A Little Piece Of Heaven

Or a little peace of Heaven...either way. We sat out under the stars, swinging on the porch swing, listening to the heavy breathing of our two sleeping girls. Happy Anniversary, I love you with all of my heart.

Mamma Mia

Brent and I went to see it, and despite the fear it would be beyond campy (which it so was), we really enjoyed it. Except now I have all the ABBA songs trapped in an endless loop in my head. Who needs an IPod?

I have to confess though that I may be the only person that has ever cried through most of "Mamma Mia". Who does that? I was just so caught up with watching this mother sing about her time with her daughter as a young girl being over, and with the whole pure loveliness of being young... I mean smooth skin, body parts up where they belong, being able to jump and move and sing without inhibition. I know, it's a completely idealized view of being twenty, but I was still nostalgic for something I probably never was. It was kind of a bittersweet thing, watching what I once was to some degree and watching where I am heading. Granted, Meryl Streep is my goal of aging beyond gracefully. I think she is amazingly beautiful and talented and boy, I hope I can be that in a few more years.

Anyway, once you get past the first few minutes of "What are we watching" is what thoroughly enjoyable...go see it! Bu be prepared to be humming "Waterloo" for a few days afterwards.

Yeah, What She Said...

I love Catherine, not in that way, but you know.

Speaking of which...yesterday I went to my friend's ultrasound and before I met up with her I went to the gift shop at the hospital. I decided I would get her a pink hat and a blue hat. You know the hats I'm talking about, right? Those newborn hats that, really, do they ever fit a baby's head? I did not think my children had freakishly large heads, despite the episiotomies (which is a post for another time and another place), but I could not get one of those hats to stay on either of them. They just would slide up, up, up their forehead and POP! Off they would come...the hats, of course, not the heads.

Anyway, I digress. As I took the hats up to the lady at the counter she commented on the two hats and I replied "We're going to find out the sex of the baby today", which, since I am not pregnant made it sound like it was 'our' baby. My friend and I. Who is another woman. And while at the risk of sounding like that Jerry Seinfeld episode (not that there's anything wrong with that), I had this driving need to clarify what I meant to the woman I didn't even know. I started backpedalling while at the same time having a "how do I explain this without sounding homophobic/narrow minded and snotty" conversation in my head, which I am sure made me look like I was having a seizure. She then (with a look of fear in her eyes) tried to talk me down by saying how many pregnancies there seems to be around lately (HELLO? I know that) and I replied that "Yes, a lot of my daughter's friends are pregnant"...MEANING that their friend's mothers are pregnant. The lady looked confused and said, "Oh is it your daughter's ultrasound today?" And I then ended the conversation by shooting her.

No, unless shooting invisible laser beams from my eyes counts. I just said "No, just a friend of mine" and left barely able to stop myself from shrieking "DO I LOOK THAT OLD?!?!". Of course, I then sat down, opened the newspaper I also bought and read about a 47 year old grandmother who was having a hard time covering her medical costs. That woman is only 6 years older than me. Indeed.

My Heart At Home Daybook...

Outside my window... is a warm, humid night.

I am thinking... that I am really excited to post this and put my name on another blog for the first time. Maybe I should have said I am thinking I am needy/nerdy?

I am thankful for... my girls being sound asleep.

From the kitchen... I have some leftover hash from my mom. Thanks, Mom!

I am wearing... capris because my legs need to be shaved.

I am creating... a Tivo list so I can cut down on television watching.

I am going... to go to bed soon...next time I'll do this Daybook in the daytime.

I am reading... "The Encouraging Parent"

I am hoping... that I have more patience and energy tomorrow.

I am hearing... the static of the baby monitor that I still use to hear the girls even though they are no longer babies (at least not according to everyone else besides me)

Around the house... are things to pick up after the company tonight.

One of my favorite things... are raspberries fresh from the garden and we got some tonight!

A few plans for the rest of the week: going to my friend's ultrasound (and wishing it was for my own), finishing swim and music classes for my deprived, unsocialized, home schooled children (yes, I am being sarcastic), and preparing for family to visit.

Eating

Another successful dinner party (actually a potluck). A relatively small house with 40 people invited is seemingly a recipe for disaster, but once again everyone fit in, laughed, brought and ate AMAZING food and all I had to do was provide the space and tidy up a bit before and after...which is a very good thing.

It was an odd day. For the first time in my memory since having children, we had a day without them. Daughter One wanted Nanny to drive her to her full day music camp and Daughter Two wanted to go with Nanny and spend the day with her. Nanny agreed! It was a great opportunity to tidy the house, but very weird. The strangest part was when I would clean up a room, it stayed clean! Imagine, no one behind me taking it all apart.

They are both sound asleep now, seconds after going to bed with sticky popsicle mouths (I forgot to wash faces- how bad a mother am I?) they were asleep. I do love those lovely girls.

