adventures

Last Friday the kids and I were in desperate need of an adventure day. The temperatures warmed and the sun shone brightly and the highway called. Luckily, we are less than an hour from Maine and a few favorite places. Nubble Light house, the Maine Diner, and Parsons beach were our stomping grounds. {there was also a detour to the Old Navy outlet when someone fell in a tide pool and was soaking wet from the waist down... it wasn't me...} 

There is something freeing and exhilarating when you toss routine aside and opt for a day trip. Especially when it involves salt air and lobster macaroni and cheese. 

Parsons beach, especially, is one of my favorite places in all of Maine. There was one night that Lucas and I were there, the first summer we were together. Ahead of us walked Lucas's parents, as well as his brother and sister in law. We stayed behind, held hands, marveled over the sunset - the pinks and purple hues. We lost the pictures from that night, but there's one that still sits on Lucas's dresser. My heart swells and a lump grows in my throat when I think of that evening, how we were so newly in love and yet we knew that forever was to be ours together. 

We've been back to Parsons just a handful of times with the kids. It's a tiny beach and in the summer months it gets crowded... so we more than often opt for the beach where there is easier parking. But sharing that particular beach with my kids last week was so amazingly special. We spent two hours playing and walking and marveling over whole trees that washed ashore, the roots rolled into driftwood. How time and the elements soften, smooth, and mold many a rough edge. 

We left covered in sand, but with smiles and hearts eager to get home to Lucas. And I will admit, with an excitement for warmer weather and weeks open completely for adventure days...

dreaming

By this window, I sit and dream. Of a trip to Iceland that pulls at my heart. Perhaps one to Scotland, also subtly calling. I dream of spring time; buds on trees, flowing skirts and sunshine that warms even with a breeze. I dream of a little cottage by the sea, painted yellow. And a red house that is married to an apple orchard. There would be a barn with a swing... maybe with a few sheep. Children running, laughter joined with sunshine and long hair effortlessly chasing heads. I dream of words. Mine, yours, his and hers. Spoken and written and spilled into mugs of tea. February light slinks through the window pane and I dream. 

the ramble before the storm

And so February comes and the mild winter goes out the window as we are anticipating a mega snowstorm. It will be an Epic Storm, according to the local weathermen. We are skeptical, but we still prepare. Lucas is at the grocery store as I type. He's working from home today. The commuter car is having issues again and needs to be taken in for something to do with the power steering. We cross our fingers and hope for the best, though we prepare for the worst. So for his lunch break he is at the grocery store, with countless others who are stocking up for who knows how much snow, and bread and milk and chocolate. I am at home with the first full on cold I've had in months. The mother cold - sniffly nose, but not enough to keep you down - is not applicable here. This is a man cold... seriously... you all know what I'm talking about. Fynn had it on Monday, then Paige and I got it.... we all took a sick day on Monday, but the lessons still continue this week. Fynn's reading has taken off, and Paige is starting to remember things like letter sounds and is learning about tens and ones... 

We are learning together about snowflakes. How they start from a teeny tiny particle and grow. How it takes so many tiny cloud droplets (like 100,000!) to make a snowflake heavy enough for it to land in front of our faces. So many tiny particles that add up to a beautiful, delicate, complicated snowflake. Mother nature is glorious. 

Big sigh. 

And so February comes. As it always does. And we are here, surviving until spring on hot tea and books and sunshine that lasts longer every day. Lessons and man colds and car woes and sick days and snowstorms... these little frustrations, in addition to the simple pleasures of love and life, add up to a whole of a beautiful, delicate, complicated existence. 

stealing moments

I've been reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book Flight Behavior, in my spare moments. I steal a few pages here and there. It is about a stay at home mother on a farm, and a visit from thousands of butterflies which brings up questions of climate change and the story drifts between back woods hillbilly dialect and scientific jargon that is above my head. I kind of like it. 

Kingsolver writes about her main character: "But being a stay-at-home mom was the loneliest kind of lonely, in which she was always and never by herself."

Always and never by herself... that resonates deeply, doesn't it?

Today I have played two games of checkers, and at least twelve of Candy Land. I have educated my children on the Milky Way. I have taught two different math lessons, a reading lesson, and read several books just because. Made lunch. Made brownies. Started pizza dough. All with help... and I love it, do not get me wrong. 

But I'm here, stealing moments because my moments do count just as my children's do. I have cut two pieces of tape off of a pain in the ass tape dispenser for my six year, just in the last few moments as I've typed. And my four year old sits next to me coloring because lord knows we couldn't be more than two feet apart at any given time. And as I type that, I smile. Because I wouldn't want it any other way, truly. 

There are times though, when moments need to be stolen. My brain thinks in fragments as I expect interruptions. Multi tasking is par for the course in motherhood, as we all know. And yet. And yet there are times when my creative being, every fiber of it, yells and screams until I say "No, those six games of Candy Land were enough, mama needs a minute" and I take it. 

I take that moment and explode something beautiful on a page and I will hold that notebook or blog post dear to my heart, whatever comes of it, because it was created in a moment that I needed. 

