Watch and learn

If I were a chubby little baby (a-hem) I'd watch other people fall down and laugh and I'd think falling could be fun.

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I'd think there'd be someone to chuckle with me over this hilarity of falling. I might even think people fall on purpose for the experience. Over and over.

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I certainly wouldn't confuse falling with failing.

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I might do this and then grow up to be a risk-taker, thrill-seeker, limit-pusher. Or I might just grow into one fantastic individual unafraid to fall, or to fail, in the pursuit of new horizons.

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I dunno.

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This parenting gig might have something to teach me.

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p.s. Did you get a glimpse of that baby's hair?

H-ha-happy (achoo) New Year!

Let's ring in Two Thousand Eleven with our hankies, shall we?

Sal's eating solid foods, having moved directly past puree without passing 'go' nor collecting $200. To tell the truth he lunges at plates of food as though he were born for this eating thing.

We are all working around lingering coughs and colds to try to keep him fed in the manner to which he'd like to become accustomed.

A six-month well-baby appointment looms large this week as he's the only one, well, who's well. So of course it's a perfect time to take him to a waiting room full of more viruses.




Also? We're adopting new animals. JUST LOOK AT THAT CAT! Fifteen pounds of love and affection, right there, thankyouHumaneSociety. He's a little camera shy but is already settling right in chez Suite. Our favorite thing about Chester Cheese is his six-toe-edness. Rumor has it that Ernest Hemingway's cats were also blessed with extra digits. Maybe it'll bring some angst and adventure to my writing.

One can always hope.

I can practically see it now: The Running of the Noses. Toro, El Gato! But instead of dark bars, smoky cafes and exotic locales I'll have the church nursery, the perpetual veterinarian and doctor's office waiting rooms and of course my kitchen, where I'll be rustling up some more food for the babies.

Happy New Year, friends.

A little of this, a little of that

Bonnie Bell. The newest couch kumquat chez Suite.

I'd love to say we were able to remove all those leaves before the snow fell.

But even with an extra "driver" in the family this year, we didn't keep up with the leaves.

It might have had something to do with that little boy. He just turned five months old last week. He says, in this order, "Mama," "Dada," "hi" and "truck." I do like a child with priorities.

And consummate cuteness!
I may not be objective exactly, but he's pretty much the cutest five-month-old ever.
(Did I mention he's cute? And that he said "Mama" first?)

Even daddies in their work boots can be persuaded to take a break
when the baby toes are that delicious.

Seven wonders of the weekend

Salvador is nine days old.

The second planting of corn is finally showing up after birds found nine-tenths of the first planting.

Our weather is 90 degrees of summertime bliss.

Salvador's maternal grandmother and great-grandmother are visiting for the weekend.

Sarah turns double digits on Sunday and we will be at the lake with friends to celebrate.

The raspberries are on.

Mr. Suite learned today he has a new civil engineering and planning project at the gorgeous Oregon coast -- and it will likely require some future weekend site visits.

There are more wonders than seven, by far, in our world. But I have to stop somewhere or I'll be blogging this entire blessed weekend away. I hope yours is wonderful as well.

One week in

I can't seem to find the proper balance between experiencing the moment and recording it.

The newborn sweetness is intoxicating. Time holds its breath while paradoxically flying by.

And then the beginnings of interaction and emerging personality tiptoe in to surreptitiously albeit joyously replace the milk-breath exhilaration and exhaustion of new life.

I know these minutes and days go too quickly; I am determined to memorize them.

Rolling right along, take three

Just kidding!

I'm no longer "rolling along" as the perpetually pregnant blogger, but now debuting as the mother of four gorgeous girls and one beautiful new baby boy.

Thank you for all of your messages and prayers. The Suite family is very, very happy and more than a little awestruck.

Run away with me

Are there even words for a scene like that?

Two weeks ago I ran away to my favorite book hotel and wrote and napped and (book) shopped and then slept some more.

