The Danger of Bedtime Stories (or Valentine's Day)

I realize I've been MIA for about ten days, but I have a really good reason.

You see, for Valentine's Day, I got this really breath-taking present.  If truth be told, it was actually the night before Valentine's Day.  An early present!

I wasn't expecting it at all!  It was a total and complete surprise to me.  In fact, I don't know when I've ever been more surprised in my life.

Not only was I surprised, but I was completely stunned!  My jaw dropped to the floor.  I didn't even know what to say-- in fact, I don't think I said anything at all for about five minutes.

And when I finally did speak, I couldn't tell you what I said or if I was even coherent.  I'm sure there was screaming.  And tears.  It was one whopper of a present!


Did you guess it yet?

I broke my nose!

I'd like to say that I was spelunking or sky diving or even bungee jumping-- imagine how exciting and perhaps risky that would sound.  Maybe even believable.  But the truth is boring.  Way more boring than that.  In fact, it sounds almost ridiculous when I say it aloud.  In fact, I'll say it, and then you can be witness to the ridiculousness.  Ready?

I broke my nose reading a bedtime story to my five-year-old.

See what I mean!?!  Actually, it was my five-year-old that broke my nose.  How about that?!  He was merely walking around on the bed and then he somehow fell on me.  I know!  It doesn't quite make sense when I say it to myself.  It wasn't like he suddenly dropped from the sky and I cushioned his certain-death fall with my nose... or maybe it was kind of like that.  It depends on what your notion of sky is.  But anyway, my nose took the full brunt of some part of his head.  My face exploded with pain, and then there was the telltale bruising, swelling, and whatnot that followed.  Pain followed pretty much.  Pain upon pain upon pain.


My nose hurt.  My head hurt.  My sinuses hurt.  Even my teeth hurt.  Actually, there was this constant shooting pain like someone had shoved an electric rod in my face and was trying to push my teeth out of my head.  I wasn't sure if I was going to lose my teeth altogether or just end up looking like the one of the 'Hags of the Long Teeth' in Padraic Colum's The King of Ireland's Son.  It wasn't until two days ago that something mysteriously and quite audibly popped back into place, and the intense shooting pain subsided and left me with just a tender, throbbing nose.

It's funny when you wake up and find yourself to be thankful for a throbbing nose.  Talk about perspective.  With five-year-olds randomly falling from the sky, it could have been much, much worse.  Motherhood is dangerous, after all.  It's a real contact sport.  Don't let them tell you otherwise.

And reading bedtime stories?  Totally. Dangerous.

I'm going to start wearing a helmet.

Back from holiday

Apologies for my very long absence.  We have been on holiday for the entire month of January, and have now just emerged from the heavy fog of jet lag.

It was a wonderful trip-- very necessary, well-filling stuff.  We spent a lot of time hugging family and friends, laughing, talking, and staying up way too late.  It was only our second visit back to the U.S. after moving to Europe, and while the views here are gorgeous, I really miss being home and feeling like I'm home.  I don't know that it's something that you ever get over, but... we're supposed to be here now.  And so we are.  Here.  In Switzerland.

I came home to find some very sweet blog comments waiting for me, one of them by (and I could hardly believe it myself!) the author of the Tiptoes Lightly book series, Reg Down.  That pretty much made my day!  The kids were so pleased that they had to bring Jeremy Mouse (and now we have his wife Jemima, too!) to the computer to show him.  What fun!!

I'll be back tomorrow with pictures-- some from our trip and some that I promised you from those Christmas presents I was making for the kids.  And of course I have to show off our knit Jemima Mouse, as well.  She needs her moment in the limelight too!  ;)

Books, prayers, and gratitude

Every year we pack away the Christmas books with the decorations, and when Christmastime comes around again we hungrily unpack them-- it's like seeing old friends!

We have lots of favorite books, but the one I found two years ago at the Goetheanum, On the Way to Christmas, has quickly risen to the top of the heap.

As you can see the illustrations are so lovely, and the message is so simple: We're on our way to Christmas, and everybody-- animal, spirit, plant, and man-- everyone is coming.  I was reading through it again the other day when suddenly I found myself caught-- struck, actually, in a new way.

This page spread really got to me this year:

At the bottom of the page, it says, "And he dropped his club." --It's not a big whammy of a line, but it made me think.  Am I carrying any clubs?  Literally, no, of course not, but figuratively... there's a lot of stuff that I hold onto.  Hurts, resentments, fears, stress, passivity.  Those things aren't much different, are they?  I've been making a conscious effort this year to reach out to people I love and let them know it.  Isn't that what the spirit of Christmas is all about?

