A Spoonful of Gratitude

Today I felt so very grateful for my children. (I confess I don't always feel this way). They are so very delightful. (I confess they are not always delightful).

And here's the kicker. Well, in this case, Kickers.

"Hey Mom! How do ya like my leg muscle exercises? This is going to help me get ready for playin' real soccer!"
__________________

Also, do you know how it warms a mother's heart when her child asks to be buckled in? To the car seat, sitting in the middle of the mudroom? Well.
This impromptu game of "goin' on a twip wid my baby doll" was pure joy, my friends. PURE JOY. Fifteen minutes of strapped-in peace is what it was.

_____________________

And finally, I just realized this week that the kids have taken after me in that we all have a very strong reaction to peanut butter. Especially when we eat it straight from the spoon.


Is there anything better than peanut butter on a spoon? (Why yes, there is. It's called peanut butter and dark chocolate on a spoon. But we will not be introducing the children to that concept anytime soon. Just because I'm deeply grateful for them doesn't mean I'm in the mood to share my chocolate!)

Read more...

Seasonal Courage

I wish I was as brave as the last bit of color, wincing not at waves, flinching not at frost, equal parts courage and optimism.
In weeks, if not days, they will be laid bare in bitter cold. They'll steep in snow and sleet, through short dim lit days and long pitch black nights.

But the long-stretched months will snap short in hindsight, and the seaside shrubs will again bloom and flourish under the noon day sun.

Is it this knowledge--this knowing it is just for a season--that makes them so brave?

Read more...

Consolation Prize

This past week, I picked Caed up from school and we headed straight to the beach. It was cold, but not so cold I couldn't pose them coatless in their Christmas attire. The idea was to get a sweet little photo for holiday cards.

Don't laugh. I really thought I could pull it off.

And I would have gotten away with it too, if hadn't been for those meddlin' kids the sun retreating faster than we could say "good afternoon".

Thanks to the sun's 4:15 p.m. departure, I didn't walk away with the perfect Christmas photo.
But I like to think this sunset photo was my consolation prize.
Does anybody else think it's weird to say "Good Afternoon" in the dark?

This post is linked to the You Capture: Sunrise/Sunset challenge at I Should be Folding Laundry.

Read more...

The Kindergartener's Guide to Social Media

"You better watch out! I'll facebook you!!" Caed shouted to Dani, pointing his wrist "spy" watch at her.

"Nooo! I don't MANT (want) you to pacebook me!" his sister objected.

"Where did you hear that?" I quizzed. "Do you even know what that means?"

"Of course I do, Mom. It's not mean to say. I heard you and Daddy talking, and you said you were going to facebook him. And I know what facebooking is. It's when you put somebody's face in a book."

{Facebook: When you put someone's face in a book. In context: "Come here so I can smush your face into this copy of Social Networking for Dummies. See also: Literary Faceplant}

I didn't ask Caed for clarification. I just laughed and thought to myself, "I have to remember to post that on Facebook."

As an aside--this morning I discovered one more way we old geezers can use Facebook, besides to constantly overshare the cuteness that is our children or to let 250+ people (who could most certainly not care less) know what we had for lunch and whether or not our headache is gone. Are you ready? To help find a plumber. Yep, thanks to some quick responses to a status update requesting plumber recommendations, we averted a flooding disaster and lived to tell the tale...on Facebook, of course. Where else would we tell it?

Read more...

Fully Dressed

I need to smile more. Really, I do. I know it's bad when my five year old casts eyes in my direction and asks, "Why are you making that mean face, Mom?"

"What face? I'm not making a face!"

"Yes you are. And you don't look happy, like you're gonna get us in trouble."

Seriously, kid. What are you? Little Orphan Annie? When did you become the face police? I'll have you know I'm dressed JUST fine with my so-called mean face. And just so you know, I DID smile earlier in the day. Back before you and your sister went all hard-knock-life over the dinner I slaved to put on your plate.

Ahem. So apparently I should save my lectures about the connection between the countenance and the heart, preferably for a day when I'm a tad less of a hypocrite. But what was my point?

Oh that's right. I need to smile more.

And do you know what never fails to make me smile?

When my Dani girl sings:


She's one month shy of three years old, and lately she's all birthday this and birthday that.
After we talked at length about how long a month is (30 sleeps, 4 weeks...), she began announcing to anyone who inquired that her birthday was going to be in "two minutes." And seeing as I could swear she was born only two days ago, I have to agree with her that this month will pass in two minutes flat.

But I digress. The only point was to tell you that over and over, she makes me smile. And in posting her performance from this evening, I'm testing my theory that maybe her effect is universal.

Sharing this gift of my smile-inducing diva with the lovely group that gathers on Tuesdays to unwrap ordinary little gifts that impact us in extraordinary ways.

Read more...

The Shortest Scavenger Hunt

I'm not a photographer, but I play one on my blog.

Sometimes, when life is on the ugly side, when the kids bicker and foreheads bruise and coffee spills and my thoughts are bottle necking (because they don't have a decent word to wear), I feel like this Grumpy McPricklyton shrub in my front yard.

