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?

Sharing

Here is an interesting article on crack babies -- who are growing up now. I have thought a lot about what makes a child who he is... and I guess there are no real answers except "a lot of things."

Blessings

Marija and I were back at the Lutheran church again tonight, where we are becoming regulars on Wednesdays. But the pastor was a different one this time, an older one with a longer beard. He came up to meet me before church and suggested I bring Marija up for a children's blessing during Communion, and I said I would, and when it was time he called everyone up to pray and invited us again specially, "And bring Mary up for her blessing!" (She is Mary to most English-speakers around here.)

The blessing I'd never heard before, something about four angels standing at her bedposts and watching over her... I suppose the blessing will work even if she does not really have bedposts? And even if she will not necessarily be spending all night in her own bed?

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.

Separation

Joe took Marija for an hour tonight while I went to Communion service at the Lutheran church in town. He thought it might be good for us to practice being apart. We figured it would be harder on me than on her.

But I came home and he said she had missed me. It was about bedtime, and she couldn't get to sleep. There were spurts of crying, he said, though he had managed to calm her somewhat with her favorite xylophone toy. "Oh, and she stained my shirt with her tears," he said.

My baby! I think next time we will not practice being apart when it is close to bedtime.

Little flowers

Good things are growing here -- in me, though not of my making.

Each season puts things in a better order.

Little flowers can bloom here.

I don't have easy words to share it, but that might be okay...

TGIF

When I arrived at my parent's house with the baby yesterday afternoon, I was greeted by a smiling dad who said he was just getting ready for TGIF. Soon, the coffee table was draped in a white table cloth, set with wine glasses stuffed with pretty napkins.

I've never been home for a TGIF before, a tradition that started sometime after I got married. My dad, now retired, spends part of the week researching recipes to test on my family, and sometimes I hear how lovely the tapas were or get to enjoy some really delicious leftovers if I visit on a Saturday.

My dad placed a fancy candlestick on the coffee table and positioned two poinsettias left over from Christmas. The he left for an hour while I spent time with Vecmamma and my baby. He came back with a bunch of daffodils he set in a vase.

Then he got my mother from the bus stop, and there were hellos and kisses and time to change into comfy clothes. Then my dad went into the kitchen, and though I stepped in to get some banana to feed the baby, I didn't stay long because it was clear he was concentrating. He was still there as my mother and I sat around the coffee table later, by candlelight -- he was preparing our mulled wine.

The tapas looked delicious, but I wondered if they would be enough -- cheese in special sauce, marinaded olives, tomatoes with mozzarella and pears. But this was just the first course, my parents explained. We shared, and then my dad disappeared into the kitchen to bring paninis with soft cheese and mushrooms. There was one left over if I wanted it, but one with hot potato salad was enough before dessert. I left to get the baby for bed and then came back to more extra-sweet wine and a fluffy custard torte.

Vecmamma was on the couch near us, eating too and feeding the dog as always. She even gave Zemmy some of her coffee in a bowl, but no one called for her to stop, as we sometimes do when we are willing to raise our voices. This time we rolled our eyes and laughed a bit and called the dog closer, and she came wagging and sniffing the baby's pajamas, and the baby smiled and played with a couch cushion, and everyone was smiling.