A picture to remember

From a few days ago:

Joe is kneeling on the living room rug, showing Marija how to solve tangrams. Jānītis, a week old now, is falling asleep in my lap. Dinner is done; dishes are undone. The Innocence Mission album Joe got me for a pre-birth present is playing. "Where does the time go?" He is the man I met when we were 18 and climbing trees at night.

Marija is going out and Joe says she needs some shorts on, pulls a skirt off the drying rack and gives it to her to wear instead. They are playing ball on the grass and Joe is inviting me outside under the vaulted blue...

Getting ready for Easter

Our long winter has turned into almost-summer. Now we are opening most of our windows, keeping just a few shades drawn, and living outside as we can. Marija asks to go outside all the time and often gets upset if I tell her to stay in.

But she came in to dye Easter eggs today, lured in by the other kids who came to dye with us. I enjoy teaching people how to dye the Latvian way, with onion skins, like my family always did growing up.

Here we are assembling our ingredients... we have an egg, some leaves and flowers from the yard, onion skins, and water for dipping.

We wet the leaves and flowers to help them stick to the egg. This was the only part Marija wanted to help with.

Actually, she just wanted to put one clover into the water, and then onto the egg, then back in the water, then onto the egg again...

Once she got bored of that and ran off to play with the kids, I stuck some more greens on.

The greenery leaves white spots on the egg, and the onion skins leave a brown pattern.

So we surround the eggs, then fold the cloth and wrap it all up...

The thread keeps everything together, and the initials (made with a permanent marker) let us keep track of who made which eggs.

We added leftover onion skins to a couple pots of water, heated the water to boiling and then added the eggs. After about 10 minutes, I turned the stove off and let the eggs sit in the brown water.

About 20 minutes after that, the eggs were ready. We ran them under cold water to cool them and then unwrapped...

Beautiful eggs!

The big one is a goose egg we got from a friend!

If you like videos, here is one with a little more information about the tradition.

Today was so nice, I saw neighbors doing all kinds of things outside: eating, sorting clothes, carving a deer out of wood. (Okay, Joe was the one with the deer, finishing his carving.)

But in the morning, before the kids on spring break started waking up and spilling out of their houses, it felt like Marija and I had the neighborhood all to ourselves, for playing in.

May your Easter be blessed by our loving, giving Lord of all.

Today's grandmother letter

Dear Vecmamma,

I hope you are doing well! Pak pak pak -- it is raining today! I can't go on a walk outside with my little girl -- we'll have to put on some music and dance around the house!

I love you!

Kisses,

Daina

When we were visiting yesterday, my baby tried to give my Vecmamma some kisses. She doesn't know how to make the kissing sound, but she put her face up to Vecmamma's face, mouth open -- and, thankfully, did not bite her. Hooray for warmed hearts and the sparing use of teeth.

Joe's Pumpkin

Joe has some new carving gouges and some practice, so this year's pumpkin is a lot better than that other one.

Robert Smith from The Cure

Lights out for full effect

The way it looks when Joe accidentally jiggles the camera

Now we are hanging out in plainclothes, and soon I will put some candy and a bowl near the door. Happy autumn!

October

The camera batteries were out, so I will have to remember: little blonde Marija in a yellow shirt and overalls, standing among all the orange pumpkins at the parking lot, patting her favorites with her hands. Blue skies and a happy baby...

A good weekend

I had thought I might want to rent a movie this weekend, but when I really thought about it, I realized I'd rather read and go on a nice walk with Marija and Joe.

So after we spent Saturday trying to fix up bikes and water heaters and the like (does anyone know why a water heater would mysteriously stop leaking?), we went to church Sunday and I read a couple articles and we ate Joe's strawberry sorbet and then we headed out to Laurel Springs Park near here.

Laurel Springs is perhaps most famous for its playground, which is so neat that even Joe went over to play with a digging machine in the sand area, but we spent most of our time investigating a walking trail that goes all around. Parts went along sunny edges of baseball fields, where grasshoppers flew out near our stepping feet, and other parts went through the shade, where we breathed deep because of the warm piney fragrance.

Marija talked to herself a long time, and clapped cautiously when a nearby ballfield erupted with cheers, but she quieted down about halfway. I found a thicket of blackberries and couldn't leave them uneaten, even though we'd already had desert.

Movies can wait until winter.

Maybe tomorrow I will get to post the pictures I've taken of Marija lately.

Happy Independence

After a visit to see my parents and Vecmamma and Selin, Joe and I drove back down to see the fireworks in Waldorf.

We got there early, so we parked in the perfect spot, on the side of the road between two scenic little lakes. Joe stayed in the car with the sleeping baby while I walked to see the ducks. Later we sat in the grass and read about how to build your own log cabin on the cheap. The family near us had two cute little children. Someone offered us free popsicles, but we were full.

