There you are, October. I’ve been waiting for you.

I’ve been looking forward to my favorite month all summer. I’m embracing the fall vibes wholeheartedly — even if the temperatures refuse to comply. We’ve been in a heat wave of 100+ temperatures (as high as 105) which has made fall baking a bit difficult. Hopefully next week we finally have some cooler weather.

We moved into our little cottage two years ago in October. As the sun sinks earlier in the sky, its golden light traces the bookshelves and icon corner and reminds me of our first days in our home. I have a renewed gratitude for this little sanctuary as I remember those times.

Michaelmas was at the end of September, and we had a mixed berry cheesecake to celebrate our Michael. Even though the Eastern Orthodox calendar celebrates the Archangel Michael in a different month, we also celebrate Michael’s name day by the Western Orthodox calendar, given he’s named (in part) for the Western Rite parish where Jake and I met.

Beatrice turned seven months old at the beginning of the month — I can hardly believe how big she’s gotten. She babbles constantly, crawls everywhere, and wants to be standing or pulling herself up at all times. She recently even pulled herself up onto the couch. Her new favorite trick is sticking her tongue out when she smiles.

Whatever Michael is doing, she wants to do too. We’ve had to extricate quite a few trucks and trains from her lightning-quick grasp.

She still hasn’t popped any teeth, though she fusses and pulls at her ears and drools a lot and has newly abysmal sleeping patterns. We’re fervently hoping that she sprouts those teeth soon and we get some better sleep.

We’ve started introducing solids — she especially loves sweet potatoes and applesauce. It’s helped with making family dinners a more peaceful affair: Michael no longer fights sitting at the table for longer periods of time because he enjoys watching his sister attempt to eat different foods.

Michael seems to have turned another developmental corner. His speech is becoming clearer and more complex, and his imaginative play is a delight to eavesdrop on. He’s got some adorable quirks. Instead of saying “what do you think?” when showing off artwork or anything he’s working on, he’ll say “How you think?”

Some of his recent toddlerisms include:

Me: Michael, you’re a pretty cool kid.

Michael: I am indeed!

“I don’t want to be on the freeway. I want to be on the STOPway.” — said on the long drive home from church.

“I eat food because I have a mouth. A big mouth!”

Michael: *making me play food* This is ALL for you, my dear!

Michael: Beatrice is out of your belly?

Me: Yep, no more babies in mama’s belly.

Michael:….you should buy another one!

Michael: *standing by the toaster* My bagel popped! Good job bagel, good job.

We’ve been making a lot of high protein breakfast muffins (recipe here), and Michael loves helping. He does most of the steps by himself and counts out the number of cups of the different ingredients. His favorite part is still licking the bowl and stealing chocolate chips.

I bottled up our vanilla extract that’s been brewing since January — it smells heavenly. I also dried the leftover vanilla beans and added them to a few cups of sugar, to bake with or make simple syrup.

Although we haven’t been able to be outside much due to the extreme temperatures, we’ve been enjoying early mornings on the porch and evenings in the shade. Michael plays with his animals, trucks, and sensory bins, Beatrice plays with different noisy dishes, and I get a few minutes to read or knit.

I’ve picked up my knitting with renewed passion. I finished my Felix Cardigan: it had been languishing in a project bag for almost a year. When I began making it, I was pregnant and unhappy with the way it fit my body. I pulled it out a few weeks ago with the intent of unraveling it, tried it on, and realized it fit me really well. So I knit the remaining sleeve and button band and now have a cozy sweater for winter. I also dusted off my mauve Weekender Sweater, which is now my evening mindless knitting project.

I finished my 12 oz combo spin and am very happy with the end result. It’s squishy, jewel-toned, and autumnal. I have two large skeins (approx 600 yards). When I finish a few of my works in progress, I’ll cast on a shawl with it. I also cut out a pair of Chanterelle pants to sew when I get a chance.

I’ve been on a yarn purchasing moratorium since January, and I’m proud to say I’ve managed not to purchase any new yarn in 2024 — despite harrowing temptations. This means I’m getting creative and stash-diving for the kids’ Christmas knits. I’m planning to knit Michael a classic cabled vest (or jacket, depending on how much yarn I have) and Beatrice a caplet. I made the mistake of mentioning to Michael was knitting him a jacket…now he asks if it’s finished and if he can try it on nearly every day.

