For 3 Someone Elses and a Dog.

I guess you could say that mothering is a full-time job.  I guess you could, but it would be totally misleading.  Mothering is not even close to a full-time job.  It’s like two full-time jobs where you live at work, and eat at work, and never get to walk away from work like that woman I see walking home from Eden every night.  She jaunts out the door, swings her purse over her shoulder and lets her skirt sashay across the parking lot, across the street, down the sidewalk.  Sometimes she’s on the phone, making plans for the evening.  Sometimes she’s reading a book.  Sometimes she’s just walking, breathing in the outdoor seasons, filled with the knowledge that work is behind her and need not be acknowledged until tomorrow morning.  Sometimes I am positively green, watching her saunter along…how I wish I could saunter!  

I am a mother of two boys, a dog, and wife to one husband.  That’s a lot of needs waiting to be filled.  And they expect me to fill them.  Most days I am honored to be that servant.  I love the old hymn that asks, “Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you? Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.”  Then there are those other days; those days when that special moment I had carved out of the day just for me gets snatched out from under me and I fall into the my-life-stinks sinkhole of self pity.  My shower is interrupted by a boy emptying out the cabinets looking for band-aids and muttering, “I’m bleeding I think, so I need a band-aid but I don’t see them, and they’re usually here but where are they!? MOM!  Where’d you put the band-aids!?” My reading time is interrupted by a teething baby who won’t sleep, or a four-year old insisting there are crocodiles under the bed chewing on his books.  My phone call with my best friend is hijacked with, “MO-oom!! I need sumpin’!”  That precious mocha I saved my pennies for gets spilled when somebody climbs over the backseat of the car in the grocery store parking lot.  I am interrupted from an exciting editing job by a little one wandering into the room covered in a mysterious viscous substance.  I come upstairs with a sigh after putting the boys to bed to find the dog on the dining room table chowing down on the leftovers I had planned on feeding the family for lunch tomorrow, and yet again, there’s a need.  I am the only one to fill it.  Clean up the mess, bandage the hurt, reassure the fearful, discipline the naughty, find the lost, and so on and on and on.

I had it.  Tonight at the dinner table my husband noted my unhappiness (it would take a seriously self-interested introvert to not notice my dramatic sighs and slouching shoulders).  He asked if I was going to be okay.  With a pout to prove I am my son’s mother I responded, “I just want to take my journal, and a pen, and hike out into the wilderness and stay there forever!”  Luke promptly responded, “Oh no, Mom.  You’d get eaten by a bear or sumping.”  And I laughed, and the laughter turned into crying, and the sinkhole turned out to be a pothole.  I knew he was right.  I would get eaten by a bear!   I would miss little boys who in all seriousness suggest with concern that I would get eaten by a bear. I would miss their incessant yammering and the inappropriate shouting.  I would miss my husband’s distracted fathering, and even his inability to put his pants away properly.  I would miss letting the dog out the back door and shushing him while he tears around barking at birds on the fence.  I would miss filling a need for someone else; for three someone elses, and a dog.   

   

 

 

Seamus says

Seamus is saying lots of words these days, and trying new ones every day.  His repertoire now includes, but is not limited to:

Apple

Papa

Daddy (which is remarkable because Luke always said Dadd-n)

Mommy

Toy

Up*

Down

Fish*

Eye (and he points to his eye)

Diaper*

*these ones he says with the sign and vocally 

 

Luke Says:

(with a band-aid on his finger) I have to leave my finger flat like this forever - like until tomorrow!

You need a dog to clean your floors after we have dinner here because we are messy eaters, grandma.

We got a bulk-en board, Dad! (bulletin board)

I wish I had three hands.

Do I want some cheese? Well, you broke my arm! (twisted)

Seamus and I will go somewhere else while you go to the chiropractor so you don't have two handfuls along.  Like maybe we'll go to the grocery store or just...I don't know, visit Dad or something.

One Crowded Couch

Date Night Splurge

This date night was particularly special, thanks to the generosity of Derek's folks.  They loaned us their gorgeous, and very 'cush (the backseat is a couch!!) Harley Davidson for the evening.  And to frost our delightful two-wheeled cake, they baby-sat our boys.  What a date!  What parents!
 

I got to enjoy the wind in my hair (under my helmet, of course) all the way to Altona and back.  Derek got to enjoy his first drive in five years!  We ate at a new-to-us restaurant, loved everything on our plates, and still had everything to look forward to in the open road, gorgeous sunset, and roaring engine all the way home.

 

As I listened to the motorcycle, watched the harvest going on just across the field, smelled the dead skunk up close and personal, appreciated the connectedness I felt with the passing landscape while driving with no walls or windows, I concluded that I married precisely the perfect kind of man.  He grew up riding motorcycles and dirt bikes, and made what I consider to be a very deliberate and wise sacrifice, selling his motorcycle to help pay for college.  He knows how to ride motorcycles safely (from experience and a saturation of wisdom from his father riding motorcycle before him), has a deep love for the activity, looks super cool in black leather, and also values education and enjoys a quiet evening at home reading theology or murder mysteries.  This is the most complimentary set of qualities I can imagine in a man, particularly in my man.  My husband can take me on a ride on motorcycle, or in our imagination, through the pages of a book or sermon.

