On Foam

Dear One,


  No, I'm not mad. I think this is an excellent chance to discuss a safety issue I hadn't thought to mention before. Sticking a green foam shark up your nose so far that it can't be seen - is not safe. I'm sure at this point you agree, yes? I'm very sorry you had to spend the night with it up your nose, but since we couldn't see it, I wasn't convinced it was still in there. I'm also sorry for laughing when your dad looked up there with a flashlight and saw the neon green tail was in fact working its way down. Thanks to his steady hands with the tweezers, that shark is no longer swimming up your nasal cavity. Let's not do that again, okay?


Love,
Me

On Growth Spurts

Dear One,


     Ah, my littlest boy, you should know that it is not (only) the peace and quiet of naptime that makes me look so forward to that after-lunch part of each day. It is also the very act of tucking you in and how tickled I am with our daily going-to-bed conversation. Adamantly insisting on sleeping in only your Superhero underpants, you always proceed to stop where you are in the room and specifically point to each limb on your body individually saying, "Mom, I don't want my socks - my socks, my pants- my pants, my shirt-my shirt, I just want my undies."  I smile and do your bidding (not that you expect any less of me) and delight in your youngness. You seem to really believe that if you don't point it out, I will leave you with one pant leg off and the other still on. 
     Today though, as I turned back your covers you looked up and said, "Mom, I don't want my socks, my pants, or my shirt. Can you please help me take them off?" I smiled and did your bidding again (habit at this point), but with a slightly sunken heart. I know that these little milestones of personal awareness and growth spurts of understanding are vital to your health and vitality and development. They all add up over time and will make you into a grown man someday ....wow, thinking that, it's...anyway...  the passing of each youthful perspective though is hard on your mother sometimes. I cherish each step you and your brother take more than you can yet know.
     So, when you are that grown boy, a LONG time from now, and are sitting in your own living room reading through these letters, I trust you will remember that I love
 your toes- your toes, 
your leg -your leg, 
your arm-your arm, 
your hand- your hand
your chest
your neck,
your head,
your smile, your smile, your smile, your smile, your smile, your smile,
your
you.


All along the way,
me

On A Girl's Weekend

Welcome Home Sweetheart!! Can’t wait to see you on  Sunday!!

Here are a few things to help with your boys weekend (hoping this is helpful and not bossy!) :

1)  All their cruisers clothes are folded and ready to go on the bench by the garage door. Their mittens are in the lockers at the Club, but everything else is here.

2)  You’ll need to pack both boys a lunch, thier lunch boxes are laid out on the kitchen counter.

3)  Luke’s babysitter  will meet you guys at the Trailhead at 12:30 and stay there with Luke until 3:30 so that you’ll have time to go and get Vaughn without bringing Luke with you. You’ll need to pick Luke up from mini-cruisers, give him his lunch box and take him to the Trailhead to meet her.

4)  I have frozen pizzas and some P.F. Chang’s stir-frys in the freezer for some toss-in-the-oven type easy dinners.

5)  Naps have been very hit or miss. If they don’t take one,  then it’s all I can do to keep Luke up until 8, but try otherwise he's up and at'em by 5am .

6)   They really enjoy their outside time, usually from 3 to 4 or 5 – but you have to make Luke do it. Once he’s out, he’s great, but he’ll tell (scream) you he doesn’t want to go at first. Ignore him.

7)  If the weather’s really bad and you can’t get outside, I just restocked our arts and crafts supplies for you to bring out. They are in the drawer of the dresser that’s in the toy room. Don’t let the boys see you get them out though, they don’t know that’s were I keep that stuff and I don’t want them breaking into it when I’m not watching.

8)  It’s a weekend so feel free to use as many shows as needed. ;)

9)   Hopefully this helps get you through until  I get home   on Sunday!

Love!

the potentially over-prepared and hyper-controlling one

;) 

On Marriage

 Dear One,
   I'm writing to you today because I've been watching some of the people we know dissolve their marriage, and the chaos of hurts and pains and accusations that are surrounding that whole situation has brought the concept of Marriage to the forefront of my mind lately. And when I think about marriage, it's obviously all about you. 
   We don't have the perfect marriage, got off to a rocky start and truly never had that fairy tale story I'd imagined as a young girl. I confess I've spent too much of our last 10 years thinking on what we don't, or haven't, had. What a waste that has been! What a disaster of focus! 


