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.

…and now I have this kid. This tiny little Scout Finch lookin’ kid with whom I can play footsies under a blanket as we lounge at opposite ends of the couch for half an hour before dinner. Me reading the new Mothering and she watching a 70s episode of Sesame Street, saying the next letter seven or eight times while listening to an alphabet song.

This kid who responds with a list when asked “what’s in the sky?”

“Moon… buhds… ay-payne… stahs… wain… sun…

The kid who points to my “H” necklace and says “H… Hazies.”

This kid who tells me to “back up!” when I’m in her way. Who casually names the animals and people who live at Grandma’s house while she pees on the potty. Who lifted up her shirt and “nursed” Andy today. Who stares at a bunch of photos of she & her people clipped to a string on the wall and ticks of a list of everyone in them: Ca-ca… Cana… G’ma & Pa-Pa… Dada… Pais… Walties… Mama… Cinty & Mah-yo… Mo…

This kid who applauds wildly and exclaims “yays!” at the end of her own songs, of anything Mikey plays on guitar and banjo, and at the end of an assortment of recorded songs, most consistently Bad Moon Rising.

Most of her songs are about dogs and Andy. She looks for her daddy first thing every morning, pats his back gently (because he’s always asleep on his stomach), mutters “Dada” and cuddles against him for a few more minutes of rest. She bursts into tears if she sees another person crying. She talks about Luca and Aunt “Miney” about seven thousand times a day. She wants to know the name of every person and animal and thing in the world. She tries to keep every single grain of sand in the sandbox. She pages through at least fifty books a day – on her own, aside from what we read to her – in their entirety. She is starting to talk about things she did a few days ago or a week ago. I think that so far we disagree less than most parent-toddler teams. I feel like our ratio of hangout time : simply taking care of her time is getting more even every single day.

Her intellectual growth over the past month or six weeks has been the fastest and most alarming thing yet about having an always-getting-bigger offspring in my care. And also the most entertaining, fun & fascinating. I am so excited to watch the rest of her life more than ever.

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

-Bob Dylan

(…but only after you’ve chewed up sufficient amounts of orange crayon and left some in your teeth, and only if your version of rumpusing includes lots of hugs and kisses because Mama and Daddy are tired today.)

I haven’t watched LOST yet – I will soon, promise. In the meantime, here are some photos I took of Hazel the other day. I hauled a bunch of my beads down to the dining room table from the loft to do some work there in the afternoon while she occupied herself with her books and toys (and the dog, and the cabinet of food storage containers, and the bag of paper recycling). It’s the most beading I’ve gotten done in AGES. I only like to bead in the daylight. After about 45 minutes she got intensely curious, so I opened an organizer of my chunkiest, most colorful plastic beads and situated her on my lap so that I could clearly see both tiny little hands and one tiny little mouth. I assumed she would immediately start having the little finger wiggling fits that she so effectively uses to spray bowls of cheerios or crackers all over the room, and start shoving things in her mouth and dropping them on the floor excitedly as she moved on to something else to look at. I was happy to let her have a look, but expected it to be like a bull ride – short, intense, hopefully with no injuries and back on the ground before I could blink.

But.

She was reverent. My wild child was slow, deliberate, cautious, and full of wonder.

She could barely contain her delight at the pretty things just beyond her fingertips, and kept peering at me with a quizzical “are you sure this is okay to do?” look, and then she would carefully pick one after much examination, tiny, long-fingered hands hovering over various compartments. She’d pick just one. Roll it around in her fingertips, palm it, uncurl her fingers and look, press it to her lips (which almost caused me to snatch it away immediately, but then I remembered that I do this, too), and then carefully place it back in the proper compartment, matching colors and styles and fingertips lingering to roll it around a little more while her eyes moved on to the next thing. She did this for about 50 beads, for half an hour, going through every single container (even SEED beads!) At one point she was holding a chunky, faceted, mustard yellow bead for longer than the rest and I said “is that one cool?”, and she immediately adopted the word for her favorites. In the next container, a white shell disc painted with a red lotus flower was declared “coooool” in a quiet, mystified toddler voice. Big, bright green wooden beads: “coooool”. Foiled turquoise glass: “cooooool”.

We did it again the next day.

Today I have to bring my beads back upstairs because we’re having a table full of people over for supper, but I suspect there will be much more bead-fondling in my gal’s future. Her Auntie Erin is proud.

I am left wondering if all this early exposure to non-pony beads means that the First Childhood Beading creations that I receive will be a little less horrendous than the plastic and gold-findinged concoctions that my mom dutifully wore (think gold earwires and stacks of small, faceted, plastic red white and blue beads – a brief stint with patriotism?)

But when I think about the beads I got to fondle as a kid, they are even more awesome. Remnants of the 70s – shell and huge chunky clay beads, millefiori, smoothed urchin spines, glass beads from deconstructed jewelry (my mom taught me the fine art of Buying Jewelry on Clearance Just To Cut Apart for the Beads), a campfire girls gown like this one, full of of beautiful cascades of wooden beads that I always wanted but could never have…

…and I still made ugly kistchy kid jewelry.

And I still love ugly kitschy kid jewelry. Auntie Erin will not be the one buying pony beads for Hazel, but I’m sure someone will, and I’ll wear them with pride.

