2010 January

A living, breathing, blueprint

January 31, 2010

Remember this ghoulish fall that I took?
I never went to the doctor afterward. To the horror of my MD sister-in-law I never got it checked out. I never got an x-ray. Instead, I got on a plane 2 days later headed to a conference. And believe me, I wish I could have responded to all [...]

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Open arms, ready or not

January 29, 2010

Some days life comes at you in a fast, blurry, haze.

You have to take a step back before it knocks you down. You adjust your focus and still can’t quite see things clearly.
All you know for sure is that motherhood is a series of meals half eaten but never while they are still hot. It [...]

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(Thankfully) His house is bigger than mine

January 26, 2010

Remember those “word association” games?
When someone says a word and you say the first thing that comes into your mind.
For example, if I say “peanut butter.”
You’d probably say, “jelly.” (Unless you’re British or South African, in which case you’d probably say jam. Or, unless you’re my husband, and then you’d probably say “bacon,” which is [...]

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Relearning ourselves

January 24, 2010

We slip out of our parent skins for a few hours and run away to remember who we are. Apart from the potty training and pull ups, we find each other again in the dark car, the one without the car seats. It’s still early for most, but late for us and we stifle yawns [...]

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Sometimes sleep deprivation is a good thing

January 22, 2010

This boy.

We should have named this boy Houdini.
All last week he escaped his crib in the pitch black dark of his bedroom, over the side rail and via the changing table, dropping fearless down to the floor. At 2am he greets me nose-to-nose, eyeball-to-eyeball over the edge of my bed.
It’s equal parts unsettling and adorable.
He [...]

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Mama said there'd be days like this

January 20, 2010

I was late coming home from work. I had been early getting there.
My new contact lenses had suction cupped onto my eyeballs.
The house that I had left tidy that morning had been reduced to a reenactment of the apocalypse – the Toys r Us version.
One kid had eaten and the other had not. The one [...]

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What homesickness tastes like

January 20, 2010

Sometimes you are so homesick you can taste it.
And today it tastes like birthday cake.
My little brother turns 8 today. And I am not there. But worse than that, my oldest son is not there.
Jackson and Karabo; Karabo and Jackson.
They have been friends since Jackson was playing soccer on my inside, long before he [...]

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Because a picture's worth a thousand words

January 18, 2010

I’ve been hitch hiking down memory lane.
Enjoying the view. Remembering the smells.
Because it’s been almost two years since we last boarded a 747 headed toward the Southern Cross.
Two years is a lifetime when measured in relationships. Relationships that need consistent contact to thrive.
Two years I will talk more about tomorrow.
But today, today I am simply [...]

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Coming to America

January 18, 2010

Free refills.
To this day that is one of my all time favorite things about America.
Since Paula Jean, Charity, and Olivia all proposed posts with traveled-related themes I thought I would give you guys a few of my favorite snapshots from my “Coming to America” experience. (And I’ll keep the other great ideas in my back [...]

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Propose a post

January 15, 2010

Wanna play a game?
Over the weekend you tell me in the comments what you would like to hear me write about.
And by Monday I will have picked one of your topics.
And composed a post.
Based on your “propose a post.”
In the meantime, I’ll be in one of my favorite spots.

Reading your suggestions.
Getting ready to compose.
Based on [...]