Bird and Little Bird

Notes from Friday Morning.

The first half of our move to Massachusetts went pretty smoothly. Although it was apparently pretty busy, because I managed this one photo, and that appears to be about it. It is a picture of the living room of the new place, before we started filling it with stacks of boxes. As you can see, the floors are very shiny, which tells you that my children do not yet actually live there. But soon.

In the meantime, we have a big weekend coming up back here in Vermont. Dan is graduating from medical school on Sunday, an event worthy of my waxing philosophical at least a little bit. But right at this moment I am typing with one hand while trying to both nurse the baby and eat a sunny side up egg. This is actually pretty tricky business. So thoughts on the medical school journey later, I guess.

By the way, I made you all some printable and pocket-sized lists for summer library going. Fun, yes? You can find them over at Playful Learning.

Happy Friday, friends.

Unusual Treasures.

Things are moving along. Literally. We are loading up about half of our wordly possessions into a truck this afternoon. And then, of course, we will need to get them to another state. And unload them. So there is that. But we have friends to look after the cat, and need to take Mariam to visit a school in Massachusetts on Thursday anyway, so it just made good sense to load up people and puppy and move a few things now. The rest of the move, which I suspect will be the larger undertaking, will be in a couple of weeks. But before that happens, we have to do important things like watching this guy I live with graduate from medical school and what not.

One of the fun things about moving (there are some fun things, right?) is all of the forgotten treasures that you dig up while sorting through stuff and throwing things into boxes. My hands-down favorite in this department at the moment are a set of invoices and cancelled checks that my dad saved from my adoption.  Apparently, it cost about 1,200 dollars to secure the necessary paperwork for the permanent parenting of yours truly.  On some level, I find this so hilarious that I struggle to even put it into words. Like, "such a bargain!" Oh, man. I wonder if my mom still thinks that? Ha!

I also think it is fantastic that my dad saved the actual, physical cancelled checks that he wrote to the adoption agency. Such a strange and relatively awesome family artifact to find myself in posession of. And, with him being an accountant and all, it is also a perfectly appropriate example of his brand of sentimentality.

Which really, is also my kind of sentimentality, I suppose. I don't go much for the really mushy stuff. But, show me a quirky, weird, or otherwise unexpected little nostalgic tidbit you've stashed somewhere, and I am all yours.

Wednesday will be the last day for the big Alphabet Glue May moving sale!  Any and all issues of Alphabet Glue are on sale through Wednesday night. Enter "may25" at checkout for 25% off. There are lots and lots of great book recommendations, printable pages and fun science and craft projects in there; perfect for getting busy with the small folk this summer!

Hello, Big World.

We woke to the grand discovery this morning that our little nest has a trio of chicks inside. We will be mostly leaving them alone now, so as not to upset the bird in charge over there, but I thought that I could sneak one little photo to share.

So here you are: a Northern Cardinal at less than one day old. I am sure that what he or she lacks in traditional beauty is more than made up for in spunk.

Don't forget about the big Alphabet Glue May moving sale!  Any and all issues of Alphabet Glue are on sale until May 15th! Enter "may25" at checkout for 25% off. There are lots and lots of great book recommendations, printable pages and fun science and craft projects in there; perfect for getting busy with the small folk this summer!

 

Treasure Maps and Procedural Concerns.

Well. I had thought that today I might write a tidy little post about springtime living and dandelions blooming and all of that nice business. But really, I'm sitting in a room half-filled with boxes (which are also half-filled) and am trying to sort out other procedural items like how to get to the post office while my car is in the shop and whether or not I should be repainting furniture or sorting through the terrifying tornado of Mariam's bedroom closet. I think that at the moment, I'm going with neither one.

But I did want to mention that I have a new post up today on the Sparkle Stories blog. It is a little tutorial on making paper look weathered and worn for purposes of DIY treasure map making. Pretty fun, actually. Mariam is very picky about how she spends her time around the house these afternoons. The weather has been beautiful and if she is going to do anything inside the house, it had better be good. She gave this project a big thumbs up (and drew a map to her favorite salamander nest in the woods near school), so I think you'll like it too. You can find it here.

And the Survey Says...

After last week's eventful beginning, we were scheduled for our follow-up allergy testing yesterday afternoon. Baby Z. handled the whole situation with relative flexibility and good humor, with the notable exception of really not wanting the doctor to take his pulse or look in his ears. But the scratch test bit went swimmingly. Well, the actual procedural bit anyway. The results? Not as favorable. Indeed, the small fry is officially allergic to eggs and peanuts (which we knew going in), but we are adding tree nuts to the list now as well.

