harvest time in the city

Our potato harvest - we planted 1/2 pound of fingerlings in early summer and ended up with 10-12 pounds of potatoes, harvested over the space of 6 weeks.

Fingerlings galore.

Raspberries are plentiful this year after a layer of chicken compost

I am up to my elbows tomatoes and green beans. Our freezer is full of quarts of sauce.

N got really into cleaning out the coop and spreading new wood chips today.

Ollie seems to stick better to tasks that involve small motor skills, like peeling an onion. It took him about 20 minutes to peel a shallot, but he did it perfectly.

We talk a lot these days about how "both boys need to say it's OK to play that game". In this case, O was giggling madly.

N says, "this is my Obama bike rack."

Preschool continues to go very well, though our (unrelated) early childhood class leaves much to be desired this year. There are some very rowdy 3.5 year old twin boys in there, and believe it or not, they aren't mine. All kids have bad days, but the parents of the four twins in question could not have cared less that their kids were running wild and being totally disruptive during the group time, ramming into things and screaming. It was nuts. If it continues this way, we may quit. It would be too bad, because we've gotten so much good out of these classes so far. The boys were a little shocked, but they otherwise had a fabulous time, and the teacher is one of their favorites. They seem to just love classes and group activities of all kinds all of a sudden, which is good timing, don't you think? (Omie -you can join us next week - maybe you can set them straight.)

we are big schoolboys now!

We were fairly well prepared for the boys' first week of preschool. We'd read some stories about school. We visited the week before. I also made up a picture schedule and posted it for them. We have a lot going on all of a sudden, and having a visual image of what is happening in the week seems to help the boys make sense of it all. Time is such confusing this at this age -they're leaving the days of everything-in-the-moment behind, but don't have it even close to all figured out yet. Now, O says "the days go around and around, and the weeks happen again and again!"





We've spent every last moment we can enjoying the parks. (The weather since then has turned cold and wet.)



Grandma and I took the boy out for a last-night-before-school iced cream cone. I think this will make a fine end-of-summer tradition.




Then Grandma watched the boys while J and I attended the All-Parent Meeting, where we discussed such important issues as "What do I do if my little boy doesn't wipe himself yet?" (It wasn't me asking that question, but I didn't blame her for asking either) We also got a very good impression of the wise and warm woman who will be their teacher for the next year.

The next day, J and the boys rode the bus to school. N was very cuddly on the bus, and requested that J hold his hand as he walked into the room, but then they hung up their backpacks and barely looked back.

I picked them up in the car on the way home from work. I was able to watch a bit through the one-way mirror, and the kids were all sitting neatly on the rug in a semicircle with their backpacks already on. The room was totally picked up, and the whole school had an atmosphere of nurture and calm. The kids were dismissed one by one, and the boys were very happy to see me. Miss Karen told me they'd had a fantastic day.



O*liver was very excited to have his picture taken, but his brother was not.

They were beyond exhausted, but on the way home, O told me that when he grows up, he will be a teacher. At dinner, N told a story and sang a song from school. They are very excited to go back, and tell people that "we are big schoolboys now!"

thoughts just before the first day of preschool

(this was written yesterday, but i had computer issues and couldn't publish, so forgive the tenses. -M)

The boys and I spent an idyllic Saturday morning running a couple of errands and visiting yet another playground. J teaches on Saturdays, so it’s just the three of us, but I have so enjoyed these morning this summer. We’ve made it a mission to explore all the playgrounds within a couple of miles of us, and we still aren’t done—this city is simply full of great playgrounds.

Today’s stop was at one of the nicer city parks, just beyond the highway, right between the hospital where the boys were born and the apartment Joel and I lived in after we were first married. It was also right next to the dog park where I sat in the sun with a large cup of decaf after being liberated from 13 weeks of bed rest. Sitting on that bench watching Joel play fetch with Ivy was one of the happiest days of my life. We’d just come back from the doctor, who remarked that the boys would come any time now, but that they’d be fine. We knew then that the worst of the fear and difficulty was probably over, and after an entire winter inside, our Spring was here.

