Small Karmic World

Our marvelous carpenter Dave has a son he has been speaking very highly of for months; this son is looking for work over summer break.  Painting, yard work, that kind of thing.  DING DING DING - we have a winner!  Andrew came over today to meet me and see the kinds of things we need done.  With Dave's glowing recommendation I hired him on the spot and he is - right now- outside hacking down the massive and ever-growing thorn bush in the yard, the one which is so vicious and strong that it tears through denim if you mow too close to it; you should see the bloody mess it leaves when a toddler gets entangled.  Then he's coming inside to put the first coat of paint on the pantry shelves his dad built us so we can have them loaded up and pretty for when my mom arrives on Monday.

I have visions of a painted garage, of front flower gardens returned to their former glory with new tiered low stone walls.  I have fantasies of our step back cabinets stripped and repainted, then installed by Dave.  Sigh.  I am in heaven.  I am poor, paying two people to beautify my home, but in heaven.  The bright side is that we could still be paying $600 - $1000 per month for inseminations and fertility treatments.  Joyfully, we have succeeded in having two kids and can sink their college money into the house for another couple of years.

I have a second helper

Monito just grabbed my shirt off the table while I was dressing and tossed it on the floor.  I said, "Monito, I need that.  Can you give me back that shirt?"  And he leaned over, picked it up and handed it to me with a smile. 

Fluke?  We'll see. 

39

My birthday is just around the corner. The lily of the valley always bloom just in time.

Monito, Month Eleven

Dear little buddy,

You turned eleven months old last week. You are completely exploding right now like all kids do who are simultaneously teething, learning to walk, and shifting from three naps per day to NOT ENOUGH SLEEP. You are a total joy to be around in the mornings when you frolic and explore on your own, artfully evading the attempts of your sister to engage you in her games. Those games usually result in you mashed on the floor under her, or with her sitting on you, or with you crying because every toy you touch is yanked from your grasp. She is also practicing her undressing skills on you, and I regularly find the two of you in a quiet corner of the house, you on your way to being naked and shoeless and Pequita busily trying to cram your massive skull through the neck hole of your shirt.

You are doing extremely well learning how not to bite Mommy with all your new teeth - three on the bottom and 1.5 on the top. After that first massive double puncture wound that resulted in much painful bleeding from the bottom of my left nipple, we have had no further incident. Lucky for you, I must say, as I was considering playing the weaning card.You are so busy that you frequently don't have time for nursing during the day. You are surviving, though, as you manage to squeeze in seven or eight hours of nursing each night while I contort my body painfully to keep a nipple in your mouth. The soothie will no longer do; it has to be flesh between your tender lips. If you fall off the breast, you awake with a squawk of protest that turns into a loud squall if you are unheeded for more than thirty seconds. Big plans are afoot to resolve this for you if it doesn't stop on its own; Mommy without sleep is not as much fun to be around.

You are crawling like a little hurricane around the house, yard, Home Depot, and play grounds all over town. Homestead Mama's favorite version is your bear cub crawl: both hands and both feet, totally off your knees, with your tushie high in the air as you zip around. I am partial to your standard crawl when you apply turbo; you mosey along shopping for something to tip over or grab and when you set your sights on the object of your desire you ZOOM at triple speed in a blur of hands and knees thumpity thumping with reckless abandon. It is no wonder that your shins are covered in bruises.
You also quite keen to be standing up. Everything vertical exists for you to pull up on. I blew your mind the other day by putting you on the kitchen counter to stand up. You had never been that tall, and I dare say you enjoyed it.You melt my heart regularly by crawling into the middle of the room and looking around to make sure you have an audience before slowly and with much caution rising to a wobbly stand exactly like a surfer getting up on his board, arms out for balance, knees bent. You flash me a huge grin of pride when you are upright and hover there for long seconds before falling over as you lift a foot to try to walk. It won't be long until you are successful.

Your personality is also blossoming. Your sister smiled the mad, whole-face grin of someone on a roller coaster for much of her first year. You have been a tad more subdued and preferred to sport a jaunty half grin with raised eyebrow. You are clearly coming into your own, though, as your new preferred expression is a gleeful nose-scrunching roaring grimace that would be suitable for sporting in a rugby scrum. It is typically accompanied by a loud scream of joy that has startled folks all over town who are not used to the kind of vigor we are breeding here at the Homestead. It is also your first useful tool in quelling the marauding forays of your sister; you have managed to make her think twice about stealing your toys with this scream, no small feat.

