Intense and willful (like mama)

…says “Want some plums?” five times, and each time I answer, “Yes, Daddy’s getting you some,” and she continues to reach for the bag they’re in… and when I’m not looking, her reaching knocks them over onto the floor.

…repeats things over and over when upset — during a timeout, when she doesn’t get the answer she wants, when she’s cranky (i.e. even when the answer IS what she wants). She can’t listen when she’s doing that — nothing can be done to help.

…can have a solid conversation about what you can do when you’re upset, frustrated, or angry, but is rarely able to keep herself from hitting, kicking, and scattering / throwing things.

…invites me to play cooking with her with the kitchen set and table in her room. She brings me a bowl of yogurt, a wooden skittle cookie in a cup, a plate of grapes, and a bottle of milk. After she prays, I start to pretend to drink, and she says No! Not yet! And can’t explain why. I explain that it’s okay — that I can eat my things the way I want, and she can eat hers the way she wants. She can’t even listen to me — just No! No! I eat my cookie, and grapes, and the same reaction. Nothing I do is acceptable to her.

I had to tell her I wasn’t enjoying playing this way, and I went to do something else. She was upset about that, too, of course.

I have to keep trusting Brazelton, Leach, other parents, my own intuitions — it won’t be like this forever; she WILL learn more impulse-control, her emotional and psychological maturity will catch up to her verbal ability — she’s NOT doomed to be a bully or an outcast or anything.

More to life than music

One of the first groups I played with was a sometimes duo, sometimes trio with another dulcimer player, Tom. Once when I was lamenting the end of a gig or rehearsal or jam session or something, he mentioned that there’s more to life than music, and I said, how could you say such a thing?

He explained: If all you do is music, all the time, it will lose its flavor and richness. Life feeds music — so there has to be room in between the music moments for the rest of life.

It’s true with other hobbies, jobs, pastimes, whatever, too.

I have a tendency to burn through on one project until I get it done, but I find that I enjoy that project — and others — if I just work a little on each one here and there, as I feel like it, and not out of any compulsion.

My top project lately has been a sweater. Several years ago I unraveled the commercial sweater it started as — which I’m pretty sure I bought in 8th grade, and which had gotten all stretched out and had some holes. Then sometime this spring I started knitting a new one. Got as far as half the sleeves before I realized it wasn’t going to work, and unraveled it, too. Started yet again, and now I’m nearing the hem (the sleeves come after the hem), and it’s the project I turn to just about whenever I have spare time, because I really want to get it done.

But it’s been more fun to do a few rows here and there, or work on it while listening to a book or watching TV, and take time for other things like making a blanket and a Boppy cover for a baby shower and practicing percussion rudiments on dulcimer or scales and tunes on whistle or flatpicking on the top three strings on guitar. And a little computer time, or lying down time, or reading, or petting the kitty.

I’ve just been talking about the use of spare time — but of course there’s all the rest of life, too, like spending time with Amy and Mark and friends.

Judgments

1. Listened to Look Again by Lisa Scottoline on my way to Kentucky and back and forth to the school each day. I almost turned it off after the first few paragraphs because of the writing style — very ordinary in a purposeful way, covering mundane detail and sometimes stating the obvious. But the story was interesting, and the somewhat silly romance was still romantic. It’s about a single adoptive mom who finds out her adoption was illegal, and that the kid had been kidnapped.

2. I also listened to Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, on my way back home and for two evenings after. I had never read the book — why read a book about burning books? Everyone knows that book-burning is not good. What else could it possibly have to say?

But it’s Ray Bradbury.

It was a little hard to listen to, because it’s hard to tell sometimes when Bradbury is being literal and when his imagery is waxing metaphoric.

It ends up being less about book-burning or censorship, and more about what book-burning represents in the story — a refusal to live below the surface, a refusal to ever consider anything that might be bothersome or problematic, including authentic relationship.

