corner view: vision

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Corner view is a weekly Wednesday gathering, originally hosted by Jane, now by Francesca. A topic is given and you can see impressions; be it photographic or writerly in form, from around the world. Come see the world’s corner view via the links on the sidebar!

 

 

What I want to see; the vision I want to set my sites on, soothe my heart and brain with…is the happiness that comes from my loves. The details woven into the larger picture of our world. I’m happiest when I can take a moment to see these threads that connect us. It’s those moments when I see myself and my life most clearly. 

five minute friday: hero

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…where a brave and beautiful bunch gather every week to find out what comes out when we all spend five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here.

Go:

It’s the giggle from under the covers as she sneaks up into the bend in my arms in the early morning shadows before I’m fully awake. It’s the self-possession of her stance as she defies my instructions to put a warmer coat on. It’s the calmness in her voice as she turns away from the car, heading into the elementary school,whispering that she is not very happy with me today.  It’s the light in her eyes as she sees me enter her room at school to volunteer for the class party.

It’s the excitement in her voice as she tells me about her school project where she has to create a musical instrument and has decided to make two so she can give Ms. Allen one as well because she knows she loves music. It’s the pride in her voice as she instructs the Quail to come with her so they can pack their lovies for the weekend trip. It’s the spirit in her voice as she softens it to talk to her sister about how to be kind and not to tell people no so much if she wants to have friends and people to play with. It’s the thump against the wall as she cartwheels down the hall with her little sisters in hot pursuit. It’s the assurance of her stance as she calls her little sister’s into her room to play school with her.

It’s the boldness of her suggestion to Ms. Debbie as she spots her coming down the daycare hall and runs after her to ask if we might could sell the Girl Scout cookies for a dollar more so we can make more money for the troop. It’s the squeeze of her sister’s hands as she pull’s them back to the side of the car at daycare pick-up. It’s the urgency in her voice as she stops me from driving to remind me to finish the buckle on her sister’s carseat.

It’s the pluck of her insistence that when she grows up she will be a teacher, a momma and then a principal to make sure everyone does what they are supposed to. It’s the tremble in her sniffle and sighs as she turns away from me to retrieve her pencil and try the timed math test over again. It’s the graceful curve in her neck as she leans down to pick up the baby whispering to her how much she loves her. It’s the running leap into his arms as Daddy opens the kitchen door at the end of the day.

It’s the rush in her voice as she lists off the numbers to Gramma’s phone in her excitement to call her with no help from us. It’s the vibrato in her tune as she unconsciously improvises lyrics for the camera.  It’s the persistence in her requests as she begs to take a shower with me, sleep with me, read to me, sit by me, come eat lunch  at school and watch another episode of My Little Pony.  It’s the thoughtful card explaining how she is giving me my childhood memorabilia back as my Christmas and birthday presents because she knows they are just as important to me as they are to her.

It’s the disappointment reflected in her eyes as she bears the weight of my overtired frustration at the end of a long day. It’s the tight squeeze of her skinny arms wrapped around my neck as she welcomes my apology into her puppy-dog pigtails for raising my voice again.  

It’s all the little ordinary details that make her my daughter, my hero day after day.

Stop.

corner view: motion

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Corner view is a weekly Wednesday gathering, originally hosted by Jane, now by Francesca. A topic is given and you can see impressions; be it photographic or writerly in form, from around the world. Come see the world’s corner view via the links on the sidebar!

Snow days have definitely become more fun since moving to South Carolina- and today’s was the first time I’ve sledded in 20 years and the first time the girls have ever sledded. Between Kite Hill sledding, hot chocolate with sprinkles, a breakfast at a local bakery of french toast made from raisin challah, bacon, a nap, a round of Candyland, a homemade pizza and movie to come, and a paid day off safe and home with my family in my flannel jammies, and a snow storm that will clean up after itself…well I’m feeling incredibly grateful, loved and safe. Perfection.

corner view: a good read

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Corner view is a weekly Wednesday gathering, originally hosted by Jane, now by Francesca. A topic is given and you can see impressions; be it photographic or writerly in form, from around the world. Come see the world’s corner view via the links on the sidebar!

 

Hello friends! It’s been far too long and I figured I best just jump back in!

