forward

My whole family is ravenous.  We eat meals, go for seconds, then polish them off with a heap of peanut butter (except for Hazel, who polishes-off with mama's milk).  We are feeling the harbinger of winter deep within our bodies.  Today I packed away sundresses.  My man and I talk about how we feel both stressed and relaxed at the same time.  We feel the thick, handknit sweater of autumn wrapping our bodies, we sip tea, time slows down...and yet we feel the crunch, like squirrels scurrying to fill their cache before the first big snow, the first drop of a foot or more.  I love seasons.  

The other day I made roasted red pepper soup, my man took the girls on the trampoline and basked in the warm, evening sun.  We knew it would be the last.  The weather report showed the next three days as crispy cold, with cooler autumn temps to follow.  We soaked in that last bit of heat, lapped at the shore, dove in for more.

:: Oh, how Juniper's...(obsessions? fixations?)...change like the weather.  If only I could record each and every one, but as soon as I get a handle on one, she's on to the next thing.  Lately--and maybe it's the autumnal shift, the slowing down, the moving inside--Juniper can't get enough of her books.  She "reads" them out loud, to herself, to us, to Hazel.  She sleeps with them.  She sneaks out of bed at naptime and reads.  I let her sleep with a library book and she ate the corners.  It was a favorite.  (Ahem, now we own it.)  The other day, she asked my husband to show her how to read.

::  At least twice a day my man and I each say out loud how much we're going to miss having a chubby little cherub in our midst.

Our chubby cherub still isn't crawling and it's really starting to tick her off.  Her frustration is palpable.  She has been *this close* for weeks now.  Meanwhile, we bask in the fat rolls over her knees, the rubberband creases on her arms...knowing it will be all too soon when she is moving forward, burning off that chub.           

Sometimes, Juniper and I get down and show Hazel how to crawl.  She thinks we're hilarious.

:: We started to add Hazel's prints to our family portrait.  We got one hand and one foot, but as it turns out, she was totally not into it.  Too soon, I think.  

:: This photo is several weeks old, but...I have been liberated!  Thanks to my dad taking the time to rig this up, I can now bike to the park, the library, the post office, Juniper's soon-to-be preschool....

:: Slowly, I have been putting our garden to bed, anticipating how grateful I'll be come spring when all I have to do is put seeds in the ground.  Hazel Iris is usually content to sit under a shade tree and chew on pinecones or old french breakfast radishes that Juniper yanks up for her.    

 :: Easily, our pre-winter to-do list--that scurrying squirrel within--is two feet long.  Our last "weekend" (my man's days-off are typically during the week) we had decided to get shit done.  And we did.  For one day.  And then we bagged it and took the girls hiking.

 It's always worth it to exchange chores for a romp in the crisp, wild, autumn air.  It felt so good to have tight quads pressing into earth, propelling forward.

shift

The other night we were listening to some easy, mellow, slightly sad, mostly happy, a bit nostalgic Jack Johnson song.  I don't even know the title (it comes across on my ipod as "track 08 Curious").  Out of the blue, Juniper said, "He's talking about our Osa."

And I suppose that song is how I feel about autumn, this shift in seasons: slightly sad, mostly happy, a bit nostalgic.  Autumn is the season that has brought most of my big life shifts.  I was born in late autumn.  My step-dad died in early autumn.  Autumn brought Osa, my future husband, motherhood.  It is a season still light, still clad in sandals, but pregnant with the heavy seed of winter.

 

Of all my grandma's paintings, this ^ is absolutely my favorite (wasn't she amazing?).  I believe it is fate that it ended up in my possession.  Autumn.

I love that we live in a place where autumn starts with the mountain maples and lingers.  Our autumn makes a pot of coffee, grabs the paper and puts her slippered feet up.  Love that.  But she's also the season marked by change and with each storm we hold our breath...Will this be the storm that knocks the leaves off?  Will this be the one that drops a foot of snow?   

Just before the autumnal equinox, we had a full-throttle goodbye to summer.
:: Another soak in the springs...

