of those experiences. Every new achievement he has made- learning to breastfeed, smiling, sitting up, crawling, walking- is a celebration of his learning and a realization that he is becoming more and more himself. And as he blossoms into his own unique incredible person he also grows a teensy bit further away from being that baby-in-the-womb. Of course these steps are incremental. I cannot currently leave the room without a squeal of protest and often have a baby attached to my leg or hip or tucked inside a sling. He is of course, still a baby, still my baby.
But he is growing up too, and growing quickly. Turning ever more sweet and lovely and deliciously him by the day.

clang clang rattle bang bang

Who needs toys when there are canisters to play with? I bought these at a thrift store awhile back and they have become a favorite. They fit inside each other, roll well and clang loudly when knocked together. What could be better? Please ignore the mess in the background. Tonight's project is a major cleaning session before Perry's parents come to visit. We are looking so forward to their stay (I am blessed with in-laws I adore!) and they have not seen Ari since the fall, so there will be much fun to be had. Hopefully I will be able to have time to sneak off to the craft room (craft room sounds so lofty- images of organized shelves full of cloth and craft supplies and empty tables to work at. The reality is a tiny back bedroom/storage room in our little cabin filled with filing boxes and overloaded bookshelves and my craft supplies spilling over all surfaces. But it is a place to retreat to none-the-less.) Here is a peek at a birthday WIP, any guesses?

muffins and crowns and other important business

I was reminded by the wonderful comments on my last post, just why I am here. I am blogging for the exact purpose of recording the snow melting and the babe growing and the ramblings of a tired mama. Of course there is so much more that could be written, bigger “worthier” things, and perhaps sometimes I will write about politics and world events and environmental concerns- those things that are part of conversations with friends and family and that occupy a lot of my thoughts. But even as it feels self indulgent and trivial sometimes to write about the rhubarb coming up in the garden when I know there are wars being fought across the world, or mines leaching chemicals just beyond my back door, somehow these details feel important too. It is the garden growing and the seasons changing that let me know there is reason to feel hopeful even as the news reports a mass shooting. And puttering in my kitchen or watching my baby take those wobbly steps keeps my heart full of joy and love even when there are so many reasons to despair. It is hard sometimes to post about those small details- it seems there should be some starker realities or hard facts somewhere to make it worth writing about- but I suppose I log in to read other mama’s blogs for those exact sorts of glimpses into lives. Thank you for the reminder that muffins and crowns are their own sorts of big news.So, the crown. I have been dreaming of the traditions I would create for my child/ren long before Ari was born and I was so excited to see the idea of the birthday crown pop up in blogland. I love the idea of creating something that will be part of his birthday celebrations for many years to come. I looked at a ton before I sewed this one, but it was greatly inspired by soulemama’s, using plant dyed felt and a fabric covered elastic at the back. I was going to spell out Ari’s name on felt squares, but Perry asked what we would do if our next kid had a really long name- how could we be consistent then? (oh, what deliberations we make over these sorts of things!) So, despite the fact that we don’t really have any long names on our current favorite name list, plain old “A” it is. And I’m fine with that because I don’t know a darned thing about embroidery and it takes me forever. Now we’ll see if we can keep it on Ari’s head long enough to get a photo. He is exploring clothing removal presently. Hats, shoes, diapers, shirt sleeves, anything he can pull off, he does. I expect he will spend most of the summer naked if he has his way.And the muffin recipe requested is from the Re-bar cookbook, which is a collection of recipes from one of our favorite restaurants in Victoria BC where we lived for years and where I went to school. We were too broke to eat out very often (we still are, but there is so little good food to be had here we don’t notice so much!) but we would go the Re-bar when we were splurging. I’m not sure the copyright issues with posting recipes, but maybe if y’all promise to grab a muffin at the Re-bar if you go through Victoria no one will mind my posting it.

2 eggs beaten
½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
¾ cup brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla
1 ½ cups pumpkin puree ( I used organic canned)
½ cup rolled oats
½ cup millet
¼ cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup flour
¾ cup ww flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp nutmeg
Preheat to 350 F. Grease muffin tins or use liners. Combine eggs, oil, buttermilk, sugar, vanilla, and pumpkin in large bowl and mix well. Stir in oats. Toast millet in hot dry skillet until lightly brown and fragrant. Add to bowl. Toast pumpkin sees and add to bowl.
In a separate bowl sift dry ingredients together (I never sift, but you can if you like!) Add the dry mix to the wet and gently stir to combine. Don’t overmix.
Fill muffin cups generously with batter. Sprinkle tops with extra pumpkin seeds and bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Makes 15 large muffins. I made cinnamon honey butter for these and brought them to a brunch potluck. Yum

chatter

Sometimes I don't get to this blog because I am at a loss for things to say. I'm still here, the snow is still melting, the babe is still growing, I'm still just crafting and being a mom and hanging out with other moms and going for walks in the woods. Of course there is lots else, all that other stuff that goes on in a life, all the details that are either too mundane or too personal to post upon a blog. And all these details fill up a life too and make getting down to the work of writing often difficult. Sometimes it takes me all day of popping onto the computer and then off again to actually get something ready to post. And more often I don't get there at all. I aspire to one day be a once-a-day blogger but following the above argument, it seems my life will have to get both more interesting and less busy, which is not altogether likely. In the meantime, I will post a few images of those details that fill the day...

Ari helping with supper, a nearly completed birthday crown (almost a year old! How did that happen?) and the rhubarb coming up in the garden.

my boy in the garden, bowl of fresh felt strawberries and some pumpkin millet muffins. Yum.