I've come across a few quotes lately that helped in aligning my mind onto the track of truth, one of my favorites is this: 
     "Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to."
                                        --J. R. R. Tolkien


True, yes? There is a lot of True Love in a marriage, and one of the secrets is that there are many moments throughout the course of one where True Love is demonstrated by staying not because you feel it, but because you said you would.  It proves your word's worth, to see a vow through makes you trustworthy, which is vital because one of the things I can now say I know about marriage- it is the most naked, vulnerable, and exposed spot in the world to be. To be utterly bare before someone, and know they are trustworthy with your "you-ness", is everything. 
      Something else I've learned: 


"Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate."  ~Barnett R. Brickner


     Which goes hand in hand with this:


 "To find someone who will love you for no reason, and to shower that person with reasons, that is the ultimate happiness."  -- Robert Brault




So, there you have one of my biggest lessons and it's so old and so overdone there must be hundreds of tales and thousands of songs proclaiming it... you see, "it takes two".  We all desire to be loved, no- to be HUGELY loved, but we also need to hold the responsibility of being someone lovable. 


    You've been gone all week, soaring heights and skiing steeps I'm not sure I'll ever have the stomach to take on myself. But I can hear the smile in your voice when you're done and I never want to hang up and lose the sound of your voice or the joy you're clearly feeling --  and that's really saying something, since you know my phone conversation skills aren't among my best qualities. 
    When you're not here, I sleep on your side of the bed, and in your shirts, anything to feel you close. I miss you. I start listening for the door to open at the end of the day in the hope you might be back sooner than you said, I think of you thousands of times a day and smile when your face crosses my mind. 


    We don't have the perfect marriage. We have something so much better, we have a 
Real One. 


      We have a funny, messy, complicated, solid, hopeful, hard-working, passionate, trying, courageous, brilliant, priceless, always-figuring-it-out-as-we-go-and-keep-getting-up-no-matter-what marriage. I know I've been showered for more than a decade now with reasons to love you... 


...may you become equally drenched  my Dear One, 


me

On Offense

Dear One,

I don't know why we sometimes make each other so uncomfortable. It doesn't seem the norm in other relationships like ours, though I don't think any family has a "norm" so that's probably not the right comparison to use. Our immediate line of women though do seem to have a norm of  ,um, tension in rather high levels is the best way I can describe it- at least for all the generations I've personally witnessed. Family cycles are so hard to break out of, and ours certainly isn't the worst of positions to be in when you consider the ruts of anger and abuse others must face. Nevertheless, I don't think times like what we just had is what either of us hope and dream for when we're together.

How to stop hurting then?

I think it comes down to how easily we each take offense. I'm learning that offense is more of a choice than a given, and I'm so sorry for how often I choose it. I'd love for us to embrace each other's differences better. I can't be a perfect carbon of you, and I don't think you'd want me to be even though it would make things like decorating a house or putting away laundry or making dinner or any host of other little shared activities much less controversial. Writing it out like that, it does seem silly that we get so tied up in those things, doesn't it?

I also want to listen better. I get so frustrated by feeling continually unheard, and yet now that I'm taking a breath long enough to think about it, I'm not sure I'm hearing you as well as you deserve either. In fact, I know I'm not.

I think you are wise, joyful, fun, creative, intelligent, loving, and generous.

I think those things WAY more often than I think anything else.

I also think I'm lucky to have you in my life. And I will do everything I can to do our life better.
Because you matter. To me. You matter.

