This stuff is so tasty yummo good! I threw caution to the wind this weekend and made a new dal recipe! It's super easy, so fast (under an hour!) and really different from my dal. Ghee, cumin seeds, cayenne, and a chile pepper combine deliciously to make a slightly spicy and totally comfort-food-worthy snowy day soup.
Get the recipe on GirlsGoneChild here.
I ate mine with Fred's home made rye sourdough slathered with butter and toaster-ovened parmesan cheese. Yum!

It feels like overnight my tiny newborn son has turned into a kid. The last few days have felt so surreal, I'm wondering how I've gotten to this point and where 5 has managed to learn so many things when all we do is play and sew and do housework?! (I know, I know, play and observation are how they learn, but it's still hard to believe!)

I gave him his first "real" haircut this weekend (read- cut more than just the stuff in his eyes, not professional) and all of a sudden I noticed all of these other big kid things he was doing.
Like copying my faces, kind of.
He makes the sounds for 5 different animals: dog, elephant, horse, lion, bear, oh my!
We skyped with my parents today and after we hung up, he blew them a kiss. That was new.
He's been shaking his head no for a long time, but now nodding yes is an option too.

I feel like I was finally really getting a hang of this baby stuff and now I don't have one anymore. I've been having one-sided conversations for so long I don't know what to do when 5 actually answers me.
As exciting as it is to have all these momentous changes taking place, I will admit I'm a little bit terrified. This is when we scar him for life, right? Some tiny thing we say or do at this point in his life is what he'll be telling his therapist 30 years from now. Mindful parenting was so much easier when he wasn't obviously copying every single thing I do.

Okay, panic valve opened, pressure released. I keep having to remind myself that 5 has shown me very clearly what he needs from me every single day since he was born. He still is, I just have to pay attention. This morning, I had clearly spent too much time editing photos on the computer because 5 walked over, took my hand, and pulled me out of the chair. We sat on the rug, he got out toys and we played. And when he was done with that, he grabbed a book and climbed in my lap. And when we were done reading books, I had fulfilled the mama-time need and he went off to play some music on his own and I went back to editing photos.
It's so easy for me to fall out of each present moment that flows easily from one to the next and into being overwhelmed by what each moment adds up to over the course of a childhood.

As 5 has started doing so much more and taking a more active role in our daily lives, it becomes so very clear that while each day may seem to plod along, we are buckled securely into a ride that will only continue to gain momentum.
It's exhilarating, and terrifying, and I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the whole world, ever.

First off, I really appreciated all the lovely comments I received and conversations that have started around my experiment with slightly more philosophical postings!
I thought perhaps Friday would be a good time to round up the remnants of daily goodness going on around here this week.

Looks like a self portrait, eh? Yeah, it's not. 5 is obsessed with the camera, he loves to see the pictures of himself and other babies and always wants to lick the lens. Not sure if we have a budding photographer or a really strange male model on our hands...

Super simple Hide-and-Seek is the. best. game. ever. We can play with just a ski pole hiding one of our faces. Laughs! Joy! Good times.

I finally got this sweet babe proper snow boots that I am capable of putting on his chubby square feet so it's into the snow with us! This was his first time actually playing in the snow. He was into it, let me tell you. I brought him in once his mittens were soaked and he was so mad he kind of ran away from me. He's developed a hilarious Sidestep of Anger that he uses to show me when he is so peeved and it is impossible to keep a straight face...but I try.

Fred got new slippers for Christmas. He wore slippers all the time before. I also wear slippers all the time (it's COLD). But these new slippers- they are fascinating. Every day, at some point, 5 pulls them of Dada's feet and takes them all over the house- on his hands, on his feet, pointing with them, handing them to us. It is the daily slipper show. It's nice to have a hobby I guess.

So, it may have been a little while since I have invigorated my Etsy shop with new, fresh, and interesting lovelies, but...
they're coming!
This is but a taste of the new arrivals on the way. We've got hand-printed and designer scrap coasters, fabric necklaces, all kinds of new fused plastic goodies!

More wallets than you can shake a fist at, plus pouches big and small, and billfolds too!

There are some throw pillow darlings looking for a good home as well. Like this one...

And this Marimekko-paired one too. Check the shop in the next few days for so many new pretties!

Perhaps I am alone in this (I don't think so), but ever since I became a mama, I've started paying WAY more attention to media coverage of Hollywood procreation. Mostly, it is infuriating.
Occasionally I read stories that are positive and inspiring about celebrities having natural births and gaining weight and getting stretch marks and breastfeeding etc, but a lot of it is staying skinny, wearing high heels, having elective C-sections, and losing the weight as fast as possible. I think the way the media treats pregnancy and childbirth is pretty deplorable in general, but I really hate the way it's contributed to our society's super skewed perspective of totally natural events.
In an effort to put more positive attitudes out into the world for others to find and draw strength from, I thought I'd share my own experience of baby weight gain and loss.

