Camera remote: $14.99.
Skill and patience required to take self-portraits with a toddler and roaming dog and a wish for sunspots: more than I have.
Adorability of my kid, anyway: a billion units. A billion units of adorbs.

When I was little my cousins lived right across the road from my house (<— as in the former, and the latter’s husband, and their little brother). They lived in the bottom between the creek and the road, and I lived on the hill above them. I spent a lot of my time at their house following my boycousins into treacherous situations and falling into – or willingly entering – the creek. I genuinely loved this kind of play, but in retrospect I wonder if I spent so much time with them to keep myself – and my freakishly long hair – away from Jessie and her Dreaded Caboodle. She ALWAYS wanted to “do my hair”. The closest I’d ever come to “doing my hair” was tucking it into my shirt so it didn’t get wound up in the back wheels of my big wheel (…ever again).

Anyway -

Oftentimes when I’d fall (/jump) into the creek, my aunt would put me in Doug’s dry clothes and I’d wear them home. This thrilled me to no end because then I got to wear – and keep – BOY UNDERWEAR. Constrained to the land of hearts, stars, mermaids, and pink, I lived for the motorcycles and GI Joes making their appearance in the laundry cycle. My parents let me wear them (thanks parents!) and I distinctly remember sporting the motorcycles one day in first grade – the same day my friend Joey showed up in a brand new puffy painted MTV denim jacket.

Anyway -

That kind of stuff – the day I walked into the kitchen with a golfball stuck down the front of my (Doug’s) GI Joe briefs and said “look Daddy, they have a pocket!!” – that’s kind of the epitome of my mentality as a child. I wanted to be a boy. They had more fun, easier clothes, better toys. I went through phases as a pre-K aged kid where I made everyone call me Kevin, and then Josh. I wanted (and got) Tonka construction toys instead of Barbies. I wanted (and got) my first pocket knife at age six. I wanted to wear boy underwear, flannel shirts, and converse. No pink. No dresses. And don’t ever touch my hair.

When Meggan and I became friends later in elementary school she was always trying desperately to fix my hair. “Please just let me fix your bangs! They look funny! They are falling out of their clips!” She was a girly girl and couldn’t fathom my tomboy ways. She hooked me up with her cousin Greg in fourth grade (ha!) She sighed (in a loving kind of way) when I showed up for the first day of fifth grade in brand new mini hiking boots that matched my dads, she in her bright white cheerleading shoes with the colored tabs that you can switch out to match your outfit (which was red and white… on our first day of fifth grade). She did not understand things like my rock collection, but loved me anyway. I did not understand things like curling irons, but I loved her anyway. She was the first one to notice and freak out any time I adopted any new little bitty femme habit.

So she, more than most of my friends, giggled hysterically and completely understood the disconnect when we showed up at her parents’ pizza shop on Saturday night with Hazel sporting the new shoes she’d picked out and suckered her grandpa into buying for her (my dad cares very much that his granddaughter is well-dressed and that her hair is combed… it’s kind of adorable, but very weird to me). Sometimes I don’t know where this kid came from.

Hazel is lucky to have an Aunt Meggan to school her in the ways of makeup-wearing, getting poker-straight hair to do anything but, and everything other girly thing under the sun.

Except nailpolish. I do love nailpolish. But usually only… brown. Brown glitter. :)

I brought you to the river to watch the fish swim by
and lay around that grassy bank and breathe in that blue sky
I brought you to these waters to see what you could see
the difference in the two worlds can’t help but frighten me…

- The Avett Brothers

Autumn has arrived… at least at my parents’ house, where trees started shedding their leaves and seed pods simply for Hazel’s amusement and collection, it seems. Time to listen to cool-weather music, button up, cut off all of my hemp bracelets until time to make more next summer.

Hazel could be Mrs. Hazel Mae Iafrate-Reindel-Swan. And she’ll have an abundance of things for her wedding reception slideshow. At least that’s what Kelly and I tell ourselves.

“Should I be taking pictures of this?”

“YES. We have to have SOMETHING for the slideshow.”

Things I worry about as a mother: When is Hazel going to wean and will it be easy or difficult for her? What do we do if she ever wants barbie dolls or “princess” stuff? What do we do if she ever says “can I shoot one of Grandpa’s guns?” What happens if she gets hurt? What happens if she gets sick? Do we homeschool / public school / some alternative school? How many siblings is a good amount? What if she gets bullied? What if she dates a mean boy (or girl!)? What if she wants to pierce things that shouldn’t be pierced? What if she wants lame tattoos? What if she’s not happy? What if she doesn’t like her life? What if she doesn’t like US?

This weekend all of that has been pushed aside for: What do we do when she leaves home? How do we take her to some town for college, buy her with a bunch of crappy food and a set of plastic drawers and XL twin sheets and just LEAVE HER THERE? What if she wants to go to college in CALIFORNIA? I am watching all these nervous parents moving their kids into their dorms this weekend and I want to cry. And the parents of every friend I’ve ever had who has gone to another country for school or work or life (um, hi Mom).

I have at least sixteen years. But we are already half-way to the point where we need to make some serious school decisions. Panic.

At least I have stricken the following worry from my repertoire: What happens when we have another baby? Because I think I know that one. Hazel LOVES babies, all of a sudden. She has been cradling stuffed animals and dolls and board books open to pictures of babies and singing to “baby Yo-wee” and hugging and kissing them. She will be just fine. Thrilled, in fact, to have a baby brother or sister.

She loves baby Zoe. She also loves Clint and Kelly A LOT.

