InstaDumping

Some of our recent shenanigans, courtesy of the square-photo club:

 

After he wore it this way, he turned it around backwards to cover his face.  Then he walked into the same wall three times within eight seconds.  I only stopped snorting long enough to get him turned around.  He was cool with it.

This happened shortly after nine o'clock in the morning.  Because I felt like untangling sucker-hair all the live-long day.  And I wanted to see how much of the paper on Landon's stick would melt in his mouth.  (Answer: 2/3 of it.)

 

My heart was singing and crying at the same time.  They're so grown UP.  And in this moment, they were so getting ALONG.  Suckers are my new mediator of choice.

 

Blueberry smoothies.  A bit on the thick side.  Straws didn't work, but nostrils were surprisingly adept.

 

 

Middle parting like it's 1995.

 

 

Oh, the rainbow birthday cake.  Always a hit.  Always a giant tub of red-dye-40.

 

 

And this husband of mine is not a guaranteed morning person.  At least not until after his superman coffee mug has rescued a few Italian-roasted cupfuls. 

 

Lalaloopsy picnic (inside because it was drizzle-aired and cold that day) for my almost five-year-old.  Lauren is not allowed to grow any bigger, therefore I ate most of her rainbow birthday cake myself.  It's a hard knock life, right?

 

 

Peanuts are cool, as long as his binky is taking up all the room in his mouth.  Also, he's not interested in sharing just yet.  I assume that trait will be honed within the next decade or so, but current household evidence has yet to back me up.

 

 

I hate math, and I hate laundry.  I just didn't know they hated me back.

Tuesday Around The World: March

The light of March is so distinguishable, suddenly, from the light of February.  There's nothing thin or timid about it; March light pounces and now it's in our laps and making rainbows through our windows and begging for us to come play.  We put our noses to the glass and soak up its warmth, transferring it directly into our lips for a smile like a sunrise: nothing and then everything; don't close your eyes or you'll miss the transition. 

Also, the boy in the light = all the colors in the spectrum that make me soar with love. 

God bless you, March.  God bless you, light.  We love you truly, madly, deeply, and with incredible enthusiasm.

 

 

 



Tuesday Around the World is hosted at Communal Global.  What's your world look like today?

Snapshot: Paradise

I knew Justin was planning on working late, so all my ducks were in a row.  In the interest of not panicking that I couldn't possibly get everything bedtime-related done without help, I'd gotten my gears organized and oiled.  The girls had cleaned up their bedrooms and helped me put the kitchen back in order from Landon's mess-making spree.  Although that makes it sound like the spree was an isolated occurrence when in fact, his entire existence seems to be bent upon mess-making.  Cupboards emptied, pretzels crushed, pans scattered, toys dumped, books toppled, toilet paper rolls unwound. 

All children do this.  But it's only third children whose parents have evolved enough to let the mess simmer all day long because it's too self-defeating to clean up each disaster as it happens.  By the way, this is what you'd walk into at my house on any given day: the evolution of my mothering skills. 

And on this night, my evolution was looking pretty advanced.  Pajamas were laid out; we were approaching bath time.  Three children, one mother, no waiting.  Bedtime a dusky glow on the horizon.  The finish line, where I'd undoubtedly claim my much-deserved cookie without the hindrance of little hungry-eyed, sweet-toothed beggars.  Or maybe a glass of wine. 

After soaping the little ones in the tub and getting the big one settled into a shower, I wasn't just proud of myself for doing it all alone, which would have been enough, given how dependent I've become on the moment Justin walks through the door at night.  It's my addiction, his key in the lock.  But deep in my soul, down where accusations and doubt sometimes lie in coils waiting to strike, I was content with the way the evening had gone.  With only myself to rely upon.  There had been no cracking whips.  I hadn't raised my voice or demanded or sighed in frustration.  I'd ridden the flow instead, letting go of the strict roots dangling on the edges of the muddy bank. I had enjoyed the float, and therefore, my kids had as well. 

All was well in all of our hearts.  We had smiled all over the place.

I gathered Landon from the tub and left Lauren to play for a few minutes longer.  This is my favorite moment of any day: warm and wet baby boy folds himself into my chest, snuggling for as long as I will hold him under the thickness of a towel.  He cuddles, this one, and it is my great bubble-scented joy.  He burrows, this one, and it is my heart fluttering a tattoo of forever-love. 

I rocked him in the steam of the bathroom, parting it in misty curtains.  Mia was dancing in the shower.  Lauren was singing in the bathtub (oh, I've never seen a unicorn, never seen a unicorn!).  Landon was swaying in my arms, locked tight to my chest. 

I spun in three-hundred and sixty degrees.  It was all around me, from the singing in the bathtub to my reflection in the mirror to the dancer in the shower. 

It was life, and it was so near to being perfect that I wouldn't have been able to distinguish between this and paradise.

