First Face Painting

The Urban Farm

When I was growing up, summer meant gardens. I have lots of memories of playing in gardens, and of picking beans, canning beans, picking corn, putting up corn, picking tomatoes, canning tomatoes, etc. I liked most of the vegetables my parents and grandparents grew--beans, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, okra, squash--but by the end of the summer, everyone would be sick of vegetables. You couldn't visit anyone without having them press a bag of produce into your hands as you said good-bye, and you didn't let anyone who came to your house leave without a bag from your own garden. 

I have lots of memories of driving down from the mountain from my grandparents house with my mom saying, "What are we going to do with all this corn!" (Or all these tomatoes, or all this okra..)

Now, in the city and many miles away, we are in the same situation here in Denver.

 

This is a very small portion of the produce we are dealing with around here these days. Mainly, we have too many tomatoes. We planted 19 plants, which you see in baby form at the bottom of this post. 

Here they are in early August. I was trying to take a picture of the sunflower; the tomatoes are the large mass of bushes in the center of the picture. They are as messy and matted as they look. 

This is from a little earlier in the summer, when you could still walk between the plants. Now, trying to pick tomatoes is like trekking into the jungle. We currently have 4 large bowl of tomatoes on our counter, and I use tomatoes as part of every single meal. I am also a tomato hawker. I have stopped short of asking strangers who pass our house if they want to pick some tomatoes, but I have seriously considered putting up a sign that says "Free tomatoes--pick your own."

They are delicious. We planted several kinds: some larger orange and red plums that are good for fresh tomato sauce, and lots of cherries, red, orange, and two types of what Amelia calls "little yellow tomatoes." Last summer she ate them by the pound. She likes them this year too.

 

Speaking of the sunflower, here is is. The baby sunflower is also in the linked post above.

 It's very tall now.

And below are some shots of the garden, produce, and Amelia from July.

Discussing the crops.

We tried potatoes for the first time this year, in the bowl at the back of the line of veggies. We got enough for 4 or 5 batches of hash browns.

Large zucchini

 

I don't know what you see here, but Dean and I snickered when he brought this in. Amelia, whose mind is more innocent, pointed out that this is two squash growing together.

The garden has been a lot of work. We are busy all evening on the urban homestead--I forgot to even mention the community garden, half a block down the street, where we have corn and squash growing, and where we grew basil (already harvested and made into pesto) and edemame (a kind of soybean you can boil and eat from the shell, which is fun for Amelia). And the backyard, where we had early radishes, sugar snap peas,  and arugula, and where we've planted another round of peas, radishes, and spinach for the fall. Whew. But it's really cool what we've (mostly Dean) managed to do with a small amount of space. And most of all, I am glad to have the summer garden part of my childhood back in my life.

First Day of Preschool

Amelia was very "exciting." This is how she says she is excited.

We have visited the school, a small Montessori-style school only 4 blocks from our house, many times over the past couple of months and weeks. Amelia was literally squealing with joy when I told her today was the day she got to stay there without me.

When I dropped her off, she accepted her hug and kiss, then looked at me expectantly. So I left.

"The baby is a big girl!"

That's what Amelia said the other day, about herself. Very true.

A quick list:

Amelia loves to pretend: to be a baby, a zoo animal, a teacher, a "scanner at the museum" (?), and lots of other people and things.

She is into mixed media collage:

I have picked up a lot of beads lately, and we have been through about 30 tubes of glitter glue. Two words: Dollar Tree (for the record, 10 tubes in a package).

She has been on some hikes:

She asks "why?" about  25 times an hour.

And, although there is more I want to say, she is awake.

Some Kings

For something, Amelia says someking: "Mama, I want to tell you someking."

Both tickets and receipts are recickets.

She very seriously refers to her toes as her piggies.

Other than that she is mostly a very grown up speaker. She speaks in long paragraphs. She is asking why. Why is today Thursday? Why is this shirt short-sleeved? And the last week, looking down at the damp rock in her hand: "Mama, I'm licking this. Why am I licking this?"

 In other news, this is a miracle post. I started it on Thursday, May 10, but today, when I HOPE to actually post it, is May 29. (Happy Birthday Udi!) About a month ago, I (very suddenly, with no thinking through) decided I was just done with putting Amelia in her room to nap. It very rarely resulted in actual napping, and very often resulted in stress for me and probably for Amelia too. Her quiet playtime was punctuated with lots of "MAMA WHERE ARE YOU"s and "MAMA CAN YOU HEAR ME"s. I think that for a long time the quiet playtime in her room was good for Amelia, but then it just stopped working. I feel like she was old enough to know I was just leaving her in her room but not old enough to really understand exactly why I wasn't coming when she called, and it didn't feel like the right thing anymore. So we stopped doing it. For awhile, we tried to keep the daily schedule as though it included a nap. I tried having quiet time in Amelia's room with her. I took piles of books to her bed, hoping we could peacefully read and maybe even drift off to sleep, but, um, have I ever met Amelia? The child fights sleep like a superhero. We would read books for 30 minutes or more and then Amelia would jump on the bed. So now we sort of go with the flow. Lots of times if we go on a walk or take a drive Amelia will fall asleep, having what Dr. Sears calls "the moving nap" (for the record, I don't always like Dr. Sears, but this is a very reassuring article from him that I read about dropping naps). Sometimes I can wheel her stroller in the house and still get a few things done. Sometimes I cannot. Overall, though, I am more relaxed now than when the idea of a daily nap ruled our schedule.

