Dust

It's that ancient love
That you won't outgrow....

Friday Finds

Bianca Green

Loving this artist Bianca Green

This family and their commendable effort at living waste-free

Free knitting pattern for an adorable baby sweater.

A new-found blog to follow.

Have a lovely friday!

On the Go!

For the last nine months it has been fairly simple to keep Hazel out of mischief. I would just stick her on the floor, and clear the general area of hazards, and go about my business while keeping a close eye on her. Then she slowly began to roll and scoot, and I had to be a little more diligent about the safety of her surroundings, but it was easy enough. Well suddenly she isn't just scooting around, she is motoring! She is climbing. She is fearless. I turn around and she is halfway across a room. She has the ability to find the one thing in the room that is a potential choking hazard, and shove it into her mouth. Boy does she bite when you try to get things out of her mouth. Needless to say my old methods of keeping her out of harms way have just not been working out. I have been putting her down for naps on our bed, with pillows piled on the edges and she generally cries as soon as she wakes up and I'm not there. This last week though, I came down to check on her and she was up and crawling around our bed which is not at all a short distance from the ground. I looked around the room and decided that I could make my life a whole lot easier if I would just deep clean and baby-proof the room, and move Hazel's mattress to the floor, much like the floor-beds in these Montessori inspired bedrooms:

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Here is the Idea behind Montessori floor beds:

"In the Montessori tradition, we avoid using devices that limit the child's independence and natural movement. For example, instead of using a crib to safely confine the baby, we turn the whole room into a "crib" (by completely child-proofing the room and closing off the entrance to the rest of the house)"

The wall mirror provides the child:

• the opportunity to see and study their own reflection, study their own movements and connect their movements with that of the reflection, this also helps the child (over time) to control their own movements
• another way of seeing the room
• encouragement to lift their head especially during tummy time, "controlling the head is the beginning of his mastering of the environment."

more about setting up a Montessori environment for infants here
 
We have had the mirror up for a while, and Hazel has used that corner as her play space. She has always loved to watch herself in the mirror, and it has been fun to see her little mind working as she played in front of it. The whole idea behind a Montessori bedroom is for the child to be able to play independently, without distraction, because that is when they learn and focus on a task. Ideally I would set Hazel up in her own bedroom for this, but that isn't really an option in our home. The loft which will be her bedroom in the future is inherently dangerous, and is really the only other space available in the house currently. Instead I am trying to make our own bedroom suitable. I am even considering removing our own bed frame and box spring to accommodate a baby-proof bedroom where I do not have to worry about Hazel's safety.

H sleeping on her floor bed

While I am working on getting Hazel to nap on her floor bed, she still spends nights with us in our bed and it would work better if she could climb off on her own in the mornings if she wakes up while I am still sleeping. When she wakes she is ready to play, but if I set her on the ground she is suddenly aware that I am not playing with her. I think if she could crawl off on her own she would not be distracted by my presence and would continue her independent play in the mornings (meaning more rest for me, yay!)

some other important montessori principals are to have everything in the room on the child's level, or child-sized, only a few toys out at a time (which you rotate every few weeks or so) and for everything to have a special place that it goes. All of this facilitates learning and focus.

In my reading about this method many of the parents who do it mention that they reach a point where their child no longer cries for them in the middle of the night, so the parent wakes up in the morning to check on the child and can tell that sometime during the night the child has gotten up and played with some toys and then either crawled back to bed, or just fallen asleep on the floor. Can you imagine that? How amazing would it be to know that your child could wake up and safely play in a good environment, and then put themselves back to sleep. it sounds like the healthiest sleep situation I have heard of for young children (yeah I'm no expert on the subject). The more I have read about it, the more I realize why a child would cry when they wake up in a crib. By waking up in a room where they can move freely they can explore and play until they need you and at some point they will probably cry.

Anyways, I have now made the room safe enough that I am confident about running upstairs for a few moments to do whatever it is I need to, or put her down for a nap and not worry about what happens when she wakes up. That meant quite a bit of decluttering, and with how nice and open it is beginning to feel in our room I can't wait to tackle the rest of the house. There are so many things we need to just let go and get rid of that have been clogging up this small space. Slowly but surely, I'll get there.

My Mother

I totally dropped the ball on this one. My mother's birthday was a whole week ago, but I am only just writing this post. My Mother. I can't believe we haven''t really talked about her here before. She is amazing. Now I know everyone says that about their mothers, but mine takes the cake. Here's why:

My mom was there at Hazel's birth.

Mom making noodles for chicken noodle soup

She is an amazing seamstress, she even used to make wedding dresses.
She learned to knit like 3 months ago and is making sweaters like a pro.
She wants bee-keep.

Hazel's best friend

She knows how to build a house, and not just a generic house, a very well built, artistic, different, efficient house. I mean the plumbing, the electrical, the windows. The tile, or wood, or concrete floors and counter tops and everything! How many women do you know that can do that?

She is here to help me with Hazel when I need her.
She helps me with my house.
She tries to make my wants and needs possible, and helps facilitate my home-improvement projects even though she still has work to do on her own home. 

Do you see that smile?