It was very stormy but that's a compelling reason for more napping in the library overlooking the waves.

When I wasn't haunting bookstores or running out of batteries on both laptop and camera I was taking in this view from the Emily Dickinson room, my favorite spot at my home away from home.

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It hasn't escaped my attention that my favorite room is dedicated to the great poet and, um, recluse. I do tend to border on the hermit but I don't think I focus on the morbid nearly so much as did Emily.

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Maybe valuing life for me means taking things slowly, as deliberately as possible with four (nearly five!) children. I know for sure that living my life means a lot of alone time. I find time with a close friend, a loved one, fills that same treasure box. I conversely find my treasure has nothing to do with the ringing of phones nor the steady ping of urgent email.

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So I ran away to the Sylvia Beach Hotel. It's too much. Seriously. I live in a retreat community with gorgeous views and beauty all around and all the solitude that sometimes causes my husband to worry that I'll experience loneliness in my days. I don't need to get away. And yet he affords me these three-day gems a couple of times a year: hours upon hours when words can fill my head without interruption.

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And I do this for myself with not a little guilt. It's hard to accept that I'm worth it. (I can hear my dad now, clicking away in personal-information-overload mode.). I feel compelled to tell y'all that I do this because I think confronting the mommy guilt is a worthwhile exercise. I think we must do that to be the parents we can be. We need to figure out what it is that fills our cups to overflowing, and do that. For me, running away every six months or so makes me fully present with my gorgeous family in our blessed household all the other days of the year.

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Are you a solitude seeker? A party girl? Do you thrive after a mani-pedi with a girlfriend? What do you do, just for you?

In which the manic nesting continues

It dawned on me, quite literally at 5 a.m. yesterday, that I hadn't yet made a quilt for the Suite baby.

So in my typical organized fashion (snork perfectly appropriate here) I settled in at the table with a stack of fabric from my stash. And nary a plan. Of course.

That led to some last-minute, ill-advised changes that had me seam ripping the center block out not once but twice. Laura thought that was fun. Plus it distracted her from the Charlie Chaplin mustache of a cut she suffered in an unfortunate high chair incident.

This afternoon, with precious little light from our perpetually storm-crossed windows, the quilt is done. Fini.

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I wanted to play around with a traditional nine-patch and log cabin, only I've seen these wonky log cabin quilts where the center "hearth" of the block is asymmetrical. Let me tell you, it's not very easy on a girl. That there center block is the third wonky block I pieced and inserted into the quilt. Again, I don't recommend my methods. Casual and balanced is difficult to do at once. For me.

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And a little side note: I must bestow the Husband of the Year award, once again, to Mr. Suite. For valor at the cutting table in pursuit of a piece of Warm and Natural batting. He may have been completely out of his element, making three phone calls to ascertain material width and length and whatnot, but he is completely secure in winning that particular award; he's got it wrapped up for decades yet.

Roses and Cabbage Patches

Today I wanted to say something about the sheer beauty of life. Something about slanting sunshine, scraps of fabric and fallen petals. The reasons I love quilting and gardening and playing in the sandbox with my kids. But I decided it had all been said. Or the words weren't there for me because the breathless joy of it is (shockingly) beyond my vocabulary today.

So I thought I'd introduce you to another of my wonderful neighbors and her new baby. At 10 and a half pounds, he was huge and healthy and gorgeous in the June heat.

The only thing this photo can't do is share with you the new baby scent. Remember when yours used to fall asleep with that much abandon? When your own baby moved from deep-breathing sleep to snorting and chortling starving anger in one breath? Manoman I miss that. Almost enough to forget the sleeplessness of the mommy... almost enough to forget how the advice to sleep when the newborn sleeps seems irrelevant because all you really want to do is watch the baby's eyelashes grow.



Can't you almost feel the delicious weight of that little one on your arm?

I wish Jamie lived a little closer.

Laura