As the boys played on the equipment this morning, I kept looking one direction toward where my life with J began and the other where our life with the boys began. After we shared a snack on a shaded bench, we took a hike in the direction of the hospital. It was a bit too late in the morning to walk all the way up to the hospital, but the boys were pretty interested to hear that they were born in the tall building we pointed to. We made it as far as a bench facing the river, and I sat down while the boys played with sticks and acorns. Three and a half years ago, Joel, my mother, and I brought O to that same bench for his very first time outdoors. He’d been officially discharged, even though we all stayed in the NICU “family room” we’d been given to stay in until N was discharged too. It was an early Spring, and on our walk, I was amazed to see the late March greenery already emerging. I was still on a walker due to weakness from bed rest, too unsteady to carry O that far, so J had O in a sling, the proud daddy going down the elevator with his newborn baby son in a sling. O was still tiny in that blue cotton sling, yet so round and robust compared to even a week earlier. The three of us were almost giddy to have him there, to be doing something so normal, without machines, wires, or nurses. I remember sitting on that bench, looking at him, taking him from J and holding him against my shoulder and my mom and J stood overlooking the river, thinking, “Look what we pulled off, what we have been given.”

The things we do for our children before they are born are an act of faith. Sure, we bond with them in some way during pregnancy, but we also go into wanting or not wanting to have children based on an idea, a preconception that seeks to justify one direction or another taken. Some of us even have lists of pros and cons—we can’t really help but do it. But parenthood just doesn’t look all that good on paper, and if we were really honest, the pros wouldn’t add up to enough for a lot of us. In reality, the love we have for a child, the reason we might be willing to sacrifice a lot to become parents is nothing like that, nothing so rational or easy to explain. Nonetheless, some tiny part of many of us seems to know and take the risk that we’ll really want this thing we somehow want more than the world, on some level we can't quite understand in advance. And then, to have this child (or children!) born, and know that that drive indeed led to this—this miracle! I always wonder if a parent’s love for a child is perhaps like a tiny taste of what God’s love for us must be like – extravagant, complete, there no matter what we do, not based in any way on reason or merit, but on something divine that transcends all of that. Parenting can have incredible highs and lows, but I never doubt that my love for my children is unconditional.

Today, N and O spied a chipmunk, and following my advice to stay still and quiet if they want to see wildlife, they lay on their tummies and watched excitedly. They chattered back and forth, laying there in front of me, and I started to cry, first a little, and then a lot, grateful for their immersion in something other than me so I could just deal with my messy self and get it together. I did, eventually, but only after realizing that one of the greatest gifts of that difficult time (and there are many, and sometimes I’m still learning about both the gifts and losses) was realizing from the beginning that these kids are resilient and strong. After they finally came home with us three and a half years ago, I didn’t worry that they’d perish in the night like so many new parents understandably do. I didn’t once stand over their cribs and wonder if they were still breathing. I followed the rules, lay them on their backs in approved bedding, but after everything we’d already gone through, I just felt like they’d be OK, that we’d be OK, that we can handle what comes our way. And we are, and we do.

Today, three and a half years later, I had the same feeling I did before: "Look what we pulled off, what we have been given.” These big, healthy boys full of stories and questions and laughter, such good company to each other, so easy to love even when they’re maddening. And now, the four of us aren’t just surviving anymore, trading off care and sleep; we are also a family that enjoys each other’s company. What could ever have been asked of me that I wouldn’t do for this, right here, right now, or for the laughter this morning as the four of us ate breakfast, for the chance to sing to them before a night’s sleep? An overwhelming thought, but full of gratitude all the same.

Eventually, I wiped my unexpected tears, and initiated our going home game. “What are you going to have on your sandwich when we get home, boys? I think I’ll have a gravel sandwich.” In turn, they responded with the same creative silliness, linking their hands around each of my thumbs. “A toilet paper sandwich!” “A screw and nail and bolt sandwich!” “Snails on toast!”

