santa and little things update

this experience really was as horrible as it looks for poor little story...he is such a calm, mellow, easily pleased, delighted, happy baby that i had no idea he would FREAK out over santa. sea could barely do her usual bright smile cuz she was worried about her brother. he got over it quickly but i still felt badly. we've been taking photos of sea with santa since her 1st xmas at 5 months old (we make the photo into xmas tree ornaments for our tree and for both grandparents each year) and hope to continue to do this with both children.

i'm on m's computer so i don't have all the suppporting photos for all the things i've wanted to blog about this past month...so i won't even try to recap them all...later i'll write about my dad's birthday that just passed, what i will miss about our old home, and a few other recent happenings...

but for now i had to make an updated list of "all the little things" both kids keep "wow"ing me with...

--story just figured out how to clap two days ago and will occasionally do it on request with a big grin on his face (about a week before this he "found" his hands and kept reaching up in the sky and bouncing to watch them wiggle)
--two of my close friends have recently given birth to little girls (who have older brothers sea's age) and she understands that she is a big sister but is now fascinated by the idea of having a little sister...so she created one named bonnie. it is the cutest thing listening to her in the backseat telling bonnie things i've told her ("now you HAVE to stay buckled in your carseat to be safe..." for example)...my mom asked her if her doll was named bonnie and she said yes, but my doll is not real. i have a REAL little sister who is also named bonnie but she lives a long ways away
--this memory reminded me of a cute phrase sea likes to use "in a few whiles" as her version of "in a little while"
--sometimes when seas misunderstands what people say to her we get conversations like the following: ME: "sea, don't roll down the window or you'll let in a draft" SEA: "where? i don't see any giraffes?" or my mom told her after we burned our first fire in the fireplace that she could show her the ashes to which sea replied "mommy, i'm going to go look at the eyelashes in the fireplace"
--sea and story are so much more interactive now...they adore each other...i know story is just weeks away from walking so i'm trying to remember how adorable he is crawling full speed, bottom swaying, knees knocking on the hardwood and making howling squeaky noises trying to catch his sister who is squealing in delight and running just a little too fast to be caught but slow enough to still be chased...all through the house...in circles...on and on until the squealing becomes screaming

well...almost 2 hours after i wrote that last "little thing," i'm finally back...story was writhing around in his sleep whimpering and then crying and had one of the worst gas bubbles i can remember...like sea used to get all the time. i couldn't burp it out and finally after a lot of nursing, bouncing, jiggling, body movement, position changes, dancing all around the room, etc. i resorted to simethecone gas drops and he got out a huge belch...i'm so exhausted i forgot where i was going with all of these recent happenings in our world...

basically we moved in to our new house november 23 and i haven't updated this blog in over a month...we were without internet service for a couple weeks which put online bill paying, e-mailing, facebook status updates, etc. that i do way too often all on hold and backed up...

we've been doing so much to this house! and we still aren't unpacked, need more furniture, need more vision, more money, more time, etc. this wil definitely be an ongoing project...for now we are just glad to be here and i'm SO looking forward to planting a garden! sea has rain boots and loves to splash in puddles...today she was headed straight in to our little pond (not up and running yet but filled with rain water) and would have gone in above the boots if i hadn't stopped her. i can't wait to get her a watering can and have her help me out in the yard. i'm in an organic winter seedling coop which means we each plant a lot of two different vegetables, get the seedlings growing and then swap them...let's hope i have a place in our yard for this by the time we do the swap in january!

we are also hoping to have an open house then but it may be more like february...maybe we'll combine that with story's first birthday party...

i'm bummed i lost my train of thought on the "little things" because there are just so many of them that i try to remember and must be better about blogging even if i don't have supporting photos...for example story does a whole body gleaming smile that i haven't been able to catch on film because it is too captivating and i can't bring myself to be hidden behind a camera when he is doing it. he literally stops random people on the street with his engaging eyes and bright smile that both come out of nowhere.

also, i last posted about his two top teeth coming in but actually he had FOUR coming in at once. the middle two are crooked so if i can get him to open his mouth i'll get a photo up of those...

