ringing endorsements
The other night while we were eating supper N looked at T and noticed that he hadn’t started eating his soup yet. He turned towards T and said, “uh, Dad. Have you tried your soup yet? You might, like die!”.
Last night while I was putting G to bed she took my face between her two little hands and said, “I loves you Mommy. You duh bestest, gweatest Mommy in duh whole wide woooold”. And then she smiled and said, “Stop being so goooorgeous!” So I replied, “But I am so gorgeous”. “Yes, yes you is. Dat’s why I loves you”.
It’s nice to have a place to store these little memories. They are like a little hug on a tough day.
Filed under Kiddies | Comment (0)saturday morning wake up
This morning I was lying in bed half awake when N came barreling into our room and yelled, “Dance party! Music’s on!”. He proceeded to plug in his gettoblaster, crank his favourite dance tunes and then dance with frantic abandon all over the bed, T and I. Despite not wanting to wake up, it was a pleasing way to start the day (and continued to improve when T went downstairs with the kids to keep up the party and I fell back to sleep).
Rock out!
Filed under Kiddies, Laughing | Comment (0)i remember you
Dear Oma,
It was six years ago today that you died. I miss you. I still cry for you. I though you would want to know that. I miss so much about you. Our chat’s on the phone. Tuna sandwiches. Crepes fried in waaaaay too much Crisco, smothered in jam. Watching you knit. I started knitting, Oma. T’s Mom taugh me last fall in the German way. I know you tried to teach me when I was younger but I wasn’t interested then. I love it now. I make beautiful things just like you did. Do you know that I have a box downstairs full of things that you knit for me? I just wish I still had those brutal leg warmers you made me one year for Christmas. L and I laughed and laughed over them but we loved that you tried to make us something cool. It was the 80’s, afterall! I wish you could teach me how to cable and do intarsia. It is hard to learn on my own. You would have been patient.
One of the things I am most disappointed about is that you never met my kids. You would just love them. My N has a big wide smile and he throws his head back when he laughs. He would love to visit your apartment, go swimming in the pool and feel you slip a loonie in his hand to buy a treat “downstairs”. He likes Reeses Peanut Butter Cups too. He has a generous heart and is a thinker like his Dad. He used to be really shy but he is getting more and more confident. You should see him tearing around our street on his “big boy bike with no training wheels not even one”! He reminds me of M sometimes. There is something in his face that looks like him. He is a special boy. I know you would have agreed.
And then there is my beautiful daughter. G is trouble Oma, just like I was! You can’t help but love her. I think you would say that she is “cheeky like her Mother”! When G was born, I kept my promise to you. Her middle name is Elisabeth, spelt for you. She has pretty blue eyes and messy blonde hair that she is constantly sweeping out of her eyes. She looks so much like Mom. It’s nice to have a little glimps of my Mom everyday when I am so far away from her. G is funny and spunky and very smart. She has big emotions. Big happy, big sad, big mad, all in the course of 5 minutes. Sound familiar? She hates wearing socks. I told her the other day that my Oma would have gotten after her for not keeping her feet warm! You always used to drive us crazy about wearing slippers. I’d love to hear you nag me again. My fond hope is that you have gotten a look at my kids from Heaven.
My girlfriend told me last night that her Grandma is dying and that her children have decided not to tell her. They have instructed the doctors and nurses not to tell her either. Isn’t that devestatingly sad? I was thinking about your death last night. You knew you were dying and you did it with such dignity and grace, especially once you accepted my parents help. Some of my most precious memories come from our chats after you knew your cancer was terminal. You weren’t always very open or emotionally honest but in the end you were so real and authentic. Your death touched so many people. Thank you for the words you spoke to me. I remember everything you said. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to say goodbye and to not have a single regret in our relationship. I got to be with you when you let go of this life and met your Creator. Thank you for waiting for me to get home so we could say goodbye. I can’t wait to see you again one day.
Ich werde immer Sie und lieben, den ich nie aufhören werde, Sie zu verpassen.
