Beautiful Day

Verdant fields alive 

tall whispering strokes of green

three capture my heart

Fear

I received some very bad news today. The kind that wakes you up. Makes you remember what is truly important: my two boys, Anna, love, how my actions affect other peoples hearts. My brother-in-law was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer today. This is horrible news. Unspeakable fear shoots through me. I read a quote by Margaret Wheatley - "Just being with your fear, just being it, is the most powerful form of fearlessness." Often I have anxiety about my own health and life - worrying way too early that I might miss my children much too much if I have to leave this planet earlier than I have planned. It's amazing really - how we all choose to live as if we will be here forever and that we have all the time in the world to love those that we love. This news is a big wake up call to me...to kiss the soft cheeks of my children more, tell them I love their smiles, their sadness, their milk spills, their refusals to listen to a direction they don't like. I want to be a good listener, to see THEM, to wisely and slowly teach them about the power of connection, community. I want to remember and to teach them what is most important in this life...to live consciously so that their actions affect people's hearts in a way that grows only more love for this big planet. Fear. Here it is...and now what am I going to do about it? L O V E. That's what.

Security Reminders

The other evening while Anna was doing some furniture painting, Kuba happened to be in a pretty rambunctious mood.  He was throwing his stuffed animals, jumping around roughly, and had been given a reminder by me to tone it down a bit.   Shortly after this, he happened to throw a stuffed monkey and it hit Anna's paintbrush, leaving a swath of white paint across this borrowed monkey's fur.   Anna was cross and scolded Kuba for not listening and being too wild.   She then told him he would have to clean the paint off his friend's animal.  She was a tough mama in that moment and spoke to him sternly.   He immediately started to cry and ran upstairs sobbing.    Anders chased after him and from the bottom of the stairwell, Anders yelled up to him - "Don't worry Kuba, remember Mama will always love you no matter what!"

Brother love.  Powerful stuff.

Smashing Rocks

I love observing what grabs the interest and imagination of a child - especially my own. Anders recent interest was smashing rocks - searching for jewels, fossils, and a smashing experience. He smashed so many rocks that he filled bucket after bucket with gravel. He smashed so many rocks and had so much fun with this that as a family we went out on a fossil hunting expedition purely to bring home more rocks to smash. We brought home hundreds of pounds of VT rocks and he continued to smash them into sand and gravel the next day. It was a perfect kid thing to do and I as his mom enjoyed watching every bit of it. Yes, we made him wear safety goggles.

Dead ant, dead ant....

We have ants wandering around our house again this Spring. Today it so happened that the boys spent some time looking at and being completely captivated by a rather large black ant on the floor by the kitchen table and they must have really bonded with it.
Soon after, something else caught there attention and they started dancing about and horsing around. Kuba quickly noticed that they had accidentally stepped on and killed the ant.
TEARS, big tears, came rolling down the boys cheeks as well as runny noses and sobbing throaty sounds. In fact, they were crying so hard about the dead ant that Anna had to move to the couch with the boys to comfort them. Anna said it was amazing how sincere they were in their horror and grief. (She told me she was secretly wishing she could have grabbed the camera and videotaped them as they cried about the dead ant- she was struck by the intensity of their emotion and at the same time secretly amused.) They kept moving in and out of tears, with Kuba asking her melodramatically "When are we ever going to stop crying?" Anna suggested that they just cry until all of their sadness and tears were gone.
From what she told me, she finally had to distract them with a story. (not about ants)

Coincidentally and recently the boys have been given an ant farm. They have been watching these little red insects forming tunnels in green transparent gel. This free and much larger black ant must have been even more fascinating to them - boldly taking up space here within their own home.

It seems that they do understand how important the life of even a little ant is.

Am I a Hero?

Last night before Kuba fell asleep he asked me in a sweet, sleepy voice, "Mommy, am I a hero?" In his pre-school class they have been talking about hero's...not super-hero's. They have been discussing the qualities that make a hero; like being brave, or working hard at something, or being a good friend. His question was so sincere and so sweet.

Of course I answered yes. A true hero.

And then we talked a little bit about the super power of love.

Kuba, you are a true super hero when it comes to love.