P.S. April Fool's Day

Faithful blog readers, buckle up! I remember as a kid my mom working on scrapbooks and having things spread around as she chose what to put in and where. It's just me, my paper tablet and computer, but it feels like a table-full of material to work with from the past two weeks. Gone are the "slow" times of winter, that's for sure. So here comes a series of posts to share these slivers of life in more bite sized morsels!

When I downloaded photos today, I had to chuckle thinking back to two weeks ago today when our home was full of all kinds of jokes and pranks. I thought we might want some photos here for memory jogs down the road (or inspiration for future years)...

Our two bath toy rubber ducks sure made their rounds throughout the day. They travelled from animal water bucket, to duck water, to dish water, to the indoor chicks, to the bathroom sink to Kali's bed (not sure if it was in that particular order).

Even one of the chicks played an unintentional April Fool's Day joke on us by escaping the swimming pool for the first time. But rather than exploring its freedom, it let us know immediately by peeping loudly that it changed its mind and REALLY wanted back with the others.

My parents had to get their house back together, including finding where all the clothes in their closet had disappeared to!

We all wondered what kind of dinner we would have with Kali slated to cook. I knew some of the menu, enough that I was able to put lots of furry little friends around the kitchen to greet her as she was making the meal. She admitted to me that the one stuffed animal in a spice container even surprised her - success! The one pictured here somehow escaped discovery even though she had gone into that drawer multiple times. It was my favorite!

Dinner, complete with blue rice and red roti, was DELICIOUS!!

More spring planting and lots of little visitors!

I was about to write that today was a day for taking a deep breath and recovering from a very full week with a splash of relaxation. But "relaxed" is probably not quite the word for today at Tangly Woods. It's a day for staying on high alert around here! I think April Fool's Day might be one of the most cherished holidays in our home AND my parents decided to leave their place unattended for a portion of it. They might think twice before doing so again! I won't even begin to say all the things that have been done with other people's clothing and stuffed animals and rubber duckies and green food coloring and text exchanges. I will highlight that one of our favorites was working together to secure my mom's car key from her purse and then after they were asleep last night moving their car out of the garage and replacing it with the car my dad gave me for my 16th birthday. My dad enjoys the acquisition of new wheels, so we thought it might be a pleasant discovery in the morning!

So maybe tomorrow will be "recovery day" and Jason will be able to join in some much needed relaxation and a nap (after being out until nearly midnight last night at a concert with a friend - he's tired today but thoroughly enjoyed several hours of great music!). When I think back over the week, I don't "feel" like I "should feel" how I did at various points. Look at all that judgmental language!! One of the things that I've learned in this intense journey of healing from burnout is that my body seems to be exquisitely sensitive to reminders of the time when I was "running from the tigers" all the time. It doesn't seem to need to be associated with bad stressors, but can even be activated by a time when I'm juggling lots of good and fun things. I'm paying attention. I'm not sure yet exactly what to do about it! In the meantime, I come to the end of this week with a whole host of warm fuzzies about how I spent my days!

It was a "doula week" for me for sure! I enjoyed connections with all three mamas I'm accompanying in births this May/June. And I lose myself in those conversations - which might be why the one family stayed for 3 hours, me visiting with the couple and Alida and Terah playing with their adorable 2 year old! To be so up close to the journey of a new life forming and a family preparing to welcome a new human into their midst always feels like such an immense privilege. In addition to preparations for these new little people, I got to connect with all three of my spring of 2022 "doula babies" this week! 

A picture of Luca here is hardly a new feature! He's gotten more and more comfy interacting with the chicks and is starting to consider joining them in the kiddie pool. This was one of my favorite pictures this week. I'm not sure who was enjoying the moment more. 

I also enjoyed a visit from Violet (and her mama of course!!). To be fair, Violet was more interested in Terah than she was in me. And I think she was more interested in Terah than the chicks too!

And just yesterday Sameer came out to the farm with his parents and we got to visit while showing him the chicks and other animals. He wasn't sure about me holding him at first but then warmed up when we were walking around outside. I think his favorite activity was pulling grass.

It never ceases to blow my mind how we eagerly dream about and wonder what life will be like when our family expands and then it happens and that new person offers us all sorts of opportunities to shake things up (in good, beautiful, hard, important, sweet and painful ways). And then they go from pretty dependent tiny babies to their own little people making their way through the world with their own likes, dislikes, ambitions, thoughts, emotions and personalities. And we are along for the ride!

I think one of the challenges for me with doula work is how much I enjoy developing and nurturing and sustaining relationships. And if I do this work more, year after year, I'm not gonna be able to sustain close connections to every family that I get to work with. That feels sad to me. It's like I get to join them on the roller coaster just for a stretch and then they ride on without me and I may not even get to know a whole lot about the rest of the ride. I'm not sure yet how that's gonna work for me!

So it's a delight that I get to remain on more portions of the ride with Luca. Each time we are with him he's doing something new and understands more. This week the girls were with us in the morning and then they left at his nap for town and weren't back when he woke up. I hadn't gotten to tell him that they wouldn't be returning until later so it wasn't long before he toddled off to their bedroom. He loves waking them up in the mornings, and I feel pretty sure he thought he would find them snuggled under their covers again. He seemed to get it when I told him they were still gone (and he was stuck with just me!). 

Luca, Jonathan and Christen also joined us Tuesday evening for Alida's other birthday meal. Long story short, soccer has already been complicating our schedule! So we enjoyed her other chosen menu of two kinds of homemade lasagna, garlic french bread, canned green beans and Smiley's ice cream cones!

This coming week, we ease more fully into soccer with Alida having two practices a week and Terah one (Kali is one of the coaches for her team). Games start the following week on either Friday evening or Saturday. So this past week all that happened was a "skills assessment night" for Alida's age group - I think so they could balance the teams out well for the maximum enjoyment for everyone involved. Alida was "scited" (scared and excited) ahead of time and by the end mostly seemed excited and TIRED! She was a little sore the next day! And she will be better prepared next week after buying some shin guards during their outings that actually fit her. I felt bad when we realized that her shin guards (from 3 years ago) were comically small on her - I should have known better at the rate she has been reaching upward in recent months...

Speaking of things growing - the chicks are! I love waking them up in the morning by turning on the light and within seconds they are racing around the kiddie pool, flapping their little wings, and diving into their feeder. There is just the faintest smell of them now in the back kitchen, so move out will likely be within the week. But we've had some good fun with them indoors! They will move out to the other side of the red coop where the mama with the first batch of chicks resides. They are two weeks older and are now big enough to come down the ramp and enjoy scratching in the litter on the floor of the coop. It's so fun to watch the mama teach them the ropes of being a chicken. And I also marvel at how much the little chicks without a mama hen seem to figure out on their own or just know instinctively. Our ideal is to use broody hens whenever we can, so we are hoping some will get solidly broody before the next batch in the incubator hatches!

In other news, Jason noticed one part of one of our pigs growing/more pronounced on a warmer day this week. Sigh, we had ANOTHER male pig that had also somehow escaped being castrated before we bought him and it was now too late (for most people anyway) to consider doing the minor procedure. So we said goodbye to Gus this week - our most curly-haired pig (his former owner will try to find someone who wants an intact male guinea hog). Now we only have Upa from the original 3 and the girls are considering Downa and Middlea for the other names. The new pig is their same age (from the same father if not complete siblings), but she is about half the size. They gave her a pretty hard time on day 1 and I hated to see her in there trembling - I gave the other two pigs some stern instructions to welcome her that they did not heed immediately. But it's gotten better with each passing day and she seems to be sleeping in the house with them now. Phew! Let's hope these are now the 3 that will be with us until December! 

We got to spend a lot of Wednesday outside together for our next spring gardening family day. While the pictures may sometimes give off an idyllic air (for anyone that enjoys gardening and kids and flowers and seeds and mountains), the days usually have their share of ups and downs (often directly correlated with how much some members of our family are enjoying the various tasks of the day). But we normally get in a groove and, if we keep up on water and food and break needs, we do pretty well.

Our main planting that day was getting the onions and the shallots planted. Jason had done the soil prep so what remained was mulching the paths and applying biochar on some spots and compost over all the beds. We wished the little plants well on their journey and I, once again, felt lacking in rituals and songs and blessings for these moments. 

Some other weeding and path mulching happened in the cracks and then we did all the tree felling we hoped to do before the trees (those still living) leafed out. There was only one complicated one and we got it down with no mishaps and then could relax for the rest. Jason spent the next day working down the trees and we just need a hauling day with car and trailer to finish relocating the wood. Much will be firewood, which we hardly need more of. We have more trees that need to come down but we keep trying to wait until we actually need more firewood. We just don't go through much around here!

In closing, a brief shout out to the flowers! Something about the way spring came and the warm days followed by colder times has made the "spring flower season" last for what feels like a long time. There are flowering trees and daffodils that just keep gifting us with their splashes of color on the landscape! And the red buds are finally bursting forth, making the hue of the woods purple again!

And while we are offering shout outs, let me offer one final one to my hubby who is off working a Sassafras job on this rainy turned windy sunny Saturday. He has been rehabbing a trailer gifted to him by his dad. He got it weather tight (and vented) and ready enough to pull to his first job site this week. There is still more to do to the interior, but we've got a cascade of projects that kinda have to go in order (e.g. the bike shed walls have to be done before he can take the forms off and use that wood for the trailer shelving). Little by little!! I'm looking forward to welcoming him home this evening! But for now, I'm off to give the piggies their supper and take a spin around to make sure this wind has not blown any chicken coop lids off!

p.s. On my walk around I saw that the first peas are just starting to emerge. YIPPEE!!!