Tuesday Around The World: Rainstorm

 

 

The first burst of rain is a little bit shocking, like a naked lady jumping out of a cake: you knew it was coming, but you weren't exactly prepared for the assault.  The raindrops are fat and heavy, not landing, but splashing.  They pound in formation against the windows and walls.  You stop stirring a bowl of banana bread batter at the kitchen counter and flip your face to the outside, mouth hanging open.  It sounds like somebody has tossed a handful of muddy pebbles at your house. 

 

A gust of wind hammers the raindrops, then, and you think, this isn't supposed to be severe, is it?  But before you can get your anxiety worked up into a tizzy, everything softens.  The rain thins down into a steady shower.  The wind pulls back. 

 

It was only the sudden change in pressure that allowed the rain to finally be released.  It was only the start of something.  It was only the clouds kissing the earth.

 

 

Linking up today with Communal Global and their Tuesday globetrotters...

A Teaspoon of Hope {A Bigger Picture Moment}

The wind is blowing more than the snow is falling, and it's colder than the underside of an iceberg out there.  The emergency light has come on over the storage shed; a blink of electricity from all the gusting winds must have tripped it earlier.  In its yellow orb, the flurries are attacking like moths before being dashed to the ground. 

I let the curtain fall closed before I return to bed, snugging covers up to my cheeks.   Even though I'm a realistic adult, I still get sad when I wake up to no snow on the ground.  No matter that the weatherman only forecast a scant dusting.  Hope is stubborn in me.  At least until sunrise. 

There's not time to fall back asleep because a first-grader on Christmas break crawls into my blankets, yawning and warm.  Mia brings a mellow sweetness with her.  It wafts around her head when she tucks it into my neck, and I breathe gratefully.  Fresh air is made of the molecules surrounding children. 

It didn't snow last night, mama.  The ground is still grassy.

I know, baby.  But there are flurries out there if you look right at the lightbulb over the shed's door. 

She shuffles to the window, ready to be amazed.  I hate for her to go, both because of the absence of fresh air when she leaves and the way her hope is about to be deflated.  I still feel the limpness in my own chest, and I'd rather see her with floating fullness for a bit longer. 

Oh!  Is that really snow I see?  It's glittering!  It's snowing, mama, it's snowing!

All I can see of Mia are her white pajamas, reverse-silhouetted against the darkness.  She is minus a head; the curtains swallow her face, the better to show her the blowing snow.  Then she starts hopping up and down.  She runs down the hallway, finding other windows to stare from. 

Lauren joins us, rubbing her eyes, clinging to blankies three-deep at her chest. 

Lauren, it's snowing!  Come see! 

When it's light, we have no choice but to go out in our pajamas and coats, becoming flecked with flurries and frozen by wind.  There is only a teaspoon of snow holing up in the warmth of the grass.  It looks as if a large cotton ball has been gently torn apart on our porch.  That is all.  There is not much. 

Oh, but it is enough.  This is their hope, fulfilled. 

It seems like my expectations were simply too extravagant; I almost missed the snow for the disappointment.  I step into my furry, purple slippers and out into the blizzard of tiny proportions.  There is snow-dust clinging to my heels and my flannel pants are flapping against the wind: percussion for the parade.  We march and squeal and catch snowflake babies on our tongues. 

And the piece de resistance?  We have hot cocoa with marshmallows for breakfast.  Even the smallest of blizzards deserves no less.





Linking up with Hyacynth at Undercover Mother for this week's Bigger Picture Moment.  Care to join us?

Silence

 

It's been silent around here, I know. 

 

Not in the house; in the house, we're as loud as ever.  Last night, the girls ran in loops around the kitchen and dining room scream-singing about one more week before Christmas is here!  They chanted about the weatherman's Christmas Eve forecast which magically includes the possibility for snow.  Wouldn't that be wondrous?  Snow in Missouri at Christmas time? 

 

So we're loud.  But only about certain happy things.  Justin and I huddle in the kitchen sifting though our thoughts on gun control and mental health and the safety of our babies in this fallen world.  We quick-change the subject when a child rounds the corner.  We quick-change the channel when the news comes on.  We won't tell them right now, and if they find out from other avenues, well...we'll cross that sad bridge when we must. 

 

Because this isn't something I want them to worry about.  This is something we adults can worry about enough to fill miles and miles of atmosphere above our individual, reeling heads. 

 

I want them to worry about how Santa will fit down our chimney.  And how the reindeer will find their food in our late, tall grass and unraked leaves. 

 

In the meantime, though, I hardly know what to say here.  Do I fill a page with forgivable joy?  Forced cheer?  Outrage?  Missions and calls for petitions?  

 

That is all being done already.  So I'm silent but not unthinking.  God knows I'm not speechless -- I've ranted inwardly for days.  But I'm going in circles here by myself.  I want to share life and not be afraid.  I want to tell the story about why our Christmas tree is half-decorated and there isn't a single gift wrapped under its boughs.  I want to talk about Mia's loose tooth and Lauren's love of whistling.  I want to show you Landon's newest hiding place.  I want to prove that we're still alive and alight with love, even after being beaten down by sadness.

