My labor with Evelyn was slow, gradual, gentle. I breathed or hummed through contractions until late in the night.

Do you want to rest? My midwives asked. Do you want to try to sleep awhile? But I wasn’t tired yet.

My husband held my hands while I shivered and trembled through a lull between contractions. I’m just going to shake the baby out, I joked, but that baby waited, keeping her own time.

The midwives rubbed my feet, held hot gingered cloths to my skin, shimmied a rebozo across my lower back as the minutes swam past, later and later, until the world grew a little fuzzy around the edges, softening. Still the baby waited.

Maybe I had called everyone at the wrong time, or on the wrong day, or to the wrong event. Maybe I was dreaming the whole thing. Two a.m. disappeared, then three a.m. with it.

The last hour, I was finally tired, I would have slept. Instead, Evelyn pressed into the world: Hello, good morning, I am not a dream, I am here. I caught her myself.

She wore her umbilical cord wrapped around her arm like a shawl, and she seemed surprised to find we had waited up for her. We waited. We kept vigil for you, child, we were here as the sun rose to find this womb empty.

It is a time of transformation, or it can be, whether you are moving from self to parent, or from mother to mother of another.

That baby looks up at you as if to say: Who will you be, now that you are my mama?

Yes, who.

Who?

Our Eli has been a little bit… at loose ends, of late. It’s not that he’s bored, exactly, it’s just that this is what happens when you are two and you get a brand-new sister and your mama then becomes far less entertaining than usual because her arms are full of baby. We’ve done this before.

I understand that it will pass, but in the meantime, we need Things To Do. Things that do not involve climbing on mama or yelling about how we are not climbing on mama or emptying out every kleenex box we own. For example.

I’m thinking that one new activity per morning and one per afternoon should get us through the week. Here’s what I have planned:

- Make sensory “dirt” out of baking soda, cocoa, and water.

- Freeze Lego figures (or other figures?) in ice cube trays, then play with them as the ice melts.

- Make no-cook, no-salt play-dough.

- Take indoor toys outside. (Maybe the play kitchen?)

- Make a rainbow salt tray. (Or a rice tray, or even a sugar tray, though that might lead to disaster…)

- Float ice boats in the bathtub.

- Play bean bag games. Except we don’t have any bean bags. So… um… make bean bags, THEN play bean bag games.

- Make + eat popsicles.

- Make a garden-themed sensory tub, with dried black beans for dirt. (Except we will use veggies from the play kitchen. I am not up for crafting cardboard veggies.)

- Hang a canopy in the backyard for outside play.

And then there’s all the usual stuff (duplos, trains, outside play, blocks, taking a walk, reading a book or ten, putting a colander on your head and rocketing to the moon). We can still do all that, in between our other creative endeavors.

Together, that ought to result in a cheerfully busy, absolutely positively un-cranky two-year-old all week long. Right?

Well. It could happen, anyway.

I’ve started a board on Pinterest for toddler play ideas, too. Feel free to join me over there.

Today seems like a good day for another peek at a crafty little project. (That is code for: I may be awake, but I only slept four hours last night and I cannot figure out how to turn on the part of my brain that makes words.)

This garland is hanging over the nature table right now. The flowers are casual and imperfect, which feels like springtime.

And like all the time.

I started with strips of fabric, 18” by 1.5”. I accordion folded the strips—think like paper dolls—then cut petals on one end, looped thread through the other end, and pulled tight to make the flower’s center.

(For complete and logical instructions, see this pinned tutorial. My flowers are just smaller, about 3” across.)

This whole garland is just seven scrappy flowers, strung together on a length of pearl cotton. It’s one afternoon’s worth of trimming and stitching. (Though, okay, it took me a week because I have special training in short attention span-ness and therefore kept forgetting to work on it.)

Which brings us to this next point: most projects at our house are bite-sized, because otherwise they would never get finished. And I like to finish things. I like to experiment, too, and to learn new skills, etcetera, etcetera. Finishing isn’t the only thing.

But it sure is a nice thing, when it happens.

For more on craft supplies, see the Craft Supply Guide. For more craft ideas, follow me on Pinterest. If you have questions, shoot me a comment on Facebook or Twitter.

