Second Birthday.

Yesterday was the Imp's second birthday. It's hard to believe that he's only been a part of our family for two years. But here he is, eighteen pounds heavier and much more mobile. And still my sweet little monkey.





Rainy weather kept us from our playground plans. Instead we followed an adventurous little boy through the mall and later all over the library. For lunch we treated ourselves to pizza and pasta at a little pizzeria we discovered recently. To my surprise, the Imp even ate a fair amount.

A few (mostly ignored) gifts were given. I did not manage to make a special dessert (he doesn't really care for cake) nor did I manage a special beeswax birthday candle. I waited too long to get started on these things. It doesn't help that the Imp doesn't yet understand birthdays. He honestly had no idea that yesterday was special in any way. B, my husband, doesn't celebrate birthdays much. He'll go along with what I plan but in truth he thinks it's all silly and pointless. I won't lie and tell you that it doesn't hurt, because it does. It's just one of those things that we don't see eye to eye on. I try to tell myself that it's because he didn't carry this life for nine months. I tell myself that if he'd been on my side of the birthing, maybe it would be more significant to him instead of viewing it as a merely "physical process" as he does.

But no matter. Starting now, I'm going to celebrate birthdays the way I choose to (with the kids' wishes taken into consideration, of course). I will knit birthday crowns and decorate birthday candles. And I will not let the ambivalence of anyone drag me down. I grew these kids, I labored to bring them into this world, and I will celebrate that.

On a less ranty note, here is the knitted doll I made for the Imp. He doesn't care much as yet, but yesterday was a big day for him - lots of activity and a missed nap.



I made it using this pattern just as I did the smaller doll. This one was the twelve inch doll - though I haven't measured it to see if that is accurate. It did take more than one skein of yarn, though. I used smaller needles than it wanted because I felt that there were too many gaps in the stitches of the smaller doll (that could have been user error, I admit). I have plans to make a hat for it.



My seams still need work. This one looks better than the small doll at least.

{this moment} - in which I cheat

A Friday ritual inspired by Soulemama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savor and remember.

These two moments were nigh simultaneous.




(The Beast tries to suck his thumb and nurse at the same time. It's adorable. And completely counterproductive.)

Knitted dolls

Thanks to the great folks at Wee Folk Art I was able to fulfill a deep desire to knit a toy for my kids. I used their instructions to make a five inch doll.



I probably should have stuffed it more. And I've learned some things about sewing knitted pieces and following patterns. I've also learned that I shouldn't knit in the car while talking to my husband - I sometimes forget to pay attention to whether I should be knitting or purling.



Of course, that hasn't stopped me from starting a twelve inch doll for the Imp's second birthday (in just one week!). The above photo is just one leg of the doll. It's going to be a tight fit on these needles.

{this moment}

A Friday ritual inspired by Soulemama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savor and remember.

First Knitting Project.

We've all been a bit "under the weather" here. And it's a shame because the weather has been beautiful. It's finally cooling down here in North Florida (hey, it's only been in the low 90's!). Between bouts of nose-blowing and toddler soothing I managed to finish up my first knitting project over the weekend. I recall there being some small interest on how I was going to turn a rectangle into a bowl, so I thought I'd document it. I can't say that it turned out exactly how I envision. But what ever does?



After a month or two of knitting (it's not easy when the toddler *really* wants your needles) I managed a rectangle. It's imperfect, but so am I.



With a tapestry needle I sewed it into a tube.



And then gathered one end.



This made a fairly impressive (and gigantic) bohemian hat. There was much playing for the rest of the night.



The next morning I tried my hand at felting in the washing machine. I'm not sure that I felted it enough and it definitely needs a shave.



It's furry, uneven, and has a hole in the bottom.



And yet it still makes a fairly impressive hat!

All in all it was an adventure. Despite the hole I think it'll serve it's purpose (to hold toys) well enough. My next bowl will be knit on circular needles. I may even attempt to follow a pattern!

Giveaway winner!

I meant to post this earlier but a house of sick little monsters (to speak nothing of the sick mama) has made that difficult. Not sure if there will be a {this moment} today, though.

The winner of the teeny stump and mushroom house is... Momma Rae! I'll be sending you an email soon to get your mailing address.

Thank you to everyone that entered. I look forward to hosting more giveaways in the future!

Also, just an update - Cynddl, our dog, is going to be okay. He doesn't even need one of those Victorian collars. They shaved him, though. So now our flat-coat (read: fluffy) lab-mix looks like a "normal" black lab!

The past twenty-four hours have not been so great. The Beast is unhappy due to immunizations (not to start a controversy here). Our dog, Cynddl, has an extremely serious infection and is at the vet right now. Things have just been... crazy.

On the up-side, I did get to relax for an hour yesterday. After the Beast's appointment he slept in the car while I knitted. We had an hour to kill before the breastfeeding support group started. It was quiet and so very, very nice.



