Vocabulary Lessons

A: Mama, you look very sheep.

Me: What? (recovering quickly) Where did you learn that word?

A: Fancy Nancy.

Me: Oh, you mean chic. The word is chic.

A: (repeating the word) Chic. Chic. That means you look extra fancy.

Understanding is only the first battle of communicating with small children. Comprehending is much more difficult at times...

Butter Battle #1

Well, we made butter. Here are some observations about the process.
1. It's like magic watching the milk and cream suddenly turn into butter.
2. You have to shake it for a very long time, much longer than I would have suspected. That might have had something to do with my little helpers' shaking techniques. They were a bit lethargic. It was a heavy jar though. Also, A was more concerned with her chef's outfit than shaking vigorously. She's such a girl.

3. You should stop shaking sooner. The loose butter gets looser if you keep shaking, not firmer. After watching the kitchen happen the way it did, I was a little surprised by this.
4. Fresh butter tastes really good, crazy good, amazing.
5. Watching milk ooze up from the butter is weird.

6. My butter never got firm enough to make a ball and rinse in cold water.
7. I think #6 means we need to eat it quickly before it has time to spoil. According to what I've read, leaving excess liquid in the butter leads to faster spoilage.
8. I don't think spoilage will be a problem since my children are begging to eat it with a spoon instead of waiting for rolls at dinner.
9. I said no.
10. I licked some butter off my finger when they weren't
looking.
11. They were really looking.
12. I got caught.
13. Everyone got to lick butter off of a finger, no spoons.
14. This led to knowing #4.

Growing Up

My children are growing up. It's undeniable at this point. Last week, A and L went to what they refer to as "dance camp." It was L's first real dance and gym classes because she's finally three much to her joy and my desperation. I look at M and feel like it should be A, but then I look at L and she looks just like A at that age. Of course, the fact that A is going to kindergarten in less than two months still feels surreal. I love my girls though. I'm so proud of them for completely legitimate reasons. In the wonderfulness of who they are now, I see glimmers of the wonderful young ladies I hope they'll be one day.

I couldn't get a good picture because L was much too distracted by the fact that her first dance class was about to start any minute. Who cares about pictures when the purple door is about to open and you'll be invited into a world you've been waiting to visit for all of your memory?

Sunday Dinner

I'm a person who values traditions and I often find myself attempting to force more traditions on my family. That being said, I've decided that the way to avoid restaurant disappointment on Sundays is to create an elaborate family dinner every Sunday complete with bread and dessert. I marvel at the fact that some people in the world don't know how to cook. There is such joy in it (for me).

Today's menu:
- herb crusted sirloin roast
- roasted potatoes and carrots
- Jello salad ('cause we're just weird like that)
- French bread (warm from the oven and slathered liberally with butter-- not homemade... yet)
- chocolate silk pie with one of the most beautiful meringues I've ever made

Memories are born of joy and peace, love and laughter. That's what "Sunday dinner" conjures in my mind. It's family time. It's a crazy, loud time. It's important time. Make that time in your own life. You won't regret it. Remember, it's the time we spend on things that makes them important to us.

With every meal my family eats together, we become a better family. The planning and care that go into it help my children to understand that this is something important, special. They help to set the table. We light a candle. We say a blessing. We're a family.

(The pie was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G by the way. Did you doubt it?)

Sewing Lessons

A, my dear #1 daughter, has been asking me to teach her how to sew. I'm willing of course, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. The process is simple enough but the devil is in the details and I couldn't figure out how to remove enough details to keep it truly simple. So, I kept putting it off.

Then, I watched a video about the lace makers of Lefkara, Cyprus. You may have seen Lefkara lace called Lefkaritika. It's not a traditional woven lace but an embroidered lace. True Lefkara lace is made in a labor intensive process by spending countless hours making tiny stitches that pull and manipulate the linen cloth until it has a lacy appearance. Because I've dabbled in embroidery and many other handicrafts in my life, I know the incredible amount of time and skill it would take to make something like this. The problem in Lefkara is that traditional embroidered lace is a dying art. Traditionally, the skills and patterns were passed down from mother to daughter, but nowadays, the daughters and granddaughters are leaving the village for larger cities and other professions. Embroidering all day isn't their only option to earn a living. The ladies in the video I watched were all aging without anyone to take their place. It made me feel incredibly sad.

So many things are dying art forms. The skills I possess that make me a bit unusual were considered necessary for caring for a family two hundred years ago. Sewing wasn't a hobby. It was how you clothed your family. Knitting gave them socks to wear instead of being a way to pass time while riding in the car. Canning and other methods of home food preserving insured your family didn't starve. The things I do because I find them interesting and enjoyable were a way of life a few lifetimes ago. I personally feel that many of the problems in our society come from a loss of connection whether it's a connection to others or, in this case, a connection to the origin of the things we take for granted.

