A Letter to my Son (15 months)

To my sweet boy:

I am so thankful you have been in my life for 15 whole months now. You have grown in leaps and bounds, and your energy and your character have added light to this world, my little shooting star. Your sweet voice fills our household with joy and laughter. You are already such an encouraging little person and a hard worker. I already respect you. I already feel this pang in my gut every time I have to tell you “no”. One day, you will have to learn to tell yourself, “no”, and one day, I will trust you to do so. But, it may be a while. 

In the last 2 weeks, you have become a little boy, and I feel challenged every day, by you. Emotionally, we are going through a bit of a growth spurt together. In a strange way, it feels like it did when you were first born. I have a feeling that this will happen several times during our lifetime, for we are like wild rivers who can never truly be tamed or diverted. Our waters will flood our banks in their own time, which doesn’t really belong to us. 

Thank you for making your dad and I breakfast this morning. The maple syrup was a nice touch to the garlic cloves and the bottle of vanilla extract. We also thank you for putting all of your raisins in your dumptruck and for giving Curious George a generous drink of your milk this morning. Maybe he will have a jumpshot like yours one day, if he continues to drink all of his milk like a big boy. 

The best part of my day is in the morning when your dad and I get to make a giant hug sandwich with our boy. I wonder how old you will be before you get too old for hug sandwiches? 

I love you, Bubba,

Love, Momma

*This post was inspired by my friend Erin, whose Grandmother recently passed away. Erin had shared how thankful she was to have her Grandmother's handwritten letters to her during this time, and it got me thinking about the significance of letters because they really are true snapshots of our heart's intentions in that moment. May your intentions be blessed this week, and may your dumptrucks be overflowing with raisins.

Empowering Her Daughter with Her Gift

My heart was warmed today by a good parenting story. One of the writing blogs I follow is co-authored by a woman who has a daughter with SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder). As part of her daughter's therapy, this momma has her daughter write weekly "guest" posts about dealing with SPD on her personal blog, The Gift, where she advocates for the outreach of SPD and other related conditions. I was touched by this story because it is about a parent using her talents to help empower her child. The simplicity of this empowerment is bringing confidence to and shaping the world of her daughter, AND it is an effective form of outreach regarding the disorder. Normally, I would be skeptical about another so-called "disorder", but I find this one interesting because it is often misdiagnosed as ADHD (for which a lot of kids are then improperly medicated). 

This little girl asked her mom if she could host a writing contest on their blog, for which she was to be the judge. As part of her post, the little girl outlined the rules and set a deadline and everything. Most ADORABLE rules ever that just so happen to define the perfect daily writing exercise/prompt for me, today.  

If you don't think writing about your best experience in 250 words for the audience of a pre-teen girl with SPD is a challenge, I beg to differ :) If you want to read my story for her, click on the blog link and scroll down to the comments, below. Her deadline is not until 2/29, so if you feel up to it, feel free to enter her contest!

I know this sounds weird because I don't even know this lady, but I feel proud of her. We are inundated with stories of horrible parenting in almost every news story these days. Why is that? Why is this lady not on the news for being awesome? Have you ever felt proud of a complete stranger?

Rhythm of a Wintering Gypsy

Family of Wintering Gypsies hiking in Weston, MO.

Hey all! Just checking in from a lovely little winter blogging break. A dusting of snow covers the world outside our doors, so little h and I will probably take the day off from running and make homemade peanut butter cups and watch the yodeling puppet scene from The Sound of Music 30 times. I don't know who taught him to dance, but that kid grinds to Maria Von Trap like nothing I've ever seen before. He has rhythm.

And what of my own rhythm? It pales in comparison to little h's, but this past month has been productive and full of surprises, mostly good:

• I created a writing space/organized our office room. It is warm and bright and BAH had this beautiful, old library desk among his recently moved storage unit items, which we put in there. The surprise here is that I still do 90% of my writing standing, with my laptop on the kitchen counter. 

• Weston, Missouri is now my dream retirement location. When autumn rolls around, expect lots of photos of apple orchards and baby farm animals, come spring. The surprises? It is far from the Oregon coast, my previous dream retirement location. It is far from the ocean, one of my previous requirements. It is also far from my family, so they'll just have to move here too :)  

• Despite my preconceived beer snob notions about the Midwest, in the short time we have been here, we have discovered the best brew houses and beer selection of pretty much anywhere. The surprise is that I could still hold preconceived notions about anything in life with all that I have supposedly learned about the ridiculousness of preconceived notions :) Haha.

• I joined a church choir. Several surprises here. 1) is that I still remember how to read music (with a lot of refreshing) after 15 years; 2) we are actually going to a church, and 3) it is the traditional, early service, and we like it! Am I a horrible person because being in the choir is the thing that makes me want to go to church? I love that I don't have to just sit there and do nothing (I know, I know...I am supposed to be listening and resting), AND I get to sing with the world's nicest group of people while little h enjoys some play time. Meanwhile, BAH and I still get to be together during the sermon and have a bit of socialization time before we pick up little h.

• I completed my children's folk story (draft) and am STILL working on my adult thriller, which will realistically undergo several drafts before I have a draft I am happy with. No surprises here, except that I am having WAY too much fun developing the grandma-serial-killer character.

One of my writing rhythm exercises includes limerick writing. Any exercise that encourages making up words and being silly does my brain good.

There once was a wintering gypsy

Who danced in a flickering tipsy

When the candles burned down

She wore not a frown

For she spun to a clickering quipsie.

What inspires your rhythm? Be it Maria Von Trap or limerick writing, have fun getting your groove on this week...