Encounters with Sustenance

Balance?

2012-02-11T18:01:00.000-08:00

I guess one could say that if you have time to photograph your to do list then it really can't be too bad... So here it is! Though one thing (pruning) can be crossed off after Jason's work day today. It seems of late I've been thinking once again about balance and how to not only find it for brief moments in time but how to find ways to sustain it in our lives. Right now it seems that balance is hard to maintain consistently and that I'm easily knocked off balance. And it seems that our to do list grows much faster than it shrinks right now. Jason and I both feel a tad bit nervous that most nights we crawl into bed rather exhausted AND the growing season has not even started yet (other than a few seedlings Jason is tending).

That being said, there is much in life to celebrate and we are incorporating a lot of good routines and rhythms in our household. Family nights have been great - the three we have had since making the decision to have them regularly - with the most recent including making soft pretzels together.

And Alida and Kali continue to delight and amaze us, with the littlest gal growing up way too fast! She has most recently learned to climb stairs and has quite the sense of humor and her shrieks make my ears ring. She also seems to be starting to consider life as a night owl like her big sister - something her mother is not too excited about as that will assure that she is outnumbered in this family as one who enjoys an early bedtime! Though tonight Alida sacked out early (hence the ability to write this post and share a new cute video with whoever happens upon this). Here is how Alida gets cleaned up after eating her dinner:

One final note - we gave Kali a coupon for Christmas for a sleeping bag. It was in part due to our desire to rid ourselves of a hand-me-down Dora the Explorer sleeping bag that supposedly was inflatable but the device was clunky and not so easy to use, took a long time, and by morning there was no air left inside. So it had seen better days and Kali was ready to part with it if she had an alternative. She has not been so excited in a long time as she was when the box arrived this week with her purple sleeping bag. She has slept in it the last two nights!

Update from wild, wonderful, West Virginia

2012-02-03T18:47:00.000-08:00

The Myers-Benner gals are all in West Virginia for the weekend (Jason is at home alone with the project list!). I'm glad for two super travelers that accompanied me today (on my first road trip with Kali and Alida alone). It was cute to hear Alida asking about Da Da on our drive over the mountains - she says, "Da Da Da Da" and then makes a little sound with the intonation of a question, indicating she wants you to say something about his whereabouts. I'm always happy to oblige.

West Virginia is as wonderful as it normally is, complete with Grandma and Grandpa Myers to pamper all three of us. Alida is enjoying getting to know the Mountain House and I'm enjoying some rare moments - reading, playing more games than usual, and I haven't done any dishes in the 10 or so hours since we arrived (thanks again, Mom!). And I am typing with two hands with Alida sacked out upstairs - she played hard today, all 24 pounds of her!

Yes, she had her 10 month check up this week and remains consistent in her height, weight and head circumference - all at or above the 95th percentile. She is now about 4 times the heaviest weight Nora was ever able to get to her in time with us, which is getting less hard to believe as she does feel like a big girl (especially when hiking up a steep mountain with her asleep in the front pack).

I thought about Nora a lot today. Jason told me last evening that the three little yellow crocuses we have enjoyed each spring are blooming. I went out this morning and caught them before the sun had shone on them, so there was frost all around them. I'm not sure Nora would have been ready to come outside with us on February 2nd, but it continues to be a reminder of her presence with us each spring when the trio blooms. Then on the way to West Virginia I had a tape on to help Alida fall asleep and it was the lullaby music that we played nonstop in Nora's hospital room the week she died. It filled me with good and sad memories, and I felt closer to her and to those memories than I have in a while. It takes slowing down sometimes to access them as I feel so fully consumed most days with life in its present form. I'm grateful for the opportunity today provided for a bit of slowing down.

I think we can attribute a bit of Alida's hardiness and a few of her gained ounces from the mountains of kale she has consumed over the last number of weeks. It is not an understatement to say that she loves the stuff!

The only other news to report that feels worthy of staying up a few more moments to comment on is that we have kept up our plan to have regular family meetings and family nights and we are enjoying both. Our second family night was after Alida's doctor appointment this week - we enjoyed dinner and bingo at The Little Grill. Jason and I were very relieved when our family won the first two games - so we could leave! Our littlest can be quite loud these days - she shrieks, growls, roars and in general makes her presence known...

And the most recent "emergency" family meeting (a deadline on a decision precipitated an unplanned meeting) came up with this decision: we have decided on the animal we will have join our family in 2012. There is an order of ten Rouen ducks placed and they will join our little homestead in April. All are excited, especially the 8 year old!

Kicking off family nights...

2012-01-25T18:37:00.000-08:00

Family meetings really are a great idea! So much good has come out of them and some fun ideas. At our most recent one (we have had all of 2-3 since Alida joined us but the most recent one was particularly "productive" on the generation of creative ideas) we unanimously agreed to start having more regular meetings and family nights.

Tonight was our first ever "official family night" and we decided together that we would go for a walk after dark (Kali's idea), would build a fire in our fire ring (my idea), and would roast marshmallows (Kali's idea) - and Jason and Alida were approving of our ideas, or at least they went along quite willingly.

Leading up to this evening, the Myers-Benner girls had a very fun day at home together and my body is feeling that weary good feeling. Here's a few of the things that filled our day while Jason did some machete work clearing around peach trees in the morning and worked for our neighbor this afternoon. We made homemade grape nuts - haven't done this in years and got inspired when looking in Mom's cookbook for another use for buttermilk. We made graham crackers so those of us that like s'mores could enjoy one (or several) by the fire - I attest to their yummy-ness! We made a double batch of french bread - to share with neighbors, for lunch and for friends coming over later this week. We made blueberry cornmeal loaf (also for sharing and a hosting event and because I got inspired when I saw some organic lemon zest in my freezer that really needed to be put to good use sooner rather than later). We made a peach kuchen and a peach/sour cherry kuchen - again for friends coming over. We made a batch of green pasta for a lasagna and for spaghetti for dinner tonight.

It's been fun to watch Kali's resurgence of interest in cooking/baking with me - sometimes she'll have a cookbook on the counter open to a recipe when I get home from work.

In between the cracks of time in the day I squeezed in a few walks (two of which included naps for Alida), some outdoor play time with Kali, laundry, lots of dishes created by the fun had above, and managed to get all our floors swept so that I don't have to watch Alida with an eagle eye when she is crawling around (for a day or two at least).

A very fun day! It ended with Alida nursing to sleep by the fire while Kali chattered and roasted (or charred in some instances) marshmallows. It was the first time we ever made a fire "just for us" and not for an event in which others were joining us. We'll be doing it again...

Carrots

2012-01-24T18:04:00.000-08:00

This entry may seem to include two very different entries, and in most ways it does.

The first item of news is that Kali lost another pet today. Henny Hen died in front of Jason as he was doing the morning chores at her pen. She had not been perky for some time now and in chicken years had lived a good life, but it is still a little sad. We'll remember her presence in the garden fondly and her jumping up and down in her pen when we brought her grubs, rotten tomatoes, etc... Kali shed a few tears but did not show nearly the grief she did when burying her first pet, Curious Hiddley. I still feel a little sad whenever I peel carrots or put carrot tops in the compost, wishing I could take them out to him and hear him ring his little bell coming out to see who was coming and with what kind of treat.

That's the best segue way I can make to the video below. I was eating a carrot at dinner and Alida let out her very excited sound she makes in eager expectation of me sharing something with her. I gave it to her for a few seconds and then was worried about those 8 little sharp teeth getting off a big chunk. So we got the grater out and shredded some on her tray. She LOVED them!!! Jason thinks maybe we should get in the habit of shredding carrots all over our floor to distract her from the dirt that she is insistent upon finding AND consuming. She now knows that the mats at the doors are great places to find treats. And she is getting fast at the crawling thing. We are loving it.

Dinner tonight

2012-01-19T18:51:00.000-08:00

Last evening we had our first family meeting in a LONG time (since September I believe it was). Kali had chosen one of the agenda items which was to discuss her making dinner "all by herself" sometime. We were game and there was nothing on this evening so we didn't waste any time setting the date. I wasn't sure whether to come home from work hungry or full. What a funny dinner it was!

Kali was very cute jabbering as she made plans and worked to keep us out of the kitchen during the 1/2 hour or so of her preparations. We were permitted to sit down after being guided into the dining room with our eyes closed and started with her "fruit juice" concoction that she made in the blender with a few blueberries, peaches, sugar (A LOT) and water. She had made toast with peanut butter (put on before toasted) that had sat in the toaster while she made her juice. We each got a small half roll and some sweet juice. She was into her meal and having a grand time chatting about it. Jason's plate was empty almost immediately and we were trying not to chuckle. She had put applesauce on the table which Alida and I were enjoying while we waited for our next course - cheese toasts which were waiting in the toaster for her to make the final piece of the meal - blueberry smoothies. That was the highlight (of the food we enjoyed) and she was proud of her success. She even helped clear the table and clean up some spilled smoothie.

She suggested she do it more often - like once a month or 12 times a year! She is also requesting cooking classes. I've agreed to both!

The highlight of our time together at the table was no doubt Alida's antics. Enjoy:

At last a woodshed!

2012-01-19T18:22:00.000-08:00

Building a woodshed has been on our project to do list for longer than we would like to admit - okay, so years. We've used a makeshift system that has worked, but with a goal for something more long lasting and user-friendly. It has gotten put on the back burner for some time but finally made its way to the top of the priority list. Jason has been thinking about and designing it for some time - such that when we needed to cover the old stairwell during construction, he built the roof for the woodshed to be that cover. But since that time it has been sitting on stacks of wood waiting for its final resting spot - which it found last weekend! Thanks to some friends for loaning their muscles for a half hour or so, the roof was placed on top of the posts and Jason took it from there. Just yesterday he finished the siding for the little lofts and I imagine when the weather warms there may be a sleepover happening out there if he can convince Kali to join him. He was pretty happy with the final results!!

Renaissance

2012-01-16T19:02:00.000-08:00

I, Jason, couldn't help myself. Though the weather has just now finally gotten good and cold (twenty degrees or so at night for a few nights), there are subtle indications that spring is in the works. For one thing, I have a few more minutes of daylight now, morning and evening, to squeak in a few extra tasks around the place. Also, there were a few hens that responded almost immediately to the lengthening daylight after the solstice and kicked into their regular-season egg laying pattern.

What was I to do but start some seeds? Not outdoors, but inside under a two-tube fluorescent fixture in the old kitchen. It's not a perfect setup...the seedlings look a tad leggy. Perhaps some genuine grow light bulbs would improve things, but for now this will do. In any case, it is obvious spring fever is striking me a bit early this year; I am taking great satisfaction in gazing at and thinning my seedlings. I've started onion, lettuce, kale, parsley, and a minor experiment in wheat--the details of which would be too droll for most (suffice it to say that my wheat seed didn't come in time for fall planting and I'm mostly using it for spot cover cropping, so I thought I'd see if I could catch up). The whole seed starting enterprise was precipitated by my desire to start my onions just as early as I could, as I've usually felt my onions from seed have had a hard time reaching their full mature potential (I understand that to get nice thick starts I might wish to start them in September in a cold frame...didn't get to it!).

There is nothing quite like thinning lettuce seedlings to make one feel huge and clumsy. When I spy a weaker seedling in a clump of five (I like to have a crowd to choose from...always breeding!) I suddenly feel I have all the dexterity of a gloved gorilla, or like I'm trying to prune peach trees with a backhoe.

Sometimes I have the same feeling when I'm trying to probe Alida's mouth to extract some dust fuzzy or fleck of firewood bark she's managed to locate and acquire (I try not to interfere unless I'm truly concerned she might have something worrisome in the hatch). In fact, in general I find I can feel clumsy handling the baby in tender moments. I think back on my college days...all that time spent in labs teasing insect wings into good positions for diagnostic display, all those microscope slides, the gram-sensitive mass balances...has something happened to my physical finesse? Once in a while when my earlobe itches I reach up and give it a little rub between my thumb and forefinger, and every time I am a bit jolted by the roughness of my own touch. I am thrown back instantly to my childhood...my hands feel just like my Dad's hands did.

And for the same reasons. My dad is one of the most gentle people I know; he has a light touch with people, musical instruments, tools, animals, and wood. I like to think I've picked up some of that same character, though I still work towards it. But I remember times when he'd be removing a splinter from my tender palm, or guiding me through a door, or helping me with my shoes and I would take notice of the force of his grip, the roughness of his finger skin, in ways I'd never have noticed my Mom's. It used to bug me...why couldn't he be more gentle when he was being gentle?

Now I know why. There are times when I have an opportunity to, say, build a shed or move some soil, cut a tree or split some firewood, and then I need to take a break to, say, feed the baby or change her diaper. Despite the fact that I may need to hurriedly wash up to my elbows or jerk off my contaminated clothes before receiving the vulnerable being into my arms, there is quite a mental (not to mention motor skills) leap to make between driving a galvanized 16-penny nail and q-tipping an eyelash from a child's conjunctiva (part of the eye).

I really wouldn't have it any other way. That's the kind of challenge that appeals to me. But there are times it is a bit disorienting, especially when I'm attempting to do any "rough" or "dirty" work while carrying Alida in the front pack. Managing intense physical forces while protecting fragile, precious infant body tissues requires careful attention, which can have an exhausting effect far greater than the physical demands themselves.

And so I can see the wisdom of our culture's historical division of labor: rough and forceful work for some (the ones who tend to have more upper body strength generally got this job description) and the tasks requiring tender attention to others (the ones who lactated had a natural advantage here). It's easier to not have to make such drastic gear switches all the time. But the dichotomy between "men's" and "women's" work was never complete, and much harm has come by way of making the practically based generalities into rigid expectations.

I think the main thing lost by accepting a definition of one's self as either rough and forceful or soft and tender is a truncated experience of human living. That is to say, I would be sad to think I'd never expect myself to hoist a heavy load or dig a post hole. I love that work, and have never felt complete if I go very long without some of it. But I would also feel incomplete would I never stroke my girls' hair, transplant a wire-thin wisp of onion, examine a day-old chick, or, as I have done the past two nights, gently kiss my baby daughter on the head until she drifts off to sleep.

Can't keep up!

2012-01-15T03:48:00.000-08:00

Alida is changing so rapidly! Her comprehension of things is expanding exponentially and she seems to perfect new skills overnight. Some examples can be found below! She was enjoying sharing the new stuff this week with her Grandma Myers and last evening with Aunt K.

Crawling

2012-01-13T06:19:00.000-08:00

So when we put up the Christmas tree we "asked Alida" to consider waiting to fully start crawling until it came down, knowing the Christmas tree would not fare well if Alida was able to get her hands on it. As it turns out yesterday was the day - both for taking down the tree and for Alida beginning to officially crawl.

January tomatoes

2012-01-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

It seems worth noting that we just consumed our last garden tomatoes! They have been sitting on our counter "ripening" for a LONG time!! No they were not the delicious, juicy tomatoes one thinks of biting into in mid-July, but they added some nice color, texture and little flavor to our pesto pizza the other night! In other news, Kali has been eagerly anticipating a response from her senator to her letters and petition regarding protecting the rain forests, monkeys and the creation of a law against tailgating. Well, it finally arrived and Kali practically flew up the driveway to show Jason the envelope and then soak up every word. While she felt encouraged that she had spurred her senator on to further his commitment to protect animals, I was once again annoyed, though not surprised, by the form letter that didn't address her concerns directly. Oh well. She is already concocting plans for future letters...

Kali wants to go to bed!!

2011-12-24T17:54:00.000-08:00

This is headline news in the Myers-Benner household. Kali just said, "Let's get to bed." This was after explaining how she was willing to go to bed after we finished our game of Sequence since that meant an extra long Matilda story and that Christmas morning would come sooner. We have one VERY excited 8 year old in our home. It's been a very fun-filled day with us together here at home. I had just commented to Jason out in the kitchen how our girls are really the best Christmas presents ever when Kali, who was in the living room playing with Alida, exclaimed full of joy, "I think Alida is making this the best Christmas ever." We couldn't agree more. And to prolong our suppertime tonight we gave her first present (a great $1 Gift and Thrift find). Here's what she thought of it:

The next stage of the present opening will get added to this post on Christmas - afterall Kali is wanting to go to bed and the video is still uploading!

Merry Christmas all! Well, Kali is still sleeping (she doesn't take after her Aunt Anna on Christmas morning). Here's the next stage in the Christmas present opening last night. I think we were all right about what part of the presents Alida would like the most.

Now she really did end up having a good time with her duck, once I had to take the tissue paper away as she was attempting to consume pieces of it...

Family times

2011-12-17T03:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we started putting the rocks into the "water recharge pit" in Nora's garden. It felt really good to work side by side as a family again, this time with Alida along for the ride. I'm not sure what it is, but it seems that we all get great pleasure from collecting rocks from our rock pile and moving them to another location. Soon after Nora died we build our parking space by hauling load after load of rock from the pile in the woods to their designated spot near the house. Hard work! Good times! The same was true of yesterday, though Jason was the main one who worked hard. After a number of loads I took the girls to the swingset and then in to make lunch while Jason carried on with the task. But it was a taste of things to come, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Last evening then Jason and I enjoyed an evening just with Alida. Kali had a sleepover with friends and I was initially going to write that we enjoyed a quieter evening than normal, but then realized that would not be true. Alida seemed to want to make up for the lack of Kali's noise in the mix. She also was enjoying having Mommy and Daddy's attention all to herself. So much so that she didn't sack out to almost 10pm. Here she is doing her "old man voice" at dinner and then a fun game of peek-a-boo an hour or so after I thought she would be ready to sleep. Jason and I are both convinced she was calling for Kali to come say goodnight for awhile. I tried to walk around the house with her to let her know Kali was gone until the next day, but I'm not sure it soaked in.

Kali update!

2011-12-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

Well with all the changes in this household with the rapid growth and development of a baby, there is another gal who is growing and changing by leaps and bounds. Below are a few snippets that I don't want to lose.

On Nora's fourth birthday my dad had sent Kali some "math problems" on email and here they are with her responses. Kali continues to be a pretty "private" gal and does not often open up regarding her feelings. And she rarely talks about Nora. Her answers to the adding up of various persons was all I needed to see on that day.

242 + 242 =you must WHIET it DIFRETLEY
242 – 242 =0 of corse
242 X 242 =you must WHIET it DIFRETLEY
242 ÷ 242 =1
Kali + Nora + Alida =little kids
Jason + Janelle =groenup kids
Jason + Janelle + Kali + Nora + Alida = a famlae
Grandpa + Grandma =birds&flaowrs
Sadie + Milo =doggies
Write 1 trillion as a number = 1,000,000,000,000,000

The other day I was working on an excel document and Kali saw me. She had never seen one and she got quite interested in making her own. I have no idea how to put an excel spreadsheet here but what she wrote amused me! Here are the columns separated by commas.

favorut math thing to do, why do you like to do it

multuplay, don’t know

do calcualadr math, it,s easy

find aainguls, brack from numbers stell math

find pattrins, it,s fun

do anneything, freedom!

do puzzles, brack from numbers stell math

long diveigon, don,t know

Currently the big project around here is Kali working on Alida's Christmas present. It is the first year that Kali is really getting into giving gifts - and ones in which she is thinking more about what the recipient would like than her own tastes and preferences. That combined with her keen interest now in sorting and getting rid of things is a huge breath of fresh air for one of her parents. :)

So the other day she cooked up the idea to create a book for Alida in which she will help Alida learn the difference between "pet" and "pat." (see previous video). So far the lessons have been completely unsuccessful - Alida is great at "pat" and amused by Kali's attempts to get her to "pet" something. Anyway, we've been taking photos and making plans and I think it has the potential to be about the sweetest present ever.

Sisters

2011-12-09T16:01:00.001-08:00

These videos speak for themselves. Loving watching these two gals love and enjoy each other!

Baby's slacking...

2011-11-30T15:41:00.000-08:00

Or maybe just balancing out a bit...

We just returned home a little bit ago from Alida's 8 month appointment. I wasn't too surprised to learn that her growth has slowed a bit - the girl is burning calories these days! She is ready to go, go, go most of the time! She shrieks, babbles, wants to face out if she is facing in and get down if she is facing out, kicks her little legs, rolls and ooches all over the living room floor, and is becoming better at pulling herself up onto her knees. Watch out plants!

She weighed 22lb 2oz, measured 30 inches long and her head was 17 3/4 inches around. She has "fallen" to the 97th percentile in weight, still above the 100th in height and her head is catching up now at the 90th percentile. It's nice to see her continuing to thrive in the height and weight categories - that means something to us. But we are much happier even to report that she is an active, vibrant, creative, fun little gal. And she is a bit too smart to be tricked at the doctor's. She got fussy the second the nurse tried to measure her and as soon as the nurse left the room she started talking up a storm to us and the butterfly hanging from the ceiling. She is not impressed at all by a measuring tape being put around her head, being stretched out on the table to be measured and sitting on a hard cold scales naked. Can't blame her!

She endured two shots and is now sacked out in the front pack catching a late evening nap - which is enabling me to put up this update but may not bode well for the night sleep ahead!

To end I'll share the picture Jason took of me after Alida was "done with me" last evening. While she may look innocent, she is not!!