You are voracious and willing to try anything. I can feed you a huge meal in your high chair and then turn you loose to play while I eat my lunch only to find you clutching my pantleg and grunting for bites, madly clapping your hands as you ask for MORE! MORE! MORE! in sign language. Avacado and mango are clear favorites, but last night you polished off with gusto my sardines in hot chile oil on crackers. For breakfast this morning, after I fed you all that I could think of that was appropriate for 9am, you had spinach pizza dunked in raspberry yogurt. I fully expect you to be off the charts again at your next weigh-in.



You are super company much of the time. Late afternoons are a little rough right now since your days are so full that you get pretty tuckered out a couple of hours before you fall asleep, but since you are in the midst of the 'I only want Mommy ' stage I have an easier time than your Mama, with whom you mostly cry until she hands you over to me if I am within hearing or sight distance. You are much more snuggly than your sister was at this stage, and bury your whole body into me, and a select few other humans, nuzzling and chuckling with joy. You let me love on you whenever I want for the most part, which is one of the benefits of having babies [and a smart move on your part, as it makes up for the aforementioned kicking all night.]
Your first birthday is looming, and I cannot believe I've known you almost a year. I am so glad to be with you all day, every day.

Love,

Mommy

Perfect Eggs

Ham cups. Genius. How else can you have an ovenful of eggs ready to serve at a brunch - or to starving toddlers - all at the same time?

Line cupckake tray with one slice of ham. Put a dollop of anything yummy [cheese, sofrito, veggie, etc.] in bottom of cup and break an egg over it. Bake for about 8 minutes in a 375 degree oven or until the yolk is how you like it. Turn out onto tray. Try not to eat too many.

'Love Makes a Family' is crap

'Love makes a family' is crap.  Legal second parent adoption makes a family here at chez Homestead.  And guess what?  We have a court date for both my adoption of Pequita and H-Mama's adoption of Monito on May 27th.  Excuse me for a minute...

WHOOOOPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

The relief is palpable here, and the bonus is that my parents were scheduled to be visiting then and can celebrate with us.  Actually, Dad will be on a week-long bike trip in our area and Mom will be here soaking up grandma time, but we'll likely drive the hour away and fetch my Dad for the duration of the court hearing and ensuing celebration dinner and then drop him back off on his bike trip.  This means that this June 15th, American Father's Day, will be the first annual Homestead Family Day.  We can start planning what that will entail now in our free time. 

Soon we'll be able to apply for passports for the kids with both legal parents' names, travel through states like Oklahoma and Alabama with less worry, and reply to all the asshats who ask me with disbelief dripping from their tones, "Is that YOUR daughter?" a resounding 'Uh huh' before whipping out both boobs and tandem nursing the kids just to hammer home the point.

Kitchen Peek

This will only be exciting for those of you who are familiar with the bare white walls, ineffective or complete lack of storage space in the kitchen and pantry, and makeshift [plywood] counters we have been suffering with for the past few years. Here's a peek at the glory that is built-in wall shelves, cherry butcher block counters, and a pantry that is taking shape before our eyes.


Homestead-Mama cooked breakfast this morning for us all and left in a rush to help the neighbors*. I stayed behind with the kids and was walking around the kitchen trying to figure out what the ever-so-faint whooshing noise was that I heard and couldn't track down. I had all but decided that it was wind coming in a window somewhere when I realized that it was our super duper stove vent fan that Dave installed last week and H-Mama decided to use when frying up our eggs. I splurged and bought the extra quiet model and damned if it doesn't live up to its hype. 1.5 sones is pretty inaudible and is, I immediately decided, worth the extra money. Rejoice, Mom, cooking has been elevated to a pleasant experience here at Chez Homestead.

*She went to go shoot a possibly rabid skunk that is attacking the neighbor's dogs [when I say we are homesteading, I'm not entirely joking]. H-Mama isn't an animal control agent or anything, just a woman raised by her father in the Adirondack mountains who has won awards for her marksmanship. She'd be on a national rifle team if she had time to travel.

The Dark Side of Milestones

Last night, for the first time ever, Pequita performed and act in the bath tub that caused an immediate and abrupt evacuation of the tubbie by both babies and me, followed by cleansing showers all around. Enough said?

In an amusing turn of events, H-Mama had been videotaping some cute antics that the kids were doing at the time and caught the whole episode on tape, including the horror/disbelief as I figured out what was going on and the laughter and urgent pleading to put DOWN the camera and take the kids out of the water. We'll be deleting it, I suspect. If she's ever to be in a high powered job it just won't do to have that footage floating around. [All puns intentional.]

