May 2021

By the time May rolls around, school is a deeply embedded routine, but it is also a countdown of just a few weeks left until we stop the routine for the bliss of summer freedom which lasts long enough to have to relearn the school routine again in the fall.  Totally worth it!  Here the kids are below in clockwise order from top left: the girls and I painting mandalas with q-tips, the girls plugging away at school while waiting at the dentist for Violet, Opal doing her obligatory morning snuggles so that she can face the day (this is equivalent to morning coffee for her - doesn't matter how late you may be running, you don't dare skip the obligatory morning snuggles), Emma doing school outside but needing shade, Lucy setting up the painting trays for us to begin the mandalas, and finally, one of the kid's answered a math problem in a funny to me way - 90 degrees is to right angle as 45 degrees is to _____.  Freezing, of course!

My kids may not always get along, but I do feel like a major perk of homeschooling is that they do mostly play well together.  They are each other's best friends and I know that having four girls close in age isn't always the homeschool scenario, so for that I feel very lucky.  Here they are below, enjoying each other's company.

Spring weather means outside fort season, and Charlie couldn't be happier.  I think he believes the forts are built just for him.  In the center photo below, Violet was starting to overheat so designed her own seat that also created shade.  Early May in Michigan is a tricky time where the weather is warm but the trees are not yet filled out enough to give any shade.  I love the bottom photo below where I found the girls all reading in their fort outside but in homemade shade.

May is a time when we are all just happy to be outside and every activity in the backyard is still new and exciting as we had the entire winter to miss it.  In clockwise order below: Will and the three oldest practicing physics, Violet's hair after a dandelion puff war with her sisters (this is actually the incident that showed us just how allergic Violet is to dandelions and sadly she won't be able to have any more dandelion wars where you take the stems gone to seed and blow them like bubbles or swing them like swords at your sisters), the entire family testing out physics at the playground at the end of our street, Violet trying to pull two sisters in play cars, and finally, Opal setting up her fairy house for the season.

Someone found a frog in the yard and all the sisters had fun playing with it.  Will and I always feel sorry for the manhandled (or in this case, sister handled) frog and are at the point now where if we find a frog, we take it to safety, far from where the girls may find him.  They are always gentle, but you CAN be too loving.  In the bottom, right hand photo below, Will and the girls are discovering tiny green shoots emerging in our wildflower meadow along our driveway.

I've always wanted to find morel mushrooms in the spring, and this year I finally set out searching for them with the family.  Imagine our excitement and thrill when we found some!!!  Because we wanted to observe mindful harvest practices and I did't know how many morel mushrooms the woods across the street from us produce, we only harvested a few.  I googled how to cook them, which involved a several hour soak in ice water and a lovely sauté in butter and invited my foodie neighbor over to try them with me.  They were absolutely the best mushrooms I have ever tasted, and I appreciated my neighbor's trusting and adventurous spirit as no one in my family would eat them with me.  

Flash forward in the middle of the night, and I woke up with a killer stomach ache and major sweating.  I seriously started worrying that I fed my neighbor and I poison mushrooms so I took several charcoal tablets.  As soon as it was polite to text the next morning, I asked her if she slept okay/felt okay.  She did.  What a relief.  Sadly, I don't think my body will allow me to eat morel mushrooms again.

I continued to plug away at Wildflower Moon this past month, and started the lengthy process of proofing the journal that I wrote.  Who knew that the layout and design process of the journal would be more consuming than actually writing it!  I had many friends and family members proof read it for me and offered amazing editing suggestions and tips to make it the best it could be.  The girls helped me make bracelets and even joined me for a meeting with the printer where they sat in the conference room with me and glimpsed their mom as a boss and not just their mom.  My kids did so good at this meeting and I was so proud of them.  I am so grateful to be a stay at home mom while still being able to be an entrepreneur and I hope that my kids are learning through osmosis what it takes to create and run a business or, even more broadly, how to follow your dreams.

