one week old

I woke up just before dawn. Lots to do! The gift of an early rise is that I get to see the pinks and oranges on the crab apples as the sun gives the first blush of color to the landscape.

I didn't want to wake Ed for breakfast. On a rare occasion, it actually feels okay to have a solo morning meal. Today was one of those times. 

 

 

 

I turned on NPR and listened to a story that was as warm and tender as could be. I'll let you listen to it, or read it on this click.

I thought about the legacy each parent or grandparent wants to leave their child or children and I know everyone views this differently, but in the end, I'm with the narrator in the story: I want my kids to think that despite the flaws or missteps, my world was one where we felt at ease and happy to express love and the joy of being together. To laugh together (even though I can't say the one liners!). To spontaneously embrace, perhaps sing, certainly hug and take from each other all the very best.

 

I return to Chicago today, this time with my older daughter. Juniper is a week old, certainly old enough to entertain an important visitor from "up north!"

The plan is to drive down early, spend the day, overnight at a nearby hotel, and return the next day, because, you know, there's Christmas and someone needs to do Santa's work, and someone else needs to light up the stove for more holiday baking.

But all that holiday-ing is not for today. This Wednesday once again belongs to Juniper.

 

Primrose is in school, but at the end of the day, she is home too and now we are many! I wont be here when all the cousins meet, but I can imagine the chaos then. A happy chaos of kids, aunts and uncles. For now, though, it's a bunch of grownups, loving the antics of two little ones.

We eat, then soon after, we leave because us northerners go to sleep on this side of midnight. To rest from the travel, from the grand play with the wee ones, to think about how lucky we are to be able to gather as a family again. And to see firsthand how quickly the youngest ones are growing...

With love...

Solstice

We have begun the countdown to summer!

It's a cold day, but there is no snow. We wont have a white Christmas, though the day after the holiday will bring the usual deep chill and that spell of cold weather will last (possibly longer than we may want it to). 

Ed is keeping an eye out for chickens on Craigslist. Why, you ask. (As do I!) Well, we currently have four layers and one rooster.

Having once had six, he's tempted to keep that number going, especially since in the winter, it's not impossible to imagine that we'll lose one of the old girls (Peach or Henny), or have a predator grab one of the little ones (everyone is hungry for chicken meat in the cold months). 

Buying chickens on Craigslist is risky. You could introduce disease into your coop unless you are super careful. Too, there is a reason why the seller is trying to get rid of his or her chickens and that reason may not be so innocent: they are angry chickens. They don't lay eggs. They don't get along with others. You don't like them and they don't like you. Nonetheless, Ed has this belief that most people are good and thus most Craigslist sales are good and we can screen out the bad eggs out there. 

[I am forever surprised by Ed's faith in the marketplace, given that he is, overall, a pessimist. Just the other day I asked him where on the continuum of pessimist/optimist he would place himself and he answered -- at the 30% level. But that low number does not translate to unhappiness with his daily life. It merely reflects his belief that the planet is doomed! Now, can you guess where on that same continuum I reside? I'll give you a hint -- he and I do not share the same side of the spectrum. He says I'm between 70 and 80%. I agree -- probably closer to 80, and the missing 20 is there only because we have had to endure a raucous political scene, a pandemic, and climate change, all pretty much in the same few years. Also, I don't like the fact that most animals have to kill others to survive. Doesn't seem fair.]

 

(Breakfast)

 

In the afternoon, I do the last school pickup of the year. A pajama'd girl, happy as a clam to be in her night time garb.

It's also Snowdrop's last solo visit to the farmhouse this year. (Her brother will be coming along at all other times.) 

We use it to read, to talk, to munch on a half dozen fruits and on her beloved indulgence here -- potato chips. Oh, don't tell me I should do better! It's just a small handful and they are reduced-fat. (Like I said, we always have ready justifications for our bad behavior.) 

(Ed is stretching his back; she says she is stretching his tummy)

I drop her off in the evening and drive home on the crisp first night after solstice. Already one minute shorter than the night before -- how good is that!