tonight we squeezed in an hour at a friend's "stress-free solstice party" which was nice...sea had a blast playing with the older girls (dressing up, jumping on the bed, chasing one another, dancing around) and story just wanted to keep moving, crawling, finding things...so i set him down and let other mommies watch him while i gobbled down yummy mostly organic and/or vegan and/or gluten-free goodies (i managed to fit in plenty of cheese, bread, cookies etc. too) and of course some of the costco chocolate cream pie that we brought (i want to be the happy homemaker that creates all these wonderful goodies but just am not at that place right now)...

i alluded to this but had our first fire in our fireplace the other night! i got this on video but just realized i didn't even take a photo of our family hanging out watching the wood crackle and flames leap and warming ourselves in our otherwise freezing home...oh wait, we live in san diego where 50 feels like freezing but i guess many of you dear readers actually are in freezing environments so i better stop complaining!

it was nice and warm or at least very sunny outside today...we had another first in our home sitting on our new patio furniture out in our yard. we got it from an estate sale down the street and i believe it was bought in the same era as our home...late 60's or so in a nice spring green color...we actually like it better than most of what we looked at that was available new.

well sea is talking in her sleep so i better sign off and get to bed myself...so much i haven't written about and so much to look forward to...

the nail fairy, two teeth halfway in and losing my dad again

yesterday morning i woke up to a very large scratch on story's face and although this was later determined to be caused by my ring sometime in our sleeping together, i feared it was the claw-like nails on both children so i clipped story's nails while he looked up at me patiently and had to do sea's while she was sleeping since she is normally very fearful of this (hence my avoidance of the task altogether). when she woke up she immediately looked at her nails and said something like "where did they go?" and so manuel, a quick thinking dad placed a quarter behind her head and said "the nail fairy came and got them...look, she left you a quarter!" so here is a photo of my "butterfly" costume holding story my little lady bug...i think these wings were meant to be fairy wings, though...

so that is one story i wanted to share but one of the most noteworthy milestones for story right now is that he has two top teeth that are halfway in! this is crazy because sea was so fussy whenever hers were trying to come in that i thought i would have signs including hard nubs that slowly poked through but i missed all this and yesterday, there they were, one completely crooked in a way only a mom could think was super cute...i'll try to get a photo of them today but story likes to keep things in his mouth and doesn't give me as many teethy grins as this one of sea at just about his age now (yes she had a LOT more hair and now that i'm looking at it, i guess it was a lot redder at that age)

finally, this one was taken of the two of them a couple of months ago. sea is so proud to be a big sister and story adores her...i put this photo in for several reasons...one to see that story and sea look more alike when they are (were) both about 9 months old so i think they will grow to look even more alike...but another reason i put this in was to remind myself of how much i love the two of them and to focus on them instead of moping around and feeling sorry for myself. part of me is so excited about moving in to our new house this next weekend...all the opportunities and new beginnings this will offer but another part of me feels like yet another door to my past is closing and i'm fundamentally depressed my dad can't be here during this stage in my life...

so i'll focus on my snuggles with sea and story "mommy, i want to yay on your yap..."

photos of our home "before"

several people have asked for "before" photos of our new home and since it will be awhile before we have any "after" photos (lots of "during" to follow if i'm up for it) i thought i'd at least post photos we took right after we closed escrow (no, they never wrote "sold" on the sign...guess they didn't really believe it would go through, either)...

we live on a one way street heading out of the cul-de-sac so the neighbors across from us are actually below us with an island in between. we have neighbors on both sides but our view out the back is across highway 8 looking at SDSU. this first photo shows most of the house (you can see the driveway in the bottom right which leads to the 2 car garage)

this is the far left side of the house (sea and story's bedroom on the left and hall bath on the right)

these are the two front doors in the middle and the entry way with tile (that has since been removed), story sitting up in the middle of the living room, a half brick wall dividing this room from the dining room to the right, and a 14 foot window that takes up most of the far wall looking out into our backyard (an olive tree and fountain/koi pond are what you see here)...we plan to paint these doors bright red and you can see the 70's circular glass in the door windows...

this is the other half of the house on the right side of the two front doors...you may recall this was where the 2 love birds were perched when we were in counter-offers...you can read more about this on my first post about this house (also gives more details of what i like about the house)

so now i'm going to go a little out of order and start the tour from the door between the garage and the house...this is the fourth bedroom (the one with the separate entrance for my mom or cousin or whoever to possibly live with us someday) and this view is inside the bedroom, of the closet, looking through the hall (garage to the right) and in to the bathroom

if you continue down this hall so that the garage door is behind you, you come to the washer/dryer and separate entrance shown here (supply closet would be in the hall behind you in this photo)

here is the view looking back down the hall to the garage door

so once you come through this door (you can see the washer peeking through the doorway) you enter our front room just in front of the kitchen...lovely nature mural wallpaper is gone i'm afraid...

here is the view of the sliding doors leading to the back yard...fireplace to your left and kitchen behind you to your right

ahh...here is the kitchen...we kept the 70's lights in this room and the dining room...there is a whole house fan in the ceiling in the kitchen

this is the dining room which is just on the other side of the right wall of the kitchen...you can see the pass through in the wall...eventually we want to move the fridge to the left side and take out the top half of this wall so there will just be an island between the kitchen and this room...the brick dividing wall is also gone...and all the carpets are out of the house so you can kind of see what the hardwood floors look like in this photo...the mail comes through a slot in this wall which i think will be exciting for the kids waiting for the mail man/lady to arrive each day...

this is the view through the kitchen into the dining room with the orange light and through the family room door into the living room (see the brick wall through the door) just to help orient you...

so if you go through that door, this is the living room with another dividing brick wall in between (also gone now)...here is story a couple months ago sitting on the carpet and you can see the 14 foot window and the brick fireplace on the right...the dining room is behind you to the right and this is the view pretty much from the front doors...

ok this is the opposite view so you can see the dining room and the tile in the entry way...the tile is now gone and we are trying to figure out how to match the hardwood to make these areas flow together...i wanted to keep the wood siding on this wall but there were big gaps once the walls came out so that, too is gone...

here is one last view of the two walls we took out...you can see the mural in the family room through the doorway...also, we took popcorn off all the ceilings...

so if you continue heading east with the garage, hall, family room/kitchen and living room/dining room behind you, there is this second L shaped hall (it curves to the right once you pass all these cupboards) that leads to the main bathroom on the left and then the three other bedrooms on the far left side of the house...sea's room would be in the left corner, story's in the middle and our master bedroom in the back of the house to the right...

this is the main bathroom just across the hall from those cupboards...we kept the 70's swirly counters but lost the ivy wallpaper and dividing glass to the toilet area...

so continuing down the hall, if you turn left, this is sea's room...appropriately aqua or sea colored complete with very bright aqua carpet (we kept this to make in to a rug but hope to have hardwood floors throughout the home). i love this little window seat for all her animals and friends to play in and hope to plant bouganvilla or a jacarunda tree just outside the window...

here is story's room...a little smaller...closet is to the right in this photo...

i didn't take very good photos of our room...once you enter, this window is to the left (facing east so the sun will come through this in the morning)...our two closets begin right behind manuel on the right and once you pass those you enter our bathroom...

you can see this carpet was even brighter...wallpaper is gone and we have replaced this sliding door...these are right across fromt the window you just saw...(bathroom is on the other side of this wall)

this is the view of part of the back yard (garage on the far left, laundry room window and then the sliding door to the family room. sea is by some birds of paradise plants and an olive tree that you can see through the living room window...

sliding door on the left, olive tree and fountain in the middle and the 14 foot window (our master bedroom is that wall on the right)

ok...that is it...here is sea running out the front doors...they will be painted bright tomato red at some point and these are two cammelia (sp?) bushes that should be blooming soon...it is an exciting process!! will post updates when we have time...can't wait to have open houses, entertain, have kids over to play, garden, etc...

