But I've jumped off diving boards at 33 while the board has bounced more than I'd like and the splash was larger than I might have hoped. So, here I go.
Our kitchen is being redone, which means I've been a tired and traveling gypsy mama making lunches out of thin air on a back porch that feels like a Bikram yoga class. I highly recommend a kitchen renovation when you have young children if you are looking to lose weight and your mind. I believe my kitchen redo has helped with both.
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| After running in the rain. Basically, without a kitchen, I feel like I am camping. I dislike camping, even though I am happy here. |
I also left Pat with the kids, which, for the record, is not "babysitting" because when you father children, you don't "babysit" them; you watch them, you mind them - hell, you just do whatever it is that we mothers do day in and day out. I can assure you that no one has ever thanked me for "babysitting" my own children. Anyways, I left Pat with our children while I took a trip out to LA to visit my sister.
It was fun and free. I shopped her closet while she shopped real stores.
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| My "new" skinny black jeans courtesy of Meg. |
And I am very glad that I am not 25 anymore. Even though I would like to sleep in and eat breakfast whenever I choose, I'm glad that most days I don't have that choice. I like these guys underfoot.
They are so full of life right now. Their energy is palpable, even when you'd rather it not be. They are loud. They are boisterous. They are in the moment. They are puppies at feeding time almost all of the time. They are up and down and in and out and learning and talking constantly. Their presence is large.
Because Charlie is my first, I am not quite sure if it is who he is or the age he is that brings out delightful and wickedly smart conversation. Like, when he was 18 months old and knew how to sing and identify his ABCs, I didn't know that that was atypical for his age. Seeing Rose now at that age - and she is bright and funny and quick as a wit - but she calls most every letter an "E", "O" or "I" and uses the magnet letter "F" to brush her eyebrows while I brush my own with my eyebrow brush. I learn now that he was unique then.
Charlie makes me think. He forces me to learn. He is so plugged into the world that even when I am practicing living in the moment, I feel like I have a bum outlet because his connection is so much stronger. His three-pronged plug just gets more juice.
The other day he and I went on a lunch date. We talked and he ordered his food and then he asked, "Is that lady over there sad?" I followed his gaze. The woman was not anything, really; no obvious emotion emanated from her. I said, "She looks fine. She's not crying."
"Yeah, but she's just kind of nothing. She doesn't look happy and we [encompassing the room with his arms] are all out to eat at a happy place. And, see I'm not crying, but I am happy. Can't you see? Because I am happy, so I don't look sad one bit. And that lady over there [pointing at another table]? See her, mama? She looks sad, too. Lots of sad people at a happy eating place. That's not right."
My bum outlet coughed and strained and used all of its power and I saw what he meant. His face is a delight. It is open. It is vulnerable. To look at him is to know what he is feeling. If you can open yourself. If you can plug into him. The others that he had pointed to were dull and maybe suffering a power outage. He feels that. And he wants to know why.
I have so many pictures of the two of them smiling. People close to us always comment that I have such happy kids, but the thing is, when we are out with others, his mind is thinking. He is content, but he is learning and thinking and configuring in his mind and his happiness sometimes doesn't make it through. If I ask him to smile for a picture and he isn't feeling it, this is what I get.
His face cannot lie. He cannot lie. He is, at 4 years old, a perfectly open emotional soul. And he can reason and, usually, rationalize. I like 4. It's beautiful in all of its honesty.
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| "Mom, I love my butt on this car mower." |
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| Upon seeing my parents at his preschool recital. |
We celebrated him all week. With a party with twenty kids at a pool and a smaller family party with cake where he drank water out of a wine glass and had a "candle sit." He requests candles lit at night and we are to sit and put our phones away and talk, "the whole family, except Rose because she is too little to stay up," he adds gleefully.
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| She loves the water (puts her face in and jumps off the side), but mostly she loves her swimsuit. |
I know this kid came from me because I saw it all happen four years ago this week. But I don't think I'd believe it otherwise.
