My kiddos are enrolled in swimming team and lessons this summer. For eight weeks we will go to the American River College pool every afternoon, M–Th, so Lucas can be on a swim team. This team is noncompetitive; although they have “inner squad meets,” they are really only racing against teammates and their own times. This is good for many reasons, not the least of which is that we don’t have to give up every summer Saturday to competitive meets. Ours will take place on some Thursdays, during the normal practice time.

Lucas missed practice three days last week due to being ill, but this week he has rallied and is back at it, apparently giving it his all. He’s got new swim fins and new goggles and new shorts and a new rash guard and a new backpack to carry it all in. He’s a well-equipped boy. I think he’s enjoying it a lot, although it will be nice when he makes some friends there.

Asher, on the other hand, hates his swimming lessons. He has now gone to six of them and is no longer spending the time in the water with his instructor screaming (as he did his first two days). Nevertheless, he is not a fan of this experience. I can tell he is learning and becoming more comfortable in the water, practicing the skills (face in, dip underwater, streamline arms, kicking, etc.). I’ve even caught him smiling a time or two. Every morning, though, he wakes up and asks if we’re going to swimming lessons. And when I say yes, he asks, “Now?!” Since they are at the end of the day, I get to answer “Later” about a hundred times every day. He worries about it all day. Here’s a picture of him going underwater, which he would never choose to do.

His instructor is pretty and fun and she jollies him along through the twenty-minute lessons. And the point of all this is not to torture my child, but to teach him that he can be OK in the water and (hopefully) get to the side if he falls in. I remember Lucas didn’t care much for swimming lessons at this age either. Now he is a fish!

So, sports. Not really my thing, but I’m making an effort to be a “Swim Mom” this summer to give Lucas what I hope is a good, gentle introduction to a team sport experience. I’m doing my best to have a good attitude about the whole thing. Thank goodness the bleachers where the parents wait are in the shade!

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.

Except this time, I cannot resist writing a few words: My Lucas is now officially a third grader, and just look at him! I couldn’t possibly be more proud of him. Today was the last day of school and of second grade, and fortunately he felt well enough to go to school for this special day. Here he is playing tetherball on the third-/fourth-grade playground, where he will spend lots of joyful time over the next two years. (That’s a student-made river-rock igloo in the background.) We were blessed to have Daddy along with us when we picked up Lucas today, and then we all went to celebrate with some yummy burgers and milkshakes.

And now it’s officially SUMMER!

My dear Lucas has been sick this week. Monday night, after a day of feeling low and opting to sleep with his head on his desk at school, his fever when sky-high and stayed there for a couple of days, with small breaks, thanks to the children’s ibuprofen I give him. So Tuesday and Wednesday, he worked diligently on the couch with a peg loom that Ian and I brought him from Seattle. (It seemed way more appropriate to bring Lucas an open-ended toy or craft rather than a silly Space Needle statue. And we were right!)

The Harrisville Designs Peg Loom kit comes with a long plastic needle to make weaving easy. The frame is wood; the pegs are plastic. It also comes with cotton warp string and 100% wool yarn in bright colors.

See how sick he looks? Kind of hollow around the eyes. But he worked hard on this and you can see he’s proud of it.

Binding off the warp strings was a bit tricky because they were quite short. I helped a little with this. But then he folded his woven piece in half, sewed up the sides, and sewed on a button. I showed him how to make a button hole and he did that with some embroidery thread. Now there is no mistaking where the button should be pushed through to close his pouch. He opted to finger-knit belt loops (instead of making a purse-like strap) and attached the loops to the back of his pouch.

Here’s Asher’s Yellow Bear modeling the finished pouch. It’s tremendous!

For a final step, Lucas “finger-wove” a belt. That’s what he calls it; I don’t know if this technique of “knitting” a wide belt using only one’s three fingers as pegs has another name. The technique he used is similar in principle to using a knitting nancy, AKA knitting tower or spool knitter. But that’s where my knowledge ends.

Waldorf kids are cool!

My Lucas Baby is sick today. He is actually moaning in his sleep right now, at 1:45 p.m. The fact that he is asleep during the day says a lot. He’s feverish, with chills and whimpering. No school today, or swim practice for him this afternoon. I think Mom can stay with him while I drag Asher off to his swimming lesson.

