My full, full life

Well, it has been a busy few months! I have been a little overwhelmed by some of the hard and just busy things in life this year. My job as a youth leader is fantastic - I love my volunteers and my students, but it is 20 hrs a week, fit in around full time parenting most of the time, with some help from Dave. And I still have Owen home all the time, so the days are busy, busy. Then there was winter - a long, hard, cold, ice filled winter. My boys weren't allowed outside for recess for three weeks straight because the school yard was sheer ice. And then there was this Lent - sometimes I have one idea about what I'm giving up for Lent, and then God has his own plans for winter pruning and winnowing. God's plans are better, but much harder than the ones I have for myself.

In any case, our cold Easter came with snow still on the ground, but bunnies for the younger two kids anyways. I made Owen a hipster / barber shop quartet bunny, which was more fun for me, and he loves him. Emma's is sweeter and more traditional, but still bright and fun.

With the long cold Spring we have been doing LOTS of crafts. I refilled our kids' stamp pad with blue ink from the stationary store - not glamourous, but the clearest ink we've had to work with in a long time. The cigar boxes, which look cool on our open kitchen shelves, are courtesy of Dave's hobby.

And this is one single image that captures why my house is ALWAYS messy. See that bin of stuff I had just picked up off the floor 5 min. ago, all ready to be put away in its proper places? Ha. Owen 537-Mom 0

I have really gotten into knitting lately. This is a fortunately / unfortunately kind of thing. Fortunately, knitting is portable and can be taken to sit on the floor while the toddler plays, of taken to the 30 Hour Famine overnight trip. Unfortunately, I don't have a knitting stash so my fabric all sits, calling out to me, while I ignore it and skrimp and save to buy yarn instead of quilt batting.

These leg warmers were mostly just for the texture - this in Noro yarn from Japan and I loved the subtle colour variations. They are great for cool spring mornings, when you know it will be shorts weather in an hour, but its still too cold to walk to the park right NOW.

These were fun, too (thank you 30 Hr famine and the last season of Dr Who). I have a sweatshirt with 3/4 length sleeves that is the perfect weight for early spring and late fall. So, funky arm warmers. These are one of the few things I actually get comments on in Montreal (most things I make, no matter how funky, are still within the range of normal here, or they could be bought at some cool store on the Plateau).

My next project is a chunky pullover sweater for me. I know, I've only been knitting for 2 years, but I really started knitting because I can never find sweaters I like. So, onto my true knitting scheme -  building myself a great stack of sweaters and cardigans and vests.

I am terrible at keeping track of rows and what abbreviations mean, even on the 40th time doing the same increase, so I always make a ton of notes. You would think I would remember eventually, but I just can't keep those kinds of things in my head - they fall out as soon as a new thought comes along.

You might have seen this quilt before, maybe? Like, for the last three years! My last piece of batting is sandwiched between the finished windmill quilt top and some lovely Anna Maria Horner (plus a favorite Erin McMorris print and something else from long, long ago that was languishing in my stash).

This quilt is kind of like my last few years - I had great ambitions and plans and dreams for it, but right now it is wonky (in some places on purpose, in others by accident), bumpy, most of the corners are cut off and the quilting is a bit of a disaster. But it is done, it is colourful and fun and the backing fabric is beautiful. It is not at all what I planned on it being, but it is good in its own way.

That would have been a lovely way to end, wouldn't it. But wait, there's more! One of my favorite spring ambitions (that rarely ever lasts through the whole summer)  - to have a beautiful-ish back yard. This year we bought lots of colourful flowers and planted them up in the pots we tried growing veggies in last year. Hopefully the toddler will be kind to them and I will remember to water them, and they will bring lots of joy and cheer to our back yard.

Aaron loves doing anything with his hands, and planting flowers is no exception - he took over almost all the baskets and wouldn't let me plant a thing!

I had one of those "real" Montrealer moments yesterday - I picked this great little shelf up off the side of the road. It is perfect to give Owen his own corner for his toys. The poor boy needs his own spot somewhere in the house, after all!

Finally, I am hopeful that I will get at least a quilt top done for Dave before his 40th birthday in June. I'm going to do a simple 4X8 rectangle grid (because NDG = bricks) in colours I know he likes. Fortunately, the colours he likes rolled back into style just in the nick of time. Whew.

So that is a little life and creativity summary. I hope I get more time to blog this summer, but I'm not counting on it. I almost have a working smartphone ( a story for another day when I don't have kids to put to bed), so I might be on Instagram soon.

