Saturday, December 31, 2011

out with the old...



Ah, New Year's Eve...
it used to be one of my favorite nights (excuses) to get all dolled up and go DO something.
This year it's just the same old-same old. I have done several loads of laundry, changed bedsheets, gone grocery shopping, tidied up the living room (x3) and have only just begun to think about taking Christmas down.

I cooked dinner for the girls and had to sit with them to make them finish their broccoli. Oh, how I miss the days they would willingly gobble up absolutely anything I served to them! I know they'll be back, but that's a tough one for me because seriously, all I want are healthy children. I guess I should just be glad that having Trader Joe's sparkling pomegranate juice with dinner was enough to put big grins on both of their faces and help them wash down the green stuff!

As I type, Andrew is finishing up the girls' quick blue bath (Santa brought bath water coloring tablets) and he will read a few books before a very early 7:30 bedtime. Lilah is having some serious sleep regression and we're hearing a lot of " I want milk, mama. All done sleeping now. I'm awake. Watch Charlie Brown. Watch Yo Gabba Gabba." at 2:15, 3:30, 4:25 AM lately. B R U T A L. Sadie will go down without a struggle. She's always been a sack rat and is still pretty in love with her 4 month old big girl bed. Plus she has a really cool new portable night light thing that makes being under the covers pretty darn fun. (thanks Grandma & Grandpa!)
The Chill Pill:
In lieu of a much coveted shower that I somehow thought I was going to squeeze in today, I just did my eye make-up and spritzed on my cheap perfume for the rest of the evening with my honey. We're having marinated tri-tip and potatoes with our broccoli. Woo-hoo! I didn't buy that highly rated $12.99 Prosecco for nothing!

Yesterday we did this:

we're thinking about putting in an offer on this sweet little seaside shanty

All jokes aside, I do need to acknowledge that this new year is going to be significant for me. I have to let go of something. Something big. I have been in a multiple-times-daily internal battle with my brain, heart and let's be honest: my evolutionary female biology - about having another child. This is a Big Thing To Be Putting on the Internet, but I don't have many followers, so whatever. I want (need) to be able to release this from the cage of myself and put it "out there":

I am done having babies.

*HUGE sigh*

Even having said that, I do know that I have to edit myself here because obviously this is extremely personal. Still, this is something that I've been carrying with me every single moment of every single day for a very long time. This is not something that I can force on my partner. We have had many talks and he has been as gentle and empathetic as he could without sacrificing his integrity. Essentially, we have both been waiting for the other to have a change of heart. Instead of dragging out my angst and risking the nose-dive into an ocean of resentment, I have made the decision to succumb to the "fate/God" factor that has been meeting my longing like a brick wall again and again and again.
I have to release this from my heart and soul in order to find my life and breath again. It has been far too consuming for far too long. I know there has to be a lesson in it. There has to be a reason that I'm not getting what I (think I) want. I want to embrace that lesson and that reason. It may not show itself in 2012 or 2013 or until I'm old and gray. All I know is that I have to - I simply must - believe that letting go of this will open up something in me that I didn't know was there.

I cannot express how much I wish to find out what the heck that is.

So, out with the old, in with the new. Bring it.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Winter Solstice. Peace on Earth.


Today the Sun is still. Solstice. Peace on Earth.


I lifted the following straight off an email that was forwarded from the father of a dear friend of mine:
Wishing you a wonderful, merry Christmas, a bright, happy Hanukkah, and most of all, peace.

Peace - a very nice word. Easy to say, nice to envision, yet seemingly almost impossible to achieve. Which means that something must be missing in how we think about it.
Perhaps Albert Einstein knew something - "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved through understanding."

Buddhists would say that at its core, peace comes from the recognition that we don't exist as separate selves; from the willingness to see others as not so different, but made of the same substance. Mother Teresa: "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." The same idea is there in the Hebrew "shalom," which means not only peace, but wholeness, where no part is missing or damaged.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, often says that the first act of peace is for each side to recognize that the other side also suffers - possibly as a result of our own actions, or by our inaction, or as a result of misperceptions or lack of understanding - and out of that compassion, for each to have the desire for the other side to suffer less.

To do that, it helps for us first to be in touch with all the things in our own lives that we have a reason to be grateful for. "If, in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work."

