My eyes open with a tiny face an inch away saying, “Pee! Yeah!” and this prompts me to sit up and look for a puddle above or soaked into the bed. I’m not startled, exactly, because I know that I’ll handle it. Having children expands the (exponentially!) the capacity to adapt.

No pee spots that I can find without my glasses. I put them on and bring a smiling 1 and a half year old to the potty. She giggles and points at her accomplishment and we both smile.

This is the first day in 5 or 6 days that I feel like I actually slept. Often, I am filled with the feeling that the kids need more than I have to give. This is an ongoing, unhelpful, inner conversation where a part of me arguing with another part about what it means to be a parent.

Lots and lots and lots of people have this or similar strife about raising children. More than anything, it feels like a split between caring for others and caring for oneself. And the balance is constant and hard to maintain.

People ask me for things, for answers, that I simply do not have. I try to remember a time when I pressed someone for information that no one can know. I try to remember what was said to me that gave me hope.

Hope is its own entity. Existing without reason or proof. Words don’t capture what it feels like, what hope is like. Language is something we made so we could share experiences with one another, but language is limited. The most important pieces are felt and known.

You know when you are doing something that is congruent with Hope.

You just do.

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

― Mark Twain

For me, it’s 35. This is the year I fully realized all the many, many things that my parents had tried to show me all along 🙂

Take time to cherish the ones you love!

Terra

I hope for a future where children and older people are treated with as much respect as a CEO or a President.

Think of this: the way you treat different people as you go about your day. The clerk at the gas station, your kiddos, your friends, a co-worker or supervisor. People who are beautiful, who match, and have cared for lawns. People who are smelly, and overweight, whose children are sticky and tell you that they hate you.

Sometimes, when I am mean to my kids, I imagine myself very old and frail. I think of them caring for me and feeling exhausted. And I wonder if they will yell at me or just not listen or pay attention to me. I think of all the power I have now, over their lives, and I ask God to help me to use the power I have to serve in their development, in their growth, in the spirit of Love.

When I drive to work, I try to see each driver. For a moment I think, “Who are you? Where are you headed?”

I read a book called, “The Body Keep the Score” where a researcher reviewed the nature of trauma, the effects of being harmed or neglected by other people, and one part that really jumped out of the page was the phrase, “Seen and Known.”

Bottom line: People can endure so much if they only experience someone else as seeing and knowing them.

And we all have the chance, the opportunity, to be there for each other in that way. Seeing and Knowing.

There it is! The abandoned building at the end of our block. It used to be an addiction rehabilitation/mental hospital.

If I was incredibly rich, I would buy it and convert it into a community center and a rabbit rescue.

What it’s good for, right now, is a safe place for Sam to bike around the empty parking lot. That’s right…Sam learned how to ride a bike this past weekend with his Dad while the girls and I were at a Bridal Shower 🙂

More on this dream at a later date. Happy Monday!

Terra

He is heading for the lab,

She holds her hands to call a cab.

smile and wave and watch the car;

In the future they are far.

Hear the baby snort and snuff,

this moment is my

Enough.

You want me to eat the crust,

oh, I will Love you

long after I

am

dust.

Twenty months ago, in the garage that has been transformed into a movie theater, I was watching, “The Big Lebowski” with my husband. My first time watching the film, I was feeling glad for the chance to find out what the buzz was about. Bowling, white russians, and a tumble weed. The side door of the garage opened, my husband paused it, and my step-dad and my mom come in.

My Step-Dad hands me a box of tissues, “You’ll need this.” He says.

“I have stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer.” He gives me a hug and I cry. Mom cries. My husband cries. He goes on to say that he is uncertain how much longer he’ll live. Without treatment, a doctor tells him that he has two months left. Six months pregnant, at that time, I wonder if he will live to meet this little baby.

I drift away. Far off, to a place, where this type of news is seen but not felt.

More than twenty years ago, in the basement of my aunt’s house, I was watching a drama about a girl having an adventure with her family. On Wednesdays, my aunt and her husband would go bowling while I babysat their three children for a couple of hours. The kiddos were sweet and I looked forward to watching movies after I put them to bed.

My Dad comes down the stairs and asks, “Do you want to watch, ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos?”

I decline that offer on the basis of not wanting to watch people fall into tables, wedding cakes, or each other. My Dad’s hurt expression lives forever in my eye lids. I try to take it back, but he is heading up the stairs and out the door.

I stand there. Holding on to a clear understanding that some mistakes can’t be undone.

All my life I’ve loved to read. Books are filled with stories. Pieces from the hearts of my fellow humans. Romance, mystery, historically accurate or completely outrageous; they all fit together on a shelf. I have lived so many lives, seen so much of this world (and other worlds!) and the amount left to learn is limitless.