To Everything There Is A Season

We went on a weekend camping trip to visit my relatives and just arrived home an hour or so ago. The girls had a great time playing with their only cousins and took over the campground, jumping in the river, running though the woods, all the things you would want your children to do and keep memories of. I often think that...these times with these small people seem so intense, how could they not remember all these adventures, the tastes, smells, feelings? But, of course, I have few memories of my time when I was that young, so chances are good we will all be saying in s few years "weren't we here before? Was that six or seven years ago? Was that the time you saw a fox?" and so on. Insert melancholy sigh here, because we wouldn't want it to be a happy little post about a beautiful flower or a ripe garden or forever young and innocent children.

It did grieve me to see my uncle growing so old. Here are my children visiting my uncles and aunts the exact places I did so many years ago, and until this weekend I so appreciated how their childhood was, in some ways, some very good ways, mimicking my own. But, of course, it is many years later and these same parents of my cousins whom I thought of as old 'way back then' when they were not much older than I am now, are indeed old and growing closer to the end of their visit here on earth. I could always make myself feel even worse by remembering that we never who or when someone will be lost, and I say that in the most sarcastic of ways, but, if all goes as it 'should' my children will be losing people they love on a fairly regular basis on their trip through childhood. I have very few options to offer them...I am a child of a youngest (by far) daughter, Brent is the youngest (by far) in his family. The cousins the girls are growing up with are actually third, fourth, maybe fifth or 'removed' (what does that mean?) and the aunts and uncles are either their great aunts and uncles or are really old enough to be (in some circles) their grandparents.

And here I am wanting another baby to live among the wrinklies of our family...parents included, to judge by the mirror some days. I draw a lot of comfort from Antique Mommy.

Anyway, it really was, overall, a wonderful, tiring trip. The girls barely made it into their beds tonight before falling asleep, the nighttime prayers were all ones of thanksgiving for the weekend of joys and family. God is so good, he's so good to me.

Summer Daze

I do this to myself every time. The kids seem able to stay up, so we stay up late and then the next day we pay and pay and pay... it was worth it though to see an outdoor performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The girls wore their wings and we had a great time under the moon watching Puck's antics.

Off to the beach for our daily swim lessons. The house is falling down around our ears with all of this going out every day and the girls are not on any sort of a regular schedule. I plan on getting on top of it during rest/nap time...or maybe I'll read a new book on the porch swing. Hmmm.

I love summer.

Baby Blues

Brent and I keep going around in circles about the whole 'should we try for another baby?' thing. We have two beautiful girls, conceived with little/no difficulty or waiting and then we hit the road blocks. A cancer diagnosis, three miscarriages later, and we find ourselves at forty with one child less than 'the plan'.

I mean, even writing the above sentences makes me roll my eyes...if I was objective about this and reading another blog, I would tell the writer to give her head a shake. "Be thankful for all that you have, plans don't always work out, there is a reason, blah, blah, blah". I do know all this, but I am not objective and I do so want one more baby in the house.

Of course, when I get this in my head the world conspires to show me possibilities, like the forty-two year old at church who has been trying for three years and walked in today five months pregnant, and my friend with only half an ovary after ovarian cancer who is now pregnant with her second miracle child. I mean, anything is possible, right?

Right?

Saturday

Went to see Hancock, Will Smith's new movie...one word review- meh. Not the worst, definitely not the best.

Today we got the kids' playhouse finished, as far as painting. It's irritating that they have had a hard time finding 'something to do' in the last few 'slow' days, when I could list off a selection of things as long as my arm. Is is that age old parent/child thing? Or have we given them too much scheduled 'stuff' that they really have temporarily lost the ability to entertain themselves? I am always spouting off about choices- you pick one colour of paint for your walls, you can't paint with another at the same time, you pick one car to buy, so that eliminates the other. So does that also mean I can't have children who take different classes who can also entertain themselves? Is it an either/or question? Along those same lines, do you have to have a childhood with nothing provided for you in order to appreciate the small things in life? I wonder about that when I see the shelves of books we have, or the playhouse in the yard that I yearned for and my own children take as a due course. I mean, they like it and even appreciate it, but never having been without it in their memory maybe makes it less valuable.

We've been reading old Raggedy Anne books, which I love and so does Mary, Laura is still attached to only picture books, and kind of floats around us when we're reading them. The books are not well written and have a very quaint (possibly not politically correct)air to them, but I'm finding that it is part of the charm. It reminds me of when I was very young before I realized that everyone wasn't exactly the same and that there were troubles and worries galore.

I am desperate for something to read and I need to go out alone for a bit to the bookstore and find something. I am addicted to Amazon, but nothing beats going through row upon row of actual books looking for a new read. Any suggestions?