 

So I guess this is my buffer.  Between the silence and the not-talking-about-it, and everything that comes next. 

Yesterday: A Horror

I should have known it would be a terrible day when I knocked over a display of canned chicken broth at the grocery store.  When cans are rolling across aisles and under carts, people are staring and you cannot get a grip on the domino effect, you really should just go straight to the exit. Bad luck scores one for the dark side.  Canned goods as storm troopers.

Silly me, though, I soldiered on.  All the way to the parking lot where the loading of the goods commenced as usual: Landon in the cart, watching me work.  I turned around to rearrange a bag of bread (probably so it wouldn't be smashed by the evil canned chicken broth).

That was when Landon and the traitor shopping cart began to roll down the hill behind my unseeing back.  Rightfully, there should have been oncoming traffic, according to the Luck Of The Day, but fate must have been a little off, timing-wise.  A helpful gentleman saw what was happening before I did and wrangled the cart into submission, returning my smiling boy to my side.  An unwilling jockey on a runaway steed.  I offered the best known cure for embarrassment: self-deprecation.  "Ohmigoodness, thank you so much.  There goes my shot at the mother-of-the-year award, right?" 

Ha. 

Ha.

Ha! said the universe, with her storm troopers marching along to the next event.  They gave me plenty of respite, but still I was unprepared.

After school, Mia and her friend collided in the hallway -- a forehead met a mouth -- and the thunder echoed through the living room.  Mia's lip was pierced by her two front teeth, and her mouth was filled with blood.  We applied pressure and rinsed teeth and sipped water.  We dried tears and made bad jokes.  We even began to smile again.  Which only provoked the bad luck train into chugging forth.

Thump, I heard. 

Then thump-thump.

And as moms often do, I knew the thumping was my baby's head, and that he was falling down the staircase, and I was horrified and certain all at once that this would be a terrible, terrible thing.  I could feel the expression on my face freeze into one of terror and confusion: how had he gotten up the stairs?  The gate was closed...

But there he was, rolling over one last time as I rounded the corner, and he was screaming and red and he was in my arms without me even knowing how. 

Baby, baby, I've got you.  Baby, baby, how did you get up there?  Baby, baby, please be okay.

I searched his body and eyes for damage, looking to Lauren for explanations: how did this happen?  But she was scared and wouldn't answer.  I placed Landon down on the floor to see if he would walk, and I watched as he toddled back to the staircase, to the edge of the closed gate.  He looked at me and pushed it aside with all his strength, far enough to squeeze through the gap to the other side. 

So.  That's how it happened. 

The nurse's hotline said that if he seemed fine, he probably was fine, so we relaxed.  Oh, there were sit-down talks with the girls -- ALL of the girls: neighbors and sisters alike -- about babies not being allowed on the staircase, and if it happens, mama needs to know RIGHTNOW.  It's an emergency, not an entertaining spectacle to be watched with popcorn and giggles. 

Yes, ma'am.  We understand.

But it wasn't their fault.  It was the cloud of bad luck, hovering, ready to spill more acid rain on our day.  It's raining cans and babies.

So he was fine until he wasn't, and an hour later when he wouldn't stop crying, the emergency room seemed like the best place to be.  It was his inconsolability that frightened me the most; that, and his auto-closing eyes.  Noting something about brain injuries and sleep being terrifying, we went in search of doctors.  Landon cried for the next two hours, until he fell asleep in my arms in a triage room. 

We woke him for x-rays and CAT scans. 

He is fine.  Sore and tired and fine.

Also, he has bronchitis.  Which you cannot get from a tumble down 14 hardwood stairs, no matter how hard you try.

And that was the end of the no good, very unfortunate, series of bad, bad things day.  Justin and I ate dinner at ten o'clock like city-dwelling hipsters and fell asleep fast like bed-ridden geriatrics.  I noticed as I blinked my eyes one last time that the moon outside our window was bright and full and so, so white. 

I dreamed of its dark side, though.  The place where bad luck is stored up and doled out to unwitting mothers and their innocent children, one savory can at a time.

A Commentary on the Right Now

If I were posting regularly right now, I feel like my posts would be so predictable as to even feel like I'm bragging.  Or proclaiming myself for martyrdom.  Because here's what I would say, each and every day:

You guys, I am under water.  I don't know where the minutes go when they go, but they go, and I'm still under water. 

It's one of those things I don't like to mention because it almost feels like I'm slapping you, my friends, in your pretty cheeks; you're busy too, right?  So why is it okay for me to whine?  You, with the full-time job, and you, with your volunteer work, and you, with your homemade Halloween costumes, and you, with your medical issues, and you, with your deployed spouse -- 

You feel more important than me, with my messy house and growing kids.  I accomplish almost nothing all day -- nothing but the basics -- and I lay myself down at night and I don't feel extra-worn out, necessarily, but there's a nagging feeling that I'm leaving something off.  The feeling that I'm forgetting to do something very important.