The fireworks were beautiful -- and Marija slept through the whole thing! Joe was disappointed because he wanted to see how she'd like them, but I enjoyed the peace.

So cool but so ew ew ew

I was pretty excited when I found out the caterpillars returned to our dill plants this year, but even those cool striped creatures pale in comparison with this three-inch-long garden discovery:

I haven't seen anything like it, but I guessed it was one of the tomato hornworm caterpillars I've heard about, since it was on the tomatoes, it's a caterpillar, and it has a little horn. I checked into it, and it's actually the related tobacco hornworm, apparently.

But it's a parasitized tobacco hornworm. That means those white things on its back are wasp eggs, laid in the back of a host caterpillar that will eventually be killed by emerging parasitic wasps!

I probably should just have let it be, but since the caterpillar was still alive, I plucked it off my tomato and moved it across the yard, trying to disturb as few of the eggs as possible. The caterpillar squirmed, and even though I was wearing gloves, I squealed in an enthralled-but-viscerally-disgusted kind of way.

I wonder what my neighbors think if they overheard my gardening pursuits. Meanwhile, Joe and I have been trying to work the word parasitized into our daily conversations. And I should soon have a little squad of defender-wasps protecting my garden in their own parasitic way.

Nature is weird.

Babies and flower wreaths

Happy Jāņi!

We are not jumping over any bonfires this year, nor eating Jāņi cheese, nor even singing līgo songs with Marija -- she fell asleep on time for once! (Maybe I will sing once she's in bed.)

Did you know it is difficult to get a baby to wear a flower wreath and sit still for a photo?

This road

It's Good Friday today, so mothers' group won't be meeting in the basement of the Catholic church, where a handful of mothers and their older children usually pray the Rosary as I meditate quietly and the young ones play.

Last week, though, a mother had printed booklets with the Stations of the Cross and led everyone in meditations on Christ's journey to Cavalry. We weren't sure we would get past the beginning, since there was a sudden restless surge as children fidgeted or moped or fled completely, but we voted to press on. And things settled as we went through the stations: Christ taking up his cross, walking the streets of Jerusalem, taking the nails in his hands and feet -- and then the mother leading saw that her newborn had finished nursing and she needed to change him.

Marija was restless, so I walked with her, and a older baby went to climb the stairs. Meanwhile, the baby being changed cried a bit, but another mother led us further, describing Christ dying on the cross and then, as tradition goes, being taken down and placed in Mary's arms -- but then the mother leading let out a sob and had to stop. She looked embarrassed as she wept a bit and wiped her eyes and her son took over, and we got through Christ's burial in the tomb, the end of these pre-Easter meditations -- and then it was all talk of new pregnancies and diapers and whether our dear sweet babies are sleeping through the night.

Sheesh

You all know how I'm afraid of tornadoes? Woke up last night to rain and wind and my first thought was, "IS IT A TORNADO?" Lying awake, heart pounding, I concluded that no, no tornado -- just lots of rain and, oh, also wind strong enough to rip the neighbor's piece of flapping siding off his house and toss it into our backyard.

When I finally slept I dreamt of real tornadoes.

And now do I deliver this siding to neighbor?

The lack of this piece of siding could lead to water going into both our attics, so it will have to be repaired soon, anyway.

Also, maybe I should read more blogs by cool New Englanders or West Cost people or Canadians, because I had the urge to start this entry out with "y'all." And as much as some people claim I say y'all, I still maintain that I just say "you all" very quickly.

We have guests

This is not as important as babies, but...

I do believe our dillbed has become home to some black swallowtail caterpillars.

I think it's handsome

I counted about a half-dozen, as well as some skins they left from when they molted! They make beautiful butterflies, and we should still have plenty of dill left over for our cucumber salads.

In other garden news, I had to tear out the squash plant (blossom end rot, augh!), but our tomato and pepper plants are sagging under the weight of ripening fruit.

We also have a pretty flower.

That is our clematis!

Created summer

There was mist on the way to church and geese in the field along the way. The windows at the monastery chapel are open when it's hot, to let some air in, so you can hear the nuns and the cicadas singing at the same time.

I'm back before 8:15 a.m., already feeling hot and craving lemonade.

Springtime asparagus

This may be my favorite article on cooking ever, because it is about life as much as it is about cooking.

Today I am smiling because not only do I suspect my capon will be defrosted in time to roast it for dinner, but because there was asparagus to go with it at the farmer's market. Mmm mmm mm.

Easter humor

On Saturday, we came back from church and Joe immediately went to check on the pizza dough he'd set to rise. 

"It is risen!" he said triumphantly. And a pause, and "It is risen indeed!" 

