Today was handwork day

According to my new established routine, today was handwork day and I took out the chuncky beads I found at the thrift store.

It was Elizabeth's first time, and with some help from Mariann, she learned how it worked and managed to make a really pretty necklace for herself. She's 18 month old. Her mama is a great friend of mine and had a really hard time trying daycare places, with all them stressing her and her baby in some way (to far so too much car time, close by too crowed, not sharing parenting values, etc). I offered to take her in and integrate her in our daily routine. So far, so good, and both mama and baby seems a lot happier.

You bet Mariann loves to have another playmate. She can get bossy and she loves to be the chief. On snack time, they are all 3 sit on the floor, with Mariann distributing the food. There's a lot of cooking going on in the playkitchen, a lot of babies being rocked, cuddled and craddled.

There's a lot of hugs and kisses going on, too. Mariann calls her "My love". There's a lot of sippy cup exchange as well, and a lot of food on my floor.

The proud girls. It's now time for bed-in to get Merrick to do his morning nap. The after-noon naps are still to be figured how. Any suggestions?

We tried all in bed with books, all on the couch with a movie, all babies in separated rooms....

Rhythm Annalisis

Summer seems very gone now. We sure will have some more days of good weather, but September is coming so fast. Soon I will loose Papa on lunch time, and won't expect to come home before late in the evening. And that, 7 days a week, for a least a month and a half.

Our new home rhythm is pretty much well established now. We eat our breakfast with Papa before he goes to work, have some free play time while I tend to the dishwasher and washing machine. I nurse Merrick in our playroom and take him upstair when he's asleep. We have our day's activity (Baking, Painting, Handwork, Crafting....) then some toddler appropriate Yoga. I start to make dinner after Merrick wake from his nap.

Papa comes for lunch and go. We have some more free play time, and when 2 o'clock hits we all get to bed for a relaxation period. Hopefully they all get asleep, if so, I sleep with them, if not I remove the non-sleeping child and s/he come with me downstairs and "help" me with the chores. Sometimes Mariann get to sleep by herself on the couch or on the crib mattress there is in my sewing room.

Wake up time means some more free play, outdoor if possible. I usually sit with a book or a ongoing doll on the floor and let the kids. Sometimes I start souper and sometimes I wait for Papa to be home to do so.

That's how our day looks like most of the time. The weekend are pretty hectic and unplanned.

Oh, we had some fun

Last week we went on a little trip around the Province of Québec to see my siblings that I don't get to see much. My sister has a 16 month old son that I saw for the second time this weekend, last time he was 4 mo (and I was very pregnant!) and we got to do fun stuff for Mariann - because frankly, the babies didn't care much...

We went in a (free!) park that has a little farm. Mariann loved every bit of it, and you should have seen her eyes when my sister paid her a pony ride. She was enchanted by the goats, too.

We went in Québec city (some 300 km away) and toured the gorgeous Orléan Island, and went into a mall that has attractions in it. You can be sure Mariann didn't want to leave the Mary-go-round. The day after we walked with my brother (he was seeing Merrick for the first time) in the Old Québec city, which I hadn't done for ages. It's beautiful and much to Mariann's delight, full of horses carrying tourists around. It was nice to spend the evening with my brother. His roommate even made us BBQ club sandwich for souper. Imagine, they are all musicians. And by that I mean it's all their life. One makes guitar for a living, the other has his own studio, and my brother record his own CDs. Mariann was very impressed by the number of guitars there was in there (erm, me too) and she was even allowed to play of the piano.

Then we headed to Montréal (some 300km more) We didn't get into the island, which we didn't felt like... We're so not the city type! Just to get to my sister's suburb house was tricky enough... How come the traffic can be jammed on a Thursday mid-after-noon? Anyway, I'm glad we went. My sister needed some help... I think it did her great to see that I, too, was tired of the kids sometimes, that me and Papa can loose our patience also. That our babies practically never get to sleep without a bit of fuss, and that is not such a big deal. She lives far from her mom (we have different ones) and on her husband's side lives in France. It's so easy to feel isolated with a baby! I've listened to her the best I could, but our realities, and our personalities are very dissimilar and I didn't know how to council her. A lot of her issues resolve on the fact that they are both nurses, she work the day shift and he, the night, which leave a very small window were they actually get to be a family, together. Sadly, everything is more of a question of money, which I can't really understand thus talk about without feeling awkward, because we choose that I'd stay home. I didn't want to sound judgemental ...

Oh well. We did the 600ish km back home in one shoot, in the night so the babies were fast asleep. We were away for 5 days and it felt great, and it was enough and I was happy to be back in our mess.

Treasures

Finally got my camera back, hope it last a little more... So to celebrate, when we got home, I took pictures of the thrifty treasures we found... Enjoy!

I think it's a Honey pot? It was so little and pretty....

This one is tiny, too!





Mariann loves to drink in espresso cups







Each time I can't help but take home any cauldron I find. The reflexion is very cool on this one.



This thing is about 4x4''

It feels really good to have my camera back!

If that is August, then I'm starting to like it.

