old and new
Some things are the same, and some things are different.
fava harvest
towel entourage
vintage dresses
birth-day cake (as seen here, of course)
as close to hands-free…
…and as close to sleeping in her bassinet as our daughter allows.
Speaking of parenting:
We snuck our turkey poults under a broody hen in hopes she’d default to an assumption that they were a) baby chickens and b) her baby chickens. Considering the downy little things are destined to become 30 lb giants among fowl, it’s kind of the trojan horse approach to poultry farming.
The hen in question has dutifully adopted the pair but seems to know something is amiss. They don’t quite look, sound or behave like chickens, but she seems resigned to the fact that whatever they are, they’re hers to make the best of.
As for us, we are also learning how to parent. Along with many more important things, I am finally intimately acquainted with the anatomy of baby feet and realize I would have made all the socks totally differently.
for sale
I don’t know how I ended up where I ended up on Etsy last night…
…but I’m so glad.
I was very tired, and I remember trying to figure out whether the cat or the barbie was for sale.
Either way, we agree that it is a keenly brilliant marketing strategy.
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Images (and the opportunity to make this vintage ken doll and his little flesh-colored pants your own) courtesy of SeeDollyRun on Etsy.
How to make a baby burrito from scratch
How to make a baby burrito from scratch:
1. Start baby. (not pictured)
2. Find wool. Baby yarn is widely on offer, but don’t forget that proximity to the real stuff instills great virtue at a tender age.
3. Get to work. Blankets knit from the center out are trying companions: they go lightning fast at first when you have only a handful of stitches in each round, and then slowly increase in size until it takes an hour or worse to finish a single row. Fair warning that during your third trimester, this will seem a cruelly parallel trajectory to the gestational process.
4. Have baby. (not pictured)
5. Assemble.
Ada Elizabeth, born April 23rd at 10:07 in the morning and immediately subjected to hand knits.
Your name is like a birthday wish that we can finally say out loud.
immediate occupation
Be curious no more. It has been quiet here, and one possible explanation is that we have new baby turkeys on the premises.
They are a notoriously needy little subset of the animal kingdom. Time is consumed and we are so completely happy. You understand.
Accessories
Things are a funny way to relate to people, especially in the absense of the people themselves. My little girl is so close now that I find I’m having trouble seeing her beyond the things I have here waiting for her. It is simple to picture her relative to a pair of socks or a room in our house, but I can’t so easily step back and comprehend the entirety what is changing in my life.
So today, vintage circus decals. Tomorrow, I overcome the tyranny of quilt batting, or start another tiny sweater.
Nesting isn’t a crutch, I don’t think, or an escape in materialism. It feels like a way to accept, in the only increments possible, the nature of this change and of this person we’ve made but haven’t met yet.
Soon, though.
updates
Lemons: salted.
All I needed was a little encouragement. Now that they’re gorgeous and ready to cook with, tell me what recipe will win hearts and minds and get Bill to stop looking at the jar like it’s going to bite him.
Unseasonable cardigan: undertaken.
And who could regret it? Knitting the front pockets was thrilling enough to keep me awake past 8:30 pm more than one night this week. Things that have recently failed to do that: The Hunger Games, The Shining.
Summer garden: acquired.
It’s always so funny to have your enormous, rambling summer garden arrive in March in a small manila envelope. It looks so harmless on the kitchen table, but these little packets will conspire beyond the limits of their plots, up fences and out over garden paths before the end of July. I’ve accused previous years’ zucchini plants of trying to hook my ankles with their tendrils and yank me down into the canopy, and there’s no reason to suspect less treachery from this generation.
Baby: gestated. She’s full term tomorrow. Better if she waits until late April, but technically she can arrive any time she feels ready to wear cardigans.
No, it’s not machine washable. But neither are babies, actually. I read that, in case you thought I was going into this just wildly unprepared.
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This recipe, with cloves and cinnamon and bay
This seed company, since forever
summer plans
If I started knitting this cardigan today…
…I’d be finished in July. Maybe August.
It’ll be so exactly what I wish to slip into between sunburned afternoons in the garden and sweltering evenings spent fighting the dogs for space under the ceiling fan.
No matter. Apparently.
If I react predictably to the combination of pockets, fold-up cuffs and a double button placket, so be it. But so does our cat.
