boys

These two boys, getting bigger (one of them is bigger than me!) and more independent every day. I know lots of moms who manage the great juggling act of family and kids and full-time work and I am in awe of them. I could not have been either the mom or employee that I wish to be had I gone back to work full-time, even a moment sooner than this year when my boys are 13 and 9.

Sylvan in mid-air, as per usual

I know I am lucky to have had a choice and a partner and family who were in full support of me staying at home with our boys. Lots of years of challenging financial moments, like the utter panic when a car would need an emergency $600 that we didn't really have. I also remember many hard hard days of parenting in the trenches, when I wasn't a graceful parent, or grateful for being a full-time mom.

Even though I have a full-time, outside-of-my-house job now, I'm still a full-time mom. But it's not the same kind of full-time work that it was. It's not like nursing babies and waking up all night or going to the grocery store with a baby and a 4 year-old and feeling like I was harboring two ticking time bombs liable to go off at any moment. These boys make their lunches and weed gardens and do dishes and clean bathrooms! (Not always without grumbling...)

Now it's later nights with a teenager who wants connection with us, which we are (mostly) delighted by, even maybe surprised at! (OK, when I am trying to read in bed I am not so delighted truth be told, as Jonas pointed out.) Or just being nearby to us while he finishes homework and we are doing our school work. He's still affectionate with us, even in public.

Jonas's beautiful drawings of the lungs for his recent Anatomy block

Sometimes we are crazy and silly and annoying and ridiculous. Sometimes we are in funks and irritated at things that can't change or with ourselves or each other. But I think we've got a good new thing going in this new era, and mostly it seems to work pretty well. Who knew?

~colormaking~

Spring just keeps springing. We've had wet. And sun. And now humid. Like totally on summer or back to 40 degrees and raining.

Babies seem to be the new "in" thing to produce for my friends and relations . So I am making these adorable booties, a Norwegian pattern rewritten into a more workable style by me and now on Ravelry.

Someone turned 18 and for his surprise party, we were asked to wear sunglasses and bring a poem. Sylvan and I penned one in the style of the immortally wonderful John Burningham's Would You Rather? Here's a sample: 

Would you rather...

Swallow a tomato horn worm whole,

or chew it up first?

Kick your principal as hard as you can

or run naked through your school?

Still ever watchful of little feet.

Turns out the Beastie Boys make great music to sew by. I had a Pandora channel going and it was like a tour of 90s hiphop fun. In honor of the late MCA of course.

This was the fabric I couldn't leave the store without, at a spring visit to Alewives. I purchased 2 yards of this lovely Japanese cotton-linen fabric and will get TWO skirts out of the deal, shorter versions of Amy Butler's Barcelona A-line. Two skirts because one half of the vertical length of the fabric is the pretty birdies and the other side is a lovely garden with viney flowers.

Two yards of fabric, two adorable skirts. I always feel so awkward when people compliment me on my skirts, like "I'm just the person who knew an awesome fabric when I saw it and shelled out the money."

Well, OK, I made it too. But that's just following directions and Amy writes them well.

Thanks, Japanese fabric designers for making fabrics that inspire and delight me!

(Another post coming soon to cover the other parts of life like baseball games, friends being silly, and those red skates.)