easter finale

easter sunday marked the end of what was a very full, wonderfully eventful month: just full of celebration. there were so many ups - and though i'd prefer not to admit it, just as many downs. 

making magic was absolutely exhausting; made possible with the help and encouragement of family and fantastic new friends - but exhausting all the same. 

i would be remiss to say that magic march was also full of gratitude. 

i'll take luck any time and any where i can find it. and i choose to give in to bliss - even if it's to suspend my own disbelief that the easter bunny really comes to our house just to steal all our eggs and hide them so my kids can find them.

i hope you had a wonderful easter weekend and that you've managed to enjoy some of your own brand of magic this past month.

knit parade: smitten

i had a love-hate-love-ambivalent-love-love-love relationship with this shawl since i began making it.

i didn't realize i bought 2 different colourways of the same yarn, you see. they looked similar enough at lettuce knit when i saw the yarn. but then i was kniteratti star struck and a bit too excitable in the toronto heat.

and then as i was knitting, i felt there was too much green. i thought the colours were too fall. and it's spring. but i should've had this knit for fall. or at least when it was coldest.

because now it's spring and i think it's too warm to hang out in a shawl.

but now that it's all done, i love love love it. it's the biggest shawl i've ever made.

i've always been a scarf and blanket person. as in, i have loved scarves and blankets as separate entities for their own purposes for ever. and what is a shawl but a wearable blanket?

i babble because it's late and i really should be doing something other than professing my love for my new shawl on my blog.

the pattern: mara (free!)
the yarn: blue moon fibre arts socks that rock in medium weight, striped in 2 colourways so as to not showcase my failure to buy 2 yarns of the same colourway.

magic march flashback: 14 years ago

in and around the early 2000's, the wife and i looked like this:

ha!

in those days, we partied far to late, watched a ton of movies, somehow made it through our university years, and slept in. we  took ourselves waaaaay to seriously for a couple of goofballs.

these days, we mostly look like this:

still goofballs. but we really miss the sleeping in. though a different form  partying - and movie-watching, for that matter,  still factor into our days with our babes.

happy anniversary darling wife. we worked through another crazy year - more connected than ever, i daresay, even through the business and busy-ness of our days. i'm so incredibly lucky to have such a thoughtful, supportive, forgiving, partner in parenthood and life. laughing with you and holding your hand - even for what feels like only a few seconds (and let's face it, sometimes it's all we get), is still the best part of my day. 18 years later.


all my love.

magic march

i love march.

there. i said it. i know march is  unabashedly wet in this here parts (and notoriously unpredictable in ontario, where i lived most of my life) but for me, march and magic are synonymous.

my wife and i got together on march break. and rather coincidentally (we couldn't have planned it if we tried), both my children were born this month. see? magic.

the wife and i have been working magic for some time now to prepare for our babies' birthdays this month.

and oh, if there's one thing i want to get right as a mom, it's birthdays. my babies' birthdays celebrate multiple anniversaries, after all: the end of our pregnancies, the beginning of our motherhood, the birth of our children, meeting our children for the first time, and the forming of a new family.

birthdays are magical.

i always knew i wanted to be a mother. but i don't think i ever believed it would happen, not really. not until it did. and even as i hold my babes near, stare into their eyes, laugh with them, scold them - i often turn to the wife with a wink, a smile, and a whisper: "peter pan's got kids," pinching myself all the while. my babies' birthdays commemorate so much joy and love, yes. but my sense of gratitude is ever-whelming.

i made so many promises to myself when i became a mother. i have every intention of keeping all of them, as much as is possible. one of those promises was about making sure our babes knew that the day belonged to them. another promise was that whatever was happening in the day or in our lives, that i take a moment to connect with my children: to find an opportunity to look them in the eye, hold them near, and breathe in the memory of their birth.

anyway, when the boy turned 2, we started a tradition of decorating the house for a party of 4. so that when our little celebrant woke up, they would know their birthday was a day more special than all the rest. and then in the grand tradition of lorelai gilmore, we would try to tell them their birth story.

we were going to catch a ferry on the girl's 2nd birthday this past weekend, so my not-so-little, fast-talking, funny, dearest baby girl woke up to this.

best chocolate cake i ever made! thank you alicia paulson!

and then we celebrated all weekend. in victoria, in fact. 

at fisherman's wharf

these seals were so sweet!

we fell in love with beacon hill park

she only takes her backpack off when we force her to. which means at bedtime.

suffice it to say that my baby girl had very little attention span for her birth story.

knitted bear  is the ugliest thing i've ever made. no seriously, the wife had to talk me out of torching it while we were setting up the girl's birthday morning. thankfully,  she tolerates loves it. 

but believe me when i say i replayed the moments before and after her arrival over and over again. 

just minutes in this world

it's impossible that she's more beautiful to us today than the moment we first laid eyes on her. 


but she is. 

and i suppose that's the lesson i learn from my children everyday.

just look at that face. 

2!!!

everything is possible.

the boy's birthday is up next. so we're keeping the decorations up for the rest of magic month. because there is so much more to celebrate (and also because making magic, like birthing, is bloody hard work. which means, of course, we've got to make it last for as long as we can). 

rain dance: outside/inside

i know just how lucky we are. spring thaw is upon us. and yet this is precisely the time of year that i get very impatient for warmer, drier weather. 

so we're outside at least once a day, for as long as we can stand the rain. and we're inside the rest of the time, finding ways keep to anticipation at bay while we fight the stir crazy.

after all, spring means change. and change is constant. change is imminent. change is chomping at the bit, biding its time, quietly, faithfully - until the ringing shot throws us into the chaos of the unknown.

which means staying present is the name of the game. and rain dancing - outside and inside - is how we play.