Family picture

2011-11-20T19:34:00.001-08:00

Prior to our exciting afternoon, officially beginning our stint as the adoptees of Happy Valley Road, we attended church together and then had a family date eating lunch at the EMU cafeteria. While I did have my camera along, for the purpose of getting a family picture taken (we finally felt ready to have a new family picture taken - sadly without Nora, happily with Alida), I did not take a video of Alida during church (mostly because I was occupied with her until she sacked out nursing). The clip below, however, is a little taste of what she did during most of the service. I'm glad our gal is finding her voice and ready to use it in church, but she was rather loud this morning. It is especially cute when she "sings along."

Conspicuous Altruism at Home

2011-11-20T18:13:00.000-08:00

Our family's highway adoption has been...I'm searching for the best word...consummated?

That is to say we just picked up trash from our road's margins for two and half hours this afternoon, which is something we've done sporadically ever since Janelle and I married in May of '99. The difference is that this time we got to use fancy orange trash bags and wear the glowingest reflective vests I have ever squinted at.

It was every bit as fun as we thought it would be. Kali was veritably leaping down the road at first; her enthusiasm was so intense as to cause her to overlook nearly every piece of trash she passed! This could be because she was spending more time gazing at her snazzy vest than scanning for foreign materials. After she developed her eye for it, and as her exuberance mellowed into mere eagerness for the task, she became quite good at spotting beer bottles, aluminum cans, fast food detritus, and matted paper.

Now, I will admonish you not to confuse eagerness with a drive towards efficiency. For once any particular object was discovered, it then needed to be submitted to a proper inspection and perhaps processing before being relinquished into the yawn of plastic film at the bag's mouth. Certainly no aluminum can could escape its due flattening, which when performed by an eight-year-old's foot is not an especially quick and merciful kind of demise. Even wadded-up paper napkins or faded candy wrappers could not be submitted briskly, but merited a curious few moments of gazing as they teetered on the edge of a tender, gloved hand...then toppled in.

Janelle and I called it "meditative trash pick up." At first it was actually kind of relaxing. I mean, how many times in adult life do we really slow down and appreciate the moment we're in like that? But then again, I was spending quite a bit of time standing at the side of the road in a goofy vest holding a giant orange trash bag in each hand and trying to be patient as my daughter picked away at some unit or other of waste matter, gingerly freeing it from the built-up soil and tangled vegetation. It got a bit old, but in a good-natured sort of way.

By the time we made it back to our driveway we were all pretty worn out, but none the worse for the wear! In the end we had a bag each of trash and recycling redirected to their proper end, and could enjoy the satisfaction of having contributed to the well-being of our neighborhood...officially!

Today was a fun day!

2011-11-18T16:46:00.000-08:00

I'm writing with Alida sound asleep in the front pack, Kali playing with a friend in her bedroom and lots of happy sounds coming in from the fire ring outside where Jason is, along with lots of the youth and mentors from our church community.

I know that what I'm about to write won't be near as interesting to anyone else as it will be to me, but I feel like writing and I have the time and two hands to do so! If you would like to get the scoop on the details of today, read on. I gushed to Jason on the phone as I was heading back to Keezletown about what a fun day I was having. While it is not unusual for my days off to be fun it felt like this one contained a bunch of mini-miracles that made a very "normal" day extra special and fun. So here is the run down.

What made it so different than most Fridays of late is that it was not a Friday at home. I love being at home but the list had been growing of "in town" things to do, some of which involved Kali being along. And with Alida being just shy of 8 months, it seemed high time we try doing one of our "put all our errands together" days. We did. We had loads of fun!

Alida must have known it was going to be a big day. She sacked out on our chilly morning walk together around 8am and slept until after Kali was awake and chomping at the bit to leave (around 10am). That allowed me to get all the laundry on the line and get the car packed and ready to leave. After a milk snack for her we headed to our first destination.

Kali redeemed her Mr. J's gift certificate from her birthday and enjoyed a toasted sesame seed bagel with cream cheese for breakfast (and even bought two bagel bites so she could share one with me). Alida only got to gnaw on the wax paper that came with our bagel bites but she seemed pleased enough with that. We left the restaurant with a baker's dozen of bagels to enjoy in the coming days. A great bday present, even if it took us over 3 months to cash it in.

I was feeling optimistic about the day and about the moods of both gals and so, with Kali's enthusiastic support, we headed next to Gift and Thrift. Here is where a mini-miracle took place, or several. Kali loves to help me shop for clothes, but we haven't done it since I was pregnant. Most of my shirts are getting thoroughly stretched out from nursing a very energetic little gal who likes to tug on them from all angles. And it seems with each baby my body gets back to its pre-baby weight but everything feels like it has been positioned differently and so clothes just tend to not fit like they once did. So I've been eager to find a few things for work and Kali loves to pick which color rack I look at - today it was the purple rack (surprise, surprise). And when we had a handful of things from that one she wondered if we couldn't look at the brown rack too - which we glanced at briefly before taking our armload of items to the dressing room. Alida was quite interested in what was going on and she sat in the corner of the dressing room and accepted my offerings of hangers to play with while I attempted to rapidly try on the armload of things that Kali and I had picked out for me to try on. Here's the mini-miracle - I did not return a single pair of pants to the rack. Okay, it won't seem like a big deal to anyone who doesn't know 1. how much I hate to shop for clothing and 2. how often I try on many things and leave with one or none and 3. how pants seem to be the hardest of all. It was a 10-15 minute trip in and out and I left about $30 poorer and with 5 pairs of pants and 3 shirts to wear to work. Huge thanks goes out to Kali, who I have told I always want to have with me when I need to look for clothes. At the end of the day, she noted that that was her favorite stop right up there with Mr. J's and Dairy Queen.

We had heard back from Kali and Alida's aunt K who was excited to have us stop by her work. We enjoyed a short visit, allowing her co-workers to meet Alida and see Kali again, who had probably grown a foot or more since we last stopped by. It was also a good pit stop for a diaper change and a milk snack for Alida. Thus far (and for the rest of the day) there was little to no fussing in the car, despite many ins and outs. Kali provided great entertainment!

From there we went to Finders Keepers in search of organic food at discounted prices, particularly organic cheerios (Alida is at the cusp of being ready to do that cute pincher grab at a cheerio!). No luck on that but we found a bunch of other things for co-op day lunches for Kali, and managed to come out of there with two bags of stuff. The best find of the day was 66 good quality quart bags for $1.45. Jason had added that to my list last evening when he found we were nearly out and there was venison ready to grind and freeze. Kali wondered if I really needed four boxes.

After another milk snack for Alida and some organic gummy fruits for Kali we were on our way to Sharp Shopper. I was proud of myself for hoisting a 50lb bag of prairie gold flour into the cart with a baby in the front pack (as well as then hoisting it into the car and then from the car into our pantry). You do what you have to do! Alida was starting to bang her head against me and "talk" loudly in Sharp Shopper. She didn't get upset, just vocal about the fact that she was part of the shopping crew and had some opinions to offer. We left Sharp Shopper with more than two bags and definitely more than $30 poorer. But we are well stocked with quick lunch items and while neither place had organic cheerios we found plenty of other things that made the drive feel worth it. And even if we hadn't found much of anything, we were thoroughly enjoying each other's company. I had almost forgotten how absolutely fun Kali is to do errands with. I marvel being in a store with her and how pleasant she is and how much she likes to help me look for things and how she really never asks me to buy things. She was so happy when I tossed a bag of marshmallows into the cart - shocked, probably, that I was going to buy them (she had been talking so much about roasting marshmallows over the fire and I was not envisioning getting into making homemade ones anytime soon!).

We stopped at the store next door to see if they had paints and markers that Kali wanted to purchase with her money. They didn't have the brand she was looking for - she wanted good quality ones, I think - and so we headed out; this time after Alida nursed, fell soundly asleep, transferred into her carseat and settled in for a snooze. It was just going about as smoothly as I could have imagined.

Kali had one more free ice cream cone from the library's summer reading program so I made my last trip through the Dairy Queen drive thru (until next year's reading program most likely). Kali enjoyed her chocolate vanilla twist cone while we made our way to our final stop. Michael's Arts and Crafts had the markers and watercolor paints Kali was looking for. She excitedly took her purchase to the check out, only to find that while we thought she was short a few cents she was actually going to get change since they were buy one get the second half off (which wasn't advertised anywhere that I could see, so we were both surprised). That was the icing on the cake for Kali, as she had turned in all her change to me that morning for a $10 bill in hopes that that might mean she would be given change when she made her purchases.

Alida was awake again and with both girls buckled in one last time, we headed home. I had to chuckle as I drove along with Kali happily loudly humming Deck the Halls. It wasn't long before Alida joined in with her own variation. While I don't often feel giddy with happiness when I head home with a trunk load of things that I just spent money on (in "no buy november" of all months), I admit that it had been one very fun outing with my gals!

And the day continued pleasantly, with Kali drawing a beautiful tree picture with her new markers and then settling in to watch one of her new movies from the library. Meanwhile Alida and I got the laundry in off the line and put away, mixed up some green kale rolls and started baked lentils with cheese for dinner. Alida was so pleasant as I was unloading the car that it wasn't until the baby bjorn started to feel a bit damp that I figured it was time to check her diaper. She got an unplanned bath, which she was quite pleased about, since she was soaked through and through!

After enjoying dinner all together, Jason headed out to get the fire started for the evening gathering and to make the day even more special, Kali got to roast a few marshmallows before the guests arrived.

So that was my day in a nutshell (okay, so a rambly account of it - while I have time to write, I don't have time to do much editing since I'm currently one-handed again...) I even managed to have time to play a little ball with Alida this afternoon. Enjoy the clip below!

Teeth

2011-11-11T10:24:00.001-08:00

Jason and I were initially suspicious that Alida's fever this week was teething. But when it hit 103.6 we figured that was impossible since our main source for answers to our "baby questions" noted that normally a baby doesn't have a fever over about 101.5 with teething. So we nixed that hypothesis and (her mommy at least) worried about other possibilities. But it seemed like an odd illness, with fever being the predominant symptom other than one morning of diarrhea. I finally got a good look in her mouth this morning when she swiped an envelope from me (which she was quite happy about) and set to eating it. She does not have one new tooth on top, or two new teeth on top. The little gal has cut three new teeth on top this week.

Glad to be on the road to health again!

2011-11-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

It's been a bit of a long week on the home front. I'm not sure I'm ready for the winter months and the germs that seem to come along with the cold, long, dark days! One day after church this week (when Alida was getting her mouth on all the shared toys) she spiked a fever. She had a fever for about 2 days with no other symptoms (other than the general crabbiness that comes with having a fever over 103). We suspected teething initially as she had a new tooth cutting through on the top. But as of yesterday morning her fever was down but she had diarrhea and so we now are concluding it was a tummy bug of some kind. I was so happy to see smiles and hear her giggles last evening. She really handled the whole thing amazingly well, but I come to the end of this week tired. I deemed one of the nights a "Nora night" in that I didn't clock in more than an hour straight of sleep. I'm still not sure how we did that night after night.

In other news we are "tucking in" the garden for the winter. I've enjoyed raking leaves with Alida in the pack and helping to clean old vines off the trellises. Below you will see Alida enjoying the last watermelon that Jason found in the garden and which we finished consuming just a few days ago (yes, watermelon in November!). Kali is finishing off last year's popcorn!

Things fall apart

2011-10-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

I think I'm starting to get a handle on what a depressed state of mind feels like for me. Ok, so there are probably 10,000 blog entries that start out that way being published today, nearly none of them bearable to read. If you'll bear with me, I hope the writing that follows can justify the narcissistic introduction!

Generally as I travel through my life, looking out at the world passing through my gaze, I tend to accumulate a concept of the world that is bountiful and synergistic. That is to say I tend to see the way things work together to be more than the sum of their parts. I see ecosystems building, trees growing, people connecting and learning. Over the course of this week, that vision of the world sort of steadily eroded into more of an entropic viewpoint. That is to say I developed the feeling that systems were failing, people were ailing, the ecosystem around me was beginning to degrade.

Of course, a person can find plenty of examples and support for either of those two viewpoints. In reality both are true. In my more dry and sober concept of the universe, I recognize that while life appears to contradict entropy, actually life on earth or anywhere else could not possibly exist without it. As the multitude of components in the cosmos make their transitions from greater to lesser energy states, the energy they were carrying becomes available to other components. Self-replicating molecules have proliferated in their staggering array of diversity by taking advantage of this dynamic, allowing the energy coursing from our spectacularly degrading sun to flow through and animate life on earth; life's way of making a living is throwing up a sail to catch the solar wind. So it's not either/or. But sometimes it feels that way.

I hit my low point on Friday, which was the day I finally started to acknowledge to myself that I was feeling generally bad. There was a moment in which I was occupying my mind with some sort of imagined, potential conversation with one family member or another when the hypothetical conversation turned towards the subject of Nora. In a cathartic rush, I found my spirit articulating something in my mind to the effect of, "I really miss Nora." From that point I was able to begin my ascent back out of the pit I was in.

And speaking of pits I was in, I had spent the end of last weekend finishing the soil moving project we began some months ago...a groundwater recharge station (pit) filled with loose rock and topped with two stone benches in Nora's memorial garden is the idea. So far just the pit exists. It has been a bit odd but somehow o.k. for me to note somewhat far along in the process that perhaps what I was trying to accomplish was to dig Nora's grave. We chose cremation for her, and that was good, but perhaps I hadn't recognized the cultural import of the grave-digging process. I had even begun emphatically stating that six feet or so was the proper depth for the hole before thinking about the correlation.

Friends came over two different times for evenings of digging and ping-pong, which is how the majority of the soil was extracted, but I finished it myself. It's a strange (but in this case somehow gratifying) experience to recline in the bottom of a six-foot pit. I will venture that you've never seen autumn leaves against a blue sky until you've seen them from that perspective. And perceiving the entire, grassy, round rim of the hole in my field of vision from the bottom made the pit seem all the more like it's own cool and quiet little world. I liked that.

Today would be Nora's fourth birthday. If we hadn't gotten a bit of a freak snowstorm this weekend, I'd have been hard at it pouring the footer for the brick well that will form the center core of the pit, and then possibly beginning to brick up the sides and fill in the rock around it.

As it is, our whole family has basically been presented on a platter the opportunity to do something we so often neglect to do: relax. It is our tendency on these days worth commemorating to try to think of something we'd like to "do" to mark the day. I suppose the lessons from Nora's life have yet to be fully incorporated, because I can think of no better way to celebrate her coming into our lives than to just "be" together.

Alida's favorite bear & Nora's birthday

2011-10-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

Technology has not been my friend today (though I have finally learned to embed a video on this blog - see below)... I don't have the energy to recreate the post I just finished, only to be kicked off blogger and have it gone!

In short, it seems that we find ourselves experiencing a backlog in many areas of life right now - which is noted in part by the lack of posting on this blog lately! There is much to say, plenty of pictures to share, and the hours in the day do not seem to be quite enough for all we'd like to fill them with.

And this week Jason and I have both had days of pacing around feeling distracted. Nora would be four tomorrow. I was laboring at UVA at this time four years ago. The emotions are complicated and strong. And tomorrow on the day of Nora's birth, Alida will be the exact age Nora was when she died. She is such a special gift to our family. Here she is enjoying one of her favorite "friends."

Watch out - we can now post videos!!

2011-09-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

For those that haven't discovered this via a recent email or through facebook, we now have a camera that takes videos. We are grateful for a "hand-me-down" camera, the only payment required being to share plenty of cute pictures and videos. Here's a recent one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmRTzYEds_Q

Some things are clearly not changing around here - Alida still adores Kali and vice versa.

Some things are changing - Alida got her first tooth a few days before her 6 month birthday and another one is following. Gone will soon be the toothless smiles and her mommy has mixed feelings about that! Someone is growing up TOO fast!!

Where was she when I was in eighth grade?

2011-09-29T19:57:00.000-07:00

Kali wrote a poem today:

The sun is first, shining and bright
Then there is mercury, hot with its light
Venus is hotter, but next on the chain
Earth is the only one with Africa or Maine.
Mars comes next, with caverns below
There is an asteroid belt, escapes seem to glow
Then there is Jupiter with its big, red spot
And Saturn, which doesn't seem to have a dot.
Far out Uranus, how little we know!
Then there is Neptune with winds; how fast they blow!
Poor little Pluto, he just seems to moan
We'd call him a planet, if only we'd known.

I believe she is going to take after her father in the poetry realm!!! I am still scarred by my "C" received for my 8th grade poem written about my cat Pepper.

September news

2011-09-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Most days the thought "I want to put this on the blog" goes through my mind at least once. And then by the next day I can't remember what that inspiration that flashed through me was. That feels like how life is in our household right now. I'm soaking in a lot of it, but it also seems to be going so so fast! (and half the time I sit down to write and then get interrupted, as in this case, and don't get back to it for hours or days...)

So I'm now at the end of the day rather than the beginning and bed is calling louder than most other things. Just to mention a few of the things that haven't left my mind since earlier today:

Kali is now not sure what she likes more - art or math. This would be a big switch in our household. While Jason was feeding Alida the other day, he suggested she might write an essay while he was busy. She did. About art. It reads:

"Art: Probubly the eseist school subjact for most tiaps
Panit Draw Colur Stamp Cut n Tape Skalpt
Can be Framd
Can be done with pen marcr craon paper pensul leaf sesors stik grass
Looks like this (sorry I can't easily show the pictures)."

Her spelling is still not fabulous, I can actually understand it now (a big change in the last few weeks) and it is cute to see her enjoying communicating through written words - sometimes.

Alida's big news is that she has been working hard on something and it has paid off. A TOOTH!! As of this morning the first one has cut through on the bottom. I'm hoping very much that her desire to bite and chew on me lessens now that the bugger has cut through. We'll see!

The big news for Kali and Alida is that Daddy has completed the swing set and they are both very pleased. Kali and Jason just went out for a little night swing ride. I think Kali would swing a dozen times a day if there weren't other things that took her away from the swing set - like playdates, home school co-op days, books that beg to be read, stuffed animals that need their harnesses changed, cookies that want to be baked, games that are fun to play, etc...

And Jason and I are just trying to keep up with and soak up our growing girls and our growing farmette. The most recent canning project was my all time favorite one - grape juice (liquid gold is often how I refer to it). I feel so rich as I watch the deep purple liquid flow out of the steamer. FUN! The next canning project will be tomorrow night - following up on Jason's chicken butchering evening a few days back. I keep thinking we are almost done and then I bring in enough basil for pesto, enough green beans for several days of fresh eating, enough tomatoes and peppers for another batch of sauce... There are butternut waiting to be harvested and a few final watermelon in the patch. And we have been eating lots of sweet potatoes in various forms (partially due to the fact that Jason half cooked some of them in an attempt to cure them in a room with a space heater).

While Jason was washing sweet potatoes down by the garden, I took in and enjoyed some of the lingering color in Nora's garden. I can't always sort out all my emotions about the many things that have transpired in our 6 years on Fruit Farm Lane, but the enduring and overarching emotion at many moments right now is gratitude. And a big bundle of the gratitude I feel goes to Nora. So we enter a new week and one in which both Jason and I will celebrate another year of life - what a year it has been!!

It just keeps giving...

2011-09-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to any of our faithful, or even not so faithful, readers that I'm typing this to the sound of two canners busy at work! Just when I thought the garden was slowing up, Jason came in with three baskets of green beans. There are 7 pints of dilly beans in one canner and 7 quarts of green beans in the other (and three bags of snipped green beans in the fridge). But that isn't the food processing project I'm feeling most pleased about today. When we were out putting the chickens in last evening, I noted that our rhubarb plants looked fabulous, and in need of a trim! And we had peaches that were also needing to be used. I wondered (after having recently been given some tasty strawberry rhubarb jam) if I could find a recipe for peach rhubarb jam. I did. I made it. It's yummy and pretty!

I'm still feeling a little bit in awe that we have peach trees growing right outside our house, that grew from seed, and that are showering upon us delicious peaches. We have eaten lots, canned some, frozen some, made peach jam with some, and shared some. How fun!!

In other news, Alida is getting around these days. She likes to flop from her front to her back to her front and pivot around and is starting to make significant progress towards mobility this way! She is also discovering the joy of grasping something and then letting go, just for fun. Pick up, drop, pick up, drop, and on goes the game. She also enjoys banging her heel on the floor when she is laying down (nice percussion instrument that she has discovered) and shaking her toys to make them rattle. I couldn't contain my laughter today when we were laying together in bed and she discovered my fingers. I was holding my hand above her head and she got very interested. She grabbed a finger and shook my hand. No sound. She let go. She stared at my hand, grabbed again and shook. This "toy" was not working as she expected. She probably went through the routine a half dozen times or so. It's so, so fun watching her discover and figure out her world.

ps. Update on a previous blog post - Jason not only won a blue ribbon at the fair, he got a check in the mail today from the Rockingham County Fair Association...for $1.50. :)

A day of "puttering"

2011-08-27T17:52:00.001-07:00

As I nursed Alida to sleep tonight I was feeling that my day had been rather unproductive (it was a day in which I felt like I had all kinds of "catching up" to do after putting in a 5 day/50 hour work week - and that included catching up with my family, particularly a rapidly developing now 5-month old). It was merely a fleeting feeling that came over me, and then I started thinking about the day and chuckled inside. Alida sacked out quickly and I came out to rejoin Kali and Jason and the canning projects underway. Jason was getting started on dishes and we started chatting. He laughed as he shared with me how he was just thinking about how nice it was to have a low key day at home, in other words a day where we were not pushing/ultra-focused on getting a lot done. We shared a fun moment recounting our day together. Here's a snapshot:

I woke to Alida wiggling beside me bright-eyed and smiley around 6:40am. She is officially done being swaddled at night and it is cute to see her going from being a tightly wrapped little mummy to a sprawled out big baby laying on our bed. After enjoying some morning smiles and a few of her raspberries blown in my face (a newly acquired skill), she was ready for her first nap of the day and, while Jason did chicken chores and then picked stinging nettles for our breakfast, we went for a nice long walk.