She loves each of her five children unconditionally. Always has, always will. She would and has done just about anything and everything for us, even when she doesn't have the time or the money. She still has a really hard time saying no to her babies.

The floor my mom helped me with. Our backs and knees ached for days.

She understands.
She worries.
She loves to bake bread, forage for berries, preserve jam.

The swing she built for Hazel.

She is accepting and open minded.
She is loud and giggly after a glass or two of wine.
She always seems to be right there, filling the gap between what I have gotten done, and what needs to get done.
She goes the extra mile always.

Our first hike in this winter when the snow finally arrived.

Mom in Thailand

Thailand

 

Meeting Ella

Ella and Mom.

She loves being a grandma.
She doesn't do anything she isn't passionate about. She wont settle.
She loves good food, especially when she is making it for loved ones.
When she wants to go somewhere she goes, even if she has to save all year. She took our family on so many camping trips, trips to the grand canyon, to Arches, Escalante, Zions. She took me to Thailand, and Megan and Josh to Belize, and most recently her and Joel went on a three week trip to China.She is adventurous and wont give it up or make excuses about money. She makes it happen.

1 day old Hazel

Belize

Chunky Hazel

In the last year I have spent so much time with my mom, and I have learned quite a few things about her that I didn't know previously. Some of her strengths, and weaknesses, her worries her doubts, her struggles, her history. My mom didn't have it easy, and she had to make a lot of hard choices. My mom gave birth to 5 kids naturally. She did her best to show us how to work hard.

Mom and Joel

Mom, auna the horse, and Uinta the dog

My mom and I probably clash more then she does with her other four children, so it is funny that she is currently living here with us. She and I are so much alike. TOO much alike. There are certainly times when we have simply had enough of one another, and we go to our separate corners. Luckily neither of us are the type that holds onto things. We let it go, and forget about it. A few hours later everything is back to normal. I honestly don't know how I would get anything done without her here, and am so grateful for her. She gets me.

my big 21.

Happy Birthday MOM! LOVE YOU!

Busy, Busy

Fairies

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When I saw this photo I had 2 thoughts: 

1: forget about my other plans for the yard. This is It!

2: Fairy Birthday Party?

Baby food.

The ambitious mother in me planned on making all of Hazel's food from scratch, and not letting anything else near her. As she neared the age where she could begin solid foods people started offering her things, and I just didn't want to be that crazy mom who won't let her kid have a cracker or try a sip of soda (soda, really?*). Well we started out strong with the baby-food making, but like most things I start, it didn't last. I failed to come up with a good program for storing the food, and all of the purees I have made are stored in pint sized canning jars in the freezer. Feeding it to her requires thawing of a large amount of food, and then feeding that one kind to her for a few days until she either finishes it, or I get worry it might spoil, and I throw it our. Like I said, not a good system, so we feed Hazel a lot of store bought baby food. We like Ella's Kitchen, or HappyTot which comes in pouches, and is organic (and tastes fantastic!). We also feed her a lot of what we are eating. Her favorite thing to do is gnaw on a piece of broccoli. We are doing well with feeding her now, mostly fruits and veggies. For a while there I resorted to what was easiest. I gave her pieces of bread, and some puffy things we got from the store that are kind of like cheetos puffs, goldfish, and pasta when we were eating it, along with her fruits and veggies. After a while I realized that she was having some serious poo problems because of it, and I decided she wasn't quite ready for all of that grain and processed four products. About the same time that I decided to remove that from her diet, she decided that all she wanted to do was breastfeed, and that kicked her digestive system back into gear, and she is doing great now. We have never given her rice cereal, but I have pureed brown rice or quinoa and mixed it in with her fruit and veggie purees. I really haven't been scientific about it, or really anything when it comes to parenting....I actually think that I am pretty lazy, and tend to take the easier route most of the time. I have read about a few different "theories" of introducing solids. I don't really get parenting "theories" so I just do what feels right, and it seems to work out okay. Today I stumbled across this post on home made baby food, which for like the umpteenth time this week made me wish I were a more organized individual. It kind of inspired me to try a little harder with Hazel's food. Does anyone who reads (you know, all five of you) make their own babyfood?

*The person who offered her soda does in fact read this blog.

We Grow, Grow Steady as the Morning

We stood* Steady as the stars in the woods*So happy-hearted
And the warmth rang true* inside these bones
As the old pine fell we sang*Just to bless the morning....

Winner Winner!

So guys.... 

I won a giveaway. I hardly enter them because I just have this "I'll never win" mentality, but this wasn't just any giveaway(and there are some lame ones out there). It was a Shabby Apple giveaway hosted by my midwife's daughter Lovely Lindsay on her fabulous blog Run Lucas Run! 

WHAT!?!?!

Yeah, I'm being serious. I won this.

Friday Finds

A tutorial for a tiny little dress. I'm making this right away.

This guy's amazing art....in coffee!

There isn't much that I love more than anthropologie dishes.  ANY of them.

Have you ever seen a firefly? I haven't, but these photos are beautiful.

Super fun toy and book, all in one.

An interesting article on problems with our modern day educational system.