The boys start preschool next week, and I’ve been a bit more emotional about all of it than I expected to be (can you tell?) The boys are on the cusp of a new kind of independence, one that involves a whole world that we will only see a part of. We have chosen a good school with good people who will given them a particular experience that we cannot. It’s been easier to feel like they’ll be fine when they’ve been in the care of dear friends and family, but this type of separation is new for all of us. Our boys are resilient and strong, even kind and curious and ready for new experiences. They are ready, and even if it takes a little reminding in the way of a park bench under an oak tree, J and I are too.

more of summer's delights

Some parents like to debate whether age 2 or 3 are harder (me: neither -18 months was hardest), and while it's true that the fussiness and drama do not disappear with the "terrible twos", I also really love this age, with both boys. I love to hear them think out loud, to reason, even empathize, to see them collaborate (and they really do get along very well), and to have long conversations with them. Even if some of those conversations are now about death, or human reproduction. I love to see them ride trikes, hop, and hang from the monkey bars, even if the other mothers look at them, then look at me, and just say, "wow". I'm loving being around my friends' 3 year olds too --I think I just really like this age. Anyway -the stuff they say is so darn funny right now, that I really ought to write more of it down.

Yesterday, N was trying to get O to sing a song with him ("Go Now In Peace", a sweet little round they learned in church that we often sing to each other as we leave the house), and O was going a little too fast for N's liking. N said, "You are going much too fast, Ollie! Is that necessary? I don't think that is necessary!" Today, Ivy was barking in her kennel, and I said that I'd be right back after I went to get her. As I was putting on my Wellies (Rain! We finally have rain!), O said, "It's OK, Mama - she fell silent." Is it obvious that we read a lot of books?

Last summer, I was still doing the twin mom head-bob at the playground much of the time: one-two-one-two, always counting kids and putting out fires. This summer, I bring a book or a magazine, looking up regularly while keeping my place with my finger. Last summer, a trip around the block still took at least 30 minutes, and we still used the stroller much of the time. This summer, we often leave it at home, and J and the boys take buses and trains all over town. They ride trikes, and Big Wheels, and even a two-wheeler with training wheels. A trip around the block can happen in minutes.



(And stop snickering about those helmets, you Dutch relatives, you. Nobody looks out for bikes here, and I hear way too much about head injuries in my line of work.) Of course, O is just as interested in examining the bike as riding it... Thanks to Auntie Me*agan, they know names of bike parts I don't know.



Last summer, no nap meant brace for an afternoon of mayhem and tears. This summer, they can usually roll with it, and they often just play in their rooms anyway.



Especially if they can eat cake instead. I love how they sit all up in each other's business and not minding a bit. I wonder if they'll ever stop doing that? Will they sit together on one bed in their room when they're teens, 90 degrees to each other with one boys' legs on top of the other's? I can kind of picture that.


Speaking of getting in somebody's business, would you look at Zo*e trying to knock a boy well over twice her weight off that ball? O was totally oblivious.





Both boys adore corn. Tonight I was brushing N's teeth, and he asked me to "leave the corn in, please". Um, no. Both boys just saw the dentist, who said they have fantastic teeth, both in surface and structure, and that they could well get through childhood without a single cavity and no braces. I don't want to mess that up.




Here is N trying to play in the sandbox, which is being overtaken by our "volunteer" squash. The plant has 8 acorn squash on it - all due to a stray seed that apparently didn't quite make it into the compost pile. I wish more things worked like that: Didn't quite make it to the bank? Free money for you! Miss the laundry hamper? Have some free socks and underwear!


Playing "smash Daddy".


N has a habit of playing just beyond where the swings would konk him in the head - a habit I've been trying to break all summer.


Compared to years previous, the boys have little interest in toys, at least at home. They prefer sticks, and rocks, and leaves, and straws, and pretty much any tiny random object. When they're really lucky, Daddy will even help them fashion these random objects into vehicles. This one, of course, requires direct supervision. Daddy drives way too fast if you don't watch him.


O is a diligent corn shucker. N was upset I wouldn't let him use our hairbrush to brush the silk.


