The day started with blueberry smoothies

and Lego construction of video game hardware

Like Wii and DS

That’s all he needs, really—little Lego devices on which he can pin his imaginary games

The boys left to play at our friends’ house and indulge in a little real Wii Sports

Then for me, some light reading: a fundamentals of nursing textbook

I was lured outside for some photography

Gotta catch these plum blossoms before they’re gone

See the little star?

An unexpected visit from Mom and a cup of coffee

More nursing reading on topics of theories of caring, cultural sensitivity, and the ADPIE nursing process

I jogged through the sunshiny neighborhood to pick up the kids from their play date—oh boy, am I out of shape!

Walking/running home with one son in fast, new white trainers and the other wearing the jumpiest pair of firefighter galoshes you’ve ever seen

Second lunch of meat for Baby Asher Dragon

Lunch of leftover vegetable soup for me

A little planting of primroses, which will probably do fine where we put them until it gets too warm

Finding a worm

Watering plants lead to spraying children who cavorted with great glee and got soaking wet

In February!

High of 65° F

Ahhh!

We met a garden foefriend

Who couldn’t find his way off this plate

Dry clothes for everyone

Then a cuddle and some stories; the children are into playing Monkey and Dragon these days, so we read books with, what else?

Monkeys and dragons

Hug (Thanks, Auntie NoNo and Uncle Mars!)

Sky Castle

and—what the hay—a Japanese fairy tale called “Kuzma and the Fox”

Sweet afternoon slumber for the wee one

Lucas and I headed back outdoors for some Winter Olympic Games

Like speed skating, long track

Figure skating

and ice hockey

On the lawn with bare feet!

More work reading

A few moments of  “DragonFly TV” and “Fetch with Ruff Ruffman” on PBS Kids for Lucas

Asher wandered out, crawled into my lap and slept on

So sweet

Cuddling sleeping boys is just about the best thing in the world (unless you have to pee)

“Wake up, Asher, or you’ll never sleep tonight!”

A shower for me

Pretend video games for Lucas

Daddy’s home!

Lucas reading Jamberry to Asher!

Just a tad of stream-of-consciousness blogging

Sounds of some kind of Dragon and Monkey game with lots of sound effects and shouting

Soon, dinner and bedtime

Then project prep

More work reading, like the Roy Adaptation Model

G’night

Sleep tight.

It’s teacher in-service week around here, which means my kids have the week off school and daycare. I’m getting help from grandma and some friends here and there, which is great because I have a big meeting to prepare for. Next week I’m flying to New Jersey for two days of meetings. I’m excited and nervous. It’s my longest trip away from my kids ever—three days!

The weather has turned so exquisitely springlike it’s making me feel a little drunk. Crocuses and daffodils are blooming. The quinces in the neighborhood are bursting out coral blossoms. Today I noticed my flowering plum tree has its first blossoms. Hallelujah! I know more rainy, cold weather is ahead. It’s OK. I’m just glorying in our false spring and enjoying the moment. The sun on my face feels spectacular. Yesterday we enjoyed some late afternoon time at our local schoolyard.

Today, Lucas and I left the house in short-sleeved T-shirts. Out of habit and a belief that Asher still doesn’t regulate his own temperature all that well, I made him wear two long-sleeve shirts. At about 1:30 this afternoon he turned to me and stammered something I couldn’t make out. Then he gathered his thoughts and said, quite clearly, “I’m so sweaty!” Oh! Sorry kid. Let’s take off a shirt.

The boys and I visited Great Grandmother RoRo and Great Grandaunt Nana today. It was good to see them, but also strange. My children don’t relate well to Ro at all, which makes me sad because she was such fun when I was a child. These sweet ladies look pretty well and we sat outside in the sunshine together and watched the boys play.

Later at home I gave the kids haircuts. Asher really hates this procedure. He cries and says I’m hurting him, and freaks out whenever the shorn hairs touch his skin. To get him to stay in the chair so I could do the job, I had to give him a Valentine chocolate cut into four pieces. It took a lot of patience on both our parts, but we ended up with an OK cut.