Love,
Me

On Treading Water

 Dear Ones,


I haven't written you, or anyone, for months now and I'm sorry about that. This past summer was a study in stress and how poorly I handle it in excessive amounts. I hate to think any of my angst rubbed off on you two - and I ask your forgiveness for the moments it did. I literally stressed myself sick developing everything from chronic back pain to shingles, which took me out of Love Life mode to just-keep-my-head-above-water mode.  So much less than you deserve from me. I don't want to overly beat myself up, everyone has times where they're treading water like no tomorrow, and I know I can't give you The Perfect Childhood... well, okay, at least in theory I know that... ;) 


On this September afternoon however, you're both asleep in your rooms, I'm watching golden aspens wave at me through an open window, your Dad just called to say he loved me, and I am overrun by the desire to get down in this blog the beautiful things from these past few months lest they be lost in the clutter of everything else. No surprise- each memory involves the two of you...


gap-toothed smiles, lion roars, mastering your pedal bikes, hikes in the trees, rocks thrown in the river, chuckle-box checks, give me 5 - to the side..., Ka-Chow! Hip- Pow Yeah!. "Oh, yeah, that's a great idea", "Last day", "Mom, I love you", mornings at the park, train song, dance parties, blue bink stink, Peter Pan, "Oh Mom, I know what the problem is", "Daddy's  Home!", roasted marshmellows, Buzz Lightyear, reading books in the hammock, cuddles in the hammock, push'm play, "I did it!", dry undies, dry beds, chuga-chugs, "I can make the number V", supercalifragilisticexpealidocious, "I just love you my baby brother", cackles of laughter, hiccups from cackles of laughter, "They look exactly like their father!", bubble baths, "scared you", "I'm gonna push some dirt!", hold you higher, laying in the sun in front of the house, puddle boots, "I'll can do it by myself, I'll meet you at home", holding your cheeks together to grab your biggest smile, "Oh Sure", "I'd be happy to", blonde curls, buzz cut, big eyes, shoulder running, sandy kisses, shy smiles, bobcats, running through the sprinkler, 


Ah, now you're awake and need to sit on my lap while we discuss what to do with the afternoon so this list will have to be continued later. And it will. It will continue and continue and continue because we've now made it past everything that we needed to to keep swimming. It's time to dry off on the shore and let the sun warm our skin while we laugh at the shapes in the clouds. 


Maybe that's what we'll do this afternoon.


All My Love,


Mom

On Memory

Dear One,

   Sitting down with my family for dinner the other night I was suddenly struck by a memory of an earlier family dinner from my childhood. I had asked you to get me something to drink and you looked at me, without anger but definitely level in the eyes, and told me to, "Get Up and Get it Myself." (gasp!) 
     Odd the moments that stick with us.
     This one did because I remember having a physical reaction to it. A feeling akin to the shock of a rogue, cold, ocean wave catching you completely unaware and knocking the wind out of you. In my limited child memory you'd always gotten whatever I asked for in the past. "You are my MOM for goodness sake!", my 6 or 7 year old self thought, "You are SUPPOSED to get me what I need!" I got up, sullenly I'm sure, and got myself a glass of water, brought it back to my spot on the table and, head down, tried to sneak a look up at you through my eyelashes. Far from the repentance I was hoping for, you were doing that small smile that is so uniquely yours and that as a mother myself I can now recognize as equal parts hope, exasperation, and trying to choke back a laugh. And that is where that memory ends.
Well, maybe not ENDS exactly... because I still carry it, and the lessons it contained. 


Lesson 1: You are my mother not my servant. 
Lesson 2: Do not let laziness get in the way of your own capability. 

Lesson 3: Frustration and Love can happen at the same time, but the Love is always 
              bigger. 
Lesson 4: You really do have eyes in the back of your head.
                     wait--- that's a different memory
Lesson 4:  Ignore any of these lessons and spend dinner thirsty. 


      A random memory to share and elaborate on I know, but it's such a clear example of the through-line of you being my mother that I had to let you in on what a gift it was- and all the others like it! I don't know that I'm doing this small moment justice here, it's harder to verbalize than I thought, but essentially, I am better for being told to get my own drink. My children will be too, once the initial shock passes that is. In all the little moments like this, you not only taught me to care for myself, you also taught me to respect you. Which grew into respect for myself and others we share life with. It's been a building block for a healthy and happy life.
     That old cliche about giving a man a fish or teaching him to fish is so ridiculously over-used that I won't give it more than a passing glance here. Besides, it's incomplete as you did much more than teach me to fish. You taught me to get my own glass of water. 
 And that has mattered every day since. 


Happy Mother's Day Mom.  Thank you. 


Love,
Me