Our suburban farm started to wake up this past month.  In clockwise order from top left below: a failed attempt at zucchini chips, Will replacing the heating element in our oven after it started on fire! (I am so proud of him when he fixes appliances with YouTube videos, but this one had me nervous), Will with a giant stack of waffles for him and the kids and an egg-free applesauce pancake platter for me, Will making an outdoor nesting box for our chickens, as the they had been fighting over the nesting boxes in the coop, a giant tray of apple bars, and individual stews and several trays of banana bread for the freezer.

The girls hand me downs were getting out of hand in our basement, and so Will and I organized them out this past month.  This is never fun and always time consuming but we were proud and relieved when it was finished.  I can't imagine having hand me downs for another gender on top of this!  Unfortunately, as we were cleaning up the clothes we discovered that several boxes of books I had been storing for my sister while she was in Europe for a few years were water damaged.  We took the boxes outside to assess the damage and detected mold on the majority of the books.  I felt terrible, as she had trusted me with these books and a lot of them were irreplaceable.  We layed out all of the books on the driveway so that I could text photos to my sister so she could have an inventory of the damage.  We saved the most important books in ziplock bags per her request and bleached the area of the basement where the mold had been growing and threw out the rest.  Throwing out books is one of the worst things for a book-lover like me and my sister to have to do.  Upon further inspection, we realized that our luggage was also moldy, as was some of the kids baby equipment so we tossed those too.  Little did we know that some serious foreshadowing was starting to take place.

We celebrated Violet's 7th birthday at the beginning of the month and the desks were finally all with their new owners now.  In the bottom, left hand photo below, Violet is holding up a popular figurine of a little girl with the number 7 on her dress from the 80s that I had when I was growing up.  I had actually donated mine years before I knew I would have daughters, but my college roommate had saved hers and doesn't have daughters, so gave it to us when Lucy was 7.  It has been passed down through the sisters at each 7th birthday and I love this little full circle tradition.

Violet received some great sister gifts and a few inexpensive gifts from Will and I, since the bulk of our budget was spent on her desk.

Probably her favorite gift was a Little Live Pet Shop fish that swims in water.  And, as I am writing this blog post over eight months later, I can affirm that she still plays with this toy.

Violet spent her birthday playing with her new toys and her sisters and had a delicious brownie topped with cream cheese frosting and strawberries for her birthday dessert.

The next May holiday at our house was Mother's Day.  We spent a quiet day together and despite the rain, took a hike on a newer to us trail at the local metro park.  Will stressed me out as he and Emma mucked through a marsh to dig up a plant called Marsh Marigold for him to transplant in our native rain garden at home.  I'm pretty sure this is illegal, and this gave me anxiety.  See photo in the below, right hand corner of Will and Emma deep in the marsh and in my mind, deep in trouble.

The Marsh Marigold is thriving in our rain garden, but native plant nurseries need to get their act together and offer more varieties of plants so my husband doesn't start having a criminal record.  Will made up for his shenanigans by making me strawberry rhubarb cobbler for dessert.  What can I say, I forgive easily when food is involved.

Later that week the girls and I went over to my parents house to give my mom her Mother's Day gift.  This year we gave her a rhubarb plant (with lots of Liz-tested rhubarb recipes) and helped her plant it.

While we were there, my sister Cate gave the girls' American Dolls a complete makeover.  She had told me where to order new wigs for each of the dolls from, so we brought her four dolls and four new wigs that the girls had fun picking out online.

Not only did she replace their hair, but repainted their faces.  They are absolutely beautiful.  All four girls dolls are hand me downs - one from my youth, two from my sisters, and one that Will's mom had won years ago in a silent auction.  They look like brand new dolls now.  It's hilarious to me to see my sister at work, with doll parts strewn around - kind of creepy but amazing too to see how talented she is.  She is an engineer by day and a doll restorer by night.

Later on in the month we celebrated the May and June birthdays in my family at my parents house.  To ensure COVID safety, we celebrated in the garage.  We played games, ate great food, and opened presents.  In the bottom, left hand photo below Lucy is carrying Violet in a tote bag I got from my parents for my birthday.  Finally, I have a bag big enough to bring all of the accessories we need for a comfortable day at the beach.

My dad, myself, and my brother John all have birthdays within a few weeks of each other.

The photos don't really show it, but it was cold and rainy that day and none of us had dressed warm enough for it.  Memories were made though, and when we finally do get back to celebrating indoors, I'm guessing we will never forget those garage celebrations.