Jason and I enjoyed nettle egg sandwiches, watermelon and applesauce and then started on our day, doing inside tasks and slipping out anytime there was a break from the rain and wind. Jason harvested the following things from the garden: slicer tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, swiss chard and lambs quarter, basil, and watermelon (the cucumbers had been harvested and canned the night before, the beans picked and ends snipped for eating over the next few days, and the sauce tomatoes were also picked last night ready for us to process today).

The rest of the day included Jason and I working side by side making just shy of 40 pints of salsa and while Jason took the lead on much of the tomato chopping, I made several batches of pesto, a huge batch of green rolls, and made up a recipe for a potato crusted fresh tomato pie because I needed to think of a way to utilize the oven heat for more than just the bread I was making. We also made the butter from our milk share, Kali made chocolate peanut butter no bake cookies with a little help and I ended the day getting a large batch of pasta sauce started.

Fitting in all the cracks of the day were many diaper changes (as well as many diaper changes avoided by Alida still going potty much of the time in the sink) and lots of time nursing. And watching Alida could be a full-time activity and great entertainment right now. She is so cute laying on her belly - her favorite thing to do is to lift her legs and arms up so it looks like she is swimming. She thinks it is very funny when we imitate her. She also loves having her belly eaten and she will grab about anything within reach - watermelon is still a much loved snack, so it is a good thing we grew a lot of them!

Alida isn't the only one adding to the fun and laughter in our home. Kali got an idea from a book, "50 Simple Things Kids Can Do To Save The Earth", to write a letter to your senator about protecting the rainforest. And so she did, but she tacked on two additional items. "Ps. Rule about no tailgating...Pss. Help protect monkeys." Off it went and she is eagerly awaiting a response.

She has brought it up a bunch of times since then and is wanting her correspondence with the senator to have the greatest impact possible. Well when she learned about petitions she got to work again. Her petition now has four signatures. Jason and I were both happy to sign the request for our representative to protect both monkeys and the rainforests. But what I loved most of all was Kali signing on Alida's behalf. In case you can't read it, it says, "Alida (Too little now...Probably will care later)." So if you are in the Keezletown area and would like to add your signature to her petition she is ready to collect as many signatures as possibly before sending it off!!

Well, Jason is working on the mountain of dishes from today and I need to attend to the pasta sauce simmering on the stove and the last canner load of salsa. We didn't exactly put our feet up today but we reaffirmed for ourselves that 1. we make a good team and 2. we love food processing the best when we do it together!!

It's a pretty good thing that the rain nixed Jason's many plans for the day!!

Growing up...too fast!

2011-08-25T03:30:00.001-07:00

So this week is up there as one of my busiest work weeks of the year. New student orientation started Tuesday morning and as is normal in the mad rush of last minute details I put a long 12 hour day in on Monday. How it is possible for a little person to change so dramatically in that period of time, I do not know, but when I got home Monday evening I once again felt overwhelmed by how fast she is changing. She was doing all these new things, including what Jason has coined her "tough baby act" where she throws herself back, juts out her chin and makes these very cute but low rumbly baby grunting noises. Very, very silly!!!

I'm trying to figure out how to balance all the evening home tasks with my desire to both crash from exhaustion when I get home and soak in all the changes we are seeing as Alida continues to grow and develop. Last evening we literally walked away from the to do list and took a much needed family walk. Alida had the new experience of riding in the jogger and did not even make it halfway before falling fast asleep. We had a hard time finishing our walk since a little kitten at the neighbors' seemed much more interested in coming home with us than playing with the other cats around. Finally, after Kali got to hold and play with it for awhile, Jason dumped it in a bush and we all ran down the road before it could figure out what happened to it.

Then last night we hit another milestone of sorts. Alida has been getting out of her "swaddle sack" with greater ease by the night and we wondered when it might be the end of swaddling. On our walk we decided to wait until after we get through this particularly busy phase to shake things up any more than necessary. Well, she had different ideas. She was not going to have her arms tucked in last evening and promptly wiggled them out every time I wrapped her back up. So she slept for the first time in a little sleeper and no swaddle and it went just fine. Growing up!!

Well, the baby has just joined me and I want to soak in the morning smiles before heading off to work. Some day I may get to posting some St. Palentine's day pictures of Kali's recent birthday party...

Debut at the fair

2011-08-21T19:18:00.001-07:00

Ah. I see what the problem was. I had wondered why, even though my rooster was clearly blue ribbon material at the Rockingham County Fair this week (It's hard not to win when you're the only contestant in your category), the little yellow "For Sale...Make Offer" sign garnered zero responses. Now seeing these photos downloaded, I can see that the problem was that my lovely golden rooster was perfectly camouflaged against his wood shaving bedding. Folks must have walked right by all week wondering where the chicken in this cage had gone. If a Chantecler chicken ever wanted to hide in a bed of straw it would have no trouble!

Though I've kept chickens for as much of my life as circumstances have reasonably allowed (or perhaps a bit more), this is the first time I've ever shown a chicken. Normally I am not one for formalities or orthodoxy, even with chickens, so the Standard of Perfection promulgated by the American Poultry Association (this lists all the recognized breeds and their corresponding Platonic ideal form) can tend to elicit a bit of sarcasm on my part. So what brought about this foray into conformity? As my friends might guess, I did it as an outsider with an angle. You see, the Chantecler chicken is recognized by the Standard, and has been since the early twentieth century. But only the White and Partridge color patterns have so far been accepted. Perhaps that is why they failed to appeal to me. I, of course, keep the unrecognized Buffs. What a renegade!

There is a small but passionate community of fanciers who have taken it upon themselves to promote the cause of inclusion of the Buff among the accepted forms of Chantecler because, as near as I can gather, they are convinced of its inherent goodness. This amuses me. Perhaps they are taken with their birds but are irked that they cannot win the coveted Best Of Show really big blue ribbon with them. I do not count myself among them. However, I am convinced that this strain of Gallus Gallus (the domestic chicken) has some unique and useful genetic expressions that offer much to the poultry keeper (especially the amateur...which is most of us). These traits include: frost-proof comb and wattles (nearly absent congenitally), general hardiness and vigor, good hatchability, calmish disposition, an ability present in some of the females to hatch and rear their own young, non-aggression towards humans, decent rate of egg laying, easier than average plucking (for a heritage breed), eminent roastability (nice shape and very tender), and feathers that are light colored enough to allow a clean appearance to the plucked bird but with enough color to not litter the plucking site with visible blotches of white for months after butchering day (a pet peeve).

As such I am loathe to see it slide towards extinction, which is the direction it has been headed in recent decades. One strategy for its preservation is to promote demand for it. One strategy for promoting its demand is for people to believe it is a legitimate breed...a breed that can win blue ribbons, nonetheless! One strategy for more people for believe in the breed's legitimacy is for it to be accepted to the Standard. One condition for its application for acceptance in the Standard is that it have appeared in a given number of poultry shows. I think you can close that logical loop.

Also, it seemed like fun. And it was. I got to see the back side of the Fair, and that was my favorite part of the whole evening. Even if I had to face down the stares of the poultry keepers who seemed able to smell a greenhorn a mile away, I and my pony tail marched right in there and asked all our dumb questions until we found the designated cage. Next year will be easier, and if I can talk our neighbors (the only other people I know who own Buff Chantecler...got their eggs from me, of course!) into entering a bird or two, maybe there will even be some competition!

P.S. We named him Ferris.

10:22 a.m.

2011-08-12T07:26:00.001-07:00

Did I mention different sleep patterns?

Midnight

2011-08-11T21:07:00.003-07:00

Our two girls at 12:03am. My do they have different sleeping patterns!!

Grief; learning from my daughter...again!

2011-08-08T19:09:00.001-07:00

When Kali's bunny was declining I not only felt my own feelings of sadness, but I was heartbroken to think of Kali losing another loved one. Despite her mixed feelings at times about "Hiddley chores" she clearly loved her bunny. And I've learned in the past day just how much she loved certain things about having him - the feel of his fur when she petted him and his spots! So yesterday when I carried her to the front room and cuddled her as she woke up and then was given the sad news, I had no idea how the day would unfold. She doesn't often talk about her emotions, and I often struggle to know how to support her and be there for her when she is resistant to talking about things that are sad or emotional.

Sunday morning my Mom (once again) gave me a brilliant idea of writing a letter to Kali about Curious Hiddley since Kali is such a reader and it might be less daunting to read words than have words spoken she has to listen to. So I tried it and it seemed to be one of the things that opened up the ability for us to communicate and journey through this together. I am so grateful for that. Sunday we had two long stints with Hiddley - petting him and taking all sorts of pictures that Kali wanted to have. At the end of the evening we said our tearful goodbyes, as both Jason and I thought it unlikely he would make it through the night (and he didn't).

I feel like the words that kept coming to my mind last evening as we followed Kali through her own rituals of grieving and her last hours with Hiddley's body were, "A child will lead them." I was so glad we left much of the process to her to guide, as it was the most authentically sweet, silly, sad, and special funeral.

Here are a few of my memories:

Kali has none of the inhibitions that many of us adults may feel around death and dead bodies. She was very sad about getting to the moment where she could not be with him anymore. As we broached the subject of burying him last night, she expressed not wanting to bury him. When we talked with her about what would happen to his body over time, she then decided she wanted to retain a piece of his fur so she could always pet it. We processed this for a good long while with her and were willing to consider doing this, even when she explained that she didn't mean pulling out some fur but skin with the fur attached so it could be a part with his spots. In the end other factors and plans for how to proceed took precedence and Jason didn't have to do a minor surgery on Hiddley before burying him.

Kali's intense desire to learn and understand the world around her did not depart from her even at this time. She wanted to understand what was going on. She wanted to hold and "play" with Hiddley. She wanted to look inside his ears, check out his skin color underneath his fur, talk about why he felt heavier than he ever did when she held him before, hold him right side up and upside down and comment on the position his feet were in and why they were stiff but his head was floppy, etc...

Tears came and went freely, as did some smiles and humor. As we were waiting for Jason to bring the shovels from the shed, we were on the porch. Kali put Hiddley up on the slanted concrete slab and of course his body slid down the slope. Well, this turned out to be very entertaining for Kali (as I bit my tongue and watched). All of a sudden she piped up, "he's sort of like a penguin." Then, within minutes, she was carrying him tenderly to the drain field where she wanted one of her final pictures holding him and then asked with tears in her eyes and a tremor in her voice that we harvest orchard grass to line his little box from "the spot where [she] most often got it for him."

We made our way to the garden and Kali helped to dig a hole in her old garden bed from which the fingerling potatoes recently were harvested. She took a break to walk around the garden with Hiddley (after getting him out of the corn and squash patch where she had chosen to lay him while digging). She looked at him, then tried to balance him on a garden trellis, then immersed herself in further exploration and questioning about his body.

When it came time to tuck him in the box, Jason found a large plantain leaf to give him and Kali wanted it tucked just so in the box after laying it on his back for another photo. It seemed that by this point most of the tears had come for her and she solemnly placed him in the box and then in the hole and proceeded to put most of the soil back in the hole. When it was done, without a word, she walked towards the gate, turned around and gestured for us to follow her, and then walked slowly back to the house. The ceremony was over and she curled up with a Calvin and Hobbes book.

From all outward appearances she was "over it" but clearly her mind was still processing all that had transpired. When we got into bed and were playing a card game at about 11pm, she piped up that we really won't ever know for sure what day he died as we don't know if he died before midnight or after. So she wanted me to write his death date on my calendar right between the two. I can do that!

It seems so odd to me that in some ways (though I know Kali was a good bit younger than she is now) I felt that I had to guide her through or figure out how to help her grieve when Nora died. In so many ways it seems that she is naturally more comfortable with the idea of death or at least accepting of it than I am, as much as she clearly doesn't like it and clearly will miss her pet bunny. And I was even more in awe of the way she fully engaged the process and was not scared of it.

No doubt this week has brought back many memories. It is as if our bodies house the physical sensations of grief and when we experience those sensations, floods of memories from other times we felt similarly come back.

One of the biggest things I noticed last evening after our little funeral was how I was wandering around the house, not able to focus on much of anything (even though I had plenty on my list to do before bed). I had a hard time concentrating. I wasn't even consumed with thoughts about Hiddley, I just couldn't really think clearly about anything. And with it came a sense of disbelief that he was actually gone, when I did start thinking about him. I have almost expected to see him in his pen when I go outside, or hear the bell jingle as he hops out for whatever treat we are bringing to him. And I have almost stooped to pick plantain on several occasions for him.

Life continues, though, in good and meaningful ways. And Alida helps all of us smile and laugh! She didn't exactly get the "serious and solemn occasion" announcement about the funeral and added some shrieks throughout the process. She is so intent on figuring out her world right now and she is getting more vocal about the process of discovery. Very cute!!! And she has no doubt helped all of through this sad time, without even knowing it.

Goodbye to a special bunny!

2011-08-08T03:46:00.000-07:00

This is one of the hardest posts to write. After days of waiting, hoping, crying, and fearing it is over. I find myself once again grateful that suffering has ended, but so so sad that what that means is that Curious Hiddley's time with our family has come to an end and that what we are left with is good memories and many pictures.

It seems that losing this little bunny is triggering all sorts of emotions and stirring up grief that is pretty easily stirred up. Curious Hiddley's entrance into our family was such a wonderful thing and comforting and life giving. It felt at the time that he was at the SPCA at the right time and place, that day we arrived back from UVA without Nora.

The last two days as I've walked what feels like the long distance from house to hutch to check on him, my stomach has churned and I've felt the same physical sensations (just less intensity) that I felt those mornings waking up and making the trek back to UVA to see how Nora's night in the NICU had been. Those feelings of just not knowing what you will find - hopeful news or your worst fears realized.

This won't be an easy morning to leave home, knowing that Jason will need to share this news with Kali alone. I am so grateful that she said goodbye to him last night, that we got to tell him that we were grateful for the time he spent with our family, and that we were sorry he was not feeling well. Kali was glad for us to take a lot of pictures she wanted to have of him, even if he couldn't jump on his feeder or touch her finger without assistance. She is sad that he won't be around for her birthday and was uncertain whether she would be able to enjoy it as much without him. She also was not sure she wants to have another bunny. Me neither. He would be hard to replace!

Ps. Okay, so I couldn't go to work without telling her. I delayed my start time and we woke her to share the news with her. I'm glad I was there. I'm glad tears could flow freely for Kali. I'm glad we could share together our sadness. There will be a little family funeral this evening. But I was happy to see a smile coming through the tears when her little sister came out all bright eyed and ready for her day.

Friday and Saturday

2011-08-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

So my first week of work is behind us (it was definitely a cooperative family effort and all survived!) and below is an account of how I spent my days "off." It feels like the last two days are worth recounting as they were jam-packed with hard work and fun, and I was already having a hard time remembering all that happened yesterday when I sat down to start this post. We knew August would be full, and so far our expectation has not been disappointed.

Yesterday started with Alida and me attempting a walk but getting rained back in - thankfully, though, it did the trick of getting her that first, very important short nap of the day. She had a few more naps throughout the day either in the front pack or on our bed, while the action carried on around her. Kali joined in for some of the activity (like helping Jason did potatoes and working on the garden watering with both of us), but was also found with her nose in a book a good part of the day. Here is a list of the major activities I can recall from yesterday:

-Garden watering - a big task these days so we all chipped in yesterday to help Jason be freed to do some other garden tasks (and we ran our cistern dry with this watering so were super grateful for the rain this evening).

-Chopping and more chopping of veggies for pizza sauce - this happened in various times throughout the day but by days end there was a pureed and strained tomato sauce simmering on the stove and smelling mighty tasty!

-Making butter from this week's cream.

-Making a batch of pesto.

-Jason and I had fun working together to make about two batches of salsa from garden veggies.

-Cooking down the last beets from our garden (except the precious few being saved to plant for seed).

-Making potatoes to go with lunch that were just dug from the garden; also making a kale saute and yellow squash patties from fresh produce. We are eating so well these days!

-Laundry - broke down and used the drier since there is no good drying day in sight...

-Playing "Go Fish" with Kali

-Picking and cooking lambs quarter for rolls

Interspersed throughout the day was planning out the Saturday schedule and menus for Kali's bday weekend, feeding Alida often and changing diapers or taking her potty, and worrying about Curious Hiddley. It seems that our bunny is having bouts of not feeling good more and more often. We fear that maybe he is getting old in bunny years or for whatever reason not in very good health any more. He hasn't eaten for the past two days and has only gotten a few dropper fulls of juice that Jason has given him with a medicine dropper. He seems very uncomfortable and we hope he will perk up soon. There will be a lot of sadness in this home if the time is near for us to say goodbye to that little fellow!

We got to bed right about in the middle of the night and were up first thing and at it again.

Saturday started with another walk and then the food processing and baking began. I was so glad to have Jason around for the day helping or it would have been a very different day. And I'm so glad that food processing together is one of my favorite activities.

Today's projects included: baking green rolls (from yesterday's pureed lambs quarter), buttermilk bran bread (from the buttermilk from making butter), peanut butter cookies (because Kali's birthday chain told us to), red beet chocolate cupcakes for the upcoming birthday party (since everything has to be red, pink or green in the meal for the St. Palentine's Day festivities), canning the tomato juice from draining the salsa tomatoes, canning the pizza sauce that was a labor of love (over 15 quarts of fresh veggies cooked, blended, put through the Victorio strainer and cooked over night down to a delicious sauce amounting only to 9 pints), and the major project: APPLESAUCE - we will add 70 quarts to our root cellar (20 of that done a few days ago). Jason and I make a good team!

Though right now I'm getting the better end of the deal as I'm sitting here typing and cooling off under the fan while the last load of applesauce is in the canner and Jason is doing dishes. I love the picture below taken when the last of the applesauce was done - it was also after Alida had had a "playing with and pulling Daddy's hair" session.

And of course to end: a few notes on Alida's continued exploration of the world. She is enjoying joining us at the dinner table in a new way of late - trying out the high chair. She got to lick pureed beets off my finger the other day and has enjoyed trying the applesauce. But it seems that banana is probably the current favorite of the few things in her repertoire. She continues to enjoy singing and talking to me when she winds down for the night and I find those times to be some of the sweetest of my day - that and the morning smiles!

An end...and a beginning

2011-07-31T19:32:00.000-07:00

I have just over an hour of maternity leave left. We spent the final week of my leave in wild, wonderful West Virginia. While it was not the best timing for leaving our homestead, it was in many ways the best timing (in that we couldn't see all the things begging for our attention since there were four mountains between us and Fruit Farm Lane). We enjoyed a mix of work and play, and I got a lot of naps throughout the week (if only you could bank them for when most needed). Mom and I enjoyed canning 32 quarts of ratatouille one day and freezing two large sacks of sweet corn on another. There were other small food processing adventures squeezed in here or there, and I enjoyed the luxury of canning with a speedy pro (Mom) who did more than her share of the work while I came in and out as Alida's needs allowed. I missed her today after our arrival home, when I attempted and was successful in doing a canner load each of beans and pickles to "get ahead" of things before the week gets underway.

I'm trying not to think (or feel?) too deeply about the dawning of tomorrow. These four months have been a gift, a huge gift. And I know we won't ever have a time quite like this - nor will Alida ever be a newborn again. I sometimes feel a bit panicky when I see how fast she is growing up. She is getting VERY interested in what the big people around her are putting in their mouths - to the point that we gave her tastes of banana and watermelon this week so she didn't feel completely excluded from the feasting. She is also allowing us to wash diapers less frequently - yes, that's right, our little gal enjoys going potty in the sink and big potty. She completely "gets it" and most of the time seems quite impressed and happy with herself.

Now to get some rest before tackling the catch up job ahead of me. Here's to hoping that the day will go well on the home front too. A few of my favorite shots of late are included below and show that Alida will clearly be in very good hands while I'm at work!

West Virginia bound, with a few less diapers...

2011-07-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

Doing a blog post is not on the "to do" list of essential items to get done before we leave to spend a week in wild, wonderful, West Virginia with my parents. However, sometimes there are very important things worth noting, and it feels like a week full of those!

As is not surprising for the end of July, we are deep into food processing. The things that have come out of the garden today include tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, beets, carrots, swiss chard, kale, and green beans. One canner load of pickles just finished and there is one more to go in yet today. We are enjoying onions and garlic that are all pulled now and there is basil for a batch of pesto here and there. There are potatoes to dig whenever we need more, and as always lambs quarter and amaranth are there for the getting when we want it, as well as wild blackberries that were the cause of me using up my last jam jars. The watermelon are currently tennis ball size and about the cutest things I've ever seen!!

But that isn't the main reason for this post. It is mostly that we continue to be in awe of our littlest gal. She did just as great on "trial day #2" this week. She took 3 bottles for Jason and was sacked out in his arms (see photo) when I got home. She seems to be growing up way too fast and various "new things" this week have made it seem that she is already becoming a little independent girl. She took her first bath with Kali this week which was a big hit, even if her Mommy was a little nervous as she became a chubby slippery fish in the bathtub.

And, as I mentioned in the previous post, she now goes potty like a big girl (okay, almost - she goes in the sink). However, I'm not sure we were fully prepared for her getting accustomed to this quite so soon. I was doing it "just for fun" as we had decided to not invest fully in the "diaper-free" method from the get go. However, after taking her potty for the last 4 mornings or so, she seems to prefer not going in her diaper when possible. This afternoon she has gone in the sink every single time I have taken her and also went for Jason. She has even starting rooching around in her circle seat or in my arms and when I ask her if she wants to go potty and take her, she gets a huge grin when I take off her diaper and hold her over the sink. Am I really ready for this??

So I better get back to the "to do" list so we are ready to take off in the morning. We will spend my final week of maternity leave in the mountains, hopefully resting up and also doing some fun, good work!

Emotional exhale...

2011-07-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

So for those that don't know me well, the title of this blog post should be a warning to you: it is likely to be long. I don't tend to be all that concise with words anyway, and when I'm feeling emotional I can get very wordy. So to spare Jason, Kali and Alida from my excessive chattiness I'm going to put it out there in cyberspace for whoever wishes to take it in!! But for those that just want a quick Alida and Kali story (both of which have been alluded to on Facebook) here you are:

1. Kali made up a new joke this week: Why was the mommy snowman mad at her baby in Spring? Because he kept having meltdowns!

2. Last night on our way home from town at about 9pm, Alida was restless. I was on entertainment and "calm the baby" duty in the backseat and was trying my finger, her fingers, and the pacifier (what she really wanted was to be swaddled in bed). We had the kids tape on in the car and a little silly song about it not being any trouble just to l-a-u-g-h was on and was not calming her. I told Jason to turn it off and I started to sing the lullaby Jason wrote for her. I promise I had not gotten out the whole first line, "breath deep now my baby girl," before she turned her head into the side of her carseat, stopped rooching and promptly fell asleep. I could hardly keep singing I was so shocked.

We were all similarly shocked with the events of today. Here's a brief synopsis:

After weeks of worry (me more than Jason or Kali, or Alida for that matter), today was "trial #1" for me heading into the office. We gave up trying the bottle consistently a few weeks back as it was mostly stressful to try to time it at a good time for all of our schedules and Alida had been pretty resistant to the attempts we had made. I left Jason with 8 ounces of expressed milk (even though I dreamed last night she took 24 - though I also dreamed that there were two bears in our house) and drove down the driveway in tears. To say I did not want to leave would be a serious understatement.

What made it even more difficult was it seemed that Alida was also on a bit of a "nursing strike." She had started not nursing as well while we were in Maryland but I just thought it was a change of schedule or scenery or that there were just too many exciting things going on. It seems that it is a bit more than that - the most likely culprit is teething. So she really hadn't nursed much all night or in the morning until right before I left, with more coaxing than I would like.

So I was a bit of a "basketcase" at work (as my Dad would likely call me). I had promised not to call and we left it that Jason would call with really good news or if they were in dire need of me heading home but if I didn't hear anything that things were going "ok." I left around 9:30am and got a call a little before 12:30pm - during those 3 hours I was able to get started on "catch up" in the office and felt like I had a big exam the next day (by the constant butterflies in my tummy).

The news: it was going well. Alida had not been fussy at all. She had enjoyed hanging out and even took a really good nap in Jason's arms, transitioning to the front pack. She had not taken anything from the bottle - wasn't interested on his one attempt. He would give it another try before I headed home.

As I was heading home I had to make a few stops and on one of them (likely the groundhog pickup...) he called and left this message: "she took her bottle." He promised the details when I got home. By the time I got home, she had taken a second bottle. So she downed 4 of the 8 ounces that I left for her with hardly a fuss. All were happy when I got home and Alida kind of looked at me like, "back so soon?" I, of course, immediately took her out of her airplane bouncer where she was quite content and smothered her with hugs and kisses, which she accepted nonchalantly.

So then the flood of relief hit, the exhaustion from all the worry, and my new fears - here is the emotional exhale part. Jason got to hear all my mommy insecurities several times - what if she doesn't need me now? what if she is happier when I'm working? what if she doesn't love me? Oh, the difficulty that comes with letting our self esteem rise and fall with the developmental stages and phases of a baby!

We took a little snooze together this afternoon and she has now carted around with me while I picked garden produce and got ready for the evening fun. And that is where we are at. I started this while she was napping but she is now chattering on my lap and I imagine getting hungry, but we'll see if she thinks eating is a good solution to that or not. No time now to expound more, so this won't be quite the epistle it may have been earlier in the afternoon!

If you have made it this far you get to get in on a few more interesting tidbits:

1. Alida has been dry the last two mornings and has gone potty for me both mornings. Big girl!

2. Our supper menu - a fresh roasted chicken with carrots and potatoes, fresh cucumber dill salad, corn on the cob and kale chips. Mouth watering??

3. Evening agenda includes canning dill pickles and possibly dilly beans (Jason will help Kali and I IF he gets done butchering the groundhog in time).

Until next time...

Welcome home dinner!

2011-07-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

We are home safe and sound from a few days vacationing with my family at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland. And all of us are home - we are happily reunited with Kali!! It was a little ways into our car trip home that Alida caught sight of Kali in the backseat of the car and she just stared at her for quite some time. I think she is very glad to have her big sister back - talking on the phone didn't quite cut it!

When I told Kali over the phone while she was in WV that eggplant had arrived at the farmers' market she quickly informed me that that would make a good welcome home dinner for her. Well, I hadn't been planning on a welcome home dinner, but things evolved from there and I would say that Kali's welcome home dinner this evening was a great success!! It didn't hurt that it included some of Jason's and my favorite foods of this time of year, and we enjoyed some of our garden's firsts. Our dinner was comprised of fresh string beans, the first cucumber dill salad and fried eggplant. The sun gold cherry tomatoes never made it to the dinner table.

For dessert, after Kali and Jason played a little frisbee and I watched Alida put herself to sleep again and while a fresh batch of blackberry jam was boiling away in the canner, we enjoyed organic ice cream cones, organic sprinkles (Kali only) and organic strawberry ice cream (all thanks to the newly opened Friendly City Food Coop http://www.friendlycityfoodcoop.com/ in Harrisonburg).

It's good to be home!!

The upcoming week is a "big one" for our family. Alida has yet to befriend the bottle and, after laying off with trying it consistently for the past week or so, I will head to work twice this week for a few hours each time to give Jason, Kali and Alida some practice with the bottle and without me. I don't think any of us are looking forward to those times right now, but are hoping for the best. The last few months have been such a gift and have held so many treasured times and built many sweet memories. I know there will be a lot more to come, and I am glad Jason will have more time with both girls soon. However, currently my worry and sadness about the upcoming transition definitely overshadows the potential benefits the changes to our household could hold. It will be much easier on all of us if Alida is willing to accept her mommy's milk through a different delivery system, though none of us blame her for wanting it in the way that has worked quite well for her for the past 3 plus months - she's not convinced that this change is necessary, which makes it hard for me to feel good about it.

To end on a more happy note, a Kali story: Kali tends to get fixated on certain things whether it be a food, a certain activity, a game we play together, a book or series of books she is reading, a hairdo or in this case an outfit. She has an outfit which she calls her "running clothes" that she loves. She wears it at almost every possible opportunity (to the point where I'm kind of glad when I can say that it is in the wash). Well, it was freshly washed this evening and so after her bath she of course wanted to wear it. As she was getting dressed, she said, "This is the kind of thing that I don't know how I lived without. If I didn't have these clothes I would have to run around naked at least 2/3 of the time." :)

Shared moments

2011-07-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

I, Jason, write this at ten minutes to twelve. Why, you might wonder, are we still up at this hour when Alida's been asleep for hours, and Kali is not here to agitate for ever-later bedtimes?

The answer can be summed up in two words: "Movie Nights"

Yes, friends, Jason and Janelle have summoned some uncharacteristic media appetite and have watched, in five nights, five different movies:

Mumford
Lars and the Real Girl
Junebug
Amelie
Guantanamera

Rating them on a scale of one to five is too blunt an instrument, so suffice it to say that both of us got the most feel-good, old-fashioned movie buzz from Lars and the Real Girl. Beyond that, it depends what you like.

The fact that this baby of ours (photographed here - some of our recent favorites) made this rash of home cinema a possibility is something we treasure as a gift from her, albeit unawares. They tell you that each child is going to be totally unique and won't follow the patterns laid down by older siblings. With Alida, nowhere is this more true than in her fondness for beddy-bye. Let me tell the story of the start of this night's sleep.

Long about 8:15 (the usual time), it became clear that everyone would be happier if Alida were asleep. So after a clean diaper and some swaddling, it was "night-night time", one of her favorite times of day. However, in contrast to her usual pattern recently, she did not fall asleep nursing, but rather continued her kicking and general tired-baby thrashing while failing to settle into a nursing rhythm. Janelle decided to try a lullaby (the one I wrote for Alida). As Alida often will do during singing, she joined right in, making some of her own adorable vocalizations. This time, however, something made Janelle call me in to listen. It came as a bit of a shock to realize that her vocalizations were approximately in cadence with the phrasing of the song. That is to say that at the risk of making too much of it, I will venture that she seemed to be...well...singing along! I was dumbstruck, which is good because nothing I could have said would have improved upon what I had just witnessed.

And this on the same day as her first true laugh! At the supper table (while Janelle and I were enjoying without a seven-year-old's critique our meal of pickled eggs and beets, squash saute, and rolls with jelly or pesto), Janelle began an episode of one kind of tickling that Alida has been enjoying. To our parental delight, there emerged from Alida that longed-for sound--one of the few instinctive human vocalizations besides sneezing and sobbing--a clear and hearty giggle! She did it over and over until the game got old (for her...not us!). And we, the owners of a broken tape recorder, were left with no option but to preserve the moments in our memories. Which is where they really belong anyway. We can't wait to be reunited with our Kali-girl tomorrow (who has had a fabulous week in WV) and be able to share these moments with her again.

Dedicated to the earth's bounty...

2011-07-07T19:18:00.001-07:00

I'm a happy gal!! Thanks to the generosity of friends who have access to an endless supply of wineberries, we enjoyed an evening out with friends picking until daylight waned in the shaded woods and came home with plenty of berries to freeze and to make jam tomorrow. And thanks to Alida who stayed up until almost 10pm and was very patient in the berry patch, even if she isn't old enough to snack on them with us.
Well, I went to add photos to this post and was going to put a bunch of garden produce and all the wonderful green goodness we are consuming these days. But instead I have once again picked out a bunch of my favorite pictures of Alida. She is experiencing so many new things these days and continuing to charm us with her smiles and coos/shrieks. She is enjoying playtime in her circle seat, trying out the doorway jumper for the first time and gnawing on her fingers at any opportunity she gets. Can she really be teething so soon? Oh, it is going so quickly!!
We are, however, loving our garden (and our garden fence) too. Right now we are eating a lot of kale and swiss chard and lambs quarter - in bread, pasta, sauteed, etc... And we just enjoyed our first garden potatoes last evening. And Jason and I (Kali is enjoyed a WEEK in WV with Grandma and Grandpa Myers and her cousin Christina) split the first sun gold cherry tomato. There will be plenty more where that came from. While it seems that we didn't get to near as much of the long "project list" during my maternity leave (which is sadly coming to an end at the end of this month) that we might have hoped to get to, we certainly are not needing to do much grocery shopping and our garden has never thrived in the way it is this year, thanks to the many hours Jason has been able to dedicate to it (and the previously mentioned garden fence).

And in case anyone is wondering where we are going to store all the produce, take a look!!! Jason did finish a project this week that had both my mom and me very excited a few days ago - we stocked the newly installed shelves of the root cellar with all my empty canning jars (after removing Jason and Kali from the shelves!!), to be filled in the coming weeks/months. We enjoyed putting the first canned things on the shelves too - the cherries that we processed the day Alida was born and a batch of blueberry jam made a few days before the completion of this project. Tonight I go to bed feeling very wealthy, in so many ways!

SHE DRANK FROM A BOTTLE!!!

2011-06-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

This post includes VERY fresh news, and news that has me flooded with relief. Jason just said the words "empty bottle" to my great delight! We have been thus far, until just now, unsuccessful at encouraging/persuading Alida that breast milk from a bottle is worth drinking. My anxiety about the end of my maternity leave increased significantly after our most recent failed attempt, where Alida was quite upset by the end of it. But today she downed 2 oz and probably would have kept going, had I been more confident in the possibility she would take the bottle and had put more in. While there is plenty of other news, this post will need to be dedicated solely to this milestone - and it gives me a great excuse to post my current favorite picture of our gals. Just look at those smirks!

Trip to PA

2011-06-21T02:45:00.000-07:00

It doesn't make a lot of sense that I'm up at 5:45am while all the rest of the family slumbers, including Alida who just roused to get a dry diaper and went peacefully back to sleep. But my mind is swirling and I'm not sure I could squeeze back in between Jason and Alida without waking them, so here I am.

We arrived home late yesterday afternoon from our first "big trip" with Alida to the Benner home place in PA. Going into it we were a bit apprehensive (with good reason) about how it would go, as Alida has yet to become a great friend of her carseat. It normally takes at least 4 1/2 hours to get there. It took 7 on the way up and 8 hours on the way home, both times requiring 5 stops. Thankfully we had allotted most of a day for the trip there and home so were able to attempt to relax about the many stops (I was most impressed with the Virginia rest area completely equipped with the first "family restroom" I've ever used!).

Alida just sneezed and woke herself up so we'll see how long a sleepy daddy can entertain her.

Kali was a trooper in the car - helping to entertain Alida, singing to her to help her fall asleep, and being really patient with the long trip. She didn't even dip into her "entertainment bag" much. But as we were leaving PA she did moan about how boring our home was going to be and how short our time in PA was. She had such a good time with her cousins and all the family around. Alida did also and was well loved and doted on the whole time. As we drove up the driveway upon our initial arrival, I felt a flood of emotions. I felt so grateful to be making the trek with Alida for the first time and felt sad that we never were able to do the same with and for Nora.

Now home I'm gearing up for my first entrance back into my "work life" with a two day working retreat we are hosting here at our home today and tomorrow. We'll see if I'm ready for this, and how Alida feels about joining me for two days of meetings. While she has played around with the bottle a few times at home and on the car trip, she hasn't used it as a means for getting a "decent meal" yet.

Well, she is ready for Mommy!!! Two quick final things worth noting. The week before we left on our trip we enjoyed three rainbows in the time span of 24-36 hours. It was the one benefit of our stormy weather and while Kali enjoyed the rainbows thoroughly, I'm not sure if she would say it was worth the storms (she seems to be following in her mother's footsteps with her apprehension of storms).

And on a different note, we harvested, shelled and froze the first hull peas from our garden which was exciting!! The garden is booming and hopefully the groundhog who is feeling very tantalized by the green beans growing right inside the fence will not be successful in entering as we are enjoying the bountiful harvest of green goodness from within the fence! Instead we are attempting to trap and harvest it to add to the growing amount of groundhog sausage in our freezer, which Kali loves!

Remembering together...

2011-06-06T08:11:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed having a group of friends gather at our home on the evening of June 4th to remember Nora with us, celebrate her life and continue to the next stage of her garden (digging a pit that will hold water and have a seating area above it). While there is still a lot more digging to do, it was meaningful to start off the project with some extra hands and the support and company of persons that were/are so important to us and who have been a source of comfort and care in our journey with Nora. Our home was buzzing with activity and noise, with about as many children under 10 years of age as adults present. For me one of the most precious parts of the evening was watching Kali dig with enthusiasm in Nora's garden, and following that to thoroughly enjoy the company of our friends' children, who are now her friends. It feels good to plan things that she enjoys and can be part of that can hopefully build up some memories that will aid her in the journey ahead, if/when she finds herself needing to process more regarding her sister's death.

As it did last year the orange butterfly weed was in full bloom on the anniversary of Nora's death. And many other tastes and sights around us are also reminders, though I feel like I'm savoring them more this year than I did in 2008 - I had my first blueberry of the year on June 4th and while I remember thinking a lot about Nora while I ate blueberries in the days following her death, those days feel like a bit of a blur. We are also definitely enjoying much more produce from our garden this year because of the many hours Jason has been able to devote to it - thanks to my maternity leave!! Currently we are enjoying red onions, kale, swiss chard, lambs quarter, lettuce, snow peas, sugar snaps, various kinds of tea, nettles, and the hull peas are just about to come in. The weeds got the best of our spinach bed but we enjoyed many spinach salads before Jason mowed it off to get ready to plant the next crop in those beds. Kali and I are also enjoying eating our way to the mailbox these days, or just making trips out to the driveway for the sole purpose of snacking on mulberries. There is a batch of vanilla pudding in the fridge waiting to be eaten with mulberries.

I can't end a post without some "Alida-news." Last night I was convinced she couldn't possibly be my daughter. Here is how the nighttime went. She has started to make it very clear that she is ready for bed sometime in the 8 to 8:30pm range. This does not mean nursing to sleep in my arms - this means being put in her little swaddle sack and laying horizontal on the bed. She'll get a bit more cranky as she communicates with us that she is tired. I'm often trying to finish up one more thing, like a domino game with Kali and Jason last evening. When I take her into our bedroom and start changing her she calms down and when I wrap her little arms tight and velcro her shut she gives me a big grin. I turn off the light and then go about with the final clean up for the evening and getting myself ready for bed. She blinks and looks around the room, turning her head from side to side. I keep checking in on her assuming she must need me, must need to nurse to fall asleep, etc... Well, last night she didn't nurse at all after I put her in bed. She just eventually fell calmly asleep and slept for over 6 hours until she roused me around 3:30am to eat. This I am not used to yet, but I promise that I will be able to get used to it!! It's just so interesting to note, what I've always heard and believed, that every child is so unique and different. This difference is just particularly striking to me since sleep was very different with both Kali and Nora. We'll see what happens when I transition back to work and am not available to nurse Alida as desired throughout the day. Who knows, maybe she'll surprise us and also love the bottle - which we need to try soon! I imagine the chances are pretty good she might if her big sister is feeding her - though she is pretty fascinated with her Daddy these days too. We had a family meeting last evening to continue the conversation about getting ducks. We always end our meetings with a family hug. It was Alida's first family meeting since we haven't managed to squeeze one in since her arrival late March. That family hug felt so wonderful!! I love the people I live with!!

Napping alone!

2011-06-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is right. I just left our bedroom where Alida is all swaddled up taking a nap on our bed. While she fell asleep I found myself reading through these early June days in 2008 on our Cascades of Light (http://myersbenner.blogspot.com/) blog. I may have drifted off to sleep there beside Alida if I didn't desperately need a tissue by the end of my reading. Life feels so good and full and beautiful right now. I don't often know how to hold together the absolute delight we take in Alida's growth and development with the deep feelings of loss of something so precious when I read about the days of letting go around the time of Nora's death. I was so grateful this week for a little orange butterfly that I came upon sitting on my shoe as I entered the house. It flew around the porch area long enough for me to take its picture. Orange butterflies have been a sweet reminder of Nora's spirit set free.

It sometimes seems that Alida and Nora don't have all that much in common, even though they have more than what comes immediately to mind, especially if we think outside of the realm of normal baby looks and developmental milestones. The main one I'm thinking of right now is that they both adore Kali. She was and is the sweetest big sister!! I'm so glad that Nora had her and that Alida has her to experience life with!!

We keep thinking that Alida couldn't possibly get any cuter, and then she does. She is "talking" a lot now and she has a lot to say sometimes. Jason is in Pulaski, VA this week working at some rebuilding after the recent tornadoes. He is going to note so many changes in her just after four days (and I should note that I would NOT be doing this blog entry if it were not for my mom who has been here helping this week and is currently cleaning my house while I type!!).

And before it becomes ancient history, one picture of our first brood of chicks successfully hatched from a broody hen. She is such a good mamma hen and watching the chicks "learn the ropes" from her has been really fun. They hatched on Jason's dad's birthday and the second brood started their hatch on my dad's birthday. We'll have an easier time than normal remembering those dates!!

More later but for now I'd like to be able to say that I did this entire blog entry during Alida's nap. :)

This too shall pass...but hopefully not all of it!

2011-05-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

As I type Kali is folding diapers AND entertaining Alida on our bed. It seems our family has been plagued with some kind of stomach bug which manifested as Kali throwing up once last evening and seeming fine before and after and Alida just throwing up today and seeming fine before and after. Jason and I have probably felt the worst and I'm certainly looking forward to feeling better and enjoying the thought of food again. I also feel like I've been using the washer nonstop in the last few days between washing the thrown up on futon cover and Alida's diapers and other soiled things. I've even used the dryer... Today Kali heard it ding and piped up, "I can get them for you since I'm the healthiest one in the house." And get them she did, followed by the offer to fold them which she also did. She is now multi-tasking - entertaining Alida who is cooing right back to her while Kali explains to her her different colored wipes. So I look forward to feeling better, but I hope Kali's assertion that she is going to do this again and that we might have a housemaid lasts a bit longer. :)

Strawberries!

2011-05-15T08:03:00.001-07:00

We enjoyed the first strawberries growing on our property this past week, and have had many "strawberry parties" since that first one was savored. Kali usually checks the patch first thing in the morning and brings back the treasures she finds. We haven't gotten enough for more than a few each to enjoy, but they are special, very special!!!

We are enjoying so much beauty around our place this spring - in plants, animals and people. The flowers are brilliant in their color. And of course we can't post an update without one picture of "little miss." Today marks 12 years of marraige for Jason and I. I have a feeling my favorite part of today will be how we started it. Alida waking up in our bed full of her morning coos and grins. Kali waking up and joining us and the four of us laying in bed enjoying the first moments of the day together!

