Ivan has taken up a new hobby: brewing his own beer. Last summer we spent a weekend with my sister’s in-laws in Iowa and Lou (Dana’s father in law) is a master brewer (hee hee, kind of a funny pun since his last name is Br*ewer). He has jerry rigged a tap in a refrigerator where he usually has two home brews ready for dispensing into a frosty glass. My husband loved that he could just go downstairs and fill and refill and refill his glass through the whole weekend with delicious beer.
So at Christmas time, one of Ivan’s brothers gave him a start up kit for his first brew as a gift. And since then the hobby has caught like wildfire. For a while there, my kitchen was being taken over by big stainless steel pots and bottles galore. And it has shifted to the basement and is beginning to look like a brewery down there.
When Ivan first started brewing, I think he was feeling a wee bit insecure about his beer and whether it would turn out. The way it works is you brew in many steps that require waiting with each step, kind of like baking homemade bread. So in all that waiting, Ivan has plenty of time to get worried about his brew being “no good”. And I would always say to him, “Let it be. Give it a few more weeks and it will be just fine.” This same conversation must have happened multiple times.
And then the day came when he made a “triple” [not sure exactly what that is, but it required more waiting then normal]. He was about to give up on it and pour it all down the drain after he sampled one with his brother and I once again said, “Let it be. Give it more time.” He ended up taking a bottle to his local brew shop where he gets all his supplies and has made friends with some of the guys that work there. They sampled it and guess what they said? They loved it and thought it was great!
Ivan comes home and tells me the report and you know how he concluded his report?
“I think it just needed more time in the bottles,” with a look of naivety and mild shock on his face.
I laughed aloud and thought it was so endearing. It hit a funny bone and I continue to smile when ever he gets insecure about his beer, saying all along, “Give it time.”
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One night we were eating dinner at our kitchen nook. I had lovely candles burning as the centerpiece. I have been teaching Audrey how to blow out candles (as training for her next birthday, of course). We were done eating and simply lingering with one another in a Martens’ fashion. Ivan was sitting directly across from me and Audrey to his left. Audrey wasn’t getting the hang of the blowing, so I took over. It was a 3 inch pillar candle that had been burning a while. I was getting kind of dramatic in my “pretend blows”. And on the final blow, I took a deep breath in and blew with all my might.
And you guess it. I didn’t just blow out the candle, I blew out all the melted wax which flew in every direction. The table was peppered with little splats of hot wax. Ivan got it and so did Audrey, very mildly. But more significantly, wax was splattered all over my face like big freckles. I spent the next few hours picking wax off my face and out of my hair. It sure was funny. Audrey didn’t think so though. She cried. And I kept laughing.
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Audrey’s language is really picking up speed and we are moving on to 2-3 word sentences that have follow up sentences. She is also getting cute in expressing herself with different intonations. My favorite that causes me to smile inside and out is when Ivan does something silly or cute or even farts at the table (imagine that), she will cock her head to the side and with glitter in her eyes say, “Daddddeee, silly.” I wish I could perfectly articulate the intonation of the daddy with words but I will do my best. It is something like, I can’t believe you just did that and a mixture of you are so silly with some I find you charming sprinkled on top. It is simply and utterly delightful.
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Smiles and giggles peaking out like sun through the clouds on a gloomy day.