Our Projects

Looking at our pictures from our little family getaway with Jessica, our doula, (yeah, now we call her our life doula. ) I noticed that we all have projects we work on for fun. It's how we roll.
Even in the woods, you bet Paul has fun making mighty fine coffee.

Ezra and Gibbie did a very involved work involving corn cobs and fire. The hay meadow was planted, I think, to field corn last year, but it never dried out well so it was left on the stalks and little animals grabbed them and now the cobs are strewed all over the woods. They took these and charred them in the fire, and then Gibbie brought them to Ezra who had a station for scraping them. It was all very systematic and satisfying.
Empty pop cans became ammunition. Ezra hoarding cans. It was quite a battle.
They made torches. Sticks with dried leaves tied on with grasses. They really worked, though more smoke than light.
I like to make flower crowns.
Scouts tending the fires.

Don't tell me nursing isn't a project. I know better. This little one is still in the making.

Ezra's 4th Birthday

Monday was Ezra's 4th birthday.

We usually go to a coffee shop on Mondays, and so we asked Ezra where he'd like to go. He picked Kopplins Coffee. Here he is with the owner, Andrew Kopplin:
In the afternoon, we had an outdoor party with neighbors and some family. There was a kid pool (which Ezra was born in...), a slip and slide, and a greased watermelon.







Note: All of these pictures were taken on Arista Premium 400 film using either my Nikon EM with a 28-105 Vivitar lens, or my new Zeiss Ikon Contaflex with a 50mm Carl Zeiss Tessar lens.

Sisterly Love, Housey love

My sister Mary has moved into our house!

It doesn't seem quite real yet, because of busy-ness, but we are so excited about the Promise of Mary With Us. I have long longed to have some wonderful person living with us, for more community and companionship and working-together-ness, and we really missed Mary while she was studying and travelling in Europe. It is beautiful to see her growing.

Welcome, Mary dear!

Hug

We love you, Grammers.

We Resist Change

"Parents can be delighted and enthused at the new things their kids can do and simultaneously feel the loss of their child's younger self." (Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser)
The book quoted above is just right for me right now. In general, I bullishly resist most changes, and kids are changing all the time! I do look forward to their new accomplishments, and try to celebrate them. It's hard for me to welcome change. As they grow I see the baby self, that little boy self, leaving, slipping away. I let him go. I must, to love and support the new self as he grows. Always, it is the present child I must love, not the boy of yesterday. Yesterday's Gibbie or Ezra is a figment. Today's child is the one in front of me, the only one who asks for me now, and needs full engagement, the child who is.

The Art of Picnicing

Okay, we are such picnic-ers we find ways to picnic in the winter even: on a blanket in the snow, for school lunch, a meal after church, on any friendly floor--but the real fun starts when we can have outdoor picnics!
Now that it's really summer, we pack a picnic everywhere we go.This lovely basket, pictured late last fall, was a gift that came filled with small metal dishes and cups as a child's toy set, but we've put it to hard real use. Most often I leave all the dishes at home, pack it with whatever foods we have on hand, and toss in a few of our everyday cloth napkins, maybe a knife to cut up fruit, or a spoon if needed for serving. We bring along a big water bottle or two, and make sure they're full before lunch for drinking and washing up. For our picnic, we use the napkins as plate, tablecloth, napkin, and towel all in one. When biking, the picnic blanket can double as a pillow for the kids, or be snugged around them if it's chilly.
For us, this is a great alternative to the waste of fast food and the expense of a restaurant. It takes little time to put together in the morning, but this small forethought saves us from ending an otherwise nice morning with tears and distress from tired hungry little ones, creating instead a little island of rest and nourishment in our busy day.
Ideas to fill a lunch basket, pail, or bag:
-any kind of leftovers, in a screw-top jar, with a spoon or fork. Paul found tiny wood sporks for a couple bucks apiece at our co-op.
-hummus mix: we get it in bulk at our coop. Stir in the water at the picnic spot.
-dried fruit
-powdered drink mixes: I also keep a few in a corner of our bag always, just in case we get stuck somewhere hungry and need a hold-over to stave off falling apart till a meal.
-cheese, salami, hard vegetables.
-sandwiches. Peanut butter and honey is a family favorite. At one time in my life, I ate tortillas filled with cheese and sprouts every day for a year.
-hard boiled eggs (don't forget the salt shaker or egg slicer!)
-a small jar of soup or yogurt. Hot soup, cider or cocoa can go in the classic thermos, or try a coffee travel mug if you have a convenient holster for it on car, bike, or backpack!
-ants on a log (celery spread with peanut butter, dotted with raisins. kids like to help make)

For more picnic ideas read the fabulous Best Friends for Francis by Russell Hoban.

