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”.

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.

I love to wear my kid. Even though she is getting huge (in a tiny “what is she, about 18 months?” kind of way), I have still never, for ten seconds, gotten sore or uncomfortable wearing her in her ergo. Just very sweaty.

I hardly have any pictures of her nestled in her wrap when she was wee, which is weird because she practically spent the first three months of her life there. And I hardly took any pictures. I didn’t even really have that new-mom fog where I forgot lots of things… we just never took any.

I need to have another baby so I can take some wrap-pictures, you think?

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.

That’s right, friends. I refinished these dressers one.year.ago. and now I’m blogging about them. I knew we’d get rid of all of our cheap Ikea furniture when we left Canada, simply to have less stuff to drag back across the border, so last summer I pilfered these from my parents (thanks, parents). I refinished them during visits home and left them in storage at their house (thanks, parents) until we moved to the 433 in November, when they brought them over to us (…thanks…parents).

I’ve been telling myself since November that eventually I’ll have a day of good light in our cornerofthehouse bedroom for photographing, but it ain’t going to happen. So, here you go:

My dresser, which is actually currently being shared with Mikey. THIS is why I keep getting rid of clothes.

Hazel’s dresser, formerly my mom’s dresser, formerly my grandma’s dresser – I had to strip a LOT of layers of paint off of this cutie. Somewhere, I can’t even begin to remember where, I blogged about my longing for these mint-green glass drawer pulls from Anthropologie to add the finishing touch to her pretty red paint. Shortly afterwards they were gifted to Hazel by sweet sweet sweet Molly. They are delicious and I love them and I love Molly.

Old news. The end.

I took the lint shaver to Andy today. She’s as smooth as new. But still… pretty dirty. I have vowed to hold off on a bath until after we go camping for a week.