Birthday Season Begins

I just had the realization that my kids' birthdays are only about two weeks away! Zoiks! I don't plan on going crazy with the making everything like I did last year and I want to keep things simple and minimal. I already ordered them each a book from Better World Books--Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (used) for M and two more mini Elsa Beskow books for E and Z--I love tiny books.

I also bought them some socks from Maggie's Organics. I was inspired by Beth of Fake Plastic Fish, who has convinced companies to change their packaging to eliminate or minimize plastic through writing to them, so when I placed the order, in the comments section, I told them how excited I was to buy organic socks for my kids and how I hoped their packaging was as environmentally friendly as their socks. And guess what? It worked--the socks arrived yesterday in a cardboard box, with a piece of brown kraft paper wrapped around them. I envision the warehouse employees taking the socks out of plastic bags they're stored in in the warehouse and wrapping them in paper, but I'd like to think that if enough people offer this kind of encouragement, companies will start to re-think their plastic usage altogether. I hope. I plan on trying the same when I order underwear for them from Under the Nile (yes I buy my kids socks and underwear for their birthdays--and Christmas--it's a little trick I learned from my mom. I figure, it's stuff I have to buy anyway, may as well wrap it up and make it fun. Plus it makes it easier to justify paying more for higher quality organic stuff. And I have to say, both the Maggie's socks and the Under the Nile undies are really nice).

I stopped by K-Mart last night to buy bike helmets for E and Z--we have a couple of hand-me-down bikes we need to grease up and pump up and put training wheels on. Even though M started riding a two-wheeler with training wheels at this age, I find it a little unbelievable that the twins are already there...where is time going? I was kind of bummed to have to buy plastic helmets, but I'd be much more bummed if one of my kids cracked his head open. I was however impressed by Bell's packaging--just a trapezoid of cardboard attached to the helmet with a zip tie, unlike some other helmets they had that were in plastic bubble packaging (to protect the helmet? which is designed to protect a head? I don't get it). I don't know if I'll hold onto the helmets until birthdays, or if we'll get the bikes on the road before then--I guess it depends on the weather and the motivation level of the mechanical people in my house hold (maybe I could get my own bike tuned up at the same time!)

After K-Mart, I went next door to Goodwill in search of pillowcases to make these fantastic butterfly nets from Blue Yonder Ranch. I had been thinking about making butterfly nets and was going to use silk or something for the net part, then I saw these pillowcase nets. I ordered their Book of Days for the instructions, hoping they had a clever technique for attaching the wire to the stick, but they didn't. However,the Book has some other good information about butterflies and how to catch them, so it will still be useful. Oddly, Goodwill had multitudes of cool vintage sheets, but no pillow cases to go with them. I was envisioning a run on the Augusta Goodwill by people making butterfly nets. I could just use some pillowcases I have in the yard sale pile--but they're not very attractive, and those flowery ones just make me smile. And I like to smile. Even though it makes my stony face crack and crumple like old plaster. So I may just Let It Go--not try to get them made for birthdays, but keep my eyes open for pretty pillowcases and make them sometime this summer.

But that leads me back to where I began--what to do about birthdays?? I'm thinking these little boats for the twins, and a big hunk of amethyst and a rock hammer for M, the gemologist. Also I have to come up with an idea for when C's father asks what to get for them (I keep meaning to set up college funds for all of them for these occasions, but haven't gotten around to it yet--it's on the list!) Oh yes, and plan a camping trip and potentially a birthday party for M (he's not quite convinced he doesn't need a party every single year!)

Tiny Hat

I made this little hat for the baby shower I went to last weekend.



It's actually one of a pair of hats I started for E and Z when they were babies, but didn't get very far on either of them (who was I kidding? I was taking care of twin infants and a four-year-old. Just getting my teeth brushed on a daily basis was a major accomplishment). Also, this pattern was excessively complicated with way more pieces and steps than necessary (Simplicity? Not). But, without two babies demanding my constant attention, I was able to sew it up one night last week. I was totally amazed by how SMALL it is--like it was meant to fit over a grapefruit. I can't even believe that E and Z ever had heads that small (maybe they didn't?). So strange, these moments when you realize your kids are growing faster than you can even comprehend.

