Sunday, December 18, 2005
Contenders
I'm still imagining that I will get Christmas cards out this year, so at long last we took a few pictures over the weekend hoping for one to include with our yearly greetings. I'm begining to understand why people always just send pictures of their kids and leave out the parents: the kids are generally cute and self-portraits not quite as charming. My main motivation though in wanting to do Christmas cards is not really to send official regards with news most everyone knows already anyway; my main motivation is the picture. I was so inspired looking at the Harmon's wall of 25 years of Christmas photos that I've jumped on the bandwagon five years straight and want to keep it running. The ultimate audience for these cards is us, my own family. I like the years stacking up on the wall and the brief snapshots of faces and time accumulating in scrapbooks (well, scrapbook files anyway). Here are a few of the images we captured with the two main contenders withheld, afterall there has to be a little surprise to the letter in the mail right?
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Hit & Miss
This is my first-ever laptop-blog experience. I kind of like it....
Today I had to do the dreaded: grocery shopping with the kids. Ugh, it is not too fun. The hour consists of a stream of statements like this:
"Edie, get out from under the cart, I'm going to run over you."
"No, sorry Soren, we aren't getting that."
"What?"
"You have to get this for me; you never get me what I want!"
"Well, we're not getting that this time."
"Eden, sweetheart, get up off the floor."
"Okay, we're almost done. I just have to find one more thing."
"No. Get this kind, this kind's better."
"Can't I please get just one box of coco puffs?"
"No, we're not getting that."
"Come on guys. Let's go."
I don't think that really captures the deflating frustration that all of us feel by the time we're through. I meant to go last night to avoid just such an ordeal but fell asleep on the couch at 8:00 p.m. achy, feverish and cold. When roused, I went to bed instead.
On a brighter note, I finally verbalized the other day a feeling that has been shadowing me this Fall. Arrival is the closest word I can think of. "This is it", "this is my life", feeling happy with my life. I really felt happy with my life for the first time in January 2003. What? you say? Okay, it's true. I can ammend that statement. The other time that I remember being really happy and content was my freshman year of college. Ah, the glory days! That really was a happy time (ironically filled with many a girlfriend heart-to-heart over the woes of the day). And yes, I was happy getting married, etc. It's not that I have been always unhappy (though there are seasons of that too), but the beginning of 2003 was the first time that I owned being a mother. That's what made the difference I think; it's hard to explain. I have another post I drafted a long time ago about that but it is sort of beside the point here. The arrival feeling is more than being happy in my roles and happy with what fills my time. Living in what feels like a real house has a lot to do with it too. This place feels like home in a way that our series of apartments never did. Times I have felt this or things that have contributed to the feeling include: overseeing Eden and Soren do their homework at the table, a fireplace, getting out Christmas decorations (tapping into traditions, especially having so many of our old things back out of storage that help to define the season and Eden & Soren delighting over them as new), hardwood floors and high ceilings, reading out loud, playing with Daffodil in bed in the morning when she first wakes up all happy.
And speaking of traditions, guess what was #1 on Eden's wish list for St.Nikolaus Tag (German tradition that children leave their Christmas wish list in their boots outside the night of December 5th and St. Nikolaus comes and picks up their lists and leaves something behind in the boots)? "Nicer parents."
Today I had to do the dreaded: grocery shopping with the kids. Ugh, it is not too fun. The hour consists of a stream of statements like this:
"Edie, get out from under the cart, I'm going to run over you."
"No, sorry Soren, we aren't getting that."
"What?"
"You have to get this for me; you never get me what I want!"
"Well, we're not getting that this time."
"Eden, sweetheart, get up off the floor."
"Okay, we're almost done. I just have to find one more thing."
"No. Get this kind, this kind's better."
"Can't I please get just one box of coco puffs?"
"No, we're not getting that."
"Come on guys. Let's go."
I don't think that really captures the deflating frustration that all of us feel by the time we're through. I meant to go last night to avoid just such an ordeal but fell asleep on the couch at 8:00 p.m. achy, feverish and cold. When roused, I went to bed instead.
On a brighter note, I finally verbalized the other day a feeling that has been shadowing me this Fall. Arrival is the closest word I can think of. "This is it", "this is my life", feeling happy with my life. I really felt happy with my life for the first time in January 2003. What? you say? Okay, it's true. I can ammend that statement. The other time that I remember being really happy and content was my freshman year of college. Ah, the glory days! That really was a happy time (ironically filled with many a girlfriend heart-to-heart over the woes of the day). And yes, I was happy getting married, etc. It's not that I have been always unhappy (though there are seasons of that too), but the beginning of 2003 was the first time that I owned being a mother. That's what made the difference I think; it's hard to explain. I have another post I drafted a long time ago about that but it is sort of beside the point here. The arrival feeling is more than being happy in my roles and happy with what fills my time. Living in what feels like a real house has a lot to do with it too. This place feels like home in a way that our series of apartments never did. Times I have felt this or things that have contributed to the feeling include: overseeing Eden and Soren do their homework at the table, a fireplace, getting out Christmas decorations (tapping into traditions, especially having so many of our old things back out of storage that help to define the season and Eden & Soren delighting over them as new), hardwood floors and high ceilings, reading out loud, playing with Daffodil in bed in the morning when she first wakes up all happy.
And speaking of traditions, guess what was #1 on Eden's wish list for St.Nikolaus Tag (German tradition that children leave their Christmas wish list in their boots outside the night of December 5th and St. Nikolaus comes and picks up their lists and leaves something behind in the boots)? "Nicer parents."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)