I no more need to say that I hated school, you all know it by now. And, sadly, as a child, I spent my whole month of August dreading that infamous back to school day. We would stop going on camping trips so my mom would be at home available to receive the call as weather or not she'll have a [teaching] contract this year. But no more! No school for any of the person living in my house, this year! Of course, I still have to hear my mom dread the back to school day, counting her last days of freedom... But that's her problem now and I've decided to make peace with August and give it a try... And today I was rewarded.

When the babies woke up from a shared bed nap in the late after-noon, I decided we'd go to the field Papa was; he wouldn't be home for 1½ hour, and 1½ hour was about the time it took to get there walking with a toddler (about 30 min for an adult alone) ... And if we didn't made it before he finishes, well, we'd have our lift back home.

Oups, no sling no stroller.... left in the car in which Papa got at the in-laws to get the tractor. After browsing our winter collection, I found a scarf wide and long enough to hold my 1 year old. Of course Mariann requested one to put a plastic baby in and off we went. I was not able, however, to convince her that she really didn't need that hair brush.

Mariann stopped in delight at every butterflies, put many rocks in her pockets, jumped in every mud pit, thrown rocks at every swamps and fed the "baby frogs" with fresh herbs. She was marvelled by the stream and talked back to the birds. She patiently convinced a ladybug to mount on her hand each time it fell for 10 minutes and grabbed, kneeling in the dirt, a bunch of chamomile flowers to give her father.

And that's when we reached the little oatmeal field before the huge potato one, after the woodland road that I felt this sense of pure happiness.

The sky was as blue as my little boy's eye, not a cloud to see. As far as I could look, there was only fields or forests, and right in front of me, align with the earth road, was this big bright Moon smiling at us. "The Moon's awake!" Mariann said in delight, and she started to sing a french song that speaks about the Moon. The air was fresh and warm, not too humid, not too dry. My baby boy held against me was brushing the plastic baby's hair... because Mariann had enough of carrying her baby long before... There was so much to see!

And there was that sense of letting go. I wasn't hurrying to nowhere. I was just glad not to be at home, waiting for my men to arrive while the babies got impatient and fussy. I was standing in that oatmeal field, with a little pain on my neck from the sling, getting hit by an hairbrush every now and then, waiting for Mariann to walk just another couple meter more before getting back to walk. Time froze, and I've savoured every bit while it lasted.

Thank you Mother Earth. For oatmeal fields, babies and ladybugs.

Merrick's special Day

**please note; my good camera is still, yet again, in repair, I appologize for the photo quality**

One year ago I gave birth to my darling little boy. I still owe you his birth story... Soon!

I'm happy to start our birthday ritual for the first anniversaire for Merrick. I makes it extra special for Mariann and will be totally the norm (yet still magical) for him. And Mariann enjoyed it as much as Bébé frère!

As gift, I think I spoiled myself more then the kids... I bought already cut stalkers and stained them with watercolors. It looks so great in their playroom and Mariann loves to make the puzzles... For now Merrick enjoy tasting all the pieces!

I made one for each element. The little wooden sun was painted by Mariann on Ostara and Merrick loves chewing on it. I put it there in infase the fact that he was born in Summer, on a very hot and sunny day :)

We already had the playsilks and wooden animals.

And here's Mariann gift, which she was very very proud to give!
I cut 3 rectangles and ran them throught my sewing machine, then I asked Mariann to embrodery each page with each colors of the rainbow. It took about 4 baby brother's naps, she would keep her interests for about 3-4 pages at a time. I then handsewn two pages together so the wrong side don't show.

We can see a little bit of the necklace I made. I took blue glass beads and a pentacle charm (for protection) and some hazeltree beads I made from wood harvested in our own backyard. I simply cut each beads (with a tool I just can't find the english word in my head right now...) and a nail and hammer. Right now it sits on my work table, waiting for me to re-do it. Shirring elastic was not a good idea, apperently!

I don't really have a great picture of the crown... I'll take one later.

So, I've embrodery his initial in blue, like his eyes, and sewn felt oak leaves, the king of tree, nothing less! It represents well the time he was born, I find. On the side there is a spear and a branch of wheat which represent the day he was born; Lughnasad or Lamas, the first of the three pagan harvest festival. On the other side, still with felt, I sewn a wooden shield and an axe, symbol of his name, which means Powerfull Conquerer or Ruler of the Sea, and which as value him the nickname of Little Viking by his godsfather and Mamie. All the growling, and the fact that he's so blond and chubby, only added to it!

I also made them paint on canvas, of course Mariann loved it, as always... But Merrick, not really. We still have 2 great paintings on the wall!

And here he is in a tunic I made the very day. I actually took picture to built a tutorial to show you how. And no, it was white no more by the end of the day!

We had our family for super and he even got a spoon of chocolate ice cream. He got a booster seat and was so proud to sit with everyone at the table!

Do I have a 1 year old boy already??

Hope all my pagan friends had a great Lughnasad! We made a corn bread yesterday and it was pretty good with mapple syrup. I'll share the recipe soon.