I also made another little wooden and ribbon teether. I like how they turn out, but next time I think I'll hand-sew the ribbons; my machine likes to eat thread when trying to sew tiny things.



I was going to make another pair of cloth baby shoes too, but I was really tired by Thursday night and I gave myself permission to not make them...you don't know how liberating that was for me. It was a "no gifts please" shower anyway, so I was already breaking the rules (in my defense, I didn't actually BUY anything--the hat has been waiting completion for nearly four years--and now counts as a tick-off on my "works-in-progress list--and the teether ribbons were left over from the other one I made). I also included a super-cute stuffed giraffe that had been M's and I wrapped it all up in a well-used receiving blanket (you can never have too many receiving blankets--unless, of course, your kids are eight and four!)

It's Really Here!

Despite the calendar having claimed it was spring more than a month ago, and despite all of the snow melting before Earth day for once, and despite a couple of crocus and daffodils having bloomed in the last week or two, it didn't really and truly feel like spring until this weekend.

I took the boys on a little EarthScouts excursion in the woods Friday since I was going to be gone over the weekend (see? I'm learning to be flexible!). As we walked toward our destination, I marveled over the different ways each of them approaches the outdoors. M, a.k.a. Knowledge Boy, likes to learn and test his knowledge of the names of trees and he wants to know where everything came from and how it got there, like the rusty piece of metal that sits on a stump at the bend in the trail (and no magical explanations for him thank-you-very-much)...he's also destination oriented and wants to hurry us along.

Z finds a good "walking stick," and uses it to thwack every tree, bush and stump he comes across.

E claims every hollow stump or fallen log is a fairy house or gnome house that he built.

We made our way to Owl Tree, a big grandmother pine that was left alone when the area was cut over some years ago. M and I saw a barred own resting on the tree's branches on New Year's Day when he was one, and Owl Tree it has been ever since, even though we've never seen another sign of an owl there. Our mission, from the I Love Dirt book, was to study a tree and ask ourselves questions about its role in the forest, but the boys were much more interested in building fairy houses than wondering what kind of animals use what parts of the tree.

I was perfectly happy to lie in the sun getting pine pitch all over my clothes, and neither shivering nor being eaten alive by any kind of blood-sucking insect (we don't say the word out loud, for fear we will call them to us like evil spirits)...there is about one week in the spring and one in the fall during which you can have this kind of experience in Maine, and if you miss it because you're at work or something, you regret it all winter and all bug season. At one point, E said, "I'm hot," and I replied, "I know! Doesn't it feel wonderful?" I could have stayed there all day, but the boys got restless and we headed down to the river.

I was amazed to watch M make his way along the streambank to a grassy oxbow area downstream from our usual spot--all by himself. He's generally not a kid to wander off on his own, so I was pretty excited by this show of independence. But after a short while, I decided I should call him and make sure he hadn't fallen in, which worked out well, because friends had just then stopped by and had come into the woods to look for us and heard my shouts. We all headed into the grassy area, which I love because the craggy old willows remind me of cottonwoods from home (when they don't have any give-away leaves on them), and it just feels so wildernessy and so very not Maine-ish. We mucked around for a while before heading home for ice cream, and found not a single tick on any of us!

The weather continued in this manner over the weekend, when I headed south with a friend, driving to Massachusetts in an un-air-conditioned car, pointing into the sun the whole way...it was a long, sweaty drive (made all the longer because my car finds it amusing to not start after it has driven for more than an hour on a warm day...ha, ha very funny car!), but sooooo wonderful to reconnect with friends (we met up with two more in Northampton)...I was most reluctant to head north Sunday. The one consolation in the return trip was stopping at Friendly Toast in Portsmouth...if you are every driving through New Hampshire on I-95, you must stop there and eat...yum, yum. Just the plate of fries with provolone and bleu cheese with strawberry habanero dip (!!!), provided enough calories to get me through a couple of weeks of starvation...

