birthday bash

This day marks my final attendance at a birthday party for a one year old! Of course, you never really know. Unexpected babies pop out all over the place. Best guess though -- this is the last time I'll watch with utter contentment as a babe plunges freely into a piece of a first birthday cake.

It's almost always better here, on Ocean, to hand over the stage to the main players on a day like this one, so I will hold back the words and rely on photos to tell the story of how it all unfolded.

1. Breakfast: I come up just us oatmeal is being served. 

I cut up the fruits for us all and join them at the table.

2. The Cake: this was a long process! My daughter had already made the cranberry jam and the sugar coated berries. Last night, actually late into the night, she baked the cake. This morning she is making the frosting and putting the whole thing together. Primrose helps.

The dad helps as well.

Done!

3. Getting everything and everyone ready: we make a paper chain to decorate the room. And now the kids get dressed. As it's a special occasion, I share my lip gloss with Primrose. Can you tell? No? Okay, I'll use more next time!

Juniper, the birthday girl, wakes from her nap and also gets ready. No lip gloss for her. Just a crown!

(Happiness is... owlie.)

4. Grandparents arrive (and, too, an uncle an aunt).

5. Lunch: the savory part.

6. The gifts: first, a card from big sister.

A musical llama from me. Juniper is so musical that she will sway rhythmically to her own banging on the xylophone.

Wait, do I see more presents? Yeah!

You know she is getting tired when she clings to a purple box and looks with glazed eyes at all of us.

7. Lunch: the sweet part. The cake: finally, to be enjoyed. The song, the candle -- just one!

No no! Can't touch!

Mesmerized.

Help blowing it out.

The younger family.

Eating it! Loving it! Being amused by it all!

And there you have it! A beautiful celebration of Juniper, the youngest little one in my pack of grandchildren. Pulled off grandly by her dedicated and joyous parents, and her friend for life -- her big sister Primrose.

I drive home soon after. I want to get back before dusk. Blasting Christmas music, losing myself in thoughts of this month of festivities and foods and love, so much love -- I get home in no time.

Hello, snow-covered trees.

Hello farmhouse. Hi Ed...

Let me tell you about my weekend in Chicago...

With so much love...

Chicago: a day with Juniper and everyone else

It's almost as cold here as it is in Wisconsin. Almost. But who can even notice such details when the day is so full of family. Yes, I wish the Madison bunch could have been here. In the end, back home, all kids and one parent came down with a virus and there was no way they were going to drive down here and share their woes with the rest of the family. So, unfortunately, they're home. But everyone else is here! Well, later in the day they will all be coming together.. 

Initially, the morning is calm. I come up when Juniper is already eating breakfast...

The girls have a bath and get ready for their day. It unfolds differently for the two of them. Juniper is going to stay home, with me...

And Primrose -- after helping her mom make candied cranberries for her sister's cake...

And after playing around with my time-released selfies...

... the big girl gets ready for her dance class and recital. (her mom is an expert at ballerina buns!)

She and her parents are off!

Juniper looks at me with quizzical eyes: what are we going to do now??

Ha! Selfies, of course! This grandma will surely be remembered for those time-released picture games!

Ah, Juniper! You don't know that this weekend is really for you, do you...

You don't really understand the concept of birthdays yet. That's okay! You'll grow into it. I expect you'll be counting the days toward your next one and the one after!

In the meantime, would you like to walk over to the grocery store with me?

I bundle her up. It's below freezing and the wind is brutal!

(Even as the city has its own winter beauty after a light snowfall...)

Phew, that was tough going. though! We have a pause for a breath of warm air in the store, where I pick up the essentials: flowers and more fruits (since I tend to make copious fruit bowls for everyone when I am here, well, back home too!).

Time to bundle up again!

On the walk back, Juniper is less willing to stay hidden behind layers of cloth. By the time we reach her home, her cap is off and wickedly tossed to the side, her blanket is pulled down and she is laughing triumphantly, bitter cold wind notwithstanding!

At home, I feed her lunch. As I tidy up, she explores. And finds. Are those presents for me?? Yes, but not today little one! Tomorrow's the party!

Eventually the family returns, another set of grandparents flies down and joins us, Juniper tries on her first pair of shoes.

... and then we all go over to yet another set of grandparents for a pizza supper. With snacks!

Two kids, adored and watched over by five grandparents this weekend! (The sixth one is home finishing his own run with some virus and, too, tending to the animals while I'm away.) And another uncle/aunt combo are here as well!

And still, this is not the birthday celebration. For now, we just enjoy watching the kids cavort. May they sleep well tonight. With visions of sugarplums, or at least sugared cranberries...

... and so much love...

to Chicago

Between now and the New Year, we will not see a single day, indeed, a single hour with temperatures above freezing. If you're smart, you prepare for such cold spells. You scrape up slushy snow off the walkway, because going forward, it will be iced over and falling on your fanny in the winter is never fun. You make sure the car tires are pumped up and that there aren't snow mounds by the car doors. I swear most slipping happens when I try to get in and out of my car and the footing just isn't there. I imagine the ice rinks will open next week. I am of course not terrific skating material this year (that knee injury!), but that doesn't mean I will not skate. Maybe by Christmas! We surely are getting the weather for it.