This year I turned 40, and I knew I needed to be in my happy place when that happened.  I booked our favorite place almost a year in advance, and the owner of the cottage was very understanding and blocked out the days for me despite it being Memorial Day weekend.  And he didn't even raise the rate on me either, which is a huge kindness on the first holiday weekend in the summer in northern Michigan.

To me, there is something about turning a milestone birthday that really causes you to take stock in your life and feel sentimental for all you've been through, as well as force you to acknowledge your own mortality.  When Will turned 40, he told me he didn't feel any of this inner turmoil.  Must be nice!  But, that is why we didn't book a trip for his 40th.  The song that got me in an upbeat mood through the day, surround by my favorite people and my favorite scenery was Rob Thomas's song, One Less Day.  My family tolerated this song on repeat only because it was my birthday.  And it was a great reminder that I'll never be as young again as I am today.

This trip did not disappoint, and was a great way to kick off my 40th trip around the sun as well as the summer season.

There is something about this spot in the world that I crave, and Will has told me that he is starting to feel the need to travel to new places, perhaps even leave the state we live in, and I just don't know when that can happen as I need to be Up North in Michigan in the summer.  I don't want to hog our vacation budget or time, but the only compromise I can come up with is traveling to Will's interests in the winter and early spring and maybe one trip in the summer.  But going up north three times a year is what we aim for now, and it is barely enough for me.  I envision some day owning a piece of land up north so that we can come and go at our convenience.  I never thought I would be a person who was content to never go exploring to new places, but here I am, at least at this stage in my life.

I can't remember completely, but I believe the ice cream below was earned from a hike in which this was the bribe to stop the whining.  A win win for all!

Opal is at the age where she loves playgrounds and so we had to stop at a few playgrounds on the trip.  In the top, lefthand photo below, the girls are sitting on a tree branch on our favorite hike that we take yearly photos on, and it is like something that could be found on a playground, only better in my opinion!

Will and the girls were able to hide my birthday presents in the car on the way up north, and so the morning of my birthday was filled with great gifts.

The photo in the top, left hand photo below is a selfie I took as I watched the sun set in my favorite place on earth on my last night in my 39th year.  I told you I was sentimental, and that last sentence proves it.  Will was in the cottage getting the girls ready for bed, so I had some solitude and this time alone could be the best gift he gave me for my 40th.  I cried a few tears, and had a moment with God.  The gratitude that filled me for being there at that moment, and for the gifts I have in my life had me feeling awed and thankful.  I cannot express in words the moment I had here.  I also cried out to God to help make a shift in my life.  For several years now (seven to be exact) I have been getting sicker and sicker for unknown reasons - unable to eat so many foods and the list keeps growing, having anaphylactic reactions to unknown triggers and having chronic exhaustion and doctors coming up with no answers other than it must be in my head.  It is a hopeless feeling to be so sick with no medical reason - it makes you doubt yourself and feel like you will never find relief and that your problems are not valid enough to share with others, since there is no medical thing wrong apparently.  Plus, a feeling of needing to be up north more and just craving a shift to happen in my life, but not knowing what that shift needs to be.  In short, I pleaded to God for a change.  I felt a goose bump raising chill and a feeling in my gut that told me that this change would be one of the hardest challenges of my life thus far, and at this moment, on the eve of my 40th birthday, I felt the strength and readiness rise in me - I was ready.  Bring it.

For months now I have looked back on that moment with the sunset and God, and have wondered if I regret this request.  I do not, even as I write this blog post in retrospect.  All I can say is, be careful that you are ready for what you ask for.

April 2021

Since my last post, life hit me and my family hard.  At first I was still hopeful that I could play catch up on my blog posts, but as life kept getting more challenging, I started falling so far behind on my posts that I contemplated just retiring this blog altogether.  It has been survival mode for quite some time for me and perhaps it is a good sign that I am able to finally sit here at the end of January, 2022, and begin to reflect on all that my family and I have been through this past year.  The struggle isn't over yet, but I feel like I am at the end of my endurance.  I need to find ways to focus on the joys in my life as I shore myself up for the next challenges.  This blog has always been a way for me to digest what life threw at me, and to remind me of all of the blessings in my life.  I started it when I learned that my pregnancy with Luke was filled with uncertainties and bad news.  The blog helped me then, and I'm hoping it helps me now too.  I've missed writing it.  So here I am.  I wish that I could write about the month of April, 2021 with fresh memories and in the moment recaps, but alas, that ship has sailed.  I will do my best to document the photos, and have my kids fill in any details I may have forgotten.  

