100 Ways To Use Oranges

No, no, I'm only kidding.  I *wish* I knew of 100 ways to use oranges, because we have about one thousand ripe ones on the tree in our backyard, and we have eaten more than we can handle.  So far, we actually only have three: plain old ripe oranges, orange juice, and orange marmalade.  All three are pretty big hits around here, though, so we might just stick to those basics for a while longer (maybe diversifying to mimosas.  How have we not made those yet??).  And we give oranges to everyone who comes by our house, or lives near us, or is a friend.  Apparently oranges in February in California are sort of like tomatoes in August in Virginia, in that everyone has more than they need even though they are so so good.  

For the first time in my life I am living in a place where it is actually seasonally appropriate to buy bathing suits when stores start selling them.  Which means that as of earlier this week, both Clara and Dorothy have bathing suits which, of course, they insisted on wearing all day, all the way through to bathtime, which was the first appropriate moment to be wearing them.

We've been trying to work it out so that each morning one twin is at home "helping" with Josephine, while the other is out and about embarking on some sort of adventure.  It has actually been incredibly awesome, partly because it's the first time we've spent large amounts of time with Clara and Dorothy individually, and while they are quite a bit alike, they are definitely unique individuals.  Oh my goodness, they love being around the baby, which results in all sorts of ridiculous moments, like trying to insist that no, Josephine cannot eat a lollipop.

Our little Josephine celebrated her nameday on Monday, which, for those of you not familiar with the tradition, is a celebration of the feast day of one's patron saint.  In Poland, your nameday is actually a much bigger deal than even your birthday, and my dad sent over pastries from a local bakery along with some information about Josephine's patron saint, Saint Josephine Bakhita, to help us celebrate.  I encourage you to read about her life, because it is truly an incredible story, one which includes kidnapping, enslavement, forced conversion to Islam, travel over many continents, and ultimately conversion to Christianity, freedom, the religious life, and canonization as one of Africa's modern saints.

Did you receive ashes yesterday?  We skipped our traditional Ash Wednesday pretzels (which I think we'll have to make tomorrow on the first Friday of lent!).  It feels a little funny to be celebrating Lent when it feels like summer outside, but even so, I welcome the rhythm of the liturgical seasons, and am excited to set up some of our traditional Lenten practices, like planting grass seeds for good deeds, or praying a decade of the Rosary with the older kids.   What are your family's practices for Lent?  How do your kids participate? 

Halloween Roundup

::A pair of foxes, who, as you can tell, are quite taken with one another's tails.

::We convinced Hugo to change his costume from a frog fish (which is a real animal, by the way, which most of us have not heard of, except for Hugo, who wanted to be one for Halloween) to an Osprey, because at least a bird would be identifiable by most people, right?

::Lily the raccoon (thankfully, we had a mask on hand, because we learned the day of the school parade that Lily is severely allergic to even hypoallergenic face paint!  For better or worse, this girl has inherited my sensitivity!).

::Zosia the deer.  You may notice that she has both the speckles of a fawn and the horns of a buck, which, if you actually live in the country around deer, you will probably realize is not the way God created it.  But it's cute anyway, right?!

::Ben the park ranger

::And the mama bear!

Oh, you guys.  I love this time of year.  I take everything back I said about California being too warm and too sunny all the time, because it turns out that when, paired with a slight cooling of the temperatures, daylights savings time, and a fun holiday like Halloween, fall is glorious even in sunny California.  

There were times "back East" (as everyone around here seems to refer to it) that, I will admit, daylights savings time felt kind of cruel.  It was getting cold and rainy, the foliage was all dying, and as if you aren't already adjusting to your inability to be outside, just like that it started getting dark early.  Last year was probably the first year that I met all these changes with downright dread, an experience so common that those of us from back East have given it a clinical name.

But on the West Coast, fall is gentle and mild.  There is no sudden temperature snap, no weekend when all the beautiful leaves fall to the ground, no drama.  I will admit, I do miss the drama.  But if you tune in closely, you do feel a shift, and the mornings are cooler, the sky is especially clear, and at night it feels cosy to be tucked under an extra blanket.  I make applesauce at least once a week, and Clara has decided that the only way she will nap is once she has fallen very soundly asleep on the shoulder of someone she loves, which has resulted in some wonderful afternoon snuggles.  And truth be told, when the time changed, it suddenly felt just right: dinners with a candle, slightly earlier bedtimes, and we even turned the heating on for the first time this week.

