My Busy Bee and Other Notes

Wow. That's all there is to say. In the last month and half, my baby Bee* has made such changes I haven't been able to keep up with anything but her. Crawling, standing, cruising, moving everywhere! And the weather has gotten quite nice, so we have also been busy building raised garden beds, planting, and weeding. Baby Bee has eaten her first hunk of dirt--a lovely top soil mix, complete with manure, so you know it was tasty stuff. There is so much to say, too much really. The Blogger Goddesses are able to document each day as it comes, so you get a snapshot of how things have been progressing. When you go a whole month--a small drop in the bucket for the earth, but a huge leap for my child--it is hard to know where to begin.

*Yes, I know her name isn't Bee. But I call her Bug, Doodle Bug, Bugaboo, Mrs. Doodlebees, Baby Bee, Bumble Bee, Sugar Beet, and sometimes it just gets shortened to Bee.

Let's just say she's my busy Bee. A chatterbox like her mom. A new hobby every minute like her dad. She calls me mama. Which is also what she calls every other important person in her life, most especially the cat and dog. Dad is not quite Dada yet. He is more often "Bob." But it is obvious she has a special fondness for this "Bob" fellow, as she takes great pains to poke and prod him awake, prying the pillow off of his head in the morning after she is done nursing. She loves inspecting teeth and mouths, which tickles her maternal grandpa, a dentist, to bits. Her favorite book thus far is "Busy Kitties" and the wide mouthed yowling "orange kitty" is by far her favorite. You can go through the book 1000 times and "orange kitty!" always draws a squeal. Paternal grandparents bought her "My Big Animal Book," which, to her great delight, also features an "orange kitty" that inspires squeals.

At almost 10 months, she is eating a lot of new things. She regularly eats little bits of bread, cheddar cheese, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, blackberries and blueberries, yogurt, cottage cheese, loads of apple-apricot sauce, various purees and new chunky things that pass through our kitchen. I can't wait to see her toddle out to the garden and pick her own peas and carrots.

Early spring in Yakima has been more like spring in Eugene than I would have imagined possible. Misty, rainy days with sun through the clouds. The Yakima River smells strangely like the Willamette--all spicy and earthy. It makes our little family feel like getting our hands dirty and being more connected to the earth. So we are growing--I should say attempting to grow--lettuce, carrots, radishes, garlic, sweet onions, beets and chives. I'm ready to put vine peas up my trellises, and the Mister wants to put in the tomatoes already, though it isn't really quite tomato time according to the experts. Eh, he says, the worst that could happen is that we have to replant. The best is that we get tomatoes earlier and in greater numbers! Can't argue with that logic, I guess.

I'm currently reading the book "Depeletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front." It is full of inspiring, interesting and controversial ideas. The accompanying website can be found here. It does discuss, in part, a very interesting point that my mom and I recently explored--how my generation is starting to look for ways to reconnect with the basics, while her generation tried desperately to find timesaving shortcuts so that they could do it all--work 8 hours, dinner on the table, kids where they need to be, etc. One example, she knows very few people who knit or want to knit. It seems just about everyone I know either knits, tries to knit, or intends to knit someday. (I have a wonderful set of knitting needles yet to make anything but a chain.) Anyway, I liked that portion of the discussion and the question of "women's work" that ensues. Much of the book relies on the assumption that Peak Oil has happened or is about to and that Climate Change is real and ready to change our lives forever. The message is to prepare for a much simpler life. Reduce your debt, invest in making your home warm and comfortable, learn to raise food year round, preserve what food you can, and open your heart to your family and your community--because we are all going to be living in closer quarters and in much harder times, sooner that we'd like. And if it doesn't happen in my lifetime, she believes it will happen to our children. She preaches that the legacy we should leave our kids is how to negotiate this imminent future. Frankly, the book has made me a little paranoid and psychotic--but has me thinking of how to be a better "locavore," which is a good thing. (Do you know how hard it is to find things you want that aren't made in China? Yeesh!)

Thanks to my dear friend Andrea, my favorite Blogger Goddess, I finally became familiar with Anne Lamott's writing. First, I am grateful to have read her stories because she is simply a fantastic writer. Second, she reminds us how easy it is to be grateful for the things we have. The two prayers Ms. Lamott uses most often in her life are: "Help, help, help!" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" That made me giggle. I have found myself saying both of these things so often with my baby Bee. Thankful she didn't make it to the cat litter box in that 10 seconds I was putting a glass in the dishwasher. Praying for help that she stays asleep while the neighbor runs his chainsaw during naptime. So many opportunities for both of these prayers...

Anyway, things have been busy, busy. My goal is to do one or two tasks a day for work, maintain a somewhat clean and orderly kitchen and tv room (the rest of the house is not a priority), and play as much as possible with my Bee. She is a joy, pure and simple.

As my newly tech savvy dad would say when signing off an instant message, "over and out."

(Photos coming soon.)