Stitch Rabbit

My Daughter And The World.

 

She will be seven next month. On the cusp of some kind of girlhood that is racing through childhood and not yet adolescence. On the brink of bigger things, a sureness of herself is stirring and showing itself in tiny glimpses as she makes her own breakfast and ties her own shoes and chooses her own things and makes up her own mind. She knows more of what she wants. She knows more of the world, she knows more than just the things I have taught her.

 

 My daughter is finding her way. She is careful and thoughtful. She is also daring and unafraid. She switches back and forth from big girl to my little baby as she reads novels in the bathtub with her feet propped up and yet still crawls into my bed to find me in the night. She snuggles a stuffie and paints her toenails. I can hardly pick her up. She can lift me off the ground.

 

 

My daughter is growing, and I guess that means so am I. Learning about her... it is impossible to know everything. Every day I am learning about her, as she discovers more and more about herself. Understanding more complex thoughts and coming to her own conclusions. Disagreeing with opinions. Feeling empathy for others. Thinking first about her planet before she thinks about what she'd like. She is seeing things on a bigger scale, she is part of a community. She is more aware of the people in her life. And she loves them fiercely.

 

My daughter is competitive and trying to understand it. She is learning tools that will guide her in so many ways in her life. She is gaining the confidence she ought to have - that every girl ought to have in a world so intent on exploiting women. I do everything I can to teach her how to be strong and powerful, and then she's got to do it for herself.

 

She is turning seven and I am watching her with eyes wide open, astonished by the wild and the love and the heart that comes beaming out of this child.

 

And then, each night, I tuck her in to bed so she can lose herself in worlds of fantasy and story and tall tales and beautiful endings... and it's the end of the day and she simply doesn't want it to end.

And I am filled with her hunger for life, for learning, for knowing, for caring, for loving...and it inspires me to do the same.

Golden Moments

 

I love those moments when you feel like you really got it right in a "cool mom" move.

I don't often come across as "cool" with anybody, let alone my kids. I'm pretty socially awkward and I'm fairly strict, and though I'm really open and accepting of a lot of things, I'm also that Mom that doesn't do PG movies, Top 40 or video games. It's simply my personal parenting choices. I'm working on it all.... as my kids seem to be getting older and older before I'm ever really ready for it.

So tonight, being Friday and the end of a long week, we were all feeling the need to shake it up a little. The music was cranked (The Ramones) and the kids were jumping around on the bed and Frankie was asking about this song that she heard, that I know (unfortunately) and asked for me to find it. So onto "YouTube" I go and soon enough we were getting down to the likes of "Call Me Maybe" and some other poppy jams the kids are into these days. PS, Justin Beiber, how old is that kid seriously and what is it about him that people like.

So this song comes on, and maybe some of you know it, I know I did from grocery shopping and elevators and where ever else this crap gets played.. I never knew who it was by, but I do know the words to the chorus and apparently my kids do too. It's kind of a catchy jam.

And so, here's the part, the part that I will remember as one of those "cool mom" memories. Jumping on the bed, doing sweet 360's, the three of us, singing at the top of our lungs:

 

"Cause we belong together now, yeah

Forever united here somehow, yeah

You got a piece of me - And honestly,

"My life, (my life) Would suck, (would suck) withouuuuuut yoooouuuu!!"

 

So good, right! We were jamming pretty hard, the kids laughing hysterically in between split jumps and shimmies and god knows what other moves they were possibly mirroring from their mother. I couldn't stop smiling and I started thinking, "Man, my life would suck without these guys."

And that's when I lost it. The cool moment ended because now, instead of cool mom rocking out, yelling out the lyrics like a total star with my band (the kids), I was suddenly, and uncontrollably cry-singing, like really, truly not able to hold it together, voice-wavering "Withouuut Yooouuu" and the kids looked at me like maybe this was a joke and then Nope, nope, Mom is definitely having a moment here and the song ended and it was all quiet except for me sniffling and the kids breathing hard from rocking out and you know what, maybe those Top 40 songs really know what's up after all.

Because it's true.

 

It would totally suck without them..

 

 

To Hibernate.

 

Waking up to a frost covered world is about as wintery as it can get in Vancouver. While I have big dreams for a cozy, snowy mountain town, for the meantime I will take what I can get.

 

The sun came pouring through our windows on this unusually cold day, but for the morning and a good part of the afternoon, we somewhat ignored it. We can be very much like bears. We're outdoor enthusiasts, yes... major nature lovers, and our favorite seasons for outdoor fun is the fall and winter. But I can hibernate with the best of them. I like a slow morning, with window staring and coffee steaming, the kids playing on the living room floor. Knitting a few rows and eating toast and jam. The kids like those days too. They pull out the art books and the art supplies and before breakfast is even made the table is covered in glitter and glue and paint.