Maybe that something is writing, because, let's face it, I need to spill my beans on a regular basis or they pile up and scatter across the floor I just finished sweeping.  Maybe that something is relaxation because, also facing it, I rush for most parts of each day. 

There are only so many chances to get to the grocery store between baby-naps and preschooler-pickup and first-grader-pickup and dinner prep and ballet and gymnastics, and, and...  And none of those chances include a spare second to really think about my thoughts.  So maybe the something I'm forgetting, the very important something, is attention. 

But no -- that can't be right.  I'm paying so very much attention to these darlings --



Sometimes I think I must be doing this wrong.  If I'm so behind and under and rushing and unable to catch hold of some spare minutes, I must be doing this wrong.  I must be a complete rookie, right?  Frazzled and thoughtless and late, perpetually late?  There are other moms who are better at this than I am, and they are calm.  They can find a stillness in which to lounge or think or write.  And they probably would tell me that it has to be cultivated and prioritized --

But Mia comes tiptoeing down the hallway in her pajamas -- I don't know it until I hear her small voice echoing down the wooden staircase.  The house is finally quiet after the day's little explosions, except: You forgot to sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow, mama.  She is not accusatory, nor is she beseeching, nor is she demanding.  She is simply there, stating a truth and wondering why the song disappeared.  It is my first alone minute in the past fourteen hours, but this little ritual, this origin of a memory, it beckons. 

I peel myself off the couch. 

And I tell myself that I am not doing this wrong, no; I'm maybe hopefully doing this as right as I know how, which is to fall into the rush and just let myself be swept along for the time being.  It's short and it's breathtaking, and I might not have the time to write.  Or the will.  Or the desire.  It's alright, because this is my correct and this is my song that cannot disappear, even if I forget to sing it.

Maybe. 

Just Write: Just Vignettes

I had a dream last night that the moon had crashed into the earth. 

From resting plump and white in the sky, it flattened into a disk, flipped end over end from the heavens, and shattered upon impact.  Silver and brown dust plumed outward -- a marriage of celestial bodies -- pushing us down where we stood to watch the fall. 

We looked to the sky later, but it was naked.  Barren and bare. 

 

------------

Mia's face met the pavement last weekend. 

A gravel-crusted forehead glued together with blood and tears greeted me when I heard the screaming.  Her palms were gouged and bloody; a red teardrop quivered at the base of her wrist when she raised her hands to me.  It fell to her shirt, red bleeding into the blue and turning black. 

She begged to look in the mirror, first thing.  Testing the truth of a swollen sensation.  Lumpy and aching.

------------

I put locks on the pots and pans cupboard, more for sanity than safety. 

There are four cupboard doors, all opening onto the same, long, shelves.  There are no dividers behind the doors.  The middle two were the easiest to lock, so the plastic diamond hangs beneath their handles, blocking entrance to a baby boy's noisy dismantling. 

In twelve minutes, he's crawled through the end door and into the middle section.  He reaches his desire.  Noisy and reverberating.

------------

The Halloween catalogues have arrived. 

Lauren wants to be a butterfly, and she searches for the perfect (overpriced) specimen.  She is as focused as she has ever been, lips parted, eyes rapt.  She turns the pages reverently, and finds the costume of her dreams.  Pink and purple, with floaty wings attached to wrists and shoulders. 

Later, Mia announces that she wants to be a cowgirl.  Or an owl.  Or a fairy.  Lauren abandons her butterfly notions.  Halloween is a trial of tiny hopes; I will have to remind her of her independence.  Convince and mollify.

------------

He is up with the dawn, getting ready for Mass. 

I stretch in bed, finding a warm pocket for my cold toes.  He sits on the mattress, fitting into the curve of my body, and puts on his shoes.  In silhouette, he is perfect: jaw and lips and nose and brow.  My whole heart lunges toward his, and I am surprised that I am not lifted from the bed with its strength.

Then he turns to me and starts to speak, but I can't hear his words.  He is my husband, and the realization still overwhelms me.  Eternal and encompassing.



Feel the need to Just Write?  Heather hosts each Tuesday.

Just Write: Belonging

Sometimes I imagine the new house has a soul, and I need to impress our family's worthiness upon it.  Show it that we belong. 

I dance around the kitchen with Lauren in my arms, spinning her until her laughter turns to hiccups.  I step on the sunlight that patches its way across the bedroom carpet, and dig my toes in, savoring.  We read more stories and do more puzzles and use more imagination. 

It's exhausting.  Because besides trying to be the perfect, organized, joyful family, there are boxes to unpack.  Really, they're languishing in the garage, being brought inside at the sad rate of one per day.  Or less. 

