he is a tree with an owl living in him

yesterday i did no writing and instead made finn's halloween costume;;; (check it out A i have re-purposed that brown/orange sling you made finn as a baby! it is now a tree trunk!):::::::::there was a halloween parade downtown last night, and i finished the costume 10 minutes before the parade::::::::::::happy halloween everyone







p.s.he wouldn't wear the leaf-hat for long; halloween photos always seem to be blurs, isn't that so for the toddlers? however he did wear my wizard hat down to the parade. mystical tree wizard child.

heres and theres of our october

shaving with papa:::


plan-pile for a shirt for f!:::

the very rudimentary beginnings of a love-quilt:::;

hey those little dreams do come true:: finally made this quilt-strip pillow (pattern is from "Handmade Home") for help with finn's no-more-milky (or was it to help me?)::::


THE ACORN MOON!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::finn with uncles and papa and jack-o-lantern

kitchen window, green tomatoes (eventually made into fried green tomatoes by p.)::::::::

happy street name in my neighborhood:::::::

where the sidewalk ends is actually several places in my neighborhood! (the sidewalk just mysteriously disappears in the grass)

Like plants (astonishing thing) [and you cry]

today i went to find books at the university library, and i found an astonishing thing. i found a book called "talking about death". this is a book that has been ingrained in my psyche since i was a child. my mom or another adult in my life gave it my brother and i when our father died. i poured over this book again and again as a very young child. it's those watercolor drips: that's what i thought death was. i couldn't read yet, you see. but this book is full of the kind of paintings that are pictured here. i think in my loopy proto-understanding of letters, i thought the word "death" itself was a watercolor painting; you see it so much in this book in this bold handwriting. anyway, i'm not sure what it means, but i'm glad i found this book (my mom couldn't remember what it was when i asked--she said, i know that we read elisabeth kubler-ross; so i looked up books by kubler-ross, and browsing nearby through the other 5 books dealing with children and death, i found this one).

of course i bursted out crying as i looked at the paintings and realized it was the one i'd been searching for--cries of astonishment really, at seeing these ingrained-in-my-child-brain images and dealing with the overwhelmingness as they encountered by adult-mush-brain. but this crying only fits with the week i've been having--i've been showing the documentary "food inc." in my classes, and i cry during class as i show it everday, in both classes-- (sheesh!inappropriate!)-- at the lame cows, at the child who dies of e-coli, at all of it, the food industry terribleness.

it's been that kind of week, a cry at the clouds week, a cry at anything remotely emotional you encounter week. cry, i say! cry with purpose and astonishment and plain old feelings, all the better that you may cry!

view from the afternoon porch where i did sit and read

hey::in a tiny miracle, i managed to get finn to nap even when both kids were wide awake (and screaming at times, alternately and simultaneously). then, i went and sat on the porch, with sleeping baby ellie on my chest, and read a book for like 3 hours. it felt good--

trying to catch and keep light/ delight

it has been a good week; it has been a good day! i have been feeling what i can only term delight! (alongside normal exhaustion, work, etc.) also the light has been beautiful, and i keep trying to catch it--in our backyard at sunset, or today at sunset in hickory hill park--

in this photo, notice how finn plays "fetch" alongside q-dog:


finn discovered this newly-mown path in hickory hill; we were both in love with that sublime delicious green hill, but it was barbed-wired off:


monster cat likes to hang out in the middle of the street and then i try to teach finn not to run in the street but of course his favorite thing is to chase monster saying mo'ster! mo'ster!

this was the closest i came to really really catching the october light i love, but i'm not satisfied:

don't you feel tired looking at the running boy? here are some calm toddler-less pictures, still trying to eat light-----

notes & thoughts of this day [needs popping up in short sentences/ susan howe/ soft belly]

i need to clean this room, which i am so lucky to have i know, but it's hard for me to think in here right now. i need to link to this blog post that i am loving: http://jennifernew.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/ca-reer-noun/ [o happy thinking about mother-artists, us, how we do it, and we do do it!]. i need a candle for right now spirits to enter right here. i need to do autumn cleaning, i mean like shake dust out and get it aaaall right before winter. i need to be happy in october, my favorite month with my favorite light (and shadows). i need to be creative as in stand up and stretch. well my strategy was that i would list these needs/thoughts in staccato repetition in order to show how my brain shuts itself out & down and then sits there in helpless paralysis but so far this is unpleasant!!

so funny then, that lately i have been thinking a lot about positive thinking, how it can change everything and it is my brain-spirit's mixing with the air and thought of the world, but indeed i do control it [as in calling your child spirited instead of difficult] [or being grateful for what is now & good rather than what is past or maybe, & makes you feel bad] [as in, fears] [all of this also relevant to that blog post above that i linked to, as in tilly woodward: ". . .But what I really want, ultimately, it to give people permission to value themselves. . .when you confirm goodness you are taking an important step. When we confirm people's goodness over and over, we allow them to be that way..." ]

on friday we picked finn up from daycare and he had a 104 degree fever. he is okay now yes but it has been harrowing [especially i suspect because i'm not ms. seasoned mom who has been through a lot of illnesses with many kids. . .also a bit of a hypochondriac myself]

there are about 5 or 7 (or as finn would say, four, seeven, eight) old friends that i haven't spoken to in over a year: ;;;;;;;; my human-web:::i need to manage it more!! you know?

this is pitiful! well here are some notes i took excitedly, [i must say right here there are fewer things in the world that make me feel more centered than reading and taking notes, especially if it is a book that is just zinging with the things i need to hear, to buzz & hum and all that] and:

"A mother's thread or line is ringed about in silence so poems are"

"In what language shall I address you? Self-assertion by letter writing."