 

Admittedly, this news doesn't change a whole lot for us. Dan has a lifelong tree nut allergy as well, so we have lived as a nut-free household pretty much always. So, the shift brought about by yesterday's news won't be so much related to the function of day to day living, grocery shopping, or eating. It will be more about mindset. And I'll be the first to admit that the knowledge that your resident small people have potentially life threatening reactions to foods commonly found in the world outside your front door is tricky to integrate into one's mental landscape without some amount of anxiety. So there is that.

But, hey, how much better to find out all of these things now, on our own terms, than at a preschool potluck on some future afternoon when the situation is far less controlled and far more scary? I keep reminding myself that knowing exactly what we are up against is pretty useful, actually. Even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense at this precise moment.

I was joking yesterday that my cheerful resolve is in pretty good shape due to years of constant use and and regular excercise.

Except I wasn't really kidding at all.

Don't forget about the big Alphabet Glue May moving sale!  Any and all issues of Alphabet Glue are on sale until May 15th! Enter "may25" at checkout for 25% off. There are lots and lots of great book recommendations, printable pages and fun science and craft projects in there; perfect for getting busy with the small folk this summer!

Library Monday: Birds, Nests, and Eggs.

It was, by all accounts, a very good weekend for the bird enthusiasts at our house. We had not one, but two, awesome nest sightings, both with a trio of tiny eggs inside and both in bushes at eye level. Pretty fortunate, yes? The nest above belongs to a scolding mother robin living just off the side of the deck at the home of some friends that we visited over the weekend.

 

The sighting of the robin's nest was a good reminder of exactly why it is handy to have an easy-to-reference kid's field guide handy. I think that I have mentioned before that I really like the Take Along Guides series by Mel Boring and Linda Garrow. They have lovely illustrations, are easy to navigate, and are full of great information that is accessible to kids of pretty much any age. I find that they have an intuitive structure to them that leaves Mariam feeling like she can probably find out what she wants to know when she goes to get one off the shelf.

We particularly like the Birds, Nests, and Eggs guide, and it was the first book that we went looking for this weekend when we found a second nest in the bushes in our own yard, near our front door. The mama bird wasn't around when we first found the nest (well, we didn't see her right away, anyway), so we needed to figure out what kind of eggs they were without the benefit of a bird sighting. I think that it is absolutely the mark of a good kids' nature tome when they immediately go hunting for it when they realize that there is something that they want to know about, or when they have a specific question that they want answered. It got me thinking that we should really collect each of the titles in this series. We have a handful already, and they are all fantastic. With baby Z. on his way up in the world, they will probably continue to be both useful and loved, so are likely well worth the investment.

 

And, we did figure out what kind of egg these are. Not long after we first found the nest, we caught a glimpse of their layer.

Anyone want to take a guess at who laid these little front yard treasures?

Don't forget about the big Alphabet Glue May moving sale!  Any and all issues of Alphabet Glue are on sale until May 15th! Enter "may25" at checkout for 25% off. There are lots and lots of great book recommendations, printable pages and fun science and craft projects in there; perfect for getting busy with the small folk this summer!

On Friday Morning: Some Sparkle (and a Sale).

Oh, Friday! I am happy to see you.

Before I get distracted by rambling about boxes and packing tape and what to do with rainboots that don't fit anymore, I should mention that I have a fun post up on the Sparkle Stories blog this week. It is a really easy project created with Mother's Day in mind, and I think that if you are fans of Alphabet Glue at all, you will really like it. You can find it here. It is also the first in a series of weekly posts that I will be doing to accompany various Sparkle Stories, and I'll be sure to keep you all posted when the next project is up and ready to go. I'm so happy to be joining David and Lisabeth in their wonderful work over there!

 

In other news, we have obviously known for days and weeks and even months that our big move would be coming in no time at all. But, I still feel like it has snuck up on me just a bit. I don't know if it is because the weather has warmed and we would all rather be outside playing in the grass, throwing the frisbee, and blowing bubbles than packing, but somethng has shifted in the last few days and I think that we are all feeling like our time here in Vermont is running pretty short. Indeed, there is now talk of taking a first load of stuff down to the new house in Massachusetts as early as the middle of this month.  Which, if my calendar is to be believed, is not very many days away from now. Ack!

This is all to say that it is very much time to start hauling boxes up from the basement and filling them with books and muffin tins and the quilts off the couch. And the sorting through of small people clothes that may no longer fit is probably also going to need to happen. Mariam is wildly uncooperative in this department, so that ought to be good fun. The girl is not a fan of getting rid of anything that has potential to be useful; this much is true. I guess the upside of this personality quirk is that she can also construct pretty much anything out of cardboard if given enough tape. 