I think what I love about Halloween is the creativity: the excitement and imagination involved in dressing up in a costume and taking on another identity.  Over the years we've often developed a tradition of making costumes, which, despite the *ahem* lackluster craftsmanship involved, is something the kids love and look forward to, and I think there's nothing that pairs better with more time indoors than unlocking some creative energy.  I think this year might be my favorite year yet, and I do believe that there is nothing that makes it feel like fall more than Halloween.

Books, Summer Food, Fireflies, and Remembering Things

::Summer reading is in full swing, and it seems like a lot of our books are ones we've already read!  I'm reading The End of the Affair, which I last read what feels a lifetime ago, when I was pregnant with Zosia.  It's beautiful, well written, and insightful, and luckily my memory is so bad that I feel as though I were reading it for the first time!  Ben is reading The Hobbit, which seems perfectly fitting given that we're about to embark upon our own adventure (and for the record, Ben remembers books perfectly, but will often choose to reread a book simply because he knows he likes it).  We're reading The Penderwicks at Point Mouette with the girls, which really, truly is the *perfect* book for summer (although if you're new to this series, start at the beginning!).  And the babies love anything with animals: I Am A bunny is a favorite along with Oh What a Busy Day!  I seriously could read these really good children's books again every single day and never grow tired of them.

 ::No clue where Clara found these, but she insists upon wearing them often.  Given the fact that she is usually our style maven, I am going to have to find her something a little more chic, or she will never forgive me!

::There is something about losing someone close to you which forces you to re-examine a lot of things about your life.  Am I doing things right?  Are there things I would look back upon my life and regret?  Am I spending my time and energy on the things that matter the most in life?  Ben and I have had so many wonderful, fruitful, and soul searching conversations over the past few weeks, which I will always hold in a special place in my heart.  One random thing that we both agreed upon is that we would like to be more intentional about remembering special days (birthdays, anniversaries) of loved ones.  Truth be told, we are usually so scatter brained, we're lucky to remember our own childrens' birthdays!  A few days after we had the conversation, a birthday calendar arrived in the mail, which Ben has hung up in our kitchen.  I am feeling so good about this resolution, and am hoping we will do a better job of remembering and celebrating the people we love most!

::One thing I love about living in a place which such distinct seasons is that I notice that the way we eat shifts so drastically from season to season.  We're definitely not strict "seasonal eaters" "local eaters" "organic eaters" or anything else that fancy (whew, looking at our run of the mill grocery bill, I'm having a hard time imagining how people swing that sort of thing!), but we do buy food that is ripe and cheap, and as close to whole as possible. We also avoid using the oven on hot days (or use it extra on cold days!) which means that desserts in particular are either chilled or unbaked in the summer.  This morning I threw together some chilled granola bars loosely based on this recipe (reeaaaally loosely, but they turned out fine!), and they were a big hit with the kids.  And don't worry, I made sure to even out that half of a granola bar up there-- that's what moms are for, right? (Oh, and Clara prefers to feed herself these days.  I think you'll agree she seems pretty capable!).

::When Ben and I were newly married, we started gathering up National Geographic field guides.  If we saw one in a thrift store, we would buy it.  We would buy one for one another for Christmas.  By the time the kids came around, we had a bona fide collection, and it's one of the best purchases we've ever made.  I love that as our kids become interested in nature, they have easy access to beautiful pictures and facts to help their exploration.  One Father's Day or birthday or something I bought Ben a bird feeder, and I would say that is one of my other best long term purchases.  He's actually really diligent about keeping it filled, and we are graced with the loveliest variety of birds, and the kids really enjoy trying to identify each one!  

:: The season of fireflies is upon us!  I have distinct childhood memories of catching fireflies in the summer, and love watching my own little ones participating in the seasonal ritual.

I still can't quite believe in only two weeks we'll be on another coast entirely.  Are there fireflies in California?  I sure hope so.  I imagine we'll be discovering a new set of wonders out there, but in the meantime, I am savoring every last moment right where we are.

Teaching Babies to Swim and Other Summer Things

::It was a really festive weekend: My birthday, our Anniversary, and then a holiday on Monday to boot!  I don't remember the last time my birthday was on Memorial Day weekend.  It felt like the best present!  Both Ben and my Dad gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, which means I have rotating vases through the house.

