Asher got mad at me last night. It seems he was hungry and wanted a snack. I began to warm up some leftovers for me and the boys to eat for dinner, as we were going to have to leave home very soon to make it to Lucas’s piano lesson. Apparently I didn’t act soon enough because he started to melt down.

Asher asked, “Are you going to feed me a snack?”

“No. I’m feeding you dinner. It’s chicken meat,” I said confidently, knowing that he devours the stuff.

“I don’t want dinner! I want a snaaaaack!”

A moment of quiet passed. I put the food on the table and walked into the living room with a sinking feeling.

He was standing on the window seat ripping down the snowflakes we had made and hung together. He stood with a crumpled mess at his feet. He knew just exactly how to hurt me. He knew I loved them.

I will absolutely grant you that it’s silly to cry over ripped paper snowflakes, but that is exactly what I did. Sometimes parenting is really hard. Sometimes children do rotten, hurtful things. And as much as I’d like to say I am above being insulted or hurt by their capricious natures, I am not, even though I try to be. There’s no point in taking something like this personally.

But that’s an interesting dilemma in my mind. I personally infuse so very much of me into my parenting. How much more personal can a 24/7 job be? Is it possible to operate so very intimately, so personally, only when things are okay, and then just blithely duck and weave when the “snow” starts flying? Maybe. But maybe not all the time.

Objectively I know that Asher is on the cusp of being 4, or in the prophetic words of the subtitle of my favorite parenting book series, “Wild and Wonderful.” He is feisty and willful and he wants what he WANTS! He is in control of very little in his life, and he is developmentally compelled to try to control it all.

I think seeing mama’s tears flowing because of something he did was a powerful moment for him (arguably both good and bad). He sobbed and remembered some of the right things to say.

“I’m sorry, Mama. I’ll never do dat again! We should forgive ourselves.”

Yes, I suppose we should.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

We don’t have any real snow. Today’s high is expected to be 61 degrees F. We enjoy these warmish winters in California, our afternoons without a jacket. We also long for some honest-to-goodness, stay-home-from-school snowman-making days. Alas, we have to pretend.

I deliberately left some snowflake Christmas ornaments out this year, even though the rest of Christmas is all packed away. They help remind me that the season is beautiful, even amid the mud. Perhaps Mr. Bentley, the snowflake king, inspired me a bit.

I pulled out last year’s paper snowflakes. Lucas was into them last year and helped me make some. He’s got other things on his mind this year, though, (like creating creatures and writing about them).

Asher, on the other hand, thought I was a miracle worker when I cut new snowflakes the other evening and let him carefully unfold them. He was amazed and it was such a joy to see his rosy-cheeked face light up when the snowflake was revealed! Yesterday, after school, we taped the paper flakes up on our windows. Asher helped and thought it looked “AWESOME”!

“Mama, we could make a whole lotta snowflakes!”

“Yes, we can, baby!”

Paper snowflakes look nice silhouetted against an evening sky. (I sometimes cut snowflakes using paper doilies. They make for very lacy edges.

See? You can still have fun with skills learned in primary school: After the kiddos went to bed last night, I busted out some instructions for making five-pointed snowflakes I found on How About Orange. Jessica’s folding instructions are superb and while Ian and I watched Henry Rollins doing stand-up, I cut about five of these star-shaped snowflakes in various sizes.

Here are my five-pointed snowflakes at dawn. Asher was pleased to help stick them to the windows. I think they’re beautiful, if I do say so myself. I don’t know if my dear Mr. Bentley would approve, since this shape of ice crystal is not found in nature, but I think they’re lovely nonetheless. I expect to bust these out again next Christmas, perhaps with some gold foil paper. My thanks to Jessica Jones for the pattern.

Finally, I’m really enjoying this snowflake mobile that our friend Dakini gave us this year. It’s sweet, intricate, and lovely hanging in our kitchen—but mighty hard to photograph!

