The Homesteady

Gender (stereotype)-free toddler clothes, v.2

Striped tee, Etsy / Harem pants, North of West
Leopard PJs, Cotton On / Turquoise shorts, Cotton On 
"Kindness Makes the World Go Round" tee, Old Navy / Henley set, H&M

All links are affiliate links except North of West.

Here & there

More on Instagram

I've been keeping a secret Pinterest board where I store what's next on my personal projects list -- some of which I end up sharing here, and some of which I don't. It feels like a delicious thing created just for me, and is in keeping with an intention I set at the beginning of the year -- to make more for us. Not for clicks or mentions or sponsorship opportunities, but for the simple reason that right now, Miles likes horses (DIY hobby horse inspired by this tutorial). That feels good.

 

Links for your Thursday

Jonathan Van Ness comes out as non-binary

Ice cream cone cupcakes

A study compares smelling a newborn's head to taking drugs

An LA hair salon just for LGBTQ kids

Perhaps the only recording of Frida Kahlo's voice

England has banned gender stereotypes from advertising

Photos from 1970s-era Pride celebrations

Ravelry bans support of Trump (hooray! bravery! beauty!)

The trailer for Disney's Mulan remake gave me goosebumps

Most people who find a lost wallet will return it

I love these videos of vintage Tonka trucks getting restored (We are buying Miles a tablet in anticipation of a few long car trips and flights this summer, and I'd like to load those videos on there before we leave.)

Dictionary. com is updating the definition of Black

This Scotland Airbnb is also a bookstore you get to run while you stay there

Watch a video of a live giant squid

Boston Public Schools will provide free menstrual products to students

I've been getting happily lost in this Pinterest board lately

DIY reusable plastic baggies

I got tired of washing out used Ziploc baggies (and very tired of buying and throwing them away) so I decided to make four of my own. Food-grade plastic, cut without measuring, folded in a fluster, and sewn on each side. Added: sticky velcro tabs leftover from Miles's family quiet book. Easily washed and toted around. 

Since buying the supplies, I read something about how there's no good plastic, but reusable must at least be better than single use. Right? Well. My next baggies will be fabric, I promise. 

Knit Copenhagen Baby Blanket

It’s done, it’s done!

Holy cow. I’m so proud of this crib blanket, made for one of my oldest friends who is expecting a sweet squishy new baby this summer. She studied abroad in Copenhagen in college and I visited her for a week while she was there so when I spotted this pattern by Jake Henzler on his Instagram account last year (inspired by the beautiful buildings in the city’s Nyhavn area) I saved it. And I’m so glad I did.

My first time knitting from a chart AND doing colorwork, I actually loved this pattern — especially thanks to the support from drop-in hours at Webs, which is luckily in our backyard! (Also where I got all the yarn for this project.) I knitted 12 buildings, blocking and then piecing them together in three rows of four. I then sewed a cotton flannel back and border to make it as cozy and functional as possible. The best part is that every element is machine washable and dryable!

So now that this big project is done, I have to figure out what to do with all my free time. (Just kidding, I’ve already started like three new projects.)

Find Jake's pattern on Ravelry, and find photos from my trip to Copenhagen and said lovely buildings below. A few more notes about it here. 

Miles liked it, too.

And now, back to 2008...

Kids' Pride

Happy Pride Month!

Northampton celebrates early, our march held the first weekend of May so that the many college students who attend school in the valley are still here and can participate. Kristie and Miles and I marched with a group of students and staff from the community college where I work. It was Miles's first Pride (we were all out of town for a wedding last year), and I think he really liked it. Kristie gave him a small rainbow flag to hold while we were marching down Main Street, and he waved it furiously at the cheering bystanders. 

Personally, I've never made it through a Pride parade without crying, and this year was no different -- especially because we were experiencing it as a family for the first time. Northampton is a very special place. To borrow from a post I wrote a few years ago: "I cry because I'm happy, and safe, and part of such an amazing community."

So while our local Pride has come and gone, June is still Pride Month around the world. Here are a few projects and products to help you celebrate Pride with your kids.

Cool Like My Moms tee [affiliate link] / Rainbow: A First Book of Pride [affiliate link]
Tie-Dye Rainbow Shoes / Rainbow Cookies
Rainbow cardigan (free knitting pattern) / Rainbow sweatshirt [affiliate link]
Dope Like My Dads tee [affiliate link] / Rainbow waffles

Also check out 6 Pride DIYs, plus a Polaroid Kristie and I at our first Pride together way back in 2007. 

*Images in this post belong to the websites with which they are associated.

Here & there

A sweet Mothers' Day snap of my wife and son

Summer is here! Well, warm weather is here. The sun is here. All of us are glad for it.

