May day...

...and I may participate in nablopomo though this is all I can get down tonight...tomorrow I will update this post with what I MAY do...or at least I MAY do that :)

ok it is may 2nd...this post was begun on may 1st...on my cell phone, under the covers as my children were thinking about going to sleep but not even close (i often fall asleep before them)...there have been several changes in my life in the past few months but not enough to explain how little i have posted. i'm not ready to get back into writing even if it is to simply sign up for nablopomo and post a photo and brief thought every day...i'm not sure if it is because i just turned 40 or my children are past toddlerhood and more independent or my daily routines and ongoing projects have been changing or any other number of things but yesterday, on may day, as i reflected about what i MAY do i at least wanted to get that idea down even if i had nothing else to say.

i am fortunate to have talented writer friends...they inspire me to write and i enjoy reading their work and imagining writing my own stories someday. but not yet.

sea has been quite dependent recently...asking me "mommy, promise you'll come to ___" (snack, lunch, p.e., recess, spanish)..."i'll try...i'll see...maybe..." and then i usually don't come because i know she doesn't really NEED me and getting through the school day without me is better for both of us...but there is still a part of me who reads the san diego home education digests and thinks i would be much more passionate and creative and alive homeschooling...except when i remember the power struggles and sibling rivalry and intense, emotional, passionate beings that i both love and am exhausted by in regular interactions with sea and story together if we are trying to be productive...maybe for the middle school years.

i took sea to a lot more mommy and me classes when she was younger...spanish, music, art, swimming, etc. and though story is exposed to many of these things in our family adventures, i'd still like to do a class with him. so i signed up for one on thursdays this month. we really don't have the extra money to do this...so i'm going to try the class tomorrow morning and decide if it is worth it. a chance for story to socialize, move, do crafts, play outdoors, etc. things we do anyway but i'm often not motivated enough to do them all together or as often as i'd like...sometimes i really want to enroll him in a nearby reggio preschool...reasonably priced and many, many friends who went or are currently going there...but then i think i only have one year left with him before he is in a regular school routine and i am looking back over what i wish i'd done with our time together. constantly living in the "what if"...from the past...or the future...trying to appreciate TODAY knowing it shapes the future and will soon be PAST...

so i had some ideas about what i "may" do...today those got shot because i didn't drink any coffee and instead shuffled around in a fog (to match the uncharacteristic "may gray" weather we've been having here in san diego), unproductive, moping around for no reason, not even depressed but feeling sorry for myself and so, so tired (i know, you would think that is the perfect scenario to drink EXTRA coffee)...i did some routine grocery shopping at "monkey george" (trader joes) where story didn't even search for the monkey and subsequent treat because he had a meltdown when i wouldn't buy laffy taffy...we did end up with cinnamon rolls we came home and baked and over-ate but i didn't even enjoy those because i took them out of the oven too early and they were chewy like raw dough not like soft chewy chocolate chip cookies and when i reheated them they got crunchy...i was looking for soft and flaky...

been thinking about the idea of altered states...i never like to take any substances that alter my consciousness too much to the point of losing control yet i haven't been happy with my current "state" so a little caffeine or a glass of red wine have been fitting themselves in more often...(i just went and poured myself a half a glass of wine as i continue typing)

so back to what i "may" do since that is the idea i was going to fill in...i guess i should start simple, like i "may" get back into writing...but not daily...and not to follow other blogs or to write anything for others or even to get others' feedback...just daily stuff about my mommyhood journey and the lives of my children and husband and how our lives are interweaved...

trying to end on some note about something but it isn't there...just glad i'm not napping and i am writing even if the whys and whats aren't quite there...

riding the wave of sadness

where will this wave take me? why am i sad?

i've been wanting to blog again for awhile now...i've been increasingly productive outside of regular blogging and getting better at experiencing life instead of capturing it (or doing a little of both) so i wanted to ride the wave while it was working but i miss writing! i still analyze life and think about what i would write about and write in my head and write for the future. sometimes i don't think about anything at all and get caught up in the routines of the day...but at least these routines are often getting completed instead of the depressive rut where i couldn't imagine doing the most basic "activities of daily living" as some old psychological test called them...i haven't felt truly depressed for awhile...but there is a dull, quiet, irritability that often fogs my mind so i move more slowly than i'd like and without drive, passion, emotion...until i snap and get irrationally angry or frustrated...