Yes, this season of motherhood is fleeting. But so is my own existence. All of ours. 

And so, I will make space. I will steal moments as I can. I will console the loneliness that comes from never having a quiet moment with a scribbled word. This multitasking, these bits of creating on the fly, they are preparing the artists mothers among us for a time when ideas are abundant and children are grown, and time unfolds before us with unlimited possibilities.

Priorities. Stolen moments are among mine. 

three

{calendar from the lovely Janine's shop...}

Yesterday the kids and I returned from a week long adventure. We drove hundreds of miles away, the three of us. We saw dear friends, and loving family. The kids were excellent. The only tantrums thrown on the drives were possibly my own... seriously... the kids were amazing. And they did it without the aid of electronic devices {except the cd player in our car}. The read, they drew, we all talked and sang and listened to each other and gazed out the window. Believe me, we don't shelter the kids from technology... they both know how to work a tablet or a smart phone and the tv remotes... but we also believe in imagination and getting bored for long enough to start to entertain yourself with what is right in front of you. I remember taking the same drive as a child to see my grandparents, and I lived in stories. In my head and on the page. You can't get there if you are slinging birds at pigs and being entertained by a device. 

All that being said I'm sure if we had a dvd player in the car we would have made good use of it... but then again... I'm not sure. The drive was pleasant, even magical at times, and I wouldn't have done it any other way. 

When we arrived home from our week away the kids caught up on hugs from their daddy and I looked through the mail. I found a calendar sent from Northern Ireland, to replace the one I had up last year from the same artist. I love seeing the photographs and the dates combined hung over the bookshelf in the living room. Books and days and photos... a beautiful combination. 

Today marks the third year of my sobriety. Three sets of twelve months... three years is a hefty amount of days. I'm not boasting, but I feel the need to put that out there to honor it. Three years. And it's about so much more than simply not consuming alcohol. It's about making a choice to live with intention, to pay attention to what is right in front of me, and to not zone out and tune out and mask life and partake in something that makes me not someone I like. I'm protective of my sobriety. I know how fragile it really is, like anything else in life. I don't write about finding my way through life without a drink nearly as much as I used to. Partly because after all of the "firsts" without {holidays, birthdays, seasons...} it got so much easier for me. Partly because there is so much more to me and my life than just my sobriety, and when I write about one particular thing I tend to loose sight of everything else. All of these days I've accumulated sober, they are not simply days to check off that I have gotten through, they are days that I have lived. Fully and awake and flawed and perfectly imperfect.... 

A book and a few to do lists are calling. I have a feeling that for today reading with a cup of tea will win. Enjoy today. Read a book. Dream up a story. Indulge in the moment... there are none other like this one. 

happy sobs

From the backseat she speaks up: 

"Mom?"

"Yes, Paige?"

"I'm pregnant."

{I blame The Fantastic Mr. Fox and that scene where the young Mrs. Fox utters that phrase...}

She has no idea what that phrase really means. The hugeness of it. She only knows that she is pretending she's going to have a baby. And I smile because she is four, and not sixteen while she utters those words. 

~~~

I'm making dinner, stirring macaroni and smelling the breadcrumb covered chicken in the oven. It smells like my childhood. Something in the corner catches my eye, and by second nature I pick up Fynn's shoe and start walking to the trash to dump the mound of sand that found its way into his sneaker. Out of nowhere a sob catches in my throat. Only it's one of those happy sobs. I'm caught in the joy of taking care of little shoes and little bodies. 

~~~

Their littleness catches me off guard most of the time. Their voices are so large, their thoughts so big, their presence so huge... the smallness of them, it surprises me. And when it does, my whole being shifts, and the gentleness returns and all I can do is sweep them up and deliver mama bear hugs and kisses because not only do my littles allow the unabashed mother love, they need it for their littleness to flourish and grow. 

all in a picture

It'll be no surprise to anyone when I say this: I love instagram. With a passion. I love looking back on my feed, at the neat and pretty timeline where all you see are pictures and maybe a little bit below on the actual happenings. Even on the bad days, the pictures are good. The picture above didn't make it to instagram... but it was on my phone from yesterdays sunny 60 degree beach adventure. I love the sun flairs. The unedited silhouette. The piece of a lobster trap that Fynn held onto for the whole trip. 

Another thing I love about instagram is being able to see, in one spot, pretty clearly what is important to me and my family. There's a few consistent themes. Kids. Beach. Yarn. Books. Tea. 

When the going gets tough, we hit the beach. Not to say that we only go when there are stormy seas in my head or around us, but often times I can look at the pictures of a beach day and know what was going through my head, good or bad. Most are good. Some, eh. Yesterday I know that during the time we were at the beach, climbing rocks and looking for perfectly smooth stones, it was the best part of the day. Because there we are just as at ease as we are at home... only with the sounds of the sea that you cannot replicate anywhere else except sitting close to the waves at high tide where you can only hear the smile of the person next to you because the waves drown out the whines and complaints.... and you are left with giggles and ocean spray and the knowledge that you hold a little bit of space in this vast universe... and that space is beautiful.