Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Saturday, August 4, 2012
grandpa, cousins, brothers, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews...
An afternoon at the youngest of my brother's... down a long dirt road. Naked babies, river jumping, giggling and crying babes, laughing siblings, and one happy happy Grandpa.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
cousins.
My oldest brother and nephew are visiting from Arizona. First day of many to come...playing at the beach with cousins...
Sunday, July 22, 2012
girls and a lemonade stand
This was the latest in sidewalk sales out front of the old birthing center, my girl and her sweet best friend.
Quite the lovely sight, these two girls on a 85 degree day, enjoying each other and the momentary responsibility of retail life.
Quite the lovely sight, these two girls on a 85 degree day, enjoying each other and the momentary responsibility of retail life.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
A chapter
Dreaming of beach days...
When I was a wee one, or so my mama tells me, we spent the summer at the beach. And as a mama myself now, with my own oh-so-pale little one, who clings to me not only all day but night too, I choke at the thought of this. My very independent mama with me attached to her leg all day long while all she wanted was to jump into the ocean and shake me off...? Yes, I can imagine her gritting her teeth and wishing I would strike some independence and get off her leg. But it's funny, thinking that way. Because now, having a little one who is my every night dinner helper (if not in my arms, watching every movement on the stove or cutting board, she is perched behind the refrigerator door, playing with empty egg cartons and jabbering away to herself and/or the mice in the wall...) I understand the need of taking deep breaths, and not thinking anything of it. This is our lives right now. So here we are.
And something about that makes it feel less of a challenge. Once in a while, when you get to go for a walk by yourself, or go to the store alone- that is when you notice the solitariness of being with just your own thoughts.
I suppose that each of us needs that breath... those moments we can remember what it was like to be in our own skin and utterly unneeded by another.
But considering the beach. I know that when I go, I bring a blanket and shade of our very own. I know I bring sunscreen enough to last and sunhats and towels and snacks for my little fish (the big girl) who will only leave the water when her lips are blue and she is starving enough to fall faint on the blanket, teeth chattering and temper nearly bringing her to tears. Mama has the job of preparation, and don't you forget it. "Where is my water bottle???" she has asked me on countless occasion when I try and remind her six times to bring it to the car, and two hours later, she realizes she doesn't have it.
(ah...)
This is when I imagine other mamas. My own. My grandmother.
Watch my girls with all the love I would easily be able to bestow on a stranger, that somehow is bit more challenging when you live it day to day. I love my girls. I love them so much every single day my heart and soul ache with it.
And I have made complete peace with this is my life right now. I live this time now, another time later, and the times before this? They were before this. Every time will come to a close and something will replace it.
That's just it. That is how it happens.
So today? Well. It hasn't happened yet. But I would be willing to bet in about five years, when my little fish is 12 and my baby is 6, everything will be a chapter of a new story. Changing every day, slowly but surely. And so fast we had better not blink.
When I was a wee one, or so my mama tells me, we spent the summer at the beach. And as a mama myself now, with my own oh-so-pale little one, who clings to me not only all day but night too, I choke at the thought of this. My very independent mama with me attached to her leg all day long while all she wanted was to jump into the ocean and shake me off...? Yes, I can imagine her gritting her teeth and wishing I would strike some independence and get off her leg. But it's funny, thinking that way. Because now, having a little one who is my every night dinner helper (if not in my arms, watching every movement on the stove or cutting board, she is perched behind the refrigerator door, playing with empty egg cartons and jabbering away to herself and/or the mice in the wall...) I understand the need of taking deep breaths, and not thinking anything of it. This is our lives right now. So here we are.
And something about that makes it feel less of a challenge. Once in a while, when you get to go for a walk by yourself, or go to the store alone- that is when you notice the solitariness of being with just your own thoughts.
I suppose that each of us needs that breath... those moments we can remember what it was like to be in our own skin and utterly unneeded by another.
But considering the beach. I know that when I go, I bring a blanket and shade of our very own. I know I bring sunscreen enough to last and sunhats and towels and snacks for my little fish (the big girl) who will only leave the water when her lips are blue and she is starving enough to fall faint on the blanket, teeth chattering and temper nearly bringing her to tears. Mama has the job of preparation, and don't you forget it. "Where is my water bottle???" she has asked me on countless occasion when I try and remind her six times to bring it to the car, and two hours later, she realizes she doesn't have it.
(ah...)
