Sunshine

It is beautiful outside my window today. The sun is shining, and although it is not as warm as it has been this past week, it is still a lovely 60 degrees outside.

I'm watching my son play through my bedroom window as I take care of paying our bills inside. Miss Sunshine is jumping around on my bed, which she knows she is not supposed to do, but is being vastly amusing at doing it. She just let out a man-worthy belch and promptly said "Oh, excuuuuuse me!" in a little sing-song voice.

I discovered today that Miss Sunshine can count to ten. I'm not really certain when or where she learned this, as we have been working on the alphabet, not numbers. I'm blaming Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for it. But she can count perfectly to ten. Sometimes she even throws and eleven in for good measure. It's pretty darn cute, so I thought I'd let you all see it! (Please ignore the fact that the bed is not made... it's been a busy day and bedmaking just didn't make it in to the schedule. I know for some people they can't leave their home without their bed being made, but obviously I am not one of those people!)

I'm pretty darn proud of how smart my kids are. And enjoying them and this beautiful sunshine today.

Poetry...

I have long written poems.

I have notebooks FULL of poetry I have written over the years. Writing has always been an outlet for me, as far as emotions go, and my poems tend to reflect this. Sometimes upbeat, sometimes angst-ridden.

I have not written poetry in a very long time. Perhaps it is because, even with the roller coaster we have been through the last two years, my life is on the most even keel it's been in a very long time. Perhaps it is due to inner peace that I haven't realized I have achieved. Perhaps it is simply a lack of time. For whatever reason, poetry has slid by the wayside in my life.

Realizing that today took me aback. Long have words been an important part of my life, and poetry the most important aspect of that. Where did my poetry go? Thinking about this in the car, on the way home from the zoo of all places, immediately, the cadence and rhythm popped in to my head. And I realized - I have a medium for this now. Those poems which have spent so much time getting dusty in notebooks, can be read now. Digested, pondered, heard.

I will periodically start putting posts up that are simply poems. Poems that are new, poems I wrote years ago. I hope they bring you some level of enjoyment as they have brought such to me.

So, here is your first taste. (And yes, I am writing this off the cuff, now, as I write this blog post.)

Poetry

Perhaps my life is not angst filled enough for you.

I'm not urban,

or cultured.

Driven by a monster unseen,

by a past I cannot escape or

a future that seems impossible to achieve.

Rather, I am just me.

But the words inside me

beg to be let out.

They pour

like ink

from my fingertips

across the blank pages

of my life.

A rhythm,

A cadence,

a silent melody

of experience,

thought,

pain,

pleasure,

love and loss.

Poetry

is the music of my soul.

(For legal purposes, here is my disclaimer: This is an original work by this author. This work may not be published, reproduced or otherwise copied without express written permission.)

More sickies...

Miss Sunshine is sick. AGAIN. I got her up and dressed this morning and just as I reached for her socks, she threw up. All over her bed. I managed to get her to the toilet for round two. Poor baby was literally screaming as she was throwing up, because she was working so hard with those darn dry heaves to get anything up.

She is now comfortably ensconced in my bed, watching Handy Manny, and sipping on Pedialyte. She is running a low grade fever and generally acting lethargic.

I hate it when my babies are sick. Even more so when they are sick with a tummy bug and there is nothing I can do to make them feel better. Hopefully after she wakes up from naptime she will be doing better.

And hopefully she doesn't pass it along, because there is nothing I hate worse than throwing up!

I wish...

I wish I knew how to take pictures.

I mean those really cool, awesome looking snapshots that seem almost professional that nearly everyone in my circle seems capable of taking.

Of course, if I had a better camera than the four year old, $100 camera I own, that might be a possibility. It is hard to take good quality pictures when you don't have a good quality camera.

We got our taxes done this past weekend. I'm currently begging Daddy Mac to set aside a portion of our tax return to purchase a GOOD camera. I don't know that my begging has done much good at this point, and as always, there is probably something else the money should be spent on. We will have to sit down and look at our budget to see if it is actually feasible before I know if it's a possibility or not.

