Wear Sunglasses in the Rain

When you live where the seasons change, you tend to get desperate for just that.  The season to change.  The first snow of winter is a thrill and the last is met with eye rolls and "Ugh". (And often some #%(*#$  kind of language that I will spare you).  So, we are all waiting for spring.  I guess nature takes over regardless because the grass is green, the trees have leaves, and my hummingbird is hovering at my window reminding me that I now have another little one to feed regularly.  Although this one I get to spoil with lots of sugar!

So what doesn't feel like spring around here is the temperature.  Oh make no mistake, I am settled into my flip flops for good.  But at the same time I am wearing my winter ski jacket to lacrosse and softball games, just to balance things out. It seems likes weeks since we have seen the sun.  OK in reality it was gracing us last Friday.  But that was it!  One tiny day and then back to rain and just about rain and thinking about raining and dreary cold enough to flurry kind of weather.  I have been thinking of lighting a fire each night,  but seem to have lost my pioneer woman edge so late in the season.  I just can't get up the fortitude to go and get the wood.  So I snuggle beneath a blanket or maybe my Wonder Woman Snuggie (oh yeah I have one!) and wish the cold would go away.  The forecast isn't with me on this.

What can you do? It is beyond my control and yet the weather can have some control of me.  Whose with me?  Who out there has to fight the blues when the sun doesn't shine?  And I am OK riding that train for a day or two....grumbling to people and with people about the weather making me feel sleepy and down.  But at some point I do have to motivate!  And so in a complete defiance of nature... I wear my sunglasses perched upon my head even when weather.com firmly assures me that there is absolutely without a doubt no need.  I retain doubt.  Perhaps its the smallest of things, but it gives me hope... it invites possibility.  Without my sunglasses, which in reality are a part of my actual hair do, I am agreeing that today the sun won't come.  I am following as a drone and allowing myself another day displaying  mediocre personality and less then stellar energy into all that I do. 

In the words of Judith Richards, my amazing cooperating teacher and college instructor, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem" (An African Proverb).  And so I choose to be part of the solution in my most basic of ways. When that sun does shine through, I will tilt my head to the light with the brightest of smiles and soak it in, ready and having believed it would come.  Weather it is sunglasses, flip flops, or a colorful parasol join me and do what you do to make the sun shine your way. Invite possibility.  In fact...why settle for just a little weather change?  Invite possibility!   Let's just see what it can do...

Would the Real Betty Please STOP!

My older two children shuffled about the kitchen getting their breakfast as I cut cantelope and packed lunches and snacks, thoughtfully balancing healthy food, enough food, and today a brownie for a treat.  Ok...I will fess up on the brownies because it is actually self serving that I am being such a Betty Crocker Mom. 

I baked brownies for my son's lacrosse team to have after their first game on Sunday.  (Yes, I am trying to get the other kids to hack at his ankles less..shhhh!)  So we, in our cute family cooking way, made a double batch of the family size box. (NO!  I do not ever make brownies from scratch.  And for some of you, no...box-o-brownies is not scratch) Anywho..the game was cancelled!!  I was left with all those brownies!!  I realize this is not the biggest problem one could have.   However, consider the timing.  The sun is out...eventually it will be warm...flip-flops have made their debut.  Do you see where this is leading???  Eventually I will need to be wearing the dreaded, and yet so desired bathingsuit!!!!

So brownies...bathingsuit.  You with me?  Unless you have the self control I completely lack, you now see the problem I am facing and my attempt to combat it.  In addition to the issue of my probable walk-by-brownie-munching, my children (due to responsible parenting on my part) do not do this.  They are reasonable eaters...well 2 out of 3 are.  It would take them a month to eat all the brownines I could scarf down in an evening leaving me with chocolate in my teeth, regret in my head, and a change in bathing suit style.  "Do you carry those fanny hugger kind that take ten pounds off?"

So yesterday was bring a brownie to your teachers day, today was bring a brownie to a friend day...  Keep in mind that the freshness level is wearing off, which means nothing to me in my time of need, but certainly changes who we can pawn them off on.  Suggestions? 

Saturday is now the new first game.  I will naturally be baking brownies again!  If it does however rain, would you all support my cause and graba  brownie as you drive by!!!

