Reading

As David transitions out of napping, we have a new rhythm--after lunch, we lie in my bed and read stories for about an hour, if not more.  It can be a little exhausting, but it works fairly well.  He is still a mess by suppertime on his non-napping days, but if he does nap, he doesn't go to bed until way too late.  We have been reading lots of Elsa Beskow--I have to admit, I am obsessed, and David is finally able to pay attention to longer and more complicated stories.  He particularly loves The Land of Long Ago--(I do too!) although I realized that what he really likes is the brief part where the knight cuts the evil dragon's head off.  It is really one sentence with no picture, but he really, really loves it.  It is something about his little heroic heart, I think.  (This is an almost completely screen-free child, by the way.)  Elsa cuddles on these days too, and listens to Sparkle Stories on the computer when he does.

Elsa and I got about three quarters of the way through Anne of Green Gables.  We stopped as Anne started to grow up, because at age five, Elsa is just not interested in romance and going off to college.  It was fun to read, although it did involve a lot of reading a few paragraphs and then paraphrasing them for her.  Right now we have lots of sweet drawings of girls with long red hair in fancy dresses with puffed sleeves.  The part where Anne longs for pretty dresses with puffed sleeves and Marilla refuses to make any for her, only making plain, "serviceable" dresses for her, really spoke to Elsa's girlish heart.  Not that Elsa does not have plenty of fancy clothes, (which she chooses to wear in very interesting way--the only thing I insist upon with her is that she wears weather appropriate clothes--this morning she put on her "old timey dress" with a pair of pajama bottoms, pink socks, and her big winter boots) but even the thought just touched her.  When Anne finally does get a fashionable dress, Elsa was so, so happy.

Now we are reading Strawberry Girl by Lois Lensky, for the second time.  It is so interesting--it is about backwoods Florida when it transitioned from being a free range cattle place to a farming state.  I had never really thought about Florida that way--I just think of it as what Tampa is, when I went there for swim training trips in college.  Elsa loves it, and is getting a lot from it. 

I have also been thinking a lot about telling stories.  My mother is the master of this, and can make up story after story for Elsa, and even for David.  I have trouble with this.  I have read some things about how story telling can be used as a discipline tool, and I think I try a little too hard.  "So once, there was a little bear and she wanted some honey but her mother told her she couldn't have any more, and she cried, and cried, and kicked and screamed...."  Umm, yeah, even they get this a little too much, and are totally not interested.  Hopefully, they will turn out okay anyway.

Handmade Holidays

I am working on it--I have almost finished Pea's hippo, and have started a blue (Dumpling's new favorite color--currently, he is asking, "Is this blue?"-even though he knew his colors before he was two,  and if the answer is no, he declares that he hates it, so, phew..)  You can see our Advent Wreath there--already looking a little bit faded.  As much as I love Advent, there is nothing like the lighting of that second candle to strike fear into my heart.  But, we are doing fine, doing fine.  The thing is I want so hard to make the whole thing special for my children--have every day filled with thoughtful, meaningful activity.  And actually, really, they are-they are loving Mary's star path and the Advent wreath, and excitement is building.  I have read How the Grinch stole Christmas approximately fifteen times.

The kids have also been making placemats--they draw and add glitter to big pieces of paper, and then I put contact paper over them.  You can see what a warm December we are having--Dumpling would generally prefer to be naked than clothed, and when I can indulge him, I do.  Dumpling and I worked on this while Pea was at school this morning--sometimes he gets a little lost in the shuffle of Pea's and my crafting, so it is nice to have him have some time to work on something all by himself.

We also planted some Paperwhites and Amaryllis bulbs today, which I think will be too late for Christmas, but we will enjoy them whenever--if I can keep them alive.  We made a gigantic mess--they had that planting mix that you have to soak in warm water and I had one plant for each of them, and while I was helping Pea, Dumpling cracked open his dirt, and then while I was starting his, Pea decied to water her plant withouth anything underneath.  I know some moms are able to be careful and prepared and lay out something so their children do not strew the dining room with dirt, but I am not among their number.  I read that you could put the Paperwhites in the dark and it would help them to have shorter stalks, and I was thinking about putting them in the pantry, but Pea thought it would be better to cover it with a dishtowel.  It is sitting on our coffee table now.