So, wishing you peace - not just a cheerful, happy, syrupy sentiment - but true peace.
via John Field Shaw, from his friend who credits John Hussman of the Hussman Fund

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Halloween and art

our Halloween card photo shoot:
Lilah got some very cute jammies:
We dressed up for a little walk-about downtown on the 29th:
(they are little mermaids - a huge thanks to my mom for helping me sew the hardest parts of Lilah's homemade hack-job of a costume!)
then we glammed it up a bit for a party:
(I'm a Sea Queen, of course!)

on the 31st I carved Sadie's Jack-o-lantern designs:
(wasn't easy but totally worth it)
and Andrew took the girls Trick-or-Treating:
In other news, Sadie's art skills have taken a very fun turn. She's gone from scribbles and pictures:
to lists and "writing":
to some really interesting and happy looking creatures:






Tuesday, October 4, 2011

is it over yet?

I've been extra busy lately and haven't been writing. This is why:


He broke it while mountain biking on Friday 9/16 and had surgery to put in a plate & screws and wires on Monday 9/26.
I'm so very thankful that his friend and pro biker Thomas was with him (and gallantly carried both of their bikes out of the woods to the road, hitchhiked a ride back to their car and took him straight to the nearby fire station for help).
I'm impressed by and grateful for the intense work the ER team did to get it put back together and splinted that night. (also so thankful they medicated him properly for the worst part of that)
I'm indebted to my brother who jumped in his car and came over to stay with the girls while I went to go get my poor guy.

The recovery from surgery has been arduous. Getting the pain managed the first night was a failure. It made me mad. Really mad. No one person or one thing to blame it on; it was sort of a perfect storm of bad timing. He gets his splint and bandages off soon and will have a wrist cast or brace of some sort for 4-6 weeks.
He's basically going batty with lack of sleep, no exercise and the lingering frustration that it happened in the first place. He's been watching lots of motorcycle racing and doing some coding, but he's generally pretty miserable.

Ugh.

In happier news, we had our 5th wedding anniversary on Friday 9/30. Understandably, Andrew didn't really feel like celebrating ("I can't even cut my own food!") but I found us a fabulous new babysitter and we ended up having a really nice time out. So what if I had to button his jeans for him?
With marriages in our peer group already broken or splitting at the seams all around us, I take pride in the fact that we are still going strong.

And I love to have a day to remember moments like these:


and this:
(Honeymoon)

And although I'm run a little ragged these days, I still can't really get enough of these two:
That's it for now!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

if only it were that simple...or is it?

"Mom, may I be excused?"

Not until you finish your peas, sweetheart.

"But mom, I don't like them."

Well, I'm sorry honey. I thought you might like that kind with the mint butter. I won't buy that kind again. We'll just get the regular kind that you like next time.

"So do I have to eat them?"

Yes honey. They are good for you and it's part of your dinner. You know, there are lots of kids that don't get a healthy meal every night like you do. Some people are actually hungry every day because they don't have money to buy food.

Silence.

"Mom, if there are people who are hungry, shouldn't we just give them some of our food?"

GULP.

Yes, babe. Yes. That's exactly what we should do.

(I approach her to give her a hug and a kiss and tell her what a love she is and how proud I am of her for understanding how important it is to care about other people. And try not to cry.)

I think "Serve at Soup Kitchen/Homeless Shelter" just got bumped up to #1 on my list of Things To Do With My Family Especially While The Girls Are Young To Give Them Some Perspective About Life.

Big sigh.

Side note:
Before dinner, I found her engrossed on the couch with a Fisher Price catalog (note to self - must intercept mail in months preceding Christmas) because it was "in-stresting." After perusing the entire thing, she asked if she could please get "the Jesus thing." I had to have her flip through to find the item she was referring to and it was the Little People Nativity Scene. Oh boy.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

it's still too much



I've been avoiding most media coverage surrounding the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

It may be selfish, but I know myself well enough to respect my overly empathetic tendencies and the difficulty I have letting go of painful emotions.

And honestly? I don't need to be reminded. It's all pretty much still with me. When it happened, I learned that one can literally fall to their knees when overcome with shock and sudden grief, something I thankfully never had cause to experience before. It took me close to 8 months to be able to fall asleep each night without weeping. Today we live near an airbase as well as between two airports, and I still freeze in my tracks sometimes when a jet roars overhead or I see an airplane banking low in the sky. A latent, deeply embedded pang of fear and dread jars within me and then sits heavily in my gut for a while. I don't need to feed that dragon.

Actually, I feel sort of bombarded with the contrived national patriotic mottos to "Never Forget" and "Always Remember."