Hiding Behind...

Anyone using social networking knows it can be an amazing way to reconnect with people from our past.  I sat at my computer one day, perhaps on a Freedom 45 weekend and her name popped into my head.  "I wonder where Anouk is these days?"  And there she was.  My primary suite friend from the years in Haiti.  The moment we reconnected it was electric.  We laughed and talked and planned how to see one another.  We are only 3 1/2 hours apart!  Her children are the same ages as my older two.  Ahhh another FB wonder.

And that is when she began to tell the story.  It is the kind of story that we all should have about compassion and camaraderie.  She told the tale of being afraid to begin kindergarten all those years ago.  Anouk was so timid she hid behind the piano! (Hardly the woman I now know and love).  She would not come out for the teacher.  She would not come out to play, and she certainly wasn't coming out for a lousy song.  The story continues with a child so compassionate and caring that she too hides behind the piano.  She stays there the whole time until Anouk is ready to come out. And they are forever linked.  She has told this story over and over again throughout the years.  Even her children know of the girl who joined her behind the piano.  Her name was Carolee. 

My mouth drops.  She cannot wait for her kids to meet me.  She cannot wait to tell her family that she has found the long lost friend who gave her the courage she needed to come out from behind the piano.  My heart races.  I mean Anouk and I really click. This is an amazing discovery and I feel that this friendship is busting with greatness.  I see our kids calling each other cousins (as true little Haitians would) and the trips to visit and her intelligence and spirit lifting me up!  And yet in this moment I am terrified, in a most childish way, to lose her...I truly believe that if she knows then she will not want me.

And so I say nothing.  The story will fade and we will just be the greatest of far away friends, I tell myself.  But it doesn't.  It comes up each time we speak.  I arrive at her home for the first time ever.  I am without my children.  The drive was filled with anticipation as I navigated one street at a time towards Anouk.  I arrived and ran to the door.  She opened it and out popped the words; "Wow! You are so tiny."  I never occurred to me that she could be shorter even then my sister.  We hugged forever and it was like no time had passed.  The children came running to meet their new aunt!  The one who had crawled behind- you guessed it- the piano with their Mom.  Their faces lit up. I shriveled up.

The lie was eating at me and I hadn't even told it!  Of course I hadn't untold it either...  How could I risk giving up this greatness?  Perhaps the magic of the friendship would be lost when I told her I wasn't in Haiti for kindergarten.  I joined the class in second grade.  The piano girl was not me.  I mean I would have been the piano girl if I were there!  I definitely would have been the one to notice her need..wouldn't I have?

The weekend is all I could want.  We laugh, we play, we dance!  Oh how I loved the dancing.  We danced until 6 am when my feet completely rebelled against the spiky heels they had so dutifully allowed me to pummel them in.  And then we fell asleep on the couches giggling and  eating spinach pizza.  To any one reading this, I would guess it would seem obvious that my not being that kindergartner is a foolish fear.  But still I worried.

It took all of my courage, as my heart raced to stumble and trip over the words, "I did not go to school in Haiti for kindergarten".  Anouk's face flashed surprised and then she in all of her beauty, burst out laughing.  "Then who was she???"  Relief...and the awareness of my foolishness set in.

I'm sure I don't have to sum up the chemistry of a real friendship and all that blah blah.  So I won't.  Just enjoy a good story and a chuckle at my foolishness.   And don't be afraid to share your own friendship stories.  ;)

Desperately Seeking My Groove

I am recovering from my daughters' illness.  I will spare you the details, suffice to say it was the messy, not pretty kind of sickness.  One daughter was sick for a week leaving me to scramble with how not to be at work and yet how to be at meetings and complete paperwork that needed doing.  Friends and sitters allowed me to steal a few hours and here and there.  Of course technology helped.  But all in all the public relations part of my job suffered and the people I work with had to take on more to make up for my absence.

And in the course of it all, I feel as though I have lost my rhythm.  Especially here.  I have begun to write at least five pieces and have published none of them.  I am generally the type of writer who simply has the words pour out.  If they don't, the piece doesn't usually happen.  I did come up with one very fun idea that will hopefully engage you all. I have the amazing luck having of two brilliant women on my side with ideas..so look for the unveiling of that in the next week or so!  In the mean time.  Thank you for your patience while I locate my groove...and PLEASE let me know if you have seen it!!!