Life is funny.

Maybe we would live in a cabin in the woods, or in the city, or we would travel the world… [more]

I have a new About page up today, where you’ll find more about me–and I hope you’ll find a little something about you, too. Read the whole thing here.

(There may or may not be a photo of me painting these guys, but it was not taken this week, I promise. I was only three or four months pregnant with Evvie there. Today I am folding laundry and watching Ev make faces in her sleep.)

What I’ve been spending most of my time making. Not up for any awards, but the best thing I’ve made all year ANYWAY.

Hey, guess what? A few of my posts have been nominated for BlogHer’s 2013 Voice of the Year.

Yes, you can nominate your own posts, and yes, I totally did. And if you blog, maybe you should, too.

Whether you’re a writer or an artist or a musician: we want to know what awesome things you do, what amazing things you make. We want to see ourselves reflected in your work, and how will we do that, if we don’t know what you have poured yourself into?

So. Here are a few blog posts. They’re just little things, it’s true, they’re not a book or a movie or gallery collection or, I don’t know, a statue, but here they are, and I made them.

They’re some of my most popular posts from the last year, so, really, it’s like you picked them. I just did the form-filling-out part.

Posts nominated in the Humor Category

- A Day for Popcorn
- The Shoe-Lazy
- Decoding: Does it weigh as much as a duck?
 
Posts nominated in the Heart Category

- Baby Patience
- The Waiting
- Naming the Names
- Scrumptious

If you’re not a member of BlogHer, you can join for free by clicking here. If you blog, or read blogs, or, I don’t know, just like blogs a lot, you might want to. Voices of the Year posts will be honored online and at the annual BlogHer conference in July.

You can see all the nominated posts here. So many good blogging friends have nominated posts (Jen! Christine!) that I know you’ll find vote-worthy words. BlogHer members can vote for as many posts as they like, until May 15. [Voting is now closed.]

And whatever you make: share it with someone today, won’t you?

“She is very, very calm,” our midwife said, while taking Evelyn’s vitals.

“Is she… smiling at me?” our pediatrician asked, while shining a bright light in Evelyn’s eyes.

“Well,” we said. “Um…”

(Insert a big, gummy grin from Evelyn here.)

She is not easily perturbed, this one.

Where she got this patience, I do not know.

Patience does not run in our family. The week she was born, I composed a Facebook status update in my head: Pregnancy insomnia means the end is nigh, RIGHT?

Then I thought I should clarify: The end of the pregnancy, I mean. Not of the world. Nobody freak out.

And add: Also I cannot reach my toenails. That means it’s time, yes?

Except I never posted anything, because I was kind of busy. But busy is not actually the same thing as patient.

When Evelyn was born, she was wiry and strong, like her brother Owen. Her ears were shaped like her sister Abigail’s. Her expressions were her brother Eli’s. And she had her sister Sadie’s wee little bird mouth.

But she doesn’t have Audrey’s dimple, or Sadie’s baby curls, or Abigail’s button nose.

She has a tiny birthmark no one else has. And she has her own patience.

Some things come from us, yes, but she was her own person from the moment she arrived—personality and potential in a seven-pound package—and it isn’t my job to tell her who she is.

We all get to decide how we define ourselves: how much belonging, how much separation.

Family is where we work it out, if we’re lucky.

But I can say this: she is ours, she is one of us, and she is her own separate self, all three at once, now and forever.

Mother’s Day is almost here, but there’s still time to make up a handmade little something.

(There is. There’s time. You can do it!) (And thus ends the pep talk portion of our blog post.)

Here are a couple of simple ideas for a lovely made-by-you gift package.

You will need: felt, ribbon, wrapping (box, bag, or other packaging).

1. Cut out flower shapes. I cut two of each shape, one larger and one smaller. (You can do a quick image search for clip art to use as a stencil, or just cut your own.)

2. Cut two slits in each flower, a little wider than your ribbon.

3. String the ribbon through the bigger flower, then the smaller one.

4. Thread the ribbon back through the smaller flower, then the bigger one.

Tie around your box, or knot the ends of the ribbon to dangle the flowers from a bag or package.

But what’s inside the gift wrap?