I've been thinking about sitting down to write this post for days, and meanwhile, I received a message last night that a dear old friend of ours has just been diagnosed with brain cancer.  He's only 37, and he has a baby son.  The doctors tell him he has less than a year.  It's absolutely heartbreaking.  And I just can't stop crying and praying and sending thoughts of love to him.

This young man has an amazing capacity for love and kindness-- even Kitty Bill, who has always been kind of a mama's boy and wary of strangers, took to him right away and sat on his lap at their first meeting.  And it's just so senseless to me that someone so special can be taken in an instant, whereas people who are infinitely less kind are given the gift of longevity.  And life is such a gift!

But again, despair is a different kind of club, isn't it?  I was reminded by reading a  thoughtful post by the sweet Kelly at Freeflowing Ways how despite what befalls us, we must go on and live.  Truly, truly live!  It is the only way.

So today I will be praying for my dear friend, but not letting despair pull me under.  There are still Christmas cookies to bake, presents to wrap, and a horse's bottom to sew up.  I will be praying for my friend while holding my people tighter today, letting every second count for something.  My heart is open, and I'm just so grateful for every minute.

I appreciate you, my blogging friends and family, and I'm wishing you a very beautiful holiday filled with lots of laughter, health, and love.

Handmade goodness

Shhh!  Don't tell.  But I've been hard at work making Christmas presents.  The snow and ice have kept us indoors for days, and I've already got this wee mouse finished and wrapped up under the tree.  There is going to be one happy little boy Christmas morning when he unwraps his very own Jeremy Mouse!

Kitty Bill has been smitten with the image of Jeremy Mouse fighting the dragon in Reg Down's book The Festival of Stones.  It's only a line drawing, but something about it really touched him deeply.  In the picture Jeremy is brandishing a straw sword and adorned with an oak leaf shield and an acorn cap helmet.  He's preparing to fight the dragon in a celebration of Michaelmas, where we slay our own inner dragons.

This was a very simple toy to make up, combining three easy and free patterns.  For Jeremy I used the Holiday Mouse pattern.  His shield is made from Natural Suburbia's wonderful Autumn Oak Leaf pattern, only I used fingering weight yarn and size US # 2 needles.  Then I embellished it with a bit of embroidery to give it some added color.  The acorn helmet is made from the pattern Wee Twee Tiny Acorn Tutorial, only I made it a little bit bigger than the pattern calls for, then I attached it with a bit of elastic beading string.  The sword is made from straw and string.

Now, those of you who have the newer edition of the Tiptoes series might be asking yourself, "Why on earth did she make Jeremy Mouse gray?  Everyone knows he's brown; he's right there on the cover!"  We don't have the newer books, and if you ask my children, 2 out of 3 would say he's gray.  After seeing the newer covers online, I took a poll.  Kitty Bill was adamant that Jeremy is a gray mouse just like the ones we've been catching in our garage this winter. (Don't worry, we have a catch and release program.)

Sunburst's present is a bit more complicated.  I saw her eying a knit horse in Jan Messent's Knit a Fantasy Story, so I thought I would give it a shot.  I mean, how hard could a horse be?

Really hard, apparently.  The knitting isn't so complex, but the fitting of the pattern just right onto the frame of the horse leaves a bit to be desired.  I've been working at it steadily every night this past week, and in the end I think she'll really like it.  I mean, it's a horse after all.  Sunburst lives and breathes them.

I still haven't figured out what I'm making for Moonshine yet.  I have too many ideas, and at the top of that list sits teeny tiny dolls and a hand-painted matryoshka. We'll see which one I can pull off in time.

Every year I find myself crafting down to the wee hours of Christmas morning.  I don't expect this year will be any different, and why should it be?  I truly enjoy it.  When we lived in the states Einstein and I made nearly every present for them, but once we moved to Europe and found ourselves surrounded by so many lovely natural toys, it became less necessary.  It's incredibly hard to resist an entire store packed full of Ostheimer figures, Käthe Kruse dolls, and Holzkram goodies.  But I'm very careful to remember that the toys they often love best are the ones I make for them.  It's almost as if they can feel the love that went into every stitch, every knit and purl, every hand-painted detail.

Yesterday we spent some time recalling the different ways we celebrated last Christmas, and they got around to remembering their presents.  Easily they remembered the handmade gifts, and then they went very quiet as they tried to remember what else they had unwrapped from under the Christmas tree.  It wasn't a bonanza of store-bought gifts, but surprisingly, it took them a very long time to remember.

