Every day he survives without being eaten all up by his own mother is a miracle. The adorable brioche vest he’s wearing deserves better than a wimpy phone camera, but that’s what was within reach when opportunity knocked. It was concocted by my friend Jen from yummy Blue Moon Mopsy and it couldn’t be toastier. I wish it fit me.

And it’s just the right garment now that the mornings are crisp and cold. These October days we are all awake before dawn. I bring the little fellow into our warm bed for the first feed of the day, curling around his small sturdy body, hoping he’ll doze off again and we can all close our eyes for a few more minutes before the clamor begins from his sister downstairs: “I like walk through dis gate right now! I like eat some food!” But often I catch the gleam of his wide eyes seeking mine in the darkness; he is awake, and he knows I am awake, and he celebrates this simple discovery with much pedaling of legs and the performance of many songs of his own composition, songs to do with milk and moonlight and the felicity of suckable fingers. In another time or another place I’d have to be out of bed in the early dark, stoking a fire, drawing water, struggling to drive the cold out of our home and bring forth some sort of breakfast before the rest of my people woke to the day’s work. It’s a luxury to savor a sweet baby snug in my nest at a quarter to six. If only I were virtuous enough to remember this before I’ve had coffee.

Our dear cattywampus planet is bearing us northern folk away from the sun once more. At the river, dry leaves were gusting onto the water’s surface. Chevrons of geese were beating southward. But the sand still held heat, the alders and scrubby willows were still mainly green, and the broad pool between the shore and the sand bar was still inviting to small persons wishing to wade and test (repeatedly, for scientific rigor) the buoyancy of beach toys. So back to the river we went with our gang of friends, sucking the last juice of the summer. Jolyon watched the big kids — two whole years old, some of them — sporting in the shallows and shoveling sand over their toes, then fell asleep.

A memorable summer it’s been for my family, with the joy of new life come among us, but also with bitter losses. Too many people I love have stumbled into the alien country of life without a mother, a sister, a baby, a faithful dog. The philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel wrote, “Life is short, and we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us, so be swift to love and make haste to be kind.” Neatly as it’s phrased, the sentiment might seem trite, or at least easier said than done if you’ve loved and lost. But Amiel, who lost both his parents at an early age and was marginalized in his cultural community, must have been intimate with grief and loneliness. To me, knowing this makes his words ring with courage.

Where am I going with this? A brief hey nonny nonny for the end of summer has twisted into something more solemn. A sense of purpose to lean forward into my relationships is rising in my heart. It’s too easy to eddy off into your own little backwater and fail to extend yourself to anyone but your short-legged offspring. I learned yesterday that one of my favorite people in the world is expecting a child — glad tidings, yes, but she is twenty-seven weeks pregnant and I am just hearing about it now because I’ve been woefully out of touch. Possibly it’s time to stop dismissing Facebook as cheese doodle friendship — instant! satisfying! perilously addictive! yet short on the real nutrients of more thoughtful communication — and join the throngs to keep abreast of their doings, but I’m thinking more of letters, pots of tea, dinners, spontaneous front-porch gatherings while the weather holds… putting some muscle into drawing people closer in the old-fashioned ways. And knitting for them, of course, because wool is love made tactile, you know. Warmth and light and song and laughter in the winter dark: let me live into those and share them freely where I can.

I tried to take a picture of Jolyon’s adorable new hat. I failed.

The little chap has mastered turning toward Mama, especially when she’s holding the peculiar black snout of the camera to her face, so I can’t show you any of the adorable details on his Pikku-Pete cap. It’s another cleverly constructed and absurdly cute baby garment from Lene Alve of Minni fame, but I’m just going to have to try another photo shoot on a day when I’ve got a prop master to distract Jolly and maybe even hold him so you can see the back. (That day will have to be soon; he’s so enormous that he’s wearing this hat a couple of months ahead of schedule and I’m going to have to make a larger one for this winter!)

And anyway, the temperature was on its way up to the 90s and we were keeping cool at the river with some friends. An alpaca hat wasn’t exactly the beachwear we needed, even in the shade under the scrubby willows.

That’s more like it!

See? I sewed:

As dubious as my little model looks here, this thing came out pretty well. Her actual reaction to the shirt was totally positive; it was just the first time I’ve tried to explain to her how this whole bit with the camera is supposed to work: you stand over there, Mama’s going to back up into these bushes to get far enough away to fit all of you in the picture…. Okay, no wonder she looks like she thinks I’m nuts. “Birds on it! Birds on it, Mama?” she chirped when I showed her what I’d finished sewing.

This, my friends, is the Oliver + S Class Picnic Blouse, and I am making more of them. It was easy to sew but taught me nifty tricks like understitching and stopping the seam finishing a few inches from the cuffs and hem to reduce bulk, thus making me feel I’d gained in competence and might be able to apply what I’d learned in a novel situation. Turns out I love that feeling in sewing just as much as I do in knitting.

This blouse falls right in the sweet spot for kiddo clothing, as far as I’m concerned: easy enough to make that you could whip up another in the next size in just a couple of evenings and wouldn’t cry if anybody drooled cherry juice down the front; cute but not precious; and most importantly, so comfortable your child can forget she’s wearing it and focus on the business of examining very small rocks.

It’s not for Ada, though. It’s a birthday present for her cousin Lucy. (I made sure to mention this right away so I wouldn’t have to wrestle it back from a crying possessive toddler.) The bird fabric is, of course, left over from the quilt I made for my neighbor in May. My remnant was too narrow to make the whole front and back of the blouse in the 3T size (I believe I shall always make children’s clothes a size larger than necessary from now on), hence the contrasting hem. I stitched the two fabrics together before tracing and cutting the pattern pieces; as it happened, the seam was perfectly concealed in the hem finishing. I’ve already cut out pieces from some of the other quilt scraps to make my girl one of her own.

In unrelated news, Jolyon uttered his first giggle on his seventieth day in the world. My friend Mary takes the honors for provoking it. And tonight my children laughed at each other for the first time. There are moments of dizzying magic.