No NAPS!

Ben is very against the nap. If I could talk him into it he could probably really benefit from one, two or even three times a week. There is no talking him into this though even as his head bobs and he fights to keep his eyes open some afternoons.
Occasionally he won't be able to fight it and I will find him sprawled out on the floor. When he wakes up, there is no point in addressing this brief sleep interval because he will adamantly deny it ever happening!

SNOW!

Jake was so excited to see snow this year that he ran right out...as his little toe prints show! I especially love how you can see how quickly the footprints turn around to come inside!

Helmet Head

We usually enter the house through our garage entrance. Right beside the door are the basement steps. The way the the door frame is on the garage door does not allow for any kind of baby gate which has always bothered me as one wrong step would have someone at the bottom of the steep stairs.

Not long ago Jacob backed up and took the maiden plunge down to the hard floor below. Both Ben and I grabbed for him but just missed and instead had to helplessly watch him tumbled down. He could have been seriously hurt but fortunately he came away only with a couple of bruises. It did put a little bit of temporary caution into the usually fearless toddler. He wouldn't go up or down the stairs himself for quite awhile but it was when he spotted the bicycle helmets in the garage that he formed his solution. He wore his helmet every day for quite a while!

A Christmas Tradition!

Every year since Ben could sit assisted with a spoon in his hand Gramma has requested assistance in the annual Christmas cake stirring. She is confident that the cake never tasted better...I think most would agree. Last week she brought over the big bowls of candied fruit and flour and some eager boys with wooden spoons!

The Artist

Ben is such a creative kid, over the past few months this creative side has really taken over, he loves to create anything, but most recently it has been drawing. He recreated a Christmas wish catalog witch took a lot of his time. Since then he discovered the rolls of paper I had in the garage and the pieces he ripped off for his murals have gotten larger and larger. Ben draws for at least an hour daily, he will on some days work away at this for up to three hours. I enjoy watching his determination and the planning that goes into his work. He is improving drastically every week and now it is difficult to tell his pictures and mine apart...my artistic talents peaked at Kindergarten. I have higher hopes for him.

I choose Joy

I used to attend a moms group with a facilitator who would organize different ice breaker games at the beginning of each week. They were usually get to know you activities or first impression things. I often got described with "great smile" "always laughing" "Happy".

Happy.

Yes. I was very pleased with these adjectives.
I had EARNED this title.

Happiness does not come easily for me. I am not naturally an upbeat, positive person. I veer automatically towards pessimism, worry, depression.

As a child and adolescent I was pouty, cranky, easily upset and kept a running tally of all the things that justified my melancholy disposition. I was difficult if not impossible to please at times.

I would not have been described as a happy person. Though I wanted to be.
I looked at smiling people, laughing people, people slow to anger and who saw the glass overflowing where mine was leaking. I assumed they must have a better lot in life, more reasons for happiness and potentially a greater degree of ignorance about the world were we live.

It was however when I started to notice people I knew to have much less cause for happiness. People who had great hardship, loss, pain and difficulty in their life and I curiously noticed that they were happy ANYWAY.

I realized that happiness isn't caused by any circumstance or event. No one thing has the power to make one "happy". The promotion, the last ten pounds, the dream car, the big house, the baby, the engagement ring, the vacation home...the lottery ticket. It isn't found there.

Happiness is a decided state of being, and joy is what we feel in moments that remind us why.


I decided that I would be a happy person. Yes. It is that simple....but not easy. I looked for reasons to smile, found humor where I could have found annoyance, beauty in simplicity and contentment in what is.

It wasn't easy. I had to constantly fight my natural tendencies to justify displeasure. I had to stop that mindset frequently and guide my perspective onto a different path. One of gratitude, acceptance and joy.

Gradually my habitual nay-saying lessened. I found that I smiled quickly, I felt lighter, freer and only took on the energy of people around me who radiated what I wanted to feel.

Eventually people started to awkwardly comment "You seem...different".
I smiled.

I don't have to try anymore. Gratitude and joy are my way of being.

I am happy.

Now that I know happiness is something to be taught I am trying to encourage this trait into my children...Their happiness is my greatest dream for them. Authentic happiness, not fleeting fulfillment that can be bought or borrowed. I want them to be satisfied and joyful in their lives.

