From Our Yard: Pie!!!

 

I'm guessing we put in the strawberries about five years ago. It was back before Charlie, when Josh and I were just a couple of single parents raising our shared-custody kids together. We put in a lot of the edible perennials around that time when we had actual full days with no children in the house (imagine that!).

Either it has been the right number of years since planting or the right weather this spring or both, but we have a bumper crop of strawberries this year. Each day for a week or so, we've had a heaping bowlful to pick and eat, and enough left over at the peak to make a pie! (Next year, cross your fingers for enough excess to make jam!)

The rhubarb was planted the same year as the strawberries, but will need to be moved because it's being out-competed by raspberries and our neighbor's mulberry bushes. When I went to harvest it, I could only get a few thin stalks - enough for about a cup and a half cut up. Luckily, that turned out to be the right amount to blend with the strawberries.

Pie is always good, but pie from stuff growing on your own little city lot is damn satisfying!

Three Babies

 My three babies @ 6 weeks (clockwise from the top: Isaac, Charlie, and Ellis).

It's been fun, as I've snapped photos of growing Isaac, to go back through the archives and see what the others looked like at the same time in their lives. Made possible through the miracle of digital photography - both the increased quantity of photos and the searchable, clearly dated archive. (Unfortunately this technology did not exist back in 1994 when Nate was born, so I'll have to make do with just the three younger boys).

A Big Deal

 

 

 

 

He's been nonchalant about it, but with all we've been through together in the last four years it's a pretty big deal that Nate graduated from high school last night. As befitting a celebration of Nate, we ran outside in the pouring rain to drive to the ceremony, only to realize that half the back of the van was filled with cedar mulch and a bicycle, and thus we were one seat short for our now six-person family. We also discovered that the tassel for his cap and gown was missing from its bag. The graduate was good natured about riding to his big night on bags of mulch, and by the time we got there, the sun had come out and a giant rainbow was spread across the sky. Luckily, there were extra tassels to be had, and all of the little boys were cooperative and excited to see their biggest bro mark this rite of passage.

If I've learned one thing from Nate, it's that no matter how winding the path, it all tends to work out in the end. I look forward to our next adventure into adulthood with him.

Name Play

 Old What's His Name at 5 Weeks (this much cuteness should be illegal)

When we were picking baby names we thought that Isaac might bear the nickname Ike. He may at some point in his life, but we have a family tradition of playing with nicknames (and word play in general). Since I am the worst culprit for this, Isaac has been called many names in the past five weeks:

Isey (eye-zee) - his primary nickname, so much so that Charlie corrects strangers who say Isaac. Nate and Ellis made a brief play for Izzy as a scheme to procure free ice cream from our favorite local ice cream shop. I put the kibosh on that, mostly because there are too many Isabelles called Izzy these days. Plus it just doesn't suit him.

Mos Eisley - my brain went there from Isey. Must be all the Star Wars Charlie insists on watching lately. I swear, though, he is not a "wretched hive of scum and villainy."

Eyser Geyser and Eyser B'Geyser (and sometimes Eyser Pee Geyser - anyone who has changed the diaper of an  infant male knows the origin of this variation). Lately this has morphed simply into B'Geyse (buh-guys).

Eisenhower - see, Ike is still in there somewhere. Papa in his inimitable coolness started this one.

Bunny - I started calling him this in utero during the third trimester. It started after we read the bedtime story "The Dreaming Bunny" by Margaret Wise Brown (and often morphs into Bunny Bun Bun like a character in that story). It also has roots in the lyric "but Bunnie I loved you" from the Morrissey song "Now My Heart is Full." Similar to Boonie, which I've called Charlie for ages, and, like Boonie, I tend to use it for the other boys, too (including Josh).

I also admit that when I'm particularly sleep-deprived, I just call him Charlie.

Bone Tired

 

 

Back when Charlie was a newborn, Ellis was five and Nate was fourteen and I could actually follow that old saw "sleep when your baby sleeps." It's very different with Isaac. The past four weeks have been bleary ones with the constant hum of the washing machine as soundtrack. Charlie is not quite four and in a phase where if I fell asleep on duty, he probably wouldn't kill himself, but could sustain serious injuries in his quest to destroy our house. I took the picture above to prove to myself that he can engage diligently in calmer activities without any "Hulk Smash" moments. He didn't paint his whole body this time, although he did pour the water jar out all over the ground on purpose shortly after this photo was taken.

Isaac is a pretty good sleeper for a newborn. He usually sleeps in three hour chunks of time at night with feedings and diaper changes in between. The brutal nights are when he doesn't go back to sleep for more than an hour after eating, but those don't happen very often. Nevertheless, four weeks of interrupted sleep has taken its toll on my brain. I try to mitigate it with significant periods of zoning out during the day, or the more recent habit of sneaking a nap in when Josh gets home from work. I'm still bone tired a lot of the time, taking comfort in the knowledge that this phase doesn't last that long and at least I don't have to go back to work this time around.

Evenings, after the children fall asleep, are a choice. Do I catch up on sleep or do I enjoy some adult time alone or with my husband? Either way there are regrets. Josh and I miss our time alone together. Yesterday, driving home from a school pick up, I fantasized about stopping to get a bottle of wine to enjoy with good conversation or perhaps a movie in the evening. Then I laughed out loud because that's just not my life right now.

Instead, last night, I went to sleep when Isaac did, snuck in some conversation time with Josh during the first feeding around midnight, and today I have felt as close to what passes for peppy these days. I went to the river with the little boys after dropping Ellis at school, shopped for groceries on the way home, cut up veggies, hard boiled eggs, and baked banana bread. Take that sleep deprivation!



Garden 2012

 

During late February when I am usually lusting over seed catalogs, we decided that we would take a pass on the vegetable garden this year because of the timing of Isaac's birth. We have plenty of edible perennials in our yard and weekly farmer's markets to scratch the local produce itch. Instead, we committed to focusing our garden energies on clean up projects and making 2012 a year for subtraction rather than addition.

Of course, I am a big cheater. Yes, those are tomato plants growing no-till style in my weedy garden bed. And maybe there are basil seeds germinating in the herb garden. Oh, and a few sunflowers for the children.

Friends, I am an incorrigible gardener.

Around The Neighborhood

 

The lovely weather plus the not being pregnant anymore provides me many opportunities to skulk around the neighborhood and see what's up. It's good to know that Midway remains subtly subversive.