tell me a story

last night manuel was painting with his brother at our new house (i can't call it our home until we are living there) and i was trying to put two children to bed at once (usually story goes to sleep around 8 while manuel tells sea a story and then i put her to sleep shortly thereafter). but this particular night they both decided they were ready for bed simultaneously...so despite the nursing challenges and odd angles required to make this happen, it was overall very sweet as they held hands and smiled at one another snuggling up with their mommy...at one point sea stopped and said "will you tell me a story?" which touched me on many levels i don't want to over-analyze here...so i guess there were a couple things i wanted to touch on...how my dad liked to tell stories, life as a story, story's life continuing on after the loss of my dad...these topics could go a lot further but in order to actually post this i'm going to just share some of the characters in the story manuel likes to tell sea...they are a mix of names he came up with/borrowed and some of the richard scarry characters including huckle cat, hop-a-long rabbit, lowly worm, "stow-bester" (the way sea pronounces sylvester), bow-wow puppy...and he makes up stories about daily life with them (usually they go to the beach) and sea always includes details from her own life to add to the story...sometimes she speaks in present tense about how she was there in the story with them...

speaking of sleep...i think sea is ready to go to bed so more later...

all the little things

so manuel and i are here together...listening to pandora "yo la tengo" station...after perusing several friend's blogs i thought it would be fun to write a blog together...he is really a talented writer (i'm quicking writing this part while he is in the bathroom)...he keeps a file he named "liquid" with his own thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes, observations, daily ramblings etc. in a free form style...he, too prefers all lower case letters but he is much more to the point and writes in short phrases, right justified...it is much easier to read...

this photo of sea and story was taken during our coop preschool...they were working on a craft together and there were so many "little things" in this photo...their baby feet, the sunshine filtered through her tutu, both of them engaged in life and oblivious to me capturing them, sea intently placing glue and sequins just so, the two of them together...anyway, my motivation for this post was not based on the photo, i just tried to find a recent photo of both of them that had "little things" in it...

basically i just wanted to corroborate with manuel to list little things we love and will miss that our children do daily or frequently or in these most recent moments...so here goes in no particular order...

--"too much" as in, i love these cookies "too much" or i'm having "too much fun"
--sea was recently in to counting and somehow we came up with "two ones" to describe her and her brother (they are each "one" and there are two of them) so manuel will say something like "how are my "two ones?"
--every day when manuel leaves for work sea will watch him walk to his car through the side window and then runs full speed to the front window to wave to him as he drives around the corner...he caught on to this and will stop in front of the front window and they blow kisses to each other back and forth until he finally has to leave...but she keeps blowing, very quickly and deliberately...i've gotten this on video but just realized it would make a cute photo with the huge window looking out over the bay and sea's sillouette blowing kisses and waving...
--story wants to climb more than anything right now...he'll go over, up, through so many places to get in to trouble but most specifically he loves to reach up to windowsills, pull himself up and climb up the wall...manuel and i have bets when he will walk...sea didn't crawl early but walked at 9 months and 1 week...story crawled at 5.5 months and manuel's prediction is thanksgiving (3 weeks from now! at 9 months) and i predict xmas just cuz i love his crawl and don't want him to lose it
--sea is really in to having people chase her...this is not new for her but has intensified now that story can crawl so quickly...so she'll find some toy he is really engaged with and then will slowly back away from him so he'll follow her and then she squeals at the top of her lungs and RUNS away and he crawls as fast as he can to catch her
--i know i've already written this one down but i will be sad when we leave our house with stairs...every time we leave or return to our apartment sea wants to act out the youngest daughter's role from the sound of music..."so long farewell" at the end when she goes up the stairs backwards on her bottom and then lies her head down on the top step to be picked up...sea will not get up until i pick her up and carry her in to the house...she kept telling us how she wanted us to get a different house that had stairs in it and it took me awhile to realize that is why
--sea has some cute ways she mispronounces words such as "hossible" for hospital and "gocker" for doctor...although she now corrects both of these when i use her old pronunciation...she still says "laylo" for yellow
--today we went to a birthday party and of course once the pinata came sea wanted to be the only child swinging the stick...so she kept trying to "help" the other kids and take another turn, stand too close for them to do it on their own, etc. and then all of a sudden she had an idea and ran into the woods there at the park and next thing i know she came back with her own stick...
--one of story's nicknames is "squeaky" cuz of some of the cute little sounds he makes
--one of our friends mentioned that he had always thought of sea as an "old soul" who had been around in a previous life and although i don't believe in that, she does like to place herself in to stories she is told...like my mom was telling sea a story about when she (my mom) was a little girl on the monkey bars and she fell and skinned both knees and sea's response was "i was there watching you...and i held your hand"

