Tuesday, December 09, 2008

the vast blue sky

I've been feeling weirdly vulnerable lately, like the whole world is in chaos and I just want to hide out for a while. and I've been thinking a lot about this beautiful Buddhist quote (and now you can, too.) "In the middle of the hardness is a fear, in the middle of the fear is a sadness, in the middle of the sadness is the vast blue sky". If any friends out there are reading, leave me a love note, would you?

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Achy-breaky Me

The past few weeks I have been what can only be described as "quadruple bum-bum". Every little task has felt like an insurmountable mountain of inconvenience covered in dog dooky. The bright side to this, I have learned, is that when the heaviness lifts, there often remains a vulnerable, tender feeling like my heart is cracked open and I am touched by the sweet and quirky moments in an ordinary day which I would normally overlook. This is precious gift.
With my normal defenses knocked down, I experience life in a bizarre and mushy way. An open and weepy sore, I feel so much love and sadness that my heart actually aches.
On Wednesday, Eliott's class made octopus masks. When the parents came to pick the kids up, there they were, sitting at their kid-sized tables with kid-sized grins on their faces, hiding behind blue googly-eyed octopus masks. I was completely delighted by this ridiculous scene. And the fact that this incredibly sweet kid with a cowlick and freckly nose was smiling there waiting for me to find him and bring him home tickled me so much that I even cried. I am so grateful for my big ol' achy-breaky heart and for my and ever-so-blessed and beautiful life.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Sunday Scribblings: A Winter's Tale

Wintertime always makes me think lovey dovey warm and tender thoughts about Eb. First of all, he is a ridiculous Christmas hound and gets hella enthusiastic about finding the perfect tree and the two of us go mad singing (terribly) all the verses of all the carols we can remember.
But, the main thing I think of is the apartment that we lived in before we bought our house. Our bedroom was way up on the third floor of this crazy tall old house on the corner and from there we had an incredible view of all the houses on all the streets around us. After the kids were asleep, we'd push our bed over to the window and look down at the houses all decorated with lights or, if it was snowing, we'd watch the sparkly snow romantically floating down. We would lay there gazing out for hours, hardly saying a word. Sometimes we would open the window so we could smell the cold sharp air and feel it on our faces. Everything was so still and quiet, it felt like we were the only ones in the world.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Sunday Scribblings: Style

RB and I are natural, semi-crunchy types. We are mostly concerned with feeling comfy, and can be found 99% of the time in t-shirts and jeans and shoes that feel good. I don't wear a full face of make-up or any make-up at all, actually because I hate the sticky feel of it. We don't go tanning or dye our hair. We are not likely candidates for plastic surgery. We look how we look and smell, pretty much how we smell. We would not be described as fancy pants hipsters, but we do what we likes.
Then, there's Keeler, our almost seven year old son. I remember when Keeler first got it into his head that he would like to wear a suit. He was 18 months old and we had started attending Unity Church where many of the men dressed up. Keeler was hooked. Not long after that he stood on his changing table while, to his extreme delight, I buttoned him into is first button-down shirt and he declared, "I look snoozy." (snazzy, that is.)
A few months later he began making speeches, standing on his bed, using the bedrail as his podium. His Presidential campaign was underway.
Now Keeler is the proud owner of one single-breasted and two double-breasted suits. He wears them to my mom's house for dinner on Friday nights, he wears them to the library, and for school pictures. When his brother needed an x-ray, he wore one to the hospital, this time with rain boots. Of course, he wears them on holidays and when someone comes to the house for the first time.
When he can't wear a suit for one reason or another, he still adheres to a strict fashion code. He shuns long-sleeved t-shirts or clothing with graphics saying, "I don't want to look cool; I want to look nice." and opts for a button-down shirt and corduroy pants.
He has recently acquired an adult briefcase, the kind with a combination lock which, after his suit collection, is his prized possession. He still has his eye on the presidency and talks endlessly about what laws he plans to pass when he gets there and whether or not so-and-so is going to vote for him. Just about every day I ask myself where this kid came from. He certainly has his own style and his own mind. I love him to itty bitty bits and am super proud that he does what he likes.

cheese doo doo man

The boys and I have been drawing a lot lately, mainly weird and really horrible, creepy creatures for our Halloween wall in the dining room (one of which turned out eerily like Joe Biden). Yesterday Eliott and I bought cheese doodles and polished them off this morning. We're turning into cheese doodles or, as Eliott says, cheese doo doos. While I was coloring this guy in, Eliott asked me if I liked Ernie and Neal and when I answered yes, he said, " Yes, because they are so rocking."
P.S. Happy Birthday, Sherry Berry Hardy Bardy Booski! You are a rocking cheese doo doo.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

creepy kid

Eliott is the second child and the baby of our family and even though he is four years old now, I feel like the two of us have just gotten to really know each other over the past few months since I have been staying home. He is quite insane. I have never seen anyone make more ridiculous and edible faces in my whole life. Basically, I want to gobble his face every minute of the day. Also, he is a very tender little guy who likes to share (I don't know where he learned these behaviors). I even like it when he sees somebody driving by and calls the person a "stupid man" for no reason. I really like to go places with him on the train and to walk around town with the journal, dragging it or beating it against a sign post. I also like to get wemawem cookies with him. Here are a fewof the things I have learned about him in the past months:
1. He loves wemawems
2. He loves football. a lot. especially the Eagles and especially McNabb.
3. He is usually willing to cooperate with other people's ideas provided nobody watches him being cooperative.
4. He is playing football all the time, though you may not know it until he tackles into you really really hard.
5. Eliott is strong.
6. He is only willing to wear sports clothes (including an Eagles football costume which he has started wearing as regular clothes) and feels he must change clothes several times a day depending on what sport he is thinking about.
7. Sometimes he likes it if you sing "we call him little fellow" to the tune of "mellow yellow", but most of the time he'll hit you.
8. He is not a huge fan of water when there is a whole lot of it in one place as in the beach or a swimming pool.
9. He is good at drawing horrible monsters with cavities. 10. He puckers up in a special funny way when we say goodbye at school. 11. He is very nice to snuggle. 12. He is obsessed with the Beatles (Sgt. Pepper specifically) and sings "Rockin' Pepper's lone, hope you gonna join the show" over and over and over.
13. If he has an itchy hinky, chances are his hinky's stinky.
14. Stinky hinky and all, he is very easy to love.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

a new beginning

Man, I forgot about my blog again. I probably shouldn't even be allowed to have a blog because I pay it so little attention. Well, anyway. I will be blogging here again starting now, so get ready. Speaking of new beginnings, check out the baby Buggy, wrinkly as a mofo. I love that my mom is in seventh heaven in this picture.
Here's how Eliott pronounces m&ms: wemawems, and I hope he never stops.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

this is 8 months old, but what the heck

Hi Blogger. Are you going to automatically save a draft of this for me? Well, well, well. So, I haven't done any blogging here in some time and so much has happened in between. I will now write a list of some of the things that happened: 1. I started learning how to actually type after my co-worker, Sharon, told me about these fun typing games. Typing is cool. 2. I saw the greatest movie of all time - The Science of Sleep (so far, I've watched it five times, with more to come!) 3. After seeing the greatest movie of all time (refer to #2) I started wanting to parle Francais. So I started learning it and guess what. It's not that easy, but it is cute and beautiful. However, I think I'll just have to be satisfied with annoying Besty by answering the phone like "allo allo?....salut!...ca va?".