So far, the first day of ARC swim team was more than a little confusing to me, particularly because of the altered start time for the first day, and because they scheduled Asher’s lesson for an hour later than I expected. Also, since I can’t think of a single team sport experience in my life, I expect I’m just woefully unprepared. I think we have these logistical kinks worked out and I’m hopeful that this will turn out to be a good experience for all of us. Let’s hope Asher cries less today! I have chocolate chip cookies to offer him afterward.

This is the last week of school. Three more days of second grade for Lucas! This is more than a little remarkable. I just hope he recovers enough to enjoy the festivities, like the swimming party on Thursday during school hours!

I spent about 20 minutes on the phone this morning coordinating plans with my mother-in-law, who is very helpful with babysitting and whatnot. We are both trying to wrap our minds around the summertime schedule and assorted activities to figure out when she might have the boys. I swear, this is project management at its best. On deck for summer for Lucas are:

• Effie Yeaw Junior Rangers Nature Camp (two weeks of mornings, including field trips to go fishing, rock climbing, and river rafting)
• Sacramento Waldorf School summer camp (six weeks with his friends on his turf, learning about Native American arts and crafts, building a bow and arrows, learning spinning and how clothing is made, playing games, etc.)
• CSUS Aquatics camp in August (one week of water sports)
• Time with his brother and “cousins” at Ring-A-Rosies (where Asher goes to day care)
• ARC Swim Team (eight weeks M-Th; 50 minute practices)
• Piano lessons on Wednesday evenings

We decided to go with camp programs we know Lucas will really like, where he will know kids and be comfortable. Swim team is probably the most challenging thing in this list. Last summer was too bouncy and required too many adjustments to new people and new places (my fault). We are looking forward to a comfy summer of fun. Thirteen weeks. See my fingers crossing?

I can see why fabric collecting is addicting, especially to someone like me who is totally invigorated by color. This is most of the stash I’ve gathered little by little over the last year. Via the Glorious Internet, I’ve come to find that I actually have some favorite designers. Wacky!

I’m hoping to make some groovy new shorts and pants for Asher. The ones that I and my mother made in past years were such a success and fun to make. I bought these fabrics with Asher in mind. It’s more challenging that I realized at first to find fabrics suitable for boys. I now realize I have way more fabric for sewing than time for sewing.

Fortunately, some shorts and pants we made last summer look like they’re going to fit another season. The pants are now clam diggers, of course, because Asher has grown so much taller.

I’m kind of waiting to see if this summer Lucas will grab for the shorts grandma sewed for him in the past, or if he’ll gravitate to the more conventional, mass-produced shorts instead. He is probably just on the cusp of not wanting to wear sewn garments anymore. Although, if Lucas wants some for himself, I’ll probably have him pick out the fabric, and most likely it will be much more subdued than these.

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.

Yesterday, our fabulous surprise adventure that started with a gorgeous nature walk ended with a surprise trip to the movie theater—our first as a family since 2005, when we made the mistake of thinking that 3-year-old Lucas was ready for this type of thing and tried to see a kids’ movie on a rainy Thanksgiving Day in Eureka, California. We managed to stay only ten minutes that time, before the noise and the frenetic film content thoroughly freaked out our kid. (Oh, the GUILT!) Needless to say, we learned a valuable lesson about Lucas and media that evening and we’ve been rather hesitant to try the movie-going experience since then.

But, you know, he’s 8 now. And begging for bigger boy experiences. (He is really wanting to see Star Wars, which is the BE ALL, END ALL for all second-grade boys (even Waldorf boys), and man!—if he were any other kid … ) Although I wish to protect my son from media influences that might upset him or be too mature for him, I also don’t want him to be the only kid he knows who has never been to the movies!

So, Ian and I decided to give the theater a try, reasoning that Lucas is much older now and Asher … well, Asher just isn’t as sensitive as his older brother. He also seems more media-savvy, and is quite keen to watch anything at any time. Moreover, he’ll follow along with just about anything Lucas does, which I suppose is the karma of the second son.

We didn’t tell the boys what was up until we pulled into the theater parking lot.