The thing is, I do want to forget. I don't want to remember.

I want to un-hear the audio clips from passengers on flight 93, the shaky voices of the air traffic controllers, and the sirens echoing in the unnaturally darkened and deserted streets of lower Manhattan.

I wish I could un-see the images. All of them.
Those of the second tower being struck - that baffling vision of an airplane at that twisted angle, leaving no question as to what was about to happen. That action-movie type explosion tearing through that enormous building, wiping out hundreds of lives in a moment.

I want to un-see the dust covered, bloody, terrified citizens fleeing from the scene, running for their lives. I don't want to see the hastily drafted Missing Person fliers that went up everywhere - the smiling faces of lost souls. I don't want to look at footage of the impossibly strong, dutiful firemen plodding to and from the wreckage - "the pile"- what a wretched term; their huge shoulders drooping from utter exhaustion and despair.

And the jumpers. Oh, the jumpers.

The stories of the survivors and the heroes are of no comfort to me. I did end up watching one video online that several of my friends had posted on Facebook, The Man in the Red Bandana - Welles Crowther. It's clearly meant to be uplifting and an example of unprecedented bravery and selflessness. It's a remarkable story, but one that cannot be told without the anguish and horror of that day being torn wide open again.

And so, today - unable to keep it all at bay any longer, something cracked my feeble facade of self preservation. I drove into the town where I grew up, past the firehouse and past the small town square. I looked up and saw the flags at half mast. My breath caught in my throat, I shook my head, and the tears came.

It's still too much.
It's just still too much.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

"Mult. Seep."

Lilah is talking up a storm and I am not catching it all on video, so here are some recent phrases and words...

Disclaimers:
A) this will really only be cute and interesting for family members, and even that is probably pushing it!
B)This has been in draft form for quite a while and it's not well written in the slightest, but I'm just going to post it and move on.


Sinner-ruh-ruh. Cinderella.
Yo Dabba Dabba. Yo Gabba Gabba (TV Show).
I push. Shro-rer. Stroller.

Mo stawbeweez pease. More strawberries, please. (a request at breakfast this morning) Uh oh drop fork! (an observation at breakfast this morning)

Sissy Co-see Bank-ette! Sissy's cozy blanket
Daddy go bike. no explanation needed.
Mama/Daddy/Sissy do it.
Mama/Daddy weed it. Read it.
Help you, pease. Help me, please.
Shows. Close.
Paste. Toothpaste.
Damma/Dampa or Jamma/Jampa - Grandma/Grandpa

I wun. I run.
I jump.
I walk.
Button. Belly button.
She loves to point out parts of the face and body. bah-dee
Hair, eyes, eye-bows (eyebrows - she also calls them rainbows), nose, teef (teeth), cheeks, neck, eews (ears), tummy, jye-nuh (vagina), legs, feet, toes.

she loves to count. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9!
she loves to sing the ABC song - she could watch this about 20 times a day if I let her.

Other words she knows and uses all of the time:
book, couch, car, seat, drive, baby, airplane, helicopter, moon, cry, happy, chair, sure (her version of yes), in there, where, bed, dance, paci (pacifier), shirt, pants, shoes, clothes, dress, skirt, shorts, umbrella, bear, doggy, kitty, cycle (motorcycle), vroom-vroom, truck, big one, noisy, school, see you later, kiss, hug, stairs

My very favorite by far is Mult. Seep. Milk. Sleep. This means it's time to snuggle up on the couch to nurse her. She puts her little feet up on my chest like a monkey or offers them to me to hold and kiss and press into my cheeks. It's the best.

Friday, July 22, 2011

More from Maine 2011

it was an awesome trip, once again. Here are a few highlights.

(More to come, but wanted to post something now...)

our first sunset:
Turns out that Boothbay Harbor was fogged in on the 4th (our travel day) so we got to see the fireworks on the 5th:

(insert photos Andrew took of fireworks)

Lilah loved the back porch for snacking and for blowing bubbles. "Mo bubb-ohs?!"
The girls went on some great adventures with Nana in the wagon:
Inspired by our trip to the Botanical Gardens, Sadie and Nana made a Fairy House together:

(insert Fairy House photos and video)

This sunset preceded a terrific thunder and lighting storm:


Andrew introduced Lilah to the Atlantic:


We spent a lot of time hanging out on the rocks below the house:
Obligatory vacation photo:
the view on a foggy night:
our final sunset: