Piapie

Gratitude

I'm back!   It feels like a long time since I sat down to write a post but here I am once again with updates, holiday photos and promises of things to come.

As many of you know (and so graciously sent kind words of condolence--thank you), my Grandma B passed away on November 19th.  Papi Chulo and I returned to my parent's home along with the girls for her funeral services.  Many, many people came out to pay their last respects and to support my family.  I was impressed by and grateful for the community that surrounds my parents.  They have lived in the same home for 34 years and their roots run deep.  I had been asked to give the eulogy at the funeral service and spent the days prior collecting stories and sentiment from those who loved my grandma.  When the time came to give the eulogy, I found myself holding Miss E who I had promised would soon get mama's milk.  My options were to hand her off to Papi Chulo and make everyone endure the screaming that would no doubt ensue or take her up to the podium with me.  Up she went.  And with only a few interruptions from her (mostly the pumping hand begging for milk), I spoke of my grandmother's sense of delight and humor in the world.  I found it poignant to be standing there speaking of my grandmother while holding my baby.  And, I must say, I was grateful for the grounding force that Miss E granted to me.  When one is called on to mother, one is compelled to hold it together.

Oh, I do fear that there is too much to be said.   So here's the short and sweet version:  Papi Chulo returned to DC after the funeral services.  I have stayed in Chicago with the girls and will be here for another week.  We had a fabulous feast for Thanksgiving with 19 people gathering round the tables.  Leftovers are finally gone and so are my siblings.  Funky B has been the queen of imaginary play and Miss E has discovered the pantry where great fun can be had restacking the shelves.  I have visited with dear friends, listened to bad ZZ Top wanna-bes, finished reading "Loving Frank" (not high on my recommend list but is the current read for my book club), bought yarn, and started on some Christmas bags (yes, there will be projects to share in the coming weeks). 

And since you've been so patient, waiting for me to return and now plugging along through my post, here are some Thanksgiving Day photos.   First, Miss E helping to prepare food in the morning.

 
A few hours later, we had little girls all dressed up fancy and sweet.

A table all set.

And tasty food to be enjoyed.

I do hope that you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with loved ones.  That it was full of good food, laughter, and gratitude. 

4 PM

Our house is surrounded by big old trees which give us a nice illusion of being in the woods and which, unfortunately, block out all the sunlight.  Until now.  Now that the leaves have fallen sunlight streams into our house at various times of the day.  I like the morning light in the living room when I sit in the rocking chair and nurse Miss E upon waking, her body warm from bed and her limbs still relaxed from sleep.  I am also partial to the late afternoon light that fills the kitchen when I am preparing dinner and the girls are playing across the room.   And then there are moments like this when I happen upon one of my babes, completely absorbed in her own little world, and it all seems so magical, ethereal, fleeting. 

I am pretty sure that is how I will look back on these years.  My memories might very well be a bit hazy and blurry, but I am sure that they will be basked in a golden light. 

Woodend

November weather in the DC area has proven to be somewhat unpredictable.  The weather seems to alternate between lovely and dreary.  We've had fabulous crisp autumn days, days of relentless rain, sunshine and 70 degrees, ....   Since I base what to wear each morning on the previous day's weather, you can imagine how many times my girls have been either over or under dressed in the past month.

Earlier this month we had four days of dreary skies, nearly non-stop rain, and a rapidly shrinking apartment.  Thankfully the sun popped out that weekend.  We took advantage of a glorious mid-November Sunday morning, loaded up the girls, and went to Audubon Woodend Nature Sanctuary in Maryland.  We were amongst the first visitors that day and therefore enjoyed a quiet walk in the woods.  Most of the trees had already lost their leaves, but the gingko trees were still bright yellow and there were some amazing reds still to be seen.  With most of the foliage on the ground we were able to spot deer and spent most of the morning looking for/at the deer who call the santuary home.  Funky B was entranced by them.  Miss E was curious although a bit uncertain and watched only from the careful perch of my arms.

We found a beautiful tree where Funky B did her first real tree climbing and Miss E made valiant attempts to follow suit.  The girls raced across a lawn and played hide-and-seek.  We ate lunch in the sun, watched birds fly, and then packed up to go home.  Lovely lovely day.  Perfect in so many ways.

Extra bonus to that day: Mama got to spend the entire afternoon in the city with her friend Hebel doing grown up things like browsing in a bookstore, drinking coffee, and talking without interruption.  Now that I think about it, that pretty much makes up for four days of rain. 

Sleeping Babes

What is it about sleeping babies?  Their loosely curled fingers, perfect little lips, flushed cheeks.   I love love love watching my babes as they slumber away peacefully.    A few months ago Miss E developed an attachment to a stuffed giraffe we call "Shaggy".   She tucks it snuggly under her arm when she lays down in her crib.  Recently she has taken to trying to stuff it down her pajama top and we will thus find her sleeping on her back, pjs unzipped, Shaggy perched on her chest.  Too cute.

I have also been fortunate enough to slip in and find her face-to-face with a snuggly, as if they were having a conversation until she just drifted off into sleep.  

Now if only she would be so adorably sweet and ASLEEP beyond 6:00 AM.

Just Because

It's been a long weekend.

And we could use something amusing.

Besides, they are too darn cute.

Just because it's my blog and I want to.

Grandma B

This past summer we celebrated my grandmother's 90th birthday.  Friends and family gathered in her backyard where she sat amongst my uncle James's flowers.  Although she suffered from old age senility, Grandma B recognized most of us and knew that we were all there to celebrate her.  Throughout the afternoon she would clap her hands to her cheeks and exclaim, "Ohhh, I am so lucky.  You are all here for me.  I love you!".  She was both delighted and full of disbelief that we had all gathered together just for her.

Today my siblings and I are making our ways back to Chicago to celebrate Grandma B once more.  She passed away yesterday.   Up until 3 days ago she lived with James in the house in which her seven children came of age.   For the past several years my mother and her siblings have each taken days of the week to care for, feed, watch over, entertain, and love their mother.  They have done right by her.  She loved them well and they loved her back.   

I imagine that the coming days will be full of tears, hugs, and many stories.  We will express gratitude that her passing was quick and take comfort in the fact that her life was long.   We will laugh about her fondness for chocolate, a cold beer, and a little eye candy.  There will be stories about how she met my grandfather and how they were good dancers.   I will recall how she was always delighted to see me, that she had an incredibly strong grip, and that she adored my girls when we visited.   And we will all feel the void in our lives now that my mama's mama has passed on.

 

    August 23, 1919 - November 19, 2009

Bag Lady

Funky B has an obsession with bags.  She loves them.  She loves putting things into them.  Blocks, play food, little animals, doll clothes, hairbands, etc..  She loves putting the filled bags into other bags.  Those, in turn, get stuffed into other bags.  And so it goes.   If ever I cannot find something, it's probably inside a bag.

I understand her obsession.  I too like bags.  A lot.  I have my fair share of bags, each of which has its own purpose.   If I had more disposable income and many more hooks in my house, I'd have a bunch more bags of my own.  Until then, I've decided to make bags and give them away.  Last week I made two bags from the Jane Market Bag pattern (free pattern can be found here).  With the first one I pretty much adhered to the pattern except that I stitched the handles into the inside of the bag.

The second time I stitched the handles on the inside of the bag in addition to lengthening the straps and pintucking the bottom edges of the bags along with the sides.  (See bag on the left).

I had enough fabric left over to experiment with a bag of my own design (see bag on the right).  I took the dimensions of the Jane Market bag, put the pockets on the inside, and added an extra layer on the exterior bottom for stability.  I chose to leave the sides full and expansive.  It needs a little tweaking but I like it quite a bit.   After those where finished and handed off as thank-you gifts I promptly went on-line to find more patterns for bags and picked through my fabric stash.   I suspect that the coming week will have me up and sewing into the wee hours of the morning.  Oh, just the thought of it makes me happy.  

