Back to Basics.

When I was a kid, I loved the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Heck, I still love them.  Little nerdy me thought it was amazing was how resourceful and capable Laura's family were.  They knew how to provide for themselves everything they needed, except for a few tools, fabric, and sugar.  In the middle of nowhere and need a house?  Pa had one built in a couple of weeks.  I loved watching Ma make cheese.  Laura's descriptions are so good, I think you could use her books as a basic pioneer guidebook in a pinch.  

Let's just say that I have a healthy streak of DIY wannabe in me.  Another thing I loved reading as a kid was a Readers' Digest book called "Back to Basics."  Here's a link to the cover I remember. 
It was big collection that told you "How to learn and enjoy traditional American skills."  Published in 1981, it had a two-page spread on just about every subject a back-to-the-land hippie could want:  passive solar building, raising each type of livestock, making maple syrup, wilderness survival, quilting...  It was kind of a visual companion to the "Little House" books.  


I spent hours reading about all these things, but as a nine or ten year old, there wasn't much I could actually do about any of the information.  My Grandma taught me sewing and quilting, I watched Dad make bread once,  and Laural and I tried to do all the steps of the Cat's Cradle game.  But I mostly dreamed of all these things in abstract, and only did them in my head.  


Once I was married, I still had homesteader leanings.  I liked cooking because I like eating.  I'd make bread for us occasionally.  Toby worked all the time, and I was going to school and working at the observatory, so there wasn't much time.  Then I was pregnant with Olivia.  I made two little green and blue plaid and flannel blankets with my mother-in-law's sewing machine.  I didn't know if the baby was a boy or a girl, but I had pink issues at that time.  Everyone thought she was a boy for about a year.


Then I gave up on school for a while, and concentrated on being a stay at home mom.  I made food from scratch, baked bread, made yogurt.  I even made soymilk once, just to see if I could.  I made cheese a few times.  I've always been willing to put in some extra time for food that tastes really good.


I also liked making things, especially for the kids.  I sewed lots of things for them because kids clothes are cute and don't take too much fabric, and sew up quickly.  Plus, if something is a little wonky, it still looks cute on a neverendingly moving child.  I experimented with cloth diapers when Ivy was a baby and Maggie was a toddler.  Lucy and Rebecca and I made diapers on many Hen Days, and they were cute and awesome. 

I tried just about every thing I could think of that would help us save money and be more self-sufficient.  Some of it worked, and some of it didn't.  I was proud of doing things myself, and I felt sad for women who worked all the time and didn't have time do these things to take care of their families.  We had Hollis, then Maggie, then Ivy. 



Enter Damsel In This Dress.  Toby and I started making corsets full-time about four years ago.  Wait, was I a working mom?  That term is ridiculous, by the way.  All moms work.  A LOT.  Anyway, then I was pregnant with Lochlan.  After he was born, I had lots of postpartum depression issues for several months.  I could barely take care of the baby and a minimal amount of chores, and that was it.  


I stopped baking.  I gave away the cloth diapers.  We started eating out sometimes, when I was just too overwhelmed to cook.  I'd look forward to when I was done working so I could do something else productive.  By the time I took care of the baby and kept clothes and dishes washed and everyone was fed, it was past bedtime and I was cranky and done.  We were in survival mode all the time.

I'm declaring war on survival mode.  Step one:  I'm getting back into cloth diapers.  We're trying cotton and wool this time, as the synthetic fabrics were hard to clean in our front-loader and gave the kids rashes.  I'm so tired of my bedroom smelling like stale diapers and throwing away a trash bag full of diapers every week.

Other changes we're trying to make soon:  buying local food, baking bread, sending school lunches, growing a better garden, and getting chickens.  I anticipate this being both stressful and hilarious.  I'll try to post often so you can enjoy the pain.

It's Ivy's Turn...Finally.

I had the best of intentions to make a list of the things Ivy is doing right now, just like I did for Livvie.  Then I thought I didn't want to do them one day apart, even though their birthdays are one day apart.  Then we got busy with a million orders, packing for Utah, Christmas, and whatnot.  Now it's WEEKS later.  Now I'm going to do it.

Here are some memories and some current events.

Little "I:"

You are hilarious.

You have had the most amazing and infectious belly laugh since you were only a few months old.  When I was working for Michelle and had to breastfeed you while wearing a bodice, you laughed like a maniac the whole time because you thought it was funny.

I took you to the bathroom at the grocery store a few days ago, and the dryer was one of the ones that is so strong it makes a divot in the skin on your hands where it is blowing.  You kept putting your face under the airflow and laughing maniacally.  Toby was in line to pay for our food and said that everyone in the store could hear you.  They were all smiling.

You are very maternal, but in odd ways.  You love to play with babies, but not dolls.  Your babies are frogs, dinosaurs, and lizards.  You once attempted to breastfeed a toad.

You love animals.  You've begged us for several months for a pet frog, snake or turtle.  I think you'd be disappointed to find that you couldn't carry any of these creatures around in your pocket all day every day.  When we have water in the tiny pond at the front of our house, you'll spend all day catching and releasing tadpoles.

You have crazy hair.  It is light brown and fine and it is very susceptible to static electricity.  We are only now letting it grow longer because it would get bigger, but not longer.  It was Einstein hair.   Sometimes we brush your hair, sometimes we don't.  It all looks the same in ten minutes anyway.  I feel like it's a visual reminder of who you are.  There was a Far Side cartoon about ways nature says "Do Not Touch."  It's like that.

You are unique.  Very unique.  In our family, the boys look very similar, but with different coloring.  Mag and Liv look very similar, and Cora looks just like they did.  You...don't look like anyone else.  You've got my hair and eye color, but in a pointy little elfin face.  We know you're from the same batch, but you're just Ivy.  We can't pin down who you look like.

You are majorly wiggly.  You can move your skinny little body in ways that seem impossible.  Usually these ways involve being upside-down with your panties showing.  We mark every day by the amount of time it takes before we see Ivy's upside-down bum in the air.  (That sounds creepy, but it's not.  We are working on this before she goes to school.)

You are not shy at all.  Once in the checkout line at the store, you looked at the cashier and chirped "Hi, my name is Ivy, and I'm not a bit afraid of you!"  Even compared to Livvie, you are gregarious.  One of your great-uncles asked to hold you in Utah, probably expecting you to decline like our other kids would have.  Instead, you rocketed into his arms, chatted him up, and unzipped his jacket.  The whole while, he was juggling you like you were a little monkey and he had food hidden on him somewhere.

I can't remember if we invented the term "afflictionate" for you.  You are.  You used to spend hours asking Toby a question, then pinching his lips shut so he couldn't answer you.  You don't snuggle, you waller.  You seem to always be pushing the boundary of the acceptable.  Is that annoying?  What about that?  Is it annoying now? 

You like to mess with people.  Loch, especially.  When we took you for kindergarten screening and they asked you to name the color of different objects, you said:  "I can't say yellow."  You also told them your last name was Doodle.  That's probably our fault, since we call you "Ivy Doodle" all the time.  Michelle's kids call you "Even Ivy."  Your other nicknames are Ivysaurus Rex, Iveline, Ivy Nadel, and Ivy B.  Also, sometimes, "The Evil I."

You are happy almost all the time, and we love the excitement that you bring to our house.  Stay crazy, little girl.