Back to an easy math equation: 12+7=19 (Alida's bday!)

My love of numbers can be fulfilled again with Alida turning from 11 to 12, making once again Terah + Alida = Kali (until August anyway). Alida didn't have too much trouble envisioning 12 but it feels impossible to her to imagine 13. It's good she has 12 months to adjust to the idea...

For the time being, we are just going to savor and love her 12 year old self - which is hardly a burden! We all had so much fun celebrating with her and lavishing her with lots of attention and affection. As noted in the last post, we kicked off the celebrations with Alida joining me for my Friday errands in town. Now you may be wondering HOW is doing a whole list of errands with your mother a birthday treat? Since it included one-on-one time just the two of us and picking out a variety of birthday supplies, it was a good time. She had specifically wanted to select the stuffings for her birthday Easter egg hunt. It was fun to have her company along - a diversion from my normal company on those rounds being either my own thoughts or downloaded podcasts!

On Saturday (also alluded to in the last post) she had another day out, but this time with her older sister! Kali had recently decided to start ushering at the Blackfriar's Playhouse for the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton and had her usher training that day. She learned that the training included a ticket for her and one guest to the afternoon matinee. So she invited Alida to join her and when Kali checked with the playhouse if Alida could hang out during the training, they asked if she wanted to be a junior usher. Indeed she did, so they both went and got trained and then hung out in Staunton (riding the trolley, getting ice cream, etc...) until the show and came home afterwards in very good spirits! Then on Thursday of this week, the three girls spent 8+ hours in town gallivanting from thrift store to thrift store amassing soccer and ushering clothes. I think they are now officially ready for both activities starting up this week. Kali and Alida head back to Staunton tomorrow for their first shadow ushering session (1 of 2 before they can usher on their own). While they were in Staunton, her chick birthday buddies were busy all trying to hatch on the eve of her birth!

Then Sunday was the big day! Now almost a week later, I can't remember the order of operations for the whole day but I can share that the day included all of the following: chick adoring, present opening and activities, favorite meals, egg hunt with family, games, lots of laughter (and a few tears for Luca when he didn't understand refrigerator tag). I can get kinda cranky about various commercialized holidays, but I'm a fan of birthdays. As her mom, it's always a special day to reflect back onto the night her birth (9:08 p.m.) and all the eager and anxious anticipation that came before and all the love and tears and beauty and learning and unlearning that has come since. It's also fun to see how the celebrations morph and change over the years - what is a constant and what interests and desires shift. I think the tradition of new chicks timed to hatch and be brooded inside is probably one of those things that will stick around for awhile. 

Blueberry pancakes, bacon and fresh fruit was the breakfast of choice!

She didn't waste any time trying out the cross-stitch and embroidery kits. She has already determined she likes embroidering better (she's actually working on one while I type). 

And the braille slate and stylus were put to use immediately. Kali learned the alphabet quickly so that she could start writing messages to Alida (that she read looking at them and then challenged herself by trying to read them by touch only - her fingertips will need a lot of practice!). Some years I find birthday present shopping to be challenging, but it was breezy this year. Almost too breezy in that there were so many easy and fun things to pick out for a kid that has so many interests that I may have gone a bit overboard. One of the benefits to spending her days at home is that when she gets a bee in her bonnet, she can dive into something for hours on end!! She's got 500 sheets of braille paper, so that should keep her for awhile!

Emily, Jonas, Ivy, Jonathan, Christen and Luca came over in the afternoon to hang out, find eggs, and then we played a few games out on the lawn. Refrigerator tag was fun for all of us, but confusing (at best) for Luca to see some of his favorite people chasing each other around while shrieking!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day! When they all departed we joined my parents for a birthday dinner of taco salad, fresh cardamon bread and then ice cream cake that Alida made with Grandma (with a little Skyjo for an appetizer!). 

Probably one of my favorite moments of the day was at the very end! Alida chose for us to play Hearts together, which historically has been a pretty fraught game for the Myers family (those of us who are competitive in games really struggle when the queen of spades is given to us). Jason got the queen on round one (safe choice as he doesn't care) and then Alida got it SIX rounds in a row. We had only planned to play 4 rounds total but when she started getting the queen over and over on her birthday (and she is the most competitive of the girls), I said we would play until she didn't get it. With each passing round, it seemed that the sting of getting the queen was replaced with the absurdity and amusement of it happening AND that it meant we got to keep playing! Finally on the 8th round Alida ONLY got the jack of diamonds (which, for those that don't know the game, is the best card worth -10 - you don't want points!). And then to add to the wonder of it, Kali got 23 points trying to got for it (if you get all 26 points you get to get -26 instead and we stopped her from succeeding but just 3 points). This culminated at 11:11 p.m. (happy minute!). It was a very fun end to a celebratory exciting day!!