New year, new energy. That’s my goal. Although it pains me to realize/know/say/type it, the truth is that I’ve been neglecting my physical well-being for months now. And although I absolutely hate being or living a cliché, the truth is that it now, January, seems time to do something about it. I seem forever able to (kind of) balance either work and fitness, or work and family, or family and fitness, but never all three at once. I’m hoping that Asher’s downhill slide into age 4 will sort of tip the scale a bit in the direction of more free time for mama. So, today marks the start of my (our) new diet and exercise plan. Woo hoo!

There. I said it out loud. Maybe that will help. I am glad to have Ian striving by my side in this.

We are excited about getting baby chicks next month and are making arrangements to be there when the shipments arrive at our local feed store. There are a couple of Thursdays in February when the store is supposed to have eight breeds arriving. Newly hatched chicks are shipped right away—for the first three days after hatching they don’t need food or water, so they can be safely shipped and will arrive alive! (This is just amazing to me.)

Once we have them, we’ll have to keep our chicks in our garage for the first eight weeks or so, in a cozy, clean box with a heat source. We are hoping to get all different varieties so that we can know them as individuals and be able to tell them all apart. It will be so fun to hold fluffy chicks and feed them by hand! This is sure to make them very friendly.

The five hens we have are doing great, though their egg production has slowed because of the shorter days of winter. We had a ton of rain in December and it turned our happy hens into sodden, bedraggled hens and our chicken run into a muddy mess. The girls seem to be doing fine regardless of the rainstorms, yet these drier days of January are a relief, I think.

Fireball is quite adventuresome. She led the others right up to our backdoor and peered inside at us, as if to say, “Hey, lady! Let us in!”

Midnight, in the back there, is molting, so she’s looking scruffier than usual, especially on her breast. In November, Snowdrift molted and it was somewhat distressing for us newby chicken farmers to see her looking so scraggly and pathetic, with all those pretty pure-white feathers scattered about. Snowdrift’s new feathers have since grown in and she’s now especially lovely (but shy).

I was surprised that Sunrise was willing to get so close to me. Usually she’s pretty skittish. She gives us green eggs, which is pretty cool if you ask me.

We’re hoping to get Australorp, Plymouth Rock, Buff Orpington, Wyandotte, Sussex, and Welsummer (a hen that lays dark brown eggs) chicks. All of these except the Welsummer are considered to be excellent layers with a high yield and friendly, calm birds. Now isn’t this a whole new kind of geeky?

Lucas has been very keen to have his own old-fashioned feather quill. Yesterday was the day. He announced his desire to Daddy, and while Asher and I went to a birthday party, they set out to make this dream come true by means of a trip to the craft store.

They had to figure out how to cut the feather tips to make a good calligraphy nib; apparently this is harder to do than you might think. Any opportunity to use a knife is a worthwhile endeavor in Lucas’s mind, no matter the difficulty.

The result of their efforts, though, is this beautiful rainbow of quills (his arrangement)—all of which work. They are perfect for writing magical spells in spell books or on fancy parchment paper, don’t you know.

I confess I’m somewhat nervous about the pot of india ink in the hands of an 8-year-old who is frequently prone to daydreaming. There’s nothing for it, however. Not only do I remember my own joyful and spotty experimentation with such arts as a girl (thank you, Nana!), but also I’ve come to terms with an important truth: Parenting is a fundamentally hazardous occupation.

I am not usually one to wax on about science. Don’t get me wrong. I love science and I think it’s perfectly marvelous. People who do science (wait, that’s everyone!) are amazing and clever and inspiring. But usually, I don’t consider myself a science geek …

Except sometimes, when science and beauty intersect. There! Right there is where my interest is captured fully and profoundly.

Enter my latest scientific fascination: W.A. (Wilson Alwyn) Bentley. Mr. Bentley was 17 years old in 1885 when he first paired his love of snowflakes with this newfangled gizmo called the photographic camera. He created on his Vermont family farm the very first photo-micrograph of a snow crystal and thus launched his career. In 1931, the year he died, he published Snow Crystals, in which he published 2,500 of his some 5,000 photographs of snow crystals.

I checked out Bentley’s book (Dover, 1962) from my local library.

And it is AWESOME.

