I come from a family with eclectic tastes. My dad has a wall of mounted critters made of all sorts of materials winding their way towards a window in his house. My mom has a love of all fabrics that are batiked or hand made, and my brother is a poet and musician. My parents home has a giant mobile hanging in the living room, and other assorted mobiles around the house. As it turns out, Porter is no different, he too has a love of mobiles and all things made to mount and spin in the air. He has spent up to 20 minutes (maybe more) staring at floating objects.

His fascination started in Maui with the original mobile, the ceiling fan.

He then received his first mobile as a gift from his Aunt’s Anna and Katie and Gramma Teri. It’s a beautifully handmade mobile of pinwheels. Each pinwheel is mounted with a wooden bead and has a different pattern on the bottom. It suits Porter’s love of spinning fans perfectly.

Porter recently received his next mobile. It’s made of hand folded paper butterflies floating from hand sculpted copper wire. Here’s the story. On his first trip to France, many years ago, my dad picked up a kit of paper butterflies and gave it to my brother as a gift. Being from France, the directions were in French. Luckily, many years later my brother moved to France and learned to speak and read French. A few years after that, Porter was born and my brother was able to finally assemble the paper butterflies and crafted them into a mobile with copper wire and string. It turned out beautifully and the butterflies swarm in circles every time the fan is on. Porter is mesmerized by it.

While Porter is enthralled with his mobiles, I have to admit that I find myself staring at them for long periods of time too. They capture the lightness of the air, and are downright whimsical. And just about anything that displays whimsy is pretty tender.