I've already over-boiled a pan on the glass-topped stove, leaving a black mark that I don't know how to remove.  The hose has already been left on the clematis vine, forgotten, far past the limits of our voluntary, city-wide water conservation pledge.  I've yelled here.  Cried here.  Been broadsided by a giant, girl-induced mess in the upstairs playroom.  It's all I can do to keep pretending we deserve this lovely home, even after the shortcomings of real life have been reestablished, and we're only two weeks in. 

But at midnight (and 3am and 4:30am) when I shuffle down the hallway towards the staircase and a baby's cry or a daughter's call, the house is sleeping.  The living room is low and warm, waiting to hold us in the morning.  The stairs blink, dazedly, as I climb; they roll over again to wait for a clatter of children at sunrise.  The curtains are snug, cushioning our dreams inside tall and steady walls.  Sentinels of rest and belonging.  

On the way back to my dark, green-walled room, I feel it more simply than I can in the daylight.  The truth sidles up next to me and I bump its hip, teasing: I guess we belong here.  We don't have to prove it or pretend it or own it.

It just is. 

Which is a good thing, because I couldn't force the belonging in this home any more than I can manage to unpack more than one box per day. 

Just Write is a party at Heather's Extraordinary Ordinary -- stop over for a treat!

A Mystery {A Bigger Picture Moment}

I still don't know how to creep through this dark house just yet.  There will be a half-unpacked box somewhere en route through the living room, ready to assault my shins.  It probably lies in wait, hulking in a shadow of its own making.  It probably chuckles. 

But I try the journey anyway, ever more impressed by my own midnight prowess. 

There's a baby upstairs who's lost his binkie, and a preschooler who thinks the air conditioner is making too much noise.

Good, cool noise, on hot, dry nights.

It does sound different, though.  We haven't memorized the tone of the walls, the tenor of the floors.  Every creak is suspect, and when the wind kicks up, we lie still, discerning: friend or foe?

Last night, the wind ushered some rain drops right to our doorstep -- a miracle.  Lightning sheeted blue and white under the clouds and thunder rattled a picture on the wall.  I shuffled from the bedroom (one box at the foot of the bed tried to trip me with a low-hanging flap). 

Down the hall, through the kitchen, past the dining room, I followed the noise of the rain.  It tapped against the sunlights in the sunroom, tinkering out a paragraph about the wetness of relief.  Lightning bloomed into the room, and there was Justin sprawled on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. 

Come lay down with me -- it sounds amazing in here. 

He pushed a cushion out of the way, and opened his arms.  I snuggled in.  The rain slowed.  Thunder grumbled away.  Lightning softened. 

I love it here, I whispered.

I don't know the noises; the creak of a random floorboard still catches me off guard; the light switches confound me; bullyish boxes threaten to bruise my shins.

But I love it here.

Every Thursday, we come together to share the harvest of intentional living by capturing a glimpse of the Bigger Picture through a simple moment. Join the Bigger Picture Community at Corinne's place today! Reflect upon something simple — or simply magical — that’s resonated with you this week, then share it with us!

Wish Us Luck!

Today is the day; now is the time!  We're closing on our new house this afternoon, and all of these boxes (and SO many more...) will be loaded on the truck.  We'll be moving all weekend, and taking the next week to make the final transitions, so any prayers for a bump-free weekend would be appreciated.  Oh, and maybe some temperatures that are less than triple-digit, although it doesn't look promising.

I don't like to sweat.

Therefore, moving will be a tremendous blow to my sense of cool cleanliness.

But (eeeek!) we're all so excited!

Serenading a House

Oh, friends.  It started as a weekend of deep cleaning to get our house ready to go on the market, and it's ended with a napless baby, a clingy, back-talking Lauren, a distracted mama, and a focused daddy.  Mia is the only one of us who is running strong on all burners, and I'm super-double glad for that much.  She's excited and helpful and talkative and funny.

I'm exhausted and anxious and hiding my emotions by yelling too much.

But the house!  It looks GORGEOUS in here, you guys.  I looked around yesterday at our spotless living space, and declared this the perfect place to live.  I would totally buy this house.  If we hadn't already decided to sell it, that is.  But it's perfect.  There's not a speck, not a fluff, not a trail of dust in the whole place.  No clutter, either; we've cleared out about half of our belongings to make it seem open and airy and available. 

And we had plenty of help, too.  Our mothers washed windows and screens, scrubbed blinds and shades, dusted fan blades and shelves.  My aunt came over, tools in hand, unbidden, and began raking out our overgrown flower beds.  They are now pristine. 

I say again, I want to live here.  I do.  I don't want to goooo.  Only, we've made an offer on another, larger house, which the owners have accepted.  So our time is short.  Sob.

Last night, falling asleep in a clutter-free bedroom, in a dust-free house, on a manicured plot of land, I dreamed  I was auditioning for a musical show.  I climbed up on the stage, which actually turned out to be our roof, and belted my song for the judges.  My voice was pure and passionate.  I became the song, as sometimes happens in dreams -- my soul swelled with the notes. 

