Jolyon

Easter

By in Ada, Jolyon 3 Comments

Easter2014 (4 of 5)

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The big one: Too quick to capture with manual focus. The little one: Watchful, intent. When he realized that chasing his sister around wasn’t the point, he was just as good a finder as she was. And his squeals of glee upon spotting an egg… I’ve folded them into my heart to keep forever.

And yes, he’s wearing a shirt that says “big sister.” I fished it out of the bag of outgrowns so he could wear something spoilable for egg dyeing. And now he doesn’t want to wear anything else. “Pink! Me! Heart!” (There’s one dotting the i.)

We left the egg hunt until late in the day, choir having gobbled the morning. Afterward, a first-of-the-season dinner with the neighbors in their garden. The light is lingering late enough to knit outdoors when the littles are in bed. How I love spring.

Alike

By in Ada, All Set skirts, Jolyon 5 Comments

I always looked down my nose at siblings who wore matching outfits to school when I was a kid. Where was their sense of individuality? Were their parents to blame for this indignity? I’d secretly change in the bushes rather than suffer that oppression, I told myself—not that my parents ever would have suggested their children should dress alike. We wore whatever we pleased as long as it wasn’t unreasonable filthy. And yet I found myself sewing a skirt with a couple of eager onlookers.

“Mama, when you finish your skirt will you make one for me?”

“I will. What color would you like?”

“Purple. Will you make me a purple skirt? With pockets?”

“I’d be glad to.”

“Jolly, you like a purple skirt, too?”

He gave me his most solemn, round-eyed look. “Ja,” he said. (Because apparently he is a German toddler. He can say “yes” in the context of “yeh pleeh!” but it’s always “ja” when he doesn’t stop to think about his manners.) What mother could resist?

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I used Anna Maria Horner’s “All Set” skirt pattern, size 5 for Ada and size 2 for Jolyon. (I didn’t account for the bustle effect of a fat cloth diaper, and neither did Anna Maria, so his is pretty comical in shape.) The fabric is from the talented Rashida Cole (purple) and Lotta Jansdotter (gray). Here are my skirtlings in action:

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Yeah, we need to paint our garage. But it’s so tough to get photos of this fast-moving pair that I didn’t much care what backdrop they picked.

 

 

Off-season

By in Ada, Island, Jolyon, Outside 1 Comment

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Credit for all the photos in this post to my father. Thanks, Dad!

The midwinter shore is one of my favorite landscapes. I wonder if coastal folk all over the world feel this — the summer people retreat, the weekend visitors trudge home to their elsewhere lives, and the beach is starkly itself again: no longer a strip of fire pits and driftwood forts and picnics luring yellow jackets to gorge on sandy watermelon rind and half-eaten hot dogs and warm beer, but an ecosystem once more. Of course the locals savor the warm days as much as the visitors and can be just as careless or careful of their footprint; the summer beach is everybody’s playground. But when the air and the sea are equally cold — and sometimes, it seems, equally damp — a visit to that shifting edge where the land plunges under is an act of desire not to enjoy ourselves but to enjoy the place.

Enjoy it we did. There were loons diving near shore and gulls relishing the rotting delights of the tidelands, and the thin sunlight was welcome, if not warming. I was sorry to have to keep the little ones out of the waves on this occasion; I didn’t think soaking in the winter ocean would aid their recovery from lingering coughs. Jolly was particularly indignant at my interference, but soon busied himself throwing pebbles into the water, investigating the textures of kelp and bladderwrack, and practicing locomotion over this challenging terrain. Ada devoted herself to throwing sticks for the dogs, braving the showers as they shook off the sea and soaking her mittens without regret. (This labrador does retrieve, but is mainly in it for the chance to paddle about and doesn’t attach much importance to the actual hand-off, so if you thought the child looked like the one fetching the stick in that first picture you weren’t far wrong.) Of course there was an inevitable mouthful of sand…

JacksonsBeach114 (3 of 6)… but a few swipes with the back of a woolen glove and all was well again. And the key to happy endings for winter beach outings? Dry pants and wool socks waiting in the car. Steamed milk and Felicity’s pumpkin bread at the bookstore afterward.

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