How Many Bottles of Soda Do You Need for a One-Year Old's Birthday Party?

Seven. The answer is seven.

(Plus a random bottle of lemon juice.)

Is There Any Month Like May?

A Whole Year of Pippin!

A year ago Pippin came into this world quickly, unexpectedly, and miraculously brimful of life and health. The months have passed like days. Sometimes as I nurse him in the quiet, watching him drift into sleep, I marvel at the length of him draped across me. At the truth that his person, knit in secret and invisible for so long, has gained flesh and inches and pounds and laughter and will and personality in so short a space.

Time is winged.

Peregrine Luke has lived up to his name. He traveled far to come to us; he will travel still farther, God willing. And the light he has brought! His weary mama has grown in step with him these many months. I have been glad of my fellow traveler. Glad of the light that bobs alongside me.

Pippin is laughter and toothy grins. He is cloudbursts of temper that glower and growl and then flee away. He is a blur speeding toward the nearest open doorway. He is sweetness and stubbornness and silliness all in one.

He is our delight.

Fans

Tadhg has a book where an animal band makes a cameo. I was naming the different instruments--trumpet, trombone, tuba, flute, clarinet, drums--and realized I should just have him listen to a band during lunch. We started with that then moved on to an orchestra.

They're fans.

Pip rocks (mostly) soberly.

Tadhg stares.

It's a good time.

Just So He Can Hear Himself Say It Someday

April Grab-Bag

Life Outside These Walls

In no particular order. (We've been spending a lot of time outside in the past couple of months, and snow in May makes chronology feel pretty irrelevant.)

Pointing at the daytime moon.

Tadhg loves going on "a'ventures" in the Secret Garden anytime he can.

The photos of the flower beds are for my own satisfaction only, since I don't have "before" photos. The "flower beds" were gargantuan patches of goldenrod and dock and other noxious weeds. Hours and hours of time was spent taming them. They've changed a lot since--more weeds have been dug, more rock borders have been set, more plants put in the ground, more mulch laid. But really, it looks so much better. And someday, perhaps, this house will look inhabited when you drive by it. Inch by inch.

The rhubarb patch and Juneberry bed both have been circled with rock borders since these photos were taken.

Rundy built three raised beds. They're filled with baby strawberry plants right now. Can't wait.

I wish this little rivulet never dried up in the heat of summer. It has supplied hours of wet, muddy, imaginative fun.

There's water in there, see.