First Birthdays.

My niece Adeline turned one yesterday. She is the thirteenth child born to my siblings and me. You would think we'd get tired of it, but we just eat them up each and everyone.

Adeline is particularly delectable as she is a red headed fair skinned butterball, and the first child of the youngest of the siblings who happens to be the only boy in the family. We've never been slackers when it comes to taking care of the babies in our family, but this girl has us all wrapped around her little finger. The fact that we are all done having our own children I'm sure contributes to our complete devotion. So what to get for the girl who has everything, and more than she needs coming her way on her first birthday? It was an interesting question I posed to myself walking through hopscotch on Saturday. Whenever a customer needs a first birthday gift I commiserate with the importance of choosing the right item for this very important day. Something that will stay around, make a lasting impact on the childhood it is meant to facilitate. I always gravitate to wood toys, push toys for the soon to be walker, things that will be around for the next generation, first building blocks, cobblers benches, classics, staples. How surprised I was to find that that was not at all what I wanted for my little Adeline. I wanted to give her something that would give her enjoyment NOW, not be a keepsake for later on. I wanted to shape her day to day one year old existence. I was particularly interested in shaping the experience that her parents have. I haven't shopped for a one year old for almost six years. I was so surprised at what I chose. I know it sounds a little silly, but I wanted to choose gifts that would stack into a tidy pyramid. I love the look of a big box stacked up to a small box. Being a toy store owner I could hardly get away with just one gift, and a pyramid allowed many to be presented as one. The day before my children and I had been tooling around downtown McMinnville popping into our favorite shops, one of which is Third Street Books. My daughter found this groovy pop up cat book. It was a board book, very durable, lots of activities, squeakers, sliders, fuzzy patches to pet, etc. Adeline is obsessed with cats. It was perfect. The next day I pulled a Twilight Turtle off the shelf. It is a light up toy that casts the constellations on the ceiling of your room. It is beautifully designed, the turtle is plush, the shell is acrylic, and the colors are muted neutral greens. My brother and his wife Jessica (like all new parents) need anything that will help Adeline sleep on her own, particularly during the first few hours of the night time which they could actually use to catch up with each other. The package was bigger than the book, so it would stack perfectly. Next, I had heard Jessica say that Adeline needed a new pair of Robeez shoes. What better for a new walker than a hip adorable version of the tried and true moccasin? They can feel the floor through the thin leather sole, but their feet are protected and comfortable. I chose a chocolate brown pair with pink flowers. To go with the little shoes, I selected a Boo-boo bunny which is a plastic ice cube that goes in the freezer until the melon takes a hit, then you pull it out and put it in this little stuffed rabbit that can be placed on the ouchie spot without drips, towels, frost bite, etc. That first year, the melon takes a lot of hits. I thought I was done with my selections when a customer brought a darling puppet to the counter. Puppets! They love puppets at that age. But I needed to choose one that was between the size of the Robeez and the Boo-boo bunny so my pyramid would stack nicely. I chose an Elephant hand puppet from Manhattan based on that criteria. The result is the mountain in the first photo.
I went to a St. Patrick's day party after the one year old party. I was talking to a guy who expressed condolences that I had had to attend a one year party. He then ran through the entire itinerary of the party I had just attended. Baby gets dressed up to look cute, baby gets passed around as guests arrive, most guests more interested in beer or wine than in baby, some guests won't leave baby alone for a second, baby gets plopped in high chair with cake, baby fails to understand that baby needs to REALLY get messy with cake, some assistance, some demonstration, baby gets the idea, and gets thoroughly covered in frosting, flashes go off, presents are opened, and everyone clears out at warp speed to try to salvage some of their Saturday. Baby has a complete overstimulated, sugar let down crash and burn.
My brother and his wife were not going to have a party, but the protest from friends was so great that they felt that they probably should. In spite of the contrived aspects, all set up for photo ops, I really feel good about celebrating the first year of a child's life. Three lives are created anew with the first child. Nothing is the same for anyone, and that bears formal acknowledgment, mourning, and celebration. We could probably ditch the messy cake era. I wonder what new ritual could take the place of the messy first birthday cake?