 

I relish these days. I know they wont last... they are already dwindling. The rude awakening of the weekday alarm, the commute to school and classes and activities.. our family is getting busier in a different way then we used to. It's still good - but it used to be more about piling us all into the van and into the woods rather than into our routine. I think I need to get that back in someway...

 

Or maybe my nostalgia has blurred the memory of a different kind of yesterday. That feeling of never leaving the house and feeling trapped and un-showered and under-socialized. The mornings when there wasn't any coffee left and I dreaded packing up smaller, less-independent babies. Days when the floor was covered in glitter and glue and paint - and that wasn't entirely idyllic.

 

Or maybe my memory is a mix of the two, and really, I just had one of those extremely grateful days in which I could look out at the cold crisp day and choose happily not to go anywhere, coffee mug full and a feeling of enjoying this hibernation, if only just for today.

Thankful For Mornings Like These...

When the crafts come out before there's even breakfast...

 

When the littlest one is captivated and quiet...

 

When little bits of fall are in every corner...

 

And an idea takes flight...

 

 

Since September Began.

Since September began I have breathed some new life back into my knitting.

 

As the summer ended and the days rolled into autumn, new stashes of yarn came up from the studio and took over all the corners of my home.

 

I've been working on new patterns for cowls with my trusty side-kick.

 

 

And experimenting with new yarns for a new collection...

 

 

I've been filling order requests from the little ones with grand ideas.

 

 

And filling early fall orders from my shop... and for Paper BlueJay's bridesmaid gifts!

 

 

Frankie crawled in beside me one morning and asked how to knit... I actually can't believe how quickly she understood it. She's making a pink scarf for her Dad.

 

 

And I'm slowly but surely working on whittling down the stash of unfinished projects.. a couple of cardigans, some socks and hats and cowls.

 

What are some of your fall projects (question mark)

(i think i will need a new keyboard soon)

 

 

The Last Day.

My daughter is a very emotional being.

She's a hopeless romantic, she feels with her heart more than most I think. She's always had a really hard time with goodbyes. No matter how we prepared her for the end of a play date or the end of an evening or the end of a movie, the end would come as it surely does and she would look at me, her eyes filling with tears and a wail escaping from the depths of her body into the air all around her. I've come to love her for it.

Today is the very last day of kindergarten. It snuck up on us all, like all good years they come and go and we as parents are left standing in the dust of yesterday wondering how it can all go by so fast. The end of a long, hard school year for us.

I never wanted Frankie to go to Kindergarten. I had big homeschooling dreams and a chip on my shoulder about the archaic school system. Frankie had other dreams. It came down to the deal that we would let her try it out... but it had to work for the entire family and our wacky schedule and our belief systems. She was lucky enough to get a spot in a Montessori Elementary School in our city, one that is drawn by lottery. She was lucky again when her very best friend won another coveted spot in her class. And so we began school.

I had a very hard time with it. Mostly because she was gone all day long and I missed her terribly. Missed the days we'd spend exploring the forest and finding treasures by the ocean. It seemed school ate up most of her time and she was so tired by the end of each day she seemed to have nothing left.

I fought the battles of homeschooling versus traditional schooling mostly in my head, though I know a defiant piece of me came out in colors sometimes. I didn't agree with everything. I was unsure about her teacher. I watched her try on a few personalities that were certainly not going to cut it around the house.

Somewhere in between the winter and the spring I started to see something change. The flow of the week got easier, she adapted to the hours spent at school and we took time off when I felt our family needed it. I watched my daughter make friends and connections with other children - and other adults. I made connections. Found friends. We got into the swing of after school time together, later dinners and weekends away. It isn't how I'd ideally like to do things, but when your children want something - love something, you make changes and you learn to roll with it. You might even learn to love it too.

By the end of the year I found myself loving her school more than not. I felt myself get swept up by the spirit of sports day, the feeling of family at the assemblies and the kinship between students. I adored her classmates. I saw the teachers for who they were and what they believed in and I was blown away by how much they cared. I was humbled.

I didn't realize how much Frankie's school and kindergarten class mattered to me until I walked her into class today for the very last time this year. Seeing the children surrounding their teacher in a sea of loose teeth and ponytails and homemade cards, I was taken aback by how much I cared about them. I kissed my daughter for the day and stood in the door watching the class for one last time. I felt a lump in my throat and hot tears on my cheeks before I could even try and stop them.

I guess you could say this is the last day of Kindergarten for both of us. Just like my daughter, I am learning a lot this year. How to share, how to make friends and how to be kind and compassionate. I am accepting and understanding just what the school system, or at least this school has to offer. I've become somewhat emotional and romantic about the idyllic childhood milestones of school.

And so it seems today... just like my daughter - I have a hard time with goodbyes.

