School...

We are doing preschool at home this year, and one of the important things I've learned thus far is that while school with mama may involve painting or poetry, school with daddy is probably going to include how to create fire from common household objects.

Seeing...

Sometimes while my body is on pause, waiting for Aimée to finish her sandwich or pull on her shoes I suddenly feel as if I really see her. Maybe it's the curve of her cheek or the incredibly grownup question she's asking me ("Mom, is God on earth?") but I'm overtaken with throat-closing emotion to see up close and in full focus this vibrantly alive, delightful little girl. 

So I must ask myself, what on earth is going on the rest of the time? Am I really in such a haze of needs, thoughts, social interaction, thought curation, struggling to finish an entire task that I'm missing out on this? Or are these experiences like a sunrise; they don't happen continuously no matter how hard you try to see them, so just enjoy it when they do.

I don't know. So I close my eyes, and whisper to myself "Remember this, don't let the absolutely heart-aching beauty of your child's presence be lost in the flurry of lesser memories. And come back to this the next time she's whining in the grocery store."  

Good Morning, dear ones...

So many days have passed since I've visited this little haven! The search for Capri, the essence of who I was created to be and a place of rest, is something I gladly step back into. With a few changes...

This little treasure arrived in April after an intense two hours of labor and a lot of desperate prayer on the way to the birth center. She has brought with her a surge of joy as I expand my wings to make room to nurture two sweet girls from my heart.

We have made it through the rough newborn days of massive adjustment and hormones wildly fluctuating and are settling down to more of a rhythm. I find I'm loving the other changes brought to us over the last number of months: cloth diapering, kombucha fermenting in my cabinet, yoga with Andrew, Sunday hikes, keeping a carefully curated stack of reading which I'm steadily working through.

And so I say good morning again, my dear ones. If feels so wonderful to be back creating here, sharing what I see as I journey!

Sometimes...

Sometimes you need to leave the dishes behind and go out after a storm. Because there are puddles to splash through, drain pipes to inspect and mosquitoes in need of a good meal.

Hold the Fort...

I believe in seasons. Considered thoughtfully, all of our lives can be summarized, categorized with simple words. Beginning with the season of Childhood. There might be a season of Adventure, or of focused growth as a Student. This current season I've dubbed Holding the Fort because as a wife and mother my days are wholly devoted to the care of my family while my husband works and studies for long hours. Home is at the core of my attention.

What makes this season unique is how all-encompassing it can be, with only slivers of time doled out to purely personal pursuits. It's easy to lose heart. It's easy to become isolated even when surrounded by social media and a full calendar. So I've been reflecting on some of the beautiful stories of America's past, where women experienced far more weighty isolation when carving out homes and farms from endless acres of wilderness.

These brave souls rose with the sun, cooked over temperamental fires, battled the elements in ways we can't even relate to from our carefully climate-controlled homes. They carried guns and had to use them. They woke in the night not because they were filled with anxiety over their reputation but to feed the fire and ensure their babies were safe. One of my favorite stories is of a woman whose husband went to a distant town for absolutely necessary supplies and who stayed up night after night watching from her rocking chair, rifle across her lap because she could see bright eyes peering at her through the chinks in the logs. Holding the fort until her man came home and the enemy receded into darkness.

I love trying on this strong woman's spirit for size on long evenings when I've hardly seen Andrew for days, much less had a meaningful conversation with him. When my feet ache and my head spins with a long list yet to plow through, the minutes ticking by without my head anywhere near the pillow. Something in me craves the inspiration of these heroines. From long-forgotten graves they kick me in the butt, make me roll up my sleeves and do more than just limp through the day.

Because I don't have to be content with mere survival. I can thrive.

Little Mother...

In this season celebrating a young woman's willingness to bring a child into the world I find myself humbled to watch Aimée mothering her own little doll. Going through each element of her own bedtime routine with such care and quiet tenderness. Silent wonder can be my only response.