“What’s this place?”

“This, dear Lucas, is the movie theater. We are going to see a movie.”

“All RIGHT!”

We saw How to Tame Your Dragon and it was great fun! Some parts were very intense and I wondered if we’d be leaving before we got to the end of the film, but my kiddos stuck it out! Lucas laughed out loud a bunch of times and Asher didn’t seem at all fazed by the scary dragons, fire, dramatic flying/falling scenes, or angry Vikings (with mysterious Scottish accents). I was happily impressed with the film’s story, and as we left my boys were chattering about which types of dragons they liked best.

[My, my! Movie tix for our family of four: $33!!!]

A tidal wave of work is coming my way, so the projects I presently have in hand consumed some of my weekend. This isn’t really so bad, except the weather was heavenly and my darlings headed off to the zoo without me on Saturday. I realized after they left that I’ve missed rather a lot of Asher’s zoo trips. This must be corrected soon.

Two strategy guides are hitting my inbox this week. A development task that was pushed off in favor of helping another editor with an urgent deadline is now coming due. My novel edit is due on Friday. Whee!

And still … I walked away from all of this to join my family on a little surprise adventure. We have a lovely book called Best Hikes with Children Around Sacramento and today we tried out a short, easy hike in Granite Bay at a place called Miners Ravine. It’s only a half-mile loop, but it sure was pretty! Honestly, California in the springtime—even in the Central Valley—is fantastic.

The bees were out in force! Many wildflowers were tickled by their buzzy paramours today. I took lots of wildflower/bee photos. Cuz I’m that kind of girl.

I don’t know for sure, but I think this white bubbly stuff might be spittle bug spittle.

We found a granite rock with lots of acorn grinding holes used by the Native Americans of the area—Miwoks, I believe.

Isn’t the automatic timer on the camera cool?

Purple lupines and pink clover.

Lucas found a treasure! And see his gappy grin? He lost another top tooth last week. The seventh, if I’m not mistaken.

We came across a shadowy pond with yummy reflections of the live oaks overhead and ceaseless ripples from bugs’ movements.

This granite boulder was enormous. Wherever Lucas goes, Asher must follow. ‘Twas ever the way for brothers.

It was such a great day! I’m glad to be taking advantage of this cool, comfortable weather while it lasts, and am very much looking forward to trying more local hikes recommended in our book. Our adventure ended with another exciting surprise, but I’ll save that for a different post.

I’d been saving up this hammered botanicals project ever since I saw it on a blog I read, called Dim Sum, Bagels, and Crawfish, last March. (How could I not read it, with a marvelous name like that?) Oh, here it is! I was afraid I might not be able to find it. (The Internet is AWESOME!) Anyway, the Dim Sum author, Lucia, found it in a terrific book called Nature’s Art Box, which is on my wish list.

Anyway, I thought that these smashed flower prints would be a perfect project for my boisterous, bashing boys. I learned a lot during this project, not the lease of which was it’s best to follow directions. Alas, I’m the dive-in-and-figure-it-out sort of person.

We used:

• white cotton fabric
• scissors
• pinking shears
• hammer
• scotch tape
• flower cuttings from our garden
• phone book
• watercolor paper
• watercolor paints and paintbrush
• dollar store certificate frames, 8.5 x 11 size

Lucas enthusiastically helped with the hammering, but I couldn’t get Asher to join in. When dealing with a 3-year-old, timing is everything! And the time I had set aside to do this project was All Wrong. Asher wouldn’t even come outside to see what we were up to.

We found that the roses and pansies gave brilliant colors. The mallow flowers and Spanish lavender were subtler. Creating the watercolored mats fell to me. (Are they really mats if the fabric print goes on top of them?) I didn’t want to try to cut the mats precisely; laying the fabric on top of the watercolor paper seemed just fine.

Originally we made six of these. Then I read online that a mixture of alum and water would help keep the colors fresh. Fortunately, our friends had some alum that we could borrow. Unfortunately, three unexpected results happened when I lightly sprayed the fabric prints with the solution.