But I'm hoping. Because I want GOOD pictures of my kids, to keep of them to look at and remember back to this time when they were little and life was so exciting to them.

Even more than wishing I knew how to take good pictures though, I wish I knew how to freeze my kids. To keep them exactly as they are now. Because I already know, I'm going to miss this.

Finding Time.

It is hard, as a parent, to find time. I'm sure many of you know what I mean.

Time to clean.

Time to do Laundry.

Time to cook dinner, or lunch, or breakfast, or snack, or...

Time for baths.

Time for teeth brushing.

Time for bedtime stories.

Time for anytime stories.

Time for crafts.

Time for games.

Time for prayers.

Time for snuggles.

Time.

And that's just the Time for the kids. That doesn't include Time for parents to be adults!

How many times have you heard someone say "There just aren't enough hours in the day"? I must have heard this who knows how often growing up. I never believed it. And then I had children, and now I understand. There really isn't enough time.

Time to watch them grow.

Time to slow them down.

Time to hold them.

Time to play with them.

Time to love them.

Time to savor THIS moment or THAT first.

They grow up too quickly. It goes by too fast. Yesterday, I was holding my sweet baby boy in my arms for the very first time. Today, he's six years old! He is in Kindergarten, he can tie his own shoes, read his own books and fly his own kites. Soon he'll be riding his bike with no training wheels, doing his own homework and countless other things that I'm not ready for yet. And I wonder, where did the time go?

Yesterday, we were oohing and aahing over our brand new baby girl. Today she is running, jumping, galloping, feeding herself with a fork and spoon, talking in sentences, picking out her own shoes (yes, it's apparently bred into female DNA, that whole shoe thing. Or at least, our family DNA. She is quite the shoe connoisseur already, and is very particular about those shoes.), brushing her own teeth. Before I know it, she will be the one tying her own shoes, flying her own kite, reading her own books. And just like with Monster Boy, I'm left wondering where the time flew to.

It is Lent. Lent is a big deal in our religion. I won't get all preachy about the whys and wherefores. But as I was reflecting on this on Ash Wednesday, our priest had a very good sermon about the point of Lent. And one of his suggestions is to give up our time. To do something that we don't normally make the time to do, to have THAT be our sacrifice of ourselves during this season of sacrifice. That really resonated with me.

This Lent, I'm TAKING the time. The time to remember, the time to enjoy. The time I don't normally take. I'm going to make it be there, for my kids, for me. Each night, Daddy Mac and I are reading from our Couples Bible. Each night, we are taking time for our faith. Each day, I am doing something special with my kids. An art project. Cooking dinner together, putting away laundry together. Reading an extra book at bedtime, watching a special show after school. Sitting down at the table for snack. We are taking TIME for our kids.

Because if we don't, it's time just wasted. And who wants to waste what little time we have?

Slacking

So obviously I am not doing as well as I would like to be in regards to getting on here and posting.

SIGH.

We still have not had a response from the doctor's office - I have left another message and they are normally very prompt at getting back to us, which leads me to believe that either they aren't getting my messages or everything is a-ok and we should not be worrying.

Miss Sunshine has had a speech explosion and is now talking in sentences pretty much full time.

I made her a pair of training pants the other day. After much messing with an existing pattern I found, and different things, I tried them on her this morning only to discover they are too small. Well, too small around the legs. Turns out she's got more chub than I thought she did. Luckily, I also cut out a larger size, so now I just have to find the time to sew that up and try on her.

I'm also working on a quick release pattern with snaps that she can pull on, but that I can snap off in case of poop.

I'm not quite sure I'm ready for this whole potty training thing - but she seems to be, so I'm trying to get a move on. She's starting to tell us more and more frequently when she needs to go or has just gone, and will actually attempt (sometimes, not always) to go on the toilet at those times.

Monster Boy seems to be doing better. School is going better, we have met with his counselor and established a plan on things to work with him on and triggers for him to address, and we shall go from there.

Now I am going to go make an early (EARLY) lunch for Miss Sunshine since she's been eating nonstop all morning and is still informing me she is hungry - and maybe that means an early nap for both Miss Sunshine and Mommy (who is battling the crud and has been all weekend).