Chicago

The summer morning has rain in it here in Chicago, though unfortunately only spotty showers up north. The farmette really needs more than just spotty shower. 

Juniper had another night low on sleep and high on tossing and turning, which means that her mom also had a night low on sleep. But we're hoping the little one has crested and is climbing down to a happier healthier plateau. The fever is still bouncing, as light fevers do, but she got up raring to go. Just not to school yet. It'll be another day with grandma while mom and big sister go off, one to work, the other to her own school adventures.

(ready!)

(definitely sweater weather)

(left with grandma and camera!)

(lots of morning smiles)

(working on her inner Chopin...)

While Juniper naps, I get dinner ready. Someday, when the grandkids write their own memoirs, they may well insert something like this into their text: "my grandmother Nina, called gaga by some, because, well, that was an easy word to pronounce at age one, loved family meals and she spent her grandma years trying to find foods and preparations that would please every single member of both young families. She struck gold with crunchy chicken. We all loved it and we're told that our mothers felt an equal pleasure eating it for dinner when they were young. Grandma said she did not invent it -- some dude named Pierre Farney put it in a cook book called the Sixty Minute Gourmet some eighty years ago. Well, maybe not eighty, but quite a while back. Still, she adjusted it to what was available and sometimes she used breadcrumbs and sometimes she used Panko, but it always tasted perfectly delicious and we would all have happy grins when she would tell us that tonight was crunchy chicken night!"

Of course, there is still Juniper. She could be her own person and choose tofu over crunchy chicken. Never assume. But for now, I fillet the chicken breasts and egg 'em and crumb them and put them aside for later pan frying.

When a break appears in the rain, I take Juniper out for a short walk. Nothing ambitious. Just enough to wipe off the dust in the mind and clear the senses. 

Evening: all the girls, young and older, are home.

(hey world, mom's home!)

There's time for play. Juniper watches, Primrose unwinds. Grandma hugs...

... then gets down to the business of cooking dinner.

(and Juniper joins us! not quite ready for crunchy chicken, but asparagus spears -- yes: easy to hold, easy to gnaw on)

Cross our fingers for a weekend where the babe continues to be on the upswing and the household returns to the usual lovely normal.

But really, it's been so good to have all these hours with Juniper (seven months old today!), indeed, with the both of them. With the three of them!

With so much love...