I have decided that having an Alphabet Glue sale is probably an excellent way to create a false sense of downsizing for the big move. Granted, the magazine files are digital, so I'm not really getting rid of anything at all. But I will feel like I am, and that will be awesome. So I think we should go for it. And, I think we should make it kind of a big sale. So, 25% off all issues of Glue through May 15th by entering "may25" at checkout.

There. I feel better already.

Yarn Along (Humming the Jaws Theme Song).

I was feeling a bit optimistic earlier this week as I finally worked away at the hem of my Tea Leaves cardigan. Garter stitch is actually my idea of a good time, and I figured that by today, I would have it bound off and would be telling you all about how I was at l0ng last picking up sleeve stitches. But then late last evening, when clearly I should have been sleeping and not knitting, I made an unfortunate discovery: dropped stitches many rows back. And then I made an even more unfortunate discovery: I am good at many things, but picking up stitches in garter is not one of them. Despite my very best attempts to follow internet instructions dutifully, it was not to be. After spending more time trying to pick up those stupid stitches than I probably had spent knitting the rows that came after them, I took a deep sigh and just frogged away. All the way back to the beginning of the garter stitch rows. So there.

 

But honestly, we have had a week of it thus far, so my knitting woes are minor in the scheme of things. It has been the sort of week where by Monday evening I found myself humming the Jaws theme song while brushing my teeth and saying to myself "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..." I only do that when things are a special kind of crazy and I find myself caught off guard by it all.

 

Which is exactly how I felt when we landed in the emergency room Monday morning with the baby in anaphylactic shock after eating a bit of peanut butter. Yep. We are adding foods to our list of forbiddens right and left. Apparently, I am raising children with immune systems that just don't know when to quit. So that is something. But I guess that life is a collection of surprises of all sorts, yes? Peanut allergies are one example, I suppose. But then there are nicer things to come along with them. Like these tulips that showed up on my doorstep yesterday morning, sent from Dawn because she is thoughtful and sweet and rightfully concerned that I am losing my mind.

And that is the kind of surprise that keeps things in balance. This much I know.

Yarning along with Ginny today.

Backyard Discoveries.

After early spring days that seemed like they were never going to bring sunshine, things have finally warmed up here in Vermont. We have been taking advantage of this fact as much as we possibly can, and are spending hours outside each day. Yard to park, park to yard. Repeat. It seems that the rest of the world is doing much of the same, and we have been seeing plenty of signs that our animal neighbors are getting out and about as well. We've been finding feathers and footprints, and then, this last weekend, we found a very different and very special kind of something.

A nest of baby bunnies. The dog was the first to find it actually, and because of this fact, we have had to keep a very close eye on the nest. The dog is now getting his first lessons in what life as an urban animal will be like; he is no longer allowed out in the yard without out human supervision. And, because we don't know if he might have scent marked the area around the nest, the Interwebs advise that we gently check the bunnies each day to make sure that their mother is visiting, and that they are staying warm and "plump."

Mariam is, of course, happy to do a daily bunny check. We have also been marking the nest with an "x" made of twigs, hoping that their movement will make for an obvious sign that mother bunny has been visiting on schedule.

Unfortunately, the wind and other animals around the area (near our bird feeder) have made the marking system an inexact science at best. So, we continue to do a bit of bunny reconnassiance each morning, to ensure that all seems well and that they are continuing to grow and stay warm enough. So far, it does seem that mama must be sneaking in for visits under the cover of semi-darkness, and as long as this is the case, we can leave the bunnies in the nest.

This sort of backyard wildlife experience is exactly what I thought that we would be sadly leaving behind in heading for more urban pastures. And, I was trying my best to be okay with this. But when we were standing in the shady little backyard of the new house last weekend, do you know what I saw out of the corner of my eye? A tiny little cottontail rabbit, hopping along the fence line and out of sight.

And I would call that a happy coincidence if ever there was one.

Scenes From a Friday Morning.

As of yesterday afternoon, Dan is done with medical school. Not officially, of course. There is still graduation and all that good business, which is a couple of weeks away. But in terms of classes and tests and endless hospital shifts, he is done. I think that it will take a few days to wrap my brain around this idea. We can philosophize further at that time.

For now, there are eggs for breakfast. Sunny side up with a couple of slices of buttery gluten-free toast. And, I am drinking coffee out of a quart-sized Mason jar. So there is also that. Good for morale. Half of it is milk. I promise.

Oh, and the laundry pile. Right. I think that might be what inspired the quart jar of coffee in the first place. 

It's just that I keep getting distracted by things like everyone needing new bathing suits, and trying to decide what kind of sandals we should get for the baby now that the weather is warm and he never wants to come inside again. And checking the weather to see if it is going to rain or if we can go fly kites.

And then it occurs to me that this is probably just the motherhood version of spring fever.