Lately...

 

 



This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. - Amanda Blake Soule

A Late Thanksgiving

 

I am grateful for:

Sweet new baby life
Sweet 3 year old life
The myriad of cousins that surround my girls
The fact that my husband is capable of (and willing to) cook a turkey dinner (or at least finish it off)
That modern medicine can restore good health
The excellent growing season
Sunlight on frost tipped herb leaves
The Sun shining behind the trees

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. - Amanda Blake Soule

 

 

On Surrender

There is thing that no one tells you about the first year of your kids life, that survival depends on you bending to their tiny wills. And the newborn is a pro at eliciting this surrender, they are so tiny and cute and special that you will later say that you were honoured to get up six times in the night to nurse and cuddle them back to sleep. I've even said that I miss those special night moments, when the child is finally sleeping through the night.

See - for this first year it's essential that you put their needs first for their survival, it truly doesn't last long in the grand scheme of things, but for now the best way to get through it to try to surrender to it as gracefully as possible. This is not easy. It's a big wake up call to the true nature of motherhood, if you're feeling poetic about it you could say that it pushes you to understand how to give, how little is really required for you to survive, how love will make it possible for you to push past all your limits. If you're not being poetic- the truth is that baby owns you. In the nicest possible way of course, and they are falling for you too- learning that you cradle them in just that way, and that your smell and feel means safety and contentment.

It's a kind of a gift, this call to surrender, and a bit of a pain too, and it's difficult to negotiate.You have to distill down what you need to refill your well (because you do have to do that too- you can't just run on nothing for a year and expect it to be okay)- to try and understand that you will be you again, that in fact you are still you- just a different you, with a little less time and sleep, and messier hair. You have to learn to snatch inspiration in small bits, to humble yourself, to distinguish need from want; to figure out how to surrender to motherhood gracefully.

This moment

 

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. - Amanda Blake Soule 

Fall

 

 

I'd forgotten how your world narrows when you have an infant, your priorities shift to the most basic and your world is focused on the needs of this tiny person.  It doesn't seem that long ago that N was that small, but it was I guess, and it's so fleeting anyhow, that you easily forget how it actually feels to be so sleep deprived (the fleeting-ness is a mixed blessing- you alternately want to keep them this small forever, or fast forward till they sleep through the night- which is presumably when they move out of your house right?). Anyhow I am now counting the day a success if everyone is alive, basic personal hygiene is maintained, the house is reasonably clean, and people are fed. That's it, everything else is a bonus.

 

This does not bode well for the hundreds of ripe tomatoes in my porch... though the longer I wait to do anything with them, the less of them there will be to do anything with. There's a bit of a sacrificial tomato vibe out in the porch right now, I'm not loving it. So I've been trying to squeeze in some freezing, and some sauce making, which is all very difficult to do with an infant who has somehow figured out that sleeping on mom is the best thing ever, (thank goodness for the ring sling), and a Toddler who is now asking why about everything- like why does the earth orbit the sun (which is probably my own fault as my answer to her question of why it's Fall now, was accompanied by you tube videos about the earth and the sun, and why we have seasons- the upshot is she can now mimic how the earth orbits the sun by holding one fist still and rotating the other fist around it, she also knows that the sun is a star, the earth is a planet, and if we moved the earth closer to the sun our year would be shorter-so your birthday would come faster, but we would also be too hot).

 

Anyways- I suppose this is an explanation of sorts for why I've been so absent here- though last night she slept well- only getting up at 12, 3 and 6 which is totally remarkable- fingers crossed it will continue, and I can resume mt regular erratic posting schedule.