Pajama Bags

To celebrate the new bunk beds, and as part of my overall organization frenzy, I made these jammie bags for the boys a few weeks ago.



I followed the Kidlet Wall Pocket Tidy Tote tutorial from J C Handmade. Instead of the lovely linen and cool Japanese fabrics she used, I used some soft off-white corduroy I bought for another purpose but ended up not using for the outsides, and some leftover scraps from other projects for the linings and pockets. All I had to buy was the cotton webbing. I think for pajamas, I should have made them a little bit bigger, especially for bulky winter jammies (but we're done with those for a while--yay!) and for M, who is bigger and has bigger jammies. The idea was to make bedtime easier by not searching for pajamas, and also to cut back on laundry by not getting out a new pair every night because we can't find last night's...so far E and Z have been on board, sometimes even putting their own jammies in the bags, or helping me or C remember to do so. M, not so much--old dogs, new tricks and all...plus he's categorically opposed to any type of cleaning up or organizing (unless it's his PokeMon cards or his collection of Maine Tourmaline, but that's another story)...two out of three ain't bad.

I know a few people who are interested in sewing, but not sure where to start. I think this would be a good almost-first project, because the instructions are clear and easy to follow (unlike a pattern from the store--so confusing!), it is small and sews up fairly quickly (the tutorial says it should take about an hour; since I made three at once while I was working on other projects too, I can't vouch for it, but I'd say it's about right, maybe adding a little more for cutting, but I am a sloooow cutter) so it's a good instant gratification kind of thing, but at the same time, it's got enough challenging elements (turning corners, making a gusset, reinforcing the handle, etc.) to give you a good sense of accomplishment, and they're so cute and handy, who doesn't want a dozen? I could see them in fun, funky fabrics for grownups with no kids, to hold your keys by the door or whatnot. The only flaw I found in the directions was that I could not find the seam allowance anywhere in the instructions (maybe I missed it), so I just set out with a 1/2-inch seam, only noticing later in one of the photographs that it should have been 1/4 inch...no big deal, did not change the outcome at all, except making the bag slightly smaller. So get out your machine and give it a try!

Poems

Nation Poetry Month wraps up next week, and my email poetry class wrapped up yesterday--thank goodness, because it was getting a bit exhausting trying to keep up with the daily assignments. Which is kind of discouraging, because it means that any thoughts of trying to pursue any kind of higher education for real are totally koo-koo krazy. I do have friends who have kids and go to school full time and work and I have no flippin' idea how they do it. I'm imagining it involves a lot of coffee and very little sleep, and since I don't care for coffee, but I relish my shut-eye, that kind of life is most definitely not for me.

In any case, back to the poetry, I did manage to produce approximately 26 poems in six weeks, which is a lot, when you think about it. Most of them are not terribly good poems, but it's the process that's important, right? Below are the two poems I like best, both of which were written during the second week of class. After that I'm afraid I became a bit disengaged, partly due to going through a crazy stressful/depressed period back there in March (it really was just March in Maine--I'm much better now), partly because the assignments became increasingly abstract, which is super-hard for me, and partly I think, I just got kind of tired of writing poetry. In the end, though, I'm glad I took it; I learned a lot, and I think I'll continue to absorb the lessons over time. I definitely would say poetry is not my favorite medium, but I wanted to learn more about it and develop some skill in that area, and I'd like to pursue it more in the future, partly as a fun brain exercise, and partly because I think it could improve my prose writing.

So, anyhoo, here are my two poems (note the theme in both of them--is Motherhood the ONLY thing I can write about??)

