I Got To Be A Rock Star

Dee is having his own little biological adventure. I enrolled him in a little class five minutes from our house once a week that is all about the life and micro-life in the ocean near our house. He spent a week before the class telling me everyday that he wouldn't go, didn't want to be part of it and was really put out with me for registering him. He cried real tears. He stamped his feet. He begged his daddy to get him out of it. Every day he got less panicked though and by the time of the first class day he was reluctant but willing.

I was pretty sure he needed the little push into a personal adventure but it was a little tense tipping him over the edge while he complained so vigorously. I took him alone, Lucy stayed with the other boys and my little introvert and I walked down the long sidewalk to the museum building and by the time we got to the end of the long path, as we walked up the front steps he peeked up at me and said, "Its my class, Mommy. You can't come." and winked.

And that's how he came to be having his own little adventure. I tip-toed out while after he got picked to hold the turtle for his class. He was glowing and never looked my way once for reassuring, he had launched into his own little accomplishment. He's been attending weekly now and talks at home between classes about his favorite teacher and the things he's learning about the local fauna:

 "Ru, do you know that flounders are standing up when they are babies but then they become lying down fish."

"Nib, that's a sea star. It has water inside and no blood. Cool, right?"

"We have only 16 nitrogen in our water, Mommy. It is below 20 it is okay so ours is good."

So fun to see him feeling like a rock star and expanding in his own confidence. Makes me feel like a really award winning mom!

Rising Above, Y'all

Sometimes there are days when its all about kicking your own inner pain and vulnerability to the curb and refusing (even when you don't know if you can) to live in an identity of defensiveness, all strapped into a permanent victim name tag. Sometimes other people don't get you. Sometimes people hurt your feelings and leave you soaking in lonely. Sometimes you make what you think is an obvious plea for connection and understanding and you are rebuffed and told to grow up. But I don't wanna live there. I get that it hurts, even feels justified and its not about lying to myself. Its about the honesty that if I sense defensiveness in myself, then clearly I feel I have something to hide.

I am super over soaking in my bitter angst when I feel wounded. Its the most challenging mental and emotional muscle work I have ever encountered (short of the entire experience of being married and being a parent) but its the right, strong and healthy thing. Its the vibrant thing too, the compassionate thing, the warm thing, the thing that lets you lie down and sleep at night.

I'm trying to learn how to do this and its such a new technique that I have very, very few credits to my name yet. But today....today was one of them. Yes, I cried some hot tears, I ate some pastries I regret in bitter emo style, I angry texted, I snapped at my kids.

But, I also:

    ....got good advice, cleaned off a shelf in a cluttered closet, ate a fresh orange, took pictures of beautiful things, thought through ways I'd been clumsy in the conflict, I talked it out, I solved my own problems, I told myself that I mattered, I listened to spiritual comfort, I sat in the sunshine, I smiled and I drank more hot tea. 

And by the end of the day, I had clawed my way back up.

Its so hard but I'm really frickin' proud. Every little bit a tiny victory.

A Bird Named Jean-Claude

Look who came to live at our house!!!!!!

His name is Jean-Claude, he's an American Song Canary and he takes baths in his own bathtub, loves to eat lettuces, grapes and poppy seeds (we have a lot in common) and he sings for a half an hour straight every morning when the sun comes up.

I am completely smitten. He is incredibly sweet and amazingly delicate, from his tiny little pink feet to his bright black eyes.We are still slowly getting acquainted but eventually he should be able to learn to feel safe perching on my finger and will learn to return to his perch reliably enough to he can be let out to fly around the house for select periods. I am astonished how much birdsong and that cheery yellow makes it seem totally possible to survive until spring.

Interview With A 7 Yr Old Inventor

This is homeschool. Ru spent all of quiet time working privately on this project and then showed up at my side while I was working and said, "Hey, Mom. Look!"

Bird Study + Lego +Free Time + Seven Year Old Brain......

                                        =This!

 Sometimes my kids drive me crazy. Sometimes they amaze me.