Monday at home

In case you are wondering how my weaning plan worked out:  the first thing Bea did when she woke up and realized I was home (after making the “mommy home” announcement) was to reach in my shirt 🙂  Sunday was a little rough and I did let her nurse for a few minutes to demonstrate that mommy’s milk is indeed “gone gone.”  I worried that I was making a mistake, but her requests have not been as insistent since then, and she only fell to the floor in protest when I suggested milk in a cup (and a hug from me of course), once.  I am having success distracting Bea with our ritual of first rubbing our noses together, followed by our cheeks, and then a kiss.  By the time we are finished she typically has forgotten that she wanted to nurse.  So, I do believe that we are in the midst of a successful and not too painful weaning experience.

This little egg crate arrived while I was gone and will hopefully prevent the piles of eggs from getting broken when the boys dump them from their shirts onto the counter.  Now they have to carefully place them in the crate.

We are wondering if our hens might be molting; out of nearly two dozen of them, we get less than ten eggs each day now-sometimes as few as four or five.  We are also realizing that we may need to consider reducing our flock to make way for new chicks in the spring, if we want to continue to have an adequate number of eggs.

Bea’s birthday is less than a month away and I am trying to make my existing stash yarn match up with a sweater pattern for her.  And since I have this little tradition of taking photos of my current knitting projects (or in this case the yarn I will soon be starting a project with) along with my current read:  right now I am reading Silas Marner.  I’ve been meaning to read it for years (never had to in school), and finally was able to get into it on my flight home.

Larkspur always wants to do projects with me, and I find it hard to make the time to do so, in addition to keeping up with Beatrix and with the boys’ schooling.  I am making an effort in that department, to consider project time with Lark as much a priority as I do, say, math time with the boys.  Today we looked to See and Sew: A Sewing Book for Children, and Button It Up for inspiration because sewing and buttons are two of Larkspur’s favorite things right now.

Button it up focuses mainly on making jewelry from buttons (not my thing) but we did end up deciding to make our own version of the little button eyed owls from the book.

Everyone had so much fun trying to choose the buttons we would use for the eyes.

Larkspur’s owl is the pale green one, and she chose all the colors and even sewed a good bit of the body together (using a blunt tapestry needle and embroidery floss.)  We used old felted wool sweaters for the body, wool felt for the eyes and beak, and I used a yarn needle and bulky wool yarn to make french knots for the claws.  They are stuffed with wool roving.  The striped one was made by me with the input of all the kids regarding color, and of course Keats insisted that it be a bit cross eyed.

Beatrix loves them.

And of course I am wondering how long it will be until Trudy gets hold of one and destroys it!  Thanks for all the advice on my Trudy post, by the way.  The verdict I reached was that we need some Kong toys!

p.s.  I’ve received a few questions reminding me that you don’t all know me in real life or haven’t been reading my blog for long enough to know my family history-sorry!  Jane was my stepmom, and had been so for most of my life.  She and my dad married when I was very young.  She was killed the Friday before Mother’s Day this year in a car accident, obviously a terrible shock to myself and my family.  She and my dad had four children together:  my brother Daniel, my sister Sarah (mom to the two little boys and new baby girl in my last post), my sister Erin (who yes, has down syndrome), and finally my brother Sam who was adopted at birth and has down syndrome and autism.  They all live in New Mexico.  Feel free to email me with any other questions!