We had a few rough days with baby sleep and toddler tantrums recently, so that threw us off our routine. We are slowly getting back to limiting screen time, slowly starting to implement our morning rituals again, and slowly returning to a more mindful and intentional way of approaching each day.

I still have to remind myself not to beat myself up over these frequent setbacks. We’ve had a lot of screen time, and lost many of our previous rituals as I work to survive Beatrice’s new sleep patterns. As I may have mentioned, I’m a recovering perfectionist. It’s a bad habit that parenting has really helped break: being a perfectionist parent is a fast road to burnout and despair.

Right now, to combat perfectionism and burnout and despair, I try to hold two things at the front of my mind: presence and repair. In the end, those are the things that matter most. It’s not the amount of Little Bear my toddler watches when I’m sleep deprived: it’s the way I still sit with him and snuggle him, or make sure we have one-on-one creative time later. It’s not the number of times I lose my temper: it’s the way I apologize and ask forgiveness when I do.

This realization has given me a little light in my own spiritual life. Presence and repair are the things that matter most in my faith as well: presence and attendance in the life of the Church, and repair and repentance when I fall away from the Church’s teachings. I might not be in a place right now to attend every church service or keep strict fasts, but I can show up to do daily prayers alongside my toddler. I might be struggling with the weight of my sins, illuminated by sleeplessness and the magnifying glass of parenting, but confession and repentance repair the rift and bring me closer to God and to wholeness.

So onwards I go, toddling along in my own journey of holiness beside these little souls.

September has arrived and brought a few more 100+ degree days with it. But in our air-conditioned house with the fans going, I’m still pretending autumn is here.

We had a close call accompanying the hot weather. Near the side of our house, we had a few piles of grass clippings and yard waste — not quite a real compost pile. However, with the heat and the decomposition in the piles, the conditions were just right for spontaneous combustion and a grass fire began.

Thankfully my dad smelled the smoke and found it before the fire got too big. I’m grateful for God’s provision and our guardian angels’ protection. Needless to say, from now on we will be raking flat all piles of yard waste and keeping them far away from the side of the house. We also had a power outage and another fire scare on the property, plus I’m fighting another cold. So it’s been an eventful September!

Beatrice is six months old — I can barely believe it. She’s crawling everywhere, sitting up on her own, and getting into everything she can. She also managed to pull herself upright briefly on the couch a few days ago before promptly falling over, and then a few days later pulled herself up on her crib bars and stood there triumphantly for quite some time. I’m afraid we may have an early walker.

Her teeth still haven’t popped through, though the drool and chewing and fussiness is still intense. She babbles “mamamama” all the time, and is definitely continuing to find her voice. She loves to sing along with people, especially in church. Her grins are contagious, and despite the fussiness she is one of the most joyful babies I’ve ever encountered.

No one can make her laugh harder than her big brother. She always wants to do what he is doing: playing with his toys, crawling after him, watching him run around. He puts up with it very well, and loves his baby sister (even if he has a hard time sharing with her).

Michael recently got a haircut and looks so much older: less like a toddler and more like a little boy. It makes his cowlicks much easier to manage, but seeing him look so grown up makes my heart so full it hurts. His new favorite pastime is playing with “magic sand” with his dump trucks and toy animals.

On Labor Day, we (aptly) labored through canning or prepping for freezing 4 buckets of tomatoes. Michael and Beatrice had a lot of fun playing with their great-grandma as I helped in the kitchen. It’s a lot of work, but well worth it. Having fresh tasting canned tomatoes throughout the winter is such a gift.

We also had some dear friends stop by for a quick overnight trip — a short but sweet evening.

We had a few temperate days, which meant we could have a picnic dinner (much to Michael’s delight). We get some nice shade in our front yard after 4 pm, and a soft breeze usually picks up and dispels the worst of the heat. We love our tiny patch of scavenged grass for picnics and general barefoot revelry.

Our tomatoes and lunchbox peppers are thriving well enough. Our zucchini and yellow squash are both struggling due to squash bugs, despite my attempts to vanquish them with neem oil and a spade. Jake set up an automatic watering system which has kept my garden limping along. I’m grateful, because I don’t have the energy to pour much time or effort into it. I’m embracing being a chaos gardener in this season of life, and I’m grateful for every misshapen tomato and pepper I get.