First Practice

I glance up
from my book
slumped on the
hard corner of
the bleachers
to see bat smack
ball hit floor bounce
into the black
glove we brought
home less than
24 hours ago.
M---'s eyes,
astonished,
meet mine,
my arm reaches
out, thumbs-up.
We leave the
gym into blue
sky day. Him,
ecstatic, me, terrified
my Saturdays will
be swallowed whole.


Abide

Rocking in the antique chair,
full-moon round belly,
she waits, and waits, and waits,
for what will come next,
pink-limbed crying baby.
She bundles him to her breast,
whispers, “Be still, be still.”
Limbs grow fat and long and strong,
search out sharp things, spill milk.
She breathes in deep and chants
a mantra in her head, “Be patient,
be patient.” Limbs keep growing,
and the tongue too. She endures
the screaming phase, the lying phase,
the backtalk phase, the never-stop-
talking phase, the gruff-and-grunt
phase. Endures also the broken
china, elbows everywhere, sweaty
socks and moldy sandwiches. And
then one day he's gone, and she paces
the floor, listlessly, picking up
broken matchbox car, putting down
old soccer trophy, the quiet
throbbing in her head. She settles
in the rocking chair, its old
wood creaking into the silence.

Happy Earth Day

I took the kids to the annual Earth Day and Alumni weekend at my Alma mater this past weekend. They had a lot of fun in the kid areas, meeting farm animals, drawing pictures, making felted earth balls, planting seeds. M liked riding this battery-charging Exercycle so much that I think we'll hook our TV up to one.

In one tent they were fascinated touching and examining the preserved skins and skulls of various wild animals and the National Park employee was impressed by how "nature-oriented" they were--I puffed up a bit, thinking I must be doing something right (also I was hoping the skins hadn't been preserved with anything too toxic).

The college students who ran the activities seemed so unbelievable young (i.e. I felt so unbelievably old), and I couldn't help feeling a little sad at being just a visitor at this place I was once a part of. I also was kicking myself for not appreciating all it had to offer more than I did. And I was wondering, "What in h*ll have I been doing for the last 14 years???"

Later we followed the nature trail down to the beach behind the college (yeah, I went to a college with a beach, and a National Park in the back yard. Jealous?), where they climbed the cliffs and dug for sea glass. They could have stayed there for days I'm sure, but I finally dragged them away to go meet our friends and walk into town, where they enjoyed pretending to shoot off these cannons.

For dinner we went to a movie theater/pizzeria and sat in old couches watching Monsters vs. Aliens. It was their first trip to a movie theater since the twins were two months old and I took M to go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, hoping the babies would sleep through the movie. Instead I had to alternately nurse them through the entire thing, trying to keep them quiet enough to not disturb others (and it wasn't even that good of a movie for all that trouble!). Fortunately, this time was a lot easier--the theater was full of kids, so I didn't have to worry about any kind of ruckus my kids made, and once the movie started they were frozen/terrified and didn't make a peep (nor would they eat their pizza until intermission).

Sunday we hiked a short trail to another beach, but even though it was still mostly sunny, the wind was freezing, so we didn't stay long, and everyone was mad at me that I enforced the National Park rule of "take nothing but pictures" and made them leave the sea glass and sea shells there (yes it does seem arbitrary to a 3 year old, but principles are principles).

Monday morning I woke up with a sore throat, thinking it was just our friends' cat finally catching up with me, but as we drove home, a headache set in. We dropped M off at one of his grandma's house for a few days (it's vacation week here), and while we visited there I started feeling worse and worse. By the time we got home, I knew I was sick, went to bed at 7 p.m., called in sick yesterday and stayed in bed all day (with a book), which is actually something I've been wishing for for a long time (yes, it is sick to wish you could get sick just so you can rest), but I had a hard time relaxing because our house was so messy, and I'll be going away again next weekend, so finally in late afternoon I dragged myself out of bed to straighten up and fix dinner, and ended up staying up way too late to finish my last poetry assignment.