well on that note...sea likes to say "goodnight mama, goodnight" and kiss me ever so gently on my cheek like i do when i kiss her to bed at night...and although it is daylight savings and i "gain" an hour, if you've been following all my blogs on sleep issues, i'm sure i'll lose sleep somewhere...not meaning to end on a negative note but i am really tired...

i should add this post was almost entirely me with a few reassurances from manuel...i point that out because i really would like to put his words, his ideas, his way of talking in the body of some of my future blogs...keep your eyes out for them and/or post ideas you'd like us to write about...

urban walk to the bay

sunset is a common time for us to take this walk but to be honest, none of these photos were taken last night...we got in one of our last urban walks from our house (outside of our spanish building built in the 20's shown here):

so we live on a hill (this is juniper street) looking out over the runway of the airport and the bay. we head down brant street towards downtown, turn right and cross the busy on ramp traffic onto hwy 5 and continue down hawthorne street all the way down to the bay. then we head left along the PCH (the sidewalk right along the bay) looking at the new sculptures/art placed there)
this is one of the sculptures...the wheels spin in the wind:
...here is a close up of sea and story sharing space in the mountain buggy double stroller (which i love so much i'm linking you to a jogging stroller site that discusses them...we use it so often i believe it is worth every penny but check craigslist...we got this eggplant colored one for less than half price):

we could continue walking towards downtown (which we usually do on weekends...people watch everyone in restaurants, clubs, walking around)...but last night we just walked down to the star of india which is the ship my father was admiring when he passed away on a walk with manuel...last night manuel took his ipod and speakers down with us and we were listening to jewel's break me song...i was in my own thoughts so i wasn't paying attention to all of the lyrics which now that i pull them up they don't really fit as nicely as i'd idealized but we had just gotten to the end of the ship and were ready to turn and cross the street to head up ash when the song ended with "let me... feel your love again" and this brought tears to my eyes imagining actually holding on to my dad again...

here is the view as we headed back up ash with the bay behind us...
just as we were going to cross the rail road tracks a train came through...again, i felt my dad speaking to me...but shortly after this a paramedic ambulance type vehicle came wailing past and i was reminded about the reality/rawness of this happening when i lost my dad...

once we cross the RR tracks, we turn left on india street and walk down the main street in little italy past all the restaurants and cafes and all the people smiling at our children sleeping together...then right up grape and up a steep hill and left on albatross across to our home...

well the kids are screaming at each other (sea is trying to make story laugh by bugging out her eyes and making loud noises...then rolling away on her little car so he will chase her...) so i'm off to make breakfast...but just wanted to capture this walk...we need to take walks a little later i fear as the kids crashed by 7 which put them up at 7...i prefer the 8 to 8 schedule...

2 teeth and climbing

i came across this photo with story's 2 little bottom teeth...it is somewhat blurry but the expression says more than anywhere i was hoping to go with this concept...
of course with halloween around the corner i also thought of jack-o-lanterns and got a few photos of the kids after carving pumpkins in coop preschool...


and then it occurred to me that story has been climbing up, over, around, through and away... everything including stairs so i thought i'd include one shot of that...

this blog post would have been more powerful with just the blurry photo and blurry concept of story's two little teeth and sheer glee...sometimes ideas are better left unpolished, lacking the narration and over analysis and free association to too many other ideas...but story literally is climbing on to the next stage in his life and i feel so much slipping away that i suppose that is why i had to include the reference to climbing at the end.

through the eyes of a child

i took this photo of sea last week during coop preschool when her task was to "see" through her homemade binoculars...she was wearing her big eyed owl shirt and our topic was vision (we are making our way through the senses)...as i looked down the tp tube at her too blue eyes innocently staring back in to mine, i realized I was the one who needed a new vision...to look through her eyes for awhile...this idea has been brewing in my head...too far in the back i'm afraid to make it to this blog but now that lorie's memorial is over i am ready to focus on life again.