That’s it. Page after page after page of white snow crystals on a black background. Perfect and fragile and exquisite. Fascinating and mind-blowing. Two hundred and one such pages, depicting unique crystals, including snowflakes, ice flowers, windowpane frost, rime, glaze, and graupel. There are only eight pages of text in this miracle of a book.

My dear Mr. Bentley, I think I love you.

A month ago we had the great pleasure of visiting Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks to see author Reg Down tell a story from his book The Bee Who Lost His Buzz. Reg is the author of the Tiptoes Lightly books and my kids love them. For the event, Reg had handcrafted story props with needle-felted wool and silk; he made a Tiptoes, Bee, Cactus, Jeremy Mouse, and the Great Oak Tree where Tiptoes lives.

Some kids had dressed up like their favorite characters from the Tiptoes Lightly books. One boy had a fantastic oak-leaf hat! See it on the right?

With simple props such as cloths, story puppets, and a lyre, Reg skillfully created the world of the fairy, Tiptoes, and her forest friends. The children were enraptured (with one exception, a little girl who decided to go for a stroll).

It was neat to have Reg’s permission to take photos. I tried to be unobtrusive while doing so and I have since shared them with him. Reg posted my photos on his Tiptoes Lightly Facebook page.

After the story, which was the first three chapters of Book 1: The Bee Who Lost His Buzz (also be found in The Tales of Tiptoes Lightly collection), the children were allowed to touch the needle-felted puppets. Both Tiptoes, the beautiful fairy in the blue dress, and grumpy Cactus, the spiky fellow who accidentally snagged Bee’s buzz, were popular for touching.

We brought our (much loved and rumpled) books for Reg to sign. I think this is our kids’ first autograph.

What we love about Reg’s stories is that they are gentle and filled with a child’s reverence for the natural world. Chapters are short and perfect for bedtime. While magic and wonder are threaded throughout, nothing is heavy-handed and there is plenty of sweet humor. Events in the stories often pair beautifully with Waldorf festivals, such as Michaelmas, Martinmas, the season of Advent, Christmas and more. If you haven’t seen them before and you have children ages 3 to 9, check them out. You won’t be disappointed. Reg’s newest books are full color and his paintings are amazing. We bought a copy of The Cricket and the Shepherd Boy for next Christmas.

I haven’t been taking as many photos lately. Being indoors because of cold, crummy weather puts a damper on my photography. I’m rarely satisfied with the shots I take indoors. Yet, here are a few highlights of January so far.

Birdseed is a great attractor. This fellow visited the seed I placed on my outdoor table so I could watch the birds through my window. The local squirrels are the wiseguys of the neighborhood; they literally shake down the birdseed and steal from the intended recipients.

Lucas and I enjoy walking together in the late afternoons to get Asher from preschool. On this day, Lucas revealed his intention to write a series of “Scary Tales,” frightening adaptations of fairy tales “not suitable for anyone under 8.”

No snow, just bare branches around here. We get lots of days dominated by grays and greens. There’s something magical about blue winter skies, I think.

My mother knitted this handsome sweater for Asher in the color he requested. He loved it and wore it several times. This morning he rejected it, however. He said it was “too fuzzy.” I think he and I have a very different understanding of what fuzzy is. For him, “fuzzy” might just mean, “I don’t like any sweater that you choose for me, Mama.”

Some new books I’m dabbling in, by which I mean I’m less than a quarter of the way through all of them. Two are beautiful gifts I received and one will hopefully help me better understand my son’s 9-year change.

“Mama, pretend you say, ‘Asher, you can put your hands on my nipples!’ How ’bout that?”

<laughing> “No, I’m not going to say that.”

Asher climbs into my lap and sits facing me. “Mama, let’s talk about nipples.”

“Okay … what do you want to say about nipples?”

“They are really good on your breasts.”

<more laughing> “Yeah. Thanks. That’s where nipples should be.”

“That’s funny.”

I’m thinking we’re now going to talk about mama milk and feeding babies and how big boys don’t need mama milk anymore, so I ask, “What are nipples for?”

“My hands!”