Okay, off you go to read about all the cool kids who got to go to Quilt Market!

School's In!

After a summer full of a little of this (that would be us getting off the Metro):

And  a lot of this:

An possibly even more of this:

And a bit of:

And a lot of:

And even more:

And quite a few batches of:

And a little bit of:

And more than enough of this for my taste:

And plenty of:

. . . . we have finally made it to the first day of school. Summer with four busy children. What a ride that was.

After this touching scene of "quick, run on the bus before Mom hugs us in front of people or can take photos for her blog"

I returned to the relatively quiet world of the two littlest ones.

I

Oh, don't worry mom. We'll be sure to keep you busy for the next ten months . . .

Why I haven't got to sew this month . . .

I have been working away on my friend's baby quilt, but other than that, I haven't got to much sewing this month. Do you want to see why?

Owen is climbing on top of all kinds of fun things.

Owen is into everything. Finding toothbrushes, pairs of shoes and a full set of anything these days is a challenge. He LOVES to relocate things.

And he loves OUTSIDE.

Can we go out NOW, Mom?

And he's realized there's a BIG world out there that he wants to see.

Not to mention all sorts of exciting things to explore in the house.

And then the call of outside again.

Keeping this little boy safe is a full time job these days. Not to mention the other three kids who need to be kicked off Netflix, sent into the back yard, helped with puppets and playdoh and forced to clean up themselves and their assorted messes . . . sigh. Parenthood is good and glorious and hard. Just as it should be, I suppose.

But sewing has to go on the backburner until we can regularly find two matching shoes again . . .

The sun is finally out, and the snow is melted in front of our house, but not yet in our dark bottom-of-the-hill-surrounded-by-duplexes back yard. Last Thursday (also garbage day - my apologies)Emma and Aaron decided to try out their new Spring box of sidwalk chalk.

They spent a while tracing each other on the sidewalk and drawing on the side of the house.

I love watching these two play together. People often laud the benefits of having kids really close together so that they will play. But Emma and Aaron, at almost three years difference, are the fartherst apart of all my kids.

When we first moved to Montreal, though, they were the two kids that went off to daycare together, and stayed home with Dad together. This means that they have spent a lot of time together.

Now that Aaron is in school, they don't see each other as much, so it is always a joy to watch them re-connect and play together. Their play is very visceral and physical and involves lots of jumping, dancing, and running. This little girl LOVES her big brother and is always happy to have his undivided attention.

Sometimes I feel guilty for all the quiet home time with Mom that they missed. I feel bad that their early childhoods were so full of upheaval - moves, job changes, changes in caregivers.

But I am glad for this beautiful relationship and bond it has created between these two siblings.

I really hope they can carry this closeness with them through life. What a blessing and gift that would be for both of them.

Distracted Blogging

When I look at my blog lately, I feel the need to apologize a bit. My blog kind of mirrors my real life conversations these days. When I think back to most of my conversations, I can't remember the end of them because, well, there hardly ever is an end.

Any of you who have children will know (or possibly remember or have blocked out?) what I mean. I am getting to know a Mom at the park and I'm asking how she met her husband and then our little girls run down the hill and we have to make sure they're not going on the street, or I'm telling someone about my latest craft project and then the baby starts screaming because someone took something away from him.

And you never seem to get back to the "so anyway, as I was saying . . . ". Instead you find yourself starting a new conversation because neither of you remembers what you were talking about before you had to find the playmobil viking helmet or decide who gets the piece of Lego that used to be part of Shelob's web mechanism two months ago . . .

In fact right now, the only reason I'm finishing this blog post is because I'm pretending that this isn't happening in the background:

In any case, all that to say - bear with me. I will get back to being able to complete a coherent sentence.  Or blog post, as the case may be.

Cause and Effect + Sleep Deprivation =

a day like today for my Kindergarten age son who was complaining of a sore tummy this morning. But it was Friday, and I thought he would probably shake it off soon, and so I harried him about eating breakfast and harried him about getting dressed and harried him about not packing his things and getting out the door quickly enough. And so he left with only thin gloves and no snowpants.

But I thought, "Well, if he's really sick they'll call and send him home at lunch time". and "Its not that cold, so he should be okay without his snowpants".

And I completely forgot that he was going on his FIRST field trip today, to a Maple Sugar Shack and I was supposed to send not just snow pants but extra socks and mittens for when his first pair got wet, as he would be out in the forest all day.

