Humpty Dumpty

Sat on a wall.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful holiday at a friend of Anna's moms. It was the most relaxing day I have had in a long time. The food was delicious, the house was beautiful, the boys were having a blast with their cousins and all was well. I am grateful.

Magic....continued

I was just reading other blog posts and of course I opened this one, from a blog called 37 days.
The post was about magic. Wasn't I just writing about magic last night?

Here is part of it:

It got me to thinking about magic.
Where does real magic come from? You must read what one mother wrote about this, in a letter to her son who had figured out that the Tooth Fairy wasn't  "real." It is one of the most beautiful things I've read in a long, long while. While we believe you either believe or don't believe, here's one mother who believes there is a magical, third way.
Here's an excerpt from that post by Liz Emmett-Mattox, a letter she wrote her son:

"Dear AJ,

Today you crossed one of the many bridges on the journey from the world of the child to the world of the adult. You have found out that magic sometimes comes through ordinary people.
This is an important discovery, but please do not think that you have learned all there is about magic. Crossing this bridge means that you are ready to begin to apprentice a lifelong study of the true nature of magic.
What you need to know now is that some people who cross this bridge think that magic doesn’t exist at all. They become skeptical. This is a danger you will have to watch out for.
The second thing to know is that you can now make magic. Learning to do this will give you and those around you great joy.
Now that you have crossed this bridge, you may have to look a bit harder to find the magic in the world, but know this: those who don’t believe in magic will never find it, while those who look and expect to see magic will find it everywhere."

Go here to read the whole post.


"...you can now make magic. Learning to do this will give you and those around you great joy."

"Those who look and expect to see magic will find it everywhere."

Wow. That, my friends, is real magic.


Let magic flow through you, my (extra)ordinary friends.

My thanks to Santa. And to Liz Emmett-Mattox for that beautiful post about magic.

Magic sometimes comes through ordinary people.

Be ordinary. Be magic.

Good Advice

Could it be this simple?

ROAR

Wake UP!

So, Anna and I are in a sort of mid-life crisis. Maybe you could call it a 5 year wake up call. Anders is almost five now and we are hobbling along. Really, hobbling.
You'd think from the photo's that it's been smooth sailing, but I am here to say it distinctly and with no doubt- we are hobbling.

Parenting is hard work.
Working full time with two young children is really hard work.
Doing the laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, making a meal, changing a diaper, feels like an endless circle game.
Trying to respond appropriately to a whiny child, an obstinate child, a non-listening child feels difficult at best.
Figuring out how to have a life that holds magic is impossible these days.

I recently attended the memorial service of a very old friend, my best friends' mother in fact, and I had my first wake up call. At the memorial, her husband of 40 years read love poems he had written for her over the course of their marriage. The poems were stunningly beautiful. The poems were heartbreaking. I wept. Their love was brilliant but human; full of hardship but also magic.

It made me think about my life. The life I lead right now that is void of magic.

I feel as if I am living in the trenches...no time for magic, no time for love.
It feels like it is killing me.
I moved to Vermont specifically for big love.
And here I am nearly 15 years later finding myself struggling for air. It's weird, because I have exactly what I have ever wanted....2 beautiful children, a great partner, a home, a good career and yet I feel lost. Why?

I think an internal eye of mine started looking around for something deeper.
Maybe even role models.
Parents who have a family and have managed to keep the magic intact.
Hardship and magic together...married. Not just hardship.

I found a few other mom blogs that I guess I have used as an arrow.
I can't really even say that.
It's more that when I read some of them it touches the part of me that feels, that knows something, that can identify magic and poetry. And it feels like it is beginning to loosen up a part of me that feels so terribly stuck.

That is where I heard WAKE up for the second time. I reached out for help. The blog This and That www.vickihoefle.wordpress.com had a posting on October 27 that was amazing. It was as beautiful as Al's love poems to his wife were, except this was a letter to a daughter.
Vicki told me - Wake up!
Pay attention. Practice being in the moment. Every day....every single day.
Thank God.

I have had a hard time admitting that I am really struggling. I think I feel ashamed, embarrassed and certainly ungrateful. Maybe it's that I am just too damn proud. But really, I need some good help. So anyone who can send me a wake up call is welcome. Feel free to bring it on!

Sleeping Beauties IV

See the blog for Sleeping Beauties I, II, and III.

A Horse in the Kitchen

I signed Anders up for his first painting class and quite honestly I had no idea how it would go. I just waited to see what developed for him. He painted an amazing fire breathing dragon, a pink owl, and this...a horse in the kitchen.

Lovely Photo

Anders teacher took this photo of Anders at pre-school. They had just been playing in a pile of leaves.

My boys and their Grandpa

My mom and dad are visiting. This means the boys get to enjoy some much loved time with their grandparents. The highlight of this evening was Grandpa playing a hide and seek game with the boys. This of course got a little rowdy when my dad turned the game into a blend of hide and seek-tickle-and monster. You should have heard them laughing! Dad also played a little (and I do mean little, he and Jakob were only about 8 inches apart) game of catch with Kuba, and Grandma and Anders played GO FISH. I of course, watched all this from my regular Friday night fog of exhaustion....Friday evenings are not the high point of my long work week!
Luckily, I was able to film/photoraph/and truly appreciate!

Anders, Photographer

Anders has been using the camera lately. This is a collection of photo's he took the other day when he was out on a hike.

Rotten Porch - GONE!

Completely torn off...today....all of it.
Hallelujah!!
And soon a newly designed front porch, with a larger and insulated entry, and also a pantry off the kitchen, will grace our lives!

Look Whooo's TWO!

We had Kuba's second birthday party this weekend, and it was an owl party indeed! We were lucky enough to have a visit from a very real, very beautiful barred owl. Anna questioned me a bit on my idea to have an owl, and I said...some people get bouncy castles, some hire clowns....we get to have a live owl and donate the money to a local raptor organization that rescues birds of prey. The organization is called Outreach for Earth Stewardship and it's very small, very local and very cool. It was smooth sailing after that. If you want to check them out their website is http://www.ofes.org/

We even had a delicious owl cake made by the best cake baker around, Aunt Sandy.
It was so much fun pulling it all together....the kids decorated owl masks, and stamped the front of a little owl book I put together for them with poems and owl songs. Here are a few of the items from the book....

Owl in the Tree
(Sung To: Skip to my Lou)

Owl in the tree says, who, who, who
Owl in the tree says, who, who, who
Owl in the tree says, who, who, who
Who, who, are you?

Owl Song
(Sung To: I'm a little Teapot)

I'm a great big owl, as you can see
I live high up in a tree.
All the other birds wake me up when they play,
Because I like to sleep in the day

Mr. Owl
Late at night when you're in bed,
Mr. Owl perks up his head.
He looks left and he looks right,
In the dark all through the night.
Hear him hoot when you're in bed,
When Mr. Owl perks up his head.

The Owl
I saw an owl.
He sat in a tree.
He opened one eye.
He winked at me.