A few notes:

• Kristie and I drove to Maine and videoed our first wedding of the season last weekend
• Cows have replaced birds as Miles's favorite animal, and we've been making frequent visits to Flayvors to visit their cows
• I have an appointment with a gastroenterologist this afternoon to further investigate gluten-related issues
• Our craft room has been taken over by Kristie's work and Miles's toys, so I'm carving out an ill-advised space in our basement for a little sewing room (see all the moldy, haunted, creepy details in my Instagram stories)

 

Links for your Friday

"Plenty of women would rather protect their relative privilege than fight for redistribution."

On raising boys with a broader definition of "masculinity"

10 places to find inspiration (that aren't Pinterest)

Take a look at the Shirley Chisholm monument coming to Brooklyn

Briam Baumgartner (who played Kevin on "The Office") on that chili scene

How to car camp with kids

A trick to make the weekend seem longer

Lots of our friends are welcoming new babies, so these have been on heavy rotation in our kitchen (both for them and for us, even though no one is breastfeeding in our house anymore!)

I've also been meal-prepping a bit, and would like to try readying some broccoli breakfast sandwiches

Many mainstream brands (including H&M) are scaling back their use of cashmere due to environmental and animal rights concerns

In an instance of iterative evolution, a once-extinct bird is with us again

The Downton Abbey movie trailer (I have goosebumps!)

Added to my travel bucket list: a ranunculus superbloom

A family-themed quiet book

We are lucky and not. My parents and siblings live close enough that Miles gets to see them regularly (and we have access to eager babysitters). Kristie's mom, sister, and our nephew, though, live in Virginia. They visit as often as they can and we're planning a trip to see them in August, but in the meantime, I wanted him to have a way to connect with them regularly (outside of Facetime).

Have you ever looked up "quiet book ideas" on Pinterest? There are thousands. Quiet books are wonderful things, I've come to learn. They're full of little age-appropriate activities –– although whether the books are so named because these activities are quiet or are designed to keep toddlers themselves quiet, I'm not sure. Both work. And the internet abounds with DIY tutorials for creating new pages which can be sewn or hot-glued into existence.

I decided to wed the "quiet book" concept with photos of Miles's (our) Virginia family members: Kristie's mom, her dad (who passed away suddenly in early 2017, around the same time I finally got pregnant), her sister Raven, our nephew Jacob, and Kristie's grandma and step-grandpa. I thought the little activities and games would keep him engaged while also looking at their photos and practicing their names. 

Happily, it's working. He refers to it determinedly as "MY book," and is regularly occupied by turning the pages, pushing beads from one side to another, and making Pawpaw's cars drive around the road. He spends a lot of time on Jacob's page as well, carefully moving legos from their plastic pouch to the waiting velcro squares. ("Jekkop," he says confidently.)

Have a look at the video above if you can. The photos in this post were hastily snapped near a window in the kitchen, and the light puts a glare on some of the printed images, making them look too light. (They're not.)

A few tips and sources, if you'd like to make one too:

• I made a secret Pinterest board to collect the favorite ideas I'd come across, and then plotted out the content of each page beforehand in Google Slides
• Much of the felt came from our local Buy Nothing group on Facebook (including the car page, already assembled) and from Etsy [affiliate link]
• I printed the family photos onto iron-on transfer paper [affiliate link], then ironed them onto scrap white cotton. Beware, if it matters because of text legibility, this process will flip the photo! (See backwards text in Mawmaw and Don's wedding photo. Oh well.)
• I designed the front cover (and Jacob's name) in Photoshop, then flipped it, printed it, traced it onto this paper [affiliate link], ironed to transfer it onto the felt, then stitched over it with embroidery thread
• The rest of the odds and ends I already had, or purchased in a $20 Michaels trip made the morning I put it all together

How to support someone who's getting an abortion

Originally posted on Instagram

How to support someone who’s getting an abortion:

1. Don’t assume anything. Don’t assume they’ve told their partner or family members or friends. Don’t assume you understand their birth control choices. Don't assume this was an easy decision for them to make.
2. Find out what they can expect from the clinic, the appointment, the day (Planned Parenthood has good general resources on this) and gently prepare them. Suggest that they call the clinic for a breakdown of the appointment beforehand too if they feel that would be helpful.
3. Support them in making a list of questions for the provider. Prepare to ask them yourself if they want you to advocate on their behalf. Every patient deserves an answer to every question.
4. Ask how they’d prefer you deal with any protesters who might be outside the clinic. (Do they want you to answer if someone yells? Do they want you to help them avoid conflict?)
5. Offer a ride to the clinic and a ride home afterwards. Ask what they want to listen to in the car (what kind of music/the news/nothing).
6. Ask if they'd like you to hold their hand while you walk in together.
7. Offer to go into the exam room with them and be present for the procedure in whatever way they need (hand-holding? playing funny videos on YouTube? distracting them with conversation about "Game of Thrones"?).
8. Make sure they are as comfortable as possible when you bring them home. Settle them in bed or on the couch with blankets and a heating pad, and then go out and get their favorite foods for when they feel ready to eat. Make sure there are menstrual pads in the bathroom. Put things like water and Advil and the TV remote nearby.
9. If they want you to stay and you are able, stay. If they want you to leave, leave and tell them they can text you if they need anything or just to talk. When they text, text back.
10. Check in a few days later via text, and simply listen. Drop off a bag of little self-care things like chocolate, a candle, or a single-use face mask – things that will help them focus on themselves with acts of care, comfort, and love.
11. If you need to tell someone else what you’re doing, don't tell anyone who it is you're helping. Even if if they don’t tell you explicitly not to tell anyone, don’t tell anyone.

Do any or all of these things. Most importantly, keep checking in and asking what they need. (And remember it’s okay if that changes from one minute to the next.) Offer them love and support and acceptance and try your best to create peace.

The allure of the "soft apocalypse"

There's this Tumblr post, written in 2016, that's been reblogged almost 200,000 times. It's about a new genre concept called "soft apocalypse" and it sounds...really nice, actually.

(I won't do a good job of re-explaining it here so I won't try; it's perfect the way it's written. Please go read it.)

Why is this so lovely?

I sent the link to my friend Katy, and we texted back and forth about it for a little bit. Here's what I wrote to her, piecemeal, while at the gym.

The soft apocalypse. A world where everyone values the things that we value.

It feels like holding a bird in your hands. I'm loving right now thinking about why this is so attractive, hypnotizing.

1) Base equity. Everyone is facing the same challenges, working within the same constraints. No one is better off than anyone else.

2) Creativity, hard work, and passed-down knowledge are valued.

3) Handiwork is critical for survival = more time/effort spent in pursuit of these crafts, which are especially satisfying since they produce a useful physical product = more happiness and satisfaction in work.

4) Reliance on community becomes paramount. That which we can't do, our neighbor can. We survive because of each other. Acknowledgement and value of this symbiosis feeds community building, respect, and kindness.

5) Increased pride in one's own abilities, since we are able to witness directly how they fuel our community's survival/success.

6) More unity with nature. Interruptions in electricity/water delivery/automobiles force community-based, nature-informed responses to basic needs. Adverse nature events require collaboration, and therefore reinforce equity balance and community reliance.

Something's missing though...maybe it's 2 and 4 combined. Community reliance and value of passed-down knowledge engender the valuation and care of those who are not able to contribute directly.

That's 7.

And 8) Bounty. Forced to creatively reassess the utility of the things we have or can produce ourselves (since nothing can be ordered from a faraway factory anymore), we find that we as a people have or can make anything we need.

Back to 7, love matters because community matters. Then one day, love just matters.

9) Time/energy spent on creating the physical. We believe that love survives after our deaths; but we KNOW that at least some of the physical things we create do. Our lives, our work reassure us that someTHING will be left — and that we will value the women left whose only purpose is to add our names and our work to their poems.

= we never die.

(I can be a prolific texter.)

Katy pointed out rightly, beautifully, "It's really the pieces that are missing/devalued with capitalism."

I'm left with self-assigned homework: Keep this idea warm. Help it grow by rereading The Feminist Utopia Project. Try to amplify the whispers of these values in my daily life. Imagine honestly the other side of the coin: what would be lost in this hypothetical version of society (vaccines? accessibility?). Watch warily as news of our planet grows bleaker (NYT). Remember to compost. 

If this subgenre resonates, you might like reading Station Eleven [affiliate link].

Do you like to be surprised?

Four years ago, my brother and sister and I sneakily planned a surprise anniversary party for our parents to celebrate their 30th year of marriage. We roped my aunt into taking them out for dinner, and while they were gone we got the party ready. We set up a popcorn bar and decorated their backyard, and my parents' friends and extended family arrived – some even drove six hours to be there!

Long story short, we partied the night away and everyone had a really good time. It was so worth the secret-keeping. My parents loved it too – even though afterward my mom made me promise never to throw them a surprise party again! And I don't blame her. Surprises aren't my favorite either – I much prefer being in the know about what's going on.

I can't wait to figure out if Miles is a pro-surprise person or not – whether we could spring one of those Disney surprises on him when he's older, where we tell him where we're going in the car on the way to the airport, or he'd prefer to plan the whole trip with us. (Either way, I'm happy.)

I'm curious: Do you like to be surprised?