This is one of Lucas’s shots from yesterday evening. I like the color.

Life is good. We are fine. Hope you are too!

Lucas has been enjoying playing with Fuse Beads lately. You arrange them standing on end in patterns and then fuse them together with a clothes iron.

Lucas quickly tired of following the suggested patterns and created a whole army of little guys. They each have a name, though I can’t tell you what the names are; I could not pronounce them even if I remembered them.

Here are a few familiar characters: a fused R2D2 and a Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader ready to fuse. I’d better get on that!

For this one, he used the fuse beads in a different way. Waldorf kids are cool.

Grandma visited today with Valentine’s presents for the boys. When they saw these lollipops, their eyes became wide as (heart-shaped) saucers! We love you, VoVo!

Sometime last year I found a project on the Great and Glorious Internet for making crayon heart Valentines and I saved it up for months. I really looked forward to actually doing this with Lucas! Last year, our Valentines for Lucas’s classmates were wonderful and handmade. They also took days and days of concentrated effort, which was (in hindsight) more than Lucas really was ready for at 6.5 years old. I wanted to do something easier this year, and this project turned out to be perfect for three reasons: 1) we used up years’ worth of crayon stubs; 2) they truly are beautiful and useful treasures; and 3) I invested in a groovy Wilton mini heart muffin pan that I can use for all kinds of goodies, not just crayons!

Before. We stripped the crayon stubs of their paper and *gasp* broke crayons into smaller pieces on purpose.

We filled up my groovy new silicone baking pan (safe up to 500° F), set it atop another cookie sheet covered with a sheet of aluminum foil (just in case), and popped it in the oven for 20 minutes at 250° F. We found the crayons (of mixed brands and qualities) melted at different rates. It took 20 minutes for them all to melt. We removed the pan and let the melted hearts cool. When they were completely cool, they easily popped out of the silicone shapes. You can actually turn the heart inside out and the crayon comes out perfect and unmarred.

After. Here are the first two batches, which we actually finished in January. Aren’t they lovely? We made 36 of these gorgeous multicolored crayon hearts—more than a class set.

We found the pigment sank to the bottom (the top in this picture). The paraffin wax of the crayons was less dense than the pigment and it floated to the top (or bottom in the photo). They have an interesting stripy effect when viewed from the side, no? The paraffin side of our hearts doesn’t color all that well, but we take comfort in knowing it will be useful for magical watercolor paintings. A child can draw with the clearish wax, then watercolor over the wax drawing for a batik result. Anyway, I’m really curious whether we’d get a better result that colors on both sides if we used higher quality crayons.

Here are Lucas’s finished Valentines 2010, wrapped, signed, and ready to go for Friday’s exchange at school. I hope the children like them. I think they will be a hit!

I made another thing—one that you can hold in your hand. Before, it wasn’t there. Then I made it and now it is! This making stuff is quite miraculous to me still.

Ever since I read Amanda Soule’s book The Creative Family, I had it stuck in my head that I wanted to make Asher a birthday crown. I tried talking myself out of doing it a dozen times—after all, Asher’s really picky about what he’ll wear on his body and we have had more than enough fights tantrums disagreements over clothing during the past six months. Honestly, I thought he would never wear a birthday crown, and I try hard not to set myself up for disappointments of the kind that might come with hand-sewing a special gift for the birthday boy to wear and then finding that he won’t wear it.

But, two days before Asher’s birthday, I still couldn’t stop thinking about making him a crown. And so I started. I had the felt at home already.

I drew several designs before settling on flying birds. Then I noodled around with the birds till I liked their arrangement. I dragged the kids to the fabric store to find the right kind of stars and some pretty thread.

And I worked diligently with my rainbow stitches. And Lucas helped with some, but not many because Mama is a control freak.

I used silver thread to make the stars sparkle. And the Gingher embroidery scissors my boys bought me for Christmas sure came in handy!

I made the inside lining green like the leaves, hand-sewed the two pieces together, and attached the elastic to the back. And I finished in time.