Marvelous...

We have had the most marvelous times recently.

Aimée's joy in picking a Christmas tree and helping her daddy with the lights. The thrill of unwrapping and hanging ornaments with us. Music from The Nutcracker. (She spends most of the time calling "dance!" and beckoning us to join her in enthusiastic jumping and waving.)

And I have noticed how our eyes shine as we plan Christmas treats and memories we want to make with our daughter. We laugh constantly over little things she says. I didn't expect to find that the magic I loved as a child wasn't just created by a parent for a child, but in a parent for a child.

Among these little highs there was a definite low yesterday during a trip to an entirely silent used book store. Already warm from our trek down brick-paved sidewalks, the warmth of the little shop hit me like a heat wave. (You should know, this automatically puts me in a bad mood. It's why I always have to apologize more in the summer than winter: heat just brings it out in me.)

Add to this the lean orange cat which Aimée glimpsed heading around the closest book case and you can imagine my state of mind when she let out a piercing shriek of excitement. What followed is best imagined in slow motion because that is how I saw it, sweat dripping down the side of my face, fumbling with my bag, praying for patience. Aimée took off at top speed careening wildly through the store, intent on catching that cat if it was the last thing she did, yelling at the top of her capacity "Ca-a-a-at! Ca-a-a-a-at!!!" with employees looking on.

I wanted to slink behind the closest display and disappear, leaving Andrew to wrangle our toddler out of the store. But by the time I caught her Aimée had reached an even quieter section of the shop and I decided to hide with her and a pile of vintage Little Golden books in the hopes that we could sneak out later without having to look another employee in the face.

Some day we will look back and laugh together over this experience. And I think I will wish I had not cared what anyone else thought about the exuberance of our child.

Snap...

Sometimes the beautiful moments are caught with a lens or in words on paper, but whatever you do, record the things you love so your heart can have something to go back to and remember! Left in our minds they disintegrate like leaves in an autumn heap. Without this quick photo snapped as I was being pulled back to responsibility, I would already have forgotten the warmth of the sun and her little head still tousled from sleep.

To Play...

Her voice was rough and gravelly, her face deeply etched, and I remember she mentioned great-grandchildren at some point in our conversation so I assume she has been around for a while. As we shared a park bench today she told me a little about her life. How the year and half she spent working when her daughter was small left her crying because the babysitter was the only one who could understand what the toddler was trying to say. How she looks back and is so glad she spent all those other years raising her children. "I just wish I had played with them more," she reminisced as she watched Aimée climbing and sliding in endless succession.

I ponder those words now. Not spoken with regret so much as an honest recounting of the past. She has let her mistakes go as part of history that cannot be changed. And she can strengthen my own resolve through her story. Because as she said several times: "Children don't need all the extra things we can buy them, they need us to play with them."

Birthday...

And what a birthday it was! Don't let this picture fool you, Aimée spent most of her second birthday following her daddy around exclaiming "Balloon!!!" with such persistence and passion for the humble pieces of rubber that I'm surprised she still had energy when the party began.

But there she is in my memory, running in delighted circles with all the other kids, clutching a bunch of balloons and laughing. And she is ripping paper with the help of a little friend, examining toys and gasping in admiration. It was a magical evening for a magical child who has brought more joy to our hearts than we knew possible.

The Park...

We had the most delightful, unexpected experience at the park this week. In a late afternoon, when the day felt like such a waste of potential and Aimée was antsy, we pack up her sippy cup and my book and walked the mile to our closest park. It was empty, and I was relieved. Because when I have a book and a child ready to entertain herself, the last thing I want to find is a super chatty woman next to me on the park bench. I want silence. Happy as an ant in a picnic basket I settled on the closest bench.

