Here and Now

After months of simply imagining it could happen, we seem to have settled into a daily rhythm. We’re in a tiny sweet spot when things run smoothly, as smoothly as the rattling emotional roller coaster that is life with a three year old and five month old.

Amos is learning and reaching so many new things. He is fast and steady on his balance bike but also capable of loud and dramatic melt downs. He refuses to help just as often as he eagerly pulls his chair up to the counter so he can mix, chop, or wash. When he is at his best: engaged, excited, curious, competent he often asks, “Can I give you a hug?” I try to stop what I am doing immediately at this request. I don’t respond to everything so patiently or generously. But here we are, still learning, still trying to figure it all out, but appreciating what is here and now.  

These days, rest time is actually happening, thanks to Sparkle Stories which keeps Amos in his room for about an hour after lunch. After rest time, we do a project. I loosely participated in Tinker Lab’s Art Start Challenge which gave me some new ideas for process based art. After a couple of days Amos ended rest time by asking for a project. It has helped to give our days a stronger more consistent rhythm and makes a nice transition from rest time to play time. Although I hope he will soon be more self motivated in his creativity, we usually do the project together, which is fun for me, too. Some of his favorites are watercolor crayons, painting with balls, and mono prints. 

Eowyn thinks Amos is the best and funniest thing in existence. I ask her where he is and she looks around until she sees him. Often she starts giggling at the sight of him and whatever silly or annoying thing he does. Thankfully, Amos is now finding greater delight in playing with his sister than he does in hitting her. I am appreciating this lull before she is mobile and we have new levels of sharing and playing together to negotiate. 

They Shape You Instead

I was recently talking to a friend who is expecting her first baby in a few months. She mentioned that she didn’t want everything to be about the baby, which is totally understandable. Pregnancy is unique and special and yet totally mundane, an ordinary occurrence of biology and a small miracle that I hope she will celebrate a little bit. We all have our own experiences but there must be few parents who think, I hope everything changes. Maybe none. The rest of us keep telling ourselves that everything doesn’t have to.

Somewhere in the midst of the changes, the mourning of the life you had before the baby came, attempting or succeeding at keeping up with the things that are important to you in addition to parenting, you find your new normal. At least, I think you do, but I am still finding mine. While you are busy settling in and accepting that things have changed or trying not to admit that things have changed, the change happens. I still do a lot of cooking, most of the time with my three year old side kick standing on a chair pulled up the counter. No more than two inches away from me, sometimes pulling on my skirt, he is always eager to help stir and would like to taste everything. Often we are serenaded by the baby, bouncing in her seat on the floor. It won’t be long before she wants to be at the counter, too.

The kitchen is still my primary creative outlet. Yesterday, over several hours, we made sourdough bread, pesto, granola bars, buttermilk dressing, and blueberry cake. But most of our meals are simpler than when I used to cook without interruption. I still occasionally take on a post dinner and bedtime kitchen project, but I’m not planning to do any canning this year. I know I’ll do more in the future, but I do feel that sense of let down that I’m not living up to my pre-babies life. I am officially a master food preserver but I really hadn’t thought about doing any food preservation this summer. Our garden, however, had a different idea. Two weeks ago we picked close to twenty pounds of tomatoes and I’ve made nearly every zucchini recipe that looks good. Before the plants slowed way down, I managed to tuck some of the abundance in the freezer.

So much of life is realizing that you are not in control. You can a years supply of salsa and then, pregnant, you are repulsed by anything with tomatoes. The garden does better than you could imagine one year, the next many of the crops could fail. You do your best to be a good parent, hoping to shape your children and your life but they shape you instead: pushing a bit there, softening here, rubbing the hard spots raw, pinching, stretching.

If you have an abundance of fresh summer produce and a shortage of time, freezing is an ideal way to store it. It's not as romantic as canning but it is much easier. Here are a few tips to help keep your frozen produce fresher and tastier.

Get your freezer ready Food stored at 0 degrees F will keep for a year but the warmer your freezer is, the faster the quality of the frozen food will deteriorate. At 10 degrees F it will only keep for three months. Make sure your freezer is set to 0, you can check the temperature with a simple instant read thermometer. A full freezer is more efficient than an empty one. Add a gallon jug full of water to the freezer to help keep it cold in case you lose power. You can safely freeze about 2-3 pounds of food per cubic foot of freezer space within 24 hours.