For the record, baby sleep is insane. If I had to do it all over again I am not sure if I would try harder from the beginning to follow some sort of schedule or just be MUCH more relaxed, assuming the baby will sleep when they sleep. For example, right after I stopped putting her in her room to nap, Amelia had a 2-week period of waking up between 4:30 and 5:30 AM. I obsessed over her sleep. Was her bedtime too early? Too late? Was she suddenly napping too much in her stroller or the car? We tried putting her down earlier, later, not letting her nap, going to great lengths to get her to nap, and she kept waking up early. Then one day she didn't. Then the next day we had some visitors who had to make an early flight. One visitor in particular who was pretty vocal. We forgave him because he is under two years old--but the interesting thing is that even with her loud and lovable calling from the bottom of the stairs, Amelia did not wake up early. WTF.

As you can see, Micah and Amelia had so much fun.

So now I am trying to be more relaxed. If she falls asleep during the day, great. If not, we will put her to bed a little early. We have also been occasionally giving her dinner very early, at 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon. Especially on days when she doesn't nap, eating early seems to perk her up and let her enjoy her last couple of waking hours. I will say I have been trying pretty hard for the moving naps, because they are at least a little break, and she does get fussy in the mid-afternoons, and since it is summer and there is lots of park playing, trike riding, and garden watering to be done, it is nice if she can stay up a little later.

This picture gives clues to Amelia's southern roots.


Speaking of gardening, our urban garden is planted and growing. We got a spot in the community garden just half a block down the street too. So far we have harvested radishes and arugula and strawberries (that's the strawberry patch to the right of the trike above.) We planted lettuce but it did not grow. Bad seeds? Soon we should have snap peas too. And we have planted corn, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchini, and peppers, basil and tomatoes. 18 tomato plants, to be exact. And Amelia planted this sunflower, which she started from seed at the Botanic Gardens. The seedling survived her planting it by herself, which included her dropping most of its soil, flooding it with a completely full pitcher of water, and then stepping on it.

 Part of the problem is that she was much more interested in this tiny stroller.

 This is a wider shot of half of the front garden. We do expect the tomatoes to get much taller.

The other half of the front yard. Our neighbors probably think we are pretty strange.

Here are some more Amelia and Micah pics.

What else? It has to be quick because it's getting late in the day--6:15 am already. Haha. Amelia LOVES dolls. She has many dolls and has borrowed two more from her friends. Each one has a name: Rosy (after a doll at Nanny and Popa's house), Tillie (after a girl in our music class), Margaret (after Udi), Emily Elizabeth (after the girl in the Clifford books). For awhile, Rosy was named Harry, after grand-uncle Harry. Sometimes, the doll's names will change, often to Lindsey. Amelia likes to change her name too. She will say, "I'm Emma." Or, "I'm a lizard." Or last night:

Amelia: I'm a dinosaur! (roars)

Me: Oh no! There's a dinosaur after me!

Amelia (roars and runs around the table): After after after after after!

Just a note, the music class we are going to, Music Together, is great. It is so much fun. Amelia loves it and she sings all the time. Also, she had her first dentist appointment. She let the hygienist count her teeth and obliged to look at the instruments but did not get her teeth cleaned. She would not open her mouth for the dentist either. He did not seem to have a way with toddlers. But the hygienist thought her teeth looked good. It was a relief, since tooth brushing is pretty hit or miss around here. We try.

Oh, and to tie up a loose end from a previous post, Amelia has a new cousin! Second cousin, I guess. Her name is Magnolia. She is lovely and I will try to remember to ask her mom if I can put her picture on the blog.

In conclusion, miracle post. Good day to you!
 

Dr. Sanderford

is on call at a toy box near you.

Potty Time

Amelia's morning potty routine has expanded to include lots of friends. For the record, I would say she is definitely fully potty trained and has been for a month or more. She wears diapers at night and that's it (since she is pretty much NOT NAPPING anymore, we don't have to worry about diapers during naptime). She can climb onto and off of the potty herself, using her little stool (heehee, no pun intended). She can pull her pants up and down. She is very independent about deciding when to go and hardly ever has an accident. Just like some kids are naturally good sleepers or nappers (NOT MINE), Amelia was just pretty easy to potty train. This may be the last post labeled "potty training!"