Rachel
Filed under Family | Comment (0)about #2
I think I might take back number two from yesterday’s post. I’m all for neck nuzzling, it’s just that the amount of nuzzling I received last night corresponds directly to both the lack of sleep I had and my current headache. Both our kids took turns in our bed and they both drooled on my pillow and breathed in my face. Long gone are the days of breast milk sweetened breath! So for now, let’s replace “when my children sleep nuzzled in my neck (and don’t kick)” with “listening to my children’s belly laugh’s”. Much better!
Filed under Kiddies | Comment (0)ten things i like
1. Clean sheet day, especially when the sheets have been hung outside to dry.
2. When my children sleep nuzzled in my neck (and don’t kick).
3. Cooking with my husband.
4. Sitting on the rock under my Oma’s tree at our cottage, letting my legs dangle over the edge, watching the lake flow into the river.
5. Teaching my children something new like how to bake bread, ride a bike or try to knit and seeing the look of thrilled amazment on their faces when they are successful.
6. Pink grapefruit coolers.
7. Traditions, particularly of the food variety.
8. Creamed onions with roast beef.
9. Knitting.
10. Talking with T in bed with the lights off.
learning
1. Live with a clear conscience.
2. Walk in grace.
3. Live openly, authentically and in a way that desires other’s highest good.
4. Let my word be dependable.
5. Do my part and don’t force others.
Confidence.
Truth.
Can’t really go wrong with these.
Filed under Me, me, me, me, Ya, I really do think… | Comment (0)muddy water
Lately I have been reading Tracy Thompson’s book, “The Ghost in the House”, on maternal depression and have found it facinating and informative. It has been a serious wake up call to me and has clenched my heart several times. I’ve learned so much about myself that I didn’t realize. Like how long I’ve struggled with depression and haven’t realized it, that just because I tend to bite people’s heads off and hyperventilate rather than hide in bed with the covers over mine, that my struggle is still called “depression”, that the tapes I play over and over in my head about my body image, my self-worth, my need to be perfect, my “all or nothing” mentality, the guilt, the failure etc come from a depressed mindset not a fatally flawed person, that my craving for carbs when I’m down makes sense (as does the subsequent guilt and vomitous feeling I get when I look at my butt in the mirror) and finally, that I am not alone.
I have been trying so hard to feel better but it is just not working. I’ve been doing all the things that I know how to cope but nothing lifts that black cloud of irritation and anxiety. I am lonely. I am overcome with a general sense of my complete inability to seemingly do anything well. I doubt my friends. I question my husbands motives. I am profoundly comforted and madly overwhelmed by my children. I can’t stand my dog. I hate the clutter in my house and feel like I am just not a good enough housewife. I know that I am a good mom to my kids but I drown in the guilt that I don’t do enough, play enough, have playdates enough… I just want to feel as though I have gone through a day knowing that I did my best and that it was good.
I don’t know how to feel better when all I want to do is lie on the couch in silence. I don’t want to get anyone “juice and water”, I don’t want to read, I don’t want to do laundry, make supper, do the dishes, clean the pooh left on the side of the toilet by a little girl who just couldn’t stay put, direct the kids to pick up the toys in the playroom, chase the dog around the kitchen table like an idiot trying to get a freaking pull up away from her. I DON’T WANT TO DO IT ALL but I am the Mom so I do it all because if I don’t, who will?
Lord, in your Word you promised you wouldn’t give me more than I can handle. This feels like too much. Up to this sentence I’ve had to comfort one child twice, get water for another and then fold myself into a toddler bed, have snot bubbles blown on my cheek and grubby fingers shoved in my mouth by a third (thankfully the fouth child settled into sleep as soon as he was in Mommy’s bed with the covers pulled way up). Is there healing power in snot that I was not aware of? Do you want me to feel better by giving to others? I told the first one that he is special and that I love him very much, I told the second that I am glad he is here today and later I held my little girl and prayed for her. I am good to the kids. I have given and they have drank deeply from my well. It’s just that they are never satisfied and the well is running dry. How do I quench their thirst with muddy water? I feel that is all I have to offer right now, muddy water.
Filed under A time to cry, Me, me, me, me | Comment (0)