Here are four of my reasons to keep going, and to process with writing the last year.

I feel sadness that my babies kept growing, even while Will and I were in survival mode, and I feel like I missed savoring it.  I can't believe how much they have all grown, and I hope moving forward to find ways to be more present each day.  What I am learning from survival mode though, is you really do the best you can - there is no other choice.  And we have survived so far, so that is not nothing.  Here are Will and I below, enjoying the bounty of our suburban farm.  Our first asparagus harvest of the season, and an expert grilled sandwich chef.  It always amazes me how much we are able to cook and produce in our relatively small kitchen.  I am always grateful to the two guys who flipped our house for opting for a ceramic cooktop stove and a wide granite ledge before the sink starts.  We utilize every each of that extra space.

In true spring style, some days we were able to explore outside in a light jacket, and other days we had to put on full winter gear.  Shortly after the bottom, lefthand photo of Violet was taken we realized that Violet is very allergic to dandelions!  Who knew!  

April is such a busy month of holidays for us.  We kicked off the holidays with Easter, and dyed our eggs the day before the holiday.

Several eggs got damaged during the boiling process, so we tried to turn the boo-boos into integrated art.  If that isn't a metaphor for a well-lived life, I don't know what is!

We spent Easter just the six of us due to COVID numbers and it was so nice to have nothing to do but relax with the kids all day.

Opal ate her weight in chocolate, Emma and Violet enjoyed building the little Lego sets from their baskets, and Lucy and I tried our hand at some spring-themed macrame kits we had bought earlier in the week.

I love when the weather is actually nice on Easter and we can truly revel in the lovely spring day as the kids search for eggs.

The girls insisted on wearing their nicest spring outfits and all five of us girls wore our floral crowns too.

Next up on the holiday list in April was Emma's 10th birthday.  This year Will and I got each of the three oldest girls their own desk for their birthday.  This was her main present from Will and I, but fortunately the sisters filled in the present gaps with thoughtful and well-picked gifts of their own.

Emma loved the Harry Potter bead art that Opal got her, and spent the afternoon making art that J.K. Rowling would have approved of.  We took a lovely walk to the river and spent a golden hour tossing rocks into the stream and building rafts to see how far they would go.

We had a movie night, complete with appetizer type food in front of the TV while we watched Harriet the Spy.  We had just finished reading the book, so Emma was excited that this lined up with her birthday.  And, if it wasn't for Emma remembering this when I asked her tonight, I would have had no memory of the movie we watched.  

Next up was Lucy's 12th birthday, and she was excited to have her desk revealed as well.  Sisters filled in with great gifts and I think it's safe to say that with three sisters each, they will never have to worry about a lack of presents at holidays.  They do an excellent job picking out exactly what their sisters would love.  I know there is some serious whispering and promising and bold sister-requesting around gift-giving, but for the most part, the presents are still a surprise to them.

Friends of ours surprised Lucy on her birthday with giant balloons that ended up providing some hilarious entertainment when the wind took the balloons on an erratic journey through our yard.  We caught them though, but not without me almost peeing my pants from the laughter.  They gave all three spring birthday sisters a beautiful succulent planter to share as well.

At twelve I am noticing a new level of maturity in Lucy that makes me proud and wistful all at the same time.  She doesn't play with her sisters nearly as much as she used to, but instead prefers solitary art or craft projects and of course, lots of reading.  She still averages a book a day and the books keep getting thicker.

