On Wednesday of last week, Ian, Lucas, and I got to spend some time in Asher’s Red Rose Kindergarten class. We got to participate in the morning circle time and then the teacher put a golden silk cape on him and a golden crown with a golden star on it. She then told the story of Asher’s life so far. It went something like this …

Once there was a star child playing in the starry gardens of the sky with other star children and his angel guide. One day, he looked down and saw a beautiful blue-green marble glowing down in the sky below him. He saw children playing in the woods, flying kites while beautiful waves crashing on sandy beaches, and babies snug in their mothers’ arms and thought to himself, I’d like to go there. He told his angel guide what he wanted to do, and the angel replied, “Yes, you may go down to the sparkling world. I will go and find you a mommy and a daddy, who will love you and take care of you and welcome you into their family.”

Then the angel guide came down to the earth and found a mommy and a daddy who loved each other very much. They were ready for a baby to love, who would be a brother for their son and a cherished new child in their family. And so the angel guide helped the star child slide down the rainbow bridge into the welcoming arms of his loving family, where he could learn, and play, and grow, and be himself.

{Teacher leads Asher around the circle, asking the blessing of the stars (other children, who make hand motions showing their blessing), the sun (more children blessing as he passes), and the moon (more children blessing Asher with hand motions. Then, she leads Asher to walk on a rainbow cloth and he crosses and comes to my lap.}

His family named him Asher. When he was an infant, he drank mama milk and grew to be healthy and roly-poly. He was a happy baby and he laughed all the time.

{Teacher rings a bell and places it on a gold star on the table. There are five stars on the table.} When he was one year old, he learned to crawl and visited Mama Ocean. He felt the sand in his hands and on his feet.

{Teacher rings a bell and places it on the second gold star} When he was two years old, he learned to walk and talk. He giggled a lot, especially when his big brother was silly. He went on an airplane with his family and grandparents to an island far away and met some sea turtles.

{Teacher rings a bell and places it on the third gold star} When he was three years old, he went to preschool and made many new friends. He sang and painted and played in the garden, helping to plant the seeds. He also camped in the desert and saw many colorful things.

{Teacher rings a bell and places it on the fourth gold star} When he was four years old, he enjoyed visiting the woods and the beach very much. He played with his brother and joined the Red Rose Kindergarten, where he made many, many more friends.

{Teacher rings a bell and places it on the fifth gold star} And now that he is five, he is very alive. And we are celebrating Asher’s birthday. {Teacher lights a special beeswax birthday candle that I decorated for him at the beginning of the year. All the children sing a birthday song to him.}

Asher was then given two gifts. One was this beautiful book full of birthday drawings from his classmates and his two teachers.

This is Mrs. L’s drawing in Asher’s birthday book.

This is a drawing from a sweet classmate.

Asher opened his second gift, his very own handmade House Elf. This doll is about 8 inches tall and features a tiny star on the top of his hat.

Asher has named him Miko, and played and played with him this week.

Although Ian and Lucas went to work and class, respectively, I stayed in the Kindergarten for the whole morning. I got to interact with beautiful children and see Asher play with his friends. I got to guess the names of some kids’ Little Ones (small Waldorf dolls that each child has as his or her own special friend).  During snack time we ate oatmeal and the strawberry fairy cakes I baked. We played both inside and outside, did clean-up chores (with each child accomplishing his or her assigned job), and I watched entranced as Asher sat in teacher’s lap and played the lyre, while his classmates rested on the rug. Seeing 18 children lying quietly for 10 minutes or so was nothing short of miraculous. Finally, we ended our beautiful Kindergarten day by going for a walk into the woods all the way to the great fallen oak tree, which my boys and I call the Bee Tree because there is an active beehive in a hole in the trunk of the tree. It is a good 15 feet in the air because the tree roots and branches are propping the trunk up high, like a great archway. It’s a magical place and I love it there. The children climbed the great tree’s branches and then played tag until it was time to walk back.

Asher and I left school then and went to have lunch together.

Is it any wonder that my little son feels so secure and nourished in this school environment?

Asher is 5! We have been celebrating in simple and joyful ways for several days now. This is how we celebrated his special day at home. Since it was a Tuesday and a school day, we had our normal rhythms to fit in, also.