And Asher wore it! I’m so proud of this! This photo is one I took the day after his birthday party because I wasn’t satisfied with my shots from the party—he just wouldn’t sit still that day! Doesn’t he look regal?

(Lucas wants a crown for his birthday, too.)

I guess now I pack the crown away to use again on his next birthday, but I kind of hate to do that. I think I have to for it to be a special, though. What would you do?

Such a big day we had last Sunday. Our littlest boy turned 3 years old!

There was a birthday crown, which — surprise! surprise! — he actually wore!

And there were grandpas and grandmas all over the place! Even RoRo and Nana. And special friends and Auntie Kellie came too.

And balloons arrived, which sent the Birthday Boy over the MOON with excitement and inspired many crazy antics!

We had decorated with the birthday bunting and this repurposed Christmas wreath and purple and yellow primroses in pots, and everything looked so festive.

We ate croissant sandwiches and salad and potatoes and strawberries for lunch.

Asher got many lovely presents, including toys like this helicopter and a special doctor’s kit, and big-boy underpants with Thomas the Train on them …

and delightful new books (and we read every one of them three times that day)!

Asher got his wish for a purple hippo chocolate birthday cake. (And mommy got to reuse a specialty cake pan bought last year for Lucas’s birthday. Win win!)

Our guests fussed over the Birthday Boy, who was happy and acting out and a trifle overwhelmed when everyone left—but not so worn out that he couldn’t horse around with his brother for a while, read all his new books, run with the balloons, play doctor, and go for a walk through the neighborhood before he collapsed in a sleepy pile on my bed with me. We both napped that day and it was the best birthday present I could have asked for.

It was a happy birthday!

Last night we created the smallest, cutest Candlemas, or Imbolc,  ceremony in our home. (I’m sort of better at my practice in my mind than in practice, so to speak.) But this year we pulled it off. We rolled four simple beeswax candles and talked about it being the midpoint between the winter solstice, or beginning of winter, and the spring equinox, or end of winter/beginning of spring.

I love that the wintertime is punctuated by festivals of warmth and light, and that candles still have a beautiful place in even our modern homes. And damn, that beeswax smells so good! Children are usually far removed from the fire that has traditionally kept us warm, kept human beings safe and together, and helped us build and maintain our human family. That’s too bad. We try to light a candle every evening for our bedtime Candle Prayer. It’s good to be reminded of the magic of a lighted candle in the dark.

This is an exciting moment for me because from here on, I can look forward to spring. [Incidentally, this day (February 2) was my official due date for Asher’s birth three years ago. I sort of expected to have an Imbolc baby—it seemed to follow naturally since I already had a Beltane baby. Even though I didn’t have an Imbolc baby, the association is still there.]

Oh, and Happy Birthday to Lance, wherever he is.

There’s only one thing around here that’s blue but not man-made. Seeing the sky this color is a treat in January, especially after the rains we’ve been having. Lichen is cool, too.

It’s still raining. Everything’s gray and cold. I have no issue with rain per se, but my idea of rain is warmer  and more … romantic … than the rain presently falling from the sky. Looking out my windows, I see my yard is dreary. My favorite plants are shorn or dormant. The lawn is full of yellow dead patches. Only the redwood trees look nice, and my, they’ve grown tall! I am looking forward to some sunny days to lift my spirits.

Asher and I were alone this afternoon and we just had to get out of the house for awhile. There’s a great “creek” running down our street so we took a boat outside to float it. Asher didn’t want to be bothered to try out the yellow rain boots for splashing in puddles. He just went for it! Also, the boat wasn’t nearly as interesting as the runoff. Just look at the glee on his face!

This splashing was a great distraction for me, too. I knew Ian was driving home from Fresno in the rain and I worry only because I know he doesn’t much like driving in the rain. I was anxious for him to be home safe and sound.

And now he is and I’m grateful.

It’s been a long day and I’m ready to call it. Lucas is abed; Asher will be soon. Good night. I hope you occasionally enjoy a good splash, too.