Many of my memories, I think are from photographs. We document the bigger moments, look through pictures and these are the things I tend to most remember about my children. I try to think back to when Gav was a baby and there's not a great deal I remember that isn't in his album. With Brayden, it's even more of a blur, since there were two babies and I was just trying to wade through the days...barely aware of what was going on. Amanda, well, there are less pictures and more chaos.
However, in the middle of it all, there are those stand out moments. They aren't from a camera, or a story passed down...just seemingly silly, or obsolete moments from an outsiders view, but in a mom's (or dad's heart) it is imprinted. It's these moments that make my heart ache. It's a sweet ache. An ache of time gone by so fast, an ache of recognizing there is a big world ahead and I won't always be there, an ache of affection, an ache of longing to hold on to this moment.
Yesterday, Amanda was wandering down the hall. On her lower half was a fuschia tutu skirt, leggings, one up and one down and crazy striped socks. Her upper half was adorned with an oversized lime green jersey from the boy's soccer and topping it off was two bedhead, lopsided pigtails. She turned to smile back and me, then singing waddled off as fast as her legs could carry her to get in the boys door before it closed on her. Throwing back one more triumphant smile she turned and entered their room.
The ache began. I am thankful for this ache and these moments. Most days, I am probably pushing my kids to grow up too fast. Waiting for the day, bottoms are wiped by themselves and everyone gets their seatbelts buckled alone. But these are the moments that remind us to hold on, slow down and thank God that we have little ones...with crazy oversized jersey's and lopsided pigtails, lighting up our day.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
I used to play scrabble
One of my favorite games growing up was scrabble. It's a family thing. Only my sister hates it, but mom, dad and I play for blood. A low scoring game is in the high 200s and well...we know all the two letter words that make no sense, the ones that involve an X and the Q words that have no U. It's ridiculous. Even in college I loved to play and if I am not mistaken I went undefeated (unless you don't count Zebrafish as a proper noun, in which case, I may have lost once).
Now...I play candyland. I am pretty sure my brain atrophies a bit more every time I get sent back to the peanut and I groan everytime the peppermint candy card is drawn because, once again the game is prolonged. I also play Chutes and Ladders and I would like to personally take out the man who created the board with way more Chutes, three of which are on the top of the game board...right next to the end of the game. Was the maker intentionally trying to torture us parents...just when we see the light at the end of the tunnel and the game might be over -BAM! Down the chute you go. It really is awful.
All that to say, I seem to have digressed in many areas and I would like to get my brain back. Maybe my sense of fashion too (my sister may argue here that I never had one...but I at least had some fun shoes). Raising kids just does that to you I guess. One day I was making a shrimp linguini...the next mac and cheese.
As we are starting to move out of "babyhood" into the wonderful world of kiddy kingdom, I am find more chunks of time to do things. They are little chunks. In no way am I going to take up writing a novel or refinishing furniture, but I have managed to pop out a few things on the sewing machine, I have been reading more and the other day, I even managed to make a homemade card. I feel good about this.
I also taught my daughter the word baby, got Brayden to ride around the block on his big boy bike and after much encouragement, watched Gavin build his own train track without my help (huge deal here, that I was not involved). And as much as I have certain days where I feel starved for some uninterrupted time, I do believe the latter of my accomplishments by far outweigh the former.
And so, I guess for now, I will have to let my brain take a bit of a break as I give up skimming the new scrabble dictionary and spin the wheel one more time on the High Ho Cherry O board, waiting to see if the bird eats my fruit. Because everytime he does, my kids giggle...I love that sound and I am pretty confident the scrabble board could not produce it!
Now...I play candyland. I am pretty sure my brain atrophies a bit more every time I get sent back to the peanut and I groan everytime the peppermint candy card is drawn because, once again the game is prolonged. I also play Chutes and Ladders and I would like to personally take out the man who created the board with way more Chutes, three of which are on the top of the game board...right next to the end of the game. Was the maker intentionally trying to torture us parents...just when we see the light at the end of the tunnel and the game might be over -BAM! Down the chute you go. It really is awful.
All that to say, I seem to have digressed in many areas and I would like to get my brain back. Maybe my sense of fashion too (my sister may argue here that I never had one...but I at least had some fun shoes). Raising kids just does that to you I guess. One day I was making a shrimp linguini...the next mac and cheese.
As we are starting to move out of "babyhood" into the wonderful world of kiddy kingdom, I am find more chunks of time to do things. They are little chunks. In no way am I going to take up writing a novel or refinishing furniture, but I have managed to pop out a few things on the sewing machine, I have been reading more and the other day, I even managed to make a homemade card. I feel good about this.
I also taught my daughter the word baby, got Brayden to ride around the block on his big boy bike and after much encouragement, watched Gavin build his own train track without my help (huge deal here, that I was not involved). And as much as I have certain days where I feel starved for some uninterrupted time, I do believe the latter of my accomplishments by far outweigh the former.
And so, I guess for now, I will have to let my brain take a bit of a break as I give up skimming the new scrabble dictionary and spin the wheel one more time on the High Ho Cherry O board, waiting to see if the bird eats my fruit. Because everytime he does, my kids giggle...I love that sound and I am pretty confident the scrabble board could not produce it!
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