(And the phone was a recent thrift store find. I am usually anti-plastic, but something about plastic from the 70's is okay. And tell me this isn't cuter than a plastic cell phone that talks? This phone just jingles a little bell and rolls its eyes a bit. And Ari picks it up when it rings and hands it to me, so it is clearly promoting learning and early secretarial skills.)

girls and dolls

I've been wanting to make one of these for awhile now, but it was Ari's sweet little friend's one year birthday that inspired me to finally make one. She gave the doll a kiss and a chew in appreciation so I know it will be loved. She is made of plant dyed wool felt and her bed is a felted wool sweater. And yes, I realize I have got the interlock going in the wrong direction. I'll get that right next time I'm sure.

I couldn't resist going a little girly on the colour scheme. So much for all my aspirations of gender neutrality. But in my defense, my boy currently prefers baby dolls to trucks and looks great in lavender.

I also recently sent this pouch off to a friend. The linen is a thrifted napkin and is my very favorite colour of green. There is just enough left to make one of these for myself.

And at the risk of complaining about the weather one too many times in the past few posts... it snowed today. A lot. The poor robins are chilly and the puddles are frozen over. In Narnia it was the ice queen that made the land forever winter, right? She's here I'm afraid. Soon I will find lampposts sprouting in unlikely places and all my friends turned to stone.

art 'n such

We are back home and settling in. Ari is still a little out of sync (Perry is currently attempting to dance him to sleep at 9:30 at night- his usual bedtime being 7:30,) but we can blame that on teething. It is a handy scapegoat around here.

We had fun on our little adventure although we decided that we really should have one stationary day for every day of travel with a babe. He was pretty tired of the car seat by the time we rolled back up our driveway. But the fact that we stayed in a hotel with pools and a faux tropical theme (very tacky but fun none-the-less) made the trip worthwhile for Ari. We spent our evenings in the pools and hot tubs and the mornings walking up and down (and up and down and up and down) the little bridges over the "river" in the "courtyard." Ari was in heaven.

And one of the initial reasons for heading out was this group show Perry was part of. His piece was called "Pass the Plate" and was a series of Styrofoam plate prints on panels. The concept was sort of like a visual version of the game "telephone" with the first image being sent to another artist who made a sketch of what the piece brought to mind and this image getting sent to another artist and so on with Perry inserting himself every few images. Each of these pieces Perry then reproduced onto plates and made prints of them. And, given my close association with the artist and my magnetic personality and all, I was given the opportunity to be one of the artists. No such thing as conflict of interest in the art world. I was given the sketch of the boy posing in the llama shirt.
Mine was drawn from a vintage kid shirt pattern. From there came the hairy chest man. What fun it was to see them up in the gallery space and know I had a little part in it. I see why Perry likes exhibiting - it is a bit of a high!

There were other trip highlights- the thrift shop and yarn store and yummy food that cannot be had in our little town. And a good visit with some friends. And coming home to the garden melting.

marching on

Finally spring is here. My mom took Ari out to float toy boats in puddles today and he is thrilled to be able to put his feet on the ground. It is still slushy and mucky and there is still plenty of snow to melt, but I can imagine that green things might grow again one day. Breathing warm air feels like a balm to the long-winter blues.

We are heading out tomorrow morning for a few days in the city. Gallery visiting and thrift store shopping and a little time away will be good for us all. If only we can think of enough songs and games and silliness to keep the baby distracted for the 4 hour drive, all will be well.

soup anyone?

Mmm. Yam soup. Ari has been enjoying his meals more and more these days, and he is getting pretty determined to feed himself. You might notice that he has two spoons there in his mouth. That would be the one I was trying to feed him with and the one I gave him attempting distraction. But he did manage to get a good deal of soup into his mouth, and clearly he enjoyed the process so I guess that's what counts.
And the obvious next step after this kind of fancy eating is a bath. We've taken to the baby-in-the-rubbermaid form of bathing lately- he can stand and play and splash to his hearts content and one of us doesn't have to get into the tub every night after dinner. I suppose this is the idea behind baby bathtubs, but we have this perfectly good tupperwear container that serves the purpose fine. It can double as a playpen in emergencies too (without water of course.)

And on the weather front, it is currently above zero at 11:00 at night. Things are looking up.

more chilly laments

Looking quite spring-like wouldn't you say? We are getting some beautiful sun and we've been getting out lots. Ari is happy to crawl around on our little deck and get a taste of what it might mean to be able to play outside. And this willow tree obviously thinks spring is on its way. But if you look past the baby playing on the porch you will see that we still have a ways to go.
oh dear. Look at all that snow. I plan to shovel off the garden as soon as the weather warms up a bit, but it is biting cold still and really, that looks like quite the shoveling project. Perry and I spent our walk today discussing summer travel plans, imagining a day when we might actually be too hot. Oh summer, will you ever come?

spring has not yet sprung

This is all the spring we are getting right now, a cottonwood branch brought inside and set in water to leaf out in the house. The smell is incredible and is a reminder that there might be something green budding again one day, even as the snow continues to fall.

Things are looking up from the last post, Perry is home now and Ari's cold is nearly gone and there is less grouchiness all round. I've been sewing in fits and starts, and enjoying it so much. I never thought I would sew- I have always hated getting behind a sewing machine in the past, but somehow it has become such fun as I learn more and actually make things. I find such satisfaction from creating something functional from a pile of fabric or an old item of clothing. I am still making tons of mistakes, but I am slowly learning how to correct them and closing myself in the back room with the sewing machine feels like a mini-retreat.
These are a couple recent projects. I am currently working on a stack of bibs for my messy baby, and several other projects are currently sitting unfinished. I seem to sew and craft like I read. A book on the go in every corner and a few more in the wings waiting to be picked up.