And when I feel this way, I'm telling you, I want to run away from home. Actually, I just want to go five miles and come back. But today I didn't have the luxury of 45 kid-free, jogger-free, word-free minutes to run my sanity route. Because Larry was at work (and come to think of it, still is), and the kids needed to nap after church.

So at the first chance I found, which happened to be an hour before sunset, I took my prickly, irritable self on a tour of the front yard. And wouldn't you know, even within nap-monitoring distance, I saw enough to remind me....

That I have a kindred color in my favorite tree.

And that though her visits are short, her rays half-hearted, though she wears a thick white winter sweater, she still sheds light on unmissable beauty.
It's likely my neighbors think I'm a few pixels short of a full photo for gallivanting around my front yard like I was photographing Katahdin or something. And they might be right. After all, it isn't normal to ask your poop-laden lawn to pose for a portrait.

But it makes me happy to scavenge for beauty using my regular Jo camera in my regular Jo yard. And it's easier for the day to swallow labels like hum-drum, sea level and suburban, when the final word reads beautiful.

Read more...

Real Life

How many times I have thought, "It will be so much better when..."

When we find out for sure about med school.
When we can buy a place of our own.
When he's done with med school.
When I can escape my soul-squashing job.
When he gets home from deployment.
When our son is born.
When our daughter sleeps through the night.
When we know where he'll do residency.
When we can move into a bigger house.
When we can get out of this city.
When we're finally done with residency.

And if I kept going, I could fill in that blank for the rest of my life.

But Real Life doesn't start when we're done with this or that, when a dream comes true or a nightmare is simply over. The adventure is right now, when things aren't perfect and hopes aren't met. So today I'm going to look at the difficulty and call it opportunity. I'm going to look at the bend I can't see around and call it possibility. I'm going to kiss the faces I love and call them the best thing that keeps happening to me.

This is real life. The awful, the banged-up and bruised. The gorgeous, the breath-snatching, the limbo-ridden and the scary. The quiet and lonely. The harried and the tired. The sweet and the lovely.

This is my real life. I will own it. And I will live it like I only have one.

This post inspired by Beth's You Capture: Real Life prompt.

Read more...

He's one of the good guys

You know the kind. The ones who stand in front of harm to keep it from spreading. The ones who believe that peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice.

Yep, he's one of the good guys. And as much as I'd like to say he's mine all mine, the truth is, I've had to share him with my country. And I might have to again.
And if that's the case, then I'll consider it a privilege. Just as he does.

Do you know a veteran you'd like to honor? Feel free to leave their names in the comments so we can personalize our gratitude for the honorable men and women who have served not just for the US armed forces, but for the Allies of justice and peace around the globe.

Read more...

I think I'd miss my kids...

So I married a medical resident. Actually, I married him long before med school was even a remote possibility. So really, we couldn't have known what we were in for. And that was probably a good thing.

Let's just say he works a lot and leave it at that. We know it won't be like this forever, and that helps.

Caed adores his Dad, and for the past two years has imitated his every doctorly move. Whenever Dad makes it home before bedtime, Caed asks for a repeat of grand rounds. "Was there anybody really bloody?" He inquires. "How did you fix his heart from beeping too fast?" He wonders.

But after a week of falling asleep long before Dad arrived to plant goodnight kisses, Caed began to speculate. "I think Daddy might be on another far away rotation. Because he is just working and working and not coming home."

Dani, who is in the habit lately of getting up at 4:45 a.m. both to see Daddy off and to preemptively exhaust her mother, piped up to bear witness to Daddy's existence. She'd reportedly seen Daddy that very morning before he left for "da hopsittle". (I will strike from the record the part where they bicker for five minutes about who saw Daddy last and where Daddy is and who is copying who and....Lord have mercy, would the two of you knock it off??)

Even after we established that Daddy was, in fact, making it home occasionally, Caed's enthusiasm for the medical profession continued to wane. So I wasn't surprised when on the way home from school, he shared his new life plan.

"I used to want to be a fireman or a doctor," he started. "But I don't think I'll do those things. Because fire fighters have to stay all day and night at the station, and I think I'd miss my kids. Like Daddy misses me. So maybe I'll be something else. Laahiiiike.....Lemme see....Hmmm.....I think I'll be a school bus driver! Just think of all the fun I'm going to have doing that!"

His career change announcement might make me totally sad if it wasn't so cute.

(But did I mention it won't be like this forever? It won't. And that helps.)

Read more...

You say potato...

This week we dumped out every last piece of play dough apparatus, threw colors and caution to the wind, and played until the dough was a lovely purplish black.

Dani learned the hard way that the stray grape-flavored Nerds from Halloween and the straggling remnants of play dough look exactly alike against the backdrop of the kitchen floor.

And ever since the ill-fated day I said yes to the mess, no less than five times a day, I hear these words. "I want to p'ay potato, Mama. We get out da potato now?"

She says potato. We say play dough.

Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.

Read more...