So you will get my annoyance when a most definitely chatty woman arrived after us, two children and buckets of sand toys in tow. Arg. And she proceeded to talk, and I gave short, polite answers, making it clear I was fascinated with my book. But as I glanced up regularly to make sure Aimée wasn't getting into trouble, I found my desire for solitude changing. Because this woman's youngest child had carefully pawed through their toys and gently offered one to Aimée. And then they all began playing together. A six year old little boy and an eleven year old girl practically took my child under their wing, talking to her, helping her down the slide, encouraging her to try new things, smiling and patiently waiting as she took her sweet time. And while I might strive for patience and a nurturing atmosphere with Aimée, somehow the fact that other children were offering these things changed them, making them better.

Most kids would have hardly noticed the quiet, sober-faced little two year old plopped in the sandbox. They really saw her. And I felt my heart melting. Who needs to read when you can watch your daughter blossom under such unexpected warmth? So I joined them, arms wrapped around my knees, balanced on the edge of the giant sandbox, opening up to the children's friendly mother. How awesome to find her not just annoyingly garrulous, but also a good listener! And with a rich tapestry of experiences, plenty of opinions to share, and an openness to my own strong opinions that I rarely find.

By the time we headed for home to make dinner I was laughing and lighthearted. The only question on my mind: when can we go to the park again?

Innocence...

This little girl melts my heart. The way she grabs our cheeks with both grubby hands so she can plant a kiss on our lips. Those bright eyes bent over paper, prized ball point pen in hand.

A small crescendo soared in my heart last week during a hot afternoon as we walked back from the library and she asked to be carried. "Someday you will feel a small weight against your strong back..." the words from my favorite childrens book. Experienced as I hoisted her up and felt her lean trusting against me, head nestled in the bend of my neck, peacefully breathing a little slower, at rest in the knowledge that I would take her home.



Another image of that innocence is painted on the side of a brick building a few blocks away. And I cannot get enough of it, returning often to stand and wonder. And to cry behind my sunglasses. For innocence lost. For the small girls around the world who will not sleep in safety tonight, who do not have a strong back to lean on. Who have already lost their ability to dream and hope. And lifting them up I hold my little girl tight.

Just Watch...

As cars pass, dogs bark and the sun slowly descends... just watch.

The Young Child...

Parents tend to underestimate the enormous power their loving approval wields over the young child.
-Erna Furman

Cancer...

My child looks like a cancer patient. Head swathed in fabric, she works away on her breakfast eggs, and I sit back watching and sipping Darjeeling. For weeks now I've been looking for a practical solution to the problem causing two baths a day for Aimée: food in the hair. Not just a few crumbs, but vigorously rubbed, caked, smeared the moment I turn my back during meals.

One would think this a simple problem solved with a wet cloth, but with as much hair as this child has, all that creates is a greasy little rats nest. Only three ideas have come to mind until today: 
1. Watch her every second to make sure she doesn't put her hands anywhere near her head. Big time commitment.
2. Bathe her after each meal. Already been doing this and it's not my preferable future. 
3. Shower cap her. Meals would take twice as long because she would do nothing but pull it off between each bite. What toddler can resist the crinkle of plastic?

Today the solution hit me square in the head and I now see the pile of cloth dinner napkins on my table as more than a nice way to wipe my mouth. They are the answer. Tied firmly, they do make her look like a cross between a Russian babushka and a cancer patient. There is a hint of concentration camp too, but it's contradicted by those cheeks.

Is it sad that this idea is worthy of a post to me? If you are like a friend of mine who was over yesterday at lunch you're rocking back and forth with laughter. If you don't have children I can't blame you for rolled eyes and moving on. But this is life for me right now. Celebrating small solutions. Reveling in the bits of my day that feel successful. I hope you are smiling with me.

Falling Back...

Just a quick word this afternoon, sharing a much-loved tradition of taking the extra hour given us by the time change to do something rejuvenating. Preferably something you rarely carve out time for.

Playing...

We are playing at our house today...Aimée with her little animals and books, and mama with the small mountain of paper perched on the counter.