These are exactly the musings date night is supposed to inspire.

Luke Says: Table Games

We started playing the "I'm an animal" table game this evening, and I was It.  I started with, "I have a long tail, I'm short enough to walk under a car, and I have a short squishy face".  Luke shouted, "You're a dinosaur!"
"No, listen carefully.  I'm short enough to walk under a car."
"And you're not a dinosaur," he mused.
"That's right.  I'll give you one more hint.  I'm very furry."
"You're a CAT!" Luke shouted...correct at last.

Then it was Luke's turn.  "I'm small, but with a long tail, and...,"dropping to a whisper, "Ask me if I'm a gecko."
I was coughing up my taco salad in a very unladylike fit so Derek answered politely and without smirking (how did he manage that?!), "Are you a gecko?"
"Yes!" exclaimed Luke.

Then it was Derek's turn.  "I'm very tall, and muscular, and people sometimes like to ride on my back."
"You're a dinosaur!!" shouted Luke
"Do people ride on dinosaurs?"
"Some people do."
"Well I'll give you one more clue, I live on a farm."
"Oh I know," said Luke laughing, "You're a horse!"

When it was Luke's turn again the game took a really interesting turn.  Luke started with, "I'm a square.  Square-ish.  Square shape.  I'm the shape of a mailbox."
Despite the mutually agreed upon name of the game, "I'm an animal", I followed him down his funny little rabbit hole and asked, "Are you a sewing machine?".
"Nope!" Luke continued, "I have a door."
This time not managing to suppress his grin Derek answered with the question, "Are you a mailbox?"
So much for my taco salad.  In my hysterics I am afraid the taco salad en route to my throat did not quite make it. 

Table Games.

Do you play table games?  What are they?  We'd like to have a few more.

Seamus the Cat: I'm Walkin' in My New Shoes!

If you don't understand the reference in the title, run - RUN to your nearest library and check out all the Pete the Cat books you can find...especially if they come with a groovy CD.  You will not regret it.  And you may get a funky new earworm (that's actually what the experts call it when a song gets stuck in your head!), "I love my blue shoes, I love my blue shoes!"

An evening at the park

Meandering and Fellow Artist Promos

I have been very busy lately with photography.  Very busy for me, you understand, is busy relative to the speed of a day with two children whose legs are at most half as long as yours...in other words, not terribly.  But it's kept my mind occupied, even when I'm not physically going.  Today, for the first time in a while, I decided to take a day off of editing and thinking about editing, photo shoots and thinking about photo shoots, designing and thinking about designing...and I'm finding it difficult to sit still.  I wander around thinking there's something to do, but have trouble directing my thoughts into and all the way through an activity.

I am meandering.

Is there a cure?

I wonder if this is a result of our society's emphasis on production = success...
I wonder if this is a result of my genetic similarity to Judith Bergen ...
I wonder if this is a result of not doing much photography for so long, and then so much all at once...
I wonder if I like being busy with photography...
I wonder if this meandering is my mind "detoxing" ...
I wonder if I shouldn't have given myself a break, but just kept pushing through until it was all done...
I wonder...is it good? is it bad? is it a sign of something else? am I thinking too much?

As part of this meandering journey, here is something I allowed myself to be distracted by for a large part of this afternoon: a woman with whom Dad and I attended a cheese workshop (my Dad, the lactose intolerant, attended a cheese workshop just for fun - that tells you a lot about him) a couple of years ago phoned me today to let me know she had painted a watercolor from a photo she took that day...here's the painting...isn't it lovely?!  Well, sure it's lovely.  But it's distracting is what it is.  Click on the photo to see Diana Persson's website and gallery.  She's a very talented painter!  Her talent has kept me from doing all kinds of things I should have done this afternoon...yes, I am passing the buck.  But since she will likely never see this blog, I imagine she won't mind.  And in the meantime I'll feel better about my indecisive activity.  Oho!  I have just linked you to Diana Persson's website, so now I'm doing artist promos on my website - I've never done that before - I'm being uber-productive! It's all in your perspective.  Let's ask Dad what he thinks:  Hm, it's a tough one.

This painting is called, "Thinking of Cheese".

I think my mind kinda looks like swiss today.

Down Home Summer

Summer looks a lot like this, this year. 
Bike riding,
garden/jungle adventures,
zinnias (my new favorite - yes they have usurped the sweet pea in the "just for looks category" although nothing can surpass sweet peas for "scent"),
grass and sand in everybody's pants!

It's a beautiful summer on roadrunner bay.