After the video ended, I felt an incredible burden to pass my knowledge on to my girls. I want them to realize that things don't have to come from a store and that they mean more if they don't. I want them to understand what quality is. I want them to appreciate the time and effort it takes to make something. With that in mind, A had her first sewing lesson on Friday afternoon. She made a little bag. She sewed up the sides and I attached the handles. It was so simple really, almost nothing, but she's so proud of it. She asked if I could help her make a dress next but I told her we should probably work on a few more simple projects first to perfect her skills. She's already planning another bag as a present for my mother's birthday complete with hand drawn pictures on muslin cloth. It's fitting really. Sitting beside my mother as she made dolls, my five year old self learned to sew many years ago.

Next up on the list of understanding where things come from, homemade butter and perhaps homemade bread.

Fun Food Friday

I hate the conversation that starts with "What do you want for dinner tonight?" It leads me down a horrible path of frustration. I was sick and tired of it so I changed my way of thinking about six weeks ago. In the interest of making meal planning easier for me, I came up with a weekly rhythm to what we eat. For example, if it's Saturday morning, we're having pancakes for breakfast. On Thursday, it's red (marinara) pasta for dinner. You get the idea. I struggled with Friday night dinner plans though. Previously, when we had higher salaries and weren't attempting to have two mortgages, Friday night was the night for eating out. I think that mentality is what caused me problems with Friday's dinner. I couldn't think of a category that encompassed both the ease and excitement of paying exorbitantly high prices to have someone else prepare mediocre food for my family. After weeks of struggle and trying out different ideas, I think I've found the winner-- fun food Friday, a night when I make easy, silly things for us to eat, kid food at its' best. On the menu this evening were swirly dogs and tater tots. For dessert, mud, dirt and worm parfaits. The girls had a great time. The pictures are of A and L building their parfaits and M eating an Oreo because I just couldn't bring myself to deal with the mess that would have came from her feeding herself pudding. Note the intense looks of concentration as they carefully place each broken piece of Oreo. On a slightly disturbing side note, the gummy worms had eyes and smiles. I felt a little bad eating something that was smiling at me.

I think one of the funniest parts of dessert might have been my husband's struggle with the realization of the concept. He's too literal. Oreos don't look like dirt to him. He finally rationalized the whole thing by deciding that it wasn't just dirt. It was potting soil with vermiculite. What?! How could I not love him when his brain works like that?

Playing Church

My oldest children frequently "play church." It doesn't bother me when they play church because, first of all, I did the same thing when I was a little girl and secondly, it shows that they view church and going to church as an enjoyable event that's part of their regular life. They play church in a respectful manner so it's really okay in my opinion. Playing church consists of them dressing up in an odd assortment of dress up dresses and skirts, usually with a crown, and of course, a purse. Then, they sit on the steps and they sing. They take turns choosing the song which cracks me up, especially when it's L's turn because while she knows what numbers are, she doesn't really understand how numbers work. Therefore, you'll frequently hear her tell A to turn to page eighty-nine twenty eleven or something similar. After a song is chosen, they diligently turn to the "correct" page in their "songbook" and begin to sing. Of course, the songbooks aren't really songbooks. Today's choices were Angelina Ballerina and If You Give a Moose a Muffin. A has a really good ear for melodies but not the words so much. The songs are mostly made up with a smattering of phrases and words they've heard frequently in songs at church to the tune of an actual hymn. They attempt to sing together which is very interesting to hear since whoever is "leading" the song is making it up as she goes along. Here's an excerpt from a recent "service."

A to L: Page 29. (Singing) Oh, I have found the land with the glory sand...

L: (loudly, with feeling) THE GLORY SAND!

I love my children. I'm sorry there's no picture. I was too busy laughing behind a laundry basket.

Dreams of Flying

Did you know that all my life I've had dreams about flying like a bird? Don't forget that one of my greatest fears in life is falling. Yet, I've had dreams about spinning around and around until I defied gravity and began to soar. I wake up from these dreams feeling enormous sadness, like a broken winged bird who knows there's more to life than what it's capable of at that moment. Why do you think that is? I don't even like to fly in planes. I'm absolutely terrified that one of those strange winds will come along and slam the plane into the ground as we're attempting to take off thereby killing me and everyone else inside. Why do I dream of flying? I've thought about it all my life. My answer-- I spent the first sixteen or so years of my life feeling extremely insecure and incompetant. Now, if you know me at all, you probably realize that I'm a fairly competant person, but when I was young, I didn't realize that. I judged myself by standards that made no sense and always came up lacking. It's called growing up but growing up is hard work, the hardest thing you'll ever do in your life until you help your own children grow up. I think my flying dreams were dreams about escape, about feeling competant in an incompetant world, about doing something that should have terrified me. I'm not a risk taker and I'm not a rule breaker, but I would love to float up into the sky without effort, if only for a moment.


Learning to be who you are and not what others want or expect you to be is a nearly impossible task. That's why this world is so full of sheep following each other (and the current fads and trends) around in circles. Worse, this world is full of sheep who don't realize that they're sheep or at best, think they're the head sheep.