In the midst of the chaos I’m still working on several little projects. I finished my “Little Women” socks, which fit perfectly. Another pair of socks for Jake are on my needles, as well as some baby bonnets for friends of mine who are expecting. I’m also planning on casting on the kids’ Christmas sweaters soon so I can finish them by December.

I’m slowly piecing my next quilt, and realizing I don’t enjoy the quilting process as much as I enjoy having a quilt. The precision and focus needed to cut the fabric is exhausting. Piecing is fun and so is handquilting, but what I really enjoy is snuggling under a handmade quilt while napping or reading. It’s a coziness like no other.

I chip away at both reading and writing whenever I get the chance. Contact naps and broken sleep have given me more chances than usual, so I’ve been able to add about 300 words a day to my fiction project and continue to stay on track for my Goodreads challenge of reading 50 books this year.

With the emergence of crawling/pulling up we’ve had some very rough sleep regressions. Between Michael and Beatrice, we wake up about 3-6 times per night, sometimes for more than an hour at a time. So it’s been difficult for us with sleep deprivation, baby fussiness, toddler tantrums, and generalized life busyness. Mothers of more than two children, I salute you. I don’t know how you do it.

I’m accepting there are seasons of surviving, and that’s okay. I am told there will be seasons of thriving in the future. I’ve been so grateful for art in this season of life: both the art I create and the art I enjoy. Music, watercolor, reading, textile arts — all have been life-giving in some pretty difficult times. Making art is an act of subcreation, a uniquely human act.

Because of my gratitude for art, I’ve been thinking a lot about making and the place it holds in my life and in the culture. And the more I think about art and humanity, the more staunchly I loathe generative AI.

Recently there’s been a lot of uproar in the online writers’ circles regarding generative AI. Those of you who knew me as a high schooler probably know I was obsessed with NaNoWriMo: a nonprofit organization that encouraged writers to write 50k in 30 days. I wrote (and finished/won) several novels over my ten years of participation. About week ago, NaNoWriMo put out a statement condoning the use of generative AI while calling those who speak out against AI’s use in the arts as ableist and classist (something so ridiculous I won’t even address it, given there are plenty of outraged disabled authors doing a great job refuting this already). They had already fumbled some pretty serious things last year as an organization — but this new statement shows a fundamental, fatal disconnect in both their view of intellectual property and the relationship between art and humanity.

So I’m disappointed and upset, deactivating my NaNo account, and doing a lot of ruminating on art and machines.

There are some things that machines can do to help artists: for instance, I’m grateful for spellcheck and word processors. I’m grateful for YouTube tutorials and Pinterest inspiration as teaching materials. But generative AI is a different story. These LLMs are able to churn out something that looks like art, but only because they have been trained on terabytes of human artists’ images (without the artists’ consent). The same goes for the paragraphs they spit out: trained on words that authors have written, and without consent for this use case.

An author I appreciate wrote a letter to the Writers Guild of America on this very topic: you can find it here.

AI training seems like a thorny situation from the outside, but I urge you to distill the matter to its essential form and take action. Ask who is truly benefiting from this technology in this format. Are we really making work easier and content better through sophisticated Madlibs filled in with other people’s work? No, AI is the guy at the party who sounds clever as he repeats phrases he read online without synthesizing the information in the slightest.

Maggie Stiefvater

Passively accepting generative AI into the creative process is dangerous. Our society already treats art as though they’re entitled to it. To cheapen art to mere machine-created content is to damn it. AI cannot make, it can only mimic. But if mimicries make money, they’ll soon take the place of real human artists. Culture will suffer. The quality of the art that comforts you during difficult times will suffer. The artists, musicians, and novelists who are replaced by cheap imitations will suffer.

All that to say: think before burning resources by using yet another LLM for an artistic endeavor. See if you can barter with or pay a real human with real original ideas for what you want instead. Or better yet, expand your skillset and your soul by learning to do it yourself.

Maybe sleep deprivation is turning me into a grumpy Luddite. But I’d rather be a grumpy Luddite than live in a world where art is done by machines and taxes are done by humans.