i'm like 30 blogs behind on my friends' lives (learning how to make homemade kombucha --thanks elaine --sounds like it should be on the top of one of my reads since i spend about $4 on this drink too often)...have way too many e-mails in my inbox, need to send the memorial booklet to way too many people--yes i underestimated how many people would want one--let me know if you are one of them and you haven't told me already... (this means deleting a lot of "sent" mail, too in order to not be nearing the max my e-mail mailbox can hold), way behind on facebook, and these are just the things that i WANT to do...bills, laundry, packing, groceries, cooking, the usuals haven't even made it to my "to do" list yet. but i'm ok with that. focusing on life sometimes mean focusing on the small and more fundamentally important things when the bigger less important things seem to be smothering me. it feels good to be a part of this active, dynamic, moving forward community instead of wallowing in my loss which turns out is a LOT of people's loss...the memorial book will help me spread the love that was lorie and i ended my contribution with the idea i presented here:

"I imagine you as a wee one…watching you through the eyes of sea; vivacious, spirited, full of life, laughing at the small things, at yourself, connecting with so many people...your spirit lives on"

may i embrace life as you did, help others feel as special and cherished as i always did when i was with you...may i LIVE NOW...in the moment...
had to add one more photo of sea's "eyes"...taken a few days ago...

losing lorie

i'm not sure which is more telling...my pure glee or lorie holding on tightly...either way she is such a dear friend i'm still not ready to let go...

but i realized as i was wrestling with my grief that friends have been contacting me saying "we will pray for her" and even though i had been telling people she wouldn't pull through but for an unheard of miracle, it is true that i was waiting and hoping for that miracle myself. yesterday her mom contacted me to let me know that she had successfully donated a lung, both kidneys and her liver so at that point i had to concede she was really gone.

i got the call on monday and by tuesday night i had rallied my mom to drive up to visalia with me and the two wee ones...this of course was quite the challenging journey complete with meltdowns, gas bubbles, pulling over 15+ times, construction work on hwy 5 down to only 1 lane at 5 mph, etc. etc. but i made it up there and was able to hold lorie's hand and talk to her...

i wasn't sure what to say in the late hours of the night...no hope in sight yet lorie is one of the strongest people i know and if anyone could pull through i believed it would be her...so i wasn't prepared to say "goodbye" or how much she had meant to me past tense in case she wasn't there (meaning she wasn't ready to let go) and wanted to fight for life...so i squeezed her hand, stroked her signature thick hair, kissed her cheeks, and generally just felt what little life was left while repeating "we love you lorie...you are such a dear friend to so many people..." and at that point she was responsive, moving her legs, lifting a couple of fingers...i guess she had even teared the day before with vickie so i truly believe she knew we were there with her...i ended by telling her manuel wanted to be there to be with "legs" as he had called her when they had a fling as pre-teens at campmeeting...reminded her how she had saved his letter to her and read it to me to reinforce what a great catch my husband is but instead i had been struck by her...how she had saved this note and shared it with me to build me up when it was meant to compliment her...shes was always able to do that...turn things back to build up others...

according to the eeg she continued to lose brain function until thursday when 2 neurosurgeons called her "brain dead" and she failed to breathe on her own...i still held out hope she would improve until they actually took her organs but of course her giving spirit lives on literally...i suppose time of death was right after these surgeries around 4:30 a.m. yesterday, friday...i'm still not ready to let go...

there is so much to say...so much to miss...but i don't have the emotional energy so i will save it for the memorial booklet i am helping create for the services on the 18th. please spread the word to anyone who hasn't heard and e-mail me with any contributions. i always told lorie she was such a brilliant writer that she should publish a book of her wit...this is our chance to share bits and peices of what she shared with us...

i can see lorie as a young child through the eyes of my vivacious 3 year old; full of life, laughing, connecting with so many people...lorie's spirit lives on...

stunned and helpless

i imagine that title could be about many things going on right now...the dow dropping close to 800 points for example, but instead this is much closer to home and to my heart...