But today that hour seems so far away. To cheer myself up I thought I'd post about the blocks we've finally started making for the Imp's birthday (can it really be just eighteen days away?). B used our new jigsaw while the Beast and I snapped photos from the window.



So here they are. We need a longer blade, possibly. And a more stable way to cut the thicker branches. We've been discussing vices and clamps. We're not power tool savvy, so there's a defiite learning curve here. I've only peeled and sanded the one block. But I think it looks handsome all polished up next to it's unfinished kin.



And don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't already. I'll be picking a winner after midnight - preferably in the morning after I've had some coffee!

Window Stars.

For my step-mother's birthday I decided to try my hand at making Waldorf-style window stars. We don't have any kite paper, so we just used tissue paper. I wanted the Elf to try it out. He did, but it wasn't fun for him. Too fiddly. He doesn't have a great deal of patience. I hope to try this again with him, though - maybe it'll help him.

I used three tutorials to base our experiments on: GardenMama's, Duo Fiberworks, and Twig and Toadstool. I also looked at a whole mess of images on flickr.

Here are the ones we gave her.









The multi-colored one was folded by the Elf, though he asked me to glue it for him. I'm going to make some more for us to hang in our windows. I suspect they will look quite nice.

{this moment} and a giveaway!

A Friday ritual inspired by Soulemama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savor and remember.



I've been talking about a giveaway for a while. Well, I think I'm finally ready for it. Lately I have been fortunate enough to win several giveaways and this is my way of repaying that luck and kindness.





The mushroom house is about five inches tall and about five inches wide. It is hollow with no floor and the roof comes off. The roof is covered in one of my favorite dyeing mistakes. I was aiming for brown and ended up with a gorgeous burnt orange (my favorite color!). The details are done in yarn from a surprise box (well, actually bits from two boxes) I purchased from Farm Fresh Fibers.



The scale is off, obviously. Unless it's a world with super-huge mushrooms.. or really tiny trees.



The brown wool on the stump was purchased from Smoky Mountain Fibers. She was great with helping me decide which shade of brown would be perfect for needle felting a tree. She even went so far as to let me combine two shades in one purchase. Yippie! The stump is about one and a half inches tall and three inches wide at the widest point. Warning: all meaurements were done based on a piece of paper I'm fairly certain is four inches long - spatial relations is not my specialty.

So here's the skinny. These two needle felted creations want a new home. It doesn't matter where you live or whether you follow this blog. Just leave a comment between now and midnight on September 9th. I'll announce the winner on Friday the 10th. Please make sure I have some way to contact you either in your comment or on your profile. Thanks and good luck!

Wandering Wednesday (eventually).

I don't think I ever posted about it here. In fact, I think it was before I really started writing in this blog. The original post is here. The short version is that I made a doll - one of those little star teether dolls for the Imp and he didn't much care for it.





Well, the Beast loves it! So there!

Stephanie posted about her experiences with co sleeping. I was thinking about her post while changing the sheets on our "family" bed(s) and decided to take this photograph. Four of us sleep here.



And finally, today is the last Wandering Wednesday over at GardenMama's blog. Read about it here.



Here I sit with my three little ones. It amazes me how every day they become more and more special to me.

Links and a Nursing Update.

Just a few links for now. I'm hoping to find the time to write a meaningful post today. We'll see if the little ones can manage to nap at the same time.

Rhythm of the Home has posted their Autumn edition. I haven't gotten to look through it yet. I plan to savour it in pieces. I can't tell you home much I adore RotH.

Mama and baby Love is hosting Itsy Bitsy yoga classes again! I really want to to take the Beast and/or the Imp to her sessions. Unfortunately, even the reasonably priced $10 a class is just way too much for us right now. She is giving away a five class pass on her blog. You can enter here.

I seem to have won a copy of this month's Herbal Roots from MamaRoots. I'm super excited about it. I love flipping through the issues and setting aside ideas for the Elf. I'm going to buckle down and find the time to try and engage him in more herbalism.

Having won that giveaway, I feel even more that I need to host another giveaway of my own. I made that little tree stump but didn't think it was quite enough. A teeny mushroom house is in the works. I hope to finish it up in the next day or two so that I can post it.

And an update on the toddler breastfeeding issues I was having (because the older two are playing happily and the Beast is sleeping). I remember reading somewhere once that around two years of age a child's jaw starts to change to accommodate the growth of larger, adult teeth. The Imp (who will be two in 26 days!) has been chewing on his fingers a lot and exhibiting a lot of teething signs. So I'm thinking that maybe was causing a weird latch. It wasn't painful, just uncomfortable. It seems to have passed. But there's more to it, I think.