First Spring Day

Yesterday was our first Monday off that was warm enough to play outside. Here are some pictures from our wonderful soggy time in Marydale Park.

Living peacefully with your Four-Year-Old

I find in parenting I need to keep using what I learned during birth. In labor, when a new phase came, it took a while to figure out how to deal with it. I would be laboring, coping with contractions, and then it felt like they suddenly changed. They became unbearable, and nothing I was doing helped at all.

Now, in parenting, I find that when we develop patterns of whining and misbehaviour, (or parental frustration and anger) when our usual strategies stop working and we just can't seem to catch our rhythm or get along, it often means we're growing! It takes observing ourselves and one another, praying for wisdom and cooperating to figure out how to live together as we grow.
Recently, we were having fits of aggravating the younger brother, misuse of tools, snitching things and denying it, total lack of cooperation in basic things like getting dressed; you know what I'm talking about?

My normal avenues of eliciting cooperation, as well as discipline tactics just weren't working the way they had. Things felt off.
I told Paul and a few friends that something was up and I couldn't figure it out. I wasn't sure if he needed better-set boundaries, or more attention, or it was just a phase, or what? (it's so helpful to know that sometimes things are just hard and there's not way around it.) When we're having troubles I am reminded to pray, to ask for help. I like to make sure the kids know how much we love them in times of conflict; we need extra assurance of love when we're rubbing wrong against one another.

The breakthrough came when Paul commented to me that he noticed misbehavior seemed to happen when our Little Bear had an idea for something he wanted to do. He would do his plan, but not in a sanctioned way; like by taking something he had been told not to, and doing something he wasn't supposed to do with it. Frequently with scissors. I have learned from Montessori that when children disobey, they need more freedom. This does not mean that we don't expect good behavior, but that often lack of freedom drives misbehavior, so Paul's comment really rang a bell. I spent a day observing myself and Little Bear as I pondered this.

Then I talked about it with Little Bear. He agreed that he was bored and had a lot of ideas, and also that things hadn't been going very well lately and that we'd been having a hard time listening and getting along. I shared with him that I do expect him to listen to me, but also that I want to listen to him. And I told him he was ready for his Own Scissors. We worked together to find a place for the scissors where he could get them, but his little brother couldn't. We discussed some very concrete rules for use of the scissors. We discussed consequences for not following those rules. Then I helped him make a special box to keep them in, and signs saying that they were just for him. Ooh, was this fun! He spent all day doing projects with the scissors, and put them away after each use. He had a lot of things he had been waiting to do with them!

Our other problems dissolved. The scissors were the key that unlocked the door to our new phase. Our Little Bear has a lot of good ideas and needs the freedom to do them on his own. He was bored!
Along with the scissors, I found there were lots of areas where I was underestimating him, doing for him what he could do for himself, expecting too little, not too much, and controlling rather than equipping him to handle new levels of responsibility. For, with freedom comes responsibility. Along with the scissors came some new chores and a renewal of our expectations of one another. I hadn't meant to be controlling him, he'd just grown into some things he couldn't have handled and didn't need to a few months ago. Along with greater understanding came new tactics and peace.

I must note that not all of the scissor rules were followed. A few days after the debut of his Very Own Scissors, I found a little brother with a new albeit minor haircut and a new spool of ribbon cut to pieces. There were consequences, kind of big ones, and a lot of tears. Not getting to use his Very Own Scissors for Four Whole Days was rather agonizing, but he accepted it as just, though sad, and has lived up to the new responsibility even better since then. The brief reprisal of privileges didn't undo our new mutual esteem or the advance of four-year-old liberty in our house a bit.

Happy Birthday, Little Bear!