“Is I’m 5?” was the first thing we heard that morning. Daddy told him he was a big boy and Asher said, “No. I’m a medium boy.” Very well, then. Our breakfast table had a special place setting for Asher, flowers, rainbows, our Family Candle, and a beautiful bell. In our house, the birthday boy gets to wear his Birthday Crown and ring the bell as loud as he likes on his birthday morning. Asher got to open one gift, his mama-made fleece dragon mittens and hat.

After school, I picked him up and we went for a nature walk with Solstice the dog. We walked to the huge fallen oak tree that we call the Bee Tree because it has an active beehive way up high. You can see the bees going in and out. It’s a magical place with woods all around and the bike trail. Walking Solstice is not nearly as easy as walking with 5-year-old Asher.

In the afternoon, we snuggled and he napped, we picked up Lucas from school, and then the boys played outside. Asher rode on Lucas’s old bike—we put the training wheels on it just the other day. Mama baked a cake using the Waldorf Birthday Cake recipe. Yum! It’s made with honey and yogurt—dense and moist. When Daddy came home, he made Asher’s requested dinner of stir fry with Chinese noodles.

And then we had cake!

I’m pretty sure he felt special.

The kids got ready for bed, then Asher opened his birthday gifts—two story books (Miss Rumphius and Runya, the Fire Fairy) …

… and a LEGO idea book. And a build-your-own kaleidoscope kit and sun print paper.

He opened his new Stockmar crayons and the crayon holder I made him …

… and the alphabet stones, which we played with a bit.

(I kind of love these. They are nice to touch.)

And the marvelous evening culminated in this: Lucas GAVE Asher his old bike. Lucas washed it and polished it nicely and tied a big bow on it. Now Asher has a big-boy bike to ride outside with brother! What a perfect, thoughtful gift. Lucas got to be the hero. And that suits us just fine.

Today is my baby boy’s fifth birthday. I am over the moon with excitement for him. I live for this stuff, I think. Anyway, over the last several days, I’ve been scrambling to make some gifts for him.

I made these alphabet stones for him using rocks from my yard and my paints. I got this idea from a photo I saw on Pinterest, which I believe is originally from this blog. I am grateful for the fun idea. Asher is five, so I don’t know how or if he will connect with these letters yet, but even if he doesn’t, they are still fun to hold and look at. I think manipulating them to make short words will be fun, and that’s all that matters at this age.

Each stone has its lowercase letter on the other side.

Thanks to a lot of help from my mother and her nifty, first-class serger, I made this fleece dragon hat and a matching pair of mittens. I’ve never done anything like this before and the mittens in particular were challenging for me. But a more accomplished sewist (“sewer” just doesn’t look that great even though it’s correct, does it?) would have an easy time of it, I think. I just traced Asher’s hands and made a paper pattern, adding a good 1/2 inch for the seem. I also made the wrist portion wider to ensure that he could get his hand into the mittens. Fortunately, fleece is slightly stretchy and it’s pretty dreamy to sew because it doesn’t fray, so you don’t have to be as nitpicky as with other fabrics. BUT—like I said, we serged these! And my goodness, what a dream of a machine that is! This was the very first time my mama let me touch her serger. (Machines and I don’t always see eye to eye.)

OK, the back of the mittens look best. Anyway, he went off to school this morning wearing them!

And finally, here is a crayon holder I made for his brand-new birthday block crayons. We have block crayons in this house, but technically they belong to Lucas. I thought Asher might like to have his own and a special place to keep them safe. (I don’t know if he WILL keep them safe, but with the crayon holder’s pockets he COULD.)

This item has 22 wee pockets, with six that are empty now so he could add to it later. And to be honest, I still have to sew a ribbon tie on one end of the crayon holder before I can wrap this up. So, I’d better go do that.

Today is for writing, wrapping, baking a cake, and baking a class set of muffins for tomorrow’s Kindergarten celebration. Tonight we’ll have a small family celebration with Asher’s choice of dinners—Daddy’s stir fry with Chinese noodles.

I don’t have enough website savvy to go dark today in protest of PIPA and SOPA legislation, but I can encourage anyone who happens to stop by here today to oppose it. Go here https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/#utm_source=googlesem&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=signup or here http://americancensorship.org/ to sign petitions to stop internet censorship.

In other news, things are chugging along here at home nicely. While I went to painting class last night and worked on the painting you see above, my fellas all stayed home and had a great evening together. They got out the erector set and built robots and mechanical whirligigs for fun, played with Legos, and read some Winnie the Pooh together. This is made of win-win. My painting isn’t finished so I get to work on it again next Tuesday.

