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.

Sometime shortly after we moved home last November I started noticing that Hazel played with her toys more if they were organized. I couldn’t just keep everything jumbled in a couple of open bins – she would ignore them unless all the blocks were together, yada yada (surely this is surprising no one – she is my child in SOME ways.) I started scouring goodwill and other places for some low shelves that were deep enough to work well for toys and found nothing. I suppose I could have built something but I would have just gotten very angry in the process, which was not a good thing to do during Shining Time up on this mountain. So after christmas when things were way on sale, I bought a set of these shelves in white and some fabric bins for them on the cheap.

I don’t even know how long I stood in target looking at them and feeling disgusted with what I was about to do, both because I was buying something I knew I could probably EVENTUALLY find used or make with some effort, AND they were boring. But whatever – I bought them.

And then I bought some spraypaint. And scrapbooking paper. And these wee adorable frames from the dollar bins and Michael’s. And ribbon. And I spent way too long obsessing over all of it. And I went home joyful about my big box-store purchases.

A week later we had an astounding thaw, and so one night after dark I put the garage door up, assembled the shelves, and started spraypainting them right at the edge of the rain pouring from the sky. The light was pitiful down there, and I didn’t even think about it, I just went to town with my petrol blue destashed from Erin, and had another new can waiting on deck. After about ten minutes of bliss I realized that some of the paint was beading up. I almost lost my mind. I left the whole thing in the garage and didn’t touch it again until… two days ago.

In the meantime I picked up a can of plastic primer for the cheap plastic-ey veneer – totally ingenious – and sanded off all of the bad paint. (Dear mouse sander, I love you forever.) Second paint attempt went on like a dream, I wrapped some ribbon around the bins, drew some labels and covered them in contact paper, then popped the (painted-to-match) mini frames on top. After the spraypaint was dry I cut the scrapbooking paper to fit the four cube openings that had backs, and after Hazel went to bed… I organized. Organizing might be more fun than spray painting. I just don’t know.

Either way – Hazel’s boring target toy shelves are no longer boring. And I only had one fit of anger.

Back in 2007 I posted this entry. I thought of it a couple of months ago when a flickr friend posted the insanely minimal contents of her own bag, and started daydreaming all over again about the polaroids-of-everything-in-women’s-bags project. I thought about how the contents of my own bag have evolved from Childless City Person to Country Mom. And looking through the comments on that post: Kelly no longer has braces and accessories, Jenn has also added babythings to her bag, so has Virginia, Kathy’s Leo has grown out of one of the allergies that required an epi pen, Jess has more kids and we never farkle anymore, Maggie has added two little girls’ things to her bag, godmama-Kelly has another kid (and another on the way) and no longer requires a map of New Jersey…

This also reminds me that last week I washed Hazel’s ergo carrier for the first time since we moved home. I don’t use it daily anymore – it mostly just rides around in our car waiting for my arms to be overloaded with packages going into the post office or something – and when I emptied the pocket there were a whole bunch of TTC transfers from the weeks before we left Toronto. I had to give myself a little “get a grip” peptalk before I threw them in the trash.

Anyway – here is my bag nowadays. An Etsy birthday bag – thanks Claire! I can fit tons of junk in it!

- changing pad, wetbag, cloth dipe, disposable dipe, wipes
- mini-magnadoodle
- little cloth case full of notebooks, drawing utensils, and stickers
- Hazel’s water bottle
- keys
- tiny cow
- Clif bar
- pouch of business cards
- 3 pens
- 3 lip products
- wee pot of lotion
- wallet
- zippy pouch full of painkillers, bandaids, dental floss, tiny sunscreen, hair things for both of us, etc.
- camera
- phone
- gum
- measuring tape (H kitchen plans and dimensions are in my phone – still hunting for some things I need)
- knitting
- moleskine planner

I usually also have: more Hazel snacks, a playsilk or two, a sunhat and sunglasses if we’ll be outside, and a bunch of receipts and gum wrappers and junk that I just happen to have cleaned out this week.

I usually do not have: that much child entertainment, but were in a restaurant the night before, and I only carry my knitting if I’m out and am going to be hanging out somewhere for awhile (we went to Angie’s after eating out).

Sorry about the formatting of that old post. Something happened in a server crash or transfer a few years ago. Every few weeks when I can’t sleep I’ll sit for half an hour or forty minutes and slowly go through tidying them up one at a time. It’s very satisfying when I’m feeling frazzled :)

Now YOU!