So cheesy, yes, and so revealing.  I sang to the house: And I.....will always love you...my darling you...  I was better than Whitney.  I was truer than Dolly.  I was the song and the song was me and the house, oh, the house, she sighed and pulsed with my singing.

I got the part in the musical, of course.  I was talented beyond measure.  But when it was time for the performance, with my name spelled in lights at the box office, I couldn't remember the words.  They faded as I moved further away from the house. 

And now you are free to question my mental stability, as you've probably already done many times by now.  I won't judge you.  I'll just please ask you to pass me a tissue while I gaze longingly at my clean, lonely home while we prepare drive away someday soon.

The Best Sort of Cheer: A Dancing Baby

Whew.  Yesterday was a doozie, and I merely stayed at home, playing with the kids all day.  Joplin, however, was coming together in remembrance and celebration.  So much has been done, built, renewed.  The school district broke ground for three new schools including Joplin High School.  Thousands of Joplinites swarmed the tornado zone on a unity walk.  It feels like the past several days have been all-Joplin-pride, all-the-time, and they have been that.  President Obama, for pete's sake, delivered JHS's graduation commencement speech Monday night.  All-Joplin-Pride has been swelling through the city.  Filling us up. 

And you know the crazy thing?  To the world (or whoever's paying attention) it might appear that our attitudes are new.  Pulled out for just this week.  But those proud attitudes have been year-round.  We love what our city has become.  Not the physical city -- the new buildings are nice, but that's not where our love lies.  It lies in each other.  We've seen the goodness of people.  Helping, sharing, working, loving people.

It's a good thing to be reminded of: humanity can be awe-inspiring.

Still, the memories from a year ago are haunting.  So to stop that sadness from spreading out of hand, I need to share some sheer pleasure with you.

Here is Landon, Party Rocking.  May it cheer you as it does us!  (And thank you for your prayers and thoughts while Joplin has been -- and continues to be -- rebuilding!

Musing and Amusing

Five years ago, the thought of spending a hot evening at the carousel park -- surrounded by wildlings and bothered by wind -- would have made me grimace in pain.  I don't like crowds and I don't like incessant noise and I don't like the sun in my eyes.

Especially a carousel park that is oldish and run-down.  Perhaps it had a heyday in the 1990's, but now, it's fraying around the edges.  Still, the carnival feel is what really matters, here.  The smell of popcorn and nachos.  The bells and whistles of clackety roller coasters and spinning seats.

And when I stop to think about it, maybe the wind and the screaming children are indispensable.  They bleed into the landscape while traffic blows past on the nearest road, creating a shell of childhood memory.

Even the sun, if I'm in a particularly forgiving mood, fits here, kissing the Ferris Wheel and drawing long shadows behind our loping legs.

So-- a carousel park: really not as awful as my pre-children self would have imagined.  Because seeing my daughters' hearts fill and burst with excitement in the midst of all the light and noise and motion is enough to forge new pathways in my irritable brain.

Then it was a screaming, clanging, whirring, heated nuisance. 

Now it is a bright and shining memory. 

What do you think?  Are amusement parks actually fun for parents?  Or just a way to entice children into sweetness RIGHT before they crash into meltdowns?  Maybe a combination of both?  And that's where the cotton candy comes to the (worsening) rescue...

Bigger Picture Moments: Separation

While the sun is still relaxing over the horizon, I tuck the girls into bed.  Pale light seeps around the edge of the shades, marking simple lines on the walls.  They are the sign language of dusk, telling us to hold our breaths while darkness gathers. 

The room smells like shampoo and toothpaste.  Giggles lighten the air; they are excited.  The bunk-bed commands almost an entire wall, hulking in the shadows with stiff shoulders and locked knees.  It is ready for the usual: one sister on the top bunk, one sister on the bottom. 

But as I back out of the room on a low tide of love you and sweet dreams, the conspiracy begins.  The cool light of the sunset is an aiding and abetting influence.  The beefy bunk bed is the getaway car.  The sisters are the masked thieves. 

As soon as the doorknob latches, whispers increase; a plan begins to unfold.  It is not a complicated plan.  It happens much the same each night--

Lauren will vacate her lower bunk.

Mia will reach down to collect Lauren's blankies.

Lauren will climb the ladder.

Mia will scoot to the edge of the mattress.

Lauren will snuggle down deep. 

The sisters become each others' comfort item.

It is not always a smooth transition: sometimes the tickling and wrestling tattles on their scheme so much that they are ordered to relent.  Sometimes the covers are stolen.  Sometimes Lauren is snoring too loudly into Mia's ear.  Sometimes separate beds are resumed.

But the sisters, the thieves in the night, they want to be close.  They want the heat radiating from a cozy pair of legs, and the damp breaths steady beside them. 

