February 14, 2010 – Love

Today I am acknowledging love. 

New love, those who find every little quirk about each other exciting and who relish in each moment spent side by side.  It’s fun to watch, the butterflies, the newness and the appreciation of finding a special someone who seems just perfect for you.  

I’m grateful for accustomed love, those who have walked through storms and chased rainbows together.  Lovers who realize that staying together is sometimes harder than walking away, but who know that their love is far too precious to lose and well worth working for. 

I’m amazed by lifetime love, couples who have spent decades together, raised children and grandchildren.   These couples know every weakness and still sustain happily, with a closer bond than many will ever understand. 

I see my sweet cousin finding new love and the freshness on his face.  I see them discovering new aspects of each other and gazing at each other’s every move in infatuation and adoration.

I see my husband and I, nine years into our marriage, beaming with pride at our daughter’s first theatrical performance and kissing on either side of our baby boy’s cheeks in the mornings.  We know without speaking our worries and celebrate and appreciate the milestones we’ve reached together.  We get that it isn’t always easy, but also jointly realize the power our love and the life that it has created is.

I see my parents… nearly forty years into a marriage that I don’t always understand.   Their relationship has produced 3 children and 3 grandchildren.  They have endured peaks and valleys and have tasted the pain and the joys that life and a long marriage started very young can provide.  I also see a respect and concern that they have, checking in with each other each day, enjoying in the smiles of their children and grandchildren together and the sharing the pain of caring for their elderly parents.  I see the newness absent and the romance lacking.  But I also see his cell phone screen saver prominently displaying her smiling  face and her worriedly checking  the road maps across 5 states for his safety before travel and with all of this, what I don’t understand, other parts I see differently, as perhaps, a another dimension of love.

And so, for today… I am appreciative of the magic of love… in all of it’s forms, through different sets of eyes. Powerful, magical, sensical and true.   Different for each person and each relationship at each phase, but regardless a magical force.

I’m grateful on this Valentine’s Day to witness and to experience love in so many forms, … most of all, for it’s constant presence in my everyday life.

~K

February 13, 2010 – Let it Snow!

Nature. 

Natural Beauty. 

And if that wasn’t enough to be grateful for, you should have seen the fun happening on the ground.  I’ll give you a hint… snowmen!

and…. snow angels!

and… little ones taking it all in!

So very much to be grateful and appreciative of today… what family fun, what natural beauty, what needed appreciation and amazement.

~K

February 12, 2010 – Valentine Lessons

Enthusiasm is contagious!   Embrace it, love it, share it, appreciate it and enjoy it!

My daughter went to school today in bright red socks and glittery pink shoes.   When I started to tell her to wear her white socks and tennis shoes, she said to me in protest…

“I want to celebrate the Valentine’s Spirit!”

And that, for today, is my lesson.  I’ve thought of her several times throughout the day, sporting her Valentine spirit with such joy and have smiled at the thought. 

Enjoy this enthusiasm, this excitement.  Wear your red socks and pink shoes, smile at each other, skip and dance for no reason… there’s nothing but positive that can come from it!

~K

February 11, 2010 - Dreams

“Dream as though you’ll live forever.  Live as though you’ll die today.”  - James Dean

Thoughts for today… a day late…   reach for the stars!  Why not?

~K

February 10, 2010 – Give a Little Love

“When you’ve done all you can do and when all else fails, … give love a try.”  ~K

The day is coming to an end as I sit in the quiet house and type.  It was a surprisingly wonderful day compared to the upsets of yesterday.  Why the difference?  I don’t know… the moon, the moods, the scheduling, the activities?  I’d like to think the conscious effort towards not only positivity but also and perhaps more importantly, the conscious refusal to get upset plays a huge part.  Either way, it has been a beautiful day all in all…. until bedtime.

My two year old has been out of bed multiple times.  He’s crying, having a hard time staying in his bed.   This has been going on for about 30 minutes and we’ve tried it all.  My husband has left and it’s just the little man and I.  And while I adore the little man, he and I have spent many, many hours together today.  I love this child with all my heart but would love even more to have him  sleeping at the end of the day.  

This last time I found him in the hallway, looking all pathetic in his sagging diaper and pjs, red eyes, crying for me, I tried a different approach.  I picked him up, held him and began to rub his back in the darkness of his room.  I didn’t remind him that he would lose this or that if he got up again, there was no talk of time out or spankings,… I just held him and rubbed his back.   It wasn’t long before he mumbled in his baby voice, ‘this’  and then pointed to his back.  I heard him, rolled my own eyes a bit at his demanding an extended back rub and continued.  Again, he pointed to his back and said ‘this’ but this time it was followed by ‘outz mama’.  

His back hurt.  He was pointing to his back and saying ‘ouch, mama’.   I looked further to find his skin was terribly dry.  I laid his little body down and proceeded to talk softly to him as I lathered him in the most gentle, greasy lotion I could find.  I then laid him on his tummy and moved myself next to him, stroking his fine baby hair until he fell asleep.

When all else fails, and it seemed to have failed… just a little love was the crystal clear answer.   I wonder how applicable this approach can be to many other facets of our lives…. so simple, yet so often overlooked.

~K

February 9, 2010 – Listen closely

This morning as the day was just beginning, I was in my room dressing to take my daughter to school.   It was quiet in the house… probably the only time today that it would be quiet.   It was then that I heard another promise of spring.  I heard birds singing.
I stopped and practiced what I’ve been saying for months now… I took a lesson from myself and listened to the beautiful sounds, the morning songs being played for me by these beautiful birds outside my window, another promise of spring around the corner.
And then the day began.   I was stopped by a police officer on the way to take my daughter to school.  I had to take both kids to the grocery.  In the rain.  With no help loading or unloading any of it.   When putting it all away, my daughter dumped a container of pre-cut vegetables onto my floors.  While she was doing that, my son squirted the mustard container onto my floors.   I tried to download a song to my i pod for the gym tonight and instead accidentally deleted all 657 of my songs on my i pod.  I didn’t make it to the gym, but instead got into an argument with my husband.  Our plans for family dinner night were spoiled and my son ate paint.   The kids got in bed late, we were doing school projects beyond a reasonable time and it was cold and rainy…. all. day. long.   It was an overall miserable day.
And though this is exactly the opposite of the setting where these complaints should rest, it brought me back, at the end of the day to the sweet sing songs of my morning.   It was a moment to relish… a sweet, peaceful moment, a fantastic start to a day.  Perhaps if I’d have taken some time throughout the day to stop and remember this peace I could have altered the course of some of the events with my own positivity.  I’m sure it could’ve happened.   Regardless, I am going to think of it now… bottle that moment of peaceful songs into my memory and save it for the next crazy moments, which I’m sure, like spring, promise to be right around the corner.
~K

February 8, 2010 – Written in Stone

This is what my driveway looks like this afternoon.

To say I’m so very blessed would be an understatement.   This certainly made my daily gratitude so very easy.   I think I’ll frame this and put it by my bedside.   Every night, my daily worries will quickly melt away when I can glance over and remember the cool February afternoon when my sweet baby girl wrote me this beautiful love note in sidewalk chalk on the cement for no reason at all.

~K