A Few Things I'm Excited About (Beach Week Edition): corn cakes, bonfire perfume, donated ideas, japanese persimmon cloth and a plea for well-cooked babies!

Olo Fragrance's new scent, Palo Santo, is the number one Things I Would Like to Smell today. I do not much like flowery stuff (rose is a notable exception), so this woody blend really appeals.  I found it at the very hip Accident and Artifact in SF. I also love Olo's Victory Wolf, which really does smells like someone's hair after a night around a bonfire. Stop laughing at me.

I'm impressed: rather than donating finite goods, Toyota donated their efficiency system to a Harlem soup kitchen. The resulting changes allowed the charity to help a great many more people. I love the idea of donating ideas rather than materials. It feels less like charity and more like cooperation.

I made these corn cakes for dinner last night and now we can't stop brainstorming different ways to eat them. Current thoughts: with caviar and creme fraiche, with ricotta, maple syrup and berries, with crumbled bacon mixed into the batter (duh).

Fabric obsession: Japenese Kakishubu, dyed with fermented persimmon juice. According to Hickorees, it's antibacterial? Someone please convince to me that I do not have the time or skill to attempt this on my own.

File under Not Surprised: a new peer-reviewed study has established substantive linkage between induced or augmented labor (often through i.v pitocin) and the instance of autism. My doctor parents point out that we really don't understand how the stronger contractions caused by pitocin affect the amount of oxygen baby receives, so this makes intuitive sense. Obviously more research is needed, but this is worth a lot more investigation than the ass-hatted (and failed) attempts to connect autism to vaccines (see jennymccarthybodycount.com). Also worth a read: Jodi the Doula's discussion of why even "natural" induction is usually a bad idea, and we should just let babies cook as long as they want.

Pictures: Ziva: Yoga in Motion

You know a kid is cool when the best way to get them to come over for a closeup is to yell OH MY GOD LOOK IT'S A REALLY GIANT BUG!

My friend Amelia's daughter, Ziva, is a flurry of activity, and her shenanigans stop for no one. I love toddlerhood because it's an age of total authenticity-- if they hang out with you it's because they want to, not because they are trying to be polite. Otherwise, they go off and do their own thing.

They don't smile on command. If they smile, it's because they think something is awesome.

And if you want to hang with them, it's best to cut the bullshit and go hunting for rad insects.

If you are lucky and you can catch them in moment of stillness, you can see them working to absorb and assimilate everything they've just learned.

Then they shake it off and get back in the game. It's a lot like the cycle of yogic breathing. On the inhale we nourish ourselves. aAt the top of the breath we pause to digest. Then we exhale to eliminate what we don't need. Toddler are very yogic creatures in general, and not just because they are quite bendy.

They are masters at just being here. Hanging out. And moving forward on impulse.

We benefit so much from being near them, but they aren't here to be our teachers. They are here to find rad insects.

Respect.

Pictures: I get to keep this one

Truly: with every birth I have ever attended, I have fallen in love with the baby. I started practicing as a doula when I was 23, so the first children I saw enter the world will start the first grade this Fall. I can still remember how each of them arrived.

Usually, after the birth is over, and everyone is tucked in bed and the baby is feeding, I slip out of the hospital room, walking backwards so I take one last mental snapshot of the little family that has just coalesced before my eyes. Then, except for the occasional post-partum visit, I don't see that perfect creature again.

Except! Oscar.

Because Oscar's parents are dear friends and coworkers as well as doula clients, I get to snuggle him and snap his picture and talk about his poop and laugh with his parents and watch his family grow. He birth was incredibly beautiful, but his tiny self is even more so.

While I always feel that the babies I see born are perfect, I must say that this one is particularly perfect.

And he gets perfect-er each time I see him.

Oscar's family is surrounded by a massive community of aunties and uncles and internet-cousins, all of whom utterly delight in his existence. His parents keep saying how lucky they feel to be enveloped in so much love and support. All of us keep saying how lucky we are to witness the creation of their family and the growth of their beautiful son.

Just by being, Oscar is a gift to the world. Just by loving him, we help him grow into the person that he truly is.

All he needs to do is be himself, and he makes people very, very happy. So may it always be.

Here's to Oscar, and to his parents, and to their community, and to the amazing way that true love multiplies. We are all the lucky ones.