Gibbie's birthday, clearly, was a big big event in our house. Ezra, throughout the day, sings to himself, "Happy Birthday, dear Little Bear..." (see "the show" for the reference.) We also had a special birthday visit from our dear Grammers, pictured above.
And here is Gibbie, showing off the new light he received as a much-appreciated gift from his Grandpa Bill. He is planning to use it to "look for the dark slugs in my garden, at night." With a few tantalizing garden gifts, plans for the garden are kicking into high gear. I'm putting together my seed order. Gibbie is planning a garden of his own. It will be, according to plan thus far, a new garden, in the grass, with logs around it, painted black. He has made signs to label his plants and four useful warning signs which each read, "no dogs out loud." So much fun.

Making Knipfle

A favorite dinner of ours is Knipfle. It's German for noodles, though I just know it from my Gramma Loretta, who says, "ki-NIP-fla". I only know this word orally but poking around online, I found spellings Kinipffla, and Knepfla. She and my Grampa Bob grew up speaking low German in a small town in North Dakota and foods like this are one of the only remaining elements in the family of our German roots.
Knipfle are chewy noodles, filling and unctuous. They're cheap, and made only with things that tend to be in the house anyway (handy when one's run out of meat and fresh veg and fruit, and pulling together dinner!) Ezra calls them "sticky noodles". It may be the love of my teeth sinking into knipfle that has driven my love of chewy foods.
for an actual recipe, look it up as "German egg noodles" in the Joy of Cooking, but here's how I make them:
Knipfle:
in a small mixing bowl, stir together with a fork
several handfuls of flour
two generous pinches of salt
a dash of parsley
and a dash of nutmeg. (I've had questions about this: a dash is when your spice jar has a top with holes on it and you shake it once )
dig a hole in the center of the pile of flour.
break an egg or three in this hole
beat the egg up with a fork. as I beat, flour will be incorporated into the egg; let it. Mix until a soft dough forms. I usually add extra water; if too wet extra flour could be added instead. Knead for a few minutes. It's often quite sticky, and requires generous flouring, especially for children.
Now I usually drop a puddle of olive oil in my mixing bowl and roll the dough in it so it doesn't dry out while I work on some other thing for a bit. If I'll be a while, I've found it's best to put the noodle dough in a plastic bag in the fridge.
When I come back to it, I knead it until it feels stretchy. It gets smooth and feels quite like skin!
I take this elastic dough, cut it into a few pieces and begin to roll them out into ropes about the thickness of my finger. When a piece of dough gets too long for my bread board, I cut it in half so I can roll it comfortably.
Knipfle can be cooked in plain water, or it's great in chicken soup or broth. When the broth or water is boiling vigorously, I take a snake of dough and cut it into pieces maybe the length of the first joint of my finger. Gramma Loretta says, "you cut them as small as you can." I cut these straight into the boiling pot. Usually the kids like to cut some too, over a bread board, and I put these in as well.
Kids can make these start to finish with a little direction; scooping handfuls of flour, pinching salt, stirring the dry ingredients, beating the egg, kneading, rolling, and cutting dough. Both our two year old and our four year old can cut knipfle.
If your kids are anything like mine, they will enjoy also the eating! Mine like their knipfle in broth, or plain with ketchup. They are good with sour cream and salt or baked with cheese and buttered bread crumbs. Also would make a nice side for kraut and sausage, or roasted veg or meat, in stew or with gravy.

Birthday Soup

For Gibbie's Fourth birthday, he decided to put on a show of the story "Birthday Soup" from the book
Little Bear by Elsie Homelund Minarek (illustrated by Maurice Sendak). He spent a lot of time thinking about the details of the performance (curtains, costumes, etc.) and working on his lines.

Here's the final product, recorded live at his birthday party:

Train Surprise

We went to my home town for Thanksgiving and visited both of my parents. When we got to my dad's house, for whatever reason Gibbie decided to go straight upstairs. What did he find waiting for him but a Lionel model train! We all had a lot of fun making it go and getting it to unload its cargo of logs. Apparently it will have an expanded track the next time we come. Thanks grandpa Bill!

Fall Vacation

It was a few weeks ago now (ok, so almost a month) but here's some pictures from our fall vacation to Battle Lake, MN.