These days most of my reading is snuck in throughout the day. No more leisurely chapters read in bed, or the bathtub or in the backseat of the car. Now my reading is more non-traditional in format, audio-CDs in the car while I’m driving, online with blogs and websites whether they are parenting, photography, cooking or Down syndrome/disability awareness, audio-stories from the library while I run. I’ve always been a book lover, but with three small children running underfoot- their books are about all we get to these days that involve any actual page turning. What I most frequently look forward to browsing with a cup of coffee are Huffington Post parenting articles. I find myself nodding along with the stories of other people’s lives. Although even with all the saturation in technology, I still find myself happily buying actual books that are recommended or I’ve really enjoyed electronically. Still nothing beats the happy weight of an actual book in your hands. Especially cookbooks. Lord knows you can find almost any recipe on the internet nowadays and food blogs are some of my favorites- but often I just have to have the hardcopy in my pantry.

five minute friday: see

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…where a brave and beautiful bunch gather every week to find out what comes out when we all spend five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here.

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Go:

“Nooooooooooo!!!!” She sits herself up and looks me square in the eye while shoving away my offering. I close my eyes silently wondering how to respond. It’s been a week now that she has slept clear through the night. No more waking to nurse. This is good. This is necessary. She was ready and so was I. And besides, we still have our regular evening intervals of comfort. She’s still my baby. At 20 months.

Make that 21.

“Do you want to just go to bed?” I scoot up to the head of the bed and pick up her rabbit lovey with its worn, soft blue fleece middle and floppy brown ears. Again she screams at me and tries to lay herself back down. “Naa-neh. Momma. Help.” 

Nursing a toddler. A very strong-willed toddler. She toddles daily now between independence and reliance. We all do. We all watch her as she moves through these next steps. Trying to see where she leads. Trying to follow her lead.

I lay back down and roll over to reach for her and again she shoves me away. Something is just not exactly right. She’s particular now. Her little mind ever expanding at a literally mind-blowing speed.  Her perfect rosebud of a mouth working hard to keep up.

Her cries of “Naa-neh” morph into “Narney”. Barney. The beloved purple dinosaur that her and the Quail agree is the bee’s knees. I pull him out of her pack-n-play along with the two Aden & Anais gauzies and the purple fleece that she routinely sleeps with.  Pulling them to her face she reaches over to her Dad who has come in during this scene and pats his arm, settles back and latches on.

For now.

For not much longer I see.

Stop.

five minute friday: fly

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…where a brave and beautiful bunch gather every week to find out what comes out when we all spend five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here.

Go:

2 leavesI look down at my phone just as the digits turn to the 7 minute mark. The grin that starts to spread across my cheeks so wide and bright, it actually hurts. The grin hurts. Not my feet, my legs, my 3-times-a-momma-belly or butt. I can do this. I can run. Kicking up a pile of yellow leaves from a puddle as I turn and dart across the street I make my way back past the charming North Main houses I have been running by for the past 5 weeks.

I’m 40 now. I’m not getting any younger. Or thinner. Or fitter. Or more energized. I eat my vegetables. I drink my water and take my medication. I go to work and pay my bills. I can take care of this body of mine so that I live a long life full of the privilege of cuddling the grandchildren I one day long to have and hold. It’s not about me.

And yet it is.

I wasn’t a strong swimmer. I had to take the Red Cross swim classes more than one time to pass them in the town tunneled into the upper mitten of Michigan. I wasn’t an athletic gym student. I was the last one to come up the line of the mile run every Friday of high school gym class. As a post-college grad, my well-meaning and good-living Midwestern friends were so clever to kidnap me and pay the fee so that I would be on the soccer team they loved. Each week, pulling into the parking lot of the Big Bend studio in St. Louis, I was always huffing and puffing, ever in a hurry, to settle in and relax through my yoga class at the end of the day, despite my redundant promises to be better prepared next time

I’m not competitive. I‘ve never looked forward to sweating.

But now…

That grin was the second I’ve experienced in this past month.  It brought back the squeal of excitement as I raced across the first grade school playground jumping effortlessly onto the merry-go-round joining the schoolgirl chant, “Boys push! Boys push!” The exhilaration as my hands smoothed over the ancient metal bars on the third grade playground as my friends and I wound around them in penny-drop after penny-drop. The smell and feel of the wind streaming my brown locks out behind me as I pumped the pedals of my bicycle across town to the pool each summer afternoon. That wild and free feeling of enjoying my own momentum. My own ability to fly. To be fully present in the years of my own children’s swift growth, that’s what I want to own once again. That’s what I’m after. That’s why I want to fly. That’s why I run.

Stop.

five minute friday: truth

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…where a brave and beautiful bunch gather every week to find out what comes out when we all spend five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here.

Go:

“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

Her hand reached out and slapped mine with a quick reflex reaction to my own hands reaching out to turn off the TV. We had just gotten home from work and school and I wanted everyone in the tubby to wash off the mental anxiety brought in with cold and flu season. They know the routine. This has been an expectation for years now. But still. She has to push. She has to assert. She has to insist that she doesn’t HAVE to do what I want when I want it. In my own flash of anger I smacked back at her small hand as it struck mine a second time. The moment we touched each other I felt the bewilderment of what she was feeling wash over me. I stepped back turning the TV off as I went.

