MamaPie

Love is in the House

Even though it's a gray and rainy day here in Portland, Valentine's goodness abounds in the forms of handmade Valentines...drawn in pen, chalk and pancake batter, and in the form of the sweetest handmade photo book you've ever seen (with special thanks to Laura, the wonder-babysitter!).

  

 

 

Hope your Valentine's Day is filled with sweet & simple love.

Sick Week

Ezra and Reuben were sick all week. Today, Saturday, as I emerge from the house (with the sun shining, no less!), I feel like I an tentatively walking out of a hot, sticky parallel universe, where days and nights all run together, things move at a snail's pace (unless they flare up in a hot second) and, if you don't watch out, you're bound to get hit in the head with a flying quarter or to trip over a chain of eighteen scarves tied together.

My friend, Andrea, just walked in to the tea shop where I'm sitting: "What did you do all week?" she asked. Funny, I was just thinking about that. What did we do to fill all those hours? We read alot of books. I read alot of books as my boys pressed so tightly up against my sides that it was a logistical maneuver to turn the pages. We read some good ones--some old favorites and some new ones from the library and from my vintage children's book collection*. My favorites this week were: Tales of Mr. Pengachoosa, Recess at 20 Below and The Happy Birthday Present. We also started making Valentines--I got out pink, red and white construction paper, some scissors, glue and a heart punch and we sat around the kitchen table working. I kept the supplies out and we revisited this craft every day for awhile. I have this papercraft book and we learned about quilling, so we did alot of that for the Valentines. Reuben, who is almost 4, was really able to do the quilling by himself and liked it alot.

I sent them off to play or rest a few times a day, with varying success. When they did that, I hopped on the computer for a little bit and tried to keep up with cleaning, laundry and cooking.

They're finally fever-free and feeling better and I'm glad we're all stepping out of the house today, but it was sweet, too, and I'm sure I'll miss these kind of "lost weeks" when my boys are older.

 

*You can find some of my favorite vintage children's books in my etsy shop

Games 6 & 7 Year-Old Boys Like

After having Ezra's 6th birthday party at home last year, we decided that unless it was absolutely pouring, we were going to have his party outdoors in the park again. Last year there was just too much physical energy trapped inside for the boys to even really enjoy the craft projects and games we had planned.

We were so lucky that the day of his party turned out to be one of those perfect Fall days - clear and brisk and sunny, with fallen leaves all over the ground. The party was great, and the boys (it turned out to be all boys) really loved these games we planned:

1. Chestnut Toss: We spend lots of time in the fall going to walks on various chestnut trees in our neighborhood and gathering those glossy brown treasures. Ezra thought it would be fun to have a chestnut game at his birthday party. So what we did was give each boy a brown paper bag (old school lunch bag) with his name written on it (a good pre-party project for Ezra to work on: write friends name on construction paper and decorate around it, staple it to bag) and then had them go over to the big sack of chestnuts and count out 8. We had them stand in a circle around a basket and toss one of their nuts in; after each child had a turn, we asked everyone to take a step back, so each round they got further and further away from the basket. They liked this so much that we made up variations (throw with the opposite hand than you've been throwing with, throw with your eyes closed etc.) and played it several times. We focused on seeing how many we (collectively) would have in the basket at the end of the game, rather than on who got their chestnut(s) in each time. Definitely a keeper for Fall birthdays.
2. Going to Grandma's House: This game was as much fun for the grown-ups to watch as it was for the kids to play. I packed two little vintage suitcases with various top layers of clothing (hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters) and the boys divided into two teams for a relay race of carrying the suitcase to the end point, opening it and putting on an item of clothing, snapping the suitcase back up and running back (with the suitcase knocking against their little leg) to the beginning to pass off the suitcase to the next eager friend. So fun. So funny.

I will be back again tomorrow with some more "notes from a fun birthday party"!

I'm here!

We've been having a busy fall and I haven't been here in a while. But I miss this place! So, I'll be back more regularly starting tomorrow - with thoughts about birthday party games, Waldorf first grade, fall cooking and more.

For today, I'll present my king and my knight:

 

Puzzling it Out

 

You know those times when your kids seem to be shifting into a new phase of play? It happens slowly and subtly around here, but then I look around and realize that they're playing with totally different kinds of things than they were a few months ago.

We've had one of those shifts lately and I'm still catching up and making adjustments around the "new normal." What are Ezra and Reuben interested in these days, at ages 6.25 and 3.0? Puzzles, building with blocks (this has been a constant, throughout lots of shifts and transitions) and games.

Ezra did lots of puzzles when he was three. One of my clearest memories of my pregnancy with Reuben is going to The Ugly Mug with Ezra every morning and snuggling on the couch there, reading books and doing little Melissa and Doug truck puzzles that we brought from home. We had some bigger puzzles that he would often do at home, too - a world map, a Richard Scarry bunny house and an alphabet train. I, never a puzzle person before, learned to love puzzles too, through sharing the joy with Ezra.

But, then, no puzzles, really, for a few years. And now...it's puzzle time again! This time with Reuben enjoying the same puzzles that Ezra enjoyed when he was three and with Ezra (and Mama!) enjoying 100 and even 200 piece puzzles. I am so happy puzzles have come back and have been having fun seeking them out at the Goodwill, our local consignment shop and our fantastic new neighborhood game store. Do you know of any great puzzles?

Tender Boys

On two consecutive days last week, Ezra and Reuben burst into tears. Not the whining kind of fakey crying (which we also get plenty of), but serious crying, with plump wet tears streaming down their beautiful faces.

Ezra's cry came about at the beginning of the New York Jets game, where they were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers for a chance in the Super Bowl. Andrew is a lifelong diehard Jets fan and this year, it seems, that fandom has reached a third generation of the Cohen family in Ezra (Andrew's father is also a huge fan). While the world of football holds no resonance for me (I literally do not know how the game is played) I have watched as Ezra has grown to understand the game, to speak the language of football with fluency and to feel a strong team allegiance to those New York J-E-T-S.

So last Sunday, about ten minutes after Ezra and Andrew went down to the basement to begin watching the game, I was suprised when Ezra came running up to the kitchen (my usual post during football games), ran into my arms and started sobbing. "I'm so scared," he said "about the Jets." I held him, this sweet six-year-old boy with milky skin and pink cheeks, as he cried big and hard. And then he wanted to go back down and watch again.

The Jets lost, and he was okay and we made it through his first football season.

Reuben's cry came the next day after we had spent some time reading books, sharing a bagel and drinking warm drinks (for him, a vanilla steamer, for me, a rice chai) at our neighborhood coffee shop. When he's done with his drink, Reuben always likes to carry his mug up to the counter and give it to whomever is working. On this day, he had more things than usual to carry: our friend Kim had given him his steamer in a little teacup, complete with a saucer and a spoon. He diligently arranged all these items and carried them slowly and carefully up to the counter. Just as he was handing them to the Kim, the teacup toppled off the saucer and shattered. "Sorry," Ruby managed to say solemnly, before turning to me and sobbing, inconsolably, for a full five minutes. His feeling that he had made a mistake, that he had done something wrong and felt so badly for having done so reminded me, in the same way that Ezra's fear and overwhelm about the football game had, of the deep innocence and tenderness of these boy-creatures that I have been entrusted to raise, to help, to teach, to love - and reminded me (yet again) of how honored I am to be sharing my days with them: with the tears, the laughter and everything in between.

 

Meshuga

Meshuga, meaning crazy or foolish, is one of the Yiddish words Ezra and Reuben use. Andrew's grandparents, Aaron and Pearl, were Polish immigrants and spoke Yiddish at home to Andrew's mother and her sister. Andrew's mom still attends a weekly Yiddish class and uses my Grandpa Hyman's Yiddish-English Dictionary to look things up (my mom gave it to her when my grandpa died). So our boys have a close connection to the Yiddish language on both sides of the family.

The other day, while they were in the bathtub, I heard Ezra explaining to Reuben what meshuga means. He accurately explained it thusly "Ruby, meshuga is when you love something so much. Like, you're meshuga for mama and ice cream and I'm meshuga for crystals, shiny stones and getting presents."

And there you go.

That night, after lighting the Chanukah candles, we sang "Oy Chanukah," with both boys skillfully managing the Yiddish tongue twister (Ezra is a master of the song, Reuben is learning). I'm glad we're doing our part to keep Yiddish alive - I mean sometimes English just can't capture the essence of words like shpilkes, shtarker and, of course, meshuga.

Sick Days 1, 2 and 3

On the first day, just Ezra was sick. Sick enough to stay home from school, but not sick enough to lie on the couch all day and watch tv (if we watched tv, that is). No, first Ezra wanted to construct a chair structure in the (ohmygod it's so messy I can't believe I'm exposing it here) kitchen:

 
 

This was, of course, punctuated by some brotherly conflict:

 
  

This was resolved and some playing in the basement enused. Later, Ruby modeled the shirt I made him:

 
 

Naps were had:

 

And, some waterplay:

  

By the second day, Ruby was sick, too. Popcorn was made:

  

There was lots of dressing up:

 

And, I gave them each envelopes with their names written on them and, between those and some chestnuts, a good half hour was spent playing mailman:

  

At the end of the day, kitchen play, including climbing in the cabinets and waterplay "just don't get too much water everywhere, okay?", indicated that Mama was getting really tired.

 
 

And, on the third day, Ezra was getting better, Reuben was worse and Mama was too tired to document it anymore!

Today, Ezra is back at school and Reuben is on the mend.

Sleeping Beauties