The temperatures have been slowly declining, hovering in the low 90s. It’s been lovely: we’ve been able to play on the porch and outside in the garden much more, and also enjoying sunny mornings indoors with all the windows open.

Unfortunately, over the past week and a half our family has been fighting off a head cold. We have taken turns being sick: first my mom and Jake and Beatrice, then Michael and my dad and me. I’m still on the mend.

Bea didn’t let a cold stop her from improving her crawling skills, however. She still prefers scooting on her belly, but also has started using her hands and knees. She also got up to a sitting position by herself recently. I now have to keep a close eye on her: she is very fast and has army crawled over to the cat (or Michael’s trains) in the blink of an eye. She also found her toes — they keep her entertained more than any other teething toy.

Meanwhile, Michael is being a very patient big brother as he learns to keep his favorite toys out of reach. He’s leapt forward this month in terms of language: listening to him narrate his imaginative play is an absolute delight. He also recently discovered he can make Beatrice giggle, and often pretends to be a jumping frog shouting RIBBET to get her to belly laugh.

He also had a play date with my mom while I was sick and needed extra rest: he loved spending special time exploring with grandma. I got this photo from their excursion, and couldn’t believe how grown up he looked.

We’ve done a few thrift store runs on days when the heat was especially oppressive. I love finding secondhand treasures: it saves us money (especially with the kids’ clothes!) while also helping me curate our home with vintage and eco-conscious beauty.

My favorite discovery is this crescent moon candle holder. Michael loves his “new” farm puzzle and tractor flashlight.

Being sick threw us off our routines: we’ve had more screen time and less outdoor play as we recovered. But I’ve still tried to be intentionally unhurried about things as I can. More meals at the table with the candles lit. More mint iced tea or iced coffee out of pretty cups (this cup now comes with me everywhere and helps me stay hydrated). More homemade treats (including this easy and delicious cinnamon roll recipe).

We’re also making more time for art. Michael loves painting and art, and I wanted to do something with him instead of watching or doing another project next to him while he painted.

I also really wanted something to do with my hands when my wrists are tired from knitting or spinning. So earlier this year, I decided to buy a set of watercolors and a sketchbook.

Art is something that has never been easy for me. I have always loved writing, and I do consider myself a fiber artist, but I struggle with art in the traditional sense of paint and paper. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I would much rather write the words than pick up a paintbrush. Because of that, I used to avoid it. It gave me anxiety to think of other people seeing my clumsy attempts at drawing or painting. I placed so much pressure on myself to be good at things.

But over the past few years, I’ve begun to embrace being an amateur. There’s something remarkably freeing about doing something only for the love of it, without any expectations or pressure to be good at it. I enjoy playing with color, and the unpredictability of wet-on-wet paint, and finding random references on Instagram or Pinterest to help me hone a particular skill.

I’m not planning on sharing much of my watercolors here: I feel like that might add some of the pressure and expectation I’m trying to avoid. But I wanted to share an unexpected side effect of learning how to watercolor: the way I see the world has changed.

In watercolor, it’s often a good idea to move from light to dark colors because the white of the paper is your light. So when I’m beginning a new painting in my sketchbook, I look for the lightest places and move forward from there. If I see something beautiful I want to paint, I’ve begun automatically looking for the lights and shadows.

The practice of looking for the light has been bleeding over into other parts of my life. Especially as I struggled through these past few weeks of illness, sleep deprivation, and parenting difficulties, doing watercolor alongside my son has helped me remember to focus on the light more than the dark.

I could dwell on the difficulties that have been weighing me down: exhaustion, loneliness, tantrums, teething, illness, etc. But I find, just like watercolors, I enjoy both the process and the end result much more if I look for the light instead: baby giggles, bedtime snuggles, cinnamon rolls, good books and tv shows, handknit socks, frothy coffee, porch playtimes…and (of course) watercolors.

June has swept by — I had resolved to write a post at least twice a month, and I’m just scraping under my self-imposed deadline.

Lately, my thoughts and musings return to topics I’ve touched on before: the beauty and difficulty of quiet or unseen work, the way the garden and its seasonality mirrors shifting seasons in our own lives, the sanctifying fire of parenthood; the gift that is creating and shaping things with our own hands.

But the words have been hard to find. I don’t have the space or time to sit and craft the things I’m dwelling on into something worth reading — not yet, not right now (ah, yet another way the seasonality currently touches on aspects of my life).