I changed the name of this blog back to the original title because that is my commitment. Finding joy despite whatever circumstances we might be in. The joy...as they say is not in the destination but in the journey.
And I choose to enjoy it.

For What it's Worth

I had heard, read and sympathized with woman who were in the throws of the full body exhaustion, all day nausea, headaches and dread at merely blinking.

I didn't know what they were talking about.

And now I do.
I now am part of a club with a harsh initiation- this must be hazing month.

The colours are too bright (all of them), the sounds too loud, the food too...repugnant (yes all of it). I take Flintstones vitamins because I can't swallow a pill that sits in my rotting stomach for hours. I hope baby will be born with all limbs in tact...really I do but I cannot swallow that pill, I CAN'T!

I can eat nothing except for a small window periodically where something random will jump through the food barrier in my mind that forces any edible thought to become ammunition to run to the toilet. Salt and vinegar chips! Cream cheese on crackers! Three sliced crunchy Granny Smith apples in small slices! Raisin bran with cold dairy milk! GO GO GO! The moment is fleeting and will pass too quickly if I miss it, only to be lost again in the the vicious cycle of food hating...

My poor doting husband eats whatever he can muster out of a can since venturing into a grocery store or kitchen is more than I am capable.

My children eat toast...and cereal and granola bars. And Flintstones vitamins.
If they can get it out of the cupboard, they can have it.

So far...no one is starving, well except me...brief intervals of pretzel M&M's and white bread and molasses (???) excluded.

Each day I think, this can't possibly go on any longer. I have no more reserves, patience, perspective.

"What can I do to help?" I hear from kind friends and family... but there is nothing...and I won't come to my door looking like...this. But thank you anyhow.

I count down the minutes until the weekend when Jon takes over and I can lie in my bed in semi consciousness and wallow in my suffering. Truly it is what it is. Save the melodramatics...it may be common but it doesn't make it easier. Monday comes too soon.


I think of the expectant waitress who is working a double shift...her nose in plates of food all day, trying to earn her tip and not to lose her lunch on the patrons table.
I think of the airline stewardess and her battle against turbulence and the more extreme nausea that must result.
I think of the woman doing this alone. With no rock beside her to bath the children, make them an odorless dinner and take them to run around outside when their joyful screeching becomes a little too unbearable for my nerves.
I am trying to think of the two "free babies" I got without having to work like this for them.

I am trying to find gratitude and grace. I am trying, really I am. I am trying to think of those who really suffer, for a long time and for something much less.

I am trying to be grateful for this temporary state of being. For the end that brings the most wonderful little toes and fuzzy skin and dimpled bum. A little precious baby. Could we be so fortunate again? Those are the thoughts that get me to the next moment...the next beautiful dry heaving, hands tingling, head spinning moment where the tides will eventually turn and the same degree of suffering will manifest equally in joy.

I am trying to be grateful that I don't need to pull in a paycheck and have a couch that I won't get fired for laying on more often than not.
I am grateful for these little boys of mine who curl up next to me like small loyal puppies, powerless to do anything to help me save for padding me with their love. I feel it and I am grateful for it as a little fat hand stokes my face and looks at me with a knitted brow of concern. The other entwines his fingers with mine and patiently settles in for hour 3 of cartoons.
I can almost imagine a third, right now...jostling brothers for the small spot left on my lap. Worth it?

Most definitely.

Happy Halloween

Two little firefighters went out last night to collect their sweet toothed parents some loot. We don't let them eat very much candy...not even on Halloween- it isn't worth weak immune systems, blood sugar crashes and a few days of altered behavior. So we make up bags of "treats" for them when they come home. They were thrilled to unwrap their bags with craft items, balloons, raisins, popcorn and fruit leather. They just like the experience of running from house to house...they don't care what goes into the bag.
Jon and I on the other hand got the annual stomach ache of course.

Jake didn't master the "trick or treat" but bashfully said "Boo" at each house. He went to half the houses as the bigger kids...but got twice the candy... a shy flirty eyed "boo" seems to be the Halloween secret (add some bow legged running and a handsome firefighters hat and you have the whole package for bonus Kit Kats...)

Ben had a lot of fun, a few of the older kids complimented his costume and he politely told them that it wasn't his costume, it was his uniform. Gramma brought them over some fire fighter rain boots to complete their costumes and I guess that made it an official uniform.