"October strips off cover and quiet conscience."

"A poem can prevent onrushing light going out. Narrow path in the teeth of proof. Fire of words will try us. Grace given to few. Coming home though bent and bias for the sake of why so. Awkward as I am. Here and there invincible things as they are."

[[above from Susan Howe's book The Birth-mark: unsettling the wilderness in American literary history]]

one final thought concerning meditation: in whatever form you choose to do it, simply taking some time to notice your thoughts, your breathing, and your body can open new passageways in your mind, i really do think. i especially love soft belly meditation: just do this, think soft on the inhale and belly on the exhale; do it only for 5 minutes, even, if that's all you've got----

good night, i'll imagine all your breathing bellies now as i fall asleep-----

or maybe i will stay up and sew a pillow------

or perhaps a

bag

or a

poem-thing

or
read

and draw
or clean
and

sing

10/3/10: on this day we said bye-bye to mama milk [ bittersweet bittersweet]

file under: a perfectly bittersweet thing:::::::tonight we said bye-bye to mama milk. i think it is finally. we talked about it as finn went to sleep:::i said, you know i love you and will always cuddle you and hug you. and he said, yeah, very softly. i said, mama loves you so much and now it is just the time to say bye to mama milk. and he said, yeah, very softly again. and i said, you understand then? and he said yeah. and we held hands and i cried in his hair as he fell asleep. aaaah bittersweet f-in mamahood.

and right here i'd like to mention this phenomena: do your experience this:::the daydreaming thing as you lie with your child putting him/her down to bed::::this thing can get frustrating! ever since finn has been alive i have dreamed of doing so much that i will never be able to possibly do! are these technically dreams deferred, and if so where do they go? yet i do have the time/ dream-space to dream these things for i am often putting a child down for nap or bed! tonight's fantasy went like this:::well it was actually like i was scheming, putting this blog together all the while along with everything else::::i dreamed this: that the blog post would be all about finn's weaning, and this very perfectly bittersweet thing of my baby disappearing and becoming a boy, a wonderful boy indeed, but not a baby anymore:::;and also! i should help finn more, i fantasized, i should give him a coming-of-age party, a weaning party. . .i should make him a pillow with quilted strips with awesome robot and squirrel fabric on it.. . .and in that pillow i should embroider his whole name. . .and and and i should go downstairs and make some walnut spice muffins while i'm grading papers, and that way in the morning i will surprise him with muffins and talk a little bit more about how grown up he is, help him adjust to this change!! and maybe i'll get the pillow done tonight too. . .and record it all, all of it, on THIS BLOG!!

anyway, no muffins and no pillow yet, but here i am. . .

and it's not over there! he woke up as i was leaving his room (damn creaking futon!) and insisted i come back. i had been lying next to him holding his hand for quite awhile, as is our custom (though last week he went to bed 3 nights in a row on his very own!). and then it turned into one of these i was stuck in his room forever (papers to grade downstairs! papers to grade! and they were calling me, too, with their little baby voices) and he just wouldn't fall asleep and it became frustrating (after an hour and half or so) and so i had to give up and call on the papa, and now here i am, not grading papers, no, but writing this down right here right here (do you see where i am writing it??) right HERE!!! and thus continues our night of bittersweetness, as i tell you more about our day:

finn was apparently delivered in this package from australia, and when he popped out he said TA DAAA!! [he may have inherited his mother's performing gene]


and it was that earlier this day we went on our weekend walk in the gorgeous hickory hill park::::::



and i photographed this baby maple, which was the most glorious blazing thing, standing right in a patch of mid-morning sunlight, the earliest changer in the woods:::::






and now i may go grade those papers///or might just continue reading in "the spirited child: a guide for parents whose child is more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent, and energetic":::::::because really maybe i will find the magical sleeping key somewhere, the magical stress-reducer, the thing that makes magic in our lives and makes us magically understand each other's temperaments::::::and lastly i'd like to find the thing that creates more time [maybe that is just called turning your computer off??] bye!

love, b

october it is [new shapes of days]

the days are going by.
there is much to do,
and busy-ness seems to blur all action,
to blur life as we live it!
i know you feel it too.
the shapes of our days
are changing a bit--
it's october, the sun sets sooner,
there's orangey light around.
my ideas for my self are always the same:
self, i say, self, you need:
1. good sleep
2. to exercise the demons out
3. to write

also to love, find purposes, all that.
to sing to my boy, to learn his new ways of playing.
for did i mention: everything is new with him!
he is talking all kinds of talk,
he is throwing all sorts of fits,
he is helping his doll-babies go potty
and giving them stickers (just as we do
for him)--
he is loving a book called "billywise"
about an owlet learning to be brave enough
to jump from the tree and fly--
he is helpful and shreds the lettuce for taco night.

how can i pay attention to everything all at once?

this week, wild, p. & i went to madison: the kiddo stayed home with the sitter! my first night ever away from him!
we saw the national, who have been mentioned on this blog before, at the orpheum theater in madison. i realized driving up there that it was the same place i saw ani difranco when i was 18 or 19. i mean like you know 15 years ago or something.

anyway, onto other random bits of the past week or so:

the sun shining on a lake in madison, from car window:

some slender flowers off the path in hickory hill park:

finn looks at a creek in hickory hill:

i bought a yard of this awesome tree fabric: