Finding Peace

My dear friend, I am not sure if this is about you, or for you, or inspired by you, but whatever it is, it is you that is on my heart, and it is our "thing" that has me frayed and raw and motivated and angry and inspired all at once. I forgot it was your birthday today, and it has been a shit week. Just shit. And I think the last time I talked to you about a shit week at work, you threatened/promised to show up at my class's field trip in a speedo, and there was my bit of light in the dark. I mean, gross light; but light nonetheless. It has been a bit dark this week. I have been a bit dark. Lots on my heart, lots on my mind, and I'm a bit cloudy on the root. Last week I discovered an artist who I can only imagine you knew already but never shared with me. And this friend/family of mine, who is more special than he could know shared some of his music with me, and we began to talk about music, which has not been part of our relationship, until I re-remembered a momen...

Darling girl, I missed writing to you on your birthday, and honestly I have not written to you since the summer, and I'm always guilty about it, even though it usually means we are enjoying all the moments. Sweet baby, we are a few months into the school year and you have become a bouncing off the walls, noisy, happy, ball of energy. You love to sing and regularly make up new lyrics to songs that you have learned in music class, and you love your new music teacher Mr.Laws. You are smiling nearly every moment of every day, you are climbing on the couches, and darling girl, you are CREATING. You have this exploding imagination, which you've had since you were able to move and to communicate, and you are always coming up with new games and performances. You love to have an audience, whether it be to watch a dance or gymnastics routine, a slideshow on your camera or our laptop, or a puppet show. You spend your mornings in my classroom creating crafts, cards and gadgets in...

Sweet baby, if I had to choose two photos to characterize you at this stage in your life, it would be these two... Mt.Baker Photo number 1 is YOU. No one asked you to go in that bucket, no one filled it up with water for you, and I don't believe there was even a water fight going on? Maybe water on the trampoline? "Hey Mommy, yook!" and this is where you were. In your diaper, in a bucket of water, with Bailey licking you.  Darling, you are WILD. You love to run, to jump, to yell, to sing, and to dance. The filthy bathroom words that come out of your mouth are that of all the other little boys I have known, as are the boogers on your wall, but perhaps not the whoopee cushion tucked into your pants so that when you do a bum drop, the fart sound is amplified to your liking. Greenpoint You have got the sweetest dance moves I've known a little boy to have. Your body feels it, and the rest of you does not give two shits (pardon my language, but I think...

Darling girl, how did it happen that you were born a few days ago, sweet, peaceful and with a head full of jet black hair, and then I sneezed, or blinked, or whatever it is that they say, and you were one? If I am remembering it correctly, that is exactly how it happened. Darling girl...I took a break after I wrote the first paragraph and have come back, and you are now 13 months old, and you have already had your birthday party. I have been feeling guilt about it for weeks, but chia ia how our life goes sometimes! Darling bean, on your first birthday we celebrated you at Flood Falls with our wee family and the Uchida's. We have a "tradition" of sorts in our family where our wee family spends the morning of your birthday (or your whole birthday if it falls on a weekday and we aren't having your party) in the outdoors together and then gathers together later on with our whole big family to celebrate in a louder, less peaceful fashion! On the morning of your birth...

My darling girl, I write this tonight with tears in my eyes, because I can do nothing to protect you from this circle of life and the heartache it will inevitably/already has caused. You are a sweet, sensitive soul, and like your Mama you feel things hard. You are off the wall happy, filled with joy and you are down in the dumps sad, usually with no middle ground. Darling girl, it's a difficult path to navigate, but baby, no one will ever wonder how you are feeling or where they stand with you. Tonight at bedtime, you lay wrapped in your crocheted blanket that Great Nanny made for you - it hasn't left your bed since we lost her a few weeks ago. You told me that you wished that Layla had gotten a blanket from Great Nanny (because that is just who you are, to wish sweet things onto other people), and I told you that I wished that too. Then you told me that pretty soon we were going to have 3 crying kids, and when I asked you to explain, you said that when we go to the Isl...

 Music has always been my thing. It has been my coping mechanism, a healthier crutch than other mechanisms that might numb the pain. I can usually find a song, or a genre to help move me through the uncomfortable feelings and to help my heart and my mind to rest. Sometimes my heart and my fingertips have even rested on the "nostalgie" station on the tv; who knew that there would be times in my life that called for mellow French music? Today I was faced with a first. I was stumped and could not land on a song that did what it was supposed to do, and to be quite honest, it left me in a bit of a panic. I am not a person who feels anything part way; never have been and probably never will be. I feel things with every part of me and sometimes it is a blessing and sometimes it is a curse. If we are friends you know that I have felt every joy and pain with you. I have been ecstatic at every first date you went on (Angie Robson, we have the dorm room under the door notes to prove...

My Dear Sweet Nanny, you left us on Friday, May 17th, 2019, and I am doing my best to hold it together, like you always did, but I am not sure I and doing it quite as well as you. I don't have that "Watson" gene where we hold it together, feel it on the inside but never let it out. I am my Mom on this one, and that's ok. I have never been more thankful for my three darling babies who bring me the greatest joy of my life and force me to move on with things, but also I have never been more thankful for a husband who walks in the door at the end of the day, takes care of our kids and lets me fall to pieces for a moment. Dear Nanny, today has been an interesting, ridiculously hard, and emotional day, as have the days before, but today was different. Today an irrational sadness has settled in surrounding all of the things that will no longer be. Today I am picturing you and Papa standing beside our car, waving goodbye until our car was out of sight, as we sat...

Sweet darling girl, you are 11 months old and you are a GIFT. This week Mama is getting ready to go back to work for the end of the school year and we are preparing ourselves to potentially see a side of you that we have not seen before. You have been struggling to get to sleep this week, and to be in anyone's arms but mine. Last night we put our patience to the test and tried to let you sort yourself out and fall asleep on your own, like you have always done in the past, but it wasn't happening for you. When Mommy finally when in and picked you up, you were sad. You were taking deep breaths trying to catch your breath, you had my shirt in your fist and your arms wrapped around me as tight as could be, and I didn't want to let you go. As I rocked you and rocked you, listening to your breath grow deeper and your body grow heavier, I was certain you were asleep. When I placed my lips on your forehead to give you a kiss, I saw that you weren't sleeping, in fact your ey...