My parents came by for an outside birthday visit this past month, as did my sister who surprised all of the girls with custom sewn doll dresses for their American Girl dolls.  My sister has her own side hustle where she makes exquisite doll dresses - what an amazing aunt for young girls to have!  We also received a box of birthday gifts from our friends in Chicago, which is a great way of keeping the long distance relationship alive for our kids.  Finally, in the bottom, right hand photo below, we met up with my cousin and her two daughters for a delightful day at the park where I swear there was fairy dust and sunshine on us the entire time.  Even almost a year later, that day is crystal clear in my memory.  It was the first time we had seen them since the pandemic started, and it was so good to be together.

Spring weather had us seeing our friends again, but we still had plenty of time indoors with just us.  My mama heart was full when I came across my four girls playing the game of Life together.  It is rare these days when all four sisters play together - and peacefully at that - and so I had to take a photo to document it.  In the top, right hand photo below are the doll outfits my sister sewed for the girls birthdays.  In the bottom right hand photo below, Violet is putting on a play for me.  She may have Will's sense of humor, which is both awe-inspiring and scary.  The bottom two photos on the left were taken by Lucy with a filter added to them and I thought they captured the sweet innocence of my two youngest gals.

We plugged along with school, which is always hard in a month with three major holidays.  Lucy got a kick out of her vocabulary word for the week: quarantine.  I'm sure when the book was published a few years ago, they thought this was a word that kids wouldn't know otherwise, but in 2021 it is a word even known by my three year old.  In the bottom, left hand photo below we are eating a picnic dinner at our church after attending an outdoor church service.  We had not been to church at this point in over a year, and Opal was in awe of the congregation's united responses to prayers and the community singing.  Opal is being impacted by this pandemic more than anyone else in our family.  We have yet to discover all of the ways her world view has been affected.

I continued to make progress on my new business, Wildflower Moon.  This past month the products really started coming together.  

I spent too much time on Facebook Marketplace looking for chairs to go with the girls new desks this past month.  I finally found a set of four matching chairs and knew they were the ones for us.  I had them painted by the same woman who refinished the girls desks for me, and Will and I tackled the reupholstery.

This past month we came down with fevers that lasted for 10 days, coupled with severe exhaustion.  The only person who didn't have a fever was Lucy.  I came down with the fever first, and immediately quarantined in my room.  This was hard on the family, and one of the reasons we have been so careful to not get COVID.  Violet is considered higher risk with her inability to sweat and her respiratory track that is affected by ectodermal dysplasia.  On day three of my quarantine, Will came down with a fever and by that afternoon, three out of the four kids (including Violet) had fevers too.  It was scary to know that the germ went through the house, but also a relief to no longer have to be away from my kids.  Opal was having such a hard time and it was breaking my heart that she couldn't understand why I couldn't be with her.  She just kept saying, "I HATE COVID!"  I think we can all relate to that.  Strangely enough though, we took multiple COVID tests - both rapid and PCR - and spaced them out throughout the 10 days of fever and never once did any of us test positive for COVID.  We treated it as COVID, but we never lost taste or smell.  I ended up having an antibody test a few weeks later and that came back negative too.

During our illness, Violet started complaining of a sore rib.  When I inspected her rib, I noticed that it was protruding more than the others.  We never had a cough, so I began to worry what it could mean.  We took her to the pediatrician once we were fever free and were promptly sent for x-rays.  After the regular x-rays were taken, we were called that afternoon due to an abnormality found and sent straight away to a bigger hospital specializing in pediatrics.  This was very scary, and we had a few days of wait time before we knew what was going on.  

Come to find out, Violet has extra cartilage in the rib that was protruding, and the rib is forked at the end.  Who knows what caused it to become sore, as the doctors are certain she has had it all of her life and that it is benign.  The sweet relief of getting this news is inexplainable, and Violet seemed unfazed by all of it.  And to just go to show that God's hand was with us during this time, the doctor who reviewed Violet's final x-ray told us that his wife has the exact same forked rib, and there are no side effects to it other than sometimes a seat belt rubbing it the wrong way.  What are the odds of a first hand experience like that, to help put me at ease and Violet to feel less alone.  I am so proud of the way Violet handles her challenges, and I am so very very grateful that her rib protrusion is just another detail that makes her unique. 

There was a lot packed into the month of April, and writing this post was like riding a bike after time away.  We are off and running now, and I can already feel the processing relief and the gratitude reinforcement from writing this post.  Onwards!