And he came home complaining that he was cold, and I realized he had been on his field trip and I had not sent the proper gear. And he said it was okay, that he had run around in the forest and had fun and not been cold at all at the time.

Then he felt sick, and he said that he had eaten an awful lot of maple toffee (maple syrup frozen in snow) and sausage and lots of other things and his stomach was kind of sore. And he was still cold.

And he lay on the couch half asleep wrapped up in blankets during movie night and didn't eat popcorn.

And I shortly discovered exactly what he had eaten at the Maple Sugar Shack as it all came back up all over the couch cushions (and then into the bucket I grabbed, because he is getting a little bit older).

Sigh.

Solidarity

I don't know if it was the blowing snow, or the early morning, or the fact that my husband is away for the weekend, but today I feel connected. Connected to all the mom friends I have all across the country who are performing the same parenting rituals as me. Waking up too early. Making coffee. Planning school lunches. Snuggling babies. Fixing lego ships with fumbling, not yet awake hands. Wrapping arms around children as they climb on and off my lap, or check in as they run by making blasting noises. Finding missing socks, boots, neckwarmers and mittens. Waving goodbye with a baby on my hip as the bus drives away. Coming back home for a snuggle and a snack with my littlest littles.

On days like today I miss the times before I had school aged kids, when I could sneak off to my friends' houses and live in solidarity with other moms of young ones for a few days. I miss those days of sharing my morning coffee with friends, laughing and joking and making endless rounds of toast for hungry little mouths.

I wish our culture shared motherhood more. I wish we opened our homes - clean or not - to our friends for mornings, afternoons, and weekends. Parenting is so much easier when it is shared among a group of mothers and when the children can play with one another. Living together, instead of just formal visiting, is a beautiful, lost art. I wish we could reclaim it.

In the meantime, I will send my words out to you, my friends, across the country (and through this blog the world). Pour yourself some coffee. Make some toast. Snuggle your little (or big) ones close. And invite someone over for the afternoon - whether your house is clean or not.

Definitely not a Baking Blog

So, I've been doing some Christmas baking in the last week or so, and it has reminded me of why, although I bake all the time, I don't write a food blog.

First, there is the fact that my kids mostly like the same three kinds of cookies. I don't know how many posts I could do about chocolate chip cookies, molasses cookies and oatmeal muffins. It might get a little stale.

Second, there is the fact that there is anywhere from between one and four "helpers" with me when I bake. This means that decorating often looks like this:

 And turns out like this:

 While it is fun to eat these sugar cookies (okay, it WAS fun to eat them . . . Christmas cookies never last until Christmas around here) and it was fun to make them, they're not exactly photogenic. And to me, that's okay. The making and eating was the part that matters.

Then, there is what happens when I try a new recipe. They were supposed to look like these ones , but instead mine were these giant, strangely shaped stripe-y things.

 Of course, these were meant for a cookie exchange, so I cut the rest of the batches in half and formed them into nicer, more elegant cookies for my lovely mom friends:

 I baked a double batch of sugar cookies, in order to make the above pepermint cookies and a batch of normal sugar cookies, as I thought they would be fun for Emma to throw icing and sprinkles on. They were, but I decided that the problem with sugar cookies is that they're not really worth the amount of calories they cost.

 Don't get me wrong. I ate these. I ate many. But they are more of a conduit of icing than something that I would normally eat for its own sake. I think next year if I'm going to buy and use and consume that much butter again, I'm going to make shortbread.

Fortunately for my sons' teachers, I also decided to make some of this peppermint bark. This stuff if really good, and I like to think it at least somewhat compensates for having to teach my children.

We also made our yearly batch of gingerbread, but it was  a bit of a bust. I used margerine in a recipe that called for butter and the dough was so crumbly that we could hardly get our shapes to stay together long enough to get to the pan. I told them to pretend to be thrilled, even though our dough was falling apart:

 The highlight of this baking disaster (aside from getting to sit on the table while wearing chain mail) was getting to try out our ninjabread men cookie cutters. Andrew (mr. white-belt-with-one-yellow-stripe) was excited that the ninjas are actually doing poses he's learning in Tae Qwon-Do.

 I might consider making a second batch over Christmas holidays if we get too stir crazy. As an alternative to, say, hitting our brother in the head with things to see what hurts the most or teaching the baby how to defend himself from light sabre blows.