It was the best pizza dough.

I am glad because when I was reviewing the Easter story with the little kids at Latvian school yesterday and asked whether Jesus was a ghost or really alive, they answered surely, "really alive!" They could even tell me how they knew! 

Gosh, something's sunk in. It's wonderful. Other years they were so sure he was a ghost.

Our house has also seen the "broccoli of destruction," if you use Joe's translation, or "the broccoli of perdition" using mine.  If that doesn't make any sense, well, that is probably because you did not expect references to Christ's betrayal to come up while leftovers were being put away.

Maybe late, or maybe not

The Lord has indeed risen, Alleluia! Glory and kingship be His forever. 

It seems like everyone else has so many good things to say about Christ's resurrection this time of year, but I feel oddly incapable of joining in. Joe and I went to church Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and then for the Easter service Sunday morning, and even as I sang from the pews or the chairs in the Friendship Room, I was probably soaking up more than I was bursting forth.

Big in my thoughts lately has been the ways we are blessed beyond measure, even though my human pettiness sometimes seems bigger when I have colds and hard moments. But there is still this great sense of gifts undeserved, especially the one tapping me from time to time from inside my belly. 

And to have the goodness of this loving Lord reigning alive always, not only over this growing child, but over sinful me? Offering to wash us clean? To guide us in bright paths? To be with us beyond the end of the world and this life and everything? 

It was all so concrete back those centuries ago -- the Son who was whipped and mocked and lifted up to die, the folded burial cloths left once he rose to life again, the message of the Savior to his confused and frightened friends. And the bigness of what it all means becomes concrete here, too, though the scenes are not as dramatic. If only I knew how to see and share it better.

In the meantime, there is so much goodness to rest in. 

Cherry blossoms

After a few weeks of cherry blossoms all over La Plata, the little treelings in our backyard finally burst their first buds. 

I have meant to write about the cherry trees since Peter came over to help me plant them in the fall. They were wedding presents, and once we had them growing up among the grass in the backyard, the yard started to feel like a place worth being.

Fall is a good time to plant cherry trees, apparently, but was disconcerting to watch them lose their leaves right away. So I was really happy when their buds started swelling a little while ago, and I was really happy when I saw the first white blossoms this morning!

I was going to take pictures of the pioneer buds, but then we had a thunderstorm. By evening, the open blossoms were missing most of their petals. 

So no picture today! But maybe I will have one soon, once a few more of the buds open.

With child

For April Fool's Day I tried to convince Joe I made him a Veggie Meat Experiment for dinner, but he didn't fall too hard for it before he saw his soup and turkey melt (like a tuna melt). I had just the soup, yum.

Then we were talking about times I've been fooled before, including the time Steffie had us all on LiveJournal thinking she was pregnant -- classic. Joe said I could tell people that we're having twins, which would have been genius had I actually remembered to do it before the day was up. 

Anyway, yesterday probably wasn't the best day to tell people that I'm pregnant since I actually am. (Wahoo!) And I know some people know already, but some don't, so! The baby is due August 29th or so, which is the day before our first wedding anniversary. That means I'm at the beginning of the fifth month of pregnancy, which means the baby is almost the size of a large mango and I'm getting nice and round in the belly. 

Joe and I are really excited. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is excited, especially people at church! When we told the people who go to daily mass at the monastery with us, they cheered, and they told us, "Your baby's going to have 150 godmothers and godfathers!" On our way out today, they told me to enjoy my dill pickles and my strawberries. Mmm... both sound good to me, but maybe not together. 

I have been sick at times, but I'm more often really hungry... much of the time I'd like to spend posting on here has instead gone into endless rounds of making snacks and eating them. And since I know someone will ask: yep, I've craved some things, mostly salty snacks like french fries and potato chips in the beginning, and also Indian food. I have now memorized the location of every McDonald's in the area, though I didn't visit any of them. There are no Indian restaurants nearby, alas.

I might have felt the baby move yesterday, but I'm not sure. And I should get to see it again today, since we're having our second sonogram! I'm hoping it goes well. We're planning to keep the gender a surprise, though I've had a bit of a premonition. I'll let you know if I was right! And Joe will probably let you know if I was wrong. :~)

I'm guessing I got most of any questions you have, but if you have any others, ask away!

Here is a picture from sonogram number one, taken a month and a half ago. You can see the head on the right, the belly to the left, and the teeny, tiny hands.

The baby

World waking up

At the monastery on weekdays, there are daffodils and cherry blossoms, and it is shawl weather again. Today Sandy was wearing something light red with sparkles.

At Mass on Sunday, we noticed a number of little girls in new pink jackets, and a few older women, too!

Yesterday I bought tomato seeds

And today there is snow covering the backyard.