Listening: Vic Chesnutt
(I am) Reading: haven’t touched a book in days
(Hazel is) Reading: The Bee Man of Orn, in that picture up there and all day yesterday
Working on: Etsy, Etsy, Etsy…
Thinking about working on: fall PJ pants for Hazel, baby gifts, some wall art (for what walls? I don’t know – I have no walls)

We’ve been hearing this about five hundred times a day for the past couple of months. We used to get about five hundred polite requests for books – now we get demands.

October 2009

Some of Hazel’s current favorites/demands:

Eric Carle’s Draw Me A Star (We are in the middle of a star fixation. Warning, there is a definite penis implication in an illustration of Adam & Eve. Lately, whenever we get to the photo of Eric Carle at the end of his books, Hazel exclaims “Pa!” each time – my dad and E.C. are beard twins, don’t you know?)

Mem Fox’s Whoever You Are (aka, “Ebbewa Awe”. This book taught her the word “blood”.)

Liz Garton Scanlon’s All the World (aka, “Ebbewa Wowd”. This book taught her the word “couple”, because I said “look Mikey, I think there’s a gay couple at the farmer’s market, too”… upon close inspection after reading a bad amazon review about the “lesbian couple on the swing”. *sigh*)

Jane Belk Moncure’s My “h” Book (I could have goodwilled the entire alphabet for $6.50, but… we’re moving soon.)

Dr. Seuss’s Yertle the Turtle (such a socially & politically PERFECT book… I do declare.)

Marie-Louise Gay’s When Stella Was Very Very Small

Sherry North’s Because I Am Your Daddy (Grandma hit the ball out of the park with those last two picks.)

Bob Barner’s Stars! Stars! Stars! (thank you Mrs. Hall for consigning this and your classroom’s entire Eric Carle collection.)

Catherine Walters’ Time to Sleep, Alfie Bear! (thanks again, Mrs. Hall, and other Grandma for financing this particular stack of books! This is a perfect summer book.)

Eric Carle’s From Head To Toe (she has owned this board book since she was teensy, and is all of a sudden obsessed with it – “I ‘tan do it! I ‘tan do it!”)

Several years ago our friends Eric and Colleen started working out a vision of a new work farm / intentional community in West Virginia. Though Chicago natives, they had both served at Nazareth Farm and were modeling many of their ideas around their time spent there. Five years ago, all of their planning and praying and networking and connecting and money-saving and falling in love with WV paid off, and Bethlehem Farm was born. Their first baby.

This September they will welcome Miriam or Isaiah, their second “baby” and first child. Kelly and I took Hazel and Xavier down to the farm over the weekend for a blessingway for Colleen, to fit in a much needed break from reality, visit with the ones who are the friends – you all have these, right? – who seem to Have It All Figured Out And Do Everything Exactly Right And In The Simplest Possible Way. There is nothing these people do without first contemplating how it will affect their immediate community, the earth, and humanity in general. They know the origins of – if not the actual hands that grew or made – practically every morsel of food that passes their lips. They are humble and gracious and really stinking smart. Eric is a master gardener in every sense of the word, and Colleen makes quilts that could be sold at Tamarack. They are the epitome of People Who Have Their Shit Together. I’m pretty sure that, among other things, it has a lot to do with how little time they spend facebooking (or something like that). If I didn’t love them so freaking much I’d be insanely jealous and probably a little bitter. Which reminds me that, also, they are way better at our religion than I am… clearly. In sifting through photos to share I realize that I did not take any of THEM. Fail. Here they are with Kelly, PJ, and a freshly baptized Xavier. I miss PJ’s huge beard. Eric’s beard is not that huge these days, either, unless it’s just blending with his plaid shirt and looking bigger than it really is – neither is my brother in law’s. There is some kind of beard recession going on.

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life.
~John Burroughs

Whilst waiting out a torrential downpour in our tent last week, I ran out of animals / vegetables / minerals to draw for Hazel, and for some reason thought to draw West Virginia. Then we made a list of people from WV. Then Mikey drew Ohio and we listed people from there. We were desperate to keep her entertained, and she seems to enjoy memorizing lists lately.

“How about Clint… Clint is from West Virginia. Who else?”

“Hawvey.”

Hazel has met Clint & Kelly’s dog, Harvey, only three or four times ever. He’s a youngin’. She saw them two weeks ago and can deduce that since Clint is from West Virginia, his dog must be, too.

I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but HOW DID WE GET HERE. My BABY is DEDUCING INFORMATION. Terrifying.

Of course, we blew the whole thing twenty seconds later when we informed her that Paisley is, in fact, from Ohio.

Two West Virginia natives (one by way of Indiana) meet, adopt a buckeye dog and manufacture a Canadian child. Figure that one out, kid.

Today she examined photos clipped to a string on the wall and instead of naming the people, named their dogs. I died a little.

“Ea-wuh, Paisee, Hawvey, Cah-win.”

Earl, Paisley, Harvey, Carlin. We met my parents this afternoon to reclaim that buckeye mutt of ours. I missed her and Hazel missed her. I don’t know about Mikey, sometimes. Clint says “I’ve never known someone who had such loathing for their dog.”

I know my parents are really good dogsitters because Paisley is always depressed and won’t eat for two days when she comes back from their house. Thanks, parents. Welcome home, daggit.

…but when she farts in the bathtub she cackles and says “duck?!!”

And then I laugh until I cry. I think I’m a pretty smart, educated, well-rounded lady… and still… doesn’t really get any funnier than my kid farting in the bathtub and yelling duck. I live a charmed life.