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day may be a Hallmark contrived holiday, but we worked damn hard to get here and are basking in it as much as we can. Save for the random and generally fleeting moments, we agree that we have never been happier or more satisfied with our lives. We feel damned lucky.

Frankly, I have never felt more like a mother. Pequita is going through a most fun stage wherein she cries and pulls a Gandhi* at the drop of a hat. I believe it is called the terrible twos, and she's right on target. I have many mothers and grandmothers all over town patting me on the back and telling me that it gets easier as they smile that smile that means 'oh thank god my kids are through that stage.' I am quite touched that they reach out when they do, as it actually helps when she is on the floor of the grocery store bathroom/ parking lot/ playground/ gym/ children's museum having a tantrum. Monito, my little golden boy, is smack in the middle of the mommy-centric phase wherein he screams when anyone other than me tries to touch him. H-Mama will do in a pinch unless I am in the vicinity. This coincides with his teething. My nip.ples are raw and swollen because of Monito's top teeth coming in. He now has three on the bottom and one on top; that second top tooth is right on the verge of breaking through and he is still figuring out how to nurse without killing me. Who am I kidding - he isn't trying anything, just happily chewing away aaaaalllllllll the tiiiiiiiiiime. Homestead Mama remembers almost quitting breastfeeding in this stage, and I can totally see why.

To celebrate the day [= to get twenty extra minutes of dozing] we lolled in bed watching Thomas the Tank Engine when the babes woke up. I mowed the Figure 8 last night, so we are going to take a morning walk on the back 40 once my coffee brews. In years past we've mowed a path for our old dogs on the nine acres we let remain meadow to make it easier for their old arthritic bones to meander along short grass. Now, we'll keep it mowed for the babes. As summer progresses, the flowers, weeds, shrubs and grasses grow up tall on either side of the path and it is jolly good fun to see what is blooming or what animal is nesting at any given time. I love to mow it, as whatever grows back there smells very distinct and sweet when cut. I've never smelled a better mowing smell and I revel in it. Right now, the wild strawberries are flowering. In a few weeks, we'll have tiny red fruit to pick and eat along the path as we walk.

We Homestead Mom's have been, well, homesteading. I've been spending every spare minute that could have been used for blogging changing a grass-challenged bit of our garden into a glorious shrub and flower garden. It isn't glorious yet, but will be in a year or two when all the tiny plants I have put in fill out a bit. Right outside the front door is a large pine tree which has been overshadowing the yard completely. I decided to get rid of the foundering grass and plant native woodland plants that will flourish in the acid-rich soil and with only partial sunlight. We killed the grass by spreading out black plastic on it last spring, then - whoops! - had Monito and had no time to finish the job. A few weeks ago, I pulled up the plastic [the neighbors must have been thrilled!] spread out three cubic yards of mulch and started putting in plants I harvested from other places in our yard and a few evergreens from the nursery. Our carpenter Dave is unbelievably generous and has brought us pot after pot of plants he and his wife have thinned from their yard - hosta, Solomon's Seal, a few varieties of lilies. Pequita was bereft when the massive hill of steaming mulch disappeared from the front yard, as she really loved climbing it and rolling down to the bottom. [My children both looked like vagabonds, filthy and wet with dirt ringing their mouths as they continually tried to find a tasty piece of earth. Sadly, they remain that way and likely will for the duration of summers.] I eased her disappointment by installing a bird bath with WATER in it - the birds will clearly never come to it, as it is constantly getting emptied all over a certain younger brother, as well as having shovels, rocks and Legos left in it. So while I am holding off on showing you kitchen renovation pictures until it is done, behold my latest time investment. I couldn't be more pleased. It was completed almost entirely with one baby sleeping in the car and the other either on my back while I shoveled or moving mulch right along side me with her little shovel and big dump truck.

The patch of yard before. [I'd like to cut down the tree and put in a cluster of 8-12 foot tall pines for privacy, but H-Mama will hear nothing of it. I am holding out hope that we'll get the rest of the garage painted grey this summer.]