I've been very, very stressed out. A lot of it is me. I let things get to me. Things that shouldn't make me blink seem to make me completely insane. So I've been working on calming down. It isn't easy. I'm a very tightly wound person. But I'm working on it. Deep breathing and many reality checks. I've come to realize that I expect too much from my kids, but that's a post I don't have time to write at the moment.

Nursing the Imp doesn't bother me so much now. It's frustrating when he has to have it and can't wait a minute or two. But I don't get those terrible (and scary) feelings of complete resentment. I know that a lot of it is stress and feeling overwhelmed. I know this because if things start to get hectic while I'm nursing the Imp, those feeling begin to surface. It's a warning that I need to step back, ask for peace, and breathe for a minute to let the tension drain.

Right. This post was a bit longer than I'd planned. Hopefully, though, there will be more (and pictures!) later today.

{this moment} - late birthday gifts!

A Friday ritual inspired by Soulemama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savor and remember.

Ranting.

I feel like such a terrible mother right now. Here I am, at my computer, researching how to go about weaning my middle child. While he sits on my lap. Ugh.

I've always been so proud to be nursing my toddler. He'll be two at the end of next month. And I've always said I'd be happy to nurse him as long as he wants (within reason - I don't think I can nurse a teenager, sorry). So why do I have all of these resentful feelings right now? Every time he wants to breastfeed I inwardly cringe.

When the Beast was born, the Imp started nursing more. I expected that. Everyone said he would slow back down eventually. It's been four months. He still wants to subsist solely on breast milk. He wants me to nurse him throughout the day, just before sleeptimes, at meals. He completely freaks out if I need him to wait. He leaks all over me and demands that he feed from both sides. If I stop him before he's ready, the world ends. And you know what? It's uncomforatble. I keep hoping that it's a transistional thing and that his latch will go back to normal. But it isn't. It doesn't hurt exactly, I just don't like it.

So I have all of these conflicting feelings. I don't want to resent nursing him. I don't want to force-wean him. But I don't want to feel like a put out doormat, either.

I'm going to try to get to a local breastfeeding support group next Wednesday. I'm not sure I have a lot of hope that they'll help at all. But I need to try.

Wandering, Work-In-Progress Wednesday!

Another Wednesday with GardenMama's Wandering Wednesday photo challenge. Read about it here.



Here I stand with my Impish helper. We're trying to transform the cat room into a play room. Okay, so I'm trying to transform it. The Imp is happy to watch the dust dance in the sunlight while prancing about with his new shoes.



And here I sit. Wow. I got a whole few minutes to myself. The baby was sleeping, the older boys were watching a movie (I'm terrible, I know). I sat on the cat/game (soon to by play) room floor and took pictures of things. And petted a cat - a cat that wasn't Ramses, Pilot, or Faustus. Another "wow!"

Resting on my leg is a needle felted tree stump that I've been working on. It's for my aforementioned giveaway! It seems like it needs something, though. A mushroom friend? A critter? I don't know. Something.



This is the piece I was working on when I learned to knit. It hasn't grown a great deal, but I'm proud of it anyway. It's lopsided. Somehow I gained between four and eight stitches (at last count). Oops. And there are a few holes at the beginning. But it's going to be felted, so I'm not worried. The problem is that I only have about a month to get it done. And I'd wanted to make several - nesting bowls. It kind of implies more than one, you know?




My step-mother made this bag for me. I adore it. It's crocheted and super-sturdy. I've hauled around my knitting, a library book, my glasses. We stuffed it full of library books for my oldest over the weekend. I can't wait to use it at the farmer's market. Yum!

{this moment}

A Friday ritual inspired by Soulemama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savor and remember.

Misadventures in wet felting.

Yesterday was the Elf's birthday. Things were very busy - hence the lack of posting. However, as promised, I am here to share my wretched failures in wet felting. And my last not-so-wretched not-quite-failure end result.

To start with, I didn't have any bubble wrap, bamboo place mats, etc. So I used a large trash bag. It worked pretty well, all things considered. For my first attempt I thought I would be clever and use undyed wool for the core. So I felted a mass of wool and attempted to add color to the top. No, this does not work. Some of it stuck a little. But for the most part... no. So I stuck it in the washer in hopes that it would help. Ha. Ha. Ha. No. It did not. Rather, it fell apart. The white core didn't shrink, though. Weird.



My solution? Needle felt the colored bits back on. Only, the colored bits were much smaller now. Oops. I eventually gave up. However, since showing it to the Elf yesterday, he has asked that I finish it anyway and let him play with it. Was all my extra work a waste? Who knows. Sometimes the kid is easier to please than my perfectionist side.

My second attempt, I did not use the white core. I dyed up a bunch of green and made a roughly 12x24 inch mat. Doubled sided, too! I was thrilled. It looked great. My not-so-brilliant mind decided that rolling it up in a pillowcase and washing it could only improve the awesomeness of the mat.



