Happy October!

As I've mentioned in previous years, October 1st is a holiday in our house.  I know what you're thinking--"Um, it's September..."  

Yes, 'tis true, but the chickadees will be with their dad tomorrow visiting with grandparents, so October 1st came a day early this year.  The big fun on this day comes when we open the box of Halloween stuff, largely decorations, and make the house festive.  

Lately Bojey has this absolutely hysterical laugh, and she exploded into howls with each new "funny, funny, funny!" thing that came from the box.  And I do have to say that we've amassed some pretty fun Halloween goodness.

Ninna wasted no time finding the Halloween stickers and immediately got to work making some wall decorations to put next to her bed:

This guy is a new addition this year.  

It's only been seven hours, and I've already been scared to death by him at least 15 times.  I have the memory of a goldfish.  

Want your own?  "Quoth the raven, dollar store."  (Dollarama to be exact.)

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If you're new to Two Chicks and a Hen, check out some of our previous October excitement:

**DIY Skeleton Puzzle Set

**Pumpkins with Wigs

What October traditions do you share with your kiddos?

Sunday Feast

My latest article for Simple Kids went up today.  It's about a new weekly ritual the girls and I created, aptly named "Sunday Feast."  Come on over and read about it!  I'd love to hear about your food-related rituals, either here or there.

Communal Garden Art Gallery

As in previous summers, the girls and I took part in the communal garden this year.  One of our industrious gardeners worked to get us some grants to participate in our borough's annual Arts Week with a project designed to celebrate the joys of public art, gardening, community, and children. 

We photographed the kids all summer in the garden and then voted on our favorite photos, each of which was blown up poster-sized and displayed in the garden alongside gardener-created art.  The kids were quite excited to see their images on display in the gallery:

They were, perhaps, even prouder of their own art on display, weavings in box looms made at the garden one week.  This project has definitely given me some food for thought as far as getting children involved in public art.

Michigan Highlights

When we returned from Michigan almost two weeks ago, we had my brother in tow.  (Actually, to be clear, my brother came to Montreal with us in tow, since he drove us back here in his car.)  We went to a few Montreal attractions (like the Botanical Gardens and Orange Julep), saw Batman (sans my girls), went to a Wordpress conference, and hung out.  I put him to work installing things and assembling things (and walking to the store to buy coffee, and so on) so much that I took to calling him Uncle Jeeves.  He left today, and I'm fairly certain he's ready for a big break from his tenure as Uncle Jeeves (UncJeeves for short...)

I don't think I took a single photo while he was here, but I want to do a little highlight post of our Michigan trip before autumn is upon us and I've moved on to other things.

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EPISODE ONE: MAKER FAIRE DETROIT

Have you ever been to a Maker Faire?  We went to the one in Detroit at the end of July.  That was one of my favorite parts of our trip.  I highly recommend going if you find one in your area.

.We played instruments made from recycling:

We saw things like the BBQ bike.  Yes, there is a coal barbecue attached to this guy's bike.  Yes, this guy is awesome:

Ninna did some old-timey chores like shucking and grinding corn--all while wearing my 1982 Little House on the Prairie-style dress:

My girls absolutely loved riding these clown bikes at the circus exhibit:

Ninna, ever the handcrafter, did small and large scale weaving, spun yarn, made buttons, and more.

We rode this crazy six person bike, and at the risk of sounding like an enormous dork, I'm going to tell you that it was so much fun:

The girls climbed up a few rungs of this 32 foot high climbing structure, complete with a net and pillows at the top for hanging out.  If you look closely, you can see a couple of adults sitting up in the net:

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EPISODE TWO: CIRCUS PARTY

Almost all of my high school best friends got together this summer (with the exception of one friend who was 39 weeks pregnant at the time of our gathering!)   We live in two countries, four states/provinces, and five cities, spanning a distance of thousands of miles.  This was the first time in ten years that this combination of us made it back to Michigan at the same time.  We decided to mark the occasion with a circus-themed party at the lake with our kids.

The hooper among us provided the entertainment.  Check out her site.  She's seriously amazing.  She performed her kid-focused comedy hoop routine:

Two hoops and juggling:

Thanks to pinterest, scrap wood from my parents' garage, scrap fabric from my mom's stash, and my dad (who did 90% of the work), we put together a portable photo booth for the party:

I love that Ninna wore this mask upside down, like a beard:

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EPISODE THREE:  A DAY IN DETROIT

We all know Detroit is a mess, but what a lot of people don't know is that there is still a ton of cool stuff to do in Detroit.  The chicks and I spent the day there with one of my brothers as a tour guide, but I could have easily returned for a couple more days; my to-see and do list is long.

We stopped in at the Guardian Building, one of the most beautiful buildings in the city.  

We took the kids on the People Mover, Detroit's elevated train that, like many other Detroit projects, was left unfinished.  Still, it was an adventure for two girls who are accustomed to an underground train.  They thought we were going to fall off.