When I got pregnant, I was 28 years old and had 10 or 15 extra pounds on me. I had some very uncomfortable morning sickness for the first 4 months, so didn't gain more than a few pounds at first. After that passed, I just tried to listen to my body and eat what it was asking for. I started eating both dairy and wheat again (I had been off them for a few years) and I will not lie- my body asked for a lot of ice cream. But also sweet potatoes and pancakes and broccoli. I ate a balanced diet with plenty of veggies and fiber and good stuff, but I didn't deny myself anything in an effort to not gain weight. I also drank a lot a lot of water.

At the end of 42 weeks, I had gained just under 30 pounds. I would totally show you pictures of this too, but apparently I did not enjoy having my picture taken then....

For the first 2 months, I was tired. I didn't exercise (unless you count walking up the stairs) and I took a lot of naps. I did not worry about losing weight, partly because I could see my stomach slowly un-distend each week. I wore my pajamas and if I needed to not wear pajamas I wore maternity jeans, with no shame.

After 2 months, I did some type of exercise once a week, but mostly I carried my baby around, ate whatever I wanted, drank tons of water, and breastfed like it was an olympic sport. This continued until between 6 and 9 months postpartum when I had nearly lost all the babyweight and I decided I wanted to do a little something to help it along.
I gave up ice cream.
Not anything else, not candy, not cake, not sugar or desserts of any kind. Just ice cream.

Now, 14 months and change postpartum, I weigh between 5 and 10 pounds less than I did when I got pregnant (which is still 5-10 pounds extra for those of you counting along at home). I go cross country skiing once or twice a week, but mostly I carry my 24 pound baby around, eat mostly what I want, and breastfeed.

I think my main point is that we should all be a little bit gentler with ourselves. When Posh Spice loses her baby weight in 5 weeks (or something else equally ridiculous), we should not feel bad that we still have soft, wiggly bellies, maybe we should feel sad for Posh that she spends so much time doing pilates or whatever and not getting to snuggle her sweet new baby.
Also, it is my genuine opinion that in order to raise children that do not have skewed ideas about food and weight and bodies, we have to do our super very best to be easy and gentle and balanced about our own food and weight and bodies.

Hi folks! I know this space is usually quiet here on Tuesdays, but I've been toying with the idea of putting up some snack-sized posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Feel free to let me know what you think!
Today's is actually a snack. A big snack, and not healthy, but delicious and excellent for sharing!

I think we're all probably familiar with the occasional need for cake. Especially chocolate cake with salty caramel goodness! And who could turn down such a cake that can be made in single servings in under 10 minutes? Not me, that's who.
I've tried a number of these microwaveable mug cake recipes and this one is by far the best in terms of flavor, texture, and overall cake-iness.
You can find the recipe here. Top with whipped cream at your own risk.

For bonus points, make the caramels from scratch with this recipe from a pretty cool life. Also made in the microwave in under 10 minutes!

See you tomorrow for something a little more balanced (maybe)!

I am the first to admit that I'm not what you might call a philosopher. Usually pragmatic, occasionally whimsical, always sassy, but deep? Not so much.
This week, however, in the interest of de-cluttering my life and my mind, I'm going to share some things that have been weighing on my mind of late.

As a child of the '80s, I have been marinated in advertising my whole entire life. Even my granola-eating, PBS-watching parents couldn't protect me from the insidious mind-skewing effects of marketing.
An example: I recently read a blog post recommending unitards as excellent postpartum wardrobe staples. This does not apply to me at all- 1) my baby is over a year old, I'm not really "postpartum" anymore 2) I already own a unitard, and 3) unitards are not very breastfeeding-friendly, at least not how 5 does it. And yet I found myself on the American Apparel website (which I don't even like) shopping for unitards!!
No, I didn't buy one, I snapped out of it in time, but still.

So, today, I want to ramble on a bit about what I like to refer to as the difference between a friendly-word-of-mouth-type-gentle-endorsement and marketing. Especially in the age of the internet, with places like the blogosphere (I know, I try not to say such words...) sometimes the line is a little blurry.

Most of the blogs I read are full of gorgeous photography. Beautiful images portraying lives that we should all be so lucky to lead and people that we should all be so lucky to be. Clean, attractive, well-dressed children parented by handsome, fit, well-groomed mothers and fathers who never yell at each other and grow their own organic produce. You know what I mean.
Each blog post is like a little advertisement for how much better our lives would be if we could just manage to be a little more awesome.
What I really appreciate about most of these bloggers though, is that occasionally (and really, that's all we need) we get to see a little crack in the facade, a tiny window into the crying and the dirty dishes and unwashed hair that lets us see enough to know that we are not so different after all. They admit that the internet version of their lives is a glossier, more glamorous version of their lives. Not meant to deceive, merely to inspire - both us and them to be these people who are living creative, fully-engaged, mindful lives.