We had a huge National Night Out party a few weeks ago. From the boys' perspective, this meant that all the grownups on the block went crazy, blocked off the street, made all the cars go away, cooked a bunch of good food, and played in the middle of the street. Their wooden shoes were very popular. Rarely a day goes by that a boy doesn't mention that amazing day that we all hung out in the middle of the street.


And here we have N going "tomato hunting", which he often asks to do after naptime. His saying that gives me visions of him shooting little yellow cherry tomatoes with a tiny little gun, like from the Playmobil sets my brother used to have as a kid...

I hope you're finding equally worthwhile ways to spend your time as summer wanes. The boys start twice-weekly preschool next Friday, the Sunday School year starts next Sunday (and I'm teaching the K-2 kids this year), and their early childhood class the week after that. Busy, busy, but I know that we'll all be happier having someplace to go as the colder weather comes.
A far cry from leisurely playground afternoons in the sun, though.

home economics

The state of the economy has been hard on a lot of us here lately. If you’re not in the U.S., it’s hard to describe what a dramatic change it has been compared to a year ago. Not a week seems to go by without someone in our church announcing they’ve been laid off. Foreclosure and For Sale signs dot the neighborhood, and we’ve had people come by the house looking for work. People are taking the contents of their house outside to sell in “garage sales” that are really desperate attempts to come up with a mortgage payment in time, or selling their wedding rings on company bulletin boards. We’ve been somewhat personally affected as well – we’ve lost tens of thousands in equity in our home (just about everyone has), and it’s been hard to keep a full piano studio, lessons being a luxury that not as many can now afford. I managed to dodge a round of layoffs recently, but not all my colleagues did. The cost of food, gasoline, health care premiums and heat are up dramatically, far beyond yearly wage increases, and unemployment is at a thirty-year high. We are getting by, but times are lean for almost everyone we know.

That said, I’ve been thinking lately about some of the good things that come out of times like these, at least for the ones like us who are still managing to get by. If nothing else, lean times teach good habits, and they also force people to take advantage of collective resources. We’ve actually had a wonderful summer. The libraries and farmer’s markets are bustling. Neighborhood festivals and campgrounds are the place to be this year (though we do have grandma to thank for the pony ride).

Less people going out of town meant more people out and about in the neighborhood, attending National Night out parties in record numbers and chatting over fences. I no longer feel like an eccentric puttering in my vegetable garden, because everyone seems to be giving it a shot this year, trying to offset skyrocketing food prices. Even chicken permits are exploding.

Picking pound after pound of delicious homegrown vegetables feels like being showered in abundance amidst scarcity.

This summer, we saw no big-screen movies. Like many people, we are driving less and using public transportation more. We didn’t hire babysitters –instead we swapped childcare with friends from church and in the process, got to know the other families with young kids much better. We didn’t go to many restaurants, but we had many lovely picnics and dinners with friends.

We didn’t go to the water parks, but we took full advantage of the parks and kiddie pools we pay for with our tax dollars.

I can’t imagine having enjoyed the past few months more if we’d done things differently – I really can’t. The neighborhood has never felt more like a community.

There are, of course, many people in America who are not getting by, who are making up the increasing amounts of request for assistance coming through my desk at work, who are losing houses, and going bankrupt, or homeless, or sitting on a street corner with a sign, asking for help from a stranger. Homeless shelters are overflowing, aid and jobs are scarce to non-existent, and times are truly desperate for a lot of people. I see it everywhere I go, and we don’t have much of a safety net in this country. We tend to rely on charitable programs to do that in America, but of course, giving is down in this economy too.

What it comes down to, is that I feel oddly fortunate – fortunate to be able to hone habits that will serve us through lean times and not, but also fortunate not to be among those who are losing homes and dreams and any kind of security. It’s an odd feeling – both sad and hopeful. I’m not sad about the fact that my local thrift store shelves are picked clean –it means that Americans are finally starting to get real about consumerism and its true cost, even some of the ones who have other options. I’m not sad about the fact that the buses and light rail cars are packed – these are habits we must embrace if we are to be realistic about the future. Those high energy costs aren't going anywhere. I'm certainly not sad about the fact that the libraries and parks are full of people enjoying what they have to offer.

