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

Thanksgiving 2011

Where to even begin with the thankfulness, for things huge and small (although even the small are really big)?

A very uncomprehensive list this morning:

• First, and always, for Andrew, Ezra and Reuben--my family: my loud, energetic, busy, messy, extremely funny, extraordinarily cute, loving, kind and (thank god, thank god) healthy pack of boys.
• Baloo: the canine member of our family who very much fits in--he's also loud, busy, messy, funny & cute. He's such a good boy.
• My mom and dad, brother and nephew: all crazy, all wonderful--I adore them and am thankful for the many many gifts they've all given to me. In particular today, I'm thinking of the gift I received in being able to spend lots of treasured time with Zeke when he was a baby and young boy and how that experience crystallized in me the wish to be a mama to boys.
• Our house.
• The food we eat.
• Living in the United States, in Oregon, in Portland, in Sellwood, on our street with wonderful neighbors.
• For woolen and warm clothes.
• For kisses and snuggles and chai and vegetables and chocolate and burgers and fries and books and friends...and so much more.

It may seem trite (it sort of does to me) to make a list like this on a blog. But, I also figure that any moment when I can be aware of this abundance, and remember my gratitude, and remember my prayers and wishes and actions to help those who have less are important moments.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

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"!

Lists 9/12/11

Here's what came home from the library with me today:

• Nina Crews' The Neighborhood Sing-Along
• Amanda Soule's Handmade Home
• Stevie Parle's Real Food from Near and Far
• Mercer Mayer's There's an Alligator Under my Bed
• Cooper Eden's The Glorious American Songbook

I've made two new things in the Vitamix this week, both inspired by recipes in Jeremy Safron's The Raw Truth:

• Miso-Tahini Salad Dressing, which is roughly 2 tbs each tahini and white miso, the juice of a whole lemon, a date and water.
• Banana-Chocolate Shake: 4 dates, 2 frozen bananas, 1 big tablespoonful of Artisana cacao-coconut butter.

Both of these recipes are keepers and will be making many repeat performances in my kitchen.

In my sewing "queue" (that endless, constantly reworked jumble in my head of everything I want to sew):

• Oliver + S Sandbox Pants: I bought some beautiful Kaffe Fassett fabric to make a pair of these for Reuben. I'm a little scared to make my first buttonholes, but it's got to be done sometime, right?
• I just got Sewing for Boys in the mail. I'm so excited to dive in to these patterns!

So, tell me: what books do you have checked out from the library? or have you cooked anything new this week? or what are you looking forward to creating? c'mon humor me - answer a question!

Ezra's Nature Table

What Playing Looks Like

My cats - Papa Cat and the two kittens - went away this week, which left this mouse time to play. So, what did I do?

Primarily, I moved slowly. I think that if you saw me these past few days: walking down the street, sitting at the coffee shop reading the newspaper, on a bike ride, I would look a little unmoored, spaced out, disoriented, but in a good way. That's how I felt, for sure.

I did "do" some things, in small bits, with lots of breaks for reading, petting the dog, lying down and staring out the window. I did: some house cleaning, sorted through the boys old clothes, got some things ready for a yard sale this weekend, made a big pot of beans, soaked and then dried some almonds, a little sewing. I went to bed early and lay in bed for awhile each morning when I woke up. This slow waking up was one of the things that was most different from my regular days and one of the things I most savored.

They're coming back today. I'm sure they'll be full of stories and pride from their camping adventures.I could definitely use a few more days of this slowness, this dreamy way of moving through my days. And, I can't wait to see those faces that I love the most.

What Lasts

Ezra is done with kindergarten. In Waldorf world, this means he is done with his "early childhood" education, that consisted of two years of parent-child classes, a year of nursery and two years of kindergarten. He will begin his journey of "the grades" in September: one big class with one teacher who will all be together for the next seven years.

We said goodbye to Miss Anne Marie when Ezra started in the Rose Kindergarten. And now, we say goodbye to Miss Sonia. Miss Sonia with her converse sneakers underneath her flowing Waldorf-y dresses and aprons, with her French accent and "grandmother" stories; with her little bird Lamouche, who would tell the children what they needed to wear to go outside each day ("Rain everything", usually), with her strong, wise and kind ways.