We are following each other...

My family often tells of how as a child I would stroll along the beach or anywhere else, and collect friends.  They say I would have a line of followers playing whatever game I had created.  It seems I was not the bossy leader, but just looking for people to have fun with, and to make some friends along the way.  Some of these friends lasted only the day and some are people who still brighten my days.

This blogging thing isn't so far from the beach of my childhood.  I am bouncing along looking for some people to share a story with, make some friends, and I am looking for them to "follow" me along this journey.  Some of these blogging "friends" are ones I have know for so long, and some...well ok.  At this point, I know you all pretty well.  In weeks to come I hope to bring in some new friends to our beach party. Though I don't so much want to be followed as to walk beside and talk to some great people who know just what it feels like to have to brush the sand off of yourself after taking a digger.  So thank you for "following" and hey invite anyone you want to join us!

Freedom 45

Being away from my children has gotten easier over the years and I guess I won't lie, it is often a great gift.  Ahhh the silver lining of divorce.  Every other weekend I have about 45 hours without making the constant food prep, directing recreational needs, being ringmaster of disputes, listening attentively to all those facts about space that I have almost memorized myself after having taught it and now having 2 of my 3 working through this fascinating topic.  Did you know that the sun is only a medium sized star?  It is just that it is so
close to us compared to the others...

I suddenly have choices about where to go and what time to do anything!  There are times when I sit in amazement in a coffee shop, notebook in my lap creating the tales of all the characters buzzing in and out, that I remember that not a soul in this world knows where I am at this very moment.  Not a friend or a sibling or a parent or my children.  I shiver of fear can spill over me and I wonder if I should let someone know.  I wonder if something were to happen to me how anyone would know who to contact.  I shake the uneasiness and choose instead to breathe in the freedom.  The purest freedom I can feel.  It settles into me and fills me with promises.  What it cannot promise is to last very long and I fight the urge to count hours.  I find myself pondering how much of my precious feedom do I give to the coffee shop?  How much should I use to be productively shoveling out kids rooms, should I find a friend to share dinner and laughs with?

Once upon a freedom 45 I did not speak the entire time. It wasn't planned, but then it did lead to a challenge within myself.  I spent time in the coffee shop and at home cleaning out my daughters' room for the arrival of bunkbeds. I went running and did a little shopping, but I never spoke.  I thought of my mother often with her pleading voice of my childhood, "Carolee!  Would you please just stop talking for 5 minutes!?"  HA!  I did it...finally.  And not 5 minutes, 2700 minutes!  Unlikely she would even believe that.  Of course with chat and text it is not like I didn't communicate with anyone.  I simply did not utilize vocals.

When my Freedom 45 comes to an end, there is always a bit of sadness in me.  Suddenly I will be responsible for others and their, at times, overwhelming needs.  I sometimes wish I had used my time otherwise.  More time with friends or less time cleaning or more time cleaning and less time at the coffee shop.  Whatever the gripe, the last hour slips by.  And at its end come three enormous smiles attached to gripping hugs and sloppy kisses.  My heart races.  They look taller, they look like something is new about them, they look beautiful.  They are filled with stories and have to work hard to take turns with my ear.  Lately, in his ever maturing way, my son takes a few moments to ask me what I did and how my time was.  I want to cry.  When did he become so big?

What Gives?

This is not a new story.  And if you cannot see some of yourself in it PLEASE at least help me be more like you!!  Like any human who has reached adulthood and acquired some level of responsibility, I cannot figure out how to do everything in a day that I need/want to do.  I can't fit it into a week or a year either!  So what gives?  What do I give up? 

You hear all the time, "Your children are the most important thing, they will be gone before you know it".  Yes!  This is so true.  And so I try to do puzzles in the evening on the dining room table, and attend their games and get them to their overlapping practices and read them books at night and have dance parties and tickle fights and I am still responsible for flossing their teeth (or paying the price later).  This list goes on.  And I love this!!  They being me smiles and laughter and arguments and dirty laundry..oh wait I digress.

