My knitty queue is a mile long with various woolie warm cozies for winter and dozens of knitted play crowns for our school's Holiday Faire. But I couldn't help putting everything on hold to knit up these stripey, gnomey Noro hats for the kiddos. The pattern is free on the Living Crafts blog. The yarn is some discontinued Noro Iro that I got for a very spiffy, discounted price some months back. The nifty playset was our end-of-summer treat to ourselves.
I look forward to October all year long - those spiced cider days brimming with golden light and leafy gusts that make your heart race and your arms reach out. Everything is full and bright and balanced on the edge. September's heat and bugs are gone. November's dusty decline is still almost a dream. October is my touchstone.
But this October was here and then it was gone - trips and weddings and busyness. Life took over and we tumble-jumbled through my favorite month. With all the push and pull of work and travel, I hurried us through our days, raising my voice much too often, directing the where and when with too much authority and too little grace and gentleness. Frustration was our constant house guest - mostly mine, sometimes hers. And now, as our days get shorter and our rhythms are returning, I hope for the calm and the quiet of the season, simplicity over excess and gratitude over obligation.
There were moments though, this crazy whirlwind October, when we left dinner unmade and turned our backs on the clutter, when all the to-do's and should-have-done's fell away. We stayed outside for hours, crunching in leaves and looking at clouds, our pockets full of acorns and seeds and forgotten things. We dug through the remnants of the vegetable garden and the withering flowerbeds and watched cardinals fight over space on the birdfeeder. There were moments, though far too few, when we drank in the season and felt full and bright and balanced on the edge.
This face. It tells you all you need to know. At any moment, it can tell you if his greatest wish is coming true or if his heart is breaking into little, tiny, whimpery pieces. Both of which happen many times in a day.
In this particular moment, it is telling you exactly how he feels about his new, mama-knit hat.
I knew this would happen when I started knitting this two-yarn, fingering weight topper. He rarely consents to wear a hat of any sort.
Unless he is about to swing a baseball bat. In which case, he most adamantly demands a baseball hat. And it doesn't matter one bit if that hat happens to be pink and four sizes too big.
My little hat, however, is now nestled in a pile of dust bunnies behind some furniture. In case you, too, want to knit up a spiffy yet unappreciated toddler beanie, here's the Ravelry link.
I think perhaps this particular hat has the potential to be adopted by someone with a more ecclectic and complex fashion sense.
{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.
*** *** ***
inspired by Amanda Soule. join in on her blog.
This guy. So much snuggly sweetness in such a compact and adorable little package. He's just bursting with personality these days. He has so much to say. He notices. He asks questions. He fills our days with humor and joy and delight and loud, high pitched song. To say that his mama, daddy, and sister adore him is a tremendous understatement.
These photos are from a recent farm visit. The kids got to pick (and nibble) vegetables from the garden, including that monstrous okra that Owen is digging into below. He loved the chickens. Is there anything better than kids and chickens? He was all giggles and wiggles when they were let out of their barn - petting them and feeding them scraps from the garden and yelling, Hi Chicken, over and over again. Naturally, he wanted to bring one home.
Juni was more intimidated by the flurry of fifty-some chickens and turkeys flapping all around us and stayed quite out of their way. But then she managed to witness one little lady lay a pretty blue-green egg right in front of her. And she fell in love as well.
Somehow, I blinked and Summer arrived. I never know what to do with Summer. I always think our days will move at a slower, lazier pace, but then there are trips and parties and summer camps and grants to write and yet another case of pneumonia (me). The days, of course, have been hot, unbearably impossibly hot. But the nights have been filled with fireflies and clear moonlight and Juni tells me that all that "fairy magic" keeps us safe while we sleep (safe from pigs and dinosaurs, that is).
The garden, which was happily chugging along all Spring, has exploded into the desperate, wild growth of Summer - tall, tall tomato plants, peppers popping up all over the place, monstrous zucchini, things bolting and seeding everywhere, true photosynthetic chaos in the face of my nonexistent gardening skills. Between the vegetable garden and the peach tree, the deer, squirrels, and rabbits are never bored around here. And between the dirt and the animals, neither are the kids.
Owen is happy to spend the afternoons mowing the grass or playing T-ball or looking for worms in the garden. Juniper has been riding her bike and watering the flowers and swiming in the pool every evening, all the while loudly lamenting the fact that school is closed. I've been working and agonizing over work decisions and knitting Winter sweaters in 100 degree heat and wondering when exactly my babies got so big.
she kept saying, this MUST be summer!
and it felt like summer, bright and warm and lazy
splashing in the backyard, digging in the garden, trying on as many princess hats as we could find (in fact, all hats are princess hats)
we baked whole wheat chocolate chip cookies (from this gorgeous book) and stuck raspberries on our fingertips and ate marshmallows in our pyjamas
we made things and read things and laughed and fell asleep exhausted at the end of the day
weekends as they should be
(joining Amanda for weekending)
On Friday, the Early Childhood students at Juniper's school had their May Day celebration and family picnic. We made flower crowns (with lavender from our garden!) and watched the Kindergarten children dance around the May pole. Juni was thrilled with such a special day at school with her friends.
I made Juni's May Day dress using the Sunny Scallop Dress pattern by Jona G. and a couple of simple calicos from JoAnns. Despite the complete lack of pink or sparkles, Juni says it is still "princessy", which is the only fashion metric that matters these days.