white apples . a blog

things are sprouting

 

Spring is finally here and I can feel the collective exhale, despite the persistence of freezing temperatures and icy storms in our forecast. Like much of the country, our winter was long and unusual and suprising in many ways. But signs of spring are everywhere. The wild geese are honking overhead and the daffodils are crowding around our flower beds.The kids have planted rows of peas and bush beans in the garden and ladybugs can be found in every nook and cranny of our house.

Each time I sat down to compose a new post in this space, something distracting and wonderful came along and I was off on some tangent. One of those tangents has been the opening of our Etsy store, Beetle and Fern, with my dear friend Marta. This little venture grew out of all the fun we had organizing and designing the Enchantment Shoppe for our Waldorf school's Winter Fair. We've been sewing up little dolls and wee woolie creatures, following our every crafty whim. If crafty whims are your cup of tea, follow along on our blog and Facebook page.

The other bit of exciting news is that our little family will be welcoming a brand new baby boy in August. As we lean towards summer, my mind is reaching back to those early days, to what it was like having a newborn nestled right in the middle of our days, to diapers and tiny clothes and wee hours of the night. As the chickadees are nesting, as they have done every year, I too will be nesting. And anticipating.

dancing on

A few of my dear friends are about to become mothers, which has me thinking about all the ways that having a child changes us, how parenthood reaches down inside us and pushes things around, rearranges parts of us that we had thought were fixed and immutable, and how there is no possible way to prepare for that kind of continental shift in our lives. All of our convictions and priorities get tossed into the air and spun around and around until they settle down into this whole new pattern that is parenthood. I can't help but remember how exciting and suprising and disorienting that journey was. Still is. How we can become big enough to hold within us these whole other lives, how we can become small enough to hear the faintest whisper of a breath, see the barest flicker of an eyelid. How we become every mother and every child becomes our child, and how this very fact breaks our hearts every day and give us immeasurable hope.

I am also reminded how our lives change in the smallest, oddest, and most mundane ways as well. How I nearly cried from gratitute a few weeks ago when I had just strapped two tired, hungry, complaining children into our sweltering car and the lovely lady in the smart white business suit who had just gotten into her spotless BMW next to us got back out of her car and said, "I'll return your cart for you."

I am reminded that there are idyllic days, full of mama-calm and sweet kid moments, and days when frustration is my constant companion. There are days when my patience is as deep as the ocean and days when it is a muddy little puddle. And kids, you know what they do with puddles. But those days, every single one of them, ends. And we do our best. And wake up again the next morning with little-kid fingers curling around our arms and start a whole new day.

So my advice is forget about advice. Put down the parenting books. Forgive yourself those days. And be grateful for small kindnesses.

spring in a nutshell

It seems much too unfair to recall our bright spring days now that we're slogging through the height of summer, with this heavy Carolina air and these wiltingly hot afternoons. These days just beg for cool swims and tall glasses of iced tea in the shade and gallons of bug spray. Juni and Owen spend all day smelling like citronella candles and pool water, their hair drenched in sweat and their forearms covered in popsicle residue. But spring, ah, that was the time for lovely little wanderings, for making and planting and exploring. We hugged baby goats and picked berries, we tromped through the woods and roasted marshmallows by the fire and wondered if summer would ever arrive.

home again

Ahh, finally back in this space after a long stretch without a laptop. We've had celebrations and trips and adventures, snippets of which I will share once I have sorted through my (digital) piles of photos.

But I had to pop in to post a few glimpses of this guy. Look at those lashes. And that little head full of thoughts about things.

He talks in long, half-song sentences these days, about trains and pirates and the color green, about pistons and boilers and off-on-adventures. He talks about caterpillars and fire fairies and little babies finding their mamas.

He says things like, "Well, actually..." and "That's right, of course." and "Talk to me, mama! I'm speaking to you!"

He's at the in-between place, where I can hold still him close in my arms - this sweet baby boy - but he is all arms and legs and motion, like the little kid he is just on verge of becoming.

You can also see a peak of his green Milo vest I knitted in January from Fleece Artist Blue Face Leceister DK yarn. He pretty much lived in this easy layering piece all throughout our unusually cool North Carolina spring. (See the Ravelry link for knitty details).

the things we make

Candlemas

Dozens of unwritten blog posts have been piling up in my head. Things left unshared and unsaid. But since today is about looking ahead, anticipating the return of light and the lengthening of days, I'm letting go of all those things and starting anew.

Our Candlemas day was cold and clear and gray. We lit kid-made candles and snuggled under patchwork blankets and drank warm mugs of vanilla bean white hot chocolate. Warmth in small things.

visions of sugarplums

Magical Moments and Warm Wishes

Hope your holidays have been full of magic & warmth!

Two!

In the middle of October's hustle and bustle, this guy turned two! TWO! And what a giant bundle of joy and purpose and laughter he is. He hops, skips, tumbles through the world with a big, open heart, taking it all in. He loves to sing and dance and play baseball. He loves smoothies and jigsaw puzzles. His smiling kisses and big, wide-armed hugs melt this mama's heart every single time. He moves and moves, chattering and giggling and narrating his day at the top of his lungs. But then he has moments of such peaceful, quiet concentration - building a castle, listening to a story, assembling a puzzle piece by piece. 

He loves octagons and the color green. He loves trains and garbage trucks and the letter J. He adores his sister and will follow her unconditionally. They build forts and tell stories and jump off furniture into piles of pillows. She convinces him to fairy-dance and princess-twirl and he convinces her to play all-aboard-the-choo-choo-train and picking-up-the-garbage.

I can't believe he is only two.

stripes for the noggins

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.

Ravelry links here and here.