But if I do in fact let all else go, won't I loose myself or worse my mind?  I mean if I truly forget cleaning will I even be able to stand the place, and let's face it..would any of you really visit?  How many of you have heard that "When your children are young the house will never be clean"  Have you seen an episode of Hoarders? Perhaps they are simply people who never recovered from the kid years?!

I want so many things for my children.  I think that part is coming along nicely.  And, I also want things for me.  Some big, some small.  I want to have a reasonably clean house where the laundry is close to done and the dishes are not falling out of the sink,  I want to do my job well, I want to spend time with family and friends, I want to write, I want to exercise (let's face it that one cannot wait til my kids are grown), I want to travel, I want to run,  I want to finish painting my TV room and fill my home with creative decor, I want to plant flowers and get rid of the intrusive briers in my irises...I want to do it all.  And since I must sleep, something has to give. 

It doesn't have to give for always, but in each day all of this cannot happen. And so I spin my gerbil wheel racing to fit many of them in, cutting this out today and that out tomorrow.  I am surrounded by laundry as I write and I have a young one coming down the stairs with a book and I have an exercise class in an hour.  Then it is off to work..and lacrosse...and the school play... 

Perhaps I could count the gerbil wheel as exercise, that would free up time to...

Join me!  I would love to hear what spins your gerbil wheel.

The Toothfairy

The toothfairy is as real as any of the fairies out there.  She is a more frequent guest in our home than Santa or the Easter Bunny, and frankly she get far less press for all that she does.  I mean she is on call 24/7!  She has very few TV specials and doesn't capture a certain time of year.  I don't see any other fairies or other holiday giving characters working quite as hard.  She is dedicated to each child for perhaps 5 or more years of teeth falling out.  And the cost involved is...WOW!  Must be quite the castle she is buliding.  How is that being financed?  I mean in my own home the price per tooth is somewhere in between 1 and 2 dollars.  She generally leaves a random amount of coins along with a dollar bill.

Remember the excitement of waking in the morning and for the price of a little white tooth you don't need anyway because a bigger and better one is coming in?  And for that you are left money!!  The leprauchans leave chocolate coins, but you have to clean up the mess, Santa leaves gifts, but you have to be a good kid, the Easter bunny leaves a eggs but you have to search for them...Everyone but the toothfairy.  She simply steals into your room and leaves the lute.  No strings attached, unless of course you used the string and door trick to get it out in the first place.  Which brings me to another point!  She is also the most daring of all!  Sneaking right into your room..reaching under your pillow!  It seems like a lot of pressure..my heart would be racing at the thought of being caught and thereby changing the entire childhood perception of loosing a tooth.

My son lost a tooth recently.  It was late at night, about 9:30 and in the morning he found that the toothfairy did not come.  With lightning speed recovery it was suggested that perhaps she was already on her route when the tooth was lost and therefore could not squeeze him in.  Since he is ten, the possibility rung true and his patience allowed him to wait another night.  My 5 year old just explained that what had happened was that the toothfairy was in another child's room when her bracelet went off to let her know my son had lost his tooth.  She had put her bracelet on silence so as not to awaken the other child..smart fairy!   Tales of the tooth fairy trail back to the early 1900's and perhaps earlier with the tooth being protected from falling into a witch's hands.  The price of a tooth has moved  forward too keeping up with inflation if not better. So it would seem that the toothfairy not only has kept up with if not surpassed inflation, she also utizilizes the latest technology  in her efforts to reach our children with her gifts.

The toothfairy as we know her in our house is using the teeth to build her castle.  My son believes the cleaner the tooth, the more money.  My other daughter, with her silver crowned tooth, is certain that this will have the greatest payoff.  No matter the truth, the tooth fairy brings smiles and ease to what could otherwise be an awkward time for a child.  And I am thinking with all she has to attend to we ought to more fully recognize her in some small way:  A day off?  a claymation TV special?  A picture session booth at the mall?  The possiblities are endless!  How about a song? Shouldn't we leave her some toothpaste or floss........

Hey Soul Sister!