Am I Dr. Chickenstein?

2011-05-07T04:45:00.000-07:00

I've been petitioned to put words down regarding the young chickens that are rapidly putting on weight in the "brooder" coop currently positioned just below the garden. I'm sure the main point was an opportunity to post some cute pictures. These follow:

As is evident from the photos, we love having chicks around, and most of our visitors enjoy getting their quota of fuzzball-ogling in. However, I'm actually going to spend the rest of this post talking about some of the philosophy behind chicken keeping on our farm.

Please note that the following two paragraphs constitute breeding notes on the hatch, and will be of limited interest to a general audience. In other words, any of our agri-geek friends may now perk up. Others may decide to skip ahead.

The eggs we incubated this year came from two different sources, both our own. I had used a friend's Americauna x Barred Rock rooster (one he had given me in a batch of excess roosters intended for butchering, but which I took a liking to and saved out). He was a mostly black bird with copper-colored highlights, with a rangy body type, a beard of feathers and a "pea" type comb. Nice combination of genes and expressed traits for my breeding project in search of a superior woodsy free-range egg layer. I bred him to two different hens of ours which both came from Americauna x Black Java stock. One of these two hens was one I had to help out of the shell during last spring's hatch, and which had survived being glued with excess egg white to the incubator's wire mesh floor all night long. If it hadn't laid so many eggs this winter and spring, I would have considered it a poor breeding choice, given its scrawny state of development upon hatching and its failure to hatch naturally. It might have been a good idea. Only three out of twelve of these chicks hatched, and one was even runtier than its mother, requiring help to hatch and then lasting only two days out of the shell. The other hen was my "pet" hen (the one I sometimes allow to free range while I do chores or yard/garden tasks. She is brown with black highlights, and lays olive-colored eggs. Her eggs hatched at a rate of 66%. Half of the chicks were black, and the other half were brown, and patterned like little chipmunks (the ancestral jungle fowl's camouflage strategy).

The other quantity of eggs came from a less interesting source: purebred Buff Chantecler, bred out now to the second generation on our farm. These plain yellow birds with nearly no comb or wattles are pleasant-looking enough in their own solid way, but they tend not to dazzle a person, unless the person happens to be a chicken nerd like myself. I consider them almost ideally suited to portable coops, they are excellent meat birds (quality-wise as opposed to efficiency-wise...nothing can compete with the industrial meat hybrids on efficiency) and very good layers, and are on the edge of extinction. This year, like last year, they hatched like champs, at a rate of about 66%, and right on time. They are pure yellow chicks, just as the adults are pure yellow.

The above two paragraphs probably come across as rather technical for most of you, and probably not interesting. I submit them for the record and for the agriculturally curious among us. What may be of more general philosophical interest is the question: Is consciously breeding chickens for our purposes ethically sound?

Here is the dilemma: a person could make the case that agriculture in general and animal breeding in particular represent a form of the domination of our species over others. I have had a theology-professor friend of mine half-jokingly (only half, you see) try to make this case to me. Ethically, it could be considered superior to get our meddling fingers out of the genetic cauldron and let nature take its course, limiting our strategies for sustenance to scheming the gathering of what self-organizing nature has to offer. In that paradigm, the most ethical way to live would be as a "Fruitarian", which is a person who has chosen to eat only those plant products which the plant intends for consumption by animals.

Without taking time and space to point out a few conceptual flaws with the fruitarian philosophy (get a discussion started in the Comments section if you wish to pursue such), I would like a chance to characterize the chicken breeding endeavor a bit differently:

The chickens are using us to achieve their aims.

In other words, A) The goal, from a genetic perspective, of every organism is to become as populous as the environment can sustain, B) Since the time when humans first took an interest in the Red Jungle Fowl of southeast Asia, domesticating it into the common chicken, it has become the most populous bird on the planet, and C) Protection from the elements/predators and access to resources are the survival strategies of most species. We offer both.

So at the time of the domestication of the chicken, did we see an opportunity in it, or did it see an opportunity in us? I have not researched this thoroughly, but my understanding is that we will never know for sure, but in biological terms the answer is a resounding "BOTH!" In other words, I think of the relationships between humans and domestic/agricultural species not as a situation of plain dominance and exploitation, but rather as a form of biological mutualism...you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

Where it gets a bit trickier is to work out the details: In overarching terms the above may be true, but when it comes down to individual organisms and their interactions we often fail to match our treatment of the individuals of other species with the underlying mutualism. I do not consider it ethical, for example, to produce or purchase chicks or chickens, and then confine them in conditions that cause them suffering by way of poor hygiene or overcrowding. Neither do I consider it ethical to breed and feed chickens so as to grow at such a phenomenal rate that heart attacks and deformed limbs are commonplace (as is the case in the broiler industry). As another example, industrial-type turkeys are only capable of reproducing by way of artificial insemination, a process fraught with what I consider to be violence and trauma to both the birds and some of the people involved.

Maybe if we're really skilled at our breeding, we might come up with animals similar to the cow in "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" which was of a strain that not only could speak, but declared its desire to be consumed (its ilk was used by some interstellar cafe, where they would approach the tables and solicit orders as to which part of them the diner wished to eat, then cheerily saunter on out back to shoot their selves).

In the meantime, I suggest a compromise specific to our chicken enterprises: I'll offer each individual chicken the best conditions I know how to reasonably and affordably provide, including predator protection, good nutrition, sanitary conditions and the chance to exercise its body and some of its most pressing instincts. I'll watch carefully for signs of ill health or discontent, and will work as I am able to remedy any faults in the system that I discover. In return I hope for animal protein, insect control, enhanced soil fertility, grassland and garden plant management, and entertainment. Nearly every individual raised on or brought to our farm will be analyzed as to its potential as a breeder, and as such will have been given a shot at procreation. When I need to cause them stress by handling them, I will be gentle. When the time comes to remove them from the population, I will be respectful.

I'm not a perfectionist or a purist, so visitors might be disappointed to see a few blobs of manure in the pens, or to see confinement practiced at all. In my view, nature isn't too interested in perfection. But here on our farm, the chickens and we are working our way through the accumulated obstructions--biological, cultural, physical--that thwart us...working our way towards each other, and towards peaceful relationships between our flocks and families.

Gardens

2011-05-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

Everything is bursting forth around here it seems - growth seems to be something we are seeing a lot of whether it be in terms of adorable baby fat or the abundance of greens we are picking and consuming (and I'm trying to leave sharing about our new little feathered friends for Jason but they may no longer be little by the time he writes).

We have enjoyed watching Nora's garden come alive with color and beauty again this year - which Jason uncovered more fully one day by weeding and mulching it. I find comfort walking through it often on my way back inside from taking out the compost or picking greens in the garden. We are grateful to be enjoying a thriving little one this spring, as much as we think often of Nora during this time as well, when she was struggling so much to thrive.

The garden is also full of abundance - of edible things that we are enjoying and weeds that Jason is slowly eliminating (or at least reducing in number). Most mornings Jason is treating me to a stinging nettle omelet for breakfast on homemade rolls made with lamb's quarter (that I need to use up from the freezer as more is growing rapidly all over the place!). We are having spinach salads most days, have enjoyed sauteed kale that wintered over, gave away chard today as we just aren't getting around to eating it with all the other things, etc... I realized right around Alida's birth that our canning shelves and freezer were way too full for this time of year. I think I still have the mentality of savoring/storing up our home canned and frozen goods. But we are getting to the place (a cause for much celebration) where we can feed ourselves a good part of the year on what we are growing/collecting/harvesting. So this coming year I need to nix grocery shopping much earlier!

Carseat success...

2011-05-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

While I have a list of things that are "blog worthy" accumulating, it seems that the time to type with two hands is quite limited these days so most things will need to wait just a bit longer.

But there is one thing that must be noted about today!! As I drove home with Kali and Alida from the grocery store (yes, that's right, Alida had her first grocery store experience, which she slept through!), I counted up the number of times I took Alida in and out of her carseat today. SEVEN!!

That is not what is so noteworthy though. What must be noted is that those seven transitions and the accompanying car rides all happened with ZERO tears, screams, cries! While she fell asleep most times, she even woke a time or two in her seat and stayed calm... So maybe as we build on these good car experiences, my anxiety about car trips will lessen!!

I guess she is growing up. And growing she is definitely doing. Today she was weighed and she has gained a full FOUR pounds in her short five weeks of life. She now weighs in at 11 pounds 13 ounces and is about 22 inches long.

Here she is with her favorite person (except I get that label when she is hungry!):

Nora's binky...

2011-04-11T06:42:00.001-07:00

Last evening included a first for us. Two nights ago Alida was fussy for much of her aunts' visit - from about 6-9pm. I was very much hoping this wasn't a "new stage" we were entering and the jury is still out on that but last night included a repeat of the previous - though with me a bit less anxious about what was wrong with her since I almost expected we might face some evening fussiness, and it was so like the night before. Still anything but enjoyable, and I've already started to wonder how parents of colicky babies come out of the experience sane!

At one point yesterday Jason said, "maybe this girl is going to need a pacifier" as she had come out sucking - had a little red welt on her hand by the time she was 24 hours old from sucking. Well, we didn't get one at the hospital as we had said "no pacifier." Kali never used one and Nora didn't suck on one, though she found a lot of enjoyment in playing with one. For a moment I didn't think we had one - then we remembered that Nora had two - one is in her memory box and the other in the attic in our box of memorabilia and grief resources. So when the crying started in earnest last evening Jason rummaged through the attic and came down with Nora's binky. We were grateful for it - another one of those sweet sad moments to see Alida sucking on it - though mixed with a lot of relief for the quiet moments it provided.

Have we mentioned that she's cute??

2011-04-01T17:57:00.001-07:00

I know we won't continue posting at this rate, but it seems that each day holds so many monumental moments [or momentous monuments, comments Jason] - even though each day also holds a lot of the very same (more or less mundane) activities... It's just that it includes a little person that was inside my belly a week ago!

We have been so grateful for the presence of my parents this week to help out - making meals, doing dishes, cleaning up after us, playing with Kali, etc... It seems they have also enjoyed being able to savor some of Alida's first moments adjusting to life on Fruit Farm Lane. Today was an exciting day in that they moved the first of their things into the in-law quarters! As I sat up in their living room rocking Alida in their rocking chair, I was a bit overwhelmed with the flood of emotions I felt - this has been a year of a lot of changes! And while change can be absolutely wonderful, as we would consider both the new quarters attached to our house and Alida's entrance into our family, it can also bring with it a whole array of emotions.

Today was definitely my most "sappy" day thus far. And it was probably timely that my "sappy" day didn't coincide with a few days that have seemed to be more emotional for Kali. She is adjusting so well overall to Alida's presence - she never wants to miss a diaper change, has picked out all the outfits Alida has worn thus far, will watch her for me if I go to another room, holds her and seems to soak up all her little features (or just enjoy her on her lap while she reads)... None of her emotions have been directed at Alida and have more come out at the adults around. But today felt much more like a "normal day" on the home front.

Kali and I even enjoyed making fresh homemade green pasta for dinner. And I was able to make ricotta cheese with this week's milk - the butter still needs to be made before the day is over! And I also did a lot of baby-holding. I'm attempting to be gentle with myself and just notice how hard it is for me to soak up these precious, never to be repeated, days with Alida. She is already changing so fast and I want us to hold her and savor these moments. But I have to admit needing to fight against my tendency to cater to a "to do" list and how odd it feels to have a very short one right now - though quite important with the main task to "grow a baby."

Alida's birth story - via her Mommy

2011-03-31T08:53:00.000-07:00

Be forewarned – about 2 weeks after Kali was born back in August of 2003, I wrote up my account of her birth. Not long after circulating that to some family and friends, we received a copy of it, pasted on homemade paper, bound like a book and titled “An Epistle to the Lovers of Kali.” That was to say that it was not a short summary of that birth experience – I tend to not have a knack for “short summaries.” And it is hard to summarize any experience of the anticipation of and the experience of giving birth!

First of all, the place from which I’m writing this – it is now Monday, March 28, 2011 at about 7 in the evening. Kali is holding Alida in the chair next to me – playing with her head, holding her fingers, talking to her, and in general not succeeding in keeping her awake. She just gobbled a bunch of milk and is once again sacked out. Jason is journaling on the other side of me and I’m sitting with the feet propped up typing this. It is just the four of us, after a fun day of some of our family members meeting her. And it was an extra special day because we were home!! But backing up 2 days…

For the last few weeks I’ve known that the birth could happen any time, but I found myself hoping for just a few more days. As of early March our bedroom remodel project was done, which felt like the most essential project to complete on the home front before her arrival. I was eager also to get to a place in my work where I felt reasonably good about leaving my responsibilities to someone else. This past week felt like a gift of time I wasn’t sure I would have, and it included some good family times as well as a huge accomplishment on the work front – when I left the office on Thursday my email inbox was at ZERO (felt like as much a miracle as an accomplishment)! I was rather euphoric when Jason and Kali picked me up to head to our 40 week midwife appointment. And I felt something switch in me – I was ready for this little one to come and was ready for my maternity leave to begin…

I had been about 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced at our previous week’s appointment and at the 40 week one was about 3-3.5 cm dilated and 75% effaced. Still no guarantees on timing, but things were looking favorable! I was having more tightening of my uterus, but nothing consistent or timeable.

We decided we would keep making plans so Tadpole had something to interrupt with her arrival. Friday morning we enjoyed a family hike to the lake. Saturday, our official “due date,” we decided to enjoy the day around home with Jason in the garden preparing the onion bed and me in the house canning sour cherries (pie filling, juice and cherries) with Mom (how we acquired 120 pounds of pitted frozen sour cherries for free is another story).

By about 10 or so that morning I started to suspect that the day was a bit different than those prior to it – but did not want at all to get my hopes up (or anyone else’s for that matter). I noticed that the tightening I was feeling was different in that it started in my back and moved all the way around and it came and went in a bit more of a wavelike pattern. I also noticed they were coming and going so I started to glance at the clock noticing that I was having similar sensations every 5-15 minutes or so. We kept canning cherries …

I made butter from the week’s cream, got bread started, and made a large batch of soup. By about 2 or so in the afternoon I decided to start jotting down what I assumed at this point were contractions. They were now coming about every 3-12 minutes. Sometime in the mid-afternoon I walked down to the garden to let Jason know that I thought that maybe, just maybe, this was the “real thing.” It still felt a little silly to say I was in labor, when they really weren’t all that intense (though clearly noticeable and timeable) and we were able to continue with our day’s plans.

It seemed advisable by late afternoon to start thinking of plans for the evening to include a very probable trip to the hospital and for Kali to join my parents for the night. The 5 of us (6 including Tadpole) sat down to a yummy dinner of lentil burgers on fresh “green” rolls, potato bake, and sautéed wintercress. Jason wanted to make sure we also had time for our dessert of fresh sour cherry pie too! While we ate, Tadpole’s 0^th chocolate birthday cake baked.

I made a few calls to midwife friends (one of whom had agreed to be at the birth and the other who was the midwife on call at the time). While not assuring me that I was in active labor, they seemed to suggest that this was likely not going to stop before we had a baby in our arms. Around 7pm Mom, Dad and Kali left for a concert leaving Jason and I to get the rest of our things together in preparation for heading to the hospital at some point that evening. Shortly after that one of our midwife friends came to help us determine the timing of our departure to RMH. I was still unconvinced of the need to go, but also knew that I had received multiple “warnings” that this could go fast – and Jason didn’t think this little one was going to tarry in arriving. Our friend midwife’s suggestion was that we head to the hospital right away. After putting the chickens in and finishing loading up the car we were on our way. On the 12 minute drive to the hospital I had about 4 contractions or so and they were coming regularly and were now getting my full attention, distracting me from paying attention to much else.

Upon arriving at the ER, I still felt a little silly as we cheerfully walked into the ER lobby announcing that I was in labor, only to be greeted by our neighbor and friend who works as a nurse there. It so happened that I was about 9 cm dilated upon arrival, but (thanks to both Nora and Kali) my body was handling labor with amazing ease. We got settled into the room shortly after 8am and Alida made her grand entrance into the world at 9:08pm.

(now Wed, March 30^th) While it has now been almost 4 days since Alida’s birth, that final 45 minutes or so before she took her first breath will remain in my memory, along with the births of our other two daughters. I was very grateful to have two friends/midwives there, along with the steady companionship of Jason. And, with the inspiration received from being present for the birth of a friend’s daughter, I tried staying upright for this birth and when my legs got too tired from standing I used the birthing stool for those final contractions/pushes. Alida didn’t wait long to announce her arrival as she let out her first squeal before her shoulders had felt air. I pulled her out and towards my chest but then had to pause until they clamped the cord for Jason to cut it – she did not come equipped with a very long umbilical cord. I’m not sure if that was the reason for my lapse of good judgment but when I pulled her out, I found that the very first thing out of my mouth was, “it’s a boy.” I’m a bit ashamed that it wasn’t “welcome baby” or “we’re so glad you are here” but there is not much control in moments like those to where your mind goes and what it triggers to be verbalized. While we had thought of Tadpole as a boy for the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, the second half had definitely included becoming accustomed and excited about a third little girl joining our family. For some reason the cord played a really good trick on me and I was quite certain that our adjustment from boy to girl had been in vain – I was quickly straightened out and soon our little girl was in my arms, expressing her feelings about having been pushed from her warm water world, but before long expressed some interest in her surroundings (particularly the opportunity to try nursing for the first time – she started out a pro and continues to be one!).

The hour that followed included my not so favorite parts of the birth experience – the need to birth the placenta, get a few stitches and endure lots of pushing on my uterus to start its journey back to a more reasonable non-pregnant size. Thankfully I had a baby in my arms for a good part of that time to distract me, as well as the joy of making the first call to my folks who were with Kali to let them know that they didn’t have to attempt to sleep that night before meeting her.

I think Kali was smitten immediately, and it didn’t take a very long “family consultation” there at the hospital for the three of us to agree that she would be “Alida Hazel Sarina Myers.” We came to the hospital with several variations of that name and also an alternate first name of “Tama” in our back pockets. But Jason and I had been getting increasingly attached to the name we finally settled on, and Kali was agreeable though she would have been just as happy, if not happier, to have Hazel omitted. So Alida can only blame her Mommy and Daddy for four names.

Various persons have wanted to know the background of our choice of “Alida Hazel Sarina Myers.” Early on in pregnancy we started talking about names. It was clear that Kali wanted to be very involved in the decision of the in utero name AND the name we would call her after she was born. This seemed a reasonable request, as long as we maintained veto power. I was feeling overwhelmed by internet searching and Jason really wanted to spend time looking at a lot of name options. None of us were feeling attached to names we had considered when expecting Nora that we did not end up using. We kind of wanted to start fresh.

(now Thursday, March 31^st) So on one of our trips to the library Kali and I picked up three baby name books. One evening we decided to set the timer for 30 minutes during which we each took a different book and wrote down names that we liked. At the end of the time, we shared our lists with each other. The process had such a good feel to it. Kali had pretty early on ditched her book and had made up a bunch of names. I had made speedy progress through the alphabet in my book and Jason only got through a few letters (he also had chosen the 60,000 baby names book).

There was only one name in common between my list and Jason’s and that was the name “Alida.” On Kali’s list, she had made up the name “Sarena” which she read to us as “Sarina.” We both liked it and upon looking it up also liked it being a variation of Sarah (her Grandma Myers), as well as sounding a lot like Sabrina, a cousin on the Benner side of the family. So those names made it to the short list. Jason continued to spend time in select evenings going through the rest of the alphabet and sharing names along the way. Hazel came from one of those times, though Kali thought the fact that it rhymed with basil was enough reason to not use it – even though we are all big fans of basil!!

So in the end, we couldn’t narrow it down any further and found that we didn’t really want to either. And it seems that it suits her just fine. When the meanings are strung together, one variation of them would mean, “small, winged, powerful one who laughs.” She hasn’t laughed yet, but she is showing signs of contentment in greater proportions all the time. And the strength required to move her little legs out of the way for a diaper change or her ability to lift her head high off my chest and turn it from side to side seems to be an indication that she is going to be a strong little gal.

So she had her name before March 26^th left us and we entered the second day of her life. We spent all of Sunday in the hospital, feeling pretty sleepy, entertaining many hospital staff persons working on our discharge in various forms, answering calls and emails from excited friends and family, and adjusting to Alida’s schedule, or lack thereof. By the end of the day we were eager to head home and chose to do so even though a final test had to be done at 24 hours – meaning not started before 9:08pm . It ended up leaving a pretty sour taste in my mouth after once again having a really good experience at RMH. She had to go to the nursery for a PKU screening and a bilirubin test. The bilirubin checked out just fine (to my relief since Kali’s had been high, requiring a repeat test at the hospital a few days after she was born). The PKU, which had been described to us as a simple heel stick, ended up being quite the ordeal to watch from the nursery window and I was near tears, or deciding to bust into the nursery, by the end of it. All I could hear were her muffled screams and see here little appendages flailing about with no one attempting to comfort her as they unsuccessfully tried to get blood from a vein and then proceeded to prick and squeeze her little foot. I can’t help but wonder if that experience is partly why she is very unhappy at some point during every clothing or diaper changing session – which are being required at increasing frequency…

We were tired and happy to get home, and found ourselves walking on a little carpet of red rose petals that marked the path to our front door. Mom and Kali were there waiting for us, as was a bouquet of daffodils from our neighbors, welcoming Alida (and us) home. How good it felt to sit in the rocking chair by the fire that Dad had started to warm up the house for us. And how good it tasted to eat a piece of homemade sour cherry pie before working at winding down for the night.

