A Little Color in the Freezer

Lately, our culinary ventures have taken a new turn - in the food processor. With the help of Lisa Barnes' Cooking for Baby, I've been making Nate's baby food. A couple recipes in and I wish I would have done this the first time for Audrey. I love having one more use for the zucchini from the garden.

And, there's something so much more fun about having brightly colored "ice cubes" in our freezer instead of jars double-stacked in the pantry. (Pictured above: zucchini, sweet potato, and applesauce cubes - the applesauce was a homemade gift - Thanks, Elizabeth! Up next: cauliflower).

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 78

I have some catching up to do. I blinked and two weeks passed. Two weeks of good busyness mixed with those stressors found in every workplace or home whose doorway you've crossed. Today, catching my breath on thoughts of a weekend with not much planned, I looked to find my children are not the children of two weeks ago, but children much-changed. Nathan has learned to babble - in cars. With the exception of a cruise through the grocery store (after which, an employee stood waiting at the front of the registers to meet the little man she'd heard babbling a solid twenty minutes), he speaks only in cars. Loudly. Continually. Even if you've been driving an hour. It makes me laugh. It makes his sister throw books. Well, just once.

He has learned to cluck his tongue, and I am happy to oblige him with detailed conversations of tongue clucking for the smiles they elicit. He has also found his thumb and laughs each time I shake it free before trying to sneak it back to his lips. Our conversations are easy, centered around our shared interests of eating and sleeping and catching up with our friends during long car rides.


Tonight, hugging a dampened-towel-clad Audrey, I realized that her lengthening limbs are about to outgrow those standing-on-my-knees hugs. But, what has really caught me off-guard these past weeks (what always catches me off-guard) is her stretching mind and the new ways she's using it.

Last week, while standing outside, she told me, "The darkness is swallowing the sun."

The next day, she informed me, "Birds don't talk. Birds just chirp. Only people talk."

Last Friday we dressed up as cows to go to Chick-fil-a with some friends. I asked her to go potty before heading to the restaurant. She refused explaining that cows don't pee on the potty, they pee on the ground.

Today, (we had read a book featuring a Moose who becomes a clown this morning) en route to the gym, she said, "I've never seen a clown. Where do they like to go?" in a tone that implied she was about to begin a red-nosed man hunt.

In the past week, Audrey has also learned to barter, an act she performs with the skill of a veteran flea market haggler.

Tuesday, I was ready to head the evening into our bedtime routines. Audrey was ready to head outside. I told her I would take Dusty (a favorite doll) away if she walked out the door. Audrey informed me that she was going outside and she was carrying Dusty with her so I wouldn't be able to take her, but (since she was choosing to go outside) I could have two of her stuffed animals. A frog and a duck. She didn't want them anymore.

Last night, Audrey got a special treat when she was invited to spend the night at a close friend's house. Before she left this morning, she asked Michael if she could spend the night at his house again. He told her she could stay a million years. "I want to stay here forever," she told me when I came to pick her up. (I can't say that I blame her. Spending every day with my best friend sounded like such a great gig, I married him. Plus, Michael has a fun mama).

"Why are you taking me home if I want to stay somewhere else forever?" she asked on the drive home. I explained that we would miss her. "If you let me stay with them now, I'll come live with you when I'm older," she offered.

Each night, when I tuck Audrey into bed, I tell her she makes me a lucky mama. She has a habit of repeating our bedtime phrases. Goodnight. Goodnight. I'll see you in the morning. I'll see you in the morning. You make me a lucky mama. You make me a lucky mama. It wasn't until this year that she began changing the phrase to "you make me a lucky Audrey," so that it made sense. Tonight, as I carried her upstairs she said, "I'm going to figure out a way to make you a lucky mama."

"You have already figured out a way to make me a lucky mama," I said.

"I'm going to figure out a way to make you a lucky mama," she repeated.

The last two weeks have been tricky. We have reached the stage where so much hinges on words and actions. Often, I don't know what words to say. Often, I realize mid-sentence that the best thing to say is nothing. Often, I find myself meditating on this gift of parenting, the work of training a child and building a bond: strong, complex, intricately made, and ultimately, fragile - as the best things always are.

Scavenger Hunt

Since Audrey is off playing with a friend, Nate and I decided to check out a little antique shop we often pass, hoping to find that perfect birthday dress-up trunk.


I can't help but stop when I see a pile of quilts and think about the hours - planning, sewing, snuggling, fort-constructing - stacked within that cupboard. And marvel at the beauty built into each stitch, each well-crafted moment.