Outdoor Kitchens

I took a cue from a friend who did the same thing this year when the weather go good. I hauled the old play kitchen out from their room, where it sat ignored and dusty and outgrown... and I hauled it into their tree house.

Since they spend almost every waking moment in that tree house I thought I ought to give them something more to do out there.

It was like reinvention.

I haven't seen them make so much coffee and pie in ages. They've even been doing the dishes. If only they'd do the ones inside.

Pretty In Pink

 

Losing Teeth

I totally cried.

As I climbed into the front seat of the van and out of the cool spring morning rain, my daughter exclaimed "Mom! My tooth is loose! It's really wiggly!" I turned the key in the ignition and sighed, wearily exclaiming with not near the same vigor, "Really? Wow, that's great."

See, she's said this before. In fact, she's said it about one million times. Ever since her older friends started dropping teeth she's been longing for the day her mouth would catch up to all the other gaping toothless grins of young adolescents. Yearned for it, wished for it out loud and definitely to herself. I guess before boobs, it's teeth.

As she rounds the corner on the last month before she turns six, I expected that yes, soon enough we would be joining the ranks in doling out toothfairy money under her pillow. And I wonder, what is the going rate? I had better find this out.

But Alas, every time she discovers a potential tooth for the losing, I check it and no... "Honey, I'm sorry. You're just not there yet." It was beginning to become an issue. Apparently some of her friends in school have lost all their teeth. They actually have no teeth at all. "How do they eat?" I ask. "With their tongues." She answers, certainly and even with a hint of envy.

So this morning started like no other, with the hustle and the bustle and the bundling and the rushing and we rounded the corner to her school.

"Mom, really - it's lose." She insisted.

I sighed again as I jumped out of the van, the coffee yet warming my bones. I opened her door and gave her a long, steady look.

"Let me see." I said and she opened her mouth. As soon as I touched the tooth I knew. And in that very moment I realized that she was growing so big that her body was now rejecting the pieces of her that were considered "baby". Her teeth were falling out. Preparing for the teeth that would get her through the rest of her life. Leaving behind the teeth that tried pureed carrots for the very first time. The teeth that kept us awake all of those nights as they made their way through her gums. The teeth that gnawed on toys and knuckles and to my horror, grocery cart handles.The lump in my throat grew and my eyes grew wet. She saw, she heard me choke out her name, she felt what I felt. Frankie burst into tears, two minutes before the morning bell, and I grabbed her and hugged her and asked her why she was crying.

"I'm crying because I'm so happy Mom."

And so it goes. I kiss my baby girl goodbye and watch her go bouncing into school and I think that even though I am losing her teeth, I am gaining so much along the way.

 

 

 

A Regular Monday Afternoon.

Frankie: What do ya wanna do Mom?

Mommy: I don't know love, what would you like to do?

Frankie: I know! Let's put on my Joan Jett record and jump on the couch!

Mommy: You are your mother's daughter.

Her Very First (Doll) Quilt.

She poured through my scrap baskets, searching for the perfect pieces. She pressed, with my help, and marked each piece with a ruler and chalk into a near-perfect square.

She delicately cut each square, trying her very best to stay on the lines.

She sat, with me... and pieced her very first quilt. Deliberating the way it would look, switching blocks until it looked exactly right to her own little eyes. She was beaming.

She pinned each block, muttering "right sides together". This took a really, really long time. I did my best not to let my own hands get in the way.

She sat on my lap, with her hands guiding her fabric while I pressed the pedal beneath us and kept a watchful eye on the needle and the seamstress.

She pressed her very own seams. She's almost done.

Hours had passed and we came up from the studio and into the house and she chatted away with her Dad about her quilt and I listened, smiling. I can't wait to watch her finish her very first quilt.

 

This Morning.

This morning as Frankie was leaving for school, her Dad already outside warming the car, I knelt in front of her and looked her in her eyes and kissed her cheeks. I grabbed her hand and placed a kiss in it and told her to put the kiss in her pocket, and save it. She could pull it out anytime in the day. I love the dreamy smile she gives me when she's trying to figure something out in her head - if a kiss could really stay in a pocket, and would it still be kissable when she pulled it back out.

 

She's growing up, but not too old for pretend. She's getting bigger, but not so big she isn't still a child. She is learning and mastering, and still wondrous, curious. She teeters on the edge of so many milestones, ebbing and flowing between realism and idealism. I follow with great admiration, into her world. I plead with the world to let imagination stay, and evolve and never leave. Let her grow up but not away from the possibilities of anything.

 

This morning I buttoned her coat and kissed her goodbye and watched from the window with my coffee cup. I will do this a million times more in our life.

As she reached the gate to meet her Daddy, I watched her reach deep into the pocket of her coat and pull out my kiss and hold it to her face. It was still there.