We say goodbye to the Rose Kindergarten, with it's woodshop and gold coins, it's houses built each day by the children, inside which they would sit and talk about football while finger-knitting. Goodbye to the dragon tears and the daily stories, rest times, songs and blessings. Ezra dutifully, and happily, did his early childhood days, and now he gets to use other parts of his mind, parts that have been patiently waiting while he grew his roots and did his eurthythmy in his little white ballet slippers. He gets to learn about concrete things: letters, numbers, music, handwork. He will get to write in a "main lesson book" and learn Spanish and German. And all of these new places in his brain that will be lighting up and delighting in concrete knowledge will all be supported by layers of beeswax and yarn, sheepskins and songs, feathers, fairytales and sand.

Bye Bye to Convenience...

Once again, I've learned to make something on my own and now the pre-packaged ones are ruined for me. Our easy dinner of (packaged) tortillas, (pre-made) beans and cheese burritos has will now be a little less easy. But alot more delicious.

Last night I made tortillas. yum. I used the recipe from the Rebar cookbook, which I am still loving alot. The only modifications I made were to use 5 tbs unsalted butter instead of vegetable shortening, to make the dough in the food processor and to cook them in my cast-iron skillet with no oil (recipe calls for oiling the frying pan). I also used all white flour, because I was out of whole wheat. We had some friends over to celebrate Andrew's 40th birthday, which is tomorrow. I made a platter of stuff to put in the tortillas: shredded chicken, steamed asparagus, carrots and red bell pepper and made an citrus-soy sauce dressing to top it all off. It was really good, although the tortillas definitely stole the show; everything else was just there because I couldn't really put out only tortillas for dinner and because we all need a little bit of protein.

Tortillas (slightly modified from Rebar Cookbook):

ingredients:

1 1/2 c. unbleached flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1 tsp. white sugar

1 1/2 baking powder

1 tsp. salt

5 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into 10 pieces

3/4 c. hot water

1. Mix first five ingredients in bowl of food processor. Add butter and process until little pea-sized balls form.

2. Gradually add hot water through feed tube while processing.

3. Turn out dough onto floured surface and knead for a few minutes. Form into ball and place in clean bowl, cover and set aside for an hour.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle with flour. Break off golf ball sized pieces of dough, roll into balls (I made 10) and place on baking sheet. Cover and set aside for another hour.

5. On a floured surface, press out each ball and roll out disk to form an approximate 8" round (mine were pretty irregularly "round"). Put each tortilla on a piece of parchment paper and stack them up.

6. Heat cast iron skillet to medium-high and cook tortillas one by one. Flip over when bubbles form. I cooked each one for about a minute per side. I wrapped them in foil and kept them in a 200 degree oven until it was time to eat.

This morning we went and bought Andrew a plug-in drill for his birthday, which is a perfect present that Ezra came up with by himself. One rainy day, a few months ago, he was sitting in the living room looking out the window for awhile. Then, he got up, came into the kitchen and told me that he'd just thought of what we should get Papa for his birthday. It's something only Ezra would know that Andrew needs, as they do woodwork and house repairs together, and Ezra said that Andrew is always frustrated by the rechargeable drill losing it's charge so quickly.

This Weekend...

will be sunny! The sun, the sun, the sun, that is the most important thing about this week and the upcoming weekend. Ruby and I have spent the last two mornings, while Ezra is in school, biking around town doing errands. My new bike (40th birthday present) is so easy and comfortable to ride and the xtracycle is like a little party-mobile, inspiring all sorts of smiles and waves from drivers, pedestrians and other bikers. And the sunshine on our shoulders is, truly, divine.

We planted our third garden bed yesterday: a few types of red peppers and some broccoli. I used a wheelbarrow to transport compost from my car to the garden bed and I realized that there's nothing like pushing a wheelbarrow to really make you feel like you're doing some earthy work. I don't think I ever pushed a wheelbarrow until a few years ago. Until I realized my calling of being a mama and hands-on homemaker, which, really, do feel like true-callings. This world filled with lots of cooking, and baking (make this, that's all I'm going to say) and cleaning and washing and folding and a little bit of crafting and lots of tending and caring and loving. I am so unbelievable thankful that this is what I get to do.

So, this weekend, we'll probably do some more work getting the garden going, and I'll get ready for the Blue Egg sale next Tuesday and I'm sure the bike will log many more miles. I hope your weekend is also filled with sunshine and simple things you love.