The middlest is 10. The middlest is full of Grace.

When you are the artistic, quiet middle child in a boisterous family your tenth birthday might be an opportunity to take a weekend trip to a favorite bookish getaway at the Oregon Coast. You might take hundreds of pictures on your camera -- architectural details from your four-foot perspective and portraits of your dolls on the beach and funny plants you've never seen and even pictures of your traveling companions to be funny -- and you might pose once or twice for your mom and grandma to take a couple of pictures of you. You might explore the library and the attic of the hotel and eavesdrop on the other guest's conversation and completely dissolve into giggles remembering later what you heard while they thought you were just looking at the ocean.

You might be camera shy but your mom probably took a few pictures of you over your ten completely unique and beautiful years.

Sometimes you might take your mother's breath away.

You are so very brave, my Grace girl. Being in the background, intensely observant and then jumping in with help when your talents or opinions are needed.

 I like the funny stories from when you were "little." I like to remember your finger friends, all ten of them with names and personalities to keep you company on long car rides and while waiting for big sisters' dance and lessons and activities.I like to remember you making your own language with words we'd never heard and I like to remember when you made poetry about rocks. Now you collect rocks and are a bit, um, passionate about geology. Now you concentrate on a puzzle and can't hear a person repeating your name from two feet away, so focused are you.

 You shine.

 On the stage dancing and acting. At the piano. In designing and sewing (remember the ribbon at the fair on your first quilt this past year!) and in perseverance beyond your years.

 You're fun.

 You might have more fun than anyone.

 I like how you can be absolutely silent throughout an entire group activity, for hours. And then when it's over and the crowds are gone you overflow with bubbly observations. I like how you speak up in those groups when someone isn't kind. You are sensitive for others as well as within yourself.

 I like how you redesigned the Tolkein room for the Sylvia Beach Hotel and then painstakingly wrote a letter of suggestion, bordering it with thanks.

 I like how loyal you are to your siblings and your friends.

 I like all these qualities. And I love you.

Now We Are Six, Laura Edition

Holding it together

 I like to use colloquialisms when I am at a loss for words.

 Also I turn to random happy pictures in times of stress.

 All of these from last weekend, when we celebrated Grace's eighth birthday with trips to
Sweet Life, Wildlife Safari and...

 Tolly's. The only 1880s ice cream shop I know.
And, really, why would I need to know another?

The trilliums are just opening here.

Some are broken by the ice and snowstorms we've been experiencing.

Spring, not so sprung.
Me, a bit undone.

This weekend we hosted dear friends for a multiple-kid birthday party.
Heavenly coconut cupcakes I resisted (wheat-free. gah.).
But lasagne was too good to leave alone.

We went to a radical 1980s party for another sweet birthday girl.
The kids looked better than I ever remember looking in the 1980s.

We saw The Hunger Games and it really was as good as the book.

We (the royal we) trenched out the entire backyard
and replaced the water line from pump-house to house-house.
We remembered what a shower is, as opposed to a trickle.

I read a lot of Emily Dickinson.
But it didn't improve my outlook as much as did looking through some happy pictures.

Not so long ago I saw a report that said we, internetbeings, are at risk.
At risk of a form of depression that supposedly springs from
reading (incessantly) about the (maybe trumped-up)
happinesses and successes of others.

Like a year-round Christmas brag letter.

But I beg to differ.

I like the happy.
Post all you like.
I'm reading.
And some days it is holding me up, holding my undone together.

Seussical

 I wish every last one of you could have been with us on our weekend in Portland.

Except... it was kind of nice to just spend time with Mr. Suite. 

 While he indulged my every whim. It was an "as you wish" kind of weekend.

 And even this shopping-averse farmgirl enjoys the city now and then.

Look how thoughtful the fabric store was to make a waiting area for the patient husbands.

 Portland is just so... yummy.

 And quirky and fun.

 Sometimes not my style, but still impressive.

 Oh, Hippo Hardware, how I love you.

You light up my life. (Couldn't resist.)

Between Hawthorne and Sellwood neighborhoods

I took a few dozen inspiration pics for our new old farmhouse. This one has similar lines to ours.

 A teahouse in a caboose! If only the girls could've been there. 

Except, I remember again, it was kind of nice to be alone with my husband.

 Right before we left I had decided to see whether wheat might be contributing to my arthritis symptoms.

But when you're eating at Bread and Ink restaurant, 

Noah's Bagels, Central Bakery, Bijou and Papa Haydn's....

You eat bread.

At least I do.

 No trip to Portland is complete without Powell's.

This time it was so incredibly busy that I didn't get that "home away from home" vibe.

Still I managed to blow the book budget. On both visits to the store.

 We didn't go by train.

Maybe next time. With the children.

 I couldn't resist the house of lolo.

Since we have a lulu of a Lolo of our own.

And this? Just one of many surreptitious shots stolen in Anthropologie.

Love.

Also? Planning to hack it.

Thanks for coming along on a bit of a recap of my romantic weekend away. 

Mr. Suite took photos of omelettes and other important subjects.

I just share the good stuff with you.

One year ago today

And today:

I love to read birth stories and birthday stories and, truly, all kinds of love stories. But today I'm a bit wordless, a bit without the means to tell the story of the beautiful boy who turns one year old tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Salvador.