I stand beside their closed door, hollow and thin and impenetrable.  My palm is flat on the veneer, my heart is quiet for a moment while I listen.

Mia, do you want to hold my lambie? 

Shhh, we have to be quiet!

Hey Mia, do you want me to tell you a story?

...okay.

Okay.  Once there was a...um...once there was a witch.

NOOO!

Okay.  Once there was a little girl....

I pivot on one heel and whisper myself away.  The sun is down now.  The cool light has deepened into cool dark, erasing the sign language on the walls.  We can breathe again.  I am alone with my own silence and my own thoughts and my own empty arms. 

They are together, though, and that feels like feathers in my heart when it flips: soft and safe and filled. 

We're seeing the Bigger Picture through simple moments -- moments that force us to stop and take notice of the ways our worlds are important, meaningful, and beautiful. Please join us at Hyacynth's place today! Grab the button, link up, and read a few others to encourage them as they walk this journey of intentional living.

Collected Rainbows

I hate being busy. 

The way things pile up around me, needing to be done.  They're stern-faced tasks, some of them.  But some are sweet, happy obligations.  No matter; I hate being busy.

And this week has been gutted of time.  I stepped one foot over the edge of last week, expecting to slowly wade into a gentle, ankle-lapping stream, but instead I've plunged, sprawling, into a hidden dropoff.  I can't feel the bottom, and I can't stop tumbling.

I should be making tonight's dinner right now -- at nine o'clock in the morning -- because my afternoon is sectioned off already into things that cannot be ignored. 

Oh, but I'm good at ignoring.  I procrastinate with insane dedication, until simple busyness becomes a frightful, stressful week.

Which is what has become of this week.

And at the coffee table, my Lauren is playing with tiny, pinkish dolls.  She is proud because she got dressed so quickly this morning in one of my favorite outfits -- a wide, swirling, fiesta skirt with a matching top.  The matching part is irregular; she usually chooses color with abandon.  Like she's collecting rainbows on her person.

She speaks under her breath to the dolls, making distinct voices for each.  Imbuing them with personality and intention and relationship.  I see the slope of tiny shoulders and the tips of tiny, busy fingers.  But they're suddenly huge.  Only in a flash, for one part of a second, I see her for what she is:

a little girl.  Growing.

And today is the last day I will ever call her three years old.  She'll be four in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, before we stretch away from our sleep.  I'll greet a four-year-old at breakfast. 

I don't see that she's been the better part of four for months now.  I don't see that days have all added up to a culmination; I only see that the number is flipping from little to big.

I've been so busy with making party preparations and meeting the nonstop needs of life that it takes me somewhat by surprise, today.

Three.

Four.

There is a flowering meadow between the two, opening into collected rainbows of color and reaching to the sun.  And I might have been too busy to notice.

Bigger Picture Moments: The Green

The water is gray as it falls, with no point of light coaxing it into prettiness.  And it's a quiet sort of dull -- if there is beauty, it's there in the shush of constant rainfall on sodden ground.  The quiet of a thousand falling drops meeting with finality on the grass.  It's not the falling that makes a sound -- it's the impact at the end.

I stand at the window, trying to distinguish the clouds from the rain.  Because surely there's a place where gray rain and gray clouds can accentuate one another.  Become separate and distinct.  But that place doesn't appear until it's too late: a darkened forest backdrop highlights the shape of rain just before it meets the ground.

Across the yard, across the street, the last of the white blossoms on a tree have given way to timid green.  The rest of the world is still shades of brown with lifelessness, but the tree is stretching out quietly.  And on its flimsy upper branches, a scarlet cardinal sits in silence.  He does not meld into the clouds.  He is not hidden within the leaves.  He is startling and impossible in the gloom of the day. His feathers must be entirely soaked.  A blanket of heaviness, forcing him to rest.

I look closer, squinting through sheets of clouded air.  I expect him to ruffle and bluster, to insulate himself against the wetness falling all around.  But he is upright and impervious.  Sleek. 

Then, I smile.  He has started singing. 

Who cheer! who cheer! whee, whee, whee, whee --

I would swear that he enjoys the gray rain.  He is still perched there when I become bored and walk away.  Back into the boisterous life of a house full of children.  Nothing gray about that.

------------

On the fourth day, I guard my eyes from the sunrise.  It peeks over the eastern hill, streaking a horizontal spotlight onto the trees behind my bedroom window.  At first, it is only the treetops that are bathed in the glow.  Slowly, the minutes pass and the glow falls, touching the high and the low alike -- the world is awake. 

But for all the beauty of the watery light, it is not the sky or the sun that has made me pause. 

It is the green. 

The clovered floor before the forest, the spring bulbs shooting blades high, the carpet of green speckled with tiny purple and white flowers, the blush of lime over all but the most stalwart of oaken varieties -- it is the green.

While I wallowed and moaned, the world was changing colors.