::The key to a hot and muggy Virginia summer is staying wet, and I think that these babies have caught right on!  Some of you might remember that last summer we started working on making the babies really comfortable going under water.  

Basically, it goes something like this: when your baby is about three or four months old, you can start working with them in the bath.  Take a cup of water bath water, say a key word (ours is "Dive in!"), and pour the water over their face.  It sounds kind of crazy, but believe it or not, our babies didn't cry a single time.  Babies have a natural reflex to "turn off" their breathing when they go under water (after all, they were in water the whole time they were developing in the womb), so it's really less about teaching them something new than about helping them remember their natural instincts.  Do this every day for a week, and then you're ready to move to the pool.  

Now, just get in the pool together, hold them up in front of you, and say your key word ("Dive in!") before dunking them under water, just for a second or two at first.  In all likelihood, your baby will look a little surprised and confused, but will remain quite content (and will not inhale water). Continue doing these little dunks every now and then (maybe just two or three in a day).  As they become comfortable with this over the coming weeks, you can put them in for more and more time, ultimately even letting go of them under water.  This is when they can start to experiment with swimming towards you.  Skeptical?  Check this out!

After a long break this winter, we were curious to see if the babies "remembered" their diving instinct again this summer, and with the pool opening up, we've had the chance to observe.  Dorothy (pictured above holding the hose) is obsessed with going under water, you guys!  Immediately after you dunk her, she says "Again!" grins, and starts trying to dive under.  Clara tolerates it, but is sort of meh, whatever about the whole thing.  We'll see what developments this summer may bring!  Obviously, we are going to need to take some videos of our little swimmers in training!

(And if you try this at home, I would say the key is to make sure your baby is happy throughout.  If you have a baby who is sensitive to any of this, just hold off and try again later!)

:: All of a sudden, the babies are (not quite) 18 months going on 18 years and request to sit in a regular chair, eating all of their meals with utensils.  This is really amusing to me, but I would say that slightly more food ends up in their tummies than on the table, which makes it mommy approved!

::What's Memorial Day without a little time working in the yard, and a fire in the outdoor fireplace?  Hugo and I were determined to offer a helping hand together, although I did not plan on putting down my coffee (which I was sipping on, thankyouverymuch), and Hugo couldn't quite hold up his end of the wheelbarrow.  That's okay, we got it done eventually.  Our deck, front step, and bathrooms are all draped with drying pool towels and bathing suits, Hugo is at a little summer camp as I write, and if you stand outside for more than five minutes, you will break a sweat (and the gnats will find you).  I dare say summer is here!  I just love it!

On the days that I am out and about with kids, I tend to be a little bit more reliable snapping and posting pictures on my phone-- find us over here for more of the day to day!

Thaw

Well, will you look at that?  I took a little unintentional sabbatical from blogging, and just like that the winter has thawed into a warm and pleasant spring (queue the Alleluia chorus, please).  When I look through the pictures on my camera, there are still clues of the winter that had us covered in a blanket of snow just a few short weeks ago: hat hair, babies in their warmest bunting, apples cut with our apple slicer as a diversion on yet. another. snow. day.   

But today was the second day that the children went outside without their jackets, and I took the possibly premature step of packing up our winter gear this past weekend. Now is the season of mud on all of our shoes (washed shoes drying on the counter above, ready to get muddied again).  Mud on our clothing and on our hands, and all over our babies.  It is wonderful to see Clara and Dorothy discovering the outdoors for the first time on their own two feet.  They put dirt in their mouth, and laugh when the wind rushes through their hair, and climb to whatever the highest peak in their sight might be.  These babies were made for the outdoors.  Children were made for the outdoors, actually, don't you think?  As I watch all of my children venturing out on foot, on bicycles, and in wagons, I delight in seeing them take in these signs of spring with wonder, as if for the first time.  The daffodils are bounding through the soil under trees that are just about ready to send out plump buds.  It is a time of incredible newness and promise.

I have been breathing a huge sigh of relief as I feel the energy that has gathered within these four walls over the past cold months drifts out of our open windows and doors, into the warm spring air which we are welcoming with bare arms and sometimes bare feet.  I know it might get chilly again, but we have been strengthened with hope.  Spring can't be too far off.