Mulch Mountain.
Monito, a.k.a. Bubba, loves to help.
The bare wall leading up to the front door is now flanked by Solomon's Seal. It will fill in and be lush in a few years. You can see the broken flower pot that serves as a toad house in the lower left corner. We check it each and every time we exit or enter the front door to visit the toad that lives under it each year. Poor toad.
The clematis plant that I gave H-Mama for mother's day. She has wanted one for years.
And the after picture. There's plenty of room left to put in perennials and more rocks to climb on, but the bones of the garden are in.
*Pulling a Gandhi: sinking bonelessly to the ground in an effort of passive resistance. Unlike the real Gandhi, Pequita's is accompanied by much screaming, clawing and crying. Most impressive. I'll try to get tape of it for you.

summer product - positive review

Despite the cool and dreary weather, we just had a round of Popsicles here at the homestead using the Dripstik holders we bought on Amazon a few months ago.  It was such a resounding and tidy success.  They are cheap, actually work, and the kids really seemed to like being able to hold onto it and not freeze her hands which is what usually happens.  Best of all?  We can set them down for a while and they stand on their own. 

http://www.dripstik.com/home.html

Last Sunshine

It is tying the 1972 record for cold weather here today.  Rainy, cold, and windy is forecast for the next seven days.  I was really ready for parks and outside stuff, damn it.  We had a lovely day far away in the mall; I'll have to post pictures of the shoes that Pequita selected for herself out of a pile of nice sturdy shoes.

We picked out some pines for the front yard yesterday.  They are on order - we have to be careful since the road salt will definitely affect them, and there aren't that many medium sized tolerant spruces.

We're off for more errands.  What else, in the rain?

Rainy Day

We are headed for the mall an hour away to exchange some gifts we received a few months ago. 

Really we are going because Pequita is hypersensitive and crying at the drop of a hat for no apparent reason, and Monito has a horrible cold that I am afraid will turn into asthma again and is miserable and wants to be held all the time.  An hours nap up, some playing with toys and being overstimulated by passers by in the mall, then an hours ride home sounds like just the ticket to me.  I'll listen to my Pema Chodron cd all the way there and back and will be in such a state of zen that I won't even recognize myself.  One can hope.

Cheers.

Lifetime Quality

Both Homestead Mama and I grew up with parents who worked hard for what little they had, and like most folks have grandparents who lived through the depression and passed on frugality as a lifestyle. While this frugality seems to fade a bit more with each generation, H-Mama and I each have parts of our lives in which we live very conservatively and purposefully more out of choice versus need. We strive to live with less consumption both to save money but also to keep frugal habits that we can pass on to the kids. Frugal living is a muscle that must be flexed; it is all too easy to get in the habit of buying whatever you want.

I remember my father's workbench in the basement, the surface covered in decades of paint drips and nicks from tools put there by many previous owners. The edges of all the shelves rounded and softened with years of use. The vice clamped permanently onto the edge of the bench was good for many fun experiments. The smell of sawdust, paint thinner, oil, and that cool, dusty but embracing smell of basements accompanied all our activities down there. I love that scent to this day. We got to spend our precious alone-time with Dad down there, doing projects, playing, and being taught how to use tools. It was a huge treat to be allowed to help change the powdery mantle on the lantern before a camping trip, or have his big hand cover ours and guide the wood burner as we made patterns and burned our names onto mother's day projects. I got the Visible Woman model for Christmas one year and Dad spent hours at the workbench putting her together alongside me.

Homestead Mama remembers her first solo woodworking project at her dad's workbench - a boat made with scrap wood and nails. As many nails as she wanted [do you see where this is going?]. Her dad gave her the hammer and let her whack away until she felt it was done. She was so proud of her boat, and her father encouraged her wildly. She sadly, and much to her father's dismay, insisted on filling the bathtub for a maiden voyage. All the structural integrity offered by the better part of a box of nails holding the boat together was the source of the devastation of all her hopes and dreams for her beloved boat as the water rose around it and over the top of it as it failed to float. In confused desperation, she picked it up, dried it off and set it gently upon the surface of the water. It made an audible clunk as it hit the bottom of the tub, sinking like a ten-penny nail-encrusted stone.

My dad had all his paintbrushes carefully washed and wrapped in newspaper to protect the bristles and hanging in the tool cabinet. They were years old, but the bristles were in perfectly good condition due to good care. This same respect for paintbrushes was instilled in both H-Mama and I, so when we bought the Homestead we invested in Purdy paintbrushes which will last through decades of painting if you care for them well.