Perhaps the cardinal knew it.  Saw the beauty in the green-nourishing gray. 

I breathe in the lush promise of spring.  It is here.




We're seeing the Bigger Picture through simple moments -- moments that force us to stop and take notice of the ways our worlds are important, meaningful, and beautiful. Please join us at Jade's place today! Grab the button, link up, and read a few others to encourage them as they walk this journey of intentional living.

A Break from Spring Break

If these photos had been taken during a spring break, they would have made perfect sense.  Sunny, bright, flowery, smiley -- all outdoors, soaking up the springness of the world. 

But, no -- they were taken last week.  A regular week of work and school.

Today -- and yesterday and the day before -- on our actual spring break, we are rained out.  A giant weathery, moisturey, cloudy system is lounging on top of us this week, so we're mostly indoor- bound. 

If not for a fun playdate yesterday and the hope of sunshine tomorrow, I'd probably be brooding.  Not only are we not off on a grand adventure, we're barred from exploring our own backyard which is a veritable quagmire at the moment.

But come to think of it...quagmires sound exciting.  Messy.  Maybe we should venture out...

A kind of 'see how muddy one little girl can become' adventure.

If the actual rainfall holds off for much longer, we might head out there.  Traipse through mud puddles.  Wallow in wetness.  Head back inside for a lunch picnic on the living room floor.

But in the meantime, I'm just going to give myself a little break from our cloudy spring break by gazing at sunshiney photos for a while.  It's like a vacation from the drear.

What are/were your family's spring break plans?  Loafing around muddy backyards?  Driving to sunny locales?  Visiting family?  And what are your best ideas for indoor adventures while we wait for the rain to blow away?

A Nighttime Tour

He smells like Switzerland, I think.  I press more deeply into my pillow and breathe the air from both sides: damp air blowing from the night beyond the window across the room and his mountain-tainted air billowing next to me.  Sweet and clean and fresh.

It's not Switzerland itself surrounding him, of course.  No glaciers or pines or wisteria or lakes or vineyards or lamb-studded meadows.  Just some perfect combination of after shave, deodorant, and his personal pheromones that invoke memories of the country.  We were sweet and fresh, ourselves, when we were there.  I pull the sheet further up over my shoulders and smile, tucking my legs into his. 

It was spring, then.  Tiny, perfect crocuses were pushing through stubborn clumps of snow in the lower Alps, and great, foggy clouds huddled around us as we wound through mountains.  Every other switchback, there was a gushing waterfall, emptying the peaks of their clear, snowy water. 

For as much as we loved the smoothness of the green countryside, the cities we visited were enchanting.  In Lausanne, our hotel room was charming and tiny with a brass bed and high ceilings.  Somehow, we always ended up in a room next to a trio of matronly English ladies with silver hair and flowered skirts.  They were on the same traveling schedule as us, and the way they tittered and smiled as we exited our rooms each morning made me blush.  They thought we were on our honeymoon, probably.  And we might as well have been.  We hadn't even been married for two years and were understandably clingy.  We walked places as a unit, arms and hands and bodies always touching.  We gazed with syrupy lust across lakeside tables and shared sips of warm, red wine from rustic stoneware cups.

Those little old ladies knew love when they saw it, I guess.

And though it was seven years ago, I wonder about those ladies.  Strange what I took away from that trip: the memory of proper English grandmothers and their sense of adventure.  Even they stopped the forward motion of a (presumed) simple life to travel across the continent on a grand expedition. 

But I don't know -- maybe this was their yearly habit.  Maybe they'd been knocking out European countries with their steely-eyed gazes for a few decades.  Maybe we were the umpteenth giddy lovers they'd witnessed traipsing arm-in-arm over old-city bridges and browsing city markets. 

Maybe they're still taking adventures together. 

Back in my own bed, I wonder, with the air blowing in waves of remembering, if I'll ever have adventures again. 

My brother and his family, right now, are traveling for a year.  Working in quarter-long stints at exciting locations: San Antonio; the Virgin Islands; Florida; DC.  They're seeing things.  Meeting people.  Walking arm-in-arm over historic paths and scenic beaches. 

My high-school friend and her husband sold almost everything they own, packed the rest into a rough-shod SUV, and are currently somewhere in Central America, driving the entire length of the continent with no agenda and no strings holding them in place.  They have each other, they have their vehicle, and they have whatever happens tomorrow. 

One of my bridesmaids invited us to share a house with them in Mexico this summer.  I can almost hear the laughter and stories that would unfold there -- the sunny heat, the sultry dark, the sandy sea.

Lenae has pinned her hope on a steadfast faith and is living with her family in Azerbaijan.  Emily has followed her husband to exotic locations year after year, ready to open her eyes and soul to new cultures each time; she's going to Australia in a few weeks. 

And those laughing English grandmas....

I take another deep breath and look towards the open window.  A gust of humid, cool air touches my face.  The world is out there, I think. 

And I am in here.