My Mom always wanted a sister, she says.  Instead she had two older brothers and a younger one.  The younger one arrived when she was fourteen and was, I suppose a teenager's version of playing babydolls.  The older two, the blonde angelic looking one especially, tortured her as all good older brothers are programmed to do.  They teased and pulled hair, played jokes (not so funny to girls) and looked innocently at their mom as to say, "Could I have possibly done what she is so raged about?   Janice must be over reacting..again!"  A sister she must have thought, would be my best friend.  We could play and ride bikes and share clothes and secrets.  Summer days would be filled with giggles as we would make daisy chains and swing on the swings.  She would be by my side and I by hers.

Ah the dream of young Janice was never to be.  Until...she gave birth to her third child! She had a son, then a daughter, and then on a hot July evening a gift was bestowed upon her and the elder girl...a sister!  She was terribly ugly to begin with, but no matter.  Janice knew that she could now live vicariously through her daughters as they did each other's hair and painted their toe nails.  She could dress them alike and watch them hold hands and skip down the lane.

"Oh the baby is crying!" (whack, whack whack on the back) the older sister called with feigned concern to her mother.  Imagine a baby crying after being pinched by a jealous sibling?  And so it began.  Jan's dreams unraveled.  The sisters bickered. They would not wear the same clothes. They did not share secrets, they did not walk side by side.  They fought. They fought over their clothes and their room and, well....mostly over clothes and their room.

They drove Jan nuts.  How could they not get along when all she had wanted was a sister?  They were both terribly stubborn (eh hem and still are), and as different as can be.  One is bold and oozes confidence, one is dramatic and must be in the middle of any crowd.  One is afraid to hurt someones's feelings, one says it like it is.  One is tall, one is short.  One lives in the city, one in the country.  One has traveled the world, one wants to.  Have I made my point?

So which am I you wonder...I will leave that for you to figure out as the story unfolds.

Flashing through this childhood it seems that we spent more time at odds than as friends.  There was no one who could, and probably still isn't, anyone in this world who can make me feel the intensity of fury that I have felt when she upsets me.  I burn inside.  I want to scream!  I want to kick and scratch! 

But there were those other times... Sometimes I got to iron her hair for her!  (For you youngins that is old school straightening)  Once she asked me to go to a movie with her on a weekend night when she was in high school and I was in 8th grade.  An oh so cute boy talked to us and asked to drive us home.  She said we had already called our dad.  UGH!!  She taught me how to shave my legs on a Saturday morning.  We only got through the first leg before I realized I was going to be late for a babysitting job.  When I came home drunk one night and was battling the spins as I so desperately wanted to sleep, she taught me to put one foot on the floor.  She came to my dorm room when I first moved in and made my bed for me!  (there is even a picture of this somewhere....) When my father was late on my wedding day, rather then leave me to ride alone to the church she drove in the limo with me and told me I looked so beautiful. When my children were born, she was the first one there to greet them. And even now they know if we call Che-Che (pronounces She-She), she will come.  When my marriage ended she an her family were spending five weeks in France, a dream vacation.  She called me EVERY DAY.  For 5 weeks.  From France. 

It occurs to me that the anger that I can at times feel towards my sister is paralleled by the love I feel for her.  Corny I know.  But we are so different and in the end would do anything for one another.  We are inseperable.  Not by location, but from somewhere on the inside.  We didn't walk down the same lane or dress in the same clothes; although she could often be found IN my clothes even if the tags were on them!  She is by my side and I am by hers.  I hope that it has been enough for Jan. And I can only hope that my sister could tell stories like this about me.  I know that it has been more then I could have expected of any one person.

I have two daughters of my own now.  I watch them play and I watch them fight.  They fight over clothes and they fight over their room.  One is blonde, one is brunette; one loves to play sports, one loves to read; one loves to be on the center of a crowd, the other will always help a friend.  But when one has hurt feelings from a friend at school guess who takes her hand first?  And so it continues...

Oh, and dear sister it was I who ripped the but on those favorite jeans with the pockets on the legs back in HS.  ;)

So You Wanna Play...

So last night ended with what felt like a "parent failure".  And truly it was.  I could have avoided the whole disappointment by simply signing my 5 year old up for softball when she came home from kindergarten, paper in hand yelling, "OH yeah Baby!!  I can play softball at 5!  Sign ME UP!!!" 