Listening: Iris Dement
(Hazel is) Reading: Green Eggs & Ham
(I am) Reading: The Poisonwood Bible
Working on: laundry mountain

Shirt by anise mouette via The Makery, and diaper cover by my cousin (in law), Rachel.

Also, here’s a good article.

Yesterday I read this post by Miss Amber, and when it lead me to the old bit about getting rid of all of her books, my heart seized up a little bit. In awe mostly, and in a jumble of “HOW DO YOU GET RID OF ALL YOUR BOOKS OH MY GOD HOW YOU DECIDE HOW DO YOU GO THROUGH WITH IT DON’T YOU KEEP ANY???” types of thoughts.

I know that having lots of books can just be a form of vanity, and in this respect Mikey and I are most certainly doomed. Probably Hazel too, since her third word (after Dada and Mama) was “books”. I’ve been a lot better over the past year, though. I sent about a box and a half of books to the freestore over the course of the year before we moved, and during the multiple snow-ins this winter I scoured boxes and shelves for more to list on swaptree. I realize that this ensures MORE things coming right back into our house, but in most cases, actually, because it’s much bigger than it used to be and allows more varied 3-way trades, my old high school novels (and stuff) have gone out and been replaced with music, movies, books for Mikey’s studies and for Hazel. I am starting to feel more comfortable with the books that ARE on our shelves, because I can look at them and know that I will read them again (I’m a voracious re-reader – I have seasonal books like I have seasonal music). Mikey has been better, too, as his dissertation topic gets further and further narrowed down, and as he gets further away from the campus-ministry life he’s gotten rid of A LOT of books. You wouldn’t know it to look at his shelves, but boxes and boxes and boxes have left our possession – I’d say at least ten over the past few years.

June 2009

This kid, though, constantly has books coming in. And I don’t want to stop it. People buy her books all the time. WE buy her books all the time. Her librarian-grandma has a new book for her almost every time we see her. If she gets a dollar or two in a card from someone we save it until the next trip to Goodwill or the consignment shop, where it seems that elementary school teachers often unload their entire collection of scholastic paperbacks in one go, and they are sold for a quarter (or fifty percent off if we are lucky). Target has had some really cute books in their dollar bins lately, too. TJ Maxx sells their banged-up boardbooks for a buck, and I know she’s going to bang them up in two hours anyway so who cares. Gabes has recently had a shelf of amazing books for 2.99. She has a full short billy bookcase, baskets of books in the livingroom and bedroom, books in the car – she is constantly swimming in books. And she loves it. Between us reading to her and her “reading” to herself, she goes through about 25 books a day on most days. She plays with her alphabet fridge magnets or the foam letters for the bathtub that belong to Ella and says “an alphabet” of one-syllable “letters”. If she’s totally on her game she points to the letter D and says “dog!” She knows that you read from left to right and down a page, and will “read” to herself, following the words with her fingers. I always predicted it would be the art, but the reading has turned out to be one of my most favorite things about having a little kid.

September 2009

Here are some gifted, thrifted, and swapped books that we’ve been enjoying over the past couple of months:

The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant
The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle
Go Dog Go by P. D. Eastman
Click, Clack, Moo by Doreen Cronin
Do You Want to Be My Friend? by Eric Carle
Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Pond Circle by Betsy Franco
I’m Not too Little to Help the Earth by W. Y. Taylor
Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens
No Moon, No Milk by Chris Babcock
In Grandma’s Arms by Jayne C. Shelton
Chicka Chicka ABC by Bill Martin Jr.
Sing a Song of People by Lois Lenski
Flower Garden by Eve Bunting
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon

Today Hazel & Luca took turns crying to be held for two hours straight, and then half an hour before Angie got home from class they quit fussing and rewarded me with cute photos ops (and I didn’t even have my camera – had to use my phone). Kisses, cuddles, and repeated Luca-pushing-Hazel-into-the-wall-on-his-ride-on-toy-and-both-of-them-laughing-hysterically moments. The cute is too much to handle, and I am going to bed before midnight. The ratio of toddlers to energy drain is very obvious today…

…but man, are these cousins getting awesome.

This week has been an absolute whirlwind, and I am about to embark on just a few days more before we get a small (very small) reprieve from the constant goinggoinggoing, from the flurry of flitting from one place to the next, one activity to the next, ever since the snow melted. These activities rarely include things like laundry and scrubbing the bathtub, however, so this will be my afternoon.

Janet is on her way here (!!!) and we’ll be spending a long Easter weekend with family here and in the MOV. Maybe we’ll find ourselves able to sit still for two seconds at some point over the next few days. That would be nice.

I’ll be back after the weekend with tales of sibling hangout (I really want to watch Fantastic Mr. Fox for the second time this week and there are rumors of crafting projects), reports on whether or not anyone under the age of ten actually eats the quinoa tabbouleh I plan to take to Easter dinner, some showing off of treats that are making their way into Hazel’s spring basket (made by me and by others), and whatever else.

April 2009

Happy Easter, friends!

. . . . .

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.”

-Wendell Berry

Listening: Gillian Welch
(Hazel is) Reading: Go Dog Go
(I am) Reading (slowly): The Poisonwood Bible
Working on: Hazel things; Etsy things; custom jewelry and paper things