This is when I imagine other mamas. My own. My grandmother.
Watch my girls with all the love I would easily be able to bestow on a stranger, that somehow is bit more challenging when you live it day to day. I love my girls. I love them so much every single day my heart and soul ache with it.
And I have made complete peace with this is my life right now. I live this time now, another time later, and the times before this? They were before this. Every time will come to a close and something will replace it.
That's just it. That is how it happens.
So today? Well. It hasn't happened yet. But I would be willing to bet in about five years, when my little fish is 12 and my baby is 6, everything will be a chapter of a new story. Changing every day, slowly but surely. And so fast we had better not blink.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Pool-side manner...
My children? Manners...? Well... (They are relatively polite...but crazy? Yes. We've got crazy here.)
Saturday, July 7, 2012
this day
A few days back we had the pleasure of spending the day with some of our dearest friends... (eating smoked trout-yum..., visiting their varied sheep and goat flock, and swimming in their pool.) What a lovely time.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
independence
This morning, lying in bed, unable to sleep, yet again... I was thinking about this. What does it mean to be alone? Thinking about how in life we are given this life, and are truly utterly completely alone in our body shells (with the amazing exception of motherhood and pregnancy) until the day we die. The same old thing- "we are born alone and will die alone..."
Yes.
But as mamas, we live our daily dailies and completely take for granted that for a while, or forever, our children need us. They need us to soothe the ache of daily ouchies and the unknown of everything. We are the buffer that lies between them and the outside world. Truly an amazing exception, if you think about it. And more amazing still, that in a complete life cycle, you live all sides to this. As a child, your parents did that for you. As a teenager, they still did. Until you cracked the shell and ventured out...and they still looked towards you with aching expressions, trying to protect you from this hard hard world. (My mama still looks at me like that, bless her- she saves me on many occasions, and for that I will never be the mama she is...)
And then, one day, probably the day you learn that you too will be a parent, you begin to protect and nourish the being within you. You fight for it, you live for it, you save for it. Every ounce of your being is for that being. You realize that your own bodily needs lie second. You've got a job to do, and it's probably the single most important one you've ever faced.
And then, you never stop. (As I indicated with my mama.) Your little ones never grow too old to hold them in your arms.
And then, eventually, the parents who held you so dearly, then need you to hold them. Because of all that they did for you, you give it back. It's the way it's supposed to be. The world designed it like this. And eventually, when time takes it's tole, we all do it. Whether your parents or your grandparents, when they need to have you there beside them, you can't say no. There isn't the power in you.
It all goes full circle.
Not sure why, but children aren't taught now-a-days they are a part of a chain, a circle of something larger. They are taught that they are independent, alone, and that alone is terrifying. I believe truly that being alive on this earth one is accountable and responsible for the life we live...but... well. There is nothing like belonging to a family.
(I sure do love mine.)
Yes.
But as mamas, we live our daily dailies and completely take for granted that for a while, or forever, our children need us. They need us to soothe the ache of daily ouchies and the unknown of everything. We are the buffer that lies between them and the outside world. Truly an amazing exception, if you think about it. And more amazing still, that in a complete life cycle, you live all sides to this. As a child, your parents did that for you. As a teenager, they still did. Until you cracked the shell and ventured out...and they still looked towards you with aching expressions, trying to protect you from this hard hard world. (My mama still looks at me like that, bless her- she saves me on many occasions, and for that I will never be the mama she is...)
And then, one day, probably the day you learn that you too will be a parent, you begin to protect and nourish the being within you. You fight for it, you live for it, you save for it. Every ounce of your being is for that being. You realize that your own bodily needs lie second. You've got a job to do, and it's probably the single most important one you've ever faced.
And then, you never stop. (As I indicated with my mama.) Your little ones never grow too old to hold them in your arms.
And then, eventually, the parents who held you so dearly, then need you to hold them. Because of all that they did for you, you give it back. It's the way it's supposed to be. The world designed it like this. And eventually, when time takes it's tole, we all do it. Whether your parents or your grandparents, when they need to have you there beside them, you can't say no. There isn't the power in you.
It all goes full circle.
Not sure why, but children aren't taught now-a-days they are a part of a chain, a circle of something larger. They are taught that they are independent, alone, and that alone is terrifying. I believe truly that being alive on this earth one is accountable and responsible for the life we live...but... well. There is nothing like belonging to a family.
(I sure do love mine.)
Thursday, June 28, 2012
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