But I look down the street at the For Sale signs, and wonder what will happen for the family behind those doors. I wonder what will happen to my city’s tax base, to the schools my kids will attend in a few years, to the people whose unemployment finally runs out. I wonder what will happen when too many people’s credit card bills finally overwhelm their incomes in a formula that applies to many of America’s households and spells a recipe for ruin. I wonder how much longer our country can run on empty, on credit, on deficit spending, on waning reserves of oil. Our own finances are being put more or less in order, but ultimately, we are all in the same boat, even beyond our nation's borders.

Zo*e and family over for dinner

The ladies are a big attraction among the little kids we know, and Zo*e liked them just fine. As you can see, we are experiencing quite a drought.




Ollie is always good for a hug from or for a relative.



Zo*e takes a gander at Mabel the Cochin hen.

calling all quilters (and not for weak coffee, seam-ripping, or pinning parties either)

or

I know a lot of quilters, mostly family and friends from J's side. I've even been known to make a quilt or two myself, though it takes me simply forever to complete one. For me, quilting is a lot like gardening is for all those people who tell me, "I try to be a gardener. I love gardens. I love how they look, it seems like such a great idea, but everything always dies or gets covered in weeds, and I give up." I love quilts. I love the finished product of a quilt, the pride in having made it, the memory of all that effort every time I slip underneath it before bed.

Yet, I can never get myself to break out the sewing machine and quilt all by my lonesome. I've enjoyed the quilt retreats I've been to, but during this busy, cacophonous season of life, I'm more drawn to take a weekend or two a year for some silent retreat. Quilt retreats are anything but silent, but alone, quilting feels like recreating a sweatshop of one, cutting fabric into tiny bits only to sew them together again. I'd just much rather be knee deep in compost and mulch than bent over a machine going chg-chg-chg-chg-chg every time my foot hits the peddle. I can't lose myself in it the way I can lose myself in planting and tending. Besides, there's not time for both, after all, and don't bring up winter: there's always reading at least a book or two a week, writing, seed-starting, garden-related researching, and that bothersome housework problem. My mother-in-law, doubtless quoting someone else, puts it this way: "To each her own, said the lady to her pet cow." Replace cow with chicken, and you've got me pegged, I suppose.

So I hope I've made it clear here that I love quilts (and quilters), just not so much with the quilting. But for you quilters I love, I have a request of you. I saw the following information in our church bulleting last week, and I realized that I have found the perfect orphanage for all the quilt scraps I have somehow accumulated despite my less than prolific foray into the world of quilting.

I know that you, dear quilters, have far outdone me in this. I have heard stories of entire rooms, basement, and closest being lost to quilt scraps. A TV news expose could probably be done on the subject. Yes, I'm talking about you.

So my request is this: find those scraps that you'd be willing to part with, and get them to me by mid-October so that they can be used to fund word relief.

Think A. fill my closet or B. fund world relief.

(And while you're at it- put November 8 on your calendar if you live in the area and want to see some gorgeous quilts, eat good food, and support a great cause: to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless.)

Thank you in advance. I will be waiting patiently. I expect scraps, people.

More info below:

CLEAN OUT YOUR CLOSETS FOR WORLD RELIEF! We request quilt related items - the used/unused, unfinished things no longer needed in your quilt or linen closet. These items will help to stock a Quilter's Corner at the November 8th Festival & Sale for World Relief, sponsored by area Mennonite Churches and the Twin Cities MCC Relief Sale. Some suggestions are:

• finished/unfinished tops, blocks, etc
• old or damaged quilts
• quilt frames, supplies/tools
• quilt books, magazines
• quilt patterns - new or old, stencils, piecing and quilting
• buttons
• fabric - cotton, flannel, wool, denim (cut into blocks), crazy quilt materials -(please limit to quilt quality fabrics)

Please e-mail me minkesundsethATgmailDOTcom if you think you can help (address written in such a way to prevent spam - replace the AT and DOT with @ and .) Proceeds from the sale will go toward world relief through MCC. More information about this November 8 event can be found at www.tcmccreliefsale.org