baybeasts

Today, inspired by a combination of this book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and the arrival of the blossoms and longer days that indicate the slow turn towards spring, I got my hands truly dirty in the garden for the first time in about a year.

I have been doing the bare minimum in upkeep this year - so far I have pruned the roses, planted out some ranunculus for spring colour, and turned a blind eye to the take-over bid by various enthusiastic plants (scabiosa, I’m looking at you). When I was anticipating maternity leave, I nursed a small hope that it would be an opportunity to spend more time in the garden - I dreamed of growing enough vegetables to make a meaningful difference to our food bill, of weeds conquered and flowers blooming and babies gurgling in their bassinets in the shade while I made all this happen. Clearly, I had absolutely no idea how much these boys would set my agenda for me, and that gardening wouldn’t be on it!

So today was simply wonderful. Huey hung out in the sling with bean, and Arlo hung out with Az who divided his time between helping me rip out weeds and removing small bits of dirt and other crap from Arlo’s mouth. I was gloriously unencumbered, and so was able to rip out an enormous, unprunable lavender bush (like unwanted hair, if it was pruned it grew back thicker and more luxurious within a week); weed gravel paths; and pull out an overgrown fennel plant. Best of all, I discovered an onion patch that I had forgotten about, and that was buried deep in weeds. Behold its current weed-free glory:

And this is what happens to a carrot that is left to its own devices for a couple of years:

I always find it hard to come inside at the end of a gardening session - there is always some small thing that simply must be done. Today, as I pottered about doing all those last little things, my family watched through the living room window, and as much as I love my garden, they were the most beautiful thing I had seen all day:

Today our little Hute is 9 months old. He is pretty miserable with a virus that has meant 3 days of fever and an enormous amount of green snot. Here he is this morning, burning hot and so very sad…

Things were looking a little grim for his 9 month birthday, but then the lovely ones from enough grows dropped off a get-well cake (how did they manage that with a just-hatched-baby!?) and this afternoon we were treated to the most delicious scones ever when we had tea with our friends Nix and the lovely D.

We felt much better, and so did he:

(The paracetamol helped too.)

Huey has been learning to do a lot of exciting things over the past month. He has learnt that sitting can be fun - you can check out all sorts of interesting parts of your body, you can shake rattles much more effectively, and you can read books! He has started pushing a walker confidently and is experimenting with letting go when standing. Yikes. We are going to have two toddlers very soon. He’s also waving and nearly pointing, and often surprises us with the things he understands and can do. He is just a delight to have around, our Huey - a busy, independent, stroppy and gorgeously funny little fluffball. We all love him to bits.

When Huey was born he received a knitted woolen snake. It was cute, but nothing special, and we tossed it in the toybox thinking we’d never really see it again.

We were so wrong.

Some months later, we noticed that Huey had fallen deeply in love with Snake. Snake was shaken, bent, and chewed. And when crawling really kicked in, Snake became Huey’s favourite exploring companion. Huey is a rather independent little soul, and will often take off on adventures around the house, Snake bravely leading the way (clutched in Huey’s hand and flopping forwards with every step). Snake isn’t exactly a transitional object - when Snake isn’t around, Huey is fine, and he often carries all sorts of things around the house, but Snake is definitely a favourite friend.

Today, we had a little of the rare and lovely double nap time because Arlo went down late for his midday nap. I heard a squeak from the bedroom and rushed in to find Huey and Snake setting off on an important Arlo-awakening mission. (Amazingly, Arlo didn’t wake up, even when we all convened on the bed, laughing and chatting, turned on the light and took a flash photo.)