So the simple solution was to sign her up.  Which I planned to do.  I mean I am a rec. director (in the learning stages). I advertise this program. I know how and where to sign up.  And yet in the past few weeks my focus was on getting my son onto the already closed Lacrosse team.  I had struggled with the thought of how to manage lacrosse practices and games and work and also the needs of my daughters as a single mom. So, like every good procrastinator who is overwhelmed by the reality of her situation I ignored it.  What made all the difference was my son, gently saying, " I understand if it is too much for us to do."  With his gracious way he relieved me of responsibility of a crazed spring of begging for rides, dinner out of a lunchbox, and navigating my way to many a field around the state.  And in that same moment, it was exactly what I wanted to do for him.  And so began the emails and phone calls and reaching out to anyone in the lacrosse "know" to get my son on a team.  I was accustomed to t-ball and baseball where they run with the "more kids?  more teams!"  kind of attitude. Finding a group closed was a bit of a shocker for me!  But in the end, the lacrosse coaches want kids playing. The sport is growing and they are trying to keep up.  They gave us the option of playing up a level.  They assured us that some other kids his age had moved up and that their are kids at every level who have never played before.  Lacrosse will now engage 4 days of every week this spring.  He is thrilled I am excited and broke.

And now we return to softball...a three day commitment which again has practices overlapping with my work schedule and also with the lacrosse schedule.  The phrase, "I am one Mama!" rings through my head, and hey, often spills from my lips to these kids.  Last night I finally made the call.  "Hi, I would like to get my 5 year old daughter on a softball team, and of course I would like this particular team because I will need to ride share. I am sure you will have no problem meeting my meager demands even though I have missed the usual signup dates due to previously schedule recreational commitments ( I think it was... OMG I am exhausted after 5 nights out of the house and we have to go home rather then register and since I am in the business it should be no trouble, so lets go home and eat dinner together and play a board game instead).

Would you believe (in my best Haitian accent for those of you who know my dad) softball was full!!??  My heart dropped.  Failure.  I could have signed her up at anytime, but as always I felt I had all the time in the world.  I told her the news.  Disappointment spilled across her face.  She began to cry.  "But Mommy, I have been waiting.  And don't you remember how I told you that I am a little nervous but I talk to myself about that and I know I will be ok and that the coaches will help me?"  I sank in my seat and had no way to redeem myself.  I offered T-ball.  No go.  I said, "I am sorry.  Mommy messed up."  She ached for her dream and I ached for my girl. 

So I have no sweet little spin to put on this screw up.  Yes, I sent out a text in the right direction and someone rescued me from myself.  I am certainly not here to advocate procrastinating and pulling strings. I am here simply telling a story of one Mom who is trying hard and who still has some work yet to do...

I have some friends to thank and some brownies to bake...and in three weeks when I am pulling my hair out trying to get to all of these games and practices, you have my permission to virtually whack me!

Coffee, a backache, and the school bus en route...

Bienvenue!

This blog is here for me to take a chance.  To put away some of the many journals I find throughout my house, car, office (anywhere I might be when struck by the urge) and tell my stories to you.  I am looking to be brave!  I am searching for the truth in what I am meant to be or do in this world, and I am hoping that you might smile sometimes when you read...especially when you most need it. 

A few things about me. I love, love, love the ellipses ( you know the little dot, dot, dot thing?)  I use it all the time, so get ready. I think it leaves a thought hanging so that the reader can enjoy the moment, but also opens it up for new thoughts; yours or mine.  Which brings me to another I love!  I love the word "moment".  I think that as I seek my own truths, I find them quite often in the smallest of times, rather then a in the grand events.  I find what I need in the moments.  Often I miss them when they are happening, and you can read about me puting  the invisible jet in reverse in hopes of recapturing that time.  Sometimes it works, sometimes....not so much.

So, thank you for joining me.  Oh, as for the title...little to do with what is written, but sets the stage for me being here this morning.