May There Always Be Lemonade

Daughter One decided to have a lemonade stand yesterday, easily the HOTTEST day we have had in a long time. I think the temperature was high 90s. Against my urge to say 'no' and with my new policy to say 'yes' as often as I reasonably can, we geared up, went to the store, bought cheap frozen canned lemonade, came home and mixed it up. Then, of course, was the sign, the table set up, umbrella, etc. and it happily became a family affair. Even the sibling 'stuff' I've seen lately dissipated as little sister became the big helper. How wonderful for my heart was it to see them sitting side by side out at the end of the driveway and watching the little one 'run errands' for books and snacks to occupy them for the two hours.

Excuse me? Yes, TWO hours she sat out there in the baking sun. Daughter Two came and went, but Daughter One sat there the whole two hours. That kid has persistence. Did I mention we live on a dead end street where only 6 people bought the lemonade? It killed me to see her out there waiting and hoping for a big lineup of people to want to buy a glass of sugared pink water. Of course, the people we phoned that came and bought more than satisfied her, but I think I would have sold the house to have that big line up appear for her.

The best part of all this though is why she did it...this was ALL for the Red Cross. She decided right off the bat that this was going to raise money for something and after some local evacuations for forest fires, the Red Cross would be the best place to help. I am a very proud Mama.

Today we were sitting in Daughter Twos music class (I know, class in July for the homeschoolers...irony much?) and I realized this was the same classroom that I had brought Daughter One as a 3 month old for her Mommy and Me music. It was just the two of us (surrounded by other more competent moms and less beautiful babies) and she was my whole world. We sang and cuddled, and the goodbye song each week was about always having sunshine, always having blue sky, always having Mommy, always having me. Every week I would tear up at this song, knowing that it would be a while before she realized, but someday she would know that there wouldn't always be us. Time passes, and nothing stays the same.

I thought all of these things as I sat in the room watching this big girl of five twirl around with her sister and looked around for that little baby and the mother that wanted to freeze time.

And still does...

Sunday, Sunday

I am so glad that we belong to a church 'family' of sorts. I am glad there are people not related to me but still care what is happening to the girls, to me, to my husband.

Why must the girls screech at each other? I am struggling lately with how the younger ones treats the older one, she is SO bossy and it brings out this fabulous whiny side in my older one (not so much fabulous for those of you non-existent readers that thought I was serious).

My house is a mess. I went on 'vacation', came home and didn't immediately resume my cleaning schedule and now, two days later, I am sitting in chaos. TWO DAYS! HOW is this possible that I am so responsible for EVERYTHING that two days is enough to send it all into a place that makes my house look like it was robbed without any of the actual 'stuff' taken? Blah.

So now I am off to do a big clean and also purge because the lovely people a the local some illness charity will come and take anything you want to give them and there will be lots going on Wednesday when they pull up that great big truck they use. I love the feeling that comes from cleaning out the house, not just cleaning up. It also horrifies me that anyone would have so much that there is lots to give away that will not even be missed. I mean, there are people in the world who could hold all that they own in their hands. Something is very wrong with that.

Moving On

So I was going to write about the lovely two night trip the girls and I took with their Nanny (my mom), and all of the wonderful time we spent together, but that would be too lovely and so far despite my best intentions to have this blog be light and happy like I want our homeschooling days to be, it isn't turning out that way.

I so desperately want to have one last baby and this last month was the LAST month for trying and it didn't work. Two healthy pregnancies, thyroid cancer, a partial molar (yuck) and two other miscarriages and here we are. It was going too easily there at first with the babies...two months of 'trying' and then two lines on a stick- voila! Then the delay with illness and more delay with the molar, and then it seemed like the expiration date was up. I am so sad that this is it and really, what right do I have to complain? Thank God we have the two perfect (in my eyes) girls that we have. They are friends, close enough in age to share so much, healthy, happy, smart, funny, brave, and beautiful. I should be satisfied and usually I am.

But I just wanted one last baby.

I wish there were clear, almost literal, signs to guide us. Ones that we couldn't overlook,,,even as I write this though, I have to roll my eyes at myself- the grocery list of 'stuff' above it pretty clear, no? Or is it our responsibility to trust and keep going? When is enough, enough? I'm just looking for one more reason to try again.

Late Nights

So, here I am at 1:00 in the morning having just finished washing my kitchen floors, and since I have to wait for them to dry before I can go across to go up to bed, I thought I'd write down a few thoughts from the day.

The late night mopping is fueled by Pepsi. I drink so little caffeine that it only takes a glass to get me going for a few hours. I've was hoping to avoid this late though...I've been up late a few nights in a row. For some reason I've hit a low patch in the road, although I'm not sure of exactly why...birthdays have been marked and I really don't like anything that marks time so clearly, a friend of a friend of friends has been diagnosed and has passed away (the scariness of the speed in which that happened is enough to account for this mood all by itself, and I didn't even know the woman).

So I figured I would put the late night to work for me and clean the house and watch the Bachelorette...I know, pathetic, huh? But I so do love my 'reality' shows. I'm so glad she chose Jason, by the way, dads are the best. Thank you, Deanna, for letting me zone out on your life for and hour or two.

Well, the floor is dry, I'm off to bed.