3. Today we went to the lake beach for the first time this season. On our way we stopped at some stores looking for an inflatable ring for Amy — first store had none but we bought some inflatable arm bands, and then we tried another store and found a nice ring in Amy’s favorite color, green. We met our friends at their house, packed some lunch together, and then hit the beach with some other friends.

After a while, especially after seeing another kid borrow her ring, Amy developed an interest in using her ring, and eventually got quite comfortable with it.

She had a few rather intense reactions to kids touching her or touching her things or getting close.

At one point, while another kid was using the ring, I suggested we try the armbands. Well and good. But then a one-year-old had the audacity to touch one — twice — while she was wearing it. She ran from the water to the blanket, managed to get one armband off rather easily, then struggled with the other, crying.

My first thought was to leave her alone. First of all, she was upset and had the right to cry about it. There’s nothing wrong with crying when you’re upset. If she wanted me, she could ask for me. Secondly, she had no trouble removing the first armband, so surely if I leave her alone she’ll eventually figure out the second, and then it will be all her own accomplishment, which is so important at this age.

I think, though, that I underestimated her level of frustration. And I forgot that sometimes, when you’re upset, you run away and keep stiff but you still really want to be pursued and held.

We recovered (and then had some more mini-meltdowns) and overall I think our first day at the beach this season was a success.

Pie

I think this is one of the prettiest pies I’ve made. I cut out a star for the center steam hole, and thought about cutting out crust stars for decorations, then remembered I had some small cookie cutters. No stars, but the little people are cute.

I did the crust differently this time. I grated the frozen butter directly into the pile of flour, and just tossed it around.

The hardest part for me is always adding the ice water — even when I have too much water, it’s almost always crumbly and dry. I had to knead it a little before it would roll out nicely.

The bottom was a little soggy — needed more flour in the filling, and to have the top crust decorated so I could pop it on and get it in the oven immediately.

But the top was actually flaky — very nice surprise for an all-butter crust.

Of course we made pie treats with the extra dough.

Sweater shaping

One of the things I’m wanting to learn with this sweater is how to make it modestly shapely. I’m tired of wearing things that are either baggy everywhere, or that pull too tight across the chest.

So far I’ve used vertical and horizontal bust darts — first a stack of increases near each armpit above the bust, then a set of short rows in the middle, then I’m working on a stack of decreases under. The increases and decreases add width, and the short rows add length.

Chocolate cutout cookies

Made these cookies today.

I used one cup of sugar instead of one and a quarter, which gave it a darker chocolate taste — they’re still plenty sweet.

Let them sit a minute out of the fridge — less likely to crack while rolling them out.

Don’t overbake — they’re best when still a bit soft. Not gooey, just soft.

They’re wonderful broken up in ice cream — would likely be great for dipping in milk, coffee, or hot chocolate — or for dipping in chocolate fondue or coated with melted chocolate. I could see a mint or orange icing being nice, too.

My chair gets a new home

Tonight was the Chairs for Charity gala and auction.

(I wore my fancy dress. It was payment for playing for a boutique fashion show back in Ithaca, pre-baby. I had to remove the existing side panels and replace them with wider ones. I didn’t want to mess with the bottom piece, because it doesn’t have side seams, so I tapered the side panels to meet it — but if I want to wear the dress again I’ll have to take off the bottom piece and add velvet pieces to the ends (back slit) to make its circumference wider — it’s hard to get on, very hard to sit in (even worse getting in or out of the car). I don’t even know if it’s that flattering on me — the neck is too wide. Just that it’s such pretty fabrics and I love the fringe.)

The many many chairs were displayed in the foyer, along the hall, and all around the ballroom where the auction would be held. Here I am with mine.

Friend Andrea, co-chair of the whole event, making some announcements and getting the auction started.

Good sized crowd.

The auctioneer — “Sold!”

My chair with its two main bidders. The lady in green won, but the floral lady regretted not continuing to bid, and they talked it over and the floral lady took it home. The winning bid was $100 or $110.