In other words, a blast from the north can be a gift. 

For now, though, I'm focused on doing the morning barn run (so beautiful!)...

(Wouldn't it be thrilling to string lights on the tall pines??)

(Perhaps it's more realistic to imagine them on the little ones, like on this juniper that I planted here. Hmmm... not so little anymore!)

(The field of snow begs for grandchild activity. But, Snowdrop likes playing outside with her neighborhood pal. By the time she comes here, she wants indoor hours! Sparrow is basically an indoor guy, period. Sandpiper -- he's my hope! Though still too young to build a credible snowman or snow fort...)

I'm focused, too, on eating breakfast with Ed. And Dance. And at our feet -- a meowing Unfriendly, now renamed "Snowflake" by Snowdrop herself, who had proposed Snowdrop until I told her that that name was already taken!

And on fitting in a very quick ski run at our local park...

And on packing up for my trip to Chicago.

Hello, young family! It's great to see you again! 

(Picking up Primrose at school...)

Remarkable how kids never stand still. Not in their physical space, not in their weeks of growth. I saw them three weeks ago! The girls seem to have taken a great leap forward since then!

(dinner with the girls...)

(bedtime reading...)

We stay up for a few hours after the kids are asleep, but we don't push it. We all need to rest up for the full weekend that's ahead of us!

With a smile of anticipation...

snow day, birthday, name day, jury duty Thursday

At night again the winds howled, and the temperatures fell, and the sheets of rain turned into clouds of snow. It was too much, even for Wisconsin schools that are used to snow on the ground. Our district and probably most every other district proclaimed it to be a snow day.

Remember when schools were shuttered and learning was remote only and we said there would never again be snow days?

It feels so beautifully normal that tears well up in my eyes. Kids waking up to no school is once again a delight rather than something pernicious and horrible.

I wake up to yet something else that is significant, charting a new course for me, even as it isn't about me at all.

Juniper, my youngest grandchild, is one year old today. (Photo credit: her mom)

I no longer have babies in my family! 

If all goes well (that is if no one else falls ill with a virus!), I'll be going down to Chicago tomorrow for a weekend with the birthday girl. Birthday celebrations are on hold until we all gather. It is the tradition that for a grandchild's first, grandparents come from far and wide to party with the child. But today is her day nonetheless: this girl that has partying or at least dancing in her genes! I swear! I watched a video clip of her dancing at her school holiday celebration yesterday. She rocks to the music like no other one year old I ever saw!

Ah, Juniper! You have a sister and three cousins who may lead in age, but you are your own person, both strong willed and playful and charming and oh so very musical! Happy birthday to you!

Meanwhile, back at the farmette, the trees are bending under the weight of the snow. Indeed, we have a few split trunks and fallen limbs. The snow is THAT heavy.

I shovel out our walkway, Ed blows out the driveway and barn path.

Breakfast? Croissants never tasted so good!

In the late morning I talk to my sister who is, of course, in Poland. And this reminds me of the fact that December 15th has another (pseudo) significance: it is the Name Day for my first name. Now, in Poland, Name Days are very important, arguably more so than birthdays. My name was unique in that it had no biblical character or saint associated with it and thus -- no Name Day attached to it either for all the years that I was growing up. Until suddenly it did. Recently, unique and unsaintly names (like Nina) were assigned dates, based on who knows what. December 15th is Nina Day. (My sister tells me there is a St. Nino -- she's the patron saint of Georgia. Born in Capadoccia, where Ed was bitten by a wild dog. With a mom named Susanna. And with healing powers you wouldn't believe! Just ask the Queen Nana, cured by Nina. Where ye shall search, ye shall find.)

Trust me, I am not now, in my 69th year, itching to celebrate my newly discovered Name Day. It feels as farfetched to me as National Cocoa Day. Did you know that December 13th was National Cocoa Day? Bob's Red Mill Flour Company sent me an email saying so. I did not celebrate it.

In the afternoon, Ed goes off to fulfill his legal obligation to serve on a jury. He is of two minds about this: heavily weighing on him is the knowledge that he'll be in a crowd of people during the peak of the flu/Covid/RSV/every-other-virus-under-the-sun surge, just as he himself is coming off of a very long lasting respiratory bug. On the other hand, we both believe in a functional legal system and juries are an integral part of that, so he is primed to do his bit. If I don't fall asleep -- he tells me. After pushing snow around outside, he is likely to be very very dozy and I know this guy well: he can sleep anytime and anywhere, even in a jury box.

Because it is a snow day, I do not pick up Snowdrop at school, but I do pick her up at home... 

... for some quiet play at the farmhouse.

But first, a detour to Madison Chocolate Company. I need to pick up a gift. She is inthralled with the possibilities!

But happy to be at the farmhouse immediately after. She'd already had some outdoor playtime today. She is ready to settle into her routines here.

Hey, Ed's back from jury duty! Her wilder side kicks in when he's around...

Can you have a busy and full day and still feel it to be serenely calm? Yes you can. 

Good night birthday girl Juniper, good night sweet ones everywhere.

With so much love...