Our son has been very chatty lately, mostly like a parrot, repeating everything we say. (Yikes.)
He has his cute little boy fun sayings, like "awesome" and "oh, man" (said very expressively, and usually when frustrated).
Then there's the annoying when repeated over and over, but still cute, things, like "try again." He uses "try again" to say he wants to do something repeatedly, not just to say he'd like to get better through practice.
It's amazing to me how fixated a three-year-old can get on one thing, such as pushing his plastic toy lawn mower down the hill. "Try again, mama!" for the 50th time, as I watch, quaintly amused but truly bored out of my skull as the blue plastic lawn mower runs into the tree at the foot of the hill and Sam yells out an excited "Yes!" then, "Try again!" Ugh. Please not again. (Hey, it's not all cuddles and warm fuzzies, this motherhood thing, let's be real).
And there's just the nice spontaneous things that are the reward for enduring the 51st lawn mower run. One evening recently, after an especially long and grueling day at the office, Sam seemed to sense my exhaustion. He snuggled up in back of me on the couch, hugged me, played with my ponytail for a few minutes, then said thoughtfully, "Mama, you're pretty special."
Sigh. Try again.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Grateful thoughts
Ten grateful thoughts to close the weekend:
1. Nine months of hard work, five days of quality course delivery, my client is happy, and now I can rest.
2. Fresh cucumbers... yum.
3. Homemade guacamole... yummier!
4. Whiffle ball with my son.
5. Crazy dancing to Bee-bop-a-lu-la with my boys.
6. Church (ideally) is not a gathering place for the perfect, but a rest stop for the weary, a haven for the outcast, a balm for the broken, home for the homeless, family for the orphan... and a challenge for the complacent. Mine is.
7. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
8. Story time!
9. Learning new forms of poetry, immersing myself in words.
10. I am loved. Life is a miracle. (Yes, that is one thought.)
1. Nine months of hard work, five days of quality course delivery, my client is happy, and now I can rest.
2. Fresh cucumbers... yum.
3. Homemade guacamole... yummier!
4. Whiffle ball with my son.
5. Crazy dancing to Bee-bop-a-lu-la with my boys.
6. Church (ideally) is not a gathering place for the perfect, but a rest stop for the weary, a haven for the outcast, a balm for the broken, home for the homeless, family for the orphan... and a challenge for the complacent. Mine is.
7. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
8. Story time!
9. Learning new forms of poetry, immersing myself in words.
10. I am loved. Life is a miracle. (Yes, that is one thought.)
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Family and friends
A few Sunday evening thoughts as I close a full, long weekend away...
I have an enormous family, as large as life itself. They extend from sea to shining sea. My family makes me glad to be alive. They also get under my skin, challenging me to be more alive, alert, and growing.
I don't need many friends, just true ones. The truest are extensions of my ever expanding family, adopted brothers, sisters, cousins of my spirit.
I'm grateful for the times of fellowship and the times of missing that make the fellowship more sweet.
I have an enormous family, as large as life itself. They extend from sea to shining sea. My family makes me glad to be alive. They also get under my skin, challenging me to be more alive, alert, and growing.
I don't need many friends, just true ones. The truest are extensions of my ever expanding family, adopted brothers, sisters, cousins of my spirit.
I'm grateful for the times of fellowship and the times of missing that make the fellowship more sweet.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Yours, Mine, Ours
Sam was keeping me company last night as I was folding clothes in the bedroom. We chatted about this and that while I piled up towels and t-shirts and socks. At one point, I realized that my son was using a word repeatedly that I hadn't heard him use before: "Mine."
He would grab some clean jammies while I was trying to fold them and say, "Mine," before throwing them on the floor. "This is not going to work," I thought, for many reasons. It seemed as good a teachable moment as any for a 3 year old. I talked to him about sharing and how a nice word to use is "ours" to describe something that we work on together, like the laundry.
He nodded solemnly and said, "Ours." I was pleased.
He then grabbed a pair of his recently folded Lightning McQueen big boy underpants, rolled them up in a ball, giggled, tossed them on my head, and said, "Ours."
Lesson learned. Sigh.
He would grab some clean jammies while I was trying to fold them and say, "Mine," before throwing them on the floor. "This is not going to work," I thought, for many reasons. It seemed as good a teachable moment as any for a 3 year old. I talked to him about sharing and how a nice word to use is "ours" to describe something that we work on together, like the laundry.
He nodded solemnly and said, "Ours." I was pleased.
He then grabbed a pair of his recently folded Lightning McQueen big boy underpants, rolled them up in a ball, giggled, tossed them on my head, and said, "Ours."
Lesson learned. Sigh.
Monday, July 27, 2009
This I Believe - Gregory Orr
This I Believe - Gregory Orr
Shared via AddThis
I love this bit:
"When I write a poem, I process experience. I take what's inside me, the raw, chaotic material of feeling or memory, and translate it into words and then shape those words into the rhythmical language we call a poem. This process brings me a kind of wild joy. Before I was powerless and passive in the face of my confusion, but now I am active: the powerful shaper of my experience. I am transforming it into a lucid meaning."
A kind of wild joy. Yes.
