Slow Days

Sometimes I just need a break. Last week was one of those times. I would have warned you all that I was going to take a hiatus if I had known I was about to need one. Life is occasionally quite impromptu and you know, as in life, so in blogging.

The weekend was exciting. Crazy, gorgeous dump of snow, cancelled birthday parties and then a frantic/worried/bizarre day which we spent huddled over our sweet late-guinea pig Jenny. I never could have imagined that it would be possible to be obsessing worriedly for an entire day over the aliveness or deadness of an animal but that's what happened. They are so very small and she was clearly very sick or else dead....we were rather avidly hopeful. Alas, by this morning I could firmly say she was gone and we said our goodbyes including a custom dirge, Nib wrote and sang "Jenny, come back your friend, you are gone away Jenny, poor, poor Jenny, she did die." and a little postmortem portrait tribute from Dee complete with little stick figure legs poking out of her tiny crayoned body.

This morning after we dropped A off at work the boys and I marched bravely to the pet store after praying for a new friend for our remaining, lonely Sarsparilla. It broke my heart this morning to be greeted by silence instead of the usual friend whistles and tweets and find Sarsparilla moping in her little wooden shelter at one end of the cage. We are the proud new owners of a fluffy black and white piggy and I am pleased to tell you that Sarsparilla appears to have taken her in and is already back to making some of her usual noises. We've named the new little fluff ball Chamomile.

Pom has finally pushed through his two, giant from teeth and is the proud owner of opposing ivories. I heard him gritting them together in that horrible, scraping way all babies experiment with just this morning. Heh. I hope his sleep and irritability improve a bit now that he has put the big chompers behind him for a while. Maybe his body will give him a rest for having started a bit early.

Its slow times at our house. Planning the mythical vegetable garden, roasting beef slow and slower in the oven, drinking vats of milky tea, snuggling the baby and forcing the trimmings from the fruit trees in the yard as I slowly hack away at pruning.

Teething in the Glow of the Christmas Tree

It's a good day at our house. The kind of day when we have (finally, finally) a chance to reflect on the week and the season that have been whooshing past with all kinds of speed and just soak in good moments.

Moments like this. 

Is there anything sweeter than babies asleep in the sunshine? Poor little Nib has been extra sleepy lately because he's cutting the second of his two big rabbit teeth on the top. And also one side tooth. These will be his fourth and fifth teeth. He's positively bristling with ivory these days. I think the whole process must be hurting him a lot because, periodically, I give him a dose of painkiller and he collapses quite promptly into a deep sleep and is sacked out for an hour or so. I'm glad he's getting rest although I hate to see that he's in such pain that he needs to collapse to recover repeatedly. True to form, he's ridiculously good-natured for a teething baby. He is one of the most resilient individuals I've ever met.

The other thing that's wearing him out is his new incessant desire to stand and walk. I think we might have another early walker on our hands, just like Ru who walked at the absurd age of 7 months....right across the kitchen counter to his Aunt Jane's arms. Happy Thanksgiving he crowed and then boop, boop, boop...there he was walking. Maybe Nib will reprise the performance for Christmas or New Year's. Maybe I should alert all 8 of his aunts of the possibility and see if I can get them to compete.

The boys are all down for naps at the moment after a nice crackly fireplace reading session downstairs and then a long game of hanging and then re-hanging and then re-re-hanging candy canes all over our Christmas tree. I always forget to buy candy canes before we put the tree up, it's getting to be tradition, and then I have to run madly all over town finding some, mid-way through December. The bonus is that I almost always get a discount because they're already marking them down at our local drugstore.

I plan to get myself back down to the kitchen with all due haste, get a load of laundry humming and then mix up a batch of cookie dough for assembly-line cutting out and baking once the boys are up and buzzing their way down the stairs. We also have outdoor lights and fresh pine garland to hang before A is home and dinner is making it's steaming way to the table! Tis the season for all sorts of fabulous merriment!

Autumn Magic

We went off to pick some pumpkins....

And we found....

....just the perfect collection.

There were hay rides and...

...blue skies and gold leaves everywhere we looked.

I picked some Sweet Annie for drying in a bundle in the kitchen. Smell so good!

Nib just looked up the entire time. So much pretty foliage overhead!

There were a few leaf fights.

  

Curiously the leaves on our own trees in our yard have yet to really turn or start dropping in earnest. It was kind of fun to drive out to this farm and enjoy a preview of fall leaf play. 

Some very, very happy sheep.

I love this boy.

There was a gorgeous blushing sky on the way home.

 We put the pumpkins on the front and back steps, the back door ones are for the more timid family members who are afraid of pumpkin smashers and the front step clan are the folks who are so unabashed about their celebratory fall spirit that they really believe the neighborhood and yea, the world will be good to them. The glass is half full and half empty at our house.

And this morning we baked another apple cake

I love the things they make out of Tinker Toys. So glad I picked them up at that yard sale.

Can you believe he's about to cut through is first two teeth? Such a sweet soul.

Testing the cake (which is already half gone)

 It is nice and moist. Plenty of apples, lovely sweet and shattery crust on top, but still, I dunno...I think I want it to be more spiced and a darker color. Maybe I need brown sugar in it or some whole wheat flour or something. Still searching, but feeling closer than ever.....

And my trash table is done! Well....sort of done.

 I ran out of paint before I could get the wooden edge along the top painted and the leg paint is a bit weak, but I was so anxious to use it that I think I'm just going to let it ride for a while. Its living in the sunroom, giving a boost to several houseplants who couldn't reach the light well. I love the silvery metallic top and have to admit that I stole the idea of painting it a metallic silver from my sister Foxy. What can I say? She has good taste! I am considering getting some kind of decorative wooden feet at Home Depot to screw in and raise it up. Its a bit low, too high to be coffee table material, but too low for pulling a chair up.