The highlight of the day, for me, was a visit to the Heidelberg Project.  There's a lot out there to read about this longstanding (and ongoing) project.  A quick explanation is that for almost thirty years, artist Tyree Guyton has been creating public art on and near Heidelberg Street in Detroit.  These outdoor art installations use both abandoned and inhabited homes and found objects and serve, in part, to draw attention to and transform urban blight.  Walking down Heidelberg Street is like entering a parallel universe.

Ninna signs her name to a house whose owner was offering its exterior as a temporary art project to earn money to have it painted and repaired:

Can you find my chickadees?

This was one of my favorite pieces:

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EPISODE FOUR: UP NORTH

"Up North," for the uninitiated, is where Michiganders go for fun in the summer.  It includes the upper half of the lower peninsula and the entire upper peninsula (or the U.P., as we call it.)  My previously mentioned hooper friend's parents moved up north a few years ago, and they very generously hosted everyone for three days of northern Michigan fun.

Bojey, after catching her first fish:

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EPISODE FIVE: THE LAST FEW DAYS

Ninna learned to play Sorry.  She was proud to get all of her guys home:

And look--she did this!  Even though she didn't make it to the top, I was very proud of her.  I know she had to leave her comfort zone to do this:

I believe I've now broken the rule on how many photos will actually be viewed in a blog post (by about 15), so I shall end.  

And you?  What were the highlights of your summer travels?

Handygirl

I'm not usually very gung-ho about bringing home new toys.  We have more than enough, and I've been trying to de-clutter for a year and a half.

There are, however, exceptions to be made.  I emailed my very handy dad back in the winter asking him if he could help my girls make their own foldable toy ironing board.  True to form, he did not disappoint.

When we arrived in Michigan, he had designed and pre-cut a toy wooden ironing board (and bonus iron.)  One day near the beginning of our trip, he and the girls worked together to make this fabulous new toy.

 (Concentration face.  My favorite.)

I'm trying to convince him to open an Etsy shop when he retires next year.  Good idea, no?

12 Hours on a Train

You want to know what's a great idea?  Start blogging again after a break and then, a few days later, leave town for two weeks.   

Several days ago, the chicks and I returned from our yearly Michigan trip (2010, 2011).  We go to visit family and friends, given that it's my homeland and all, but it's also our "vacation," as it were.  This year we packed in more excursions than ever before.  It was extremely fun and, of course, a bit tiring.  

After some deliberation, I decided that we'd take the train to Windsor, Ontario and have my dad pick us up and take us across the river to the far-reaching suburbs of Detroit, where I grew up.  We've been car-free for a year and a half, but we've rented cars for most of our recent excursions.  I had taken the train with the girls once before, three summers ago.  At the time, Ninna was three and Bojey was one.  That, my friends, was utter insanity.  It's a twelve hour train ride from Montreal to Windsor; I think that detail will suffice.

So this year, after we got ourselves settled on the train, I congratulated myself with a few mental rounds of "WOW, MY LIFE IS SO EASY NOW!!  SIX AND FOUR!!  SO EASY!!"

And it was, sort of.  Things went relatively smoothly, but most any human will start to get agitated by nine or ten hours in a train.  The girls had a bit of a rough period around our normal dinner time, and then things settled down again.  

The other passengers were patient and tolerant, and all co-passenger relations went quite smoothly until the little...snag.  Bojey, upon hearing an older woman next to us laugh, shouted at full volume, "HUH?  I just heard a witch laughing!!"  

To which Ninna replied "Oh, was it that 'haaahahaha' that just happened?  I heard it too!!"

Followed by silence.

Pure silence.

I could tell from the expression on her face, which I caught from the most minute tiny corner of my eye, that the woman was wholly displeased.  But what could I do?  Bojey was right--she did sound a lot like a witch.  I couldn't scold the kids for being honest, so I changed the subject and made sure not to turn my head the slightest bit in her direction for the rest of the trip.

And then we arrived in Windsor, parted ways with the witch, and started our long and adventurous trip.

The Time for Things Like This

There has been a bit of this:

I love summer for all the usual reasons: warm weather, gardens, ice cream, lemonade, and swimming.  But I also love it for the opportunity it provides for easily-cleaned messy art and messy play (or messy art play, as it seems to become.)  What started out as marble painting in the turtle pool quickly became fingerpainting, followed by painting with feet, and ending with a nice round of painting one's entire exposed epidermis.  No worries.  That's what hoses are for.

This is How our (Balcony) Garden Grows

I'm really proud of our balcony garden this year.  I started the gardening season wondering what, if anything, was going to grow.  I had this huge bag of seeds that I'd been accumulating over the years (some getting pretty old), and I realized one day that it made no sense to keep them because they will eventually go bad.  So I made the decision not to buy any seeds at all this year and just plant almost everything that was left over and hope for the best.  I pretty much stuck to that rule, with the exception of one package of lettuce seeds.  I also bought a few flower seedlings and a swiss chard seedling, but everything else on the balcony was grown from the Two Chicks and a Hen Ancient Seed Collection.