(yeah!)

eve of solstice

Remember when we all thought 2020 was the worst year ever and we would soon put all worries behind us?

Well now.

But in fact, 2021 gave the vast majority living here so much to be grateful for, including a rapid, coordinated response to Covid. Most of us benefited tremendously from the vaccination program -- the super quick distribution, the continued science that allowed us to get the booster just when we needed it so badly, the vaccination of most of our kids. All this was huge. [To say nothing of the political calm that we have been given. No one can deny that no matter how divided we remain, the screaming from the top and therefore from the bottom has receded substantially. If noise ruins hearing, then I would bet in 2021 everyone's hearing has improved tremendously and I say this as an older person who especially values the calming of the decibel output around me. From the CDC: Noise above 70 dB over a prolonged period of time may start to damage your hearing. Loud noise above 120 dB can cause immediate harm to your ears. Now isn't that the truth!]

I have a calm day today. I was to drive down to Chicago with my older girl, but we postponed that due to some small snafus that sometimes happen when you have a newborn. We'll try again the day after tomorrow. Practically, this means that today is suddenly uncomplicated, but the days before Christmas will be a bit of a whirl. That's okay. I can handle holiday whirl!

We are today on the eve of winter solstice. Whereas in June we begin losing precious light from our day's routines, in December, we start getting it back. Today, on the eve, the sun rose at 7:26 and it will set at 4:25. Tomorrow, on the day of this year's solstice, it will rise in Madison again at 7:26. And here's the thing: the sun will then set at 4:26. People forget that solstice happens at a moment in time. For us, the reversal begins tomorrow at 9:59 a.m. and by afternoon we will already have claimed back a minute of light. So it's not actually true that the so called shortest day is really the shortest. Oftentimes the day before (today!) holds that honor.

But here's where science and perception collide: this day may be the true shortest one, but on the other hand, the sunshine made us feel as though we suddenly jumped into a wealth of more light.

(the hens, racing to follow me)

 

Breakfast, with a Northlands Keap candle, was positively bursting with light!

(Candle continues to guide me into the afternoon and evening.)

Thought of the day? Well, I was thinking about the upcoming days and how I may feel obliged to make resolutions. It's a frustrating exercise because let's admit it: older people do not change their habits and ways with ease. For instance, once long ago I may have worked hard on being more funny in person and in writing (I like the idea of making people laugh), but these days I know that that bird has flown. I cannot be funny. I have worked with words all my life, yet I cannot generate a sentence at the snap of my fingers that would make you hiccup with mirth. Not only am I not Seinfeld, I'm not even as quick to spot the ridiculous as is my three year old grandson. He can make you laugh. I cannot.

So what's left? I suppose you can always tell yourself to be better at all that you already have been doing. That's terribly uninspired. Let's see if I can be more original. How about this: eat fewer vegetables. Ed and I probably eat too many. 

And so I go round in circles, looking for ways to set goals for change in the new year, even though I am pretty content with my wee corner of the universe right now. [I could do without the pandemic, but I cannot fix that one. I do mitigate as best as I can, but I am human and I am capable of succumbing to temptations. For example, in Chicago, I entered a local food shop, which broke my record of going 21 months without entering a grocery store. I figured that I HAD gone into pastry shops in Paris so why should this small Chicago specialty foods shop be different, but then I know we always seek to justify our actions to make ourselves feel better about the path we followed.]

And so for now, the young families are doin' okay, I have a wee Christmas tree and I am for that and many other reasons, grateful and content.

With love...

Sunday

This is as normal a Sunday as we're going to get this year. Sure, there are the markers of Christmas. And my trance from having met my youngest granddaughter, Juniper. (I'm sure you can't see the Juniper berries in the middle of the green jar, but I can!)

But it is otherwise a quiet day, one where I am catching up with stuff, having been away, and getting ready for the next week's thrills, which are sure to be many.

It's cold outside (below freezing all day), but Ed is anxious to move a little, so we do go for a walk in our county park, but it's a gentle one. Nothing ambitious, not even a camera around my neck for this one. 