Cat and Fish Games

 It has happened before to a less fortunate fish.  Fifi's brush with mortality was announced by an unsettling crash followed by a greater crash and several aftershocks.  After which Kylie and I bolted with an OH NO!  We raced sock footed across the wood floors and up the uncarpeted stairs in a bit of a car out of control type plunge.  We "Krammered" into her room to find the cat no where and poor, poor Fifi flopping helplessly on the painted blue floor, which of course was quite striking against her red scaly body.  Her floating angel like fins were tight to her fishy form.  I dropped my cell phone with an, " OH I need to rescue the fish!" and scooped up the ever so grateful Fifi.  I know she was..how could she not be.  There was a bit of water left in the bowl around her crushed neon colored castle.  I scooped up the broken pieces while my 5 year old daughter calmly asked if Fifi (once named Rudolph because she arrived Christmas Eve via the real and true Santa-I kid you not!) would be OK.  I said, "Yes, Luv, I think she will make it."  I brought her, bowl and all to the bathroom and added some water.  I made sure it was a bit warm thinking that Fifi could use a bit of a Calgon moment after such an ordeal.

Well, Fifi made it.  Whew.  The cat upon being spoken to quite firmly admitted that the accident was his fault, but that he was merely after a sip of water.  Typical.

I began to wonder if I would fair as well as Fifi. If the fishbowl of my world were suddenly and mysteriously tipped over leaving me to spill out of my oxygen and lie helplessly on an unfamiliar, and maybe not even my best color match surface without the ability to help myself,   how long would I continue to flap about like Fifi?  Would I give in to the inevitable doom or would my own desire and determination carry me until a hand of kindness cradled me back into my world...leaving me in warmth to wash away the horror.

And then it occurred to me...this has happened to me so many times!  And yes, I have kept up the flapping until one of the many kind hands scooped me up.  You know who you are....you are all here and hopefully taking a moment to read and realize what you have done for this one little fish whose bowl was tipped.  Please don't go far, the cat is always closer than you think!

A Picture of A Moment

I don't take enough pictures. I sometimes stop and stare at these children I bustle through life forgetting to enjoy.  I get them to school and get them home and get them fed and get them to bed so that they can get up again.  I get them to swim or baseball or T-ball.  Sometimes they get bathed.  I get them the occasional playdate. I push them to clean their rooms and put away their clothes.  I expect them to help in our house.  I want them to be responsible and capable when they are adults. (Oh and I just plain want the help!)  But when is our playdate?  When do we simply giggle and smile and play...

At times I freeze watching them and without a camera try to make my mind take a permanent photo.  Please let me remember this time for always I beg of my brain. And why not?  With the capacity of the human brain, why can't I have a picture file or a videofile?  Why are the stories I recall only 1 millionth of all that has been?  Is it because I would need to also equally remember the hurt, the sadness, the disappointments of a day?  Or worse the times I have failed or disappointed myself?  We rarely take photos of that...we want the feeling to leave.

Today my daughter did her hair.  Most days she quickly runs a brush  through her short, thin, off blond hair and lets it fall where it may.  But not today.  Today she had a new headband given to her by a friend of mine.  She placed it in her hair pulling the front piece out to hang down her cheek (entirely defeating the purpose of a headband, thus making it a true adornment).  She explained that she like it that way so that she could flip that piece out of her face from time to time with a head toss.  The head toss...you know the one often done by models and by cheerleaders in those movies where the geeks take over in the end finding their true place above the jocks and bimbos.

Well she performed her deliberate, yet subtle head toss, while I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and cut up apple slices to cover with cinnamon and sugar for lunches.  I was feeling like a great mom since I usually just toss the whole apple in the bag.  And she said, "Do you like it Mom?"  I nodded yes, perhaps I smiled.  I hope I did.  And I continued to make my super mom apples!!!  But in that moment I missed it.  I missed the moment where I should have taken her beautiful little face in my hands and told her just that. "You, my sweet, are stunning!"  How many seconds would that have taken?  Fewer than cutting up apples I bet.

So later when I see her I will.  I will grab her and tell her she is a true beauty.  She will smile a big bight smile and be warmed all the way through the way I was when my mom gave me that moment, that picture.  The one I keep imprinted in my brain.

I hope I am not too late to leave her a brain picture, and I hope I have not left myself with this one.