Bird and Little Bird

Birds by the Bay.

For the last couple of years, a pair of eagles have appeared sporadically in the trees along a local stretch of rocky beach. Being the bird enthusiast that I am, I find this all quite exciting. And, because up until just a few years ago Vermont was actually the only state in the lower 48 that could not lay claim to a single nesting pair of bald eagles, the local populace is pretty excited too.  In other words, these eagles occasionally make the front page of the paper.

Yesterday afternoon I took my camera along when I made the drive to get Mariam from school. I was planning to drive along the lakeshore, and I figured that I might catch a photo of some of the geese that have begun to return from their winter vacation lands. I pulled over to the side of the road near a small inlet, and I did manage to get some at least semi-decent geese photos, although I had been hoping to get closer. But then, as we began driving again and rounded a curve in the road, we saw it: the eagle.

 

Yep. The bald eagle, just sitting there, on an exposed branch above the water. And me with my camera in my lap and the telephoto lens attached. I proceeded to engage in a vociferous display of nerdy enthusiasm that I am profoundly thankful no one but my children was there to witness.

 

I pulled over to the side of the road again, and got out of the car to see if I could get closer to the bird. There is a set of train tracks running along a small hill between the road and the trees on the shore, so I could really only get so close. But I did manage to get a handful of pictures of the bird. The combination of the distance between us and the wind made it hard to get the sharp focus I wanted, but did I mention the part about driving by the elusive eagle while my camera happened to be sitting in my lap?

So, it all felt sort of blessed and fortuitous. And then, it became kind of funny, because as I stood in the mud, squealing and snapping photos, I looked to one side and saw another person taking pictures too. And then I realized that we knew each other.

Ah, Vermont.

 

Nine.

I ran into Mariam's pediatrician at the grocery store this morning. After chatting some about the wonders that having a baby will do for pretty much all things with the exception of one's sleep schedule (we both have baby boys), I asked him if he had any reasonable explaination for the fact that my girl, who was once a non-sleeping little peanut herself, now seems to have gone and turned nine.

Yep. Nine.

Today is Mariam's ninth birthday, and when I think about this fact, I find that my brain isn't quite able to stretch in the right ways to fully comprehend it. Like, she was just wearing pajamas with feet and drawing on the walls and now she makes her own scrambled eggs and totally gets Gary Larson humor? I may need to sit down.

At nine, her enthusiasm for animals continues to grow, with no salamander, cat, horse, or chicken going unloved. She is twirly skirts with mudboots, camping out on the living room couch with stack of comics, and always looking for the other mitten. She is capable, and strong, and ridiculously funny. I suspect her understanding of sarcasm may be better developed than that of the average adult. For better or worse. But don't be fooled; she has also become a snuggler at nine. Maybe it is the puppy, maybe the baby brother. But something has turned my girl into an all-the-time spontaneous hugger and there will be no complaints issued from my department.

Nine year old Mariam has a makeshift planetarium duct taped to the ceiling above her bunk bed and is building a rock collection to rival that of your favorite local science center. She knows how to make egg nog from scratch, but we are still having that issue with climbing too high in the tree and needing help to get back down. She believes strongly in the restorative qualities of a good pajama day, but just mention the possibility of an adventure, and she'll have a bag packed in ten minutes or less.

She is really just the very best thing that I know of.

Front Yard Ice Forest.

Over the last week and a half or so, our weather has been all over the proverbial map. We have had brilliant sunshine, quickly followed by rain, sleet, more sunshine, and piles and piles of snow. The result of all of this freezing and thawing and freezing and thawing has been the development of what almost looks like a miniature ice forest in the bushes near the house in our front yard. Over the weekend the shrubbery developed a veritable collection of fancy looking icicles, which just seemed to grow bigger and stranger with each passing day. Am I the only one who cannot write the word "shrubbery" without thinking of Monty Python?

The lower branches and root areas of the bushes are encased in ice, with icicles continuing to grow down from the top of the bushes to join up with the big hunks of ice near the ground. And some of the formations are really interesting and strange. They kind of remind me of elephant trunks.

Something about icicles that are so easily accesible sans ladder makes it almost impossible not to break them off to get a closer look. I'm not sure why that is. But we all took turns pulling off a few of the bigger icicles and then brought them into the house to examine them a bit further. I'm glad that we did, because our ice forest is beginning to melt this morning and very soon, the sparkling ice-covered shrubbery will be encased in that famous seasonal scourge instead. Yep. I'm talking about mud.

Does mud count as a weather phenomenon like snow or hail? Because having a few mud days off from school would save both my washing machine and my sanity.

Oh, and a reminder that the Alphabet Glue birthday sale ends tomorrow (Wednesday) at midnight. It has been great fun to see how many families have used the occasion to stock up on back issues that they were missing. Thanks to you all for your incredible support (again)!

Playful Learning and Birdwatching with Kids.

It would seem that I never got around to writing the post that I had intended to today. The sun was shining and the baby declined his regularly scheduled nap, so it seemed to make good sense to abandon our various household responsibilities in favor of hitting the trail. We spent our afternoon trudging through the mud and snow on a favorite local hike, and the housework and the blogging? Not so much. But there is always tomorrow, I suppose. 

I did want to stop by just for a moment, however, to mention that I have a post up at Playful Learning today. It's a handy little list of ideas for making birdwatching with kiddos an enjoyable prospect, and I think that some of you all might very well like to have a read through. You can find it here. 

Also, I am woefully behind with responding to comments and emails, mostly due to just having been really busy over the last week or so. But believe you me, I appreciate every last sentiment that you send my way, and I will try very hard to get caught up this week. Pinky swear.

Some Weeks.

Some weeks, there are lots of tasks completed. You check things off the list, fall into bed in the evenings with a feeling of accomplishment, and a sense of having used your time pretty well, overall.

Other weeks are spent retrieving tiny socks from partially full tea cups that have somehow wound up on the living room floor, and encouraging the use of puzzle boxes as chairs because at least they are in plain sight, therefore minimizing the amount of trouble that can easily be found by circumventing adult supervision. You fall into bed in the evenings trying to remember your middle name and whether or not you ate lunch.

Needless to say, this week was of the latter, and not the former, variety.

Happy Friday, all!

Yarn Along (Doing Inventory).

Here is the thing about the moment when you fully realize that you will be making a long distance move with a couple of children and handful of pets: you suddenly want to get rid of everything that you own. You flashback to your days as a hippie college student when all of your belongings fit in the back of your car and you could apartment hop without actually packing more than a backpack and maybe a box or two.

So during the seemingly infrequent moments when the smallest frye is busy doing things like looking out the window at the dog in the snow, I've been trying to go through some of our stuff.

 

One of the first things that I did was to go through my yarn stash. It was a bit challenging to let go of my visions of what a particular skein might be used for, if I ever finished the three sweaters I currently have cast on. But in the end, I managed to get my stash widdled down to the yarn that I need to finish current projects, and then, of course, the small collection of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn that I like to keep just for posterity (and its singular ability to make me feel like a real knitter). It is so soft, and pretty, and I actually do like knitting socks here and there.

 

Of course it wasn't very long before my small friend discovered what I was up to and decided that he should likely be as involved as possible.

 

At which point I realized that the fact that we use baskets for so much of our storage, including all of the blocks and toys in the living room, has essentially resulted in a one-year old who believes that the sole purpose of his daily activities revolves around taking things out of baskets and throwing them. And that was the end of yarn organization time.

At least until naptime, anyway.

Yarning along with Ginny today.

Oh! And today is the actual and official day: Alphabet Glue is now two years old! Thanks to you all for your enthusiasm for the birthday sale. Visit the Glue website if you'd still like to take advantage of the celebratory discount!

At Season's End.

Every year the month of March appears like it is on some kind of schedule or something, and then everyone starts talking about spring. Talking about spring is an exciting business. Hopeful visions of days spent outdoors with actual sunshine and maybe even doing a little bit gardening. Or kite flying. Picnicking. That sort of thing.

Which is why I am always somewhat surprised when March unpacks her suitcase and it turns out to be full of snow. Every time. These end of season snow days are a regular occurance, and I should probably see them coming, but somehow, I never do.

So, instead of making the rounds at the previously scheduled school science fair today, we find ourselves at home. Some of us still in pajamas at midday. Playing a few hands of cards in an attempt to keep the big kid quiet while the little kid naps.