Well, the mat fell out. And it shrunk. A lot. It now measures something like 6x10 inches.



On to my third attempt! Here I thought I was super clever. Make the mat huge (roughly 2.5x3 feet)! That way, when it shrinks in the washer, it'll be the perfect size! This time I had bubble wrap. I bought a roll of it and taped it together to be roughly twice the size of our table. I laid everything out (mostly forgoing the double-sided idea) and lo! I really didn't have enough green wool for this. So it was *really* thin. "No problem," thought I, "it'll shrink and thicken in the washer!"



So I put the gorgeous (but freakishly thin) mat on a sheet, wrapped it up, pinned it shut, and hoped for the best.



It definitely shrunk. And it did thicken up a bit. It was still too thin, though. And now we had the added bonus of being completely misshapen! Whee! But it was extremely late and the night before his birthday. What's a crazy mama to do? Shrug and move on, that's what.



I spent the rest of the night sanding a stacker from Clickity Clack and finished it with my homemade beeswax goop. I wrapped everything in tissue paper and went to bed.

Wouldn't you know it? It was all accepted with love. Though he did seem more enamoured with the plastic junk from other people - of course. He has played with it several times, though - even incorporating his new legos into the mix.

Despite my massive failures, I plan to try this again - with thick enough layers and no more washing machines!

Shopping and gifts.

This weekend we went to a farmer's market. I've always wanted to join CSA but it's too expensive - and we're not great veggie eaters. So we hit the market. For $11 I walked away with: five organic apples (four of them didn't even make it home - we ate them in the car), a white onion, six or seven roma tomatoes, a yummy ear of corn, a bunch of basil, some peppers (hot, but I don't know what kind - I'm going to use them to pickle garlic), and a box of blueberries. Whee!

The opressive heat has calmed a bit. It's still humid as all get out, though. There's a delightful breeze today. At least, it looks delightful. I haven't actually been outside yet.

I tried to make a play mat based on this tutorial on Morning Sun Rae for the Elf's birthday present. Only, I thought I'd be clever and use white for the core and colored stuff on top. And wouldn't it be easier to felt the core and then add the color? Excellent! Only, once you felt part of it, the rest won't felt to it. Gah!

So I dyed up some more wool and set about doing it properly. It worked! It was awesome! But it was a little thin. So I searched my memory banks and decided that washing it in hot water with the diapers would be a good idea to help thicken it up. Well, it did get thicker. And shrunk to a third of the original size. Gah again!

Last night I dyed some more wool. The last of it is soaking right now. Tonight will be my third attempt. And I better get it right this time. The poor kid's birthday is on Wednesday!

I'll take photos of all the attempts and post them once I've finished. It'll give you a good laugh.

Also. I seem to have won two more giveaways! One was a book from MamaRoots. It arrived today and my oldest and I have already read it. It's such a sweet, sweet book. The other is an assortment of LuSa products from Progressive Pioneer. There's a bug spray included and I can't wait to try it out. The mosquitoes around here are the size of large cats.

Anyway. I feel the need to host another giveaway. Karma sort of demands it. So I'm working on some ideas of things I can make that won't take too much time (and that other people would actually want to own). Keep an eye out for that in the coming days!

{this moment} - Pilot

A Friday ritual inspired by Soulemama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savor and remember.

Caterpillars!

Mere days after releasing our first Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly of the year we found another caterpillar on our parsley in the garden. Since my parsley is looking pretty sad outside (I never trimmed it and it was nearly three feet tall and going to seed) I bought another from a local native nursery. The next day I decided to buy some dill to add to the garden, just in case any more butterflies cared to lay their eggs in our yard.



Imagine, if you will, how surprised I was to notice teeny little black and white squiggles on the dill (which had been sitting in the bedroom awaiting a time for me to plant it outside) when I went to lay the Imp down for his nap. The Elf and I quickly rounded up the dozen or so caterpillars and added them to the vivarium.



Now I have to go out and buy more plants to feed them. Again. If you've never raised a caterpillar, let me assure you that they eat just as much (if not more) than an almost-eight-year-old human boy during a growth spurt. Now multiply that by the 12+ little critters we have in there. Yes, I see more parsley in my future.

Also. Happy 100th post to me (even if most of them are old book reviews)!

Black and White, Wandering Wednesday!

Another Wednesday with GardenMama's Wandering Wednesday photo challenge. Read about it here.



Here I sit with my two older boys, enojying a rare (mostly calm) dinner out. Despite the sweltering heat, we had a great time.

Which brings me to my contribution for Natural Suburbia's Black and White Wednesday.



My oldest (the Elf) had me buzz his hair the other day. Here he is being goofy at Panera while we ate dinner last night. Out of focus in the background, you can almost make my husband holding my youngest (the Beast).