 

The New Room.

I don't know what we were thinking. We got home from our holidays this weekend, unpacked our bags and started tearing the house apart. A fresh approach, a new look, more space - it was just time. My studio has officially been half-packed into boxes and taken downstairs. We spent a night painting the old room, building the AMAZING vintage teak beds I scored a few months back, and moved in the kids.

It's been six years of our family sharing one bedroom, in this house or others. Some people think we're crazy, to pile into one room like that - and I'll admit, it wasn't always easy. But I hold strong to my belief that having my kids in my bed and in beds close to ours has given them a very positive sleep experience their whole lives. As babies, the bond between a mother's body and their own is not broken at birth. It takes months and years to establish a trust in the dark, a safety in the night, and belief that Mommy and Daddy are always right there. Some kids get it sooner and some later. I think we've done a beautiful job at giving our kids the ability to sleep well.

And then it comes a time when their little bodies grow too big for a crowded bed and a crowded room and it becomes the time for them to claim their own space. We may be a little later in the game then most, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. This is a milestone in all of our lives, and I am proud and certain that my kids are insightful enough to say yes to their own independence.

So, without further ado, here is their new space. Taken with my Iphone, since my camera is somewhere in the depths of my next project... the studio. Sweet dreams little ones. We're just down the hall.

 

**PS - I am fully aware that by tomorrow morning, this entire room will be upside-down. At least I'll have the pictures to remember the clean beauty it was!!**

A New Year - Son.

My son is on the upswing of two and he is fast approaching boyhood. Yesterday he picked up a toy drill and pointed at me and said "Freeze, Mommy". Oi. Being a household that takes precautions to avoid violence (no video games, very restricted television, no guns or war toys in the house) I was fairly surprised the moment it happened, and then really accepted that this was bound to happen. As anyone who knows a boy under the age of ten, it takes no more than a stick and a normal childhood imagination for a child to create an epic war scene in their own backyard with nothing more than their own two hands. So much for peace and solitude for the children of the world.

When Charlie held the toy to me and said "Freeze Mommy" what surprised me more than his action was my own. After the initial shock, I was internally shocked at myself at how easily and simply I said to myself; "He's a boy! Oh those boys." I mean, REALLY?? Because, if my daughter had done that at the age of two, I can tell you - there would've been some serious conversation. Even though I try very hard to squash the borders of gender-biased ideals within my own family, I too play can play the part in pigeon-holing my own children into roles that we as a society believe to be true. Is it okay for my son to pretend to hold a gun and say "Freeze", but not okay for my daughter?

Now I'm not so strict that I would refuse either of my kids to act out some fighting/war/dying scenarios. Let's face it, it's going to happen. I think it's part of healthy curious play. I'm uncomfortable with toy weapons and violent tv, and that's my choice as a parent to make that decision for our own family. What I think I've learned from my son is that I need to really take a look at how I'm perceiving anyone should act, based solely and primarily on their gender. As I grow alongside my son, I want to give him the space and the freedom to be whomever he desires, but not what society is expecting. I want my son to grow up to be the same sensitive, loving, nurturing and warm-hearted child that my daughter is, and I don't want to deny him those opportunities because, well.. "He's just a boy."

Charlie is our impish little boy who makes us laugh and loves to snuggle. As he runs full-tilt into childhood I am excited at the possibilities that lie ahead for him. I can't wait to see what this year brings for my little boy. As I learned from our first, these years fly by so fast and I want to give him everything I've got. I am blessed to have this little boy who mashes his face into my shirt and clings to me and looks up and smiles and says Mama.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Year - Daughter.

If there is one thing that rocks me to the core, it is that this is all going entirely too fast. Their feet stretch and limbs stretch and their faces change every day. Firsts become oblivious and we watch them grow more and more... afraid to blink for the time might pass too quickly.

My baby girl has gone to school this year. She's never been away from me before, and I'm not sure who had a harder time adjusting, me or her. My daughter is incredibly smart and wildly social and immensely sensitive. I am so scared to lose her to the world. Some days I think I already have. She's so inquisitive and curious and hungry. I find myself changing with her - trying to keep up with what she needs at each moment from me. I am sometimes her friend, sometimes her adviser, sometimes her teacher and sometimes her listener. I am sometimes her map and compass. I am sometimes completely quiet. In the background, silently watching and cheering and ready for her to succeed and ready for her if she doesn't.

As she makes her way into her sixth year, I am finding myself at the gates of girlhood. A time when she begins to really voice her own opinions and show her own interests and we go back and forth between letting her take the lead and reining her in again. A time when a mother (or father) is precariously perched on the brink of childhood innocence, and wondering how exactly do we preserve it for as long as we possibly can. I only know one answer. We do our damnedest.