The kids just headed out for an hour of sledding fun, so it's time for me to get back to finishing up all this handmade goodness before my time runs out.

Santa Lucia morning

Holiday cheer and a recipe!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

 

We've been busy little elves-- rolling beeswax candles, making Christmas cards, opening windows on our Advent calendar, and hanging up decorations.  Mary and Joseph have made their appearance along with our nightly reading materials that take us through Advent: The Light in the Lantern and Mary's Little Donkey.  I can't imagine advent without these books, they really lend so much heart to our home, and the children still light up with every telling.

Another long-standing tradition for us, our felt Advent stockings.  Each one holds a different holiday carol.  We sing our nightly song before we light the Advent candles and read our story.  Singing with my grandmother is one of my favorite memories from childhood, and it touches my heart to see what joyous little singers I have.  There is no sound more precious than the sound of little voices rising up in song!  And we are discovering that at five, Kitty Bill has quite a good memory for song lyrics!

And as always, the girl elves have been busy knitting away.  There are projects going in every corner of the house and lots of whispering going on.

Not all the projects have been started yet, nor the baking, but there is time yet, still plenty of time... or at least that's what I keep telling myself.

It's cold outside, blustery and snowy with lots of ice!  We're trying our best to stay warm and toasty, and when the winter winds blow, our thoughts turn towards food.  The kids have made an unusual request for Christmas dinner-- soup!

I made the mistake of playing around with our pumpkin soup recipe the other day.  Around here folks serve it with cream.  We've always made it with coconut milk.  This time I decided to forgo the milkiness altogether and add in my soup protein standby, ground nuts, and top it with a heavy hand of nutmeg.  Now, my kids are generally very enthusiastic eaters.  And they love pumpkin anything... but this soup?  They went crazy for it.

We finished off the leftovers for lunch today, and there was a general echo of sadness until one of them piped up with the idea of soup for Christmas Eve dinner.  When I acquiesced, they actually cheered.

Best Pumpkin Soup Ever

one medium winter squash (pumpkin, kuri, butternut, etc.) cubed
2 Tbs olive oil
1 large onion
2 cloves fresh garlic
2-3 cups vegetable broth (depends on size of your squash)
1/2 cup ground almonds
sea salt, to taste
ground nutmeg

Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil.  Toss in the squash, add enough broth so that it reaches the top of the squash, but doesn't cover it completely.  Bring to a boil and simmer until tender (or alternately cook in a pressure cooker for 7-10 minutes).  Puree this, stir in the ground almonds and add sea salt to taste.  Serve with a heavy sprinkling of nutmeg.

It's dairy-free, animal-free, gluten-free goodness... unless of course you serve it with fresh, homemade bread.  But I know you clever folks have got the homemade, gluten-free bread down pat already.

happy, happy, love, love

Pancakes and strawberries have always been a must for Valentine's Day. In the past I have actually poured them on the skillet into heart shapes. What a load of work that is! I was feeling lazy this year, so I imprinted each one with a heart cookie cutter. It actually turned out better than expected.

For maximum effect, press the cookie cutter into the pancake as soon as you flip it. As the pancake cooks, it rises in the center. If you press your cookie cutter into it soon enough, the heart will rise. If you wait too long, the heart cracks.

Kind of deep, huh?

I can already see a future filled with strange pancakes...

Happy little eggs

Easter was always my favorite holiday as a little girl. My mom would boil up dozens of eggs and as a family we'd all gather around the table together, endlessly dipping into the rainbow of colors.

Together. Looking back I think that was the biggest part of it. Easter was more about being together, doing together, laughing and enjoying and goofing around, than any of the other holidays. My dad would sit at the table and dip eggs with us, we'd hide them in the craziest places, and then have contests to see who could make their chocolate bunny last the longest. I never won. (I still have no willpower when it comes to chocolate.)

It's been a long time since we all sat down for Easter together, but I'm trying to keep that spirit of togetherness alive in my children, especially at Easter. Since we don't eat eggs, and we've given up the plastic ones (conveniently they don't sell them here in Switzerland), I whipped up an easy little pattern-- another one of my patterns of desperation. My girls, ages 7 and 10, helped knit them up. I hope you'll enjoy making them as much as we did.

To download the pdf of this pattern, please click HERE.  You can also find it on Ravelry.

Felted Knit Eggs

Materials:
wool yarn scraps-- worsted or bulky wt
US #8 or #9 dpns
Wool stuffing

Instructions:
CO 12 st, and divide evenly onto 3 needles.
Place marker, and join into the round. K 1 row.