And now, on actual Earth Day, we're back to our usual routine of work and daycare, with nothing special planned to honor Earthy things like gigantic barnacles (can you believe the size of this thing? The hole in the middle was about the size of a penny!).

Just Say NO...To Plastic

Yesterday I took the afternoon off of work (comp time for a long day in Chelmsford last week), and went to a nearby GIANT antiques barn with a friend. Skipping over the part about the two great table cloths, and the juice glasses and the yellow fire king bowl I found, and the gorgeous bowl set I saw on the way out at closing time and NEED to go back and get today, I want to tell you about the two boxes of paper straws we saw. Yes, you heard that right. Straws used to be made out of paper.


I have lately--over the last year or so--been trying to wean my family off of plastic. I did fairly well in this area in college and my early childless years, but somehow, having kids created in my some kind of environmental amnesia and I started buying them plastic toys! I woke from this daze when M was about two and realized, to my horror, that my life was filled with plastic crap--plates, cups, silverware, toys inside, toys outside. The madness had to stop! I started out by not buying him more stuff, period, unless it was his birthday or Christmas, and trying to find wooden or fabric non-made-in-China stuff. This helped for awhile, until he started getting his own money and begging for regular trips to Reny's to blow his wad on Hotwheels and Matchbox sets. And suddenly, once again, I found myself mired in plastic!


It's not that plastic is offensive to my aesthetic sensibilities (although it is), it's that plastic NEVER EVER goes away--instead of bio-degrading, in which bacteria and fungi break a product down into its chemical components, plastic photo-degrades; UV light breaks it down into smaller and smaller pieces, but those pieces are still essentially plastic (the polymer chains remain intact). As those pieces break down, they are taken up by animals--you've heard of turtles swallowing bags they think are jellyfish, and the great albatrosses whose carcasses are full of plastic bits--but even the tiniest sea creatures, the zooplankton, take in microscopic bits of plastic, and because the plankton is the foundation of the oceanic food chain, these plastics work their way into the bodies of everything that depends on the sea (which is pretty much everything). To make matters worse, persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic chemicals (e.g. PCBs) are attracted to plastics and bond to them, riding with them into the food chain. Bad news all around.


So, whether my own contribution really makes a difference one way or the other, I consider it unconscionable to NOT try to reduce my own use and disposal of plastics. Which means no more plastic toys. Only all-natural fabrics for clothing and home use, preferably used, or if new, then organic and sweat-shop free. Buying the majority of our foods locally and in bulk, and growing and making as much as we can to avoid cartons, bags, wrappers, packages, etc. Still...our little (plastic) under-sink trash can fills up with plastic food packaging every week...and that's discouraging. Which brings us back to the antique store and the straws. Straws used to be made out of paper, people! And remember crackers came in paper sleeves inside cardboard boxes? Milk cartons were waxed paper, with no plastic pouring spout. Toys came in cardboard boxes, not clamshells. The produce section had little paper bags with fold-up handles. This was just in my memory--go back 10, 20, 30, 50 years earlier and watch plastics fade from usage altogether.


I don't deny that plastic is useful (e.g. this dad-blasted typing machine I'm using right now), but if we could limit it to those uses that don't have an alternative--electronic media (although using paper or cardboard cases for DVDs and CDs), computers, medical equipment, safety items (carseats, life jackets, bike helmets); and eliminate it from all of the discretionary, one-use-and-then-throw-it-away uses (grocery bags, shrink wrap, those freakin' vinyl covers that my organic mattress pads came in and which I swear I will send back to the company with a letter any day now)...then I think the turtles and albatrosses and zooplankton will have a bit more of a fighting chance, don't you?


If you want to read more about plastic, and getting rid of it, boogy on over to Fake Plastic Fish (and bookmark her blog...you'll be happy you do!) and check out this week's Green Mom's Carnival of bloggers writing about--and trying to get away from--plastic. And suggestions for deplastifying are most welcome!