If the price tag hadn't made me set this impressive red engine back down ever so carefully, I might think that this truck belongs under our Christmas tree.




My favorite find in the entire store was this very round-handled rolling pin. Such a good weight in my hands and soft against my palms. Had I been shopping for me, this would have found a home in our kitchen.

And finally, tucked into the last corner of the store, we found this - purchased by the owner just last week. It's fancy. Mighty, mighty fancy. Maybe a little too fancy for a trunk that I'm hoping gets approached and used with wreckless abandon. But you never know...

Back in the Saddle, Sort of

My brother-in-law, little sister, and nephew have made their way back to California. And while our travels have been significantly lower maintenance than that, we are also trying to make our way back - to normal. It's feeling like a lengthy trip. Our last week-and-a-half was filled with lots of goodness: the members of a growing extended family contained within a room; snuggling with a new nephew; celebrating one cousin's upcoming wedding and another's nine-day-old baby. But like much goodness, the recent days have brought their own sets of challenges: obliging great uncles happy to give a toddler her first taste of soda or seventh brownie; six hours of travel by car; abandoned bedtimes and routines; babies unable to nap in unfamiliar settings; and Daddy having to cap the weekend off with an early week business trip.

We have been trying to make some pit stops in the midst of all this busyness, little things to keep us grounded at home - trips to the garden armed with empty bowls for our finds; outdoor drawing sessions, followed by photo sessions so our little artist isn't so disappointed when a much-needed rain washes her portraits away; time spent running our hands or toes through the blades of grass in our backyard, each of us stretching and growing in our own way; and yesterday, getting back into the kitchen to bake some treats and fill the house with the smell of vanilla and honey and home.

Of course, for all of our trying, it has been a bumpy transition back to normal, one that (I fear) will take several more days as Audrey seems to be alternating going to bed at her usual 8-8:30pm with 10-11pm stints. But that is what summer days are made of - long goodness-filled afternoons and sleepless, too-short nights. At least for now.

Weekend Snapshots

I think this little mini-break might continue in this space a few more days. My sister and brand-new nephew touched down after a long flight from California, just hours ago. I think I'll be busying myself with some new-love squeezing for the next few days. So for now, just a few snapshots of our weekend past.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 77

I took a bit of a mini-break this weekend. We made no big plans. No big adventures interfered with my blogging time, just the small adventures: Nathan learning to make clucking noises with his tongue; his rounds of "push-ups" that trick us into thinking he might crawl at any moment; Audrey's gallery of pavement art; and her first experience as captain of a sparkler.

As we watched the fireworks Sunday, one babe scared awake and wild-eyed in my lap and the other too busy playing with friends to take heed of eruptions in the sky, I could not help but feel gratitude for the simple things in front of me: good friends, precious family, blanketed yards, and the latest project coming together on my knitting needles. Of course, with blasts like gunpowder and color lighting up the sky, one's mind drifts to the events and people (known and nameless) without whom, these simple luxuries would not exist. Gratitude abounds: for those for whom the fireworks swell who willingly gave so much in hopes of lives simple and good. Gratitude abounds: for those fireworks - the big and bold, and those small and vibrant and right before my eyes. Memorable moments from last week:

On Tuesday, Audrey set a banana on the kitchen table with its stem pointing up. "This looks like a duck swimming," she said.

Wednesday, while changing her clothes:

Me: Is your underwear on backward?

Audrey: Yes. But it doesn't hurt. It's okay.

Later that day, she found the picture I posted of Jason and I hugging at graduation.

"Mommy, what's that?" she asked.

"That's your Daddy with hair," I said.

"Oh!"

On Thursday, while looking in the mirror as I brushed her hair, she said, "I like my hair messy but not in my eyes."

Audrey came up to me on Saturday as I sat at the kitchen table. I showered her face with kisses. She laughed. She showered me back. "I have pictures of you on my kisses," she said.

I hope your weekend provided you with a little break filled with simple pleasures, vibrant fireworks, and kisses with your picture (or at least your name) on them.

And All the Rest

Rather unintentionally, I think we managed to work in the rest of the colors on the color spectrum today. I had volunteered to cut papers into strips for an upcoming VBS craft project. As I worked, Audrey and Nathan got busy with projects of their own, turning the scrap paper and scrap food (expired pasta and sprinkles - who needs glitter? - dropped off by my parents) into art (or just something to tinker with, six-month-old style). Somewhere over the rainbow might just be our kitchen table.