Advertising is full of people who are not even people anymore after all the airbrushing and Photoshopping. We could never be the "people" who use these products because nobody actually looks like that. These marketers are selling us images that inspire us not to be better versions of ourselves, but to be constantly disappointed by our inability to attain such impossible perfection (and therefore awesome consumers).

I could go on and on about advertising, media, blah blah blah, but my point is really that I enjoy gentle endorsements from real people to be and do real things that just happen to look really good in photographs and I do not like "advertising".

The connection between the photos and the words is  probably super obvious, but, just in case-
I was taking these pictures the other day while we were out skiing and I was thinking to myself that these photos were representative of the best possible skiing experience. Just looking at these photos, you can't tell that there are snot drips and wedgies whining about steep hills (yeah, that's me), it just looks like a serene winter wonderland populated by hardy winterized folk who chop their own wood and wax their own skis (I don't). But even if you are looking at them and thinking these things, you probably still know in the back of your mind that cold wind makes noses run and playing outside in winter will keep your more insulated parts feeling cold to the touch for hours. So you would probably not be disappointed if you then went for a ski and were not ready to join the Swedish Bikini Team.

I have been working on a little something here and there for a few weeks now. You may be able to tell from the picture that it's a rug. And a ball. The ball is eventually going to be the rest of the rug. It's not done yet. I love having a project that I can just whittle away at whenever I have even a minute or two.

I love, and I mean love, braided rugs, but I didn't think I'd ever make one myself because if handsewing is involved, it's just not going to happen. That all changed over Christmas when I saw the braided rug my Sister-In-Law had in her basement. It was braided, but instead of hand sewing the rows together, it had been machine stitched with a wide zig zag. Ha! I thought to myself (slightly fiendishly) I know I just finished a rug for our house and our house is carpeted, but we totally need another one right now.

So, I pulled out the pretty substantial amount of Tshirt yarn I already had made from a previous failed experiment and got to braiding. It was lovely, I had the braid safety-pinned to the top of our couch and whenever I had a few minutes I'd just braid a yard or two. It was so fun peeking over the edge and seeing the growing pile of beautiful braid behind the couch.
I finally ran out of yarn yesterday and took it all to the machine. 5 even let me get a fair amount done while he carried the basketball-sized ball of braid around the house leaving a little braid trail behind him.
As you can see, it's still quite small, but it is definitely already well-loved.

Apparently after all that precise, pattern-following sewing I just did, I really needed to do some fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sewing. So sorry for the distracting background, my assistant was feeling particularly inflexible...
A few weeks ago I picked up this super cute shirt dress that fit almost perfectly. I decided to bring it home and use it as a guide to make some that were a bit longer and (ahem) a bit roomier in the hips. Seems simple enough, right? There weren't even any darts for crying out loud!
So I had a whole two hours to myself one night and just went for it. I had to re-cut only twice for the body, but the sleeves were an unmitigated disaster. Honestly, they're still kinda wonky, but not so much so that I didn't wear it today.
I have two more big men's shirts just waiting for me to wrap my head around this project properly.

This father/son art center trip resulted in the wondrous discovery of the new kid's entrance to their Youth Gallery! I remember being absolutely delighted by little doors, little anything for little people as a child. 5 seems to have had the same response. I can't wait to go in and see all the new work they've done, I just love our local art center!

This, my friend, is evidence, nay, photographic proof, of "helping". 5 now helps to put his own clothes away. Why do I keep his clothes in a pile at the bottom of the stairs? Hmm, that is an excellent question...
We fold his clothes downstairs and instead of throwing them wildly about, Five has started grabbing (too big of) an armload and walking it over to the stairs before realizing that he cannot possibly carry said clothes up the stairs and throws them as far up as possible.
I am so thrilled to have such a helper. Even if it makes more work for me.

Patterns, that is... I did some SEWING FOR MYSELF this weekend. Namely, the Lola Dress from Victory Patterns. I used 2 XL sweatshirts and have enough pieces leftover to make at least 1 sweatshirt for 5 (yippee! more matchy matching!)
i was pretty pleased with the pattern and instructions, of course I changed a few small things... the one issue I had was that the sleeves were crazy tight, like, I had to cut the ribbing off tight. Not sure what's up with that. I mean, yeah, I have a little meat on my arms, but there is no way a grown up arm would've fit in there. That's fine, I like short sleeves anyway.

Check out all that fancy detailing, yo! Big big big pockets- they wrap around to the back. The sweet curved waistline and fitted bust seams- have you ever seen such a fancy sweatshirt dress? I actually modified the construction to reduce some fanciness and increase the easiness. I do love easiness...

Did not get quite as much done as planned this weekend because somebody (who will remain nameless) was being terribly cute and playful and we had to have dance parties and snugglefests. I think I'll manage.