(If your flash isn't up to speed, here's a link to the album.)

Making Sauce

Gibbie and Ezra made tomato soup, from whole fresh tomatoes, at Oma's (that's their maternal grandmother) house the other day. In these pictures they are working with the great Vitorio Strainer. You can see Ezra plopping the tomatoes in while Gibbie works the crank.
It was a delightful little meal to greet me after my morning off, complete with fresh baked biscuits too! Oma maintains that they actually had a hand in every step of the process.
It was honestly all delicious!

Menomonie Weekend

We just spent a wonderful weekend both in my home town of Menomonie and at the Perlieu land. We got to see both of my parents, go to my 10 year high school reunion, and relax at the cabin. Probably the highlight was a stretch of about nine hours on Saturday that Libby and I got to be around Menomonie without the boys. It turs out that, given the chance, we still really enjoy hanging out together!

Here's a small album of photos from the trip. They're not regular family vacation photos, since some are things we found interesting (signs, Menomonie's green algae-rich water, graphitti) as well as the normal cute kid shots. As always, I recommend the slide show option for viewing them.

MaryLand

We're going to a place called
MaryLand.
Cause Mary's there.
It's lots of fun there.
There's no toys there,
cause there's no kids,
but it's very pretty.
See? Look at all those
birds!
- Gabriel Isaiah Johnson

It's Getting Warmer...

Last week it didn't hurt to be outside. Being outside as a family, which was once such a regular part of our time together has been impossible for such a long time because of the extreme cold of our bleak midwinter. Last Monday, though, it was time to go back to Crosby Farm Park.Gibbie just wanted to sit in his stroller and watch the river for a long time. (A park officer had earlier looked on in wonder as I plowed our little stroller through the snow!)
Ezra was snuggly wrapped onto Mama. We wonder how many more times we'll have of an Ezra small enough to do this with.
It was a short visit, but hopefully a foretaste of much to come.

First Paddle as a family of four

One of the things I have missed most in the last few years is canoeing. Being out on the waves, pulling ourselves through the waves, with the sun on my face and the water lapping all around. We just haven't gotten much chance since the kids came around.

Well, my uncle Dave recently completed building his own Kevlar canoe. Yeah, you read that right. He made the canoe pictured here by hand. And was gracious enough to let us take it for a paddle around the lake. We were so excited and awed with the privilege, we were holding our breath as we set out from the dock, but oh! it was wonderful.

He designed her very thoughtfully. Note the snappy cord to hold the bowline? He made similar features to secure the paddles while portaging, and the yoke is possibly the most comfortable I have ever used. (The yoke is the piece of wood that sits on one's shoulders to carry a canoe.) Dave said he had the wooden features made out of white cedar by a local craftsmen in his area. I guess the Kevlar is made by building a frame and layering coats of polyurethane over canvas? I'm guessing at remembering what he told me. Also note the ruler on the inside of the gunnel for measuring the catch!
The whole thing weighs remarkably little; I was afraid I would be too out of shape to carry it by myself, but imagine my suprise when I rested that yoke on my shoulders, and found it felt like nothing at all! I think Dave said it was about forty-five pounds. Later I put it together that my two kids together weigh at least fifty pounds and I carry them all the time, so now that makes sense!


Paul obligingly sat in the bow (the front) so I could take stern. He held Ezra, who was overdue for a nap, until he konked out. Then he paddled with me. Gibbie was duffing in the middle. He had a paddle too, but was mostly interested in dipping and splashing his hands in the water and eating the snack we brought for him. Never forget the snacks!We thoroughly enjoyed the view and the quiet time together. At one point, we met a little black, bright-eyed weasel, running along the shoreline, poking his head up to watch us.We saw lots of beautiful old snags, and one amazing, ancient-looking dead tree, weathered bright white by the wind and water. We passed a big roost of blackbirds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands, it sounded like, all calling and starting up from the branches of a young forest, flying in lines and swoops between one tree and another. What is the word for a lot of blackbirds? There is a murder of crows, and where herons roost is a rookery, right. What do blackbirds make? A mass? A swarm? A crowd? A legion?
I like to go right through the reeds sometimes, to let the kids feel and hear them along the side and bottom of the boat.
Thanks, Dave. Nice work.