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...

Quiet hour

Lately I've found life pretty lovely and a bit overwhelming. And I wonder if Marija will wake from this long nap, currently being conducted in my lap, in time for me to change her and pick up the living room before we have visitors. Meanwhile, I am typing with one hand to get ready for Latvian school, looking forward to another Sunday of teaching children who understand God in the simplest terms.

But I am taking a break now. For a moment I am enjoying Marija's sweet breaths (a sigh just now), soft songs in the background, peace of heart perhaps.

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.

Marija Kristina

Marija Kristina, born September 7 at 4:34 a.m.

Asleep

The birth went well -- and very quickly. We have had many jokes about our Labor Day labor. And in the days since, people have shown her and us so much love... it's amazing.

I love her

Things are going really well. She and I have been learning a lot, I think. Joe, too. I knew he'd be a great dad, but I'm still awed as I watch him with his little girl.

A kiss from her Tētīts

She keeps us pretty busy... I'm able to post now only because Joe is changing her diaper and then starting dinner downstairs. And though she's brought me to tears once or twice when she wouldn't let us put her down to sleep, these first weeks have been pretty wonderful.

Praise God for His many blessings.

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!

Quiet hour

Joe left for work extra early again this morning, and after he did I lay down a while and read, hoping I'd fall back asleep. But I only floated along the edge awhile, my heart pounding faster than it needs to for napping, so I gave up and turned over and prayed for some dear people I know. And I heard the house make little knocks and cracks where the rising sun was warming it, like it was coming awake and stretching, too.

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.

Feathering my nest

I think I may be nesting.

So far, I haven't had the near-superhuman bursts of energy that some other mothers say keep them up all night so they can rearrange closets and scrub all their floors with a toothbrush. But this building nervous wanting to do things -- cleaning things, preparing-for-the-baby things -- it is a bit out of the ordinary even for a binge-cleaner like me. I wouldn't mind being able to think a bit less about diapers and things!

Joe and I have been sharing a cold back and forth this week, but things are good overall. Here are a few nice ones:

• The African violet on the dining table and the peace lily in the kitchen are blooming beautifully.
• So is the clematis we just planted in the back yard.
• Digging holes to plant things has become much easier now that I am 30-some pounds heavier. I just stand on the shovel and in it goes!
• I've had a few nice chats with neighbors in the last few days while working outdoors.
• A sweet friend is getting married tomorrow.
• A family in church just had new baby.
• The baby in me moves so much sometimes, Joe has asked whether it's having a party in there!

I wish I'd brought my camera

Joe's in San Diego again, and it's funny how quickly I can fall back into the patterns I had before we were married: going to church alone, wandering a park afterwards, sleeping and waking at strange times. For a little while it's almost like being unmarried again -- and then he calls me or I start planning the next few days, and so many of our thoughts and plans circle around each other. And then there's this baby in my belly... it's kicking like crazy this afternoon.

I'll have to bring Joe back to the park sometime soon. I'm actually not sure I was supposed to go there... a locked gate meant I had to park my car on the road, so I looked for signs saying the park was closed, but there weren't any. I got around the gate by a footpath.

I don't know if anyone goes there... the dirt road toward the lake was lined with wild blackberry bushes, with plenty of ripe ones for me. The road had beautiful butterflies, the grass had humble little wildflowers, and the lake was surrounded by pine trees and birds. I saw a bluebird!

Overflown

It looks like we have a hummingbird living next door, with its nest is at the top of a sweet gum tree. It likes to sit on  the top of a tall, bare branch, surveying the neighborhood and making the occasional loop-de-loop. 

Singing praise

The weeds in the backyard have purple blossoms now.

What pretty carrots

Today is Joe's birthday. I gave him a present a few weeks ago, so we are not doing much tonight. Still, I am making a better-than-usual dinner.

I didn't realize at first that I had such a special carrot, though!

Do YOU love any turtles?

"Do you like this card with the turtle?" I asked my grandmother yesterday as I picked the card up off of her bedside table. 

I'd sent it to her earlier in the week. She studied it for a moment. 

"It is a nice card," she finally concluded. "But who can really love a turtle?"

I guess it went over better than the owl cards. I'd sent her two or three of those before she told me she thinks owls are creepy. 

Even better was the moment my grandmother looked at the dog lying on the carpet and solemnly declared, "The dog is dead." 

"It is not dead," I told her. "It is sleeping."

"But I don't see it breathing!"

"I can. See that tuft of fur there, rising and falling?" 

She really does love the dog, and she watched it carefully for a few minutes, just to make sure it was still alive. 

But best of all was the moment, as I was leaving, when my grandmother held my hand and told me to have many children and a full life. I love her, and I know she loves me even more than she loves the dog (though only the dog is allowed to lap up the last of her sweet coffee straight from the cup).

Impromptu walk!

The setting sun was so pretty, I didn't stop at the mailbox, but kept on walking.

Brr, it's cold out. But nice. Really, really nice.

The purple house nearby looks pretty interesting when it's glowing orange.

Ice

Come this morning, the tubs in our kitchen had accumulated a few days worth of fruit skins and vegetable peelings. Normally they would have gone out to the compost bin earlier, but the bin is in the yard's icy patch, where our southern fence blocks sunshine in the winter. Several days after the storm, our bin still looked something like this. 

Coolest compost bin on the block

Well, I finally went out to wrestle with the ice today. A chunk fell off the lid, landed on the ice next to the bin, and shattered into a dozen pieces! Then the pieces slid down the little hill of our yard, making happy twinkling sounds along the way.

You can imagine how the rest of the ice on the lid met its end after that. 

It was really great.

Sunset

The sunlight lingers longest in the office. I like to be there in the evening to enjoy it.

It caught our lamp

Pirmais sniegs! (A.K.A. SNOOOOOW!)

Joe was so stressed by the drive in the snow yesterday, he missed the turn to drop me off at home. So I had an extra-long walk near the center of town just as it was turning extra-beautiful, and I went back for pictures while doing errands later on.

Alas, this former train station has become a museum.

Can you see the seagulls on the roof? 

While schools to the north were cancelled, ours stayed open because the weather report didn't call for much here in Charles County. The flakes started coming down quick just as school buses and commuters hit the road, and though a bunch of kids had exciting mornings when their buses crashed, no one was hurt in those accidents.

The snow seems to bring out the good in the neighborhood. I saw kids and not-kids having a snowball fight, and then a huge bunch of guys playing football. One of them lobbed a snowball at me, but it just missed.

Here are some more pictures.

The other side of the old train station. 

The only train that comes by is the coal train going to Joe's plant.

No train this Tuesday, though.

We've all been writing lately

I wonder at it every time, how words that seems so set in my head are forced to become something else altogether on paper.

Days Like This

The winter sun shines off both the clouds and the road, and all the drivers have to squint against it. At stoplights you can turn to see their faces, lit golden under puckered brows.

The road seems thin, the world stretched tight, as if it could snap against the flood of hopes underneath it. The Love that sustains us feels sharp and clear, a breath in the cold.

(I edited this once since posting it, taking out a couple words and adding in another.)

Love came down...

Blessed Christmas, everyone.

Eyes wide

Snowflakes! Little white ones, going past the window!