Juniper: "Daddy's a pretty good guy."  

^I adore how Hazel hangs on like a good little primate.  We always joke that she doesn't trust us.  Sometimes, she hangs on so tight she pinches my fat and rips out my man's arm hair.

:: Summer's last wink arrived in the form of my brother-in-law on his way to hunt mule deer.  Juniper helped him make biscuits.

 Also, he brought his raft.  After 14 years of driving past this river, we finally got to float it.  Thanks, M.

We launched right smack in the middle of the girls' naptime.  Hazel was none too pleased until she finally fell asleep in my arms, nursing.  Uncle M made Juniper a nest in the bottom of the raft and between the rocking water and late summer sun, she conked out.

 My man fished and the girls woke up in time to hit a few small rapids.

On the swing, when we twist the ropes and Juniper gets to swinging all crooked and crazy-like, we--thanks to my dad--call it "kamikaze".  Well, after we hit those rapids Juniper asked me, "Mama, did we do kamakazee in the boat?"  Yes, dear girl, we sure did.    

It was a perfect goodnight kiss to summer.  

:: We welcomed autumn with a trip to the zoo and our first good rain since...July?

 The best part: chasing buddies up and down the "Primate Discovery Center" entry.  Of course.

Autumn.  I'm slightly sad, mostly happy, a bit nostalgic that you're here.  Welcome back.    

ordinary days

^My dad's photo: Juniper and my man.  Yellowstone.^
Woo wee.  A lot of life has happened since I last wrote in this place.  We have camped, and harvested, camped more, harvested more.  We've visited relatives and relatives visited us.  We've been nursing colds for over a week now, finally getting over the hump.  Hazel has grown two teeth and is teetering on the edge of crawling.  Juniper's interactions with the world leave us shaking our heads everyday, marveling at her memory, her nimbleness, her physical exertion, her analogies, her language.  Our surrounding mountains are ablaze, both with fire and crimson maples.  A good friend birthed a baby girl in the same room in which Hazel entered this world.  Life is good.

It seems like both yesterday and a lifetime ago that a ten-pound Hazel was only happy thrown over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  Or how young Juniper seemed when, last March, she would collapse in a fit of giggles when I'd recite "T'was the Night Before Christmas" in a thick Irish accent (I tried it again today and didn't even get a second glance).  I am continually amazed by the constant change and shift of my kids' quirks.  I want to grasp at them all, record them for time immemorial, but it's like trying to grasp the wind.  The best I can do is throw up a kite and enjoy the ride. 

I have been reading Katrina Kenison's book, The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir.  She writes, 

     Our photo albums from those days are full of pictures of birthday cakes and holiday celebrations, vacation trips and family adventures, piano recitals and baseball games.  But the memories I find myself sifting through the past to find, the ones that I would now give anything to relive, are the ones that no one ever thought to photograph, the ones that came and went as softly as a breeze on a summer afternoon.

     No picture, or home video, or diary entry can begin to capture the nubbly texture, subtle tones and secret shades of a family's life as it is from one hour, or day, or season, to the next.  It has taken a while, but I know it now--the most wonderful gift we had, the gift I've finally learned to cherish above all else, was the gift of all those perfectly ordinary days.    

Be warned that what follows is a whole lot of photos of vacation trips, family adventures and (early) birthday celebrations.  But swimming in my heart is all the ordinariness, the beautiful, frustrating, rewarding, intense physicality of life with two small children.  I'm still trying to grasp the wind.  I always will.

  ^My dad's photo.  A smokey, Yellowstone sunset.^

::  My dad and step-mom stayed with us for a week.  As per usual, I didn't cook all week.  (I've promised a future of me cooking for them...one of these days.)  

My girls are lucky enough to call these exceptional, buoyant people family.

:: We caravanned up to Jellystone, meeting our Montana half.

^Sam, Owen, Uncle M and Aunt D.^

^My dad's photo(s).^

:: And now we are back to these beautifully ordinary days.