Ok, Break! Katy Perry Dance Party – GO.

You know, sometimes it’s frustrating to try to work from home at the same time as parenting.

But then there are moments where Katy Perry’s Firework comes on iTunes and Braden runs into the room and is all “ZOMG THAT IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE SONGS EVAR” and then I’m all “NO. FREAKING. WAY. Do you wanna bust a move with me to it?” and he’s all “ARE YOU KIDDING? YESSSSSS.” And then that happens.

#winning

“I Need To Ask You About A Part Of My Body I Don’t Know About”

That’s what I heard from the bathroom the other night during Braden’s bathtime. Was I afraid? No. Was I offput? No. I’ve always been frank and open with him about his body, including telling him the actual names for things rather than the cute ones. Now, if you want to teach your children that they have a pee-pee instead of a penis, I don’t hold it against you, but that’s just not for me, man. I teach my son that he has a penis, we fart instead of pooting, and when a bitch gets uppity, you gotta smack that bitch down. Okay, so maybe I got a little carried away there at the end, but you get what I mean.

So when Braden made this announcement, I marched right in there and told him to go for it. He was sitting there looking very calm and relaxed, and at my arrival he stood up. With a glorious erection. If that wasn’t enough (it really, really was enough. no. really.) then he yanked at his testicle skin and demanded, “What. is. THIS?”

“Testicles.”
“But what’s INSIDE there?”
“It’s skin on the outside, and on the inside those are your testicles.”
“Okay. But what happens if I… SQUISH THEM?”
“Um. Well. They are very delicate and if you hit, yank, smash, or SQUISH them, it will probably hurt very bad. So be careful with them, okay?”

>pause. pensive look.<

“Okay, Mommy.”

>sits back down in bath. more pensive look<

“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Actually? It feels very nice when I squish my testicles with my fingers. I like that. I like it very much.”
“Braden?”
“Yes, Mommy?”
“I’m happy for you. I’m going to leave the room now.”
“Okay, Mommy.”

>quiet moment<

From the bathroom:

“MY TESTICLES LOOK LIKE ALMONDS!”

“MOMMY? WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?”

Merry Christmas To All And To All A Good Night

mapping the vault of memories

Children laugh a lot. It is a beautiful thing.

A few nights ago, I heard my son laugh from upstairs. The laughter tinkled merrily down the stairs from up high to down where I was standing in the kitchen. It was the laugh of a four year old – giddy, unrestrained, and in those chucklesome, high-pitched, and somehow fairy-like tones that only children that young can achieve.

That night I heard the free, sincere, heartfelt laughter of my son, and I had a thought, suddenly. It hit me without consideration and washed over me harshly. It did not care what I was doing when it came on, or where it would leave me after it fled into the night beyond me.

And the thought was this:

There will come a day when I will not be so privileged as to hear that sound anymore as a common occurrence in my life, my day to day What Is, my moments possible to take for granted (even though I don’t want to). There will come a time when that laugh does not even exist anymore.

There will be a day when forever more I will not be able to hear that sound. His laughter will still be accessible to me (sometimes) but it will never sound that way again. It will become lost forever in the vault, deep and wide and sometimes difficult to navigate, that contains my lifetime of memories.

And memories have this awful way of fading and being so hard to recall in a tangible way, so hard to truly feel in the same way as they were once experienced.

I stood there, at the foot of the stairs, frozen in that moment. I stood there, playing that brief sound over and over in my head, savoring it. I was all alone, and may have nearly appeared catatonic in that moment of true consideration and revelation.

Braden may never know that he’s ever done something so simple but so incredibly and effortlessly meaningful that it captivated his mother so greatly. He might not realize that she once stood quietly relishing the joyous beauty of a 3 second laugh he uttered about a little bit of something more than nothing that faded into the night without him giving it another passing thought.

When I write these moments, it is like I’m drawing a map to put up on the inside of that vault, so that when I dive into it later, so much later, maybe I can find these most important of thoughts and feelings, these memories of the most golden days, and hold them near me again for a few moments.

And I will know.

And now you do, too.

Taking the heart road.

Sometimes Braden (now age 4.5) asks me how to say things in Spanish. I go to this website and we enter words and then we learn now to say them together. He especially enjoys the feature where you can actually listen to a pronunciation of the word. Unfortunately, however, he gets really frustrated when we encounter a Spanish word with an “r” in it, and he can’t say it exactly the same way. I’ve tried to help him learn how to roll his r’s, but he hasn’t been successful yet.

Today he asked how to say “tree” in Spanish. The answer is “arbol.” He became very frustrated about the sound of his r’s again. I began encouraging him to keep trying, but he just kept telling me, “NO, because I CAN’T do it.” This prompted me to launch into a long discussion with him about how you have to keep trying when you can’t do something the first time, rather than giving up, if you really want to learn it. I even gave him examples from my childhood.

(I totally went through torturous and seemingly endless trials in front of the bathroom mirror to learn how to roll my tongue. I was going to be damned if my brother could do that and I could not, and refused to believe the BS idea everyone was feeding me that it’s a genetic trait and you can’t do it unless you inherit that. IN YO FACE, FALSE POP SCIENCE.)

Braden indicated he didn’t agree with my sage advice about trying and learning. So I told him that he can take a slightly easier path and trust my advice, or he can be stubborn and take the hard road through life. He considered this for a few moments, and replied, “I think that instead, I am going to take the heart road, Mommy.”

Me: “What?”
Braden: “I’m going to take the heart road instead.”
Me: “Oh? What is that road like?”
Braden: “It has lots of heart patterns on it. Red ones and pink ones too, and I like them. And lots of heart rocks. And heart shaped trees.”
Me: “How does that make you feel?”
Braden: “It makes me feel so happy.”
Me: “And where does this road lead?”
Braden: “It leads to everywhere you want to go. And there are stars racing in the sky.”

My friends, the heart road is paved with red and pink heart patterns, strewn with heart rocks, and lined with heart shaped trees. It will make you feel happy, stars will race in the sky overhead as you travel, and it leads to “everywhere you want to go.”

I guess being happy on “the heart road” is better than being miserable while struggling to learn rolling your r’s in the long run, huh? This kid kind of totally disarms me every damn day. And he really has no idea how brilliant these things he says really are.

I’m still a firm believer in trying for the things you desire, but I’m glad to have someone in my life who reminds me it’s not always a bad idea to voluntarily take the heart road.

Sharing my joy.

Every single time I look at these, I feel pure joy. Thought I’d share that with all of you.
You don’t mind a little joy in your life today, do you? *wink*

Happy Saturday!

Wonder. #reverb10

During December, I will be reflecting on my year and manifesting what’s next by participating in Reverb 10. Maybe you’d like to join me?

December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Prompt Author: Jeffrey Davis)

There are two things which are a large part of my life that help me maintain a sense of wonder on a regular basis: my photography habit and my son.

I am very rarely far from a camera, and am very often photographing the world around me, from the spectacular to the mundane.

What I have developed over many years of doing this is an ability to actually notice things that I used to take for granted.  The longer I do this, the easier it has become for me to see the small things in life, things which contain such huge beauty if only you notice them for what they are.

It is an amazing gift that is bestowed upon the habitually practicing photographer, and one that I will always be grateful to possess.

Every day is full of things you do  not expect… practice awareness.

Part of that lies in having a sense of wonder, and that really needs flexing, too!  Luckily, my second muse helps with that.

If you’re a parent who pays attention to the way your child sees the world, you know what I mean when I credit my son with helping me cultivate and maintain a sense of wonder.  His viewpoint continually renews my ability and desire to explore, discover, believe, enjoy, and love.

“Mommy, that beetle is not moving.”

“Yes, I see that.”

“Why is he not moving?  I think something is wrong.  What is wrong?”

“Well, that beetle is dead, honey.”

*pondering silence*

“Well, then, we should recharge his batteries, so he can have energy again.”

The world is full of possibilities for him, that I have long ago let go of or disbelieved.  It’s nice to turn that back when I see the wonder and potential for all things in his eyes.  It truly is catching, and even if I can’t fully believe all things he still considers (like recharging the batteries of the dead), he opens my spirit and mind to so many possibilities again that I wasn’t just not believing anymore, but that I wasn’t even imagining.

He has given me, in many ways, a ticket to ride back through my own youth. That is the height of wonder.

How have you cultivated/maintained a sense of wonder this past year?

Gettin’ his Spidey on.

When we arrived at the pumpkin patch last week, I asked Braden if he would like a face painting. “Yes!” Of all the options, including many small and cute cheek-sized designs, guess which one he chose?

And there was that moment when I realized I’d suggested this face painting business right at the beginning of the day.  There would be no pumpkin patch photos of him – just Mini Spiderman.  Just one moment.

Because on the heels of that I laughed inside and remembered, as always, that what is most important is not the appearance, but the experience.

Spiderman had a great day at the pumpkin patch.