This girl loves her kitty-cat.  And our killer cat is so tolerant and gentle with her.  I wish he were so gentle witth the birds.

This and that

We went to the woods  the other day to play and gather pinecones--I read about a craft where you dip the pinecones in beeswax a few times then add glitter.  Cool, right?  Well, with Dumpling on the job we collected about 35 pinecones, although, many of them were somewhat rotten.  Dumpling goes for quantity over quality, as did Pea when she was his age.  (I loved collecting leaves with him--he would just grab a handful of brown, dried out leaves and shove them in his basket, while Pea and I would carefully select only the perfect red or yellow ones.) 

I made Dumpling's hat.  I really like it.  He kind of likes it.  This is a great spot--there is a little pond and a gazebo with a labyrinth in it and some small hiking trails.  Basically, the children just run circles around the pond and hide things in the leaves, and find lots and lots of pinecones.  We met up with a friend of Pea's, and they just ran and played.  It is wonderful to get them outside away from playgrounds and see what they do. They need so little to have a good time.   I love where we live--we are very close to the admittedly small town center, and not far from this, although I sometimes fantasize about living on a bigger property where we wouldn't have to drive to get to the woods.   But it is nice to be able to walk to town, and have neighbors--I probably haven't written about how fabulous our neighbors are, but, well they are. 

Today, the guy who is going to build us a fence came in with this bobcat and ripped out all (okay, most--that stuff is tenacious) of the English Ivy that was growing along our fence.  Dumpling and Pea got out the lawn chairs and watched--I can't believe I didn't get a picture of them.  Jesse was out there as well, as both he and I were a little (a lot) nervous that Dumpling was going to run over and attempt to fling himself on the Bobcat.   Have I mentioned my thrilling plans to plant raspberries and blueberries there?  I may have.  I am pretty excited.  The soil looks pretty good--it's a little heavy, but not as bad as it could have been--we never have bothered to rake there, because we didn't care to save the Ivy, so there is some good leaf mold there.   And maybe we will let the chickens that we are planning to get run around out there to help it out some...hmmm.  Big plans, big plans.

We also bought our Christmas tree today.  We are not going to put it up, as we generally like to keep it up until Epiphany, but we figured we might as well buy it now and put in water, since all the trees are out now.   Again, it is totally amusing how undiscriminating the children were about the tree.  I remember agonizing over getting the perfect one as a child--luckily, my brother and I were pretty much on the same wavelength--get the biggest one that my parents would possibly allow--but it was hard to decide which one was the biggest.  We had to look at every single one.  Maybe that will come later, but now, they basically ran around the place, crying out enthusiastically, "I love that one!" to every tree that I pulled out (I still kind of agonize), then running away  and telling the person working their that they had stockings that I made that were still sleeping but were going to be hung by the fireplace so Santa could come down the chimney.  I am not sure he understood them.

And then there was the annual Black Mountain Christmas Parade.  It is so much fun now that Pea actually remembers things from year to year, and gets excited.  It is a sweet, small town parade, with a floats from the various churches, scouting operations, wolf dog rescuers, sustainable living organization, and WWF (that is wrestling)  arena (?).  There were several people in Grinch costumes, to which Dumpling repeated to himself and to me, "those are just guys in costumes.  They are not real."   I didn't get any pictures of the actual parade because the thing is, everyone in the parade hurls candy, and the children chase it, and I felt compelled to make sure that in their sugar induced frenzy they did not rush under the wheels of a huge truck.  Pea in particular got a tremendous amount of loot, (Dumpling, although excited by candy, was a little to overwhelmed by the whole concept of candy being thrown from vehicles--I found myself stepping on pieces of candy so he could pick them up without getting them snatched--not that I wanted him to have candy, but you know, fairness...I don't know).    I did tell Pea about the Sugar Fairy, which was kind of a mistake because she totally went for it, and I have been scrounging coins to place in her basket in exchange for the candy.  But I did it--we will have to see about Dumpling tomorrow as he didn't nap and then crashed.  As must I.