1. The color from the smashed roses bled like crazy, running down the hanging fabric (which you can see in the photo below in the center)
2. The color from the dark purple pansies bled outward (I learned not to spray as much solution, and still the capillary action of the water caused the dye to spread)
3. Unbeknownst to me, the fabric on two of the prints had actually taken up a tiny amount of newsprint from the phone book pages when we were hammering the cuttings. It was invisible before I sprayed the prints. Afterward, ack! Some of the newsprint words appeared in our lovely botanical prints. (You can see a big black W and other type on the right-hand print in the photo above)

None of those three surprises made me happy. And if I were to do this project again, I’m not sure if I’ll bother with spraying them with alum. Perhaps the colors from the flowers and stems will oxidize or fade over time. I don’t know. Also, I’ll make sure to put white paper between my fabric and anything with newsprint on it.

When all was said (cussed) and done, and after two pieces of glass from our frames were broken (more cussing after the children were asleep), we ended up with three pretty prints, ready to give out to grandmothers on Mother’s Day.

The grandmothers seemed pleased. 😉

I

It starts with a bed-a-bye snuggle, sometime before the morning music …

somehow, there we all are.

Four abed, snuggled under, breathing.

Daddy’s the bravest. He rises before the rest.

Then mama feels guilty, smells coffee brewing, and slowly emerges from the nest.

Big boy bounces up, right up!

Mama and big boy go to his room to pull out clothes for today’s many adventures.

“But I’m not ready!” he complains.

(Mama doesn’t blame him. She’s not ready either.)

So they sit together on the green carpet. Perhaps a cuddle?

Arms enfold ten wiggly elbows, ten knocking knees.

“Either this lap used to be bigger, or you used to be smaller.”

(Giggle)

And there she is, just an arm’s length away,

Emily Mouse, doing her “evening” chores, having a before-bed drink

of water from the upside-down blue bottle.

Gently, Mama says, “Maybe Emily misses you,” thinking, it has been a good long while

since you held your mousie friend.

OK. He reaches for her, cups her gently in two astonishingly large hands

lined and crackled with dirt,

graced with broken nails

and calluses—

curious hands

that move a bit too fast.

White mouse whiskers, sniffing, twitching.

“Wow,” mama says. “We have had Emily for a whole year.”

“Yep.” White mouse moves over dingy T-shirt,

is corralled back into workaday hands.

To herself, Gently now … careful …

“How long do mice live?” Mama wonders cautiously.

“Two years, or a little more.”

Hmmm …

Emily’s fur is stroked, ears scratched by one nubby index finger.

Even. More. Gently …

“What do you think that means?”

…

Blue eyes flash, then seek refuge in the green carpet.

She will die someday. Sometime.

“Maybe soon.”

“Let’s give her lots of love until then, OK?”

“Yeah, Mom.”

“And lots of petting. And kitchen scraps!”

“Yeah! I wonder if we gave her a whole sweet pepper, would she eat a hole and crawl inside it?”

“I don’t know. Let’s give her one and see.”

Eggs are ready. “Time for breakfast,” says the Daddy.

Littlest boy sleeps on …

…

II

Lucas and Grandma leave.

Existential dilemma faced and dressing for a rainy school day accomplished!

Phew!

Mama sips coffee

until …

“MAMA!”

Sleepy one emerges into a quiet house.

“My jammies are wet. I want a kiwi.”

Never before. “A kiwi? Really?”

“Yes.”

Well, then. Diaper change and then Mama goes looking …

Hallelujah! A kiwi. One.

“I have to peel the fuzzy brown skin off.”

“And then I eat it up.”

It vanishes before Mama’s eyes. Three gulps tops.

Then the cold eggs follow.

Mama sits by his side.

“I’m ready for some holding now,” he says with certain faith, and climbs over.

A small egg fills her lap.

“I’m a baby bird in my egg.”

Ah. “And I’m the nest?”

“Yes. And the Mama Bird.”

Pecking. Peck. Peck.

“I’m pecking!

“I’m hatching! Hatch!”

“Hello, Baby Bird! Welcome.”

“You’re my Mama Bird?!”

“Mmmm-hmm …”

“I hatch again!”

(Repeat)

“Are you ready to fly, baby bird?”

“Yes!”

“Let’s put on your red rain feathers.”

“Hurry, Mama Bird! Let’s fly!”

All the way to preschool.