Ways to spend a 10th birthday:

Being kissed 10 times by your mama, brother, sister and dad when you wake up.
Wearing a brand new mama-made dress.
Playing with your friend before breakfast.
Helping to make breakfast/brunch just the way you like it.
Playing with your friend and sister after breakfast.
Waiting patiently while people finish up handmade gifts.
Dancing around the living room with your sister.
Creating a beautiful birthday cake and helping make birthday dinner.
Going on a bike ride to see what's in the mail.
Reading books to your little brother.
Receiving fresh picked cherries from a neighbor.
Hosting your dear teacher/friend for cake.
Blowing and blowing and blowing to get your trick candle (surprise!) to go out.
Eating yummy homemade birthday cake with friends and family.
Receiving handmade gifts from your brother and sister.
Crawling into bed tired and happy.
I think that when they are grown, I will miss these homemade birthdays the most.  Maybe we can still have them.

10 Years ago right now....

I think I had probably gotten out of the birth tub for the last time, because in a half an hour, Ella was born.  It took me a week to believe that she was a girl, because I had not wanted to hope for a girl--I had only hoped for a healthy baby.  Here we are 10 years later and she is such a lovely girl.  She is strong, kind, brave, graceful, and totally loved by all of us. 

Insomnia

It is the middle of the night.  I have a nursling and I should be sleeping.  A boy the size of a giant is asleep in my bed, but the actual giant is in his 'other home' so there IS enough room for sleep, and yet, here I am, unable to sleep.  So, why not blog?  Don't answer that.  Tomorrow I will go on a journey to view what could possibly be the next home of the Cirque de Doggett.  This probably has a lot to do with why I am not sleeping.  My sister, the saint, has moved something like 15 times since she's been married.  She can probably do it in her sleep, she seems to do it with such grace.  Or maybe she just has enough sense to not tell me all the nail biting horrible bits.  So far, our house has been on the market for exactly one month, and we've had exactly one visitor.  The house-selling part has been what you might call slow here on Slow lane.  The circus performers have ditched their normal acts for laundry folding, bed making and bathroom scrubbing--not bad habits to hone.  The 'oh hell' room has had a serious attitude re-adjustment, and the lack of clutter has actually opened up room for creativity just like all those clutter hating neat freaks say it will.  I hate it when they're right.  And yet, and yet..... this is not the first of nights when two cups of chamomile and two hours in bed lead to me getting up to contemplate my life.  Am I worrying?  Maybe.  See that photo up there?  This is the oasis from the rest of the world to which I have come home for the past seven years.  I remember when we first moved in, and I would come home on hot summer days to the coolness of the forest and think, "Ahhhhh... I live in paradise."  I still think that.  And now I have a whole community of friends surrounding me, and they are just not being very easy to leave.  None of them suck, not a single one.  That's why this moving thing has been all hot air for so long.... two years!  Two years ago I was newly pregnant with baby #4 and wondering how the heck I could move away from all that good stuff.  I couldn't and I pretty much told my husband this.  Two years and one 15 month old later, and here we finally are at this crossroads.  Here is my list of things that I think about when I can't sleep:
How will I find quiet in a city when I sometimes have a hard time finding it here?  Oh yeah... it's inside. 
Are kids really as resilient as everyone says they are?
Will it be as easy to make friends as it has been here?
Will I find a place to buy raw milk and fresh eggs?
Will moving have the desired effect of more family time?
How will homeschooling look in a new place?
Will I be able to say no to the constant stream of interesting looking activities in a city that's so big?
Am I cool enough for Portland?
Will my brother and his wife get tired of being my only friends?
Is this really the right thing to do?

Oy vey.  My eyelids are getting droopy now.  maybe that means i can sleep.  i hope everyone else is getting a goodly amount of zzzzzz's tonight. 
In other news:  Sound of Music curtain/clothing project nearly finished.  Photos to follow
                         PhotoSunday postponement is not permanent.  Keep transfixed to this spot for news
                         Country Fair this weekend! 

Oyasumi Nasai