 

Which really, is just fine. When April rolls around and there is still ice in the driveway, or when we get our traditional Mother's Day dusting of snow? Then I may well lodge a formal complaint. But not today.

Well, unless I have to be the one to shovel it, anyway.

Alphabet Glue Turns Two!

Two years ago this week, I first launched an experimental little project called Alphabet Glue. The first issue was a goofy kind of labor of love. A collection of whimsical ideas and projects that my then six year old and I had been tinkering around with and thought we might share. I wrote much of that issue under a nest of blankets in Mariam's bunk bed while she dug through picture books and occasionally chimed in with titles that I should include in those very first booklists.

Two years later, there are eleven issues of Alphabet Glue (twelve if you include the Summer Science Special). I have built a website from scratch, working late into the evenings after my kids were tucked into bed. I have assembled hundreds of pages of science projects, book recommendations, quirky printable pages, and hands-on activities. I have dropped them into your virtual laps every other month, hoping that you will like them.

And you? You all have been beyond supportive and enthusiastic. You have sent kind emails, shared photos of your kids doing the projects, and left really nice comments on the blog to help keep me motivated (and on schedule). Blogger friends have written dozens of posts and shared like crazy on social media. The result is that the community of Alphabet Glue families feels like one big family in and of itself, and I am incredibly grateful. Because of your families, this is no longer just about me making a fantastic mess on our dining room table in pursuit of the perfect repurposing of an empty cardboard toilet paper roll. Instead, it is about all of us sharing a love of literature with our collective small folk, and about finding creative (if sometimes messy) moments for families to work together.

So thanks to each and every one of you for supporting my little magazine. As a way of saying thank you, I'm having a big sale on issues of Alphabet Glue. Between now and the 27th, you can enter "two" at checkout and receive 30% off.

And the Envelope Says...

Last week was, for various reasons, a bit of a blur. There was plenty of regular-life-themed business to attend to, and there was also the Super Cold to be survived, all the while still attempting to do things like feeding my children. And, of course, there was Friday. If you are a regular reader, you know what I mean when I say this, and you are probably just waiting for me to get on with it already. But first a mini-recap for folks newer to the scene: Friday was residency Match Day, the day on which fourth year medical students around the country find out where the magical residency computer has assigned them to go for the remainder of their training. Here at UVM, there is a ceremony organized for the purposes of opening envelopes and reading aloud program assignments. It is broadcast live on the interwebs so that friends and family can watch. It is a big deal in the way that things that make you so nervous you want to vomit usually are.

At this point in my likely unnecessarily longwinded explaination, some of you astute readers are probably starting to wonder why, if Friday was two days ago, and we know what was in the envelope, I don't just tell you what it was already. So, I will. We are going to...

Cambridge, Massachusetts! Indeed, somehow the eighteen year old kid sitting next to me in Environmental Studies wearing flip flops and a hoody has now turned into a thirty-four year old almost-doctor who has landed himself a residency at Harvard. Go figure. Of course, if any of you out there have knowledge of the area around Cambridge, I would love to hear it. We know a couple of people there, but are otherwise pretty much clueless when it comes to almost everything else. 

But apparently, one of us is going to be a doctor.

Constant Motion.

I feel like this slightly blurry vision of the baby walking with his wooden alligator pushcart pretty much sums it up. All of it. These days have been all about the constant movement of small people, and the attempts of their assigned grown-ups to keep up, until we all collapse in an exhausted after-dinner heap. I suppose that the looming presence of Match Day is contributing to my strong desire to get my head to the pillow early in the evenings too. Friday cannot come and go quickly enough. Really. Also, this cough could get on its way out the door and I wouldn't complain.

 

Yesterday we took Z. to the toy store to let him pick out his first real stuffed animal. Turns out that the little guy is a hugger, and after watching him delight in the company of a stuffed lemur belonging to his big sister for a couple of days, I figured that he should have an inanimate animal companion for his very own. We let him choose, employing a strategy similar to the one that the eye doctor uses when showing you that letter chart through different lenses. "One or two? Two or three?" The choices narrowed to cat or badger. He chose the badger. Now he totes it around the house hugging its head to his chest and patting it on the bottom. Goodness.

Also, it should be noted that I believe strongly in the importance of various things, and that chief among them is the idea that babies of a certain age should always wear overalls.