family

On grief, motherhood, and knitting

December 14, 2015 Marie Leave a Comment

atwood

My 95 year old grandfather passed away over the weekend. I can’t say it was unexpected – his quality of life deteriorated significantly this last year or so, but these last weeks it all became much worse and much harder on him. His mind was sharp, but his body was starting to give out on him. Which, of course, bodies do when they’ve been on this earth for 95 years. Tuesday he told my uncle he was “done”, and by Saturday morning my dad was rushing in to spend time with him in his last moments. I’m told he hadn’t moved from the couch in several days and kept his eyes closed and was not engaging in conversation.

I’ve cried a fair bit, I admit. Despite knowing it was coming, and being “okay” with it (meaning that it was for the best that his suffering and pain ended), it’s still hard to not cry when I think of him. We have a photo ornament of my grandfather holding the baby when he was 2 weeks old. We’ve been working with the kiddo to point to me when we say “mama” and to the husband for “dada” and to himself for “Declan.” He never points to himself. Except yesterday, he pointed to the ornament of grandpa holding him and did it. And I about lost it.

My natural urge, when it comes to grief, is to bake and craft. I seek out those things that comfort me. Maybe there’s some symbolism there in the fact that life is varied and full of change and, generally, baking means the same results with the same recipe (and, similarly, the same knit stitch will produce the same stitch result). There’s a bit of meditation in the kitchen or behind the needles. It’s where I go when I need to think. To take some “me” time and reset.

But there’s no time to grieve when you have a one year old under foot. They neither know or understand what is going on outside of their little bubble. They don’t care that mommy needs to be in the kitchen alone to bake and cry. Or to sit in a corner with some yarn and knit and think. Which makes this whole grief thing impossible. How do I take time to grieve when I’m catering to a toddler? How do I take care of myself and my own needs?

I’m sneaking in knitting every chance I can get. 5 stitches here, 10 minutes there… whatever I can squeeze in to be that comfort I need right now. It’s not ideal, of course, but it kind of works.

One.

August 8, 2015 Marie 3 Comments

A year ago today this kid made his grand appearance. This last year has been rough with many highs and lows, but we survived. We’ve all survived. But I’m especially proud of myself and that survival thing.

This kid is officially one and we celebrated with Peter Rabbit and carrot cake. I’ve promised the husband that I won’t go so overboard on the future. I really couldn’t help it, though – Peter Rabbit is just about my favorite kids book ever and Declan really loves the bunnies in the books we have and the one I knit him. And, truthfully, I didn’t really go THAT overboard – I had probably 100 different ideas for food and whatnot and ended up keeping all of that simple. So, really, he should thank me for not doing all the things I wanted to do.

Peter Rabbit will be making an appearance from now on every Easter, especially since we don’t celebrate the religious aspect of the holiday, so I can’t wait to dig all these decorations back out next Spring (see, it can’t count as going overboard if you’re going to actually re-use the decorations every year for a holiday, right?). The bunny cake was… eh. I don’t understand how to bake with these fancy pans – the instructions say to make the sides of the cake higher than the middle… but, hello, gravity called: they’re breaking up with your silly directions. I don’t know, maybe I’m doing something wrong? The one half of the bunny had broken ears, and there was no way I was going to be able to shave the sides down to piece this thing together to make the 3D cake I imagined. But, you know? I don’t even care – it looks damn adorable sitting on a bed of kale on my cake plate regardless.

Summer, finally

July 20, 2015 Marie Leave a Comment

With so much rain and dreary days it hasn’t much felt like summer on the days I’m home. Today, though… today is different. Today is officially a summer day. Hot, sunny, with the sun beating on your back. Finally I could blow up the baby pool and go outside with the Little Mr and play. He wasn’t much interested in sitting in the pool, and that’s probably my fault because I didn’t fill it up this morning for the water to warm until now, but it turns out he really wanted to play in the sprinkler setting on our hose attachment. So we sat there while he ran his hands through and picked up the hose and waved it around, splashing himself in the face and then getting angry about it and throwing it back down on the ground. Then it was back inside for something cold – frozen pureed pear in a mesh feeder for him, and coconut cream pie ice cream for me.

Snowballs

May 26, 2015 Marie Leave a Comment

The first house I remember growing up in was this little ranch on a cul-de-sac. The front of the house was lined with hedges, there was a crab apple tree in one part of the front yard and a birch tree, maybe – I don’t remember what it was, actually, in the opposite corner. If you were looking at the house from the street, my bedroom was on the very left corner, with two windows – one looking out to the street, another looking at the white house next to us. All of our yards were fenced in, and if you looked down between our two houses, right in front of the fence, there were these “snowballs” growing. I didn’t know them as anything other than snowballs for the longest time. I remember watching them each year and being fascinated by them and how the ants all loved to climb and eat at them.

We moved houses when I was in middle school and my mom dug up the plant and took them with us. I never really knew why, I just figured she loved them and didn’t want to let them go. For years and years they grew at my mom’s house, right next to the foundation. And then, a few years ago, she decided she didn’t want them anymore. I’m not sure why, other than maybe just wanting to do something different with her flower beds. So we dug them up, and I brought them home with me. I planted them in the front flower bed, not realizing that they needed a lot more sun than the front bed gets. They almost died but I managed to rescue them in just enough time to move them to another location.

A relative of mine is big into genealogy, and she likes to post up stories occasionally about my great grandmother (who I didn’t really know). Do you know why we had white snowballs (peonies)? Because those were my great grandmother’s favorite flower. She’s the one that called them snowballs. Years ago I was determined to plant roses in honor of my grandmother (Her middle name was Rose). I wanted to have something in my garden in honor of her and to remind me of her. I’m not, apparently, the only one who felt planting flowers was a great way of honoring loved ones and my mother had already beaten me to it years ago with these peonies.

In the kitchen together

January 5, 2015 Marie Leave a Comment

We’re quite the pair, my little munchkin and I. He has, apparently, inherited my “I hate naps” trait, which leads to a bit of a tricky day trying to get things done with him in tow. The few times he does nap I catch up on the computer, or I spend it knitting (I have a sweet little Gramps cardigan in the works for him for next winter), or other things that are difficult with a baby. But most days I’m toting him around with me. Upstairs to play while I put away laundry or clean the bedrooms. In the home office/craft room when I need something from there. And, of course, in the kitchen to cook and bake.

I know, ultimately, every room he’s in is interesting – every day there’s new items and sounds he’s noticing. But the kitchen… the kitchen is my favorite place to be with him. The kitchen is where we can go from fussy baby to completely content. He loves to watch me move around the room, opening and closing things, banging spoons on the pots and pans, running the mixer or kneading bread dough. The kitchen is my happy place – watching a few ingredients come together to make something amazingly delicious is like magic. If there’s one thing I hope to pass on to him, it would be a love of the kitchen. Even if all he ever makes is boxed mac and cheese in his adult life (though I really hope he makes more than that. Please, universe, let him be a better cook than that!), I want him to have fond memories of time in the kitchen with his mama. Kneading bread, making jam, canning salsa, etc.

Today I made a double batch of these coconut breakfast bars. I made them last week but didn’t like all that honey in there, so this week I used less. I also skipped the coconut milk and just used water, mostly because I didn’t feel like messing with trying to thaw some coconut milk for it. I’m still not sure I really love these bars, and I feel like they’re missing something, so perhaps next time I’ll make some major modifications to tweak them more for my tastes.