River

We went camping this weekend with two families with babies that we know from our neighborhood. It didn’t go to plan, but reiterated what I think we all knew – that we are lucky to know each other, and that we are grateful for this little tribe we are building.

Listening to: Sweet Jane

We read

The last few weeks have been hard on all of us as we readapt to the routine of both working and commuting, but we let the dishes go undone to play with books and read them and spend time together and that inevitably becomes the highlight.

Most of our books are thrifted or gifted from friends and family, but I am loving the babylit series and slowly buying them up. Keira just got two new ones for her birthday from her Aunt and Uncle and they are my two new favorites. A Midsummer Night’s Dream has actual passages from the play and I love that there is original text instead of just “inspired by” for the full content (babylit, please do more of this, it’s great! Or maybe you have already, and I just haven't bought them yet, in which case... carry on.) and the Secret Garden is a flowers primer which is really sweet. I have a few more on order to save for Christmas and Easter (and Paris might be for Valentine’s day?).

Places

A few snapshots from a short work trip to Colorado, because I thought they were nice. 

Party

We ended up doing two birthday parties for K, somewhat by accident. I wanted to do something special for her actual birthday and was going to do a small smash cake and her presents from us, but my mom also wanted to make her a pavlova. So we had my parents and brother over on her real birthday and did a few gifts. I made her a kitty, a teepee, and felt flowers for the top (but didn’t quite finish so I swapped them out for a headband for the party so they wouldn’t fall down as kids crashed into the tent.

On Saturday we had her main party and filled our home and deck with friends from two decades ago up to three months ago.  It was loud and chaotic and lovely.

I made four kinds of buttercream (if you are currently planning a first birthday party – do not do this. Or do. Because then you can be proud that you totally pulled it off 10 minutes before guests were supposed to arrive, with no makeup and your soaked but finally clean hair dripping down your back. But seriously, don’t do this.).

 

The blackberry buttercream was my favorite. I made three cupcakes – blackberry, blueberry, raspberry, all with vanilla cake and lemon curd filling, and an almond cake with peach frosting. All the cake was gluten free box cake, because you have to cut some corners, at least when you have a one year old and think it’s clever to make four kinds of cake. Lemon curd is pretty easy to make, but again, corners. I used the Trader Joes premade – one jar covered 3 dozen small cupcakes.

I used the rough instructions for this blackberry buttercream and applied them to the other flavors as well. For the fruit reduction, I used fresh blackberries from our neighborhood, picked a few days ago while K napped in the stroller, frozen raspberries, Trader Joes frozen wild blueberries and fresh chopped peach. I say rough because I didn’t measure at all, but that may be why I had to reblend all the buttercream before frosting the cupcakes this morning even though I premade it to save time. I’m just not one for following patterns/recipes exactly.

Her peach cake was decorated with my mom’s roses from my parent’s garden and a beeswax candle that my mom gave her for Christmas.

In all, it went very well. It was so lovely to have our friends and family from different factions of our lives all under our roof for the day. We put in the invite that gifts were not needed and requested only the company of our friends, but were blown away by the generosity shared with us and Keira – toys, books, puzzles, clothes, balloons, a felt sewing kit for me to make a little fox for K, flowers and chocolates from one knowing friend for me to commemorate the day of birth.

One

K is one whole year old. I might internalize this sometime in the next three months and then realize she’s getting close to one and a half and have to start all over again on adjusting. One. Already. Ok. Here we go.

She is walking really well now. Her birthday party was today and she hardly crawled all day, and I was proud, but also  nostalgic, and I kept looking at her thinking “crawl, just a bit, you’re still a baby, still so small” and she did, a little, but this phase is moments from gone. I think I may always be one step behind her, waiting to steady her if she stumbles, amazed by how little she needs help, as metaphorically as it is physically right now. The way I really do walk behind her with my hands out, waiting in air just in case.

And again

K and I went camping again just a few days after getting back from the first trip, this time with my parents and their dogs. G wasn’t able to come so we did a midweek trip to reduce crowds – the campground still filled up by mid-morning! It is exhausting camping with an unsteady walker on uneven ground, but so worth it.

On the first day after setting up we went to the beach, and just a few hundred yards from the shore we drove from sunny and clear sky into a dense haze that settled over the beach and into the woods. The sun shining through lit up the waves like sheets of mica rising and crumbling back into the water. I’ve never seen the lighting quite like that before – it was beautiful.

We are trashing these little shoes walking and crawling all over in them – I love it.