i just got a breath stopping message about a dear friend from college. i'm stunned and crying at the same time and i'm sure many of her friends (and a few of my readers) feel the same way. seems an otherwise healthy 30 something collapsed at work and they determined she had a blood clot that traveled to her brain stem and she is now in a coma. i'm not sure what any of that means or her prognosis...she is such a good friend and person and it has been way too long since i have kept in touch with her and i feel so helpless. i feel like i should be driving up to central california to be with her family at least. for someone who is usually quite verbose, i am at a loss for words. makes me want to reach out to everyone i care about and hold on to them more tightly...but i'm still aware how helpless i am with this situation. i will continue to pray for her and hope those of you who believe can do the same...

looking backwards

i've been sending random friends from facebook to this blog to "catch up on my life" and realized i don't have too many family photos posted so this seemed like a good photo...i felt very self-absorbed in my last post and although i still feel a little depressive i've pulled out of the fog enough to focus on the present...ahh...the title is looking backwards...so i guess i could spend many many blogs talking about my past; writing an autobiography, lamenting regrets, missing memories with my dad, etc. but really i'm writing about looking backwards in order to better look forwards...

one of my first posts was about "blank pages" and the idea that i always leave space in my journal to fill in what i don't have time to write about or don't feel i write well enough or want to supplement or improve or don't have the emotional energy to share...i haven't written in my actual paper journal for over a week for many of these reasons but mainly due to lack of time...so as i was thinking about these literal and figurative blank pages and what i needed to update on this blog, i thought i'd just post about the idea of looking backwards.

i haven't updated two different coop preschool summaries and once i do i will post some "looking back" photos here...

one of the major problems with the idea of "looking back" or trying to leave space to go back is first of all of course i never do...but on a more fundamental level of how i live my life, the other problem is then i can't live in the present because i'm consumed by the past and how that wasn't good enough to move forward. so after preschool tomorrow i will post a summary and photos even if i haven't finished the two before or posted any photos...that way i can stay current from this point forward...oh, if only i could use that same philosophy in so many other areas of my life (backing up photos/printing photos and putting them in a current album are two major ones that come to mind).

also, i've been thinking if i could become a more regular blogger, more personal, more disclosing, more interesting, etc. and could get more readers, i'd love to post ideas of topics i'd like to write about and have people comment what topics they'd like to discuss so this blog had more of a dialogue feel to it...

i used to be in a wonderful group (most of the others were english professors at the college i taught at) where we would throw out topics to discuss, pick one, write a one page essay (this could be fiction, poetry, free association or just our experience with the topic), trade essays so we had all read one anothers and then get together over drinks and reply...what we liked/disliked about one another's writing and/or opinions etc....these discussions got quite heated! especially when some of the topics turned to values (what is the one thing you wish to teach your child?) or religion or parenting...but sometimes they were as simple as "what is your favorite book/author and why?"...i read a book once where well known authors answered this question in a collection of essays and it was really interesting how their choices reflected in their own writing/life...in teaching i've often told students that different psychologists' theories came straight from their own experiences...so what about you dear reader? what would you like to write about? discuss? what experiences or philosophies color your present life? what shout out do you want to give to the world? what really matters?

oh no...i'm revisiting my thesis again with discussions of meaning in life, identity, happiness, etc. so i will get back to the present but allow your imagination or free associations to color my future blogs...looking forward to your input!

balance, tipping over and maybe m's pie theory

it is almost 2 a.m...story is whimpering in his sleep and i'll have to leave shortly to nurse him...which is appropriate in a blog about trying to find balance...on my mommy's journey where sleep is the first to go and my needs are often on the back burner...i'm obviously putting my need to get all these ideas out of my head above sleep right now...story is trying to "balance" literally here in this photo but this blog is about much more balancing that needs to be done...(and even though it seems like the 6 month old should be the one tipping over when he pulls himself up all the time now, he is actually much more stable than me...)

