Something Like a Miracle

Yesterday was a day of puttering around the yard, cleaning up, and exploring corners that have gone neglected for a while. Being a very novice gardener with a lot of knowledge stored away in my brain, but little experience is a disastrous combination. For example, I'd love to just skip right to growing fields of quinoa if I had the space. :-)

And I forget about things. Usually the outcome is not good. However, this year I noticed some rather tall pretty yellow flowers that had sprouted up (from nowhere?) and then remembered that Safiya had planted some sunroots (Jerusalem Artichokes/sunchokes) left over from groceries earlier in the year.


Pulling them up was a momentous event. Such pretty things! After relocating our friend the worm, Safiya plucked, washed, smelled, cradled, and nibbled them and then insisted we eat them for dinner. One was elected to go into the curried butternut squash soup, and the rest were sliced and fried. yum.

From one little root to many, feeding many. Nature is something like a miracle.

A Fine September Day

I love this time of year. The chill morning air gives room to breathe. There are signs of fall, and yet the bees are still poking around...


Our neighbours still have green tomatoes on the vine....


And the earth is still producing bounty, sometimes with weird and curious results...


The farmer very prosaically explained that the watermelon had rested on vines. I prefer to think of it as a magical watermelon tattoo. It's so beautiful. And it was in relief, so there we were at the market, Safiya and I, caressing this watermelon in wonder.

Sometimes that's all it takes to make a day fine.

Waiting for Beauty

There was never such an anxious awaiting as for these peonies. We planted them last fall, and being new at the whole thing were very worried at the phrase "if planted too deeply, peonies will not bloom" in the instructions. I used my ruler, I really did. Then they were late coming up - we waited and waited...and all of the sudden in the middle of April:


I've never been so excited about a plant before! One of the kinds that we planted is called "Zuzu", which is my brother's nickname for Safiya. Such a little thing, flowers; how is it that they stir us so deeply? But it's too hot and humid here to wax philosophical....right now it will suffice just to enjoy them while we have them.

Things Are Growing Around Here

Despite the ridiculous amounts of snow which linger around here, signs of spring are creeping. The sun is warm. Things are sprouting. We heard a robin two mornings ago. Baby birds need their nests ;-) Since the onions were sprouting anyway, we decided to make a spectacle of it - some of them needed more toothpicks than others, evidently.

Our morning routine now involves tending for these little guys:


We've got lettuces and kale, and we're seeding tomatoes (as a summer offering for the raccoons) today. Safiya is often the one who stops suddenly in the middle of something and reminds me that we have to water them. It's pretty incredible how fast she's sprouting, too. The days are full with "That's o.k., Mama I can do it." If she falls or bumps, the first thing out of her mouth is "I'm o.k." like she's totally in charge of the situation. My favourite so far is the other morning when we were still in bed and she cuddled up, saying "Mama, you're the warmest spot". It doesn't get much better than that.

We've come into our own with a rhythm around the house. She enjoys working together on chores. And you know what, I don't call it "helping". Once in a while I'll ask her and show I'm in need of help, but otherwise I think it's pretty important in the everyday stuff for her to not be diminished into "helping". And, at three-and-a-half, it's so much easier for me to work on my stuff, too. I have to say, it's great. She's busy, I'm busy, it's all good. Her latest is a fascination with tape:


My work for the last little while has mostly been taxes and fighting with the computer (hence the absence) and finally giving in and taking it in. Ugh. I'm of two mind about the whole thing. You know, the whole debilitating/liberating thing. I'm still mulling it over.

But it's good to be back in this space. I missed it! There has been some work, a bunch of craft fair planning and applications for the year (nerve-wracking), and babies arriving or imminent (NOT US! We're not sprouting! ;-) I've got a bunch of quilts/blankets on the go and some new projects. Ahhhhh, back into the spring of things, eh?


Now, if only the snow would co-operate and go. away!


The bike is winning, right?

A Day of Firsts (or the day we listened to Safiya)

Today I went to Seedy Saturday for the first time. Having a backyard for the first time makes me giddy, and thanks to the Toronto Seed Exchange (Toronto Community Garden Network) people (you can swap seeds or give a donation, all in the spirit of preserving heritage seeds or being generous with old stock), I came away with a whole bag of goodness:

47! packages of seeds - where in the world am I going to plant all this, never mind starting the ones that need it indoors? Well, I can always share...friends beware, strange packages of seeds coming your way! There was good food, interesting people, and an "eco-fair" with cool booths like composting worms and solar ovens and lots and lots of seeds. The workshops and films sounded interesting, but I had a limited amount of Free Mama (shouldn't that be a movie?) Time.

The rest of the day was just hangin' out. Got comfy in the living room, had some tea (left over from the tea party Safiya was having with Mr. S):

(lovely teapot from my brother and his girlfriend - from 10000 Villages, a fairtrade organisation)

Sat in the sun, and tried to do this:


This is a dear aunt's Christmas present from a Christmas past (I'm not telling how past). Having no tracing paper, no fabric pencil, but really really wanting to embroider a swallow on it (they have barn swallows in their backyard), I tried to free-hand stitch it after drawing the outline from a book of Safiya's...it's not done, but I can already tell my swallow looks like he hasn't eaten in a while...it's an emaciated swallow...sigh, well, it looks swallow-ish! (I like it enough to resist pulling out the stitches - I hate pulling out stitches.) I'll post the finished product tomorrow.

The other thing that happened today (long-ish story coming up! If your eyes glaze over at parents' child-stories, that's ok - get a coffee and PAY ATTENTION - ha!)

Not to drag all the details out, but Mr. S. and I have a kind of "attachment parenting" thing going on, which has included carrying Safiya in a sling, co-sleeping, and breastfeeding on demand. It's been lovely, perfect for us (including the ups and downs and what-in-the-world-are-we-doing? - that's part of it), and we've never regretted our decision for a second. And it's resulted in me nursing a toddler, which very often results in general hilarity.

For the past week before bed Safiya has been saying that she doesn't want to go upstairs and doesn't want "Mama milk". To quote: "I don't want to go upstairs, I want to stay downstairs. I don't want Mama milk!" Chalking it up to staying-up-too-late-delirium and seemingly general toddler indecision, we've been ignoring her, taking her up to bed, and she ends up nursing to sleep like she always does. But she wasn't very happy before bed and it was taking a long time to go to sleep.

This wasn't working.

I happened upon two articles by Sandra Dodd, one on sleeping and the other on meals. We've been toying with the idea of eventually unschooling, so the ideas, which are based on a fundamental respect for children and a trust that they can figure things out, weren't too far of a stretch, but still....trust your two-and-a-half-year-old? Yikes.

So we observed and listened to her today. When she said she wanted bread and chocolate for lunch, we said "....o.k." When she said "I don't want Mama milk" we said "....o.k." What's the worst that could happen? (I'm still not sure any parent should ever really ask that question...)

Today she nursed only when she woke up from her nap, for a little bit. Today for the first time ever she went to sleep (for both her nap and at bedtime) without nursing. And she was happy.

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry...

sweet baby sleep it seems so long ago...