Twenty years old, a sophomore in college, I destroyed one book. It was not something I had done before or since. The smug smile of the author caught my eye and I torn all the pages out. Then, I tore them into smaller bits and threw the bits up. I watched them float down, angry snowflakes falling on dirty dorm carpet.

Rewind back, two months before that, I was highlighting and underlining feverishly attempting to rework my mind. All of the chapters seemed to offer some simple precise  way of handling every situation that life could throw at a person.

“Ah,” I said to myself while sitting on the floor of the shower, “All this time I been sweating the small stuff.” Yep. I was sitting on the floor of a communal shower. What the heck?! Thirty-five year old me is totally grossed out. Anyway.

Something sad happened. A relationship that meant a lot to me ended. And I just flipped. Because it’s not small stuff. It’s NOT ALL SMALL STUFF.

It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to feel angry or afraid.

Being truthful with yourself brings freedom.

And when you are free you can open up to peace, love, and joy.

Sometimes, it seems like people (myself included!) confuse the difference between living a life that’s comfortable with a life that is meaningful.

There’s more here….but I need some shut-eye 🙂

Hugs!

Terra

Again with the Saturday work!

I get into these loops trying to make the best possible choices for my family and other important people in my life.

Despite my best efforts, I’m looking at 4 hours of paperwork/assessment/treatment plan creation on a Saturday.

I feel like a bad mom for spending even less time with my children!

But its all about perspective, right? Maybe I’m not using my time efficiently during the week. In-between each therapy session is a 7 minute time to write notes. Sometimes, I can make that happen.

Other times, I feel like a radio that is not tuned in. It’s like CKCKCCCCCCSSSSHHHHHHHHH, this fuzzy, foggy, noise.

I just stare off and 7 minutes rapidly evaporates.

I’ve been trying to use “Solution Focused” techniques on myself, but its pretty challenging.

Still, I believe that getting this done, between now and 4pm will give me tonight and all day tomorrow to given my family my calm, undivided attention 🙂

The picture below is one Ariel, age 4, took of me and Fiona. Hugs! Terra

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

I didn’t get Christmas Cards out this year 😦 So, the end of this post contains the best pictures from 2015!

As a notorious Christmas-time Grinch, Scrooge, whathaveyou, I am often at my gruuuuuummmmpist during this season. Well documented from teenage journals and this blog, I’m not sure about the solution (except acceptance because I have tried many ideas over the years).

What is “Acceptance”?

A quick search hands me this:
“Simple Definition of acceptance
: the act of accepting something or someone
: the quality or state of being accepted or acceptable”

Hmm. Accepting, Accepted, Acceptable.

Full Definition of accept
transitive verb
1
a : to receive willingly <accept a gift>
b : to be able or designed to take or hold (something applied or added) <a surface that will not accept ink>
2
: to give admittance or approval to <accept her as one of the group>
3
a : to endure without protest or reaction <accept poor living conditions>
b : to regard as proper, normal, or inevitable <the idea is widely accepted>
c : to recognize as true : believe <refused to accept the explanation>
4
a : to make a favorable response to <accept an offer>
b : to agree to undertake (a responsibility) <accept a job>
5
: to assume an obligation to pay; also : to take in payment <we don’t accept personal checks>
6
: to receive (a legislative report) officially

Okay, let’s try “Accept defined for Kids” because Lord knows the movie “Big” is the only explanation for my current age!

Student Dictionary

One entry found for accept.
Main Entry: ac·cept
Pronunciation: ik-primarystresssept, ak-
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English accepten “receive, accept,” from early French accepter (same meaning), derived from Latin accipere “receive,” from ac-, ad- “to” and capere “to take” –related to CAPTURE, EXCEPT, RECEIVE
1 a : to receive or take willingly <accept a gift> <accepted her as a member> b : to be able or designed to take or hold (something applied or added) <a surface that will not accept ink> <a computer program ready to accept commands>
2 a : to agree to <accept an offer> b : to agree to undertake (a responsibility) <accept a job> c : to take on an obligation to pay; also : to take in payment <don’t accept checks>
3 : to think of as proper or normal <the idea is widely accepted>
– ac·cept·er or ac·cep·tor /-primarystresssep-tschwar/ noun

Whoa! That Student Dictionary definition was the most challenging. What the?!

Sidebar: Ariel stopped by, a minute ago, to inform me, “All you do is work! You don’t play with us!” 1,995 photos that were just imported from my phone tell a different story…but perhaps there is truth in my impairment with regards to Play.

Children are the toughest critics. Not intentionally, its only that…as I age…I care less and less and less about what anyone thinks about me or my actions.

Yet, it matters more than ever how my children experience our time together. 

It feels like I try to prepare them for the world, but if I was a really good parent I would be preparing them to change the world.

It reminds me of a Bible quote, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways.”

Children are here to show us something new. Something more beautiful than what is already occurring. This is the way of life.

Merry Christmas!