Over the past few years, as our own work on the Homestead has lessened, we've loaned out our painting supplies and other construction materials to friends to help out their projects. Everyone has been generous to us with their time and tools, and we are happy to pay that forward. However, I was ready to paint the new kitchen shelves and couldn't find any of our brushes. Very sad, as I assume they died a lonely and paint-encrusted death long before their usefulness should have been up. So when Homestead Mama and I went to pick her car up from its oil change site yesterday, we stopped at Home Depot on the way home to buy some paintbrushes. At $15 or so per brush, this is an expense I had hoped to not have more than once, but we now have a few new brushes to get our immediate projects taken care of. I'll build our supply back up over time so as not to crack the budget. H-Mama called in a take-away order of Indian food for our dinner and drove home with the sleeping babies, leaving me to pick up the food. I drove by the restaurant and noticed how packed it was, assumed that I had at leat 25 minutes to waste before the food was ready and headed over to the massive book sale that our town puts on twice a year to fund our library. It was torture to leave after only 15 minutes or so - I've killed entire afternoons at the book sale before - but I still managed to score a bunch of books to help me crack the mysteries of child-rearing. I'll have to play years 4 and 5 and 8 by ear since they didn't have the books from the much-recommended Ames and Ilg series for those years, but otherwise I'm good through puberty. I feel more confident in my parenting already, and at at the huge bargain of about $1.50 a book.


You can see some some crappy books fell in my bag on the way out and I was too lazy to pull them out.

Stranded

Last Friday morning was a whirlwind of efficiency. We were up by 6 am [as is sadly becoming the norm] had the kids dressed, fed and ready to get in the car by 8 am so we could drop H-Mama's car off at the shop for an oil change first thing. With a two-hour daily commute, we do that frequently. I had a 10 am acupuncture appointment to help ease the nasty cold and back spasm out of my system, so I dropped H-Mama and both babies off at our friend's house for playgroup [H-Mama's first, I believe, and she loved it] and ARRIVED EARLY at my blissfully quiet, relaxing and child-free hour on the treatment table. I got to hear about my acupuncturist's recent trip to Dharamsala which made my wanderlust flare up a bit even through my zen like state of needled relaxation. Then I fetched the rest of the family from playgroup and we headed home. H-Mama took off for work in my car and I spent the day with the kids and the carpenter. Early afternoon, we headed outside to pile in the stroller to walk walk walk our way to a nice nap which was to end up at the alpaca farm that is three miles away, but - lo and behold - no stroller. H-Mama was running so late she forgot to take it out of the car. How do you get two tired babes to sleep with a carpenter drilling and sawing intermittently in the kitchen? Not very well. Pequita hollered and cried for 45 minutes before I gave up and saved her. Monito slept like a log as long as I held him, so his nap was over when I went to fetch Pequita from the hell that is her crib. We decided to stay outside for a change of pace and get a little yard work done, so we went next door to the neighbor's house to borrow their big wheelbarrow. Pequita and Monito prefer this mode of transport when they can get it; when we stop by the mailbox on the way past for some reading material, all the better. Everyone in cars who pass us wave and chuckle when the see the little heads peeping over the rim of the barrow, and the kids love that.

Even with the Pequita trying to feed conkers* to Monito - the perfect choking size and shape - I managed to get some flower beds raked and ready for blooming. About time, too, as the plants below were almost entirely obscured by mounds of leaves and winter yard debris. They should have been cleared off weeks ago. I snapped some pictures early this morning when Monito and I took the dogs out at 6:30 am, replete with picturesque dew.

Lily of the valley encircling the base of our massive Norway spruce; our favorite neighbor's house visible in the background.
Hosta that I planted in a ring around the base of our big maple tree in the front yard.

Toad lilies that grow around the base of the maple tree and all through our front lawn. If you live anywhere near us, please speak up if you want a bunch of any of these plants. They all need to be thinned.

It doesn't take much for me to feel like I've accomplished something. Twenty minutes of raking and hauling away of pine cones, twigs and tree debris and both the front yard and I are glowing. I'm sure the neighbors appreciate the efforts to eliminate the unkempt look.

*I was a champion conker player in Switzerland. We went to a private school filled with Brits, and it was kill or be killed. You don't know pain until you've been whacked with a whizzing chestnut on a string. It is all in the selection of the nut - you have to listen for the right tone when thumped, like selecting a melon.

Hairless

Ahhh. I've returned to my previous haircut. The 2" long crop of post-pregnancy regrowth finally got to me and I had my stylist [you wouldn't think I had one, eh? Yeah, me neither but I do] fix it but good. I walked into the salon a frumpy new mom and walked out a lesbian with cool hair who happens to have kids. Homestead Mama thinks it makes me look younger, which excited me a lot until I realized that I have arrived at 'that certain age' where looking younger is even a concern. Phooey. I don't even have to really wash it all that much, just run my wet hands through it to realign the 'do and run. I feel liberated and surprisingly cute. You'll have to ignore my early morning puffiness to agree, I fear. Thirty-nine *is* middle-aged, isn't it? My birthday is in less than a month.