Row 1: *K1fb, k3* repeat to end of row (15 st)
Rows 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 11: knit every stitch
Row 3: *K1fb, k4* repeat to end of row (18 st)
Row 5: *K1fb, k5* repeat to end of row (21 st)
Row 7: *K1fb, k6* repeat to end of row (24 st)
Row 9: *K1fb, k7* repeat to end of row (27 st)
(begin decreasing)
Row 12: *k2tog, k7* repeat to end of row (24 st)
Rows 13, 15 and 17: knit every stitch
Row 14: *k2tog, k6* repeat to end of row (21 st)
Row 16: *k2tog, k5* repeat to end of row (18 st)
Row 18: *k2tog, k4* repeat to end of row (15 st)
Row 19: *k2tog, k3* repeat to end of row (12 st)
Row 20: *k2tog, k2* repeat to end of row (9 st)
Row 21: *k2tog, k1* repeat to end of row (6 st)

Cut yarn and thread through remaining loops to close top of egg, and weave in the end. Fill your egg with stuffing (moderately full--don't overstuff), and then thread your yarn end through the CO edge, pull it closed, and weave in the ends. Voila.

If you use wool stuffing, both the egg and the stuffing will felt together and create a nice weighted egg that bounces. You can also use fiberfil, but the egg itself won't felt as well as the wool-stuffed egg. Use fiberfil if you want to create a hollow egg, as shown above, for hiding little trinkets in. Once it's felted, just make an incision and remove the fiberfill.

To felt: Throw your eggs in a pillowcase or garment bag and wash in HOT water in the washing machine with some jeans or towels. I only ran mine through once because I ran out of laundry to wash, but feel free to do what you need to do. Don't forget to allow time to dry before the big hunt begins. :-)

A blessed end of the year

Our first Christmas season in Europe looked a little like this:



Or rather a LOT like that. We couldn't turn a corner without running into some kind of festival of lights. That's downtown Basel, Switzerland-- home to what has been called the best Christmas market in Switzerland. That's actually NOT the market, just one of the shopping streets.



Christmas market in Colmar, France --after the ice skating excursion. Very pretty and Very cold. And the lights reflecting off Colmar's "Little Venice" canal.








At home we did our usual Advent celebration-- lighting the candles, reading a story every night from The Light in the Lantern, and singing.





Several years ago we made a string of tiny felt stockings for Advent. Rather than put trinkets in them, each one holds a different holiday song printed on a tiny scroll of gold parchment paper. So each night of Advent we sing a new song together-- which if truth be told, is one of my favorite parts of the holiday. The kids love it almost as much as I do.



And the lovely Advent calendar I picked up at the Goetheanum.


And making....
In all our haste we forgot to bring our Christmas ornaments, so we had to start from scratch. the girls and I made some pinecone gnomes and cornhusk wreaths:






We also managed to forget our stockings... and funny, they don't seem to sell stockings here like they do in the States, presumably because all their "Santa" business happens on Dec. 6th for Samichlaus/St. Nikolaus Day where he leaves the goodies in children's shoes.

So we all got busy making stockings out of my linen stash that I brought from the states, a white Ikea pillowcase (seriously), some red wool yarn, and embroidery floss. the stockings are each lined with a different cotton print fabric-- though of course you can't tell in the picture. The elf pattern came from Wee wonderfuls, the girl is from a Japanese embroidery book, and the odd one is from a Klee painting. Everyone helped in different ways, including Kitty Bill who kept insisting on a robot stocking which led me to the lovely pattern.






And the holiday baking....
Bohemian Braided bread, an old family tradition, as well as strange cut-out cookies (including a robot), and the star tree cookie. I always wanted to buy the star tree cookie cutters from one of those magazines, but never got around to it. I picked up these at the grocery store here... where they sell all kinds of amazing cookie cutters.




And our nature table...
Which of course had a make-over for the holiday. From the barren first light of stones, which left the kids in a state of great expectation:




to the culmination of Advent:




On Christmas Eve all the church bells around the city started ringing at 11pm. They went off for 5-10 minutes and then sounded again at midnight. With all the noise, the girls didn't fall asleep until 1am, and Einstein and I were up until 2:30 wrapping the very last gifts and embroidering the very last stocking.

Then the strangest, loveliest thing happened. We were awakened an hour before dawn by the sound of voices rising up in song. So like the story goes, I ran to the window and threw up the sash, and there in the street below me were carolers. In the cold, dark of Christmas morning. Holding candles. And singing. It was magical and beautiful and surreal.