And I think we did pretty well:

We have peas, which we'll likely skip next time--we've grown them in previous years too and have not found them productive enough to be worth the space. I'm guessing they don't like containers, or at least not shallow ones:

We harvested radishes in the late spring and will plant our second batch tomorrow:

Arugula has been a success, though it did go to seed really quickly when it got hot.  There's always so, so much to learn about gardening.  Each individual plant comes with its own encyclopedia of information.  I love learning it.

We've had a ton of this lolla rossa lettuce, even more than we could eat.  I think this is the first time we've grown enough of something that we literally needed to share or let go bad because of the size of the crop:

The swiss chard has been so much fun.  It's enormous, hearty, beautiful, and provides a great, healthy green for our family.  This is our first year growing it, but it will become a permanent addition:

As in previous years, we grew impatiens from seeds we collected.  We've really got the hang of this now.  I don't even know how many plants we grew this year (lots), but they came up in at least six different colors, maybe more--it's hard to tell with some of the shades:

And we made a glue batik banner just to make things more festive.  Glue batik never gets old.  It's so much fun:

And what about you?  How does your garden grow?

Corn Syrup Paint Craft Fail

Well, it's not exactly a craft fail.  It's more like a craft display fail.

Remember our corn syrup paint?  We had a little heat wave in the beginning of June, and I walked into the hallway to find this:

On Hibernation, Reflection, and the Use of Hyper-Scheduled Advent Calendars as a Band Aid

So, I had a bit of a blogging crisis.

Initially, I thought it was the usual blogging stuff: In what direction would I like the blog to go?  Am I interested in taking steps to expand my audience?  Should I switch to Wordpress?

If you blog, you recognize these minor crises.

And it was those things, but it was more.  Months of hibernation from blogs (both writing them and reading/commenting on them) and a lack of motivation to post, even though I had a lot to say, allowed me to dig deeper into what was going on.  I've talked before about why I started this blog--I like writing, I'm passionate about my topics, and I wanted to get more involved in blogging.  On my one year blogging anniversary, I reflected further on my reasons and realized that a desire to feel "normal" after becoming a single mom factored in to my creation of this blog.

And now, a year and a half after that point, I really, really get what was going on (or so I think...watch out for another one of these posts somewhere around November 2013...)

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When I got pregnant with my eldest and started my journey to motherhood, I never imagined she (or any future siblings) would grow up with single parents.  When their dad and I separated, I was devastated about what that meant for my daughters.  It violated every mental image I associated with words like "family" and "childhood."

I'd always enjoyed planning holiday celebrations for my kids, I'd always been crafty, I'd always loved reading about early childhood development, and so on.  But in my new status as single mother, I felt that I needed to compensate for so much, that just doing those things wasn't enough.  I now see that I felt the need to be SUPER(single)MOM.  I don't think I ever consciously recognized this (I hope not...), but it was almost as if just being a decent mom wasn't going to be enough.  The only solution, I seem to have gathered, was to try to do everything 110%, to make every craft project or holiday even better than the last.  If only I could make everything magical, then everything in their world would be OK.  And blogging about it would give me a visual diary of how wonderful everything was (or something--who knows what was going on in the back of my brain.)


And of course, there is no solution.  Children of divorce, like children from in-tact families, go through lots of stages, weaving in and out of strength and neediness, confusion and light-heartedness, naughtiness and sainthood.  No band-aid, however strong, is going to "solve" anything.  Making hot cross buns out of wheat we harvested by hand and ground into flour with stones in the backyard (no, we didn't do that...) isn't going to change the fact that my girls spend time with their two parents separately.


In certain ways, this realization doesn't change much.  I still love doing art with my kids, staying up late making birthday presents for them, and teaching them myself.  And I'm still doing these things.  But what's missing now is the weight of the burden I carried in my quest to be the best mom who ever lived.  Ever.


I wore myself out.  And of course, I wasn't the best mom who ever lived, not by a long shot.  But something feels a bit lighter now that I've (happily) given up on that pipe dream, the one I didn't realize I had.

In some ways this is a really private thing to share, the type of post that makes me cringe after I hit "publish" wondering how long it will be until I can no longer stand it and take it down.  But I know I have a lot of single mom readers, and I want to share, because something tells me that I didn't invent this neurosis.  I'm sure I'm not the first mom who, post-separation, decided somewhere in her subconscious that she needed to make everything GREAT and WONDERFUL and MAGICAL all the time, who needed to, in her own way, hold the world together for her children lest it fall apart.

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And I'm ready to come back and blog, probably in much the same way I did before, because as I said--I'm still doing fun artsy-craftsy things, and I've got oodles to say about our life.  It's probably going to take me a second to get back into the routine.  When I opened up blogger today, I realized I don't even know where anything is in the new setup.

So if you're still here, if you've stuck around long enough to see this, I'd love it if you'd join me again.  In the meantime, here are some things I published at Simple Kids during my absence here:

Five Lessons from a TV Free Household

The Magic Bucket: Simple Ways to Incorporate Thematic Fun

Oh, and Happy Summer, just a month late.