a tree tapping party

A week ago, Rory sent out an evite to family and friends who had shown interest in our maple syrup making last year. We were hopeful a dozen or so could make it. On Saturday we had forty people, 23 kids and 17 adults, to our house to help place the taps, feed the chickens, name the kittens and eat lots of pancakes.

Rory explained how to identify maple trees in the middle of winter and showed how we insert the taps and collect the sap. And he built an evaporator and had a fire going all morning to show how we boil down the sap. My dad was in charge of fire safety and thought that we had to wait for those pans to boil down before we could eat pancakes. Hilarious. It was just water...we don't have enough sap yet.

It was cold, with a high of 23. But it was sunny. So we told everyone to dress for success and then I set up lots of tables inside so we could fill up on pancakes, sausage, hot chocolate and coffee. My sister-in-law ran the kitchen and flipped many a pancake. Thank you Lisa!

Since my birthday was last week, my mom brought my traditional bunny cake, the birthday cake I have had every year of my life. And then she had the most brilliant idea to cut the cake and eat it outside (no chocolate crumbs in my carpet!) Genius, mom.

The chickens were fed all morning. Some kids got the cracked corn through the fence and to the chickens. Others just dumped dixie cups of chicken food at their own feet.

The chickens seemed to like all the attention. They even cooperated in the spirit of the day by laying eggs for everyone to see.

The morning was awesome. Rory took groups out to the grove to tap trees, the chickens were fed plenty by every kid that walked by, we had a kitten naming contest (results to come), maple syrup cross words and word finds and fed a lot of people in our sunny room with the sunshine pouring in. Rory and I have lots of ideas like Tree Tapping Day, different times of the year when we can have people out to be a part of what we're up to. This first event set a great precedent.

lately I've been...

watching the snow melt like it's my job.

visiting preschools and deciding not to enroll Ivar next year. we'll do ecfe again and wait until he's four.

celebrating the release of Rory's latest weather software: Live Hail Reports.

picking our very first netflix subscriptions: downton abbey and trekkies.

cutting my kids' hair for the first (and last) time. called my high chair set-up the mini marshmallow barber shop. bribery is alive and well.

remembering to take my vitamins. i've started taking them with chocolate milk. because I never forget to take my chocolate milk.

writing notes not to forget garbage day. we forgot last week. is there anything more deflating than missing garbage day?!!

visiting the kittens multiple times a day. they are darling.

singing Let it Go every time my kids get their drippy noses and dirty fingers close to our brand new couch. holding my breath for the day I find pen and marker on the new chair.

hearing myself say aloud, "if everyone could just push in their chairs after each meal, it would help so much..." and then looking in every corner of our kitchen for my mom. because she always used to say that. and now I do too.

surprise kittens!

On Monday Rory told me to stop feeding the cats so much...they were getting fat. And then we looked closer and decided that Velma might actually be pregnant. We talked about how fun it would be to have kittens. And hoped that later this spring we might have a litter.

Well. This afternoon, three days after this conversation, we bundled the kids up to go tap a few of our maple trees. I stepped into the garage and heard teeny little meows. I looked in the cat bed and nearly fell over.

Rory said I ran in the house repeating a high pitched, "Kittens! Kittens!" until he finally came out to see why I was going crazy. Turns out, I wasn't feeding the cats too much. Velma was just great with kittens.

At the moment there are only two. I'm not sure if more come later or not. Turns out I don't know a whole lot about cat birth. But I did know enough about birth to give Velma some water and food and then some space.

We let the kids watch for a while before we stopped using the garage door. And now I just pop my head out every few hours to make sure everyone is still okay. The last time I checked I found the cats together in the bed. Vernon with his paw lovingly on Velma. They're so sweet!

ECFE

I joined Early Childhood Family Education this semester after a friend invited me to join the class she and her daughters were a part of. I was unsure at first because I had tried ECFE before. Ivar was only two months old, and I found myself bundling us up in the middle of winter to join other sleep deprived mothers. It is an awesome concept, but the room we met it had no actual seating, just low riding beach chairs, the kind that keep you two inches off the ground. I remember really struggling to get down that low while holding Ivar, and not being skilled enough at nursing to really work the "under the blanket" feeding while sitting on the floor with no boppy or arm rests. I remember my back hurt, Ivar's mood was hit or miss and I felt judged for not having Ivar sleep in bed with us (that's not an ECFE thing...just the particular mix of mom's in my class).

So I dropped out after a few weeks. It was just too exhausting.

But this time around I hit the jackpot. Not only do they have adult size chairs, but I landed in a group of mom's that I admire and respect. No one is trying to say the right thing. In fact, there are almost always a few tears shed. I call it my favorite coffee-date/play-date/therapy-session of my week.

We start out playing with our kids and this is a bit hilarious. Ivar always goes for this train. Always. And that's fine. Except that there is always a fun craft table set up with some creative thing to make. And no matter what I say to entice Ivar towards the glitter and glue fun, he will not leave his train. The teacher told me once, "Mom's can make a craft without their kid if they want..." But I have my pride you know.

Then we have circle time and read a story. And then the mom's go into another room for coffee and a parenting lesson/conversation while the kids play some more. Elsie is in another room for sibling care the whole time, and loves it in there. They feed her cheerios the entire time and if I say "we're going to ecfe!" she'll tell me, "Crakah!"

All this to say, if you're a mom looking for other mom's, try ecfe. It's not always going to be a good fit. But if you hit the jackpot you'll be so glad you tried it out.

take ten

My Aunt Louie is the queen of cleaning games. Her sewing room at her house is infamous for being a bit untidy. It's her dumping ground and the room that gets the door closed when company comes over. But when she's ready to hit it she sets a timer and tries to Beat The Clock. She'll work like crazy on one counter or table top for say, fifteen minutes, getting it cleared before the timer buzzes.

She has played this game as long as I can remember, and even with no kids living at home, she still plays the game. It's a good one. And with that said, I'd like to dedicate this post to my Aunt Louie.

I've created a cleaning game of my own. It's called Take Ten. I mostly play it on my Clutter Counter. The counter top that serves as the catch all for EVERYTHING in our lives. In the deepest part of my heart I want this counter clear all the time. But it never is.

So I started playing this game, Take Ten. In one round I try to take and put away ten items as fast as I can. The ten items go quickly: a hair band, an envelope to throw away, reading materials to put together for a later time, a marker to put back in the junk drawer.

I only do ten items at a time. So the counter isn't overwhelming this way. Once I've made it to ten, I walk away, and will Take Ten the next time I'm passing through.

I was telling my sister about this game over the phone and how clever it is. She told me Aunt Louie would be proud. And then I confided in her, "Annika. I have been taking pictures of the clutter counter for days now, getting it ready for the "after" shot on my blog. But I can't keep up. I add ten as fast as I take ten." It gave us a hard laugh and we decided the only silver lining is that it isn't as bad as if I had never removed ten items at a time.

But I think I have sort of resolved that this counter top is the equivalent to Aunt Louie's sewing room. It's going to be a work-in-progress as long as we call this house our home. I'll still play my clever game, but when you come to my house and it's covered in random junk, you'll know at least I'm trying...