It was a big time, of course. St. Patrick’s Day was fun for all of us, I think. We crafted. We decorated.

In between epic puddle splashing and a during jolly good time in the heavy rain, we set up a Leprechaun party complete with shamrocks in a vase of water, table with acorn cap cups, hyacinth flowers and bird berries.

The path we lined with white stones was very inviting to the wee folk.

I had made some secret presents: wooden clothespin Leprechauns. A boy and girl for each of my sons.

Even though we made that lovely party space and put out brownie treats for them, the Leprechauns couldn’t help themselves. They pulled a small trick on us anyway and piled all of our shoes in the entry, blocking the front door. It’s in their nature, you know. They’re tricky!

They did, however, leave the boys some treasures. A set of rainbow gems for each and a note.

“Thanks for the goodies, and thanks for the laughs!

On your way outside today, did you trip over our gaffes?

We’ve enjoyed your hospitality, and so we’d like to say,

We’ve left a little gift or two to brighten up your day!

We know you like bright jewels, so shiny and so fine,

Nearly as much as we do. So, we’ll share a few this time:

A rainbow for your pockets, to keep and hold and share.

Our gold we’ll keep for now! Try to catch us if you dare!”

Apparently, Leprechauns think they are very clever.

I didn’t snap any photos of our green shamrock pancakes or piles of golden eggs. I was too busy tucking in with and enjoying my fellas. It turns out that clothespin Leprechauns are great for homemade zip-lines. Then we readied our home for a  fun party with our friends. We enjoyed a yummy lamb stew, kale salad, and soda bread (from a mix). Today, Asher is talking about his Leprechaun friends.

Hope you had a festive holiday, too!

There is a deliciously long list of fantastic things in my life lately. And because I have a moment or two, I’m savoring them. What’s not to feel grateful for?

~ Hosting friends for a kid-friendly St. Patrick’s Day party, complete with my first from-scratch lamb stew. Yum!

~ Cleaning our home for this party. A party is the best reason to clean.

~ Reveling in a surprisingly work-free weekend, when I expected to have to buckle down.

~ Watching my boys play with total concentration with their “cousins,” who are so very dear to us all. They are so comfortable with each other.

~ Observing how these children are all growing, growing, growing in myriad beautiful ways.

~ Brunching with friends most of Sunday, complete with a skip out to a nail salon with my girlfriends for a pedicure and pink/purple iridescent polish. First one in … years. So luxurious and fun.

~ Inquiring into the health of parents, backs, workouts and …

~ Listening, witnessing, offering friendship and support.

~ Having enough home-raised eggs to give some away.

~ Choosing the prudent path of getting home before it was too late to ready ourselves for a busy, exciting week. It’s a little sad when the fun ends, but letting go feels good, too.

~ Studying spelling words (Norse god names) with my son, who it going to nail them, I think.

~ Preparing for Lucas’s special week of one-on-one time with the Waldorf school’s farmer. Five extra-early mornings to greet and care for the animals of the school farm—a rare opportunity for any child.

~ Realizing that it’s OK that all the rain boots are still wet on the insides from Friday’s splashing and galloping in rain puddles. It was worth it.

~ Painting for an hour or so in my home until the daylight fled and I could no longer see the colors well enough to continue.

~ Eating a simple, delicious, fulfilling dinner with my tired, happy family.

~ Getting everyone in bed early to rest up for Monday and the early alarm.

~ Signing up for my first plein air painting workshop next month—at an iris farm, no less. SQUEE!

~ Thinking—hard—about getting more exercise. Yes, I’m slowly warming up to the idea. Mustn’t rush these things.

~ Noticing buds on my lilac, tons of new growth on my clematis vine, morning glory seedlings popping up, and growth on my new-this-year irises.

~ Balancing our many social opportunities with our need for downtime, hopefully in the right proportions, for the next few weeks.

~ Feeling excited and grateful that Lucas got the part he wanted in the fourth-grade play. It’s so wonderful to see him reach for something and catch it!

~ Rejoicing to see my little guy’s imagination blossom with Leprechauns and sweet mischief. “Shhh! Mama, do you hear the Leprechaun laughing? I think he’s over there, under the couch.”

~ Loving my husband more and more every day.

Here’s some more simple, impromptu St. Patrick’s Day kid crafting. We made pipe cleaner (they’re called “chenille stems” nowadays) leprechauns, shamrocks, and rainbows yesterday.

Tonight we’ll be soaking the rainbows in a Borax solution to grow crystals on them. This is an idea I first saw on Pinterest, then traced it to here. It’s originally from Sweet and Simple Things, and this is where I first saw the shamrock shapes, too. Holiday science!

Lucas decided to weave his pipe cleaners to make little woven rainbow diamond shapes.

Solstice helped by looking handsome and providing moral support for our creative impulses.

Here’s Lucas’s invention. He bent in all the ends to keep it from unraveling.

We hung our little creations with sewing thread on a twig with several branches. If our crystalized rainbows are successful, we’ll hang those here, too. I think it will be festive for our little party we’re having tomorrow.

And since it’s still raining around here, here’s a sweet Irish blessing I love.

May the blessing of the rain be on you—
the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit
so that all the little flowers may spring up,
and shed their sweetness on the air.
May the blessing of the great rains be on you,
may they beat upon your spirit
and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool
where the blue of heaven shines,
and sometimes a star.

We are sick. Well, Lucas and I are, and we spent the day at home. This afternoon we rallied a bit and managed some impromptu crafts for St. Patrick’s Day. So, these kid-friendly St. Patrick’s Day paper ornaments were born. I offer these in the spirit of using what you have on hand for some low-key fun.

Materials

• 2 paper plates
• watercolor paints and brushes
• watercolor paper (optional)
• scissors
• ribbon or yarn
• compass and hole punch (optional)

Tutorial

Insert your scissors into a paper plate and cut along the outer ring and cut out a shamrock shape from the center of the plate, leaving the bottom of the shamrock’s stem attached to the outer circle. I cut out a three-leaf shamrock and a four-leaf. If you get ambitious, you can cut out the figure of a standing leprechaun, leaving both feet and one hand attached to the outer circle. This is harder to do, but give it a try. You can choose to draw your design on the plate first, or just eyeball it, start cutting, and see what happens.

Now get your kids to paint your design. Painting is such a great activity when you need to rest or cultivate calm in your home.

If you have the type of paper plates with a coating on them to make them less absorbent, then you will probably also want to paint a circular background on watercolor paper. Do you know where your compass is? If you have one, it makes this step a lot easier. Draw a circle that will fit inside your paper plate. I painted rainbows on some circles to use as backgrounds. I love rainbows.

Your children should also paint the back of a second paper plate. Be sure to wait until all the watercolor painting is completely dry before you assemble your ornament.

With hot glue, glue your circle background into your bottom plate. It will cover any design on the plate and compensate for that water-resistant coating.

Like so. The design that is still visible around the edges won’t be visible in a minute.

Now stack your front cut-out design on top of the bottom paper plate. Using hot glue, seal the outer edges together. Press them firmly to make them stick nicely. You might have to apply glue in six or seven spots around the circle.

Finally, punch a hole in the top, thread a piece of ribbon or yarn through the hole, and hang your ornament.

Oh, Saturday. How I love you! I swoon with love for you!

Any day that starts with an extra hour of delicious morning sleep is tops. Why does morning sleep feel better than any other sleep?

My day started with coffee and some new window stars. Both of these are first attempts at new patterns.  The red flower was tough because I had to trim my small 6 1/4 inch square kite paper into teeny-tiny rectangles with a particular height-to-width proportion. Like, with MATH.

It would have been easier with bigger paper, as the instructions call for. But I’m happy with the result. See the little red star in the middle?

The pink one with the open center is kind of a showstopper, I think.

This little darling accidentally flew into our window today. She stunned herself pretty badly, and allowed Ian to pick her up and place her into this tree. At first her eyes were closed and her eyelids were kind of twitchy. Later on, she was like this, eyes open but not ready to fly away. Then, she was gone. I hope she’s OK now. She might be a goldfinch, but I’m not sure.

We have four two-day-old chicks in our home again. Here they are at one day old. We got two Black Sex-Link chicks (who are certain to be female because the male chicks look different at hatching) and two Silver Laced Wyandotts. At first I was sure I’d play it safe and get four Black Sex-Link chicks to guarantee we were getting females, but then the Silver Laced Wyandotts wooed me with their gorgeous adult plumage and I succumbed to temptation. Let’s all hope together that they’ll turn out to be hens, OK?

The chicks are much more sturdy on their pins now. Lucas is enjoying them a lot. We are debating about their names. Ian wants to name them after sci-fi space princesses. Lucas is in favor of Norse goddess names, although he also likes the idea of calling them Bear, Raven, Duck, and Chipmunk because, well,  that’s funny. Asher seems to want to keep with the theme of nature oriented names like our other hens. He has thoughtfully suggested Moon, Star, Rain, and Tornado.

My garden is coming alive again in small ways.

This new forsythia was allegedly a flowering quince when I bought it and planted it late last spring. I’m not sad because it’s gorgeous.

Asher received his first lessons in chess today. My heart skipped a beat when I saw this. Is he really old enough to start learning chess?

Lucas practiced piano and cleaned his room today. We also went to the library and got him his own library card.

And although I don’t yet have a photo, I spent some time today painting my kitchen door turquoise. I’ve been wanting to paint this door for twelve years now. Ridiculous, but true. And why turquoise? Well, why ever not?

We had yummy French onion soup and steak and asparagus for dinner. We read leprechaun stories at bedtime.

Life is good. I love Saturdays.

Yesterday we said good-bye to a favorite hen. Midnight passed away in the afternoon. She was a great hen with a lovely disposition and gentleness, and she laid gorgeous, huge brown eggs steadily for us for a year and a half. She was two or more years old when we rescued her. She seemed to have a steadying influence on the other hens. She was large and fluffy and her black feathers were soft and iridescent in the sunlight. She was Ian’s favorite of all of the girls.

Last fall, we noticed her belly was distended and so we researched online to find out what might be up with her. We found evidence to suggest that she was perhaps egg-bound, and although we did the things that were recommended to remedy it—ridiculous things like giving her a bath in warm water—nothing changed for the better. Yet, she didn’t die like the Internet said she surely would do within a few days. In fact, she lived another three months, ate heartily, grew her bottom feathers back in,  and …. then lost them again. Our theory is that she overwintered OK because she wasn’t laying, but now that spring has ramped up the hens’ egg-laying, she was egg-bound and it did her in.

Or we could be totally wrong about all of that. We’re just guessing.

Anyway, although I thought there might be great grief when I told my children about losing Midnight, they surprised me by taking it in stride. Lucas wanted to see her dead body, and then seemed to accept that she was gone. Asher was mildly interested but not upset. I’m grateful for Emily Mouse (our deceased pet), who paved the way for our experience of losing an animal. I also think that the addition of Solstice Dog to our family has given my children an understanding of what is a “proper” pet, and so the chicken seemed less important.

And while it’s quite silly to be very sad about losing our Midnight when we are a family who eats chicken three times a week, she was, nonetheless kind of a pet.

Rest in peace, Midnight. You were a great chicken.

Or, What I Did on My Vacation

OK, I admit I’m completely obsessed with window stars lately. I think I mentioned that here a little while ago. Anyway, we had some time off last week and I took all my kite paper and window star books along with me to the mountains. I was determined to challenge myself to make some of the more complex stars. While I was there, in between working, eating, and playing outside, I made eight new stars.

I also accidentally wrecked one, but shed only a few tears about that.

The more you make them, the easier it becomes. I guess I got into a kind of flow.

Lucas helped me make this beautiful multicolored star. He did most of the white center. I’m hoping he’ll want to make some more with me. I think stars like these may be our birthday gifts for everyone this year.

I love the way the light shines through them and I confess I’m crazy about the colors.

My boys wanted one for their room in their favorite colors, blue and green. Now that we’re home again, the stars have all found spots on our windows here, sharing space with the Valentine window transparencies I made last month, which are still up because I adore them.

I’ve also been experimenting and will share my results very soon, if it all works out the way I think it will.

We were on a school vacation last week, and Ian carved a few days off his work week. So we were able to leave town for one of our delicious, infrequent snow vacations.

We had a new family member along with us this time. I fell even more in love with Solstice. What an intrepid snow dog he is!

I love to see my children roaming, to see them march off on their own mission in whatever direction they choose. I love to see them free.

We had plenty of time for games and new hobbies, and that was enchanting, too.

What more can I say? It was perfect.

It seems to me that Leap Day is a special day, one where magic might be closer at hand than usual, since it comes only once every four years. Surely the fairies and elves must come visiting on this special day, when spring magic is so potent and new!

I did some poking around on the Internet and found, well, not much. I asked our Waldorf teachers if there was a tradition of observing Leap Day, but no one I asked knew of any.

That didn’t sit too well with me, so I sat down and wrote a story to tell my boys. Here it is, in case you need a Leap Day story to tell.

**********************************************

The Boy and the Elf

by Sara E. Wilson

Once upon a time, in a land far from here and yet not so far, a child lived with only his grandmother in an old cottage with walls so thin that when the howling winds blew they found their way through the cracks to blow out the candles. The boy loved his grandmother very much and she loved him. They spent lots of time together every day. He helped her with the chores, bringing in the firewood and scrubbing the soup pot. He wound the yarn that she spun into neat little balls to be sold at the market, for he had good eyes and nimble fingers, but best of all, he had a warm, golden heart.

Although the grandmother sang to the boy, and baked him sweet cakes on his birthday, and told him stories by the fire every evening before bedtime, the boy sometimes felt lonely, for he had no brothers or sisters and no playmates. When grandmother went into town to sell her yarn, he sometimes stayed behind and spent his time wandering in the woods. He had a favorite creek, where he liked to catch frogs in summertime, and a favorite meadow, where he liked to lie on his back in the spring and watch the clouds fly past. He had a favorite tree that he hugged and climbed, whose coppery leaves he danced and jumped in during the autumn when they fell to the earth.  He also had a favorite cave in the mountainside at the very edge of the farmer’s orchard, where he dared himself to go in the wintertime.

As it was wintertime now, on the day the boy had some time to himself, he went to the small cave. He always hoped he might hear coming from it sounds of snorts and snores from a sleeping mama bear. He never did hear such sounds, but he never gave up hope of someday hearing them. The orchard was in full bloom now. The air smelled sweet and the trees were clouds of white and pink blossoms and the ground around the cave entrance was littered with pretty petals. He listened carefully, and heard not the hoped-for snores of bears, but a high-pitched chuckle coming from inside the cave.

The boy wondered what could be making such a noise and called out, “Hello! Is someone in there?”

Pop

There before him, just outside the cave, stood a little man. His nose was sharp and his ears, sticking out of two holes in his hat, were pointed. He was dressed all in brown from the tip of his tall hat to the cuffs of his long trousers. The only things about him that weren’t brown were his rosy cheeks and his very blue shoes.

“What do you want?” asked the little man.

“Why, nothing,” stammered the boy. “I just came to the cave to see if any bears were here sleeping.”

“No bears. Just me,” said the elf, looking rather cross that he had been discovered. “I come here to be alone.”

“Um, me too.” The boy looked down. “I’m usually alone unless my grandmother is with me. Why were you laughing?”

“I’ve just played a marvelous trick on the farmer’s wife, who forgets to leave out nibbles for me. I’ve soured the milk! And down the road a bit I came across two children shouting ungrateful words at their mother, so I’ve got them good, too. And that, my boy, is why I was laughing.”

“How did you get the children? What did you do?”

“While they were sleeping I tied their hair in knots. They’ll have a time of it brushing them out in the morning.” The little man burst into a fit of giggling lasting several minutes. “Well, since you found me here on a Leap Day, you have to tell me what you want—and, if it’s within my power to, I must give it. That is the magic of Leap Day, which comes but once every four years. So what’s it to be?”

The boy sat down and thought a good while about what he might ask for. While he waited, the little man first tapped his foot, then stood on his hands, then jumped up and spun in circles to entertain himself.

The boy didn’t want to wish for wealth or beauty or playthings. He and grandmother always had just enough to eat, so he didn’t wish for rich foods or sweets. He realized what he wanted more than anything was a friend. When he thought that, he smiled and listened hard for the little voice inside him to tell him whether that was indeed what he should wish for. The little voice in his heart said, yes.

He plucked up his courage and said to the upside-down elf, “I wish that you would be my friend, and teach me about fairies and gnomes and leprechauns, and creatures of the woods.”

The little man at first seemed surprised. He planted his blue shoes on the ground and stood up. Shock filled his wide brown eyes and he blushed from the hollow of his throat to the tips of his pointed ears. But then he smiled, and a giggle bubbled up from his belly. Soon he was guffawing and rolling on the ground again.

When he finally stopped laughing, he said, “And so it shall be, my friend. My little human friend. You will find me here, at this cave at the edge of the orchard whenever you come. You know I am here when you see the flowers. And we will talk and play and be fast friends. We’re Leap Day Friends forevermore.”

And from that day on, the boy never felt lonely again. He lived with and helped his grandmother, who loved him ever so much, and he visited the cave beside the farmer’s orchard as often as he liked to meet his elfin friend. They had such good times together and the boy learned ever so much.

And if it ever was, it is even still.

© Sara E. Wilson

{This letter was started on January 31, worked on again February 24, and finished today, February 28.}

Dear Asher,

Happy birthday, my love! You are 5-years-old! You are so very excited to be 5 now. Every day for the last week I had to tell you how many sleeps until your birthday.

So let me paint a little picture about you and your life right now. You are the most precocious child, always chatting and singing through nearly every moment. You tell wonderful and hair-raising stories to anyone who will listen, especially about Earthland and your adventures there, your pet dragons of various breeds, the battles you engage in to save the world, and your wife Jennifer, who is having a baby with you. (This development is very recent.) The baby is a boy and his name is Morlassus. I hope to hear more about Jennifer and Morlassus.

You are very much at home in the Red Rose Kindergarten at our Waldorf school. Your teachers both adore you and you seem rather popular. Yesterday you told me that there are two girls who are in love with you, but since you were being discreet, you only told me the first sound of their names. What a gentleman you are. Lucas promptly guessed the girls’ names, and you eagerly confirmed he was right.  It seems that you have many friends that you run around with on the playground. I hear a lot about Elijah, Lilly, Enzo, Landon, and of course, Noah, and many others. It’s fun to watch your world expanding to include new people. When I’ve had the privilege of watching your class during circle time, I’ve been delighted to see that you enjoy the songs and movements so much. You pay attention and participate with joy. You love to clown with your buddies.

I hear more about battling from you than I remember hearing from your brother when he was your age. I don’t know if that’s part of being a younger sibling, for your interests tend toward the more mature things your brother likes.

At home, you and Lucas spend a lot of your free time together. Usually you get along pretty well, although now that you are older, the two of you fight more often. When you do, there’s all kind of shouting and often tears. I think you work very hard to get your point across and, in the long run, I think this is good for you. You stick up for yourself well; you push back when he’s trying to control or manipulate you. You are possessive of your things and sometimes don’t like being told how to play with them, which Lucas often does. At other times, you are happy to let him lead your games and imagination play. When the two of you work together, and allow each other space to create, you can be so agreeable and amazing—magical things happen in your minds. That part is fun to watch quietly, out of the corner of my eye so you don’t catch me. Together you are making up your own language, which as far as I can tell involves both of you making up words and Lucas correcting yours. You both enjoy hatching and training creatures and playing with your pet dragons.

~~~~

February 24

Asher, I can’t believe how much time has passed since your birthday. Here it is almost a month later and I still haven’t finished this letter. I’ll continue to try to paint a picture of who you are now.

At 5, you are formidable. You are confident and brave. You seem to know what you want and what you’re about most of the time. Although you often happily follow in your brother’s footsteps, you also sometimes pursue your own path with a kind of determination and certainty that I deeply admire.

You talk constantly. When you’re not talking, you are singing or jibber-jabbering in a steady stream-of-consciousness narrative.  I love to hear you singing, and I think you have a beautiful voice. Sometimes you and Lucas will sing together; he takes the low parts and you take the high and you weave your music together in a spontaneous and exciting way. You seem to have an instinct for it. I confess I sometimes find it hard to think in the midst of all your music-making. But I know you are processing your world, changing it through the power of your words, figuring out how things work, and joyfully plucking from it all the wacky humor and opportunities for fun as possible.

You also tell lots of stories. You enjoy tricking people, so you now tell stories that aren’t true in the hopes that people will believe you and you can have a giggle. And sometimes, I think you believe your stories yourself. The line between reality and fantasy is, well, rarely observed and certainly never hard and fast. You have been known to doorbell ditch, both from the outside and the inside of the house, by which I mean that you will knock on a hard surface until an adult goes to answer the door, only to find no one there.

For fun, you love to play with LEGOs and building spaceships is your specialty. You also enjoy blocks, but choose them less frequently nowadays. Once in a while you pick up a stuffed animal or your little Waldorf house elf Miko and play and play. When Lucas is home, you two enjoy “fighting” or “training” in martial arts. Lucas has convinced you that he is in fact a martial arts ninja master, and you are his willing and obedient student. He’s even got you calling him Master within the context of your game. Sometimes this play is relaxed and groovy, and you both enjoy it a lot. Other times, the sparring can lead to hurts. You were both given lightsabers for Christmas, and you love to battle each other in the evening, when the lightsabers glow beautifully in the darkness. Basically, you and Lucas are best friends and brothers, which is something special, I think—you compete, fight, and play with each other; you stick up for and cover for each other; and you learn from each other constantly. I often watch with wonder at how you interact, knowing that you’re both learning so much and gaining so much by being brothers. It’s marvelous.

We’re at the cabin in Tahoe for a family vacation now. Today, I watched you playing in the snow with great vigor and enthusiasm—never mind that it’s been two years since we came to play in the snow. You rambled through the woods near the cabin, enjoying your freedom and time to explore. You threw snowballs at your brother and didn’t mind when you got hit yourself. You never got too cold or out of sorts. I love to let you and your brother roam. Opportunities to do so safely are fewer than I would wish. To see you tromping through the woods, following your nose or the fairies or whatever it is that pulls you onward is a wonderful thing.

~~~~

February 28

Your latest obsession is Dungeons and Dragons. You now talk about it constantly. We probably should have held off on this for a few years, but as your brother is the perfect age for this kind of role playing and you absolutely will not be left out, we have compromised. Daddy is a wonderful DM. He has painted miniatures for your characters according to your descriptions of them and he is creating quests for you and Lucas that are good for you, requiring that your characters work together as friends and companions. I like this, for it’s a way of exercising your imaginations in cooperative ways instead of competitive ones. Once, many years ago, a friend told me how to raise brothers, for he himself was raising two boys in a way quite opposite how his own parents raised him and his brother. He said, “You must find ways to make your boys work together, even if that means they strive against you, the parent, as a team. Avoid all situations where your boys are striving against each other. That is how to foster brotherhood and closeness in your sons.” I’ll never forget that, and my heart tells me he is right.

Anyway, you are currently playing D&D as a “dorf” named Shortbow, which may be the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. You are beardless, because you don’t care for beards, and you are an adult. Not a child. Not a teenager. You like to inject all sorts of things into the story Daddy is telling during a game.

You have great new skills now. You can snap your fingers. You can throw a mean snowball. You recently braved the two-wheel bike (with training wheels) and Lucas gave you his old bike for your birthday. You ride it often on our street now, while Lucas rides his bike or his scooter. You seem to like the speed you can achieve now. You also can hop on one foot quite a distance and you can count pretty well up to 30, missing a few numbers along the way. Same with your alphabet, but we’re not worrying about that. I think it is rather funny that your interest in letters has come mainly from the kids on the playground. (Take that, Doubters. Waldorf kids not pushed will learn their letters and numbers in their own time, probably in Kindergarten.) And of course, you pay attention to your brother writing and practicing his spelling words. One of my favorite sights is seeing you both absorbed in a book or writing away in your own blank notebooks. A few days ago you wrote an entire page of “spells” in crisp, neat, blocky, made-up scribble letters. I love them.

I can go on and on, of course, for you are endlessly fascinating to me. I love you completely and I’m so proud of you.

Love,

Mama