Thanksgiving

Today Dumpling and I were at a friend's house, watching while she got a jump from the Triple A.  As usual, Dumpling was totally enthralled.  He went straight up to him and told him that "Eemah and
Babba were at my house but they had to go home."  Eemah and Babba are Jesse's parents, and we hadn't seen them since March, and it was so, so nice.  The children did not need any time to get reacquainted.

The week was full.  (I love the expression on Dumpling's face here-he wants to eat the pie crust.)  There were lots of stories, lots of singing, LOTS of cooking, lots of playing (Eemah is totally willing to get down on the floor with my children), lots of cleaning (Eemah can quietly clean and play with the children all day long--it's amazing) and, well, lots of meltdowns.  I am grateful for many, many things, one of them is the understanding and love that enveloped my intense little boy.  It is tough to be sensitive, three, and have the routine altered in your house.  Eemah and Babba did not judge, just showed him lots of patience and love. 

And a Thanksgiving meal got cooked, the first Sunday of Advent was greeted with two very special people. 

Mary's Star Path

Today Advent starts.  I love, love, love Advent, but I did lay in a goodly supply of Rescue Remedy, because I can tend to go into overdrive, and forget about actually enjoying it, ignoring my children's requests for attention while I do whatever I have in mind that needs to be done....

This year, our church did not have their traditional wreath making, so we had to make our own.  It was fun.  Pea and Dumpling go baskets of greenery, and we made our own wreath, lit the candle, and the children negotiated a deal where tonight Dumpling blew out the candle, and tomorrow Pea.  .

Also, I have been working on Mary's star path, a non gifty kind of Advent Calendar, because I am not organized or disciplined enough to do the traditional kind. I needle felted two Marys and a Joseph, because I knew that Pea would want a set to play with, and I have to admit, I was feeling pretty pleased with my mad skills as a needle felter, until Pea, at age five, with no coaching, made Jesus in the manger. Not bad for a five year old. But, I am still pretty fond of the Mary's, particularly the little one. And now I am realizing that at the end of the season (I have to keep working on the Mary Star Path set to add as the season progresses) we will be the proud owners of four Nativity Sets...in a very small house. Anyway, here is Mary's Star Path.

I love Advent.

(Also, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Eemah and Babba and I have some pictures to post here about that soon.)

Thanksgiving

So I am really, really tired. I spent yesterday getting ready for Thanksgiving--I woke up, fed the kids, cut up a squash and a pumpkin(that we grew), got the seeds ready to roast, drained the pumpkin flesh a little bit, and made cranberry sauce.  Then I had to go to the store to get food, not for Thanksgiving, but you know, the everyday kind that you have to feed your family at least three times a day.  And then it was lunch and then pie making--two pies, from scratch.  In there was some silver polishing and table linen considerations.

And today there was the turkey, and stuffing, and mashed potatoes and squash and kale salad.  (And a terrible aphid infestation on the kale to be dealt with) and gravy.  And table setting and cleaning and washing dishes to make room for more cooking.    And sometimes, as I am wandering through the supermarket, I wonder why I am doing this--there are frozen pie crusts, and canned fillings, and stuffing, and gravy, and it really doesn't have to be so much work.  Obviously, it wouldn't taste as good, but that is not the reason that I don't want to do it that way.  It's the work and preparation that makes the event fun. It's like that with everything.  Real pleasure comes from work.  And I hope my children can see that.

And now, as I listen to my lovely mother-in-law cracking my children up as she bathes them, I am so content.

Sleeping Places

So, we have a new camera, and I spent a little time trying to figure out how to download the pictures, but I failed.  Some of the equipment may be in the grown-up bedroom, where Dumpling is sound asleep.  If you are a bed-sharing family, you may think you are done bed-sharing when your two year old eagerly heads to his or her own bed every night for a few months, and your five year old does not even need your presence anymore to fall asleep, but you are not.  Suddenly, one or both of them is back, wanting, needing to sleep with Mama.  I suppose I could fight it, and insist that they sleep in their own beds, but I don't.  If I can nurture and comfort them just by sleeping next to them, I am down. And anyway, soon it will change again, and off they'll go to their little beds with a kiss and a cuddle (well, and a bazillion stories).  But now I get to gaze at their little sleeping faces, and smooth their hair and feel content.  And read them a bazillion stories.  Mostly I like that too.