The little dog Solstice is now officially a member of our family. Ian bought him a tag and took down the signs. He has settled in so beautifully it’s really no surprise. He is exceptionally mellow and does a lot of sleeping and snuggling all day and all evening.

But he’s always ready to play and prances about in a very sprightly manner. He doesn’t like to be left home alone so we take him along as often as we can. This morning he bounded into Ian’s car to go to school with the boys. We had to remind him he was staying home with me today.

And this is about as cute as can be. He barks once or twice when someone approaches the front door, and at this moment is lying on the couch grumbling because the yard guys are here. But he greets everyone with great friendliness and seems to be happy here.

I’m working, but not too much. The kids are healthy. I should be planning Asher’s birthday party but so far I’ve not really gotten anywhere with it. He wants a jungle birthday; last year he had a jungle dragon birthday, so I’m not sure what to do differently. Certainly our garden doesn’t look very jungly at this time of year. It’s bare and a little frost burned.

I went looking for some places of peace and quiet around here and this is all I found. There are heaps of laundry to do and Legos all over the place. It’s an endless stream of chores. And while I’ll soon go and do some of them, I feel pretty good about stopping in here to write a bit just the same. Life is good and I get to enjoy it.

These holy, family days have been so full. We are enjoying. Resting.

Coloring.

Playing with so, so many wonderful gifts.

We have had long, luxurious visits from friends, and a sweet party that we are very honored to host.

The little dog, Solstice, is a great joy to us all. We still don’t know where he is from. We haven’t had even a single nibble on the ads we placed, hoping to find his owners. In the meantime, whatever the outcome, we are enjoying him ever so much. And now I have someone new and fluffy to point my camera at.

We’ve been reading new books in our leisure and drinking too much delicious coffee. Nursing head colds.

Experimenting with magical ice … to see what we can make, of course.

Cutting snowflakes and folding window stars. (LOVE!)

After all the working>making>striving>doing>going> leading up to and including Christmas day, we are now fully and happily settled into our hibernation days, our holy, family days. There is plenty to do—very little of it is urgent. So perhaps we’ll do some laundry. Or cook. Or play more Legos or a game. Or go for another walk instead …

Or climb a tree …

while we learn more about each other …

and see what we can find along the way.

Asher is sick today with a cold. I apologize to everyone he came into contact with over the last two days; I hope we haven’t gotten anyone sick. He had a rough night last in our bed, which means none of us slept well. I confess I find it hard to be a compassionate mother in the middle of the night when a thrashing child is alternately pawing at me and randomly punching my face.

But look at him. He looks tired and sad. Today we’re taking it easy. I went out this morning into my backyard and gathered up all the spare pieces of wood I could find. These are all the sticks my kids find and bring home, bits of home carpentry projects, bits that fall off our trees in winds, etc. These are the pieces of wood my kids bash each other with at every chance they get—swords, knives, spears, scimitars, poleaxes—you get the picture. Then I lit a fire for Asher and me.

Unfortunately, this novel entertainment will end soon, as we will rapidly run out of wood to burn.

So we are playing LEGO by the fire, while it lasts. Asher is telling me about Earthland, and his pet dragon, and pontificating about what color of fire is the most dangerous—blue, in case you didn’t know. I expect we’ll spend a good part of the rest of the day on the couch.

He tells me I should build ships that do better things than science vessels. Apparently my science vessels are boring.

The second light of Advent is the light of plants,
Plants that reach up to the sun and in the breezes dance.

Yes, this is how we began the second week of Advent last Sunday. We drove up to Apple Hill to a Christmas tree farm and roamed about for a while. It had been several years of not enough time or good weather to do this family tradition, so we felt it was time.

The boys enjoyed combing the hillside, and of course, had to go to the very tippy top of the mountain. Asher felt like he was in the woods. That is really an unbeatable feeling when you’re a kid, to feel way out away from civilization and wander among the trees. Most of these trees were pretty young, but it worked fine for little Asher.

When we finally found the perfect tree, Lucas did the cutting.

I snapped this photo because I just couldn’t get over how blue this silver fir tree was.

I conned them into posing for pictures, but only got the super silly kind. That’s OK, though. I think I love those the best. I love to see them having fun.