Get your food ready Some foods freeze better than others. Freezing changes the texture of fruits and vegetables so they won’t be the same as fresh. Most berries and fruits can be frozen as is. They will be softer when you take them out, but flavor will not be compromised. Most vegetables need to be blanched before freezing to ensure that they will be completely mushy when you want to eat them. Some things, like lettuce, are not meant to be frozen. Freeze only what you know you will use, otherwise you are wasting time, energy, and freezer space.

Get the right containers I often freeze produce in quart mason jars, just make sure to leave a little head space because things expand as they freeze. I also use plastic freezer bags but you can use anything that is airtight, moisture and vapor resistant, and easy to mark with the contents and the date you froze them.


Know what’s inside In addition to labeling containers of frozen produce, I try to keep an updated list of what is in my freezer. It is helpful to know what you have in there so you can make the best use of it and use it up within a year.

A few other ideas You can freeze raw tomatoes whole in an airtight container. After frozen, you can run them under water to remove the skins. They can be used for soups, sauces or any other way you would cook tomatoes. Freeze grated raw zucchini for use in soups or sauces or, as I do, for enchilada filling. I freeze my pesto in jars so I can use one at a time but you can also spread a thin sheet in a freezer bag which takes up minimal space and allows you break off just the amount you need. When I buy fresh summer corn, I always buy a dozen ears, cook them all, and cut the corn off the uneaten ears to freeze.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation is a great resource for specific freezing instructions. 

What do you put in your freezer?

Exploring

Summer has finally arrived in Maine, filling the sky with blue, warming the air to the perfect temperature, and leaving everything else astoundingly green. It is such a short season here, sometimes I start to panic (it's already July!!) and worry that we won't get to do all of the things that seem essential to a wonderful summer. Luckily, we've already made it to the beach a few times, picked piles of strawberries, and taken a spontaneous trip on the mail boat run around the sparkling water and islands of Casco Bay. That leaves plenty of days for walking and biking to a playground, eating popsicles, working in our community garden plot and feeling the perfect breezes through open windows.

Here on the Maine coast, not all summer days are sunny and warm. Foggy days give us a break from slathering on sunscreen and a chance to be enveloped in a completely different palette of colors. We welcome the sun when it returns.

I try to get Amos, Eowyn, and myself out on a small adventure most mornings. Adventure is probably too strong a word for simply getting out of the house and going somewhere. Although we aren't really out in the wild, we can easily reach many beautiful trails, parks, and beaches. We find pockets, patches, and swaths of nature all around.

Amos is happy exploring anywhere outside. We watch birds and ants, throw rocks, dig in the sand or soil. He often hands me the flowers, rocks or pine cones he collects and I quickly lose them. My solution was to sew a collecting pouch that he can bring on adventures to carry the treasures he might find. I used a bit of muslin from my dyeing experiments and appliqued it with some wool felt that I got on a visit to Purl Soho. I'm sure it will see many more adventures before the summer is over. Where are you exploring these days?

Here

Our daughter, Eowyn, was born on May 3. She's growing so fast.  Amos is madly in love with his little sister and we have been getting the hang of life as a family of four.

I am eager to get back to writing and creating but, except for some cooking and baking, I have found less and less time when I can do these things. But, as I sit on the porch under the big maple tree, rocking one baby and watching the other dig in the dirt, I am so very aware that this period of time is finite. It is not easy, but when I can appreciate what I have, I do.

Most days feel as exhausting as a long day of planting seedlings in a field, bent over, moving awkwardly down the rows. As soon as I close my eyes I am in a deep sleep but if somebody needs me, I'll be up and going. This feeling of physical endurance is accompanied by the small satisfaction that, more or less, I can handle the task. Rarely is it pretty or graceful but we make it through the days mostly intact.

Eowyn has only been here for a little over six weeks but I have come to know her sounds, her expressions, and her rhythms almost without realizing it. It surprises me to know her so well since I can't often give her the full focus that I could with my first child. While I am in no hurry for her to grow up, I do wonder about what this little seed of a human holds and how she will sprout and grow and blossom, what she will be like and look like.

I will say it one more time and you don't have to believe it or feel it, but right now I do: this time is so fleeting. It is the longest shortest. I want capture every moment and my many many thoughts before they disappear in a cloud of exhaustion and I want to be in it without trying to pin anything down, knowing it really will never happen again. Inevitably, I will be left with blurred memories but for now I try to mostly feel grateful that I am here.