I snuggled up with Kali while Jason snuggled with Alida in the front room. It wasn’t long after I finished reading to Kali that Alida started wailing. That was the only inconsolable crying we have experienced since arriving home and while it felt like it lasted “forever” it was probably no more than 10 minutes or so until she latched on, nursed heartily and zonked out. It was a big day for all of us! Amazingly Mom and Kali slept right through it all!!!

The last three days have included a lot of a very limited number of activities for Alida: nursing, being held, peeing, nursing, pooping, sleeping, being adored, nursing, sleeping, looking at the ceiling fans, peeing, enduring having her clothing changed, nursing, etc… And she hasn’t been out of someone’s arms for much of that time, and seems to like it best that way. For those that know me well, the change of pace is striking and there really is nothing like a baby in my arms to truly slow me down – even if I still attempt to multi-task like I am doing currently. Despite having held her for hours on end, it is still hard to really let it soak in that this is the little one that I carried in me for nine months and that she is here to stay. She really gets cuter by the hour and her alert times are showing glimpses of future interactions that will melt our hearts (that process is well underway already). She seems to be rather content by nature and interested in her surroundings, when she can keep her eyes open. And there is definitely nothing wrong with her appetite. Yesterday she had a 3 day old check up – mostly to check in on her weight. Supposedly a “typical baby” (who has one of those?) after losing some weight after birth returns to their birth weight by the time she is two weeks old. Kali did not follow that pattern and it seems too that Alida has no desire to fall in the “typical” category. Yesterday she weighed 7 lb 15 oz, about 2 oz above her birth weight. It is nice to know that we don’t have to be worried about whether she is getting enough and I may even ditch the charts where I’ve been tracking her “inputs” and “outputs.”

With some of the initial adjustments well underway, it seems that for all of us the reality of a new baby in our home will slowly start to sink in. Having the first load of cloth diapers hanging here in the front room is a good reminder but it is more the intangible “sinking in” that I’m thinking of.

I often find myself almost calling Alida “Nora.” And I look at Alida as I’m holding her and feeling her little fully formed head and think a lot about the little girl we welcomed into our family before her . Alida does many things that remind us of either Kali or Nora, as well as things that seem unique to her. It is special to experience the familiar and the things that are new to this experience of mothering. And I imagine some of the lessons that both Kali and Nora had/have to teach me will be reinforced by our newest addition and there will likely be other new lessons to be learned.

One of my hopes during pregnancy was to be fully present to all I was experiencing during that time. That remains my hope for these early months of Alida’s life, particularly as I enjoy the luxury of time at home. And between trying to catch naps as I can and keeping up with the needs of our expanded family, I hope to find times to allow this experience to fully seep into my being and change me.

Alida's birth story - via her Daddy

2011-03-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

One day I was working in the garden making ready for this year’s onion patch, the next here we are in the hospital with a sweet baby who is sleeping the morning away.

I must say, her timing is impeccable. Not only did she come on her due date, she also came after a full Saturday of homemaking activities had rendered our homestead in prime condition for leaving. I spent the working part of the day preparing a bed for the planting of onions, which I thought Kali and I might do on Monday. Over the past week or two, as we’ve been living with the knowledge that labor could start at any time, I’ve been constantly wondering: will this be the moment I remember all my life? Will this be the activity that was interrupted by a trip to the hospital to meet Alida? I secretly hoped it would be some sort of gardening activity that got the honor.

As it turns out, she didn’t even interrupt it! Janelle had been experiencing gradually intensifying, occasional contractions over the past few days. About the middle of the afternoon yesterday she decided it was time to begin keeping track of them. She is someone who likes to keep busy, though, so she and her Mom decided to keep on with their cherry canning project (long, unrelated story as to why they were canning cherries in March), and I am someone who likes to keep busy so I kept working on my onion bed, albeit with heightened awareness of all the signs of springtime life: budding twigs, sprouting seeds, birds claiming territories with song, etc. It seemed like a good day to have a baby, I must say. I was prepared to drop my tools and get in the car at any moment.

Much to my pleasure, we were spared that sort of rush. I was able to primp the soil to my absolute satisfaction and put my tools away, but then I ran out of concentration for ordinary things…this was no ordinary day, after all. I went inside where Janelle, Kali, and Mom and Dad Myers were, and we all agreed this was the real thing and we should make a plan. It was seeming to Janelle that we still had some time, so I got a shower, and then, since the canning project was completed (double bonus!), Janelle, Kali and I mixed up some cake batter for Alida’s 0th birthday cake. Then we sat down to a scrumptious and nutritious supper prepared by Mom and Janelle, topped off with fresh sour cherry pie and a little coffee for me, seeing as the chances were good that there was a long night ahead. By the end of supper it was clear that there was not going to be time to dawdle too much. Mom and Dad left for a concert with smiles on their faces, taking Kali with them to attend a concert and wait for any news we might generate in the evening. As Kali left she hugged Janelle’s midsection and said “goodbye, bump.”

Soon thereafter our friend M, who had agreed to accompany us in this third birth just as she had the other two, arrived to help us decide whether it was time to head to the hospital, which it was, and which we did. Advice for families to be: do a practice run (complete with labor simulation if you prefer) on getting to the hospital. We got there just fine, and with no wrong turns, but I admit that I felt frazzled enough that I was having a pretty amusingly hard time thinking about which was the best way to go. It would have been less amusing and significantly more muddling if Janelle had been in serious distress or if we had procrastinated any longer!

In any case, we got there in good time, while Janelle was still feeling pretty o.k. between contractions, though the intensity of the contractions had picked up significantly while in the car. What a pleasant and fun surprise to be greeted by a familiar and friendly face when we (in a calm and happy mood, I must say) strolled into the E.R. at RMH. Our next-door neighbor L happened to be the E.R. nurse on duty at the desk!

After the perfunctory registration questions (“Are you in labor?”) we made our way to the Family Birthplace and got settled in to a room. None too late, none too soon, though perhaps a tad closer to too late than too soon.

After a progressively intense hour of contractions and pushing, during which I rubbed Janelle’s back or we hung onto each other, riding out the waves, Alida breathed her first air. She did it very well, and gave it back with a shout. A short umbilical cord bumped the cord cutting ceremony up on the priority list a tad, and then Janelle could hold her. She was wet and a little bloody and looked exactly like herself! She needed ten minutes or so to get a hold of her emotions after the dramatic exit, so while she was crying already the nurses went ahead and did their evaluations. Soon she got calm and curious, and starting looking for something appropriate to suck on, which she found.

During the night she nursed often, and seemed to be starting to actually get something out of it. When she wasn’t feeding, she was sucking on her hand and looking placidly around, or occasionally napping! Now that we’re feeling wakeful, the hospital is hopping with interruptions, and it’s light out, she’s occupied with adjustment to the outside world, which takes the form of deep sleep.

And so, this event was the end of a beautiful time, a momentous beginning.

Welcome Alida!

2011-03-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

Words fail us! And we are tired! There will be more later, but before cyberspace gets the news out for us, we are happy to share that Alida Hazel Sarina Myers joined our family on the outside on her due date, which is technically yesterday now (March 26). 19 1/2 inches, and a chubby little 7 lbs 13 oz, with a medium amount of dark hair. She cried like a champ for about ten minutes, then nursed like a champ for a while, and is now alternating between those two activities and sleeping like a champ, the sleeping being the most dominant activity unless she has to try to transition to Daddy's arms.

Janelle did so excellently, even though she has confessed to again fully discovering the intensity of birth. Alida also did excellently, and now we just have to become accustomed to the idea that she's really here. Enough for now. More later. Love to all!

40 weeks and waiting...

2011-03-25T12:27:00.001-07:00

So yesterday was a monumental day! By the time Jason and Kali picked me up to head to our midwife appointment, my email inbox was at ZERO! One of my work colleagues congratulated me, noting that maybe this is this decade's version of "nesting." While I hate to admit it, it clearly impacted my feelings of "readiness" for the upcoming transition!! I have had a hard time staying below 200 in my work inbox and so this did feel like a big accomplishment and one I only dreamed of achieving before Tadpole's arrival.

So since that time, I've moved from "just give me one more day" to EAGER!! We are attempting to make fun plans for our weekend that she can have some plans to disrupt. Today's very special activity was a leisurely (at the pregnant woman's and the 7-year old's pace) hike to the lake. It included Kali's almost constant cheerful chattering, lots of little explores on some new paths, multiple visits to streams along the way, a picnic lunch at the lake, and picking wild wintercress and digging some turnips we found an abundance of along the path. We didn't even take the jogger along so Kali walked all 4+ miles and seemed to have some energy to spare when we arrived back home. The fresh air was invigorating and it seemed well worth the time and physical energy used, even if it doesn't immediately bring on labor.

So I'm definitely feeling more ready than I have in recent weeks. Eager to welcome her, to slow life up and absorb all the special moments that will come our way as we get to know a new little person joining our family. The challenge in the coming days will definitely be to soak up the moments we have pre-birthing!

We have been having a lot of fun with Kali and have experience many moments of pure enjoyment of her. And we have taken more time for some family games together - before Jason and I find ourselves doing a lot of tag-teaming again. And we had a fun "breakfast for dinner" night the other evening in which Kali ate one pancake but gobbled 3 of the chicken sausage patties that were the partial results of Jason's most recent butchering. While she gobbled those, we savored our first sauteed wintercress. We are also enjoying eggs in abundance once again - including a VERY large double-yoker that Kali thought we needed a picture of.

Here's two more pictures of our day today (to make sure all four of us are photographed!):

First salad...springtime is here!

2011-03-21T16:19:00.001-07:00

A p.s. to Jason's post from yesterday: he had wanted to add that, on the first day of spring, we enjoyed our first spinach/lettuce salad from greens that Jason had over-wintered. TASTY!!!!

There are so many signs of spring all around us, and we are soaking them up (just like the soil likely is soaking up the rain we just got). We slow up on our way to town to take in the baby goats, cows and sheep along the way. Our walks are extended by moments of gazing at new flowers bursting into full bloom. And we look at all of this new life and eagerly anticipate the new little life about to join our family.

While we wait, we also soak up moments together. Kali seems so grown up and so eager for big sisterhood! She's been practicing on her dolls, but is clearly eager for the "real thing." In the meantime, we are enjoying time together - we've played countless games of Uno, Skipbo and Yahtzee in the last number of weeks, gotten through our Pippi books and Mary Poppins and have enjoyed some outdoor explores including tire swing rides.

It is a good feeling to be beyond our "must do before the baby" list and on to the "wish list." That included a date for Jason and I, which we thoroughly enjoyed Saturday evening while Kali had fun with our neighbors S&M, not to mention playing with their dog Bubba. We were almost shooed away by them when we returned "too early" - they were clearly enjoying each other's company.

And today Jason even got to carve out time to work on a lullaby for Tadpole, which is now stuck in my mind (not a bad thing!). My last main "wish" at this point is that my body can fight off the nasty cough I currently seem to be having a hard time saying goodbye to.

The excitement is building to meet this little girl. And some days the emotions have built up too and run over. I have had a hard time fully comprehending how fast this pregnancy has gone; all the changes that will soon happen in our family; that we really are about to welcome a third daughter into our family; that this baby will not be Kali or Nora but her own little unique, wonderful person; that our "due" date is less than a week away; that my body is preparing for the amazing job of birthing (noted in part by being 3cm dilated at our last midwife appointment); and that we will hold her soon and bring her home to Keezletown. Will it seem real when it actually happens?? My cup 'of emotions' is full and running over!

Winter's come and gone

2011-03-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of spring. Man, was I ready! It felt like a long winter, probably because I was unable to do much of what Garrison Keillor recommends for coping with winter, which is to get out in it. I had indoor responsibilities, including cabinet building and bedroom remodeling, which prevented my even being able to clean up the garden from last fall, much less get a jump on anything.

That is, until this past week! As dark fell on this first day of spring, I found my early garden crops about 2/3 to 3/4 sown. So far, we have three kinds of peas (sugar snap, snow, shell), lettuce, spinach, mustard greens, chard, kale, beets, and carrots in the ground. Remaining to plant in the first round are the potatoes and onions, which I hope I might get in the ground this week yet. In two weeks, then, another round of spinach and lettuce. By then there will probably be a fresh, new baby around here. Just exactly what this spring needs!

The chickens sure know it's spring. They are laying eggs in full quantity, and I've been collecting for hatching. The plan is to fire up the ol' incubator just as soon as the dust clears after settling back in at home with the little one.

One day recently I wrote a poem about daffodils. Here it is:

They're At It Again

It looks like this year
is going to be no exception.

That is to say, the daffodils
have organized another pageant. Just now
they are working on the green
carpets, but I expect that soon
they'll be presenting the usual
surprise capsules.

I have mentioned
to them before that
not only have they failed to innovate
from year to year, but also that
each one is simply sending up
a variation on a theme (except that one...Oh, God,
where is it?!)

And so this March we will be greeted
with the typical array;
the same patient ceremony; a lifting
of the veils of Salome, endlessly rehearsed. And I,
on hands and knees, will crane my
neck and stare, trembling
with anticipation.

Nora's garden

2011-03-12T21:00:00.000-08:00

Return of the Shut-eye!

2011-03-09T12:16:00.000-08:00

I, Jason, write this post today in a state of profound lethargy. My motivation level for anything having to do with sawdust or adhesives or electrically powered cutting tools is near zero. I should have finished the last two pieces of walnut trim for the kitchen desk yesterday.

We moved into the bedroom today! Right exactly on schedule, and with no insulation sticking out from around the windows (can this be a Benner project?). This feels like a major coup on my usual tendency to miss my time estimates by anywhere from fifty to three hundred percent. Two factors have made this possible: 1) Janelle, and 2) Evenings.

Completion of the bedroom project and the simultaneous completion of Mom and Dad's kitchen cabinets in the scattered pieces of time available was a logistical rat's nest, sense of which I had little hope of making alone. But the biological maternal clock was ticking...Janelle had strong incentive to get involved. As I have always suspected would be true, her strengths were an excellent counterweight to my weaknesses and the project had a sensible order to it that my projects have sometimes been shy on.

Also, I worked a lot.

This past Sunday I attended the weekly worship at our church again for the first time since probably Christmas, or thereabouts. I was amused at myself for how great it felt to me to see all those wonderful people again. I have been increasingly starved for non-useful human contact.

Similarly, sleep. Frequently in the past few weeks I've been working right up until bedtime or a tad later, and often up the next morning in time to get a good jump on the work day. Now, with the pressing need for my work abated, every horizontal surface is looking like the kind of place I want to spend time.

There was a tremendous satisfaction in seeing the brand new closet full of our same old clothes. They fit beautifully. Swelling under the lethargy is a steady little euphoria.

Though my feelings for the day were mostly victorious and mellow, I must confess to some sadness that seemed to arise when we were setting up the baby stuff in our bedroom. I can only assume it was one of the various manifestations of my grief over the loss of Nora. Making peace with starting this all over again, here in the same place and using many of the same objects and systems, is deeply meaningful in both endearing and confusing ways. I can only guess at the thoughts and feelings that will arise when holding our new one in a few short weeks.

But today's story is today's story, and mostly today it's about celebrating a success. And so, for the interested, I will enumerate a few "greatest hits" (little stories, etc.) from the bedroom project:

1) The bedroom design was the first time I have applied some of the design attitude and skills I absorbed during my Permaculture design course to a significant home project. Specifically, I spent more time drawing and mapping, with careful attention to detail, coupled with a willingness to try out a variety of ideas on paper, rather than just coming up with an idea or two, becoming attached, and making a plan. I was even careful to push myself to try out some of the wacky or far-out ideas, just to limber up my thinking and see where they might lead. Also, I tried to give credence to my intuition, being gentle and calm with my misgivings and musings so that I could hear their voices coming through.

Most importantly, I did not rush that stage of the process. One day, after having collected some ideas on a few hand sketches and scrawled lists, I spent an afternoon alone in somebody's office in Janelle's workplace and came up with a total of about eight (Plans A through H) carefully drawn and complete options for the floor plan of the room, from which we could later choose. As it turned out, we chose "Plan B." Having so many viable, worked-out options from which to choose allowed us to feel confident that we were doing the right thing, and that we weren't ignoring a design solution that could make for a superior construction process or flow of living in the space.

Until we have lived in the room for a while, I won't know for sure. But I think we nailed it.

2) I can't say as I loved every minute of this project. Specifically, I had to level the floor. Floating cork floor is a real problem solver for a bedroom on a concrete slab, but the slab does have to be flat, which ours was not. Furthermore, the previous floor covering was a cheap carpeting that is of a type installed with glue. Lots of glue. Also, just to spite me, the floor had been painted at some point in history. This renders the warranty useless on most of the floor leveling products available.

In a way, though, that was freeing, because I knew I couldn't possibly follow the manufacturer's recommendations without rendering the project too laborious to be borne while retaining sanity.

So, here's what I did: I figured, hey, it's going to be finished with a floating floor, not stuck down with anything, so why does the leveler need to stick to the concrete so wonderfully? For good measure I grabbed a broken chunk of concrete block and scored the painted, glue-gooed surface, peeling up whatever would come easily until it was clear I was making little more progress. Then I assessed the variability of the elevation of the concrete surface (up to nearly an inch difference in the room, with the highest spot being not six feet away from the lowest...TERRIBLE concrete job, probably executed around the time I was turning three). We then used that assessment/estimate to buy Lowe's out of their supply of Quickcrete's Fast-setting Underlayment, which is, far and away, the best material I've used for concrete leveling under a cork floor (it stuck to the paint and glue just fine). However, even the twenty bags we bought from them weren't enough...I had to finish the job with leftover tile mortar and even a little brick mortar. I would not have taken such a risk with someone else's house, and I don't recommend the idea. But...it worked!

If I ever find a need to level a floor like that again, I'll know much better what to do. And if I don't...I'll be just fine with that!

3) Framing came next, then wiring. I hadn't expected to need to do any plumbing. However, when the time came to hang drywall, Janelle's Mom was sweeping the room for me and wondered if I had noticed the puddle.

I had not.

I couldn't imagine what could be causing a leak. Upon careful inspection, I still couldn't imagine what could be causing it. It seemed to me that I could see all of the fittings, and in copper pipe I think of it as very rare for a slow leak to spontaneously develop; generally it either leaks right away or never leaks. But I could think of no other remedy than to cut away the section in which the leak was and to re-do that section, which at that time contained only one elbow joint. I planned to do the repair the next day while everyone else was basking in the non-utilitarian social exposure at church. My "last" investigative effort of the evening was to jostle the pipe a tad.

That's when it started hissing at me, which bumped the repair up on the priority list. Most notably, it bumped the need for sleep back a bit on the list. I assembled my tools and materials, finding that I had just enough couplings, elbows, etc. to mess up the soldering one time and still re-do it, which was what I considered my minimal requirement for proceeding. So I plugged in the Sawzall and started playing plumber.

I cut the pipe on both sides of the elbow, but when I tried to pull it out from the hole where it passed through a double stud, it simply wouldn't come. At first I assumed it was just wedged in there tightly, but when it occurred to me that they could never have gotten it in there if it were so tight, the light dawned.

Nail.

Yes, my friends, there was a nail in the pipe. I am still amazed when I think about it, because the nail tip that neatly pierced that copper pipe wall was driven at the time of the drywalling of our bathroom, which may well have been over a decade ago (this is a house of murky timelines). All this time it has been sitting there filling its own hole sufficiently to prevent the escape of water at 120 pounds per square inch. It was only the jarring effects of my driving electrical cable staples nearby that dislodged it enough to weep a little puddle just before I covered it over with drywall. How glad I am that it leaked just exactly when it did!

I wonder if there could be any other nails in any other pipes around here? There may be, and maybe I'll never know about them.

There is a moral to this story: when installing pipes and wires in stud walls, please do allow the standard distance between stud edge and wire or pipe hole, which I believe is a minimum of one inch, with 1 1/4 inches being preferable. Many standard materials, including drywall nails, are engineered according to this assumption. The pipe in question here was run through the stud with about 1/2 inch of clearance or so.

4) We are still pretty big on BioShield products. The greenish paint used in our bedroom is a clay-based paint from that company, and is the same product we used on Kali's bedroom in our house on Wolfe Street. Once again, applying a natural material was a special joy. All the usual pet peeves--odor, disposal, participation in systems we dislike--are simply gone, and it's a peaceful feeling. It's almost eerie to be working in a minimally ventilated room with wet paint all over the walls and to be smelling...nothing. Actually, I take that back. For some reason this time the paint came with a barely detectable aroma of frying dough. Odd, but harmless except for a developing craving for some Dunkin Donuts, which are certainly not harmless.

We are also making copious use of Bioshield's most versatile wood finish, "Hard Oil #9." Our Great Room floor and trim are finished with this product, and we decided to use it again on Mom and Dad's kitchen cabinets, and also on the built-in shelving and trim in the bedroom. My thinking was that I did not want to tell A. M. Yoder and Company, the green builder doing Mom and Dad's place, how to do their job, but that for my part I wanted to use the finishes I knew and loved. To match the cabinet finish, they started out with hardware store Minwax Tung Oil Finish. Trouble is, the solvents in that product are no different than what's in standard polyurethane, and the trim guy went home after the first day of finishing and spent the evening feeling nauseous. The next morning he tried again, but developed a headache right away. He called me to talk over what to do, and I told him to feel free to try out the Bioshield oil. He did. All the in-law quarters' woodwork is now looking fabulous, finished with Hard Oil #9, and the trim guy seems to be feeling great.