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)

- Crocheted several rows of the stressed-virginia blanket this week. Have I mentioned how huge this thing is? It’s so wide that I’m considering making it vertically striped instead of horizontal… because at some point I’m just going to have to STOP… and that would let me stop sooner.

- Hazel has the hookup in our soon-to-be-town. Her new library card came in the mail this week :)

- They DO sell my favorite yogurt in this town! Thanks for the tip, Angelina. Too bad I’m leaving in a month. I’ll have to start the hunt all over again.

- Hazel is eating pirate’s booty out of the halloween bowl that she uses all year long… only the weather at night this week IS halloween-ish. And I can’t tell you how excited I am. Even though Mikey will be at a conference halloween weekend – boo.

- This magazine came weeks ago and promptly got buried under a pile of books. The pile got moved around and around. I found it today. It’s like getting a new ReadyMade all over again. Maybe this time I’ll actually read it.

- The juxtaposition of adult stuff and kid stuff usually doesn’t catch my eye. We’re a totally kid-centered house. There is no “playroom”. There is a “living room” and we all live in it. But the drain basket made me laugh today.

There, I made a blog post.

Oh, for those keeping track of these things, Luca has been upgraded from “Ca-ca” to “Yucca”.

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

The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.

(I’ve been thinking about a childhood favorite all summer, and then Erin posted this – this is why we’re friends.)

Music music music, tiny family, far-away friends, cramming into tents to wait out downpours, ice-cold beer, dancing, happy kid, her “I love my life” and everyone else’s “I love mine, too” while passing around a jar of moonshine and bobbing in the coldest swimming hole in Fayette county (at least…)

…bliss that you could cut with a knife.

We’re all stuck in here together like a big family… let’s drink.

Clifftop 2009

Today we left for Clifftop. I planned diligently, squirreled things into a tidy heap for weeks, made food, made lists, made it the most organized trip ever. Got on the road two minutes ahead of schedule – just in time to get us there a few hours before dark when it would be nice & cool for setting up camp and finding friends, two minutes early EVEN after a mad half-hour search and rescue of Andy Floppinberg (and two worried phonecalls to places that she might have been left behind)…realized ten minutes from home that the only thing we’d forgotten was one of our camping lanterns …not a big deal. Picked up a couple of last minute things in town and Hazel was almost asleep, sure to remain that way for the whole two and a half hours of driving that lay ahead, banjos and fiddles comin’ through the ipod, killing time until the real things put me to sleep later this evening.

And then we hit traffic at construction and sat still for awhile. And then our air conditioner died. And then we hit more traffic at an accident, where we sat at a standstill for 45 minutes while sweat poured in buckets from my child’s head and she kicked me repeatedly and I actually YELLED at her (Mikey’s banjo & guitar get to ride shotgun). And then we heard a weird rattle under our hood and smelled something funny for about four and a half seconds, that may have been us or may have been the huge truck we were behind. And then we made calls for car advice. And then we stopped at an auto parts store to check our coolant (fine) and belts (fine) and figured we must just need freon in our AC (deal with it later) and decided to get on our way and just set up the bare minimum of camp in the dark and get totally settled in the morning. And then we needed to make an impossibly fast dinner stop and chose Taco Bell. Couldn’t find it (seriously? we’re 15 minutes from home), did a u-turn at a bank and stopped for some cash while we were there. Called friends to let them know we were on our way south, and that if something else happened traffic-wise we might not make it to the campground before they stopped letting new people in for the night – if so, knowing they have a group this week, a random tent in their yard in the morning would be us. Weird rattling noise started again as we idled in the bank parking lot, talking on the phone. Drove next door to a(nother) auto parts store. Employee and random customer and Mikey stare at the innards of our car for 15 minutes. Still nothing visibly wrong and it won’t make the rattling noise of course. Mikey is very mad. Hazel is SCREAMING. It has been three hours since we left home and we are only actually twenty minutes away. We should have set up camp an hour ago. Walt tells us to bring our car to his house so he can look at it. We do. The noise magically happens but nothing is going to fall off of it anytime soon, he says. We each drink a beer in his driveway. I get 27 bug bites, Hazel gets none. We go to Black Bear as a consolation prize (and since we’re saving the $30 we would have paid to camp tonight). Hazel freaks. We order our food to go. I hug an old friend I haven’t seen since 2006. I iphotograph a giant yellow moth laying eggs in the parking garage. We drive back home and unpack a single toothbrush, a binky and four beers.

Today we came home from Clifftop.

Try again tomorrow.