i pause this thought for a moment to engage with story who is showing me some items in the "insect lore" catalog...lady bugs and such...

i hate being self-absorbed. i had many stories i've been lucky to be a part of...sea was chosen as "star student" which is supposed to be each week one of her classmates is randomly chosen to be showcased and help the teacher, etc. though i secretly idealize the teacher chooses some of the less popular or troubled children early on so they feel special...so here are the photos "all about sea"...i put these here, on my self-absorbed blog to remind myself of the important parts of my life that i've been lucky enough to experience and share and be a part of shaping...sea shapes me in so many ways, too! this first photo shows she wants to be a teacher when she grows up...i remember i wanted to teach 1st grade when i was a 1st grader, 2nd the next year, etc. until i was in college and then i did end up becoming a college instructor :)

anyway, i had many ideas in my head to write about...

--two talented friends who have allowed me to read their books (i wanted to write about their books and about them and about writing itself and the prospect of writing my own book one day)

--sea is excelling at piano and i wanted to talk about that process (my negative memories as a child and how sea is going at it with intrinsic motivation and challenging herself)

--commenting on the ideas of dependence and independence and my struggle with both...aching at my daughter wanting me to spend more "mommy and sea" time each day, not wanting to go to school, wanting me to stay at school, come back to school "for snack...and lunch...and..."

--spring cleaning...how much i've done...the little i have left to do and what i need to do to overcome the blocks (mostly psychological and from childhood) that stop me from completely de-cluttering, letting go, moving on, organizing and keeping only the essentials (especially stored items in our garage and paperwork)

--the perfect blue skyed sunny and warm san diego day i have right now at my disposal...slight breeze, literally birds chirping from overhead olive branches that slowly wave, hummingbirds that hover ready to eat some fresh nectar i brought them...inches from my face, trusting, ready...small wind chimes lightly tinging and planes flying just low enough overhead i can hear them and remember this from childhood...memories of journeys being taken and yet to be taken and those already past...i want to focus on these experiences, these feelings, this warmth on my face...opportunities and the joys of the present...but somehow my optimistic and idealistic self still catches the waves of sadness at unexpected times like these...i was glancing at these photos...collages of sea's life...and saw my dad in the "my family" photo and i got irrationally irritated that there was a large paperclip right over his face. now looking at the other collages i see that the paperclips cover whatever they happen to cover and i know this was not intentional but somehow it seems so unfair that he is gone and can only be a part of the family she knows is important to me and her history and not her actual experience...and i miss him and want him to cheer me up and make life light and happy again and realize i need to do these things for myself...so, i'm indulging myself in the wave of sadness...briefly...in hopes of moving past it...and now i will glance below at the rest of these photos and comment on...

sea's family shown here include our immediate family in the middle...mom, dad, sea and story, her cousins skye and ayva, auntie marci, my mom and her mimi, namenee and poppy, cousins meadow and roman, cousins chloe and ryder and my dad in the bright yellow shirt with the sparkly blue sea-colored eyes that match hers...he is holding her there just a few months old...

sea's hobbies include piano, playing with her doggy, playing at the beach, drawing and cleaning (? no idea where she got that idea except i have been on a mission to do this myself)...

her three wishes are to be a mermaid, fairy and/or princess (she was all three in the top left photo...halloween costume)...

for her friends i used a yearbook photo of all the children in her class and then her future husband elijah is on the top left with her brother story...she included brooke, hailey and ruhi as friends outside of her class...her dear beloved "goggin" is the over-loved white tiger missing and eye in the middle...

 finally, her favorite things are her dog, cat, drawing, singing, swimming and the beach...she has her "pool" patch from passing the swim test and the marigold doll story brought her when he was first born...

 this final photo was taken of sea on her field trip to the birch aquarium...she drew the mermaid on her shirt...i chose this photo to end this blog because there are waves out there yet to be ridden...i mean that literally and figuratively...we go to the beach as a family every weekend and the experience is so much a part of all of our lives...but on a more practical and immediate level for myself, i want to ride another wave...let this one carry me where it will...i'm ready to climb on the next one and appreciate this journey of motherhood...journey of life, really...because with the pain and sadness comes an appreciation of love, joy, and the possibilities for more...more importantly, i am so blessed right now, right here, where i am with my little son next to me, ready for me to play with him and my daughter eager to come home and spend "mommy and sea time"...

not enough time...40 and beyond

i turned 40 last month...the day after valentine's day and my last post...i've been thinking a lot about blogging and posting and things i've missed or moved past or still in the midst of and, as the necessities and busyness of life would have it, i haven't had enough time to fit in living life and recording it.

i don't feel like i have time to write right now, either, but well, that excuse could keep this blog abandoned for months...

sea and story are playing well together. that in itself is enough to get me on this computer again. :)

they are role playing...i believe story is the "doggy" right now and sea is constructing a story for him to play out...at least that is what they were doing before they realized i was on the computer...story just came out with his puppy dog droopy eyes ready for bed...it is after their bedtime, after all.

it feels good to be back pecking away even if i have little to say or at least little time to say it...manuel is giving the children "tickey tickles"...pandora is playing on the m. ward station...a good mix of old school music like mazzy star and moby...

i'm off to take a relaxing bath and get s and s to bed...more later...

memories from heart day

 i love all the new and missing teeth in this first one...this next one way taken new year's day but there are lips and love involved...

 another teethy grin...sea posing for her valentine's card photo...

 she looks so old walking to school with her valentines in her hand...

 stops for a pose...

 her brother watching...

 they pose together...

 this is the card she passed out to all her "students" in first grade...

i love you s and s and daddy!

judgments of (and by) a SAHM and raising spirited children

it has been nearly a month since i've posted. many reasons for this...one of the reasons i've put off writing is because it has been so long i feel i need a good reintroduction or something important to write about or a summary of what i've done while i was away from this blog or a complete overhaul of my issues i have, etc. etc. disclaimers i often have when something is important. but writing for writing sake is important to me, too and i've had this story or frustration or embarrassment hanging over me for almost 24 hours and even though i'm supposed to stop writing in four minutes to get sea ready for school (i didn't hit snooze this morning...i shut my alarm off because it felt like i hadn't even gone to bed yet) i felt compelled to see if my blog was even here anymore :) i'm not even joking...i'm paranoid enough to sense this non-backed up blog could just vanish any day...i can tell this post is going to be all over the place...I am all over the place so i suppose that is fitting...

anyway, what happened yesterday is one of the head office workers at my daughter's school pulled me aside to talk to me about my out of control 3-year-old and how they can't be responsible for him on campus and he is disruptive, etc. judgments about my lack of control over him/poor parenting etc. and i immediately felt defensive and embarrassed all the while knowing parts of what she was saying were true...but i'm a BIG PICTURE person who believes you can't judge people unless you have the full context of any given situation, know them from the inside (live their life), etc. plus i do SO MUCH for that school that i feel they should overlook some of these things...

that is the nutshell version of what happened and as i type it i feel like i'm already past it and ready to contain him better (actually going to have him attached to my body in an ergo wrap as often as possible until this blows over) but what i suppose i'm not past is how quickly i became judgmental of this woman and the school and my judgers and made all sorts of assumptions about how their children have been in child care since they were a couple months old and so with someone else raising their children they have time to notice the troubles of others...these same people are not doing half the things i am to help the school but yet i'm the one being criticized...maybe it is a good thing as i need to say no to more and now i'm being told i can't bring him so therefore i can't help as much? i'm still having trouble wrapping my head around this scenario and how i will react and what that means for my involvement at the school...which is a big issue because i have been really involved as of late...and now i'm running late to get sea to school which means i'll be short on time to contain story in said wrap so more later...

blank computer screen

it is still early january...time for new year's resolutions...reflecting over the past year and making goals and dreams for the future...

i finally backed up my computer to an external hard drive and moved my 107,000 photos to a separate hard drive also backed up. this means i have the space on my computer to export my 4 years of blogging in some form of back-up and start over with my photo library...only keeping the best photos and properly labeling and filing them...my 40th bday is coming up in just over a month...i haven't had any "must dos" before i turn 40 but now that it is coming up there are a few things i could strive towards...this will have to be a post for later since i'm not "there" in my mind right now...i have so many photos i could post and write about from the past couple weeks...so many posts i've been writing in my head...and now that i have the time and space to write my mind is blank...so i was staring at the blank computer screen open with possibilities and intimidating because of my lack of interesting things to write about (or i forgot all the things i felt passionately about when i didn't have time to write)...yet i feel compelled to write something. i think it is because i recently learned how to look at my page views or how many people read my blog or something like that and saw quite a drop off the past couple of weeks...literally a graph showing a steep decline in numbers...and i felt this shame "i'm better than that" or that i'm capable of writing more regularly, more interesting things...just not this post :)

how's that for a cop out...i had a friend at sea's school tell me she checked out my blog over the winter break...to which i looked away and rolled my eyes and began apologizing how i haven't been keeping it up or writing anything interesting recently...my best writing occurred when no one at all was reading...now i wouldn't even know where it was buried...i really need to create a back up somewhere of this blog because my memory is so bad i feel like i will lose a lot of my memories of what i wrote about if this blog disappeared...any of my handful of readers who may have advice on how or where to back up one's blog would be much appreciated...i'm really all over the place in this post and i don't care enough to edit it or re-write or start over or whatever basic strategy i could use to make this more interesting or at least linear...i like free associating when the associations make sense but they don't even make sense to me so i can't expect any readers to follow along...i was just getting at the idea that i want to blog more often and write more interesting posts but when i fear i don't have time or energy i just don't write anything at all and to me that is worse...so this post is allowing me to loosen my wrist and get ideas flowing through my fingers...now to connect my mind and maybe even engage my heart to care enough to make it more personal or intimate or disclosing...maybe i'll post about some bloggers and/or writers i enjoy and what i relate with about them...i could look for representative posts and these are usually springboards for things i'd like to write about.

sea and story are drawing pictures for each other on appleworks, an online drawing/coloring website...sea was making story a garbage truck...manuel's brother matt is visiting and they are lounging on our couches watching playoff football...story is singing a song about months of the year...yappay and kyra are taking turns sleeping on dog beds and romping around the room...now sea and story are climbing all over uncle matthew while he gives me a second to finish typing...sea wanted to learn how to do what i'm doing...someday i think she would write an awesome blog...honest, open, detailed, innocent, ernest...i'm ready for a hot bath and to put s and s to sleep...as i type that story just came and put his head on my lap...giving me hugs and snugs and we call them...

santa, finding goggin and catching up

 it has been nearly 2 weeks and that is way too long to be away from this blog...my goal was to blog every 2 to 3 days...i sent out 150 christmas cards over two weeks ago telling people they could keep up with our lives here and yet i haven't updated...so let's see a quick snapshot of what we've been up to...my dad's birthday was the 18th...it was a drizzly stay-at-home day...we had a brief garage sale before the rain came...got rid of some big items, made a little money, sold (and consumed) coffee, cocoa and donuts...mainly worked on our house and hung out...later that week i went to my mom and sister's house for a couple of days...we did a little christmas together and ate at our favorite vietnamese place, adong...hung out with my friend staci while she made christmas cookies and the children played, visited with flor for an hour of meaningful conversation over coffee, yogurt with dave and the family...i made eight personalized calendars for manuel, his parents, his siblings and my mom and sis (i put a LOT of time into these...choosing photos representative of holidays for each month and/or a photo of the person who has a birthday that month...along with our family's birthdays/anniversaries printed)...we took a photo with santa a couple days before christmas (to guarantee we'd all be sick for the holiday...almost inevitably happens every year)...sea had written her wish list and even made one for her brother...they started singing christmas carols and santa joined in...here is sea with "ooh-ahh"...

sometime last summer sea lost her favorite stuffed animal, goggin...here she is about 2 years old showing him off...i thought we would never be able to replace this albino tiger/opposum like animal but this past weekend in ventura we found one at a thrift store! i literally yelled "GOGGIN!!" and started crying...i'll post a current photo of her with this new creature...he doesn't have his fur loved off yet...

here is a drawing sea made on a computer program of goggin:

that's about all i can fit in before running off so photos/details of christmas will have to wait...later today we will go to the zoo with some friends and then sea world with my sister tomorrow...