“To time-out. Now. Time to cool down.”

Her voice rose in protest as big tears leaked out of her sad eyes. Her anger had flared at me in the blink of an eye. Just 5 minutes earlier she had been leaping over the piles of oak leaves in our driveway as she chattered on about how she was chosen to run for president in her first grade classroom. The time change this past week, it means it is dark and they are tired when we pull up at home each weeknight. It means we feel an urgency to get in the house and hibernate with no obligations ahead of us for the night. It means we want to eat and read books and watch TV cuddled up together on the living room couch. The order we do that in though, well it matters to me. But pretty much only to me. I want us to come home and get done the things we have to get done before we do the things we want to do. The truth is- that’s all me. The truth is- I’m not as flexible about it as the girls would like. The truth is, I have reasons why I make us do things in the order I do each night. The truth is, those reasons don’t mean much to the independent and strong-willed seven-year-old I live with. She’s spent the day, the week, the month doing what her teachers ask. And at the end of the day spent apart from Momma, she doesn’t always want to hand those reigns of independence back over. She knows she’s capable of making her own good decisions.

This give and take as she grows, it’s hard on me just as much as it’s hard on her. How to not discuss Every. Single. Living. Thing. But how to discuss enough of the things so that she knows her opinions matter. How to teach her to respect others’ authority, while not just believing everything she hears. How to know truth when she hears it and tell it from the fiction that circles her world. How to talk and how to listen.

Our anger set the baby off. She ran to me to be picked up, only to then lean in and bite my shoulder in protest. Setting her down in a second time-out spot I turned to the Quail. She with her high emotional intelligence looked at me solemnly. “Zuzu angry. “ I nodded as her sign for angry shifted to a tracing of tears down her own dry cheeks.  “Sug sad.” These weren’t questions. They were observations. Crossing my legs to sit down on the floor in front of her she leans over and wraps her arms around my neck. “My momma.”

My momma. Their momma. I hug her back and go to call the other two out of time out, turn on the water to the tub and begin again.

Stop.

five minute friday: grace

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…where a brave and beautiful bunch gather every week to find out what comes out when we all spend five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here.

 

Go:

The soft fleece of the blanket curled by my head being pulled out from under my cheek gets caught in my hair and I try to hide the wince of pain. Too late. The baby’s chant of momma shifts into a shriek and I open my eye a millimeter to see the red flash of the clock as it changes from 4:44 to 4:45. Just early enough to irritate me. Just late enough to wake the other girls if I ignore her request. Her third request. Anytime the first one comes before midnight I can pretty much see the future of the night without pulling out a crystal ball. We will be up again. And again. Drawing in a deeper breath I push down the frustration and lack of sleep and reach for her.

 

I need grace.

 

“NO!!!!” Her well-articulated anger pierces the otherwise quiet house and a swish of my coffee spills onto the cream carpet. I clamp my mouth shut for the moment it takes for her to throw herself on the floor in protest. “You know the routine Quail first potty, then…” I start to try again as she cuts me off with a swipe of her hand on my cheek while I’m bent  to the ground wiping up my liquid energy from the formerly cream colored carpet. I feel the heat rise in my cheeks. My anger now matching hers. I stand up, trying to not spill my coffee again as I set it on the wooden desk. This time I walk away. It’s too early to start a loud argument. And it’s too late to have a drawn out explanation for what all needs to be done in the next 15 minutes before I have to leave for work.

 

I need grace.

 

“I don’t want to wear sneakers!!! NO! NO! NO!!!!!! You don’t know anything. Ms. Young wasn’t angry at Ahlivia when she wore her sparkly shoes!!!” She kicks the sneakers I had set down in front of her minutes earlier and the bright twinkling of the lit-up toes mocks our anger as it sets off the third migraine I’ve had this week.” I start to reply with a too early life lesson about how in our house we follow the rules and it doesn’t matter what Ahlivia’s family is ok with, but her door slams before I can finish the sentence.

 

I need grace.

 

Squeezing my eyes shut I pause in the dark hallway. The Keurig presses its last drops out loudly as  Lovey’s voice appears in front of me. “Come on, you gotta go. The car is running and here, this will help.” He hands me a steel travel mug and my purse. “Drive carefully.” Just as he calls out for the girl’s to come say goodbye, their bedroom door flies open and two matching sets of bare feet come tumbling down the hall and little hands twine themselves around my legs as their voices compete with each other. Mommma. My Momma. Breathing deep I bend down to kiss their small heads and begin again.

 

Stop.