Well, I’ve not been writing much here lately. Instead, there’s been a whole lot of living happening. The boys had two weeks of spring break and while sometimes a school vacation means I have more time for hobbies, such as blogging, sometimes it totally does not.

The boys have been reading and drawing like crazy. Both are completely captivated by all things Fantasy, all things Dragon, and all things Tolkien. Asher has a great fondness for Dwarves. Lucas fancies Elves. They write books, design games, draw pictures, and create “Game World” stories, which are “video games” that exist only in their heads and they act out the action. I like those video games!

We had one super great Mama & Boys Day; we went to a local miniature golf course and played minigolf and a few arcade games—a very rare treat indeed.

Asher played a killer game of Fast & Furious, a driving game where he spent most of the time flying off bridges and overpasses, but the old standbys were best—air hockey and skeeball. I let Lucas play the rifle-shooting game and he looked at me like he had just won the lottery. Arcade: $3. Minigolf for 3: $21. Lunch for 3: $25. Oh yeah, that’s why we don’t do all that many outings like this. Oh well.

Then we went to the library and the park. This is more my speed.

Lucas and Asher had a little time with grandma. They played a lot with the neighborhood boys. The fact that we now have some neighborhood kids is a great pleasure—we have lived in this neighborhood for almost 13 years and for 12 of them there were no children. Elderly neighbors. The housing bubble and then the crash. Finally some younger families are moving in.

Let’s see … Ian built me a raised garden bed, which is totally awesome.

Asher got to have a buddy come to play. They created a rock band. Asher played ukelele, N played the drum machine, Lucas was their manager. They rehearsed. They sang songs called “Alabama Shakes,” “Lightning Strike,” “Golden Wolf,” “Clutches,” and “Death Knife.” I kid you not. Lucas told them they had a kind of punkheavymetal sound and then convinced Asher and his friend to put on face paint. It. Was. Awesome.

And there was this. I love this boy.

On the last day of Spring Break, we went on a lovely hike with Mars and NoNo.

Mars showed us the game he is making. We picnicked. We got wet in the river. The dogs got to sniff a lot of things and meet other dogs. We walked the trails and spent time under the great big sky. I can’t really explain how refreshing and nourishing that is for me. It’s like medicine.

And now, the boys are back at school. Our normal rhythm has returned and I am happy about that, except I’m still not a morning person and never will be.

We had big Easter fun on both Saturday and Sunday. We visited Ian’s parents’ home on Saturday and celebrated with family.

The boys love hunting eggs at grandma and grandpa’s house because they have a very big yard; the egg hunt can last a long time while they range far and wide to look for eggs. They were really well hidden this year. The boys are growing up after all.

It was fun playing with our newest cousin, Jack. He is a very lucky baby indeed! So cherished. So loved.

Grandma fixed us a great lunch and the day was warm and beautiful.

That night Ian and I were up late preparing Easter baskets and baking. I make these fun bunny buns for breakfast. They turned out really well, and I recommend the recipe. That night we had an amazing thunderstorm, and two very sodden Easter bunnies visited our yard to hide eggs at 5:45 a.m in the dark. The bunnies had to, for the children around here wake exceptionally early on holidays.

On Sunday morning, bright and early, my parents, brother, and my brother’s girlfriend, Fabiana, and her children came to our home for an Easter breakfast. We had extra kids to hunt for eggs in our garden, and that was fun! (It made my boys a little extra competitive, it seemed.)

Aren’t they sweet? Unfortunately, I didn’t get a nice shot of Fabiana’s oldest daughter. They are such great kids; it was nice to have some girl energy around here! (And it was neat to collaborate with my brother and Fabiana about Easter basket goodies: sidewalk chalk and bubble wands and hair clips and Star Wars ring pops and more!)

Afterward, we enjoy a relaxing, low-key day. The kids played with neighbors and I tried to nap. (A neighbor’s dog kept barking.)

A few hours later, we received a surprise invitation and left home for a wonderful impromptu Easter party, complete with a feast and board games and Minecraft and an egg hunt. It was the perfect end to a perfect holiday weekend spent with loved ones.

Today is easy-breezy. Daddy has the day off work. A good friend of our boys is coming to play. I hope to do some writing and some gardening. Life is good. I hope you had a happy Easter, or Passover, or Holi, Ostara, or weekend! xo

A mazillion years ago, when Ian lived in Sweden and I was visiting at Easter time, we saw everywhere in Upsala bare branches decorated with colorful feathers. We wondered, is this sympathetic magic? If the Swedish people decorate bare branches with feathers, are they invoking the coming of springtime? Of course, at Easter time, the ice and snow still holds sway, and warm days are still several months away. (As I type this it’s currently 27 degrees F there.)

“The Easter tree, or “påsk ris”, can be seen all over the country this time of year. Outside shop entrances, in peoples’ living rooms, outdoors in the neighbours’ gardens.”

I’ve had these bare branches in a vase in my home for a couple of months now. They held hearts on Valentine’s Day and they’ve lingered through the month of March. I’m pretty sure they’ve poked everyone in the eye at least once. I’m also sure that my Ian has wished I would take them away.

But, NO! I had a secret plan, you see. I wanted us to make him a påsk ris as a surprise. Because once, a mazillion years ago after we came home from Europe, I made one of these to decorate our very first apartment together at Easter time, and it was sweet and lovely and back then life was uncomplicated …

So anyway, Lucas, Asher and I made a påsk ris to surprise Daddy.

Materials

• colorful craft feathers
• branches
• glue gun

Tutorial

Get out your low temperature glue gun and your patience and start gluing feathers on. That’s it. It takes a good long while and maybe an extra pair of hands to hold the feather in the warm glue until it sets.

But you can get funny photos while you’re doing it.

And then you can surprise people you live with and people who visit, and they’ll say, “What the heck is that?”

And then you can explain that the symbolism of the Easter tree is not about bringing on the spring, or sweeping out winter, or even about Easter witches—which is a Swedish thing! Really.

“But, apparently the Easter tree has a completely different origin and symbolism. It comes from the 1600’s. Swedish people in the 1600’s used to take twigs and sticks and beat each other with them on Good Friday to commemorate the suffering of Jesus. In the 1800’s and 1900’s, they started to be decorated and became a symbolic decoration for Easter.” —from Watching the Swedes

Everything is flowering now, it seems, in joyous celebration of the start of spring. How did you celebrate?

My darling husband built me a raised garden bed this past weekend. It’s glorious and 8 ft. by 4 ft. It took a couple of hours to build. I still need more soil to fill it. Seven 2 cubic ft. bags wasn’t enough, but that’s all that would fit in my car. It meant I got to go to my happy place for a brief while, and I refrained from buying much—

Just a tiny six-pack of red snapdragons and one of orange marigolds … you know, for luck.

It’s spring break now and my children have two weeks off school. Today’s project was Clean the Bedroom. (It looks pretty good now.) Yesterday’s projects were more fun:

We dyed Easter eggs, using our hens’ eggs. We started, as you can see, with an assortment of colorful eggs, and only one white one.

It’s good rainbow fun, you know.

Brown eggs and green eggs turn lovely, gentle colors when you dye them.

We also did another springtime project as a surprise for Daddy that I’ll tell you about tomorrow.

The Leprechaun

In a shady nook one moonlight night,
A leprechaun I spied
In scarlet coat and cap of green,
A cruiskeen by his side.
‘Twas tick, tack, tick, his hammer went,
Upon a weeny shoe,
And I laughed to think of a purse of gold,
But the fairy was laughing too.

With tiptoe step and beating heart,
Quite softly I drew nigh.
There was mischief in his merry face,
A twinkle in his eye;
He hammered and sang with a tiny voice,
And sipped the mountain dew;
Oh! I laughed to think he was caught at last,
But the fairy was laughing too.

As quick as thought I grasped the elf,
“Your fairy purse,” I cried,
“My purse?” said he, ” ’tis in her hand,
That lady by your side.”
I turned to look, the elf was off,
And what was I to do?
Oh! I laughed to think what a fool I’d been,
And the fairy was laughing too.

—Robert Dwyer Joyce

‘Twas a fine sunny day at harvest time when young Seamus O’Donnell, walking along the road, heard a tapping sound.  Peering over the hedge, he saw a tiny man in a little leather apron, mending a little shoe.

“Well, well, well!” said Seamus to himself.  “I truly never expected to meet a leprechaun.  Now that I have, I must not let this chance slip away.  For everyone knows that leprechauns keep a pot of gold hidden nearby.  All I have to do is to find it, and I am set for the rest of my life.”

Greeting the leprechaun politely, Seamus asked about his health.  However, after a few minutes of idle conversation, Seamus became impatient.  He grabbed the leprechaun and demanded to know where the gold was hidden.

“All right!  All right!” cried the little man.  “It is near here.  I’ll show you.”

Together they set off across the fields as Seamus was careful never to take his eyes off the little man who was guiding him.  At last they came to a field of golden ragwort.

The leprechaun pointed to a large plant.

“The gold is under here,” he said.  “All you have to do is to dig down and find it.”

Now Seamus didn’t have anything with him to use for digging, but he was not entirely stupid. He pulled of his red neckerchief and tied it to the plant so that he would recognize it again.

“Promise me,” he said to the leprechaun, “that you will not untie that scarf.”

The little man promised faithfully.

Seamus dropped the leprechaun and ran home as fast as he could to fetch a shovel.  Within five minutes, he was back at the field.  But what a sight met his eyes!  Every single ragwort plant in the whole field — and there were hundreds of them — had a red neckerchief tied around it.

Slowly, young Seamus walked home with his shovel.  He didn’t have his gold.  He didn’t have the leprechaun.

And now, he didn’t even have his neckerchief.

(Traditional Irish Legend)

Today was a busy, busy day, but we still took a little time for leprechaun fun. We made some yummy Sugar Shamrocks, then set out some treats. Our leprechaun party is now all ready for the Wee Folk. We have shamrock cookies, milk, and honey for them. Asher brought some pretty flowers to make it beautiful, and we made a wee banner that says “Welcome.” We’ll see what happens during the night.

My friend Eileen Straiton of Little Acorn Learning and I are very happy to announce that our Spring Festivals E-Book is now available!

This is a teaser mosaic of photos from our e-book. It covers St. Patrick’s Day, Spring Equinox, Ostara, and Easter, and is packed with Waldorf songs, stories, verses, crafting tutorials, caregiver meditations, fingerplays, and stories to inspire you and help you create fun and meaningful festival celebrations with children in your home or classroom.

Part One: Saint Patrick’s Day
Leprechaun Poems and Finger Plays
Irish Blessings
The Four-Leaved Clover
Four-Leaf Clover Hunt
Caregiver Meditation: Luck
Saint Patrick’s Day Kid Craft
Make a Leprechaun House
Simple Shamrock Crown
Irish Stew
St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun Mobile
Shamrock Window Transparency
The Sunbeam’s Visit
Rainbow Playdough
Jolly Leprechaun Ring
St. Patrick’s Day Paper Ornaments
Clover Suncatcher
The Golden Purse and the Seeing Eyes
To Catch a Leprechaun
Rainbow Science
Dip a Rainbow

Part Two: Spring Equinox, Ostara
To Spring
Seeds and Grateful Spring
Spring Poems
The Story of the Two Seeds
Spring Equinox Wreath
Recycled Bird Feeder
The Feisty Fairy Story
Make a Fairy Pouch with Your Child
Build a Fairy House
Five Little Fairies Finger Play
Homemade Fairy Wings
Spring Bird Puppets
Spring Cleaning in the Home or Classroom
Natural Vinegar Cleaning Solution
Cherry Blossom Festival and Writing Haiku Poetry
Cherry Blossom Branches
Paint Cherry Blossoms
Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry
Pressed Flower Frame for Spring
Flower Pot Compost
Spring Zucchini Bread
Watercolor Flower Wreath
Simple Tissue Butterflies

Part Three: Easter
The Easter Flower and Easter Week
Lent and Sacrifice
Easter Hymns
Five Little Easter Rabbits and other Rhymes
Creating Your Easter Nature Table
Easter from Calendar of the Soul
Caregiver Meditation: Awakening
Little Felted Chicks
Stewart’s A, B, C’s
Flood-Tide of Flowers
Easter Dish Garden
Eggheads
Dyeing Eggs with Natural Dyes
Dyeing Easter Wool
Easter Egg Rolling
Easter Glove Bunny
Paper Easter Bunnies Banner
Felt Easter Ornaments
Decoupage Easter Eggs
Needle-Felted Easter Egg

This volume is the fourth in our series of Festival E-Books designed to help you find a way into the natural and religious festivals that occur around the time of the Solstices and Equinoxes. We have endeavored to provide inspiration and celebration ideas that will help you create fulfilling and joyful holidays in your home or classroom.

Some of the craft projects in this e-book are geared for adults or older children (but everyone can enjoy them). We have written simple instructions and provided step-by-step photographs to assist you. Other projects are simple enough that even the youngest child can assist, for creating art is a fundamental human desire and an important part of learning and expressing ourselves.

Circle-time rhymes, fingerplays, and games are also an important part of learning about our bodies, our world, and our friends. Some of the classic poetry we included may speak especially to the adult caregiver or teacher, for we believe it is through maintaining a sense of wonder and a love of beauty that permits our souls to shine forth in our daily actions.

This volume contains both a nature-based religious perspective, honoring the Goddess of Spring, and a Christian perspective on the holy days of Lent and Easter, celebrating Christ’s resurrection. There is, in our opinion, significant overlap of symbols and traditions, and we feel they can coexist in the context of the spring festivals in peace.

We hope you enjoy our e-book. It can be purchased on the Little Acorn Learning website here, and if you look around on Little Acorn Learning you will find many more delightful products there.

My personal thanks go to my coauthor Eileen, for her can-do attitude, unflagging faith, endless creativity. I’d also like to say thank you to my husband and my children for their assistance, participation, and great tolerance of the many messes my creative projects produce in our home during book production.

May I present to you the thoughtful and funny writing of my dear husband, Ian, who describes a fairly typical activity in our home. This is only the second time I’ve talked Ian into letting me publish his writing on Love in the Suburbs. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and welcome him as a guest blogger.

Note: I’m the one with the nasty Diet Coke habit. Sometimes I add whiskey.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At our house, like at many houses, recycling aluminum cans is a way for our boys to get a little pocket money. Of course, cans have to be stored, and it’s best to flatten them in order to store them.

How would an adult handle this problem? Take the cans, put them on the patio, smash them with your foot, put them in a bag, be done. 5 minutes, maximum.

But how do boys handle this?

The smaller brother stands in the wet-bar where the empty cans have piled up. He opens the back door wide and hurls the cans outside. His brother stands outside with a stick, whacking the cans out of the air like Babe Ruth. The cans fly erratically, dripping bits of flat, sticky Diet Coke. Some bounce off the house, some fly into the garden, one came straight back into the house, over the little brother, and careened off the TV hutch.

I could, at this point, interject some paternal guidance into this operation. However, that would take all of the fun out of it. Adult methods, I have come to realize, are quick, efficient, effective, but altogether too much of a drag.

Once the cans are outside they need to be gathered into one place for crushing. This is accomplished by taking whatever tool is handy and hitting the cans with maximum force a la ice hockey. Since the cans have been distributed a great distance an argument is necessary to determine who is responsible for gathering the most distant cans.

While the big brother continues to herd cans, the little brother comes in to find a bag into which the cans may be put. The bags are on top of the clothes dryer, but he can’t find them. They are on top of the clothes dryer, but he doesn’t see them. The clothes dryer! The laundry, they are on the—oh, he found them, good.

The presence of the bag necessitates another argument about who has to pick up the cans. While one can see both points of view, one really doesn’t care, just pick them up.

Finally, the bag of cans is stored in the middle of the walkway in the overcrowded garage, but at least the task is done. Or is it? Stray cans can be found under the rhododendrons, behind the hot tub, and on the lawn. Asking the boys to pick up these cans as well elicits a complaint: “But Dad, we’ve already done the cans!” as if these cans were not part of the original project.

Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy New Year!

