A crisp blue day and all spent outdoors, without camera. Tomorrow I hope to remember.

There is a pair of great horned owls outside: one near the bedroom window in the juniper, the other down the road, and they are volleying a throaty sonnet. The windows are closed for the frost tonight.

The Mexican Freetail bats are still here. On a walk beneath Congress Ave. bridge, the colony distracted me from the sunset with their electric chirping. On my way home, a lacy parade of bats veiled the blue twilight, hungry.

Chas and I are snuggled in bed and I just finished his blue soaker shorts. They are precious but it will be too cold tomorrow to model them outdoors. Perhaps he can model them indoors…..

A crisp blue day and all spent outdoors, without camera. Tomorrow I hope to remember.

There is a pair of great horned owls outside: one near the bedroom window in the juniper, the other down the road, and they are volleying a throaty sonnet. The windows are closed for the frost tonight.

The Mexican Freetail bats are still here. On a walk beneath Congress Ave. bridge, the colony distracted me from the sunset with their electric chirping. On my way home, a lacy parade of bats veiled the blue twilight, hungry.

Chas and I are snuggled in bed and I just finished his blue soaker shorts. They are precious but it will be too cold tomorrow to model them outdoors. Perhaps he can model them indoors…..

A crisp blue day and all spent outdoors, without camera. Tomorrow I hope to remember.

There is a pair of great horned owls outside: one near the bedroom window in the juniper, the other down the road, and they are volleying a throaty sonnet. The windows are closed for the frost tonight.

The Mexican Freetail bats are still here. On a walk beneath Congress Ave. bridge, the colony distracted me from the sunset with their electric chirping. On my way home, a lacy parade of bats veiled the blue twilight, hungry.

Chas and I are snuggled in bed and I just finished his blue soaker shorts. They are precious but it will be too cold tomorrow to model them outdoors. Perhaps he can model them indoors…..

I can tell that life has gotten hectic because I haven’t spent much time the past week in reflection. Normally, there are about five minutes of peace in the middle of a day where I can stare into the forest and listen, or watch a spider spin a web, or feel the sun warming my back. But the holidays are upon me and I feel the pressure rising. I have a gift list that keeps detailing and evolving. Chas has developed the speed with which to help Ford whirl the house into havoc, and I simply can’t keep up during the day. The evenings are either spent tidying or knitting, since Chas needs new wool pants. But there isn’t much time left for gift-making. And the elves begin visiting the house, what, next week? Ford is expecting a fabric Whomping Willow and a set of handmade Harry Potter dolls from the elves. Me, being the elves, of course.

Sorry, mom 🙂

Chas has been playing with words. He watches my mouth pronounce his favorite words, and he is eager to repeat adn repeat:Ball, mamamamamama, dee dee (which means “baby doll” to him), dog, hieeeee (hi), bye-eeeee (bye), bah-bah (basketball), and various barn animal sounds. His favorite monologue is the repetition of the word “hot.” He repeats, “Haaaa-Tuh, haaa-tuh, haa-tuh” for himself to hear. He enjoys the way it feels. It’s sweet to watch him circle about the house, signing and saying the same word in a happy, meandering trance. It’s a layer of music.

The other layers include the IndiePopRocks simulcast, set on low. I think Damon enjoys the living soundtrack. It’s mellowing.

And then there is Ford on electric guitar and Damon on Ford’s classical guitar. They sit beside one another, playing guitar-babble of their own. Of course, it sounds nothing like babble, but it’s the same little dance. They are feeling out for sounds they like. Ford has the advantage of not having to develop and fortify his ego right now; he is at a wonderful stage in his life where these things are already robust. So he sits there, exploring the sounds that he makes without the want to play like another, or sound like another. At this point, it is only sound. It’s like learning how to talk; he and Chas are very much on the same page, in that respect.

Santa’s elf has set up her workshop upstairs:

…and is ready to open the gimongous $3 bag of vintage fabric:

While Santa snoozes outside:

With the return of daylight savings, preparing dinner is a delicate but manic dance around a demanding and danger-prone toddler and the fact that Ford leaves school at dusk, right about the time Chas turns into a werewolf. It’s a crazy juggling act trying to get dinner, or something that resembles dinner, on the table for everyone. It’s even harder trying to get the boys to eat it. But that’s another story. Tonight there’s one thing I want to remark on, because I know Ford is getting older. This cute little thing he’s done all year that has been so fun to watch will, most likely, eventually phase out:

I love the moment when the plates are all on the table, and everyone has a glass and a fork and a knife and a spoon and a napkin, and the burners are turned off and we finally begin to eat. It is at that moment, when we take our first bite or have our first sip of wine (after an obligatory “Cheers!”), that Ford always begins, in upright posture and a tilt to his head,

“So, how was your day, Mommy?”

See? Small talk never sounded so good.

Click on the photograph below and wait eternity for the movie to download, but it was my moment of zen today and I thought it was fun enough to share.

I am his teacher.
From birth, I have helped translate the world to him.
And now, the world is not enough;
he wants me to explain the universe, and death, and subatomic particle behavior,
and my mind is getting tired and feeling ignorant.
I need someone to translate these things for me.