Dressing Herself

Lately Funky B has been dressing herself for school.  It usually means that she selects clothes that all have the same color regardless of shade or pattern.  She has also taken to laying the clothes out on the floor before putting them on.  Underwear and undershirt get laid down first.  A shirt, pants, and maybe a sweater go on top.  Leggings go over the pants, socks and shoes below.   It is ridiculously cute.

 She even went so far as to arrange the collar of her dress.  Like I said, ridiculously cute.

Pasta Night

Over the past few years I've gone through a series of make-it-myself obsessions in the kitchen.  Some have been more successful than others.  I've made pureed baby food which is easy and satisfying (for my babes).   I really got into berry picking and the subsequent jamming which consumes not only entire nights of my life but most of the floor space under my children's bed where I store dozens of jam jars.   I've made apple butter and tomato sauce to rave reviews.  Less successful were my attempts at yogurt and peanut butter.  Now I am trying my hand at homemade pasta.

Yes, pasta.  My mother-in-law, who goes by the nickname MGM (her first name starts with an M, she goes by Grammie for the girls, Papi Chulo calls her Mom), gave us an attachment to our KitchenAide that makes pasta.  On it we can make six different shapes of pasta.  Thus far I've tried two: spagetti and rigatoni.  I use the recipes in The Greens cookbook by Deborah Madison and have had fair success.  

My goal: weekly homemade pasta until it becomes second nature.  It shouldn't be too hard.  I am part Italian.

Nicknames

Someone recently inquired about the name "Papi Chulo" and it dawned on me that others of you may be wondering about the origins of our nicknames.  Now some people have names or personalities that lend themselves well to nicknames.  I am not one of these people.   Shortening my name only makes it a schoolyard taunt.  "Piapie" is really the only nickname I've had for any length of time.  Papi Chulo calls me it.  He also, for a time, called me "Mama Torpe" because the first six months of my first pregnancy where in Spain and I became, like many pregnant women, unusually clumsy.  Hence the Spanish version of "Clumsy Mama".   Thankfully I no longer spill and knock things over multiple times a day.   Spain was also where Papi Chulo got his name.  It translates literally as "Cool/Hip Daddy".  It has some other slang meanings that are not suitable for my PG-rated blog.  We discovered them only after the name had taken hold.  Oh well.

There are some people who are particularly good at giving nicknames.  Mama Junebug Jones from the SkippyJon Jones books is one of those people.  Actually, she's a Siamese cat but she has such wonderful pet names (hahaha!) for her kittens: Mr. Kitten Britches, Mr. Fuzzy Pants, Mr. Cocoapugs, Mr. Fluffernutter.  Again, I am not one of those people.  I may be the one who calls my youngest sister "Bird" and while it is a sweetness between us, it is neither indicative of who she is as a person nor particularly creative.  Take Miss E as another example.  Poor kid.  She has this spunky, fiery, silly personality and I've given her a nickname that implies propriety.  Followed simply by the first letter of her name!?!?!  Come on now.

Then there's Funky B.  Again, first letter of her first name.  And the "Funky" comes not from her personality which is compliant and agreeable but from the fact that one of her toes is kind of wonky.   We noticed it as a newborn and started to refer to her "funky toe".  It evolved into "Funky B" which is sometimes shortened to just "Funky".  We know that it will eventually have to be retired because most 7 to 10 year olds do not appreciate the fact that "funky" can also mean alternative, cool, artsy, ...  Plus it is easily mispronounced by the toddler set.

Hopefully my children will have friends who are more inventive than their Mama.  Until then, here we are, Papi Chulo, Piapie, Funky B, and Miss E.  Can't wait till we see Bird again.