Today was a busy day at home. The boys tackled making both class sets of valentines, with some support from us. We worked on our family book-related art project, which I cannot wait to show you (when it’s finished). Ian and I both worked. And we washed tons of laundry. When the day wound down to evening and I realized we needed a grocery run for tonight’s dinner and to be ready for next week, I trudged out for supplies. Meanwhile, Lucas tackled chores, spelling words, and piano practice. (What a great kid!) We had a 6-year-old hunger meltdown while Daddy prepared a simple dinner of tofu stir fry and pot stickers.

Add a candle, a red place mat, and some toy snakes, and break out the chopsticks and—voila! Instant celebration! I love that my kids enjoy all types of foods. Asher will tell you he doesn’t like tofu, but he gobbles it up! Anyway, I have a Chinese New Year craft project to do with the boys, but frankly we did so much arts and crafts this weekend that I knew I’d be pushing my luck if I brought it out. Perhaps tomorrow.

Spring is coming! I see signs of it everywhere. Bud are swelling on trees, the earliest magnolia in my neighborhood is starting to flower, my bulbs are coming up, there’s baby peeps for sale at the feed store, jonquils are blooming, and my Leghorn hen (who is positively elderly) has started laying again.

When

In February there are days,
Blue, and nearly warm,
When horses switch their tails and ducks
Go quacking through the farm.
When everything turns round to feel
The sun upon its back—
When winter lifts a little bit
And spring peeks through the crack.
—Dorothy Aldis

(photo from Imbolc celebration 2007 by Mark Kelly; used with permission)

Today is the Celtic fire festival of Imbolc, which is so deliciously wrapped up also in the Catholic festival of Candlemas, the Irish Saint Brigit, and the goddess Brigid, who is the Celtic Triple Goddess. I find all these synchronicities and conflations of culture, myth, ritual, and worship to be fascinating.

Imbolc welcomes the warming sun, ushering it back into the world so that spring may come. It’s said that if Imbolc (and Groundhog Day, which is tomorrow, February 2) is sunny and bright, winter will hold on a good long while. If the day is sunny, then the Gaelic divine hag, the Cailleach, can gather plenty of firewood for an extended winter. If the day is stormy, then she’ll sleep in and the winter will end sooner because she will run out of firewood.

The goddess Brigid is associated with fire, with early spring, and is the patroness of poetry, smithing, medicine, arts and crafts, cattle and other livestock. Her symbols include arrows, bells, thresholds, and doorways. Several animal correspondences are also tied to Brigid, particularly ewes, dairy cows, bees, owls, and serpents. (Thank you, Wikipedia, that will do.)

Today I learned that Saint Brigid was a patroness of students, and also founded a school of art, including metal work and illumination. She is known as Saint Brigit of Kildare, or Brigit of Ireland (variants include Brigid, Bridget, Bridgit, Bríd and Bride), and was nicknamed Mary of the Gael.

She’s awesome, right?

(photo from St. Joseph Catholic Church in Macon, Georgia)

Two years ago we were able to have a lovely family Imbolc celebration, which I blogged about here. This year we have been very busy with preparing for Asher’s sixth birthday, and his birthday party is happening tomorrow on February 2. I honestly don’t think I have much in me for Imbolc this year, except to quietly observe it and take comfort in knowing that winter is now halfway over. We are closer to spring now, and that’s a joy and comfort.

My hope for tonight is simple because I need a rest. Glass of wine. Fire in our fireplace. A little crafting to finish up for tomorrow’s party. Maybe over the weekend we’ll roll some new beeswax candles to light our home and warm our hearts. We’ll take it slow, and if candle-making happens, great. If not, that’s OK too. For me, this is a festival of home and hearth, and snuggling in with our beloveds.

In honor of Brigid’s association with poetry, I offer a poem I wrote for children last year. OK, don’t laugh.

(“Beneath The Snow Encumbered Branches” by Joseph Farquharson, 1903)

Wool Dreaming

Shepherd, shepherd,
Tend your sheep
In the snowy yard.
Rams and ewes, heavy with lambs,
Endure the winter’s cold.

Shepherd, shepherd,
Take good care
Of charges in your fold.
Their wool will be a comfort
To newborn, young, and old.

Shepherd, shepherd,
Feed them well
That their fleece grows soft and fine.
I would like wool warmth to wear
All through the wintertime.

—by moi, Sara E. Wilson