Oh, yeah...

Because sometimes in the middle of trying to do ten things at once you forget to be the calm and gentle parent and you lose your patience with a three year old who is acting, well, like a three year old. Because sometimes you forget to take a breath. Because sometimes a simple picture will ease the strain and remind you what it's all about.

Little Hands

When you havn't learned to walk yet and you're plopped down in a patch of grass, you work with what you've got. Dirt, leaves, flowers, sticks, mud - they're all worthy of touch. Everything is new and can be discovered with four pudgy fingers and a thumb. The outdoors, springtime, terroir, life; all right there in the palm of your tiny little hand.

Paper Boats

The long march of winter in the Northwest have finally given way to the long march of spring in the Northwest. Rain clouds, storms, hail, and soggy, sloppy earth beneath our boots. Keeping little ones occupied indoors all day requires some creative planning. I've gotten pretty good at coming up with little craft projects while my son naps, because I like to do things with my hands and would like to pass on the value of making things to my daughter, and because I can't, in good conscience, let her watch yet another episode of Go, Diego, Go or The Wonder Pets. (Could I?)

So being the fabulously crafty parent that I am, I decided our most recent activity would be making paper boats. Easy enough. I'm sure I remember doing something of the sort back when I was young. Really, how hard could it be? I find instructions on an origami website, grab some paper and L. and I sit down to knock out a few quick paper boats. Until I get to direction #6, that is. I'm sorry - fold what corner where? Does that particular corner even exist because I'm pretty sure directions #1-5 never mentioned anything of the sort. And why is my daughter continuously grabbing at the paper that I'm pathetically attempting to fold, repeatedly asking if it's done yet? Why do I, a semi-intelligent, somewhat handy person feel like I'm trying to land aircraft and all the directions are in German? Surely we can do this before my son's nap ends, which is very, very soon (*note to self - stay cool and carry on even though I'll hear his wail any minute now and I'll have to disappoint my oldest by failing to complete quality mother-daughter project) and before I have to answer, once again, "NO, IT'S STILL NOT DONE YET! BACK OFF, MUNCHKIN". Breathe in, breathe out. Remember that this is a fun and precious memory in the making and I am an occasionally mature adult. But seriously, what the hell?! I find an alternative website and set of instructions. My daughter has since moved on to playing with toys but now I'm determined because I can't be possibly be outwitted by paper folding, so I fold and re-fold until finally, the simple paper boat - that is anything but simple - is done. Like an idiot, I decide to make another. Because I can now. I pleat corners in order to soothe my tattered and bruised ego and convince myself that I'm not a complete dipshit incapable of folding paper according to direction. We put red and yellow sails on them and sit them on the fireplace for a not-so-rainy day. Quality craft time has officially ended for the day.

A few days later we are fortunate enough to get a slight break in the action; the sun shines brightly even thought the ground is water-logged. We decide to take the boats out to the small pond in the backyard. The ominously opaque water and safety hazards notwithstanding, we launch the ships. They float and move with the wind. As I watch my daughter pick up the boats and place them down again in the water, I am beaming. Not because they are floating successfully (my husband predicted they would sink instantly) but because I see my sweet, gorgeous girl in her matching blue dog rain coat and boots crouching over a pond to set sail her paper boats. And it's as innocent and lovely a moment as a parent can ever imagine.

I love my kids. I love their curiosity and I love that in their world anything is possible. The crafting of the boats wasn't exactly my finest moment, but this unexpected burst of sun and sweetness is more than my sappy mothering heart can take. It's so good. It's hot fudge sundaes, newborn puppies, long afternoon naps, and rock-hard abs all rolled into one spontaneous, glaringly beautiful moment and I love that I am this lucky. In this moment I have all that I need. I am full.

Jumping in Puddles

We recently changed our whole life, my family and I. Careers that stalled out, the slow and painful loss of money that was never really there to begin with, and a move from a warm and sunny spot on the coast to the rainy Northwest. It's been a big transition for all of us. Starting over in your 40s is truly unnerving. But we're here now and making our way; rebuilding our life and hoping for the best. We now have two amazingly wonderful and exhausting little ones (promise your weary mother that one day you'll both sleep through the night, pleeeeeease?!) and we've landed in a place that we think will work for them in the short-term but is wholly foreign to us. The 1970s house we're renting, the strip mall suburb we're living in, the rain, the cloudy days, and oh, did I mention the rain?

This is new ground and I admit that I'm pretty uneven in my dealing with this new ground; this unknowable future. My tendency of say, 40 years or so, is to go negative. I'm a life-long pessimist with worries that spiral in my head so that I can't sleep at night, even in the hours when my kids are actually sweetly snoring. I want to change this, I really do. I try. I heard a line in a song the other day - it was Lou Reed's version of "What a Wonderful World' and the line was "buscando la luz". Which I really want to do. I want to find the light in every day. I want to recognize and record those moments of pure joy, beauty, art, and love that occur like a flash of brilliance but then sometimes slip through the cracks in an otherwise exhaustive day. My hope is to eventually have more moments of joy than fear, worry, or negativity. This is no small task for me but I'm commited to trying.

The other day it rained. It rained for what feels like the millionth time in the five or so months we've been here (have I mentioned I'm prone to exaggeration?). Somewhere deep down my groan became audible and primal. My three year old daughter rightly ignored it, stated it was a "beautifwul' day (I'll mourn the day she starts to pronounce her f's without a w' following close behind) and declared her love for the rain. I asked why and she answered, so simply, "because we can jump in puddles!". And it's true. And we did. And like my daughter, I too will try to look at the rain not as my personal nemesis, but as an opportunity to jump in puddles. And we will look for the light, jump in puddles, and try to navigate our way through this crazy world. Luckily, I have my husband and kids to help guide me. Maybe it will even inspire another pessimist out there to recognize the beauty in their life and put on a big ol' pair of rubber boots and splash with all their might until they feel light and young and dizzy on the inside.

So let us begin...