Well, that's all for now. I do hope that everyone who found themselves wanting to skim as they read this list of storylets indulged the impulse without remorse.

I shall now endeavor to become re-acquainted with my friends, and to take the time to prepare my spirit for the entry of a brand new character into my life.

Big sister baby shower!

2011-03-05T16:45:00.000-08:00

Below you will find a few visual images of the festivities today!

Highlights (of which there were many) included, but were not limited to:

All sorts of guessing games in which we tried to guess what Tadpole's favorite food and color will be, how long she will be and how much she will weigh, what her name will be, what day of the week she will be born on, etc...

Attempts to figure out what baby items were hidden in 7 brown paper bags - the quacking duck gave himself away!

Pin the diaper on the clothesline followed by a difficult competition - kids against adults attempting to drink 2 ounces of water out of a bottle. I think most of us were using muscles that hadn't been used for awhile!! I gave up after downing a generous ounce.

A "baby sock hunt" in which 42 socks were hidden around the house.

And of course birthday cake, complete with candles and wishes for the birth-day to be and the baby.

Kali received a number of wonderful big sister presents and coupons for special events with friends to look forward to in the weeks after Tadpole's arrival. And I'll savor the words of a song sung to us that came from a book that was read together at the end of the party.

"We love you Janelle yes we do
We love your darling daughters too
Mr. Jason congratulations
We sure enjoyed the celebrations
All together shout hurray
Happy birthday Tadpole yay!"

Special day, special times! And the special times haven't ended for Kali yet. There was no time for "after party blues" as her special friend P remained after the party for a sleepover. Soft pretzels have been made and enjoyed and now a long game of doctor is taking place, in which temperatures are being taken in the "knee pit" rather than the arm. :)

Full term...

2011-03-04T17:19:00.000-08:00

Today marks entering our 38th week of pregnancy - we are now officially "full-term" (which is when labor was induced with Nora). So it is a new time, an exciting time, a time of much anticipation and also us telling Tadpole to stay comfy inside just awhile longer!!

As I type, Jason is working on the trim in our bedroom. We are close! And the "move in date" is scheduled for next Wednesday. So hopefully by the end of next week we'll be back in our bedroom and I can let the full force of my nesting instinct kick in.

In the meantime, we are doing plenty of fun things (and more mundane tasks) to get ready for this little one's arrival. Here's a run down of just a few that come to mind:

- Kali and I are going for walks whenever possible. I need/want to keep moving! And it seems it does both Kali and I a world of good to soak in the fresh air. I find myself taking in the beauty around me and storing up images that I hope will come back to me as I labor to birth our third daughter.

- Today was a day of a lot of baking and a good portion of that baking is going in the freezer - time to stock up for days where I won't have two free hands for hours on end. It was a yogurt and butter-making day, and we also made fresh "green" rolls to go with venison burgers for dinner, pumpkin muffins for an afternoon snack and the upcoming church potluck and a chocolate "birthday-to-be" cake for tomorrow's festivities.

- I've been surrounded by wonderful women for two "blessingways" in the past several weeks. The words, songs, pampering and other gestures of support have been a source of strength and encouragement as I anticipate the upcoming transition - and I have a tangible reminder of each by way of colored strings tied around each of my ankles - which the women in each gathering also placed on their wrist or ankle and will leave there until Tadpole's birth.

- Today I redeemed a coupon given at the most recent blessingway. A friend joined Kali and I this morning to do "henna tattoos." So Tadpole has two flowers on her and my feet are adorned with a butterfly and a tadpole (Kali and I have matching tadpoles which I am especially happy about!). It was a fun ritual, though Tadpole made doing her flowers slightly more challenging as she was a moving canvas.

- We are down to weekly midwife appointments now. Our last Centering group will be this coming Tuesday. Kali got to join us for our most recent appointment. We continue to feel so grateful for how well Tadpole seems to be doing - in growth, activity level, etc... I'm measuring "right on" and she is clearly gaining strength as some of her movements have moved from pleasant and enjoyable to slightly uncomfortable (though it's a discomfort I'm pretty okay experiencing for a few more weeks and one I'll miss greatly a couple of months from now...)

- We are slowly reclaiming borrowed baby items, picking up some additional things (especially outfits with frogs on them if/when they are to be found) at thrift stores, and we have made, as of today, an appointment at the fire department to get our new car seat installed properly next week. We still have a list of things to do before the baby arrives, but the list of "absolute musts" is shortening! And it is good to remind ourselves now and then that we already have what is most needed - lots of arms ready to hold her and hearts that are eager to embrace her entrance into our family!

- I'm attempting to be ready to be on maternity leave. I'm ready for the being at home part of it, but there is still much to do on the work front to prepare for being absent for several months. I'm grateful to have someone filling in for me and look forward to time to focus on family life, and especially integrating Tadpole fully into our family.

- Kali seems to be completely ready! But we also know this will be a big transition for her. So today has been a day full of preparing for a "big sister baby shower" that we will be having tomorrow with some of Kali's friends. I'm grateful for a friend's generous offer to co-host it with me, as I think my current energy level would not have withstood doing it alone! A report on the party will have to come later, but I can say that the anticipation and excitement is building in our household this evening (and Kali keeps coming up with more ideas of games we could play).

There are of course the daily tasks to keep up with. And I'm realizing that it is about time to tackle the pile of sun-dried laundry on our bed, including fresh sheets that need to be on the bed before I can crawl in.

Until next time!

Rare moments!

2011-02-17T19:04:00.001-08:00

We were on our way home together from town today (after a day of being at school or at work or running errands or some combination of those things) when inspiration struck. The weather was amazing, Jason and I were feeling in need of some exercise, and Kali was eager to take advantage of hunting season having ended, allowing us to hike to the lake any day of the week (not just Sundays). We knew the bedroom and kitchen projects would be waiting for us upon our return, but we also had a feeling that this was just what our family needed! So we unloaded the car, packed up sandwiches for a picnic supper and headed out.

It's now 10pm and while we are still working on the finishing up the first coat of paint on our bedroom, we agreed that it was well worth taking those hours together for a hike and picnic. Who knows how many more of them we'll enjoy before Tadpole arrives, but we savored the moments walking hand in hand with Kali, watching the sunset, and hearing her say, "we are almost at our driveway, home sweet home." That it is!!

And we are getting more and more eager for our newest family member to join us, but are also grateful for the steady progress on home preparations for her arrival. She seems to have been putting a lot of energy into muscle development this week as her kicks and squirms have gone up several notches in strength.

Not all ham is prepared equally...

2011-01-30T17:38:00.001-08:00

So I just tucked away into the pantry the first canning project of 2011. When our friend M offered to bring half a ham to contribute towards our evening meal together, we graciously accepted (and I suggested to Jason that we might also roast a chicken we had in the freezer). You see, I don't like ham. I can't really think of a time in my life that I ever enjoyed a bite of ham that I consumed. That is until last evening. This was a home butchered, salt cured ham that simmered in our big canner for most of the afternoon while some went for a walk with me and some hung kitchen cabinets with Jason. When it was pulled from the water, we realized we had a canning project on our hands and by the end of the night two canner loads of rich ham broth - ready to be the base of a hearty bean soup - were cooling on the counter. When we sat down for dinner, I took a small piece of ham. I wasn't sure it was me who a few moments later, asked Jason to pass the ham. And I'll admit that a third helping happened in there somewhere. And this evening we enjoyed ham, egg and lamb's quarter roll sandwiches. Yum!! So, I guess I like some ham!

In other news (pregnancy-related), I officially overdid on Friday when I decided to tackle the build up of construction dust and grime in our house. Since scrubbing floors is also one of the best ways to get a baby into the right position for birthing, it seemed like a good excuse to, at least temporarily, get our floors clean again. I felt pretty good in the process and had Kali at my side a good part of the time (since she was earning a quarter towards her "duck fund" for each floor she helped with). But by evening my back was complaining at me, and after laying on the futon for awhile I found that I could hardly get up. And when I did, it felt like somehow my spine was no longer supporting the rest of my body, and my legs were not functioning well. So, I'm attempting to figure out what my limits are and also a bit surprised to learn the unpleasant results when I surpass them... Tadpole seems quite happy though, normally having very active evening times and normally a case or two of hiccups daily (and in the picture above, Kali was trying to encourage Tadpole to throw her first snowball).

In other news (construction projects-related), Jason is busy putting a second coat of oil on the kitchen drawers for my folks place. This weekend was "cabinet installation" weekend and, with the extra hands of a few friends yesterday, went very well. We have taken a break from our bedroom project (floor is now leveled and framing done) to get back to the kitchen. We are managing quite well in the guest room and are still hopefully both projects, if we stick at it and utilize evening time to keep us on track for the foreseeable future, that we may move back to our bedroom about 2 weeks or so before Tadpole's possible arrival date. A little closer than we'd like, but we keep telling her she can stay cozy and comfy where she is until the end of March!

In other news (Kali-related), she is amazing us with her aptitude for picking up tunes on the piano. Here Aunt E was here for a few days and shared a song she recently wrote. By the time she left this morning, Kali was working at figuring it out on the piano. Then later today, I came into the front room to hear her figuring out "chim, chimney" from Mary Poppins. I also had a hard time stumping her today when she asked for a math lesson - we went from subtraction, to multiplication, to division, to algebra (simple addition problems) and I realized that I am a bit behind on where she is at in those areas.... She is enjoying direct applications of these math skills with the bank account she recently opened and is also quite focused on the goal of acquiring some Rouen ducks and building her "duck fund" through generous contributions of willing donors, or through paid labor when that is available. She is currently deep into her new copy of "Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks" sent to her by her Grandpa M (who made the first contribution and is basically to be credited with the start of the previous named "duck fund").

I think it is about time I get back to a promised game of Mastermind. There aren't many games that she can't beat me at these days, including getting a score of 599 in ONE Yahtzee game the other day (with 4 Yahtzee's in one game). I didn't have a chance!!

We dove in!!

2011-01-19T18:26:00.000-08:00

Diving in...

2011-01-17T17:57:00.000-08:00

For any of our "faithful blog readers" out there, we may be needing a little external motivation to keep writing/posting in the coming weeks! Seeing this blog as my way of not feeling guilty for my negligence at scrapbooking, as my mother so faithfully and wonderfully did, has been helpful in some ways. But I'm afraid January - March 2011 may include large gaps in posts when looking back. We are BUSY!! And life is full and good in so many ways.

2011 is here: Tadpole's birth year! And we have crossed the 30 week mark!! We have traveled through some emotional weeks as we journey with this little girl and reminders of these weeks of pregnancy with Nora. I would have been just adjusting to bedrest at this time... And the emotions were only fueled further by some frustrating phone calls with various insurance persons attempting to get to the bottom of why we not only received one new medical insurance card for Nora, but two (the second arriving after spending considerable time on the phone trying to get to the right person who could fix their records to show that in fact our daughter had died over 2 years ago and did not need to be on our health insurance policy any longer). Sigh...

The real reason for tonight's post is to highlight yet another project we are embarking on. As I type, Jason is up in the "shop" (soon to be my folk's garage) working on their kitchen cabinets. But, in case he gets stalled on that project as other things happen fall into place in their living quarters, we officially moved out of our bedroom yesterday. Our new quarters in the guest room are shown here. We'll be cozy and comfy and right now it feels like an adventure and it felt wonderful to pull the last things out of the last room with blue carpet over concrete floors!

Jason and I had a "schedule meeting" for our last date night (I know, very exciting!) and with a bit of trepidation decided to dive in - to attempt to replace the blue carpet and redo the closet in our bedroom prior to Tadpole's arrival. We hope she agrees with our decision! The stress leading up to that time made me question if we should just attempt to drop the whole idea indefinitely. But the "schedule meeting" was really helpful for me (and I think Jason) in inspiring in me a real "team spirit" once again. While we aren't seeing a whole lot of each other these days, the times together over meals and in other snippets during the day are good and it feels like we are working together well and in our areas of strength. I'm noting this here, as I imagine the thrill of the adventure of living in the guest bedroom and once again having a construction zone in our home, may wear off at some point between now and March. So I made need some reminders of that "team spirit."

Because I need to be reminded...

2010-12-27T16:59:00.001-08:00

There are times in this wild ride of parenting that I wonder if a certain stage is really a stage, if we will be "stuck" at a certain place forever. So I need to remember today! I need to be reminded that just like I change, children change too - in their own way and in their own time, but it happens! And sometimes, or most of the time, when we aren't expecting it and definitely when we aren't actively trying to make it happen.

So the context for this wonderful realization was as follows: some months (if not years) back we designated a large drawer in our old kitchen desk as Kali's drawer for various crafty keepsakes. I sarcastically labeled it "Kali's crap drawer" (which I attempted to not say around her, as it was not appreciated - these were TREASURES).

Several times when the drawer has been jammed fulled and I had to stuff things down to fit in the newest addition, we would venture into the scary territory of going through the drawer and trying to get rid of some things. Normally we would end up with a tiny pile of things for the paper recycling bin, Kali almost in tears and me about the pull my hair out. Sometimes Kali would have an outburst of emotion and would say something like, "it's your fault because we just don't have enough storage space." And then I would stoop so low as to offer some kind of sermon about how much we have in comparison to many. It was just ugly and not enjoyable for either of us...

So I've been nervous about any "organizing" or "sorting" project. But recently, Kali was starting to have trouble finding various things and her desk drawers were in a complete state of disarray and she couldn't work at her desk because it was covered with about a half foot of stuff. So one day we embarked on finding her desk and the various "lost" treasures. By the end of our efforts, we had found all the missing items, had gotten rid of a variety of things and had reorganized her drawers - with very little tension in comparison to previous times. And Kali was pretty happy to have her desk back as a work space , to have her dinosaur slippers to wear again, her silly putty to play with and a few other items. A glimmer of hope...

But I was still nervous about the aforementioned "crap drawer." But what is a whole week at home together for other than to at least tackle a few daunting projects. So today, after a good breakfast, a game or two together and cuddling to read a chapter of Shoo Fly Girl, we set to work.

Here are a few of the sentences coming out of our 7 year old's mouth:

"I don't need that."
"That's just crazy, I can't even tell what it is."
"Why did I want to keep that?"
"Get rid of it, I can always make another one sometime if I want to."
"Those are just scribbles."

We especially enjoyed burning some of the popsicle-stick creations in the woodstove...she wished she had made a few more of them!

I'm still in a state of shock that we went from a collection of "treasures" that jam packed a drawer and partially filled a box to a stack that now fits loosely in about half of the drawer. And while I still have my own opinions of the value of some of the items still in the "keep" pile, I swallowed hard and felt a secret satisfaction in knowing that the next time we "tackle the drawer" likely some of the sentences above will be heard once again...

To Touch the Wild Goose Cry

2010-12-24T22:49:00.000-08:00

I (Jason) stayed up good and late last night, because I had something I needed to do. Today, you see, our family was slated to open our "big present," which was the envelope containing some very important (or perhaps not so important...it all depends) information about the little jumping jack Janelle's been carrying around these months. That is to say, when we went for our twenty week prenatal ultrasound, the family compromise--in accordance with a friend's excellent suggestion--between those who desperately wanted to know the baby's gender and those who wanted a surprise was that the sonographer would take note of the relevant information and record it on a little folded card we supplied, and then seal it into an envelope, taking pains not to reveal it to us. We said we'd open the envelope at Christmas, and here we are.

I, being the one who didn't want to know, was not quite ready. Intuitively I realized that I needed to spend some time connecting with this little one without having a cultural category prepared. Based on recent experiences, I decided to use name searching as my vehicle to the spiritual process I sought.

I spent some time with baby name websites, playing around with various sounds, meanings, and associations, following rabbit trails from sound to idea to sound, flipping around between languages, cultures, genders...eventually I narrowed the standard Western selection down to the unisex names, and found a handful I could work with. But things really came together much better when I landed on the Native American section of one of the naming sites. Here were names that seemed to suit my purpose much better. Making my way through the alphabet, I soon had a list of them which are known to serve for either gender, which sounds interested me, and which meanings I was attracted to. I crawled under the covers with paper in hand, and gave myself over to swirling rounds of sound/meaning combinations, weighing and testing them in my heart and mind.

What I discovered through this practice about the coming of this child into my life was that I wanted this child to have a name that conveyed freedom, lightness, breath, air, freshness...something along that line, combined with some implication of sensory experience and connection. Of the list I was working with, I was most attracted to the meaning "Wild Goose Cry" (especially as a second name), combined with the meanings "to touch" or "fragrant" for first names, such that the child's name might mean, in combination, "Fragrant Wild Goose Cry" or "To Touch the Wild Goose Cry." The second of those was the one that really came home to me and I was able to put the paper down and go to sleep. I had made contact with part of what I feel this new parenthood experience will mean to me, and also part of what I hope for as I think about this new one's experience of this wild world we live and move in; the sky we peer through.

I think holding this baby for the first time will be to make contact with something untamed, intangible, and altogether lovely, and I hope (and will work and scheme to promote it) that this child will feel an intimate connection to the undomesticated elements and life expressions of the world she finds before her.

That's right, I wrote "her." This child will be female, and I for one found this evening that I just can hardly wait to meet her! A whole new person!

This morning when I was thinking over last evening's meditation, and looking forward to this evening's revelation, I felt glad that I had taken the time for that exercise. It seemed to me that the wishes and urges I had discovered in myself towards this new person were enlivening, humanizing ones, and though freedom and love of experience can have everything to do with gender at times, they are simultaneously gender-neutral values. I want this child--a baby girl, as it turns out--to feel free, and, when the wild goose lets loose its cry, for her to notice it, feel it, and understand.

You may be wondering whether we would hope to use this deeply spiritual name for our little one. Hmm. Probably not. You see, in order to achieve the meaning "To Touch the Wild Goose Cry", I was working with the name "Helki Saloso." Very lovely in its context I am sure, but for the Shenandoah Valley in 2010, it might come across as just a shade out of touch!

Last night's process was more for me and my relationship to the baby than about actual naming. Over the next few months, however, we will actually be in search of a simple, pronounceable, meaningful, easy-going name for this baby...information about any resources (or process tips) of which you might be aware and of which we might avail ourselves would be welcome.

Cleaning break...

2010-12-18T15:37:00.000-08:00

I'm working at gearing up to wash the final three floors of our house! I got a major "cleaning bug" today and it was a good thing as our house had reached an unprecedented level of filth!! So I'm taking a break to put a very important picture up on our blog!!

We went from trying to find as many ways to use eggs as possible to having a "egg-free baking tips" sheet on our refrigerator. It's cold, hens are molting and our new hens have not started laying yet. That was until Thursday, when the first egg was laid by one of the Marans as we were getting the first significant snow fall of the year. Actually it was probably laid sometime Wednesday as it was frozen solid, but still an EGG! And she has laid one more since, which brings the cumulative total number of eggs in our house to two!

Kali is thrilled for there to be snow. We had to do a little rushed shopping this week when her snow boots from last year no longer fit. We tried the new ones out today (during an earlier cleaning break) and they kept her warm and comfy on our walk and as she made the hardest, packed ball of snow she could make.

She then took a turn being the photographer and had me pose. I chose some of the pictures I wanted her to take but the one here is the one in which she told me how to stand, where to put my hand, etc... It ended up being my favorite! I continue to enjoy my expanding belly, and the outlook is promising that I might even get an "outie belly button" this time around - for some reason I've always coveted them!!

Days at home!

2010-12-11T17:35:00.000-08:00

At the end of two wonderful days at home, here are a few visuals from the past few days. Kali is munching on some of our home grown popcorn for a bedtime snack, while we both enjoy the warmth emanating from the wood stove. I'm enjoying an occasional jab from Tadpole, who is in the habit of giving me pretty frequent reminders of his/her presence (I am almost certain I enjoyed feeling hiccups earlier this week).

So some quick snippets from a glorious sabbath we have enjoyed from stepping foot in our car yesterday and today. Instead we (Kali and I while Jason and friend Tim worked on installing an attic staircase accessible from our bathroom) spent our time:

- taking a walk each day
- baking green turtle bread, gingerbread cookies, peanut blossoms with fair trade, dark chocolate wafers inserted (strongly recommended!), pumpkin bread and muffins
- Kali was found stuck in a book for a good number of hours each day and when she was not she was often doing very creative things like attempting to be a replica of her doll Zelda (see photo below)
- cutting up our 23 butternut, 20 of which had frozen solid in the shed, much to our dismay
- preparations for taking meals to two families this week who recently welcomed new babies into their families!
- making a Christmas chain noting "fun and exciting things" Kali can do each day between now and Christmas
- reading the last two chapters of A Life Worth Living for our final discussion time at church next week (it was just as good reading the book the second time!)
- reading Christmas in the Trenches and helping Kali find her "army outfit" for the Christmas pageant tomorrow
- making butter and yogurt from our milk share; and making potato soup with the fresh buttermilk
- enjoying eating 3 meals each day together as a family
- playing Christmas carols on the piano and enjoying Kali's expanding repertoire of songs (most of which she has taught herself with no formal piano instruction)
- delivering some of our baked goods to neighbors and playing hide and seek on our way up and down the driveway
- sleeping in until after 7am (or like today after 8am)
- and last but not least sitting down with a large sheet of paper and writing out the details for the coming week, which will not be very much like the last two days - busy full of social engagements, Christmas gatherings, and therefore many trips into town in our car!!

