Hectic and slow

Dear sister, 

The last month has been one that has felt both hectic and slow.  What's that saying about the days being long but the years being short?  Kinda like that.

Baby showers, brunches, books clubs, teaching extra yoga classes and meeting with clients, the Metaphysical Faire, and lots of visits with family have left me feeling busy busy busy while at the same time the rhythm of most days is on the slow side: punctuated by coffee, endless diapers that are first dirty then clean then dirty again, a certain sweet smelling head that nestles against my heart to sleep, bras that smell like sour milk, tiny ever-so-soft inquisitive hands and mad sprints at the loom.  Do you see how I made that all one sentence? Aren't you proud?

I made a thing.  A really pretty thing.  And I sent it far far away for other people to look at and love on, and for esteemed strangers to judge against a rubric.  I was disappointed with my scores, but in absolute love with the thing itself.  It was the first time I dyed yarn, the dye job was the major design element in the piece, and it came out exactly how I had envisioned it.  May all my dye jobs follow in its footsteps.  

Avery has her first tooth.  She is babbling 'dadadadaDAdada' non-stop.  She makes raspberry motorboat sounds with her lips and with her tongue between her lips.  She makes clicking sounds with her tongue against her palate.  She enjoys tearing National Geo magazines into pieces after pretending to read them.  Boxes make her happy.  She enjoys using fine motor skills with her left hand and  rhythmic large motor skills with her right.  She will turn the pages in a board book as you read it to her and likes to close the whole book before opening to the next page.  She turns herself around and slides feet first off the couch to standing with her hands on the cushions; she will then fall and cry and cry if you do not support and stabilize her.  She lights up when Misha comes into the room, and snuggles and pats (and grabs and hits) Mirabelle - who purrs through it all.  Leto will visit and purr, baby smiling at the cat, cat smiling at the baby, but he keeps just out of reach and may be the best incentive to figure out this crawling thing once and for all.  She's so close to crawling.  

I have fallen in love with my latest piece of studio equipment.  Everyone knows that the first time you do something with new equipment is slower than the second, the third, or the twentieth.  My most recent warp was another third to half again as long as the last couple and went on the loom in a third of the time.  Love.  True love.  This thing is amazing.  And it winds skeins too! Winding skeins is a necessary time consuming precursor to some methods of dyeing.  Avery and I spend a lot of time in the studio.  Work is accomplished in interrupted spurts whilst she is awake, and longer stretches when she sleeps.  On me.  Always.  Sometimes, from certain angles, in photographs, I see so much of you in her. 

I'm working to balance inspiration and motivation.  I'll give you three guesses as to which one is winning.  Hint: I'm swimming in ideas for future projects.