A few chairs went for over $200 — two were about $500 each. Most went between $50 and $100, and several were under $50.

Random KMW pictures

I spent last week in Kentucky for Kentucky Music Week — took classes in pennywhistle, guitar, and hammered dulcimer during the day, and there were concerts and jams in the evenings. I wrote about it more at my music blog.

I saw this plane on my way there and took pictures of it for Amy.

I took a bunch of videos during my classes, mostly for later review and practice, but didn’t think to get any pictures of or with my teachers and classmates, or concerts, or jams, or anything like that. Oh well.

The last night was the cake walk, Mardi Gras themed, complete with a king and queen. Here are the cakes, decorated by the instructors.

This one is for my friend Rick, because I know you like the tune Squirrel Heads in Gravy. Yes, that’s what tune is on that sheet music behind those decapitated mountain dulcimer playing squirrels in that frying pan.

And here’s the roadkill cake my friend picked when she won.

And the king (Steve Eulberg) and queen (Sue Carpenter).

When I got home, among other things I noticed that Amy had placed one of her stuffed animals and her teapot thusly; evidently the bear needed a drink (or perhaps a container in which to throw up).

I knew I was excited about seeing Mark and Amy again, but I wasn’t prepared for crying speechlessly when I saw and hugged and kissed her.

While I was gone, she and Mark kept track of the days on this little chart I’d made; Amy also did some additional coloring on it.

Miscellany

Amy picked some flowers and asked for a vase to put them in.

Two neighborhood kitties paid a visit. There was much hissing — from our kitty. The outside ones were cautious of her but seemed to want our attention — perhaps they smelled her food.

Sweater progress. I tried spacing the front increases evenly across each increase row, but they still ended up rather stacked — I’m going to rip back that much and stack them on the sides just in front of the armhole instead.

I got a $0.75 bag of largish checkers at the thrift store the other day. They came with what I thought at first glance was a cloth mat, but it was thin cheapie plastic. I happened to have black and red/white striped fabric lying around, so I made my own cloth mat. In my research into quilting (I’m going to attempt to make a quilt for Amy) I learned about strip piecing, and that made this project go so quickly. Now I just need two more red checkers and three more black ones.

When later never comes

Isn’t it interesting how, even when you should know better, it’s so much easier to diagnose and / or solve other people’s problems than your own? Oh well. I’ll leave the post up anyway.

———

I was thinking earlier about my senior year of high school, in AP English.

We had a lot of reading, papers, and projects in that class. Usually there were multiple assignments going on at the same time. I often found myself thinking, when I’m done with this one, than I can do X. But as the deadline for this one approached, another one would be assigned. I realized that, at least in this class, later would never come. If there were things I wanted to do, I would have to make time for them around the assignments.

That idea helped me get through college, too. I found that if I took the time to go for a walk or write a letter or hang with a friend, I’d still get the homework done — but if I tried to do my homework first, it would expand to fill all the time available, and the walks and letters and friends would keep being postponed. Later wouldn’t come. (I’m not recommending this approach to just anyone — just to people who suffer from perfectionism and an overdeveloped sense of obligation.)

I guess it’s the same philosophy that keeps me going with creative projects despite having a toddler in the house. While I don’t have as much time for my projects as I would sometimes like, and while I often have to remind myself to tip the balance back toward Amy, I still find I’m able to take time for things that matter to me, things I enjoy.

I have found that sometimes I do need to wait for later — I don’t think this is the season to be working on another dulcimer CD, for example, or for trying to expand my business (expand! ha — I’ve played one gig all year so far and have no students).

So it seems it’s yet another question of balance and moderation. How to make time for living, for enjoying, in and around the obligations — how to set and follow limits on how much time and energy go into the obligations without doing shoddy work — how to face the problem with grace and faith and hope and with minimal catastrophizing — how to accept (if not embrace) that surprise obligations will always come — what things really would be better postponed, perhaps for years — etc.