The phrase “making friends” suddenly strikes me as odd. Are friends a thing you make, like a sock or a pie? If anything, I think I am more made by my friends. They love and challenge and surprise me.

For example, I wrote a couple days ago about how amazed I am when friends reach across long distances to express their care, especially when I have trouble even across town. I’m not exaggerating; most days it’s easier to whip my phone out of my pocket and connect with someone in another hemisphere than to bundle up my family to visit a half mile away. But part of why I moved across the world myself was to get better at that: reaching out across town. And here, I am surrounded by amazing people who are better at that, and they love me anyway, and show me how it’s done.

Two weeks ago, friends gathered to celebrate Baby Ds arrival. It was a great party full of awesome ladies, and D was well and truly showered- especially with DIAPERS! Oh my, cloth diapers. I do love them. I love not having to contribute to our landfill, which is a very big and nasty reality not that far away. And it’s very cool that there’s a cloth diaper store in town called Arctic Cotton, run by a dad who wants to make cloth diapering more accessible and affordable to our town. My friends pulled together to hook us up with a bounty of our favorite kind, the organic cotton prefolds. (With everything I’ve learned about microplastics lately, I love these even more.)

Froggy bum! Such a sweet poo receptacle. D says, “Why yes, mama did make me pose for this picture.”

Anyway I did not begin this post intending to wax rhapsodic about clothing my baby’s bum. Such are the considerations that fill my days, and my fellow war weary mamas understand.

This is nominally a crafting blog, and what I really want to share are all the handmade gifts D was given.*

First off the quilts. Jane made this beautiful piece and free-motion quilted it herself. I can sort of imagine what that means but I don’t really; it sounds difficult. My MIL and I were admiring it and imagining the squares side by side looked like houses.

She made wee matching quilts for the girls to wrap their babies too.

My MIL, whose quilts decorate our house in several rooms, made D her first to be her very own. Do you not love these colors?

I’m still having trouble generally speaking with orange and blue together, but I just love this really red orange, and all the other colors are so fresh and light. Besides which I am very sentimental about all things Maryland since moving away from the US, so I find the crabs and anchors very endearing.

Annie of Monday Nights is another quilter, and made this cozy blanket for D. It’s fleecy, well padded, and sturdy to be a floor mat. All the kids like to play on it now. N in particular has commented on enjoying the colors.

From far away Pittsburgh, D received her very own Barb quilt. They’re thinner and just the right size for snuggling. She’s made one for each child, and they’ve held up admirably despite being intensely loved. Here are all three with their quilts.

My mother made the last blanket I’m going to show you today, but the first one we received. It’s made with several colors of her natural-dyed yarn, with a multi in there just to shake things up. Of course I’m already a fan of my mom’s yarns, but something about this piece – the relaxed gauge and the mix of garter, maybe – makes the most of the drape and weight of this yarn. We cozy up with it a lot.

Have you ever seen a knitted bonnet like this before? D received two: a sweet tiny green one by my friend Atsainaq:

And a terra cotta one, a little bigger, by Hannah.

I’ve never seen this style before but it’s popular up here. Atsainaq and Hannah tend to knit them top down and flat and then sew up the bottom. You need a reliable tied on hat when baby is on your back. And the ruffles… I do rather love ruffles.

And then there’s these wonderful sealskin mitts!

My anaananguaq made them. To Elisapi from Elisapee. They won’t fit her for a bit so I will have to hide them from the big girls. This is such a neat design. Check out the gromets she installed. And the elastic that goes between the layers is very cool. I need to learn how to make these.

Finally, just for D, my dear friend Andrea made this bunny. He is colourful and cheerful and soft and floppy just as a bunny should be. It doesn’t hurt that he reminds me very much of a dear departed pair of handknit socks.

Our baby #3 is blessed with a lot of love. There have been further contributions to her wardrobe from parishioners, friends here, and friends far away. She’s our third, but our first Northern baby, which is its own kind of special. The outpouring of love and gifts and time – we know that handmade gifts are made of time as much as anything else! – is precious. I’m so thankful for our community and the friends we have made, are making, and are being made by. (Oh dear, how’s that for a sentence? Mama needs a nap!)

*Does it seem weird to do a post about gifts? It’s actually part of the culture up here to really show off what you’ve been given. This was super weird for me at first. I’m always kind of awkward about gifts because they feel really personal. But eventually I realized it’s not about me at all; it’s about the kindness of this other person, and celebrating that. I want to celebrate this kind and beautiful person and what they did, and I hope as crafters you are inspired by their work too.

This child wanted so badly to learn to knit. Randomly. At 4:30.

This is her dance recital dress. Her recital was on Sunday. We make her take it off to sleep.

I managed to get her more needles and yarn (since her last false start is still in the drawer… what was I going to do, tell her that knitters always finish what they start?). She said she wanted to knit a sweater. I said how about something smaller. She said how about a sweater for the baby? I said how about a hat. Her subsequent plan was to knit hat, mitts, and “outdoor socks” for the baby.

I cast on 12 stitches for her.

Then I had baby and toddler and dinner to worry about, so I told her she was on her own. She’s sat on my lap doing “in, around, through, and off” for years now. Understandably, she’s been able to master (well, approximate) all the steps but “through.” I was switching the laundry when she came up to beg for my help.

In a moment of what I’m sure was laid-back parenting genius, I said, “why don’t you figure out 100 ways to do “through” wrong?”

Well, what followed was half an hour of almost continuous sobbing and wailing. This child is not into making mistakes. But she got it.

Okay, so I straightened the mess of stitches for her a few times, and I sat down for two whole minutes to stop her freaking out about something that wasn’t a problem. But these are four whole stitches she made more or less by herself. At least, she did the “through” successfully.

Only 99 wrong ways to go!

It took me until I was nearly thirty to gain a positive attitude about learning the hard way. Hopefully it won’t take her quite that long. In the meantime, I have plenty of tissues and yarn, and if she decides this whole thing is horrible and she totally hates knitting… I’m sure we’ll find a way to support her in whatever esoteric hobby she lands on.

I have more Thoughts about self-care and mothering and time and consumption, but they aren’t resolving themselves into an essay just yet. So instead I’ll share with you something much more reliably lovely: the sweet surprises I’ve received in the mail since baby D arrived.

Mairi (of the BC chapter of the Wool n’ Spinning community) sent a most darling care package for the whole family. I didn’t get a picture of the whole thing together because we were all so excited that it was immediately distributed. There were books for the big girls:

Chocolate, candy, a bookmark, cards…

And some really lovely herbal teas which I’ve hidden away to sample in a more leisurely fashion. It was just the kindest thing.

Into this package, Katrina slipped one of her beautiful baby hats.

I’m saving it for Ds one month birthday, so hopefully you’ll see this again. Isn’t it just darling? I think it’s one of those aviator style hats like the one I made for N last year, and I’m such a sucker for embroidered garnishing of handknits.

Then Rachel blew me away with this complete surprise:

This is a Turtlemade Turkish spindle. She knows I’m wanting to play with spindle spinning over our summer vacation, and I’ve never tried this kind. They’re ridiculously light and portable, and I hear such good things about them. I am excited to start playing with it and experience what makes them special. I’ve already found this excellent video by The Abby Franquemont. I think that will suffice to get me going with it, since I have some (rather rusty) spindling experience. How fun, no?

And then… as I was typing this post… Jared came in and informed me there was another mysterious package with my name on it.

It was expected to an extent – Lori, an Instagram friend, had posted her Elizabeth Zimmermann book collection, and my gushing had led to a conversation in which she offered to mail me the one EZ book which I don’t have, and of which she had a duplicate: Knitting Around. But the package was obviously too tall for just a book.

I believe I produced an audible squee. The girls love matching, especially the ringleader N, so I can’t wait to see their faces. And a whole volume of EZs words to discover… I have most of the patterns in other forms, but her words! They are a treasure of wit and confidence.

What more can I say? Time fails me to discuss my Iqaluit friends who pulled together to mightily enhance our stash of cloth diapers, or Cathy from Instagram who sent me carded sunshine, or the elders who threw me a surprise birthday party AND a surprise baby shower, and I should really do a separate post just to show off the handmade gifts D has received.

Friendship and generosity always touches me so deeply because, to the weird little world of my brain, it comes as a surprise. I know what it’s like to go without friends for a very long stretch, and I have a difficult time reaching out to touch those I DO care about deeply. So when someone I have never met in person reaches out across the longitude and latitude of a VERY large country, to touch my life with a physical gift, an artifact, actual tangible proof that they care and were thinking about me… well, I’m a bit dumbstruck. It’s just pure gracious kindness. There’s no way I could ever pay it back. So I’ll try to give it forward.

Thank you, friends, for showing your caring. You are a gift. You make me want to be kinder.

Welcome to our newest nugget.

Five days old and she’s stolen our hearts. We are well and she is thriving, but we’re taking things slow as we adjust to the new dynamic and the sleep deprivation.

You may have noticed the password protected birth story above. I am not going to post a public version this time, because we’re pastors now and it is more appropriate for that to be private. But if you are a family member or friend who would like all the details, or if you’re interest for the purpose of education about birth and labor stories, you’re welcome to ask for the password. Below I’ve included a few excerpts, with most of the same pictures of Diana during her first few days.

….

Curled up on my chest is seven pounds of softly breathing squishyness. Her name is Diana Elisapi. This is the story of how she came into the world.

The thing about having a third child is, you have expectations. If something happened the same way twice, you expect it to go the same way a third time. If something progressed through two events, you expect it to continue in the same direction for the third. It’s a way, I suppose, of preparing oneself calmly for an experience you can’t really predict.

Photo by Frank Reardon. Qiqiktani General Hospital, less than a mile from my house, where all the babies are delivered for the whole region. I’ve lived here long enough to know some of the people who were models for the mural.

Unlike the other girls, we would be in a hospital. However, everything about this hospital was much more like a birth centre than most hospitals in the south (read: southern Canada and the US). Also unlike with the others, Jared was my only support person. No extra friends; I didn’t seek out a doula; no photographer. We’ve done this before, I thought.

if you’re from Maryland, eating ptarmigan is kind of like a crab feast but with birds.

Those last few days had many gifts. Monday night at ACW, I had ptarmigan for the first time. That night, I finally got a decent night’s sleep. I’d been up almost every night for an hour or two. So I had specifically asked several people to pray for a good night’s sleep, and their prayers were answered. Tuesday I felt great, and had the surprise of lots of help so I could finish Naomi’s kamiik. Wednesday’s uncertainty had the joy of sharing those with her.

Looking back at my mental file of previous birth experiences, on Wednesday I felt like the day before Martha was born. I texted my friend who was first on the list of friends slated to come over and hang with the big sisters when the moment came. It felt serious. I stayed busy, because I wanted things to keep moving. That night we folded laundry, watched a movie, I knitted a swatch.

As a few of you have already guessed, this is the movie we watched.

Action movies are my comfort food, and I’ve been watching a lot of them these three weeks. Jurassic Parks, Sherlock Holmes, Tron, etc. During Naomi’s early labor, we watched Tron: Legacy. During what quickly became Martha’s active labor, we watched Hero. There’s no logic to it, just what feels good. That night, I said, let’s watch Wonder Woman. We had loved it in theatres that summer, and Jared had gotten me the blu-ray for my birthday, but we hadn’t seen it again. At the end of the movie I looked at Jared with a mischievous grin and said, “you know, Diana’s a nice name.”

A note about names. In the past, we’ve had a name picked out well in advance, and just kept it private until baby was born. This time we only had a middle name picked out. Elisapee is my anaananguaq, which means something like “pretend mom,” and she’s become very special to us. It’s the Inuktitut version of Elizabeth. It perpetuates our accidental coincidence of non-English middle names starting with E. Reading lots of Elizabeth Zimmermann during third trimester sealed the deal for me. (I’m on my third Tomten jacket.)

Baby’s Tomten. I did manage to get the zipper installed before she arrived.

But for first names, we were kind of stumped. We had one we liked, but it kinda felt like a placeholder. There was a short list of other possibilities, but none that really compelled us. I didn’t think seriously, that evening, about naming a baby after Wonder Woman. But the seed was in my mind for the right moment.

The right moment came at 5:03 the next morning. April 19th.

She was 7 lb, 3 oz, 51 cm/20″ long, with a full head of black hair.

All she needed was a name.

I looked at that face, dark and puffy, and all that black hair. I tried out the names on our list in my mind. “Maybe you are Diana,” I thought. Jared looked skeptical at first, but I gave him my argument.

Since we were giving her a middle name after my northern mom, part of me wanted to name her after my regular mom, but “Linda” had never quite fit for us. Then I heard “Diana.” It’s very closely related to my mom’s middle name, Diane, which she has always liked. It’s where her grandma-name, “Didi,” comes from. It means “divine,” which makes me think of perichoresis, the being caught up in the divine dance of the Trinity, which is the purpose we were all made for. Back on the pagan side, the greek Diana was “the huntress,” which our doctor knew right off the top of her head. Living among the Inuit, I liked the sound of a huntress.

Jared took a while to think about it. It’s a big decision, the name this human is going to be pretty much stuck with. In the end, he agreed. We texted my mom to ask her permission, which she of course gave with texted tears. (Turns out she was up all night anyway with a very sick dog. She’s had a complicated week.) Diana it was. Diana Elisapi.

It’s different, giving a baby a name that you haven’t had a chance to try out for months. It’s different from the other names we’ve chosen, not being Biblical per se, though it’s from Latin, and in Inuktitut will probably be Tiana. Of course, in Inuktitut she will probably go by Elisapi, and if she decides to use that name, we are happy she has that choice.

Diana Elisapi with Elisapee K.

But to us, today, she’s Diana. Baby D. Herself. A third girl, who will never escape constant comparisons to her sisters, but who will find her own way to be very much herself. She has multiplied the love in our family, and we are so much richer for it.

We’re all home now, having asked to go home the same day. Everything medically is going very smoothly. Again I have nothing but thankfulness, both for how well things went and the perspective of the third time round. Diana is as tiny as she’ll ever be, but she’s showing us that she is tough stuff. We’re trying to take it slow as we transition to being a family of five. I’m trying to let go of the normal I’ve worked so hard for in our home for a while. We’re trying to ask when we need help. I’m accepting that I’m going to be a zombie for a while, and that there isn’t going to be much spinning. Taking it slow.

And of course we should! Because our family is bigger. A new person grows our family, our community, the whole world. Diana is a new human, and she has already changed everything.