The Carousel at Albany

In Albany Oregon they are building a carousel from scratch. Not reassembling, not refurbishing, and not skimping on any of the extras that are essential to creating a work of art of this magnitude. There will be a menagerie of animals, with 52 animals and 2 chariots, all hand carved and hand painted in the traditional style of Gustav Dentzel. The group was gifted the guts of a carousel by Dentzels descendants. The work is being done primarily by volunteers. The day we went by there were retired engineers, cabinet makers, and artists of all kinds. It is a painstaking process. There are renderings of all of the animals hanging from the walls. These renderings were drawn up by Terryl Whitlatch, who has worked with Star Wars’ George Lucas, and Kurt Christensen (artist and graphic designer. These sketchings are based on the desires of the individuals that have sponsored the carousel animal. for instance, there was this wonderful frog in bloomers crouched down mid-hop with a jar of flies under one arm. Her purple bonnet was blown back in the wind, and on her bottom was the word Sugar. The frogs name was Harriette. Harriette was designed in honor of the sponsors grandmother who lived through the great depression, loved frogs, canning, and purple, and had made clothing from sugar and flour sacks. Each of the animals has that kind of story to tell, and there is a book in which you can read all of them. So in front of these renderings, there are big blocks of wood. Some are just that with words like leg, tail, etc. written on them in sharpy. Some are being chiseled while we watch, some are being sanded, and some are being painted. A few are actually finished, and they sit in the foyer where the children are encouraged to climb up and sit on their backs. It's such a wonderful opportunity to see this work in progress. The smells of the workshop, the feel of the wood as it goes from a rough block to a shiny colorful carousel animal. There are many opportunities in this world to ride a carousel, but I don't imagine many to see one being created. You should check it out. While you're there, just up the street is a little toy store called Frogs and Pollywogs. A friend of mine named Celia owns it. She is the one who told me about the carousel project in the first place. Pop in and tell her I sent you.

A space of our own

It's finally time for the chicken house that I built for chickens to become Rowan's club house. We had chickens, then it was Zoe's play house. She drug all sorts of oddments out there to rot in the Oregon damp. She would play for a week, then abandon and leave many blankets, pillows and towels behind to be populated by the mildew and mold that abounds here. Finally it was abandoned for too long, and her older brother decided he should take it over. I can't recall if there was an exchange of money or favors for this transaction, or if she just let him have it. Devon has had many forts of his own. We lived on 80 acres in Oklahoma and he had two of the coolest forts ever there. He has built forts up in the tops of the arborvitae hedge that we have now. More like a cat walk really along the top of the hedge for about fifteen feet. This time he wanted a place of his own down at ground level. What the heck, Zoe wasn't using it anymore, why not? I'll tell you why not. Because the things that an eleven year old does in a place of his own, and the things that a sixteen year old does in a place of his own are two entirely different things. Devon had that place of his own for about eight months. He and some buddies carried a couch that was out on the street about 3/4 of a mile to furnish the thing. They spent a long wonderful summer out there on that couch in that fort. A summer that I am sure they will remember for the rest of their lives. But, when the weather changed, they continued to want to hang out there. It just did not seem like a good idea and it was becoming more and more obvious that the "He man woman haters club" was not what we had going on in our back yard. That spring, we ordered some chicks from the feed store, and moved Devon out. The chicks had lost all of their downy fluff, and grown to full grown, but were not yet laying when we acquired a Jack Russell terrier. Jack was a very naughty dog. We have no chickens. Our daughter is now vegetarian. Somehow, we still have the dog. It's a long story. The chicken/ play house has sat vacant since that time. Now it's Rowans turn. He and I spent the afternoon out there cleaning it up and getting it ready for the conversion. We got rid of all of the Zoe, and Devon, and chicken. We tore off the addition that Devon had added to the chicken house, and plan to put on a more sturdy addition of our own. Rowan wants windows, and he was talking about dry wall. We'll see what he gets when all is said and done. It's the dreaming and planning that give us the real pleasure. When you get the things you want, you replace the dreams with reality, and reality is never quite as good as the dream. So, Rowan is dreaming, and we are waiting for better weather to come around again (it will someday I'm certain!)I'm pretty sure that every child dreams of and plans an elaborate play house, (or perhaps a very simple one, but mine were always elaborate)and as we become adults very little in that changes. I still remember as a small child watching my dad design his dream house on graph paper. He took very little time off of work, but I remember him spending hours on that one particular dream. He never realized it, but it sure did give him pleasure to plan. We all need a place of our own, a quiet corner to plan our life's escapade. We sell a lot of play house tents, tunnels and tubes at hopscotch. Pop up places for children to enjoy their own space at the youngest of ages. Rowan was not down with that option as good as it sounded to me. Last year, the rocket ship by bazoongi was enough. This year we are building our own. From scratch. With wood, and nails and saws. And time, that of course is the biggest commodity of childhood. Plenty of that.