I'd love to be a sheep. Sheep have wool. Wool is good for knitting. I like knitting. Therefore, I want to be a sheep.


Then again, maybe not. I've gotten over my teenage self and if I don't want to drink soda, watch television, or wear pants, I'm not going to do it. Maybe, I like just being me.

A reflection on motherhood

The house is quieter than normal. The oldest two are away at Grandmama and Papa’s house. It’s only me and my littlest today, my sweet, smiley girl, my mama’s girl, third-times-a-charm.

She plays quietly and I revel in the silence of it all. She’s never far away and if I go to another room, I know my little shadow will be close behind me, looking for new opportunities and cabinets to open.

As the morning wears on, she rubs her eyes. More and more frequently, she walks over to me to lay her head down on my knee, my shoulder. She’s tired, but I don’t want this magical morning with her to end. They’re all too rare in the Hester household.

Finally, I can’t deny her a nap any longer. Our days are marked by the rhythm of meals and naps. Her nap means we’re another step closer to the end of another summer day, another day closer to school again, another day older, perhaps another day wiser.

I take her to her room and without thinking, I begin our normal routine. I pull her blanket out of her bed, the one I made her before she was born. I put her soft little doll in exactly the right spot so she can snuggle it when I lay her down. We turn on her music and the soft notes of a lullaby fill the air. We sit in the rocking chair and I cover her up as we begin to rock. Her soft little body melts into mine and she feels heavier than normal. She trusts me so implicitly, so openly. She is my daughter. I am her mama, but for this moment, we are one again. I normally rock her for one song before I put her in the crib, but today, because time is fleeting, I rock her for three, loving her more with every passing minute.

This is little Miss M the day we brought her home from the hospital (with the aforementioned blanket). In the blink of an eye, she became the girl below.

A conversation with #2

Setting: In my car, backing out of the driveway, going to story time at the library.


Mlle. Hester #2: M (Mlle. Hester #3) looks so pitiful today.

I stop and turn around to look. M is sitting in her car seat smiling like the Cheshire cat like normal.

Me: What do you mean? She looks happy. Pitiful means she looks sad.

Mlle. Hester #2: No, Mama. She's so pitiful today.

Me: She looks pretty today in her new outfit. Do you mean 'beautiful'?

Mlle. Hester #2: (laughing at herself) Yes. That's what I mean. She looks beautiful.

Sitting

I sit. I make a stitch. The rhythm is easy to find, the pace mirrors the beating of my heart and seems almost like a prayer.

3 double crochets, chain 2, double crochet, chain 2...

Will this one be the right house? Dear Lord, please guide us in making the right decisions...

Double crochet, chain 2, double crochet, chain 2...

Can we afford this? Is this really the best decision for our family?

Double crochet, chain 2, double crochet, chain 2...

When I'm worried, I feel colder.

Double crochet, chain 2, double crochet, chain 2...

Please help me understand what we should do...

3 double crochets, chain 2, 3 double crochets, chain 2...

I am thankful for big balls of yarn that won't run out anytime soon. I am thankful for little babies all safe and warm inside their mothers who'll need a blanket when they greet this big, wide world. I am thankful for cozy quilts stitched with love to keep me warm as I wait and watch and worry. I am thankful for having something to occupy my hands while my head and heart run a mile a minute.

Double crochet, chain 2, double crochet, chain 2...

Stitch by stitch, I'll make it through this. Stitch by stitch, I'll find my calm. I'll find my peace. I'll find my happy place.

 

A Pound of Love

Continuing my accidental series of oddly large objects, I present to you a pound of love.

This is a skein of yarn. It's really big. Can you tell?

Here it is on my couch with the beginning of the circular baby blanket it will eventually be. 

 Here's some context with my hand in the picture.

I took one last picture to help you truly understand how big this skein of yarn is. It's called a pound of love because it weighs a pound. A pound! That's a lot of yarn. However, that doesn't really show you how big it really is. It's one of those things that's hard to wrap your mind around unless you're actually looking at it. So I put it in front of my face and took a picture. This is what I would look like if I had a skein of yarn for a head because the yarn is as BIG AS MY HEAD! Crazy.

I love yarn, especially balls of yarn that are so big they don't fit in any of my (many) knitting bags. Fabulous.

(Just) The After...

Because the before is too awful to contemplate...

 What, is that the top of the desk? I haven't seen that in ages.

 Look everybody! No precarious piles of papers!

A pristine podium! Underneath is clean too. (Thanks to Elena)



Amazing, isn't it? For those of you who know me, you know that I don't like to clean. It impedes the joy I feel for life. However, something came over me last week and I kept cleaning in my classroom. It made me feel a peculiar kind of joy, definitely odd, but not entirely unpleasant. This is the cleanest my classroom has ever been at the end of the school year. I don't know what happened to me. I took pictures to preserve the moment, because let's be honest. I don't like (things) to(o) clean. It's just not me, but this is a nice change. Many thanks to Elena for being the inspiration that started it all.