my thesis (yeah, the one that took almost 7 years to complete because i thought i had to find the meaning of life, report back on this for everyone and figure out who i was and what my values were and simultaneously live with integrity while finding meaning and living in the present, etc) was in many ways about balance. so this post could be really simple: we need balance in most areas for happiness, optimum functioning, etc... (kind of like i know that to be less depressed i need more sleep, to eat better, to exercise, get more sunshine, enjoy the little moments with my family, ask for help, accept help, accept myself, not try to control everything, let go of more things, hold on to more things....hmm the simplicity of this list is feeding my obsessive issues, too...so i'll stop there...my point was just that i can make the list and it seems simple and easy but somehow i get caught up in analysis or LIFE and miss out on too many of these things and end up depressed an exhausted. and then mad at myself that i know this and still don't give the important things enough time or energy. then i blame this on the depression...i have too little energy to devote to the important things...so the cycle continues and i suppose i'm posting this at 2 a.m. instead of sleeping (yes, i get the irony there) in order to get these cycles and this anxiety out of my head in hopes of implementing it more...may exercise (ok, go for a walk at least) with the kids tomorrow and report back...maybe even try going to bed early (or at least before 2 a.m.?) and plan meals so i'm not gobbling down whatever i can find last minute...maybe part of this problem is the whole wait until i REALLY have to do it procrastination problem i have...

had to stop the free association rambles to let the cat out...now that i'm back i lost the train of thought i never had...

oh, one other anxiety i have to get off my chest for the few who read this...i apologize for not returning e-mails, calls, attending playgroups, being active on facebook, etc. and promise once i get this "balance" thing worked out better i'll get back to connecting with all of you (and even those who don't follow my blog) and when i signed on to post i was prompted to add blogs i follow or "read" so i apologize in advance that i only added a few and have many more talented friends i do follow and do intend to put on there...comment on here is you are one of them so i'll get to you sooner...

ok, now i can go back to the point of this post and the semi-epiphany i was having tonight as i lay in bed with my body longing to physically shut down but my head too full and my heart aching so i tipped several scales and hope something benefits for the others that lose out if that makes sense? this i another post entirely (although very related) about balancing my thoughts and my feelings. one always wins and the other loses. why can't i find a win-win equation? i feel like crying right now but that reminds me of the third variable, my body. like i can separate my thoughts and feelings but they both reside inside a physical body that i also must care for...so maybe literally crying would help release both right now? i know sleep and better self care would definitely help both...but the obsessive need to get all this down right now is somehow helping release the thoughts and i am feeling better so i'll keep the rambles up...

story really is waking up so i'm going to have to get to m's pie theory later...wait, maybe those whimpers are still semi-unconscious so i'll give you the cliff note version:

when i was working on my thesis manuel shared with me one of his theories that life is like a pie...you can give one thing a whole bunch of your time, energy, value etc. or you can split up your life into a whole bunch of things and each only gets a sliver at the expense of the others...let's just say i feel like my pie is in crumbs right now and i want to get to a place where i can at least tell that all of this adds up to a whole in some way...on a symbolic level i feel like "me" is no longer even a pie...not sure if that makes sense but i'm losing myself in this process.

ok i'm starting to hate this post...i'm not "feeling" anything i'm writing anymore, i'm no longer feeling anything in fact (wish i had cried i guess) and the thoughts are drying up so i'll post this just to be vulnerable and current but not because i think it has nearly as much to say as when i was lying in bed thinking about posting...i thought because i felt like i was going to tip over instead of finding a balance that this blog would help stop the process but instead i already feel tipped? maybe a little sleep will help and tomorrow i can wake up with a new day to try and balance (or just be grateful i have the day and not worry if it is balanced?)

solids, spoons, smiles, sea and story

this is one of those posts where the photos say it all and i should just not even try to narrate but i just wanted to add that story has only had breast milk for 6 months and he was born 9 lbs 3 oz and is in the 98th percentile in length so i was advised to start him on solids even though i didn't feel ready...you can see he is more than ready and literally feeding himself with a spoon the first time he ate solids! he is also teething quite a bit as you'll be able to tell in the photo with the corn on the cob. his sister is super excited that he gets to eat at the table with us now and i think it will be great having her help feed him although he really enjoys doing it himself...