So in the meantime I’m focusing on taking pictures, writing down my son’s funny toddlerisms, and harvesting imperfect produce from my garden (and fighting squash bugs with a fiery vengeance).

Michael currently has two movie obsessions: Disney’s Robin Hood and The Sword in the Stone. He spent a week using any string and stick as a “bow and arrow” until I finally caved and got him an actual (age-appropriate) bow and arrow set (it was much safer than letting him launch colored pencils across the room with ribbons). He picked up the concept quickly, but still prefers to hold it backwards to shoot the wool-ball tipped arrows at his targets. He runs up and down the hall with it, firing arrows and hunting a “dragon-monster”.

The hallway is his favorite place to play because that’s where he’s allowed to launch projectiles (balls or arrows can’t break anything or hurt anyone there). He’s also obsessed with using tools — from cutting up play-doh or his own snacks to using his play hammer and wrench on imaginary motorcycles and broken engines. His newest games are “playing communion” (with a mason jar, broken crayon pieces, and a spoon or his fingers) and “motorcycles” (scooting up and down the hallway on a blanket).

Right now he’s fascinated by both birthdays and weddings. He sings happy birthday at least once a day, usually to me or Grandpa or any other family member he can think of. And he often asks to look at the book of our wedding photos so he can reproachfully remind us that he “wasn’t there” because he “wasn’t born yet”.

More toddlerisms include:

“Here I are!”

“My seat is sunburnt!” (Hot)

“Plug that out!” (Unplug it).

“Play ballyball with me!” (Any game that involves a ball)

Beatrice is growing like a weed and as happy as a flower. She has what I call a “full body smile” that is often accompanied by kicks and wiggles. She’s beginning to teethe, which has led to more contact naps during the day. She continues to be an excellent sleeper at night (praise the Lord). She prefers going to bed early and waking up early: her favorite hour is currently around 5 am.

It’s given me a new appreciation for the quiet grey dawn hours, and it’s made me more of a morning person. I’ve been making a pot of coffee and readying the house for the day with her in my arms, then sitting down for snuggles and tummy time while reading or knitting.

The quiet morning hour or two I’ve been getting to myself has given me time to intentionally revitalize my love of reading. I’m determined to meet my Goodreads goal of 50 books this year (after failing to reach it 3 years in a row). So far I’m on track! If you’re interested in following me on Goodreads, you can find my profile here — I love seeing what my friends are reading.

(I’ve been tempted to add the many times I’ve read aloud Go Dog Go, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Little Engine That Could but I have refrained, since it would put my book count into the hundreds).

One of my favorite recent reads was Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. While I don’t fully agree with all his premises or conclusions, I strongly recommend it to anyone who’s negotiating their relationship with technology. He offers a measured and reasonable response to living intentionally in a technological age. As he says, “A foundational theme in digital minimalism is that…technology, when used with care and intention, creates a better life than either Luddism or mindless adoption.”

My favorite chapter was the one on leisure: a key point was replacing mindless screen time with “high-quality leisure” — things that require mental engagement, hands-on skill, craft development, or social interaction. Right now, my main sources of leisure include knitting, spinning, sewing, reading, writing, and gardening.

I made Jake a pair of socks for Father’s Day, and I’m currently finishing up a matching pair for Michael with the leftover yarn. I’m knitting a simple summery cowl for myself, and I finished sewing a quick summer sundress.

I’ve also been slowly getting back into fiction writing. Beautiful tools have helped my love of it. I’ve talked about my wonderful LOTR keyboard from my amazing husband before, but now I’ve rediscovered writing by hand with fountain pens, and can’t recommend the LAMY Safari pen enough.

One of the good things about most of these activities is that I can do them alongside my children (unlike Instagram). Michael loves reading his books alongside me, or sitting on my lap while I use the sewing machine, or watering or squishing the “bad bugs” in the garden. I knit or write by hand when he plays independently. Spinning and fiction writing usually take place after bedtime.

So I’ve been trying to find the virtuous mean in my relationship with technology and social media in the midst of life’s busyness. It’s definitely a work in progress. But I’m grateful for the progress, however imperfect. It’s drawn my focus towards what I value most of all: intentional presence with the people and things I love.