And then I am home, cooking up dinner and making lists of things I meant to do but for which I couldn't find the time! It makes you feel good to at least jiggle your senses and point them in a certain direction for future reference.

In the evening, the young family is here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For us, this is the definition of normal: they're here, we eat, drink, talk. Kids play. Or hang on a lap, listening in to grownup patter. So normal. So very nice!

"Catch that noodle, Sandpiper!!"

four days old

On this wet, but so soul-warming December day in Chicago, Juniper is four days old. I think about her as I wake up in my "room with a view."

She will always be the youngest for me, just as Snowdrop will always be the oldest grandchild and as the carriers of two ends of this very special banner, they carry the burden and the glory of where they stand. With Snowdrop, I began learning how to grandparent in a way that would meet her needs and, too, the needs of her parents (because each parent looks to you for different things, both at the emotional level and of course in terms of connection to their child). With Juniper, it's a whole nostalgia trip! Each previous grandkid has been where Juniper is now. And she, coming last, is the beneficiary of all their firsts, their personalities, their experiences. 

 

 

And since I do know that she will be my last little one, everything is special: my breakfast with her this morning, that important meal, with a four-day old...

And after: Did you know that if I put the camera on the table, I can stand with you by the white cubes and the tree and click us together? Like this?

(Or, put you down on the couch, by the tree, so you look like a Christmas gift to us all?)

I pick her up, we walk some more.

And I notice how with her, I don't want to rush to the next stage (as I admit to sometimes wanting with the other kids, not out of impatience but out of curiosity). I could walk her up and down, and up and down forever, with her skinny little newborn feet and her eyes, either shut tight or gazing out wondrously at the blobs and fuzzy images suddenly put before her.

When the older girl returns from a quick outing with her dad, I look at the whole family unit, big sister at the helm, leading the way forward for all of them (because what parent does not structure a day, a week, a life without first and foremost thinking about how their routines and behaviors will impact the child or children at home...).

More family members means more permutations: older girl with younger one and mom, dad and older girl, mother and babe...

And just before I go, one last big hug for the girl who was my partner in crime while we had the house to ourselves for the days her parents were at the hospital...

And now I'm back in the car, driving home, for once not worrying too much about the distance between us. I'll be back in Chicago on Monday.

For now, more thoughts, all of them loaded with smiles. Lighted candle, coffee with chocolate covered gingerbread, and half a cookie (Ed took the other half)  that I made with Primrose the day her sister came home.

Juniper comes home...

We waited. After an early wake up, several play sessions, leftover croissants for breakfast...

 

After singing Christmas songs, together and solo (not me!), and working through a Christmas activity book...

We learned what I know too well: releasing a person (let alone three people!) from the hospital takes time. When the young parents text me that it may be after lunch before they bring Juniper home, I decide that I need to distract Primrose from the wait. 

What better activity than to bake cookies! My daughter's house is so well organized that I have no problem finding needed ingredients. Primrose and I set to work.

I will have made more Christmas cutout cookies this year than ever before!

Thank you Wash Post for including a good recipe where you don't have to keep the dough refrigerated for endless hours before baking! 

And just as Primrose sits down to lunch, her sister comes home.

(Still in her baby cap...)

 

(cap off: lots of hair!)

Juniper is the seventh baby I have held close to my heart and I have to say, I have to marvel at how special each one is and how different from the others!

Oh, she sleeps, she cries (but not that much, at least that's today's verdict), she yawns, she snuggles in bliss into mommy's fold...

But she also appears to be mesmerized by her new environment (which I know she cant really see, but she hears it well!)

So Primrose has a sister. The young parents have two girls. I run a few errands for them and then I leave them for the night. I decided to overnight at a hotel just a short walk away. These guys need that first night alone as the new young family. I'll see them again tomorrow.

Juniper, you just knocked the socks off of all of us! Welcome. 

With so much love...

(Out of my hotel room window: Chicago)