Shared via AddThis
I love this bit:
"When I write a poem, I process experience. I take what's inside me, the raw, chaotic material of feeling or memory, and translate it into words and then shape those words into the rhythmical language we call a poem. This process brings me a kind of wild joy. Before I was powerless and passive in the face of my confusion, but now I am active: the powerful shaper of my experience. I am transforming it into a lucid meaning."
A kind of wild joy. Yes.
Friday, July 24, 2009
More randomness
Regarding what others think of me... it's a real dilemma, or challenge, for a writer, to not get ego and product mixed up. Of course you want others to like what you write, but first you have to want to write what you write and read what you write. In one sense, everyone else is secondary (sorry, all of you kind folks who might read this).
In terms of what others think of me apart from anything I produce, i.e. if they like me or don't like me, etc.... Well. How utterly embarrassing. As a 42-year-old grown woman, good grief, isn't it obvious that if that matters to me, then at some level I must be having a problem liking myself. So, therefore, I need others to make up the difference.
Oh, brother.
OK, the other sort of random thing I've been thinking about lately is how all of these social networking tools (FB, Twitter, blogs, etc.) are feeding an already narcissistic culture. It's making a value out of self-exposure and self-expression, beyond that of the artistic and into the realm of the purient. I've put my toe into the water of most of these new technologies, and in some cases have jumped in the deep end wholeheartedly. So my comments are not externally critical but looking into the mirror and asking how best to harness it all and where to draw the line.
Looping it back to my almost reckless Sally Field-ish self-expression of paragraph two ("You like me, you really like me!" right? heh heh, she giggles nervously), for me, I need to draw the boundaries for myself based on what I perceive as "useful self-expression" (i.e. useful to others, or useful for me to express to others) and "harmful self-expression" (which I'll just express to myself, or not at all). Maybe others have different boundaries. I'd be curious to hear.
I think this particular posting is potentially useful, because I suspect others may have similar feelings, so my self-exposure/random thought might connect with someone in a good way. Also, I believe most folks I know are primed and ready for a meaningful dialog around the impact of Web 2.0. There is a profound shift in the way we think, talk, write, interact. It is bringing generations together, but it's also creating mini-schisms. I care about this topic because it is making me a bit distracted, but also because I think there may be startling implications for my son as he grows up. I'm just not sure yet what those implications are.
So, there's my randomness on this Friday afternoon. Very fuzzy. I hope you still like me (I mean "like it")... Oops.
In terms of what others think of me apart from anything I produce, i.e. if they like me or don't like me, etc.... Well. How utterly embarrassing. As a 42-year-old grown woman, good grief, isn't it obvious that if that matters to me, then at some level I must be having a problem liking myself. So, therefore, I need others to make up the difference.
Oh, brother.
OK, the other sort of random thing I've been thinking about lately is how all of these social networking tools (FB, Twitter, blogs, etc.) are feeding an already narcissistic culture. It's making a value out of self-exposure and self-expression, beyond that of the artistic and into the realm of the purient. I've put my toe into the water of most of these new technologies, and in some cases have jumped in the deep end wholeheartedly. So my comments are not externally critical but looking into the mirror and asking how best to harness it all and where to draw the line.
Looping it back to my almost reckless Sally Field-ish self-expression of paragraph two ("You like me, you really like me!" right? heh heh, she giggles nervously), for me, I need to draw the boundaries for myself based on what I perceive as "useful self-expression" (i.e. useful to others, or useful for me to express to others) and "harmful self-expression" (which I'll just express to myself, or not at all). Maybe others have different boundaries. I'd be curious to hear.
I think this particular posting is potentially useful, because I suspect others may have similar feelings, so my self-exposure/random thought might connect with someone in a good way. Also, I believe most folks I know are primed and ready for a meaningful dialog around the impact of Web 2.0. There is a profound shift in the way we think, talk, write, interact. It is bringing generations together, but it's also creating mini-schisms. I care about this topic because it is making me a bit distracted, but also because I think there may be startling implications for my son as he grows up. I'm just not sure yet what those implications are.
So, there's my randomness on this Friday afternoon. Very fuzzy. I hope you still like me (I mean "like it")... Oops.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Random, Part 2
Realized today (for the umpteen-millionth time) that what other people may think of me (good or bad) is really none of my concern. It only becomes a problem for me if I make it a problem.
***
Also realized (AGAIN!) that there is always a third way. When you get trapped in a dilemma of two options, the best thing you can do is look for that third way. If the third way is closed, find a fourth.
***
C.S. Lewis wrote this about asceticism: "The wrong asceticism torments the self: the right kind kills the selfness. We must die daily: but it is better to love the self than to love nothing, and to pity the self than to pity no one."
Good ol' Clive, he sure had a way of putting it all in balance.
***
Also realized (AGAIN!) that there is always a third way. When you get trapped in a dilemma of two options, the best thing you can do is look for that third way. If the third way is closed, find a fourth.
***
C.S. Lewis wrote this about asceticism: "The wrong asceticism torments the self: the right kind kills the selfness. We must die daily: but it is better to love the self than to love nothing, and to pity the self than to pity no one."
Good ol' Clive, he sure had a way of putting it all in balance.
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