We stopped at Boa Vista Orchards for a lunch of burgers and some produce shopping. We bought the juiciest Asian pears ever. We picked up an apple blueberry pie to take home, too. Daddy felt that a pie baking in the oven would be the perfect compliment to tree decorating. I think he was right.

We played Christmas lounge music and covered the little tree with shiny ornaments, red ornaments, and stars. There are lots of ornaments left over this year because this Christmas tree is smaller than usual. I’m thinking up other ways to use them. (I admit I really adore ornaments.)

We think it’s lovely.

Kind old man Saint Nicholas, dear,
Come into our house this year.
Here’s some straw and here’s some hay
For your little donkey gray.

Pray put something into my shoe;
I’ve been good the whole year through.
Kind old man Saint Nicholas dear,
Come into our house this year.

I’m feeling so grateful for all the amazing, creative support we have received over the years and continue to receive from our Waldorf school, especially with regard to festivals. Today, when I picked him up from school, my 4.5-year-old son Asher was clutching a small handful of hay (tied neatly with a piece of yarn) to give to Saint Nicholas’s donkey. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything cuter than my little guy, manfully carrying his lunch box and water bottle at the end of a long day, with this little bit of hay in his fist.

I’m actually (blissfully) ready for Saint Nicholas’s Day this year. This is not always the case, I assure you! In years past, Nicholas has come to our house on December 7. But this year I’ve got goodies for my dovies’ shoes all ready. I also have this handsome Saint Nicholas that I made last year. Today I put out a pretty display and asked Asher who it was. “Saint Nicholas!” he said with that special sophistication that only a younger sibling can have.

The other reason I’m feeling gratful—at the moment—is because I just spent a half hour going through two giant binders full of Waldorf materials that I’ve been given and gathered over the last eight years to pull out more Advent poems, Saint Nicholas stories, Santa Lucia recipes and more. These festivals have enriched my children’s lives—and mine—so much, even though they mean extra work and extra mindfulness. I have a deep love for any holiday that includes magic that happens in the dark of night, to be revealed only by the light of the dawn—to the delight of my whole family. In our home, many holidays involve this kind of nighttime miracle.

And so, we will see what happens tomorrow morning, after the shoes have been polished and placed neatly by the front door. We’ll leave out our carrot and that sweet clutch of hay for Saint Nicholas’s donkey in the hopes that they will visit us in the night and decide that we’ve been good—good enough, perhaps, for a treat or two.

It’s been hard lately. I would be lying if I said otherwise. Today was good in these important ways:

Sleepover friends kept Lucas and Asher well entertained until 3 p.m. I got to work during this time (in between their many feedings).

They created a “Kid Café” in my kitchen and served herbal tea and toast. Lucas wrote out everyone’s orders: “Bred tostid, Honey, Buder, sleepytime.”

I cut a persimmon in half to show the kids the eight-pointed sunburst/wheel of the year inside. They didn’t much care, but I did.

T’s favorite piano piece got markedly better as the day wore on. She practiced it about a hundred times. It’s a lovely, sad piece of music that she is playing by heart.

I watched a kid-made paper puppet play. It was extremely goofy. Asher sneaked in a mention of “poop” at every opportunity to see if I would react.

I wrote a poem. I made a pretty gewgaw. I made plans for more creations.

As soon as their friends left, Asher fell apart and fell asleep. While my sick baby napped (and coughed and cried), Lucas needle-felted two new toys for himself: a knight and an archer, complete with weapons.

I lit candles and enjoyed them, even though my sick little one screamed that he hates candles and why won’t anyone listen to him and put them out?!

I left the house for an hour for groceries and supplies. I bought whiskey. The outing was worth it.

The Internet made me cry, but then it made me cry again in a good way because as awful as some people can be, others can be even more amazing.

My husband is dreamy.

In the Fall

I walk on yellow leaves in fall,
And see the earth from summer turning.

I hear the brown birds’ distant call,
And smell the autumn fires burning.

Soon all the leaves will fade and die,
The last wild birds will rise and roam.

The wind will blow and snow will fly.
But I’ll be warm and safe at home.

This poem and art is from The Animal Fair by Alice and Martin Povensen, which is one of the grooviest Golden Books ever published (originally 1952). Bergin Streetman posted about it on Vintage Kids’ Books My Kid Loves, coincidentally on Asher’s birthday this year, so you can see more there. This book is chock-full of amazing artwork, poems, jokes, and stories. It’s very fun.

Isn’t this lovely?