It's not even December yet...

2010-11-28T16:40:00.001-08:00

and we have put up a Christmas tree AND decorated it!!

We enjoyed Thanksgiving - complete with the first snow we've seen this year - with the Benner family in PA and were grateful for safe travels to and from. We decided to take advantage of the great opportunity of getting a cedar tree from the Benner homestead for our Christmas tree this year.

This evening, after a hike to the lake, we had fun decorating it. It seemed to also help transition us out of "post holiday/travel/family fun" blues that had been impacting the mood of at least the youngest of the family.

Ultrasound and the emotional aftermath...

2010-11-13T08:19:00.001-08:00

We sent the following email out to a group of our family and friends a week ago today after our ultrasound and midwife appointment:

"This was a day full of much emotion in our home as we headed out to our 20 week ultrasound to learn a little more about how Tadpole is doing. In short - wonderfully well!! And that news is still sinking in. We are so so grateful for all those that have been journeying with us to this day, sharing with us the waiting, hoping, wondering...letting me share my hopes and fears and validating both. For those that sent notes today and recent days and the many sending thoughts and prayers our way. For the women that gathered with me Monday evening. For my dear friend Jen who accompanied us to the ultrasound (visiting all the way from Canada). For my parents who were in the waiting room to hug us as we came out. And for the tiny orchid bud we saw on the plant given to us by my parents when Nora was still with us - Jason noticed the bud just as we headed out the door and as I said "thank you little bud" Kali chimed in that that would be a good name for the baby. We are liking "little bud." We have a sealed envelope prepared by Kali and filled with a picture identifying our baby's sex that we'll open as a family at Christmas. But that present hardly compares to learning that all measurements were right on track and that all organs supporting our baby's growth and development looked great. We are so grateful and have some very cute pictures. Tadpole was basically folded in half with one foot above his/her head most of the time. We got to see a big gulp of amniotic fluid, hearing the heartbeat several times, and seeing a very cute profile. Now to let all this soak in.... The journey continues and we look forward to this second half of the pregnancy, as we prepare for this little one entering our family. Thanks for your support, care, interest, etc... I imagine we'll add more thoughts and pictures on the blog before too long. If you want to catch up with pictures and news leading up to this time see http://myers-benner.blogspot.com/"

So here you are at the blog. I started this entry the day after our ultrasound and have never gotten back to it - partly because of the busyness of the week and partly because my emotional landscape keeps changing at such a rapid pace that I keep wondering if it will settle out enough for me to write clearly how I'm doing/feeling/being with all that is taking place in our lives. I've come to the conclusion that things will likely continue as is (with emotions and circumstances continually in flux) and so this is a Friday 11/19/2010 9am update!

To set the stage, it is almost always a "good" morning when I am sitting with my feet up in the recliner with the sun shining in our front room and the house completely quiet, as Kali is still sacked out. And knowing that the day includes cooking, baking and being at home (not stepping foot into the car until Sunday!!) doesn't hurt anything either. Jason and I finished off the granola this morning, the cookie jar is empty, butter needs to be made from this week's cream, soups are getting started and chicken barbecue is in the crockpot doing its thing for supper this evening, to have along with fresh rolls that will also be made sometime today.

It's also a good start to the day when it starts with Tadpole doing some kind of gymnastic practice and Jason getting to feel a couple good jabs. Also in the last number of days, Kali has gotten to feel her little brother or sister move from the outside - a long awaited thrill for her!! We continue to dream about this little one's personality and the upcoming transition, not to mention wondering whether "boy" or "girl" is written on the little paper locked up until Christmas. But that has actually been very much in the background as we have found ourselves reveling much more in knowledge that right now this baby's growth is right on track or slightly ahead of the curve.

But I haven't been "steady" in my hopefulness and enthusiasm this week. I've waffled from moments of euphoria to worrying that it may be too good to be true. We had our third Centering Pregnancy group this week and at the end I requested a print out of Nora's 20 week ultrasound. I found it somewhat reassuring to see that there were two striking measurements behind on her 20 week ultrasound (abdomen and femur - ones that fell farther and farther behind as time went on) but surprised also at how "normal" the rest of the report was.

The most striking difference that I'm noting in this pregnancy, besides a more positive outlook and intuition on how the pregnancy is going - which I'm apt to doubt even more than the perspective of the caregivers working with us - is how much movement I'm feeling with this little one. And I'm enjoying it thoroughly, as much as I can become completely distracted from what I'm doing when the squirming, kicking and poking starts up!

Outward signs of the well-being of this baby are reassuring. But they don't necessarily take away from the complexity of my emotions as I reflect back on my pregnancies with both Kali and with Nora. The evening after the ultrasound, I found myself strangely exhausted and a little sad. The exhaustion made sense when thinking of the emotional build up to that day. The sadness was more confusing and the questions going through my mind were hard to find clear answers for. I was trying to balance the joy and relief of knowing that this baby did not seem to present like a baby with Petty Syndrome. I was thrilled to think that maybe we would have an experience closer to ours with Kali, where we have a baby and bring him/her home after a day or so. A baby that Kali could hold and help with, without interference of cords, hospital schedules, and the baby's extreme fragility. Those things are some of the things lumped for me in the "too good to be true" category.

Some of the other feelings and musings and questions came from my reflections on Nora's place in our family. I feel so grateful to Nora for so so many ways in which she impacted my life. I'm glad she was and is a part of our family's story. I feel more ready and able to embark on the mysterious journey of parenting another little one because of her impact on my life. I feel more steady, believe it or not, and centered in my life much of the time. And yet I don't want to do it again. I'm sure we'd grow and even thrive in our own way, but I would have been devastated for some time had we learned that this little one was already falling behind on growth. I wanted to analyze those feelings, try to figure out what they meant about my love for Nora and for this new baby. Once again I found myself grateful for friends who spoke into my life, encouraging me to just be with the emotions or those that helped me normalize my ranging and ever shifting feelings.

So I'm allowing myself to experience the swings and attempting to not label or judge them. Someone recently shared with me advice given to them when they were in seminary. "Don't judge, wonder." I am drawn to that approach to life and hope to approach my own internal processing with curiosity and wonder in the weeks and months ahead.

These pictures are not necessarily as connected to my musings above as I thought they might be when I uploaded them a week ago. But they are a snapshot of that day for us - being with wonderful friends, the comic relief of a fashion show with Kali as our fashion designer of string gloves, shoes, etc..., Kali coloring to pass the time as we waited for the ultrasound and a very blurry and not so clear picture of one of the pictures we got of Tadpole.

Morning of firsts!

2010-11-06T05:15:00.001-07:00

It's only 8:15am and this day has already included two firsts of the year!

I've happily been enjoying increasing squirms, kicks, and jabs from Tadpole and my uterus has officially encroached upon my belly button! Those are fun changes and the movement has been a reassuring confirmation of this little one's presence inside me. This morning neither Jason and I had to rush out of bed to get to work, and Tadpole had also woken up. Jason got to feel the baby moving too: a special start to the day!

Also, one of the side effects of our new (no longer leaking) roof is that our home is staying much warmer. Prior to this morning we would have roasted ourselves to burn a fire in our wood stove! This morning was still "borderline" but it seemed like a good morning for a cup of decaf coffee and a few minutes in front of the wood stove before starting our day. So that is what we did. Now we received strict instructions from our daughter last night to let the fire burn until she wakes up to enjoy it. Let's hope this is not one of her 11am wake up mornings or we will be opening windows!

All Saint's Day

2010-10-31T11:42:00.001-07:00

Today we shared the following as part of a special and very meaningful service at Shalom honoring persons whom we love whose physical presence is no longer with us:

Jason

We will be sharing reflections today about our second child. Yesterday would have been Nora’s third birthday, but she only lived for 7 short months. During her life and since her death, this group accepted her as a part of our congregational life, even though most of you never had a chance to meet her. As time passes, we are grateful for opportunities to continue reflecting on Nora’s contributions to our understanding of what it means to be human.

Janelle

At the time of committing to this sharing, I was feeling positive. Life was full and the lessons of Nora’s life were not only apparent to me, I even felt I was embodying some of them. We were in our first trimester with our third child and I felt grateful, excited and amazed at how my emotions were much steadier than I might have expected.

That was several weeks ago. Recently, when I sat down to prepare these thoughts I felt like a hypocrite and was not sure I had anything much to say. As we approach the halfway point in this pregnancy, my emotions have begun to overwhelm me. It was that day that a daily quote I receive said the following: “Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” And that same challenge also came to me from a friend who encouraged me to be present to all of my emotions, even those that I normally label as negative or bad. So I’m modifying the quote for myself to encourage me to risk being honest with both myself and my community and in doing so I will be able to be more fully present to all that is unfolding in our lives.

And maybe that is one of the most important lessons that I did learn from Nora’s life. While we have always benefited from being part of community, we never felt that as keenly as we did in the weeks leading up to Nora’s birth, during her life and in the weeks following her death. She needed us to help her live as fully as possible for the time she had with us, and we desperately needed others to help us to keep living fully, creating memories, and facing the challenges with courage and as much grace as we could muster.

So, in short, my honest confession: Sometimes I’m scared! I’ve had anxious dreams about our 20 week ultrasound when we will know if this little one is on the right trajectory with growth. I have trouble finding the courage, strength and hope that have been so real to me at times over the past 3 years. And, if this baby comes to us with needs beyond our own ability to provide, I wonder if I can really do it again.

Admittedly, I’m a perfectionist through and through. And so these times are often perceived by me as lapses in strength or a failure to honor Nora’s life and her memory. I tend to think that somehow I’m backsliding, losing all the ground I had gained. Jason has reminded me multiple times since Nora’s death that he sees the journey as being much more fluid than that. That we rise and fall, have moments of vulnerability in which we need others to help us see our way, and that it is all part of the journey.

One of the things Nora did so well was accepting life for what it gave to her. Not that she didn’t protest at times the perceived “unfairness,” particularly towards the end of her life when she resisted both her feeding tube and oxygen being delivered through an uncomfortable devise in her nose. But she didn’t let those impediments stop her from soaking in her surroundings and being fully present to life’s experiences. We are so grateful that among our memories are those times when her face lit up to be in her big sister’s arms, craning her neck to get a good look at her face; when she turned and twisted and strained to roll her little 6 pound body over, and then was surprised at her accomplishment; her fascination with every aspect and angle of her pacifier, though she was quite indignant if anyone tried to convince her that an appropriate use for such a contraption was to suck it; her determination to hold and turn the pages of her little books all by herself despite them almost being too heavy for her; and of course her coos and smiles. She did not approach the world, as many of us hate to admit that we do, as if it owed her anything. Those beautiful moments that came were gifts, and they could be found in the darkest of times, even at death’s door.

I know deep down after having Nora grace me with her presence, trust and love that I do believe, even when I falter, that loving is worth the risk. I still remember holding Nora and crying as I listened to the words of a song (by “Over the Rhine”), “I was born to laugh, I learned to laugh through my tears. I was born to love, I’m gonna learn to love without fear.” I’m still aspiring to that.

Several weeks back, as I was taking out the compost, I was thinking about Nora and how, as much as I don’t profess to understand a lot about how those of us still living communicate with or relate to those we love and loved who are no longer physically with us, I really wanted her to talk to me. I wanted to have her tell me that I was okay, that her little brother or sister was going to be okay, that she was okay with us having another baby. I had this odd realization that here I was wanting Nora to relate to me in a way that she had never related to me in her time with us; verbal communication, outside of coos, was not part of our life together. And in that moment what I realized was all the things that Nora’s little spirit was – she was a presence in my life that was unassuming, nonjudgmental, accepting, always giving and receiving, needy and yet rich, beautifully imperfect, and fully present to the moment. It will always be a gift to have had someone in my life who so innocently and without effort lived these qualities for me to get a glimpse of.

Jason

One evening a year and a half ago some of you came with divisions of perennials from your own yards and helped us fill the planting bed of Nora’s memorial garden. I wrote the following poem around that time, but I find many of the thoughts and sentiments expressed in it to be what I would want to say today, and so I offer it now:

Reiterations

A father’s love ignores the border death presents. I worked for you in every way I knew, now
what to do with this: my aimless drive to help, my hoeing the abyss? There’s nothing you could need from me; I’ll turn my hoe toward earth and let the rocks and soil absorb my effort, and I'll wait for birth among the blooming celebrations. I can work on these reiterations.

And so we put together what we can: we scrape the weeds aside and mark a place where, when it needs to huddle with the memories, a heart may hide. We’ve caught a hold on changes
in the calendar and seasons, have made spaces full of time: ad hoc creations. We’ve established these reiterations.

I think it helps a little. Do I need to see reflections of my baby girl out there exposed to wild, swirling air to keep me from forgetting? Maybe not, but there is satisfaction in the knowledge that in moments when I need to whittle down into the quick of loss, or glory in parental, proud elation, I can turn to these reiterations.

Thank you, child! You never read the clock to know the shame of dallying too long. Your fingers never curled around a cent. When it was time for you to go, you didn’t worry, you just went. Your heart and mind and palms were full of room; your presence was a balm for wounds we couldn’t feel. How many repetitions of your memory will be required for me to heal? What is my hurry? If I sit awhile in a place, perhaps an insect sipping from a bloom will show the way to freedom from the hectic expectations. I’ll depend on these reiterations.

I didn’t know I feared a fading of your presence, but I found that when I cleared the soil space I knew relief, anticipating sprouting seeds. Your memory’s alive, and here is how I know: I’ve seen it grow! How can this be: while thinking of the years ahead, a smile? I’m eager to be watching all you were to us becoming what it is, what it will be, and relishing your place within our family. Our love is strong, so time will find us living out a leafy incarnation, still repeating these reiterations.

Happy birthday, Nora!

2010-10-30T19:24:00.001-07:00

We thought of her often today: from picking and freezing broccoli to spending time in her garden and cutting down a tree to make way for a seating area to decorating a cake in her honor (Mom, thanks for the banana cake you left with me some time back - little did you know that you made Nora's cake for today!), to going for a hike as a family together and sharing memories as well as the beautiful outdoors, to spending an evening with wonderful friends and Nora's most frequent visitors - visiting, making owl cookies, and ending the day by watching the few videos we have of Nora.

Grit happens

2010-10-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

As you, dear reader, are almost certainly aware, Janelle's parents are building "in-law quarters" onto the Northwest corner of our home in rustic Keezletown. In general, the project has gone very well, and we are more than satisfied with the quality of the structure.

Our more construction-savvy readers will readily assume that integrating an existing structure with a new one involves some tricky maneuvers, some unknowns, some risks, some surprises, some disappointments, some headaches, some serendipity.

That is to say, occasionally things happen or are discovered which cause me to smack my forehead or inspire a wish to slump in a corner and weep. Other times, things happen or are discovered which cause me to grin with satisfaction or inspire me to walk around a corner and whoop!

The discovery of an expanse of rock-free soil to the north of the stairwell between the old and new parts of the home was the kind that inspired whooping, as it allowed for the formation of a root cellar in that very handy location. The discovery of a four-foot slug of tar (which had oozed out of a half-full tar bucket discarded against the foundation during the backfilling stage of construction in 1981 or so) in the foundation drain was the other kind.

This week has been well-stocked with grins as usual, but it's also been a little heavy on the forehead-smacking.

I think the root of the problem is that our house is a little odd. This has suited me more or less o.k., since I am also a little odd. But oddness is hard on contractors. Contractors generally do their most dependable and efficient work in an environment of consistent circumstances. This house, bless its heart, is a bit of a scalp-scratching chin-stroker.

In this case, the contractor was attempting to:

1) Remove from the 1000 square-foot rear portion of our house three (three!) layers of worn-out asphalt-type roofing, the moisture-degraded plywood sheathing below it, and the critter-infested insulation below that.

2) Replace the insulation with a superior type, and re-sheath and pre-roof it with a plastic temporary roofing paper.

3) In one day.

The day before the big day, the crew started making their preparations. We were out for the afternoon, and Kali and I had left the house around noon. We had company for supper that evening, and we arrived home around 5:30...just enough time to throw together some food. Upon pulling in the lane, I was surprised to see some fiberglass insulation sticking out from the top of the trash trailer. "I guess they went ahead and got started!", I said. This turned out to be an understatement. They had apparently seen the clear weather predictions and the cloudless sky and had (reasonably enough) decided to hedge their bets and do the entire demolition portion of the work that afternoon.

Enter the structural oddness of our house.

Most ceilings are made of plaster or drywall. Those that are not are usually made from tongue-in-groove boards. There is a reason for this. Contiguous ceiling coverings form a relatively flat surface that is easy to clean and paint, and which forms a barrier between the ceiling and the attic space, framing space, or insulation cavity that is above it.

Most of our ceilings are drywalled. Two of them are made of planed boards with rough edges screwed onto the bottom edges of the roof rafters. Predictably, there are gaps. Ahem.

Remember those three layers of roofing? Remember the critters in the insulation? Remember that we had just enough time to throw dinner together?

We didn't have the luxury of time for finding a corner (preferably one free of roofing grit and mouse turds) to weep in, so Janelle got lentils and rice on the stove (fortunately the new kitchen has a drywalled ceiling) and I grabbed a broom. They had, reasonably enough, decided to remove the old roofing and sheathing by cutting through the whole mess with old blades in hand-held circular saws, then prying the chunks of plywood loose as whole units rather than stripping things apart layer by layer. This was by far the smartest way to go about the job, and building smarts is why we hired them. It did, however, loosen a whole darn lot of roof grit. In the afternoon's glare, I guess they couldn't see down through the cracks of the ceiling wood well enough to realize that that's all that was there between the roof cavities and the floor below! So when they conscientiously swept all that crud out of the cavities, VOILA! Grit happens.

We had a nice supper, and the next day's construction activities went very well. The roof cavities got crammed full of fluffy cellulose insulation, and new OSB sheathing was installed. Grins all around, with the satisfaction of knowing the job was done right by people who know their business.

Don't get too comfortable yet.

There is another odd thing about our house. The pitch of the rear roof is really very low. Something like a 3 inch rise per 12 inch run. This makes it prone to leaks. This roofing paper stuff is pretty new, and its uses and limits are still being debated and tried. In real time. Right here.

A day or two after the roof project, it rained about a tenth of an inch one day. Everything seemed fine, except that due to the temporary arrangement of materials, a puddle formed which threatened to replicate an earlier water problem we'd had that had done some minor damage to the cork flooring in our guest room. We went on our church's retreat this past weekend without much worry. But this past Tuesday night, everything was not fine.

I went to sleep around 10:30, but awakened at 12:30 to the sound of torrents of rain on the new roof (which is going to be much louder in the rain than the old one...a welcome development for weather enthusiasts like myself). I wanted to enjoy the thirsty soil's relief, but couldn't escape nagging thoughts about that puddle upstairs that I knew was growing every minute. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I trudged up in my bare feet and boxers with a flashlight. Sure enough, puddles. But not imminently threatening infiltration, so I came back down, wiped the wet sawdust off my feet and climbed back in bed. Sleep did not come, however, as the intensity of the rain only increased. I laid and listened, checking the puddles (growing, becoming worrisome) once or twice before deciding at around 2:30 to break out the trusty squeegee to put my mind at ease. When I returned, I found Janelle in Kali's bedroom. She had gotten up to come check on my whereabouts and was detoured by the sound of water dripping in Kali's bedroom. Kali's nearly brand new cork floor had a sizable puddle right in the middle of it, which was spreading rapidly across the floor.

The rain continued unabated for a while longer. Neither Janelle nor I slept much or well the rest of the night: two other small leaks showed up and periodic squeegee work upstairs was necessary. Finally at around 4:30 the worst of the storm seemed to have passed, and we got a little rest in before the alarm, though Janelle was able to sleep more than I (and in that time was able to squeeze in a dream of the drywall ceilings starting to show water stains). My mind was busy with problem-solving wheel-spinning and some cold sweats regarding what we were going to do if the new insulation was ruined by water.

In the morning, there were two and a half inches of rain in the gauge. The newly-planted strawberry beds looked so chipper, and the developing heads of broccoli so crisp and clean, I almost couldn't stay grumpy.

During that long night both Janelle and I experienced feelings that reminded us of some of the many long nights we spent caring for Nora. At some point in the night I remember Janelle mentioning that she was keeping perspective by thinking about the many, many Indonesians who had lost their lives or homes by way of simultaneous tsunami damage and volcanic eruption. Those thoughts and memories helped me to keep from getting too caught up in frustration.

All the same, I did not wish to repeat that performance, and when the rain continued in the morning and I felt the need to take time out of my work day to check on the house and squeegee the puddles, I decided to write a fairly direct, perhaps somewhat sleep-deprived email to the builder indicating my unwillingness to be on the hook for more emergency hydrology. He is a healthy communicator, so he took my concern seriously and there is now a giant tarp in place to tide us over until the metal roofing can be installed on Monday.

My thanks go out this afternoon to Janelle's dad, who has spent a lot of time this week sweeping roof grit and mouse turds out of various crevices (including the many created by my disorganized stacks of paper on this desk I'm writing at), to A.M. Yoder Construction for being a generally excellent outfit with a healthy, non-defensive sympathy for the plight of the homeowner, and to Janelle for making me go to bed early last night. I feel much better now.