A simple DIY gift? But of course.

An energizing grapefruit and mint sugar scrub for her mornings, and a relaxing lavender and chamomile linen spray for winding down in the evening.

My friend Krissa taught me how to make them both–you can get the full tutorial today at More Than Mundane!

And one last treat for you: Labels for your scrub and spray (plus blank ones, for writing your own messages). Click here to download a sheet of labels that can be printed on sticker paper, or printed on regular paper then hole-punched and tied on.

Gift, wrap, label. You’re ready to go!

Because I am pretty sure it’s traditional to start Mother’s Day with a “Look, Mom, I made it myself!” Even if the last time you said that was 1987.

These are ideas I saw here and there (okay, mostly on Pinterest…) and changed up to fit our style, space, and supplies on hand. I hope they inspire you to make a little something, too.

My kids tell me this lamp is a snowman. Do you see it? I didn’t until they pointed it out, but now I can’t un-see it.

Given that we are now in spring, I felt like a little dressing up might be in order. And nothing says “not a snowman” like a beaded star. Right? Maybe? (Here’s a tutorial on how to create the shape.)

I wanted a bigger star, so I didn’t use seed beads. I went with 1/2″ wooden beads and 20 gauge coated craft wire, both of which were just hanging out in my craft supplies. Originally they probably came from Michael’s.

Once my star was made, I grabbed a length of yarn, tied one end to the star, one end to the lampshade, and: done. Ten minutes, tops, and now that lamp’s got an entirely un-snowmanly attitude.

For more on craft supplies, see the Craft Supply Guide. For more craft ideas, follow me on Pinterest. For other questions about crafts, shoot me a comment on Facebook or Twitter.

And the waiting, the waiting is hard. The anticipation! The unpredictability! The waking up in the middle of the night with horrible foot cramps! (Just me?)

But there are other hard things.

You could, say, have children with the stomach flu.

For the second time this month.

You could be up every hour all night, and still get to spend your days alternating between entertaining the toddler—as he is unimpressed with sick siblings—and reminding the older children not to breathe on each other.

Or at each other.

Or near each other.

(Please!)

That would not be waiting, but it would be hard.

Just as a totally theoretical example.

(Okay, that may have been how we spent all of last week.)

There’s always something harder, yes, sure. But even better than remembering that? Remembering that this is the moment you have been given, vomit and all. It doesn’t have to be compared to anything else. It doesn’t need a ranking. Nothing has to be declared the forever-and-always hardest part.

There can be contentment in this moment. There is beauty in accepting it for what it is.

It is time spent close to a middle child before the next transition begins.

It is extra rest for everyone before the baby comes.

It is extra-clean bathrooms and just-washed-again linens and—ooh!—a new air freshener.

Things could always be harder. Things could always be easier. But this is now, and now is a gift.

I was going to write all that at the end of last week, so that I would remember: the waiting isn’t the hardest part.

And then.

The waiting isn’t the hardest part.

But I’m still glad our wait is over.

It may not actually be warm yet, but we are playing outside anyway.

(We play outside in the rain half the time, so this should not be surprising.)

(The kids would argue that we do not play in the rain ENOUGH.)

(Though there is no rain this week either way, so it’s kind of irrelevant.)

(MOVING ON.)

With the (mostly imagined) change in weather, I’ve been wanting to liven up the backyard. But seeing as: 1. We are not so skilled with the gardening kind of livening up; and 2. We are expecting a baby very soon, we decided to start small.

Cheery, but small.

Thus do I give you: stenciled chalk decorations! It’s like sidewalk chalk, but a little more purposeful. It’s also a little like yard design, but less permanent, given the whole “washes right off with water” thing.

Here’s how:

Make a stencil. Using my patented* cut-up-a-manila-folder method, I drew mine freehand and then cut it out. Tracing and cutting out clip art from card stock would also work.

*Not actually patented in any way.

Hand children stencil and chalk. Let them go to town on the backyard fence or patio.

Or on trees. Trees are good, too.

Ten minutes later, your backyard can be looking downright springy! (Just ignore the patchy grass and bare flower beds, if it’s my yard we’re talking about.) Springy!

I like it.