The yard sale rocker and my first knitting pattern. Lacking wood splints and in my usual impatient hurry, I used strips of fabric. We'll see how long it holds. I painted the finished seat with a mix of Elmers and water as fray check. I'll make two cushions and call it done. Not bad for a $4 chair.

Hum, let's see, things..... I have become a project monster. I've been doing. All kinds of things. I've started writing my own knitting patterns, with a eye toward eventually selling them, which obviously involves a ton of knitting. I've caned a chair, quilted some drawer liners for my daughter's new dresser, and generated lots of future knitting pattern ideas. My carved veggies sit painted, varnished, and waiting for me to weave a honeysuckle basket and felt a bean vine to wrap around the handle. These are sideline projects running next to managing our life.

My husband and I had a good laugh this morning as I described what happened before he woke up. I went downstairs and let the dogs out then in, and let the cats out then in, but separately of course. I fed them all, organized some stuff, made my coffee, and after about 30 minutes of futzing around finally settled into the good chair with hot coffee on my left, my new favorite book in the middle, and my computer on my right. At exactly that second, Daisy, our shepherd, presented herself with her enthusiastic need for petting. But I was done with other creature's needs and quietly snapped: "go lie down." Which she promptly did, because she's the Best Dog Ever. A feeling of failure wrapped itself around me and my perfect moment. The opportunity for failure in life is endless.

We have to laugh. We can not do everything perfectly right. We can not love perfectly. Its not possible. You might think you are entitled to one perfect cup of morning coffee. But honestly, you aren't. And that's okay.

The kids ate a watermelon last night. My husband said so. I just blinked at him. So? "A whole watermelon. Dear girl walked into the living room with half a watermelon under her arm and a spoon." When I was a kid we expected to finish a watermelon when it was cut. Not like a rule, but if you open a watermelon you're gonna eat it all, of course. Apparently other people in other parts of the country eat slices of watermelon. I can't even take those little triangles seriously. Getting one triangle of watermelon is like being offered one bite of a fried chicken liver. It is delicious, but it just pisses you off.

Both kids are a lot busier with music these days, playing guitar, studying production, and our singing group starts next week. Apparently holding open space for them to follow their interests results in them following their interests. Who knew?

I've figured out you can use a pasta roller to roll cracker dough. This changes everything. The kids are thrilled. Why are crackers so moving? Maybe they are our original first agricultural food. We had meat, milk, eggs, anything that could be gathered. Then we grew grain, which led to crackers. Crackers put the crack in our mouths and we love them.

My daughter figured out you can put a cup of frozen whole blueberries in a glass, top them with milk, and put the glass the freezer for 15 minutes. The result, after a quick stir, is better than a smoothie, more like soft serve ice cream. And its nothing to make, the essence of simplicity.

I know this mother means well, but part of me really wants to tell her to kiss my grits. My daughter doesn't want to live on her sexist little island. And my son doesn't need his mommy to filter the world for him. He knows how to think for himself and his morality isn't dependent, one way or the other, on pictures of girls. And girls, anyone who tells you its inappropriate for you to be seen without a bra?! Tell 'em: GRITS, bite me!

Feminism: i am one lucky cow* 

*bonus points to Kate for working cows into the title. 

Last night we learned that a couple of girls really want to be friends with another group of girls. Alas, they are too popular to approach. Its too scary. But what's this? The "popular" girls have been secretly wishing to be friends with the first couple of girls, but the first couple seem too popular to approach, and too scary. Ah yes, a very common situation. Worth thinking about some more.

"The idea is that there is a kind of memory in nature. Each kind of thing has a collective memory. So, take a squirrel living in New York now. That squirrel is being influenced by all past squirrels."

I read best in bed. Often with a hand on a book, occasionally with my eyes open. I was thus when Dear Girl walked in to say hello. She was standing at my feet looking at me and the window directly behind my bed. As we were chatting she said, "Look look, a hummingbird is at the window!" I sighed, knowing this was going to require participation. Only an asshole refuses to look at a hummingbird. With a tiny bit of swallowed hostility, I raised my eyes. Because I'm a loving mother, I was also willing to slightly lift my chin. With my face tilted, pointing back at the window, I saw a hummingbird flying in a straight downward line, less than 12 inches from my eyes and getting rapidly closer.

The little bird must have seen red leaves in the glass reflecting from a Dogwood tree across the yard. As she lowered herself, she poked her beak through the mesh window screen, blink blink blink, reaching to taste phantom red flashes of light. I clearly saw her tiny tongue several times, smaller and pointier than her delicate sharp beak. How often do you get to see a hummingbird's tongue?

At the park last week a baby fell asleep in my lap. I held him for over an hour as he slept. I know this sounds unlikely, but I was sitting in a wooden rocking chair. I bring that chair to the park every Thursday. Mothers sit in a circle, an encampment really, and we all bring chairs. The cheapest tattiest and lightest chair I have happens to be a wooden rocker I bought at a yard sale for $10. It was a rare find. I had no idea that rocker would become such an important tool in my life, nor that it might facilitate such a rare gratifying moment.

How are you going to get a baby into your arms in a park, if you don't already have one? And how often is that baby going to go heavy and damp and moosh-up in a relaxed collapsing ball, and fall all the way into that glitterdust place we go when we sleep, while you hold them? I'm always on the lookout for exactly this and I can promise you, it doesn't happen very often at all. His breath wafted up as he slept and I tried not to stare at him too intently while we gently rocked, I tried not to seem quite as obsessive as I felt. Yes, I wanted to eat him up, to steal him, to melt together somewhere safe from time's inexorable arms. What I really wanted was another opportunity to hold my own babies just that way. As we rocked, I remembered concentrating on my own children sleeping in my lap, willing myself to remember every nuance of detail, knowing I would fail. They would grow. The moment would pass. Time holds us suspended at fixed distances.

I am in an overstuffed chair in a dim room with my back to the door, in a place only marginally safe. I am nursing my sleepy son. Shutting out everything else, I force myself to notice everything about him: his weight, his perfect damp smell, his fat warm hands, the brown fringe around the back of his head, his ears, his red mouth, his pull, his lazy foot gently kick-kicking in my hand. My arms are tired, my mind wary, my feelings bottomlessly grateful for this perfect moment.