Good Times in Brooklin

This morning when I woke up I wasn't sure we were going to make it anywhere. We had planned a fun day starting in the morning but I was having a bad morning pain wise and we had to come up with a new plan. It took a few hours before we could make it out of the house to make some fun.

We started at Vipond Park in Brooklin. This park is amazing and I don't know why it has been a couple of years since we'd been. When we got there there was a baseball game in progress on the diamond and we could hear them playing as we enjoyed the playground.

There was lots to do at the park but one of the highlights for me was getting on a swing myself for the first time in forever. The feel of the wind in my hair and the sun on my face was amazing <3

All of the boys successfully scaled the mini rock wall.

They loved the bridge cross over and the two big boys both conquered the monkey bars. Linus was thrilled to be tall enough to reach by himself!

When we had played for a while Malachi started to need a break from the direct sun so we went over to my Dads house. The kids were thrilled to see Grandpa and they got to spend a nice couple of hours playing (one of the kids from the neighborhood even came over to play!). They also got to spend some time with the largest of the critters, Angus and Farley the dogs, and Annie the pig. 

Such a good ending to a day. Needless to say I had three boys asleep as their heads hit the pillow tonight. That's what I call success!

Not Just Jam

Today I made 29 jars of jam.

29 jars. Some will nourish my own three children and husband. Some will be enjoyed by my uncles and Gramma. Some will be gifts for those I love.

But today jam was more than just jam. It was wrinkled, competent hands guiding me. It was a gentle, firm voice teaching me. It was laughing and singing songs in her voice that I've known since I was still in my mothers womb.

It was dancing the dance of people who know each other deeply, in a kitchen where so many of my wonderful childhood memories were made. It was hearing stories of her Grandma and wondering if maybe, one day, I may be blessed with a granddaughter to share moments like these with.

It was more than just jam. It was memories. Mine, hers, her grandmothers and on along the women before us and on still to those yet to come, I hope.

29 jars of jam. And love.

No One is an Island

My heart is heavy tonight as I ponder many things. This blog post has been brewing inside of me for some time but I havn't known exactly what I was trying to say. I'm going to try tonight.

Tomorrow is the first international Ice Cream for Breakfast celebration. If you don't know what I'm talking about go here. It was conceived by Bruce Rosenberg after he found out that he had stage four metastatic melanoma. He wanted everyone to celebrate life and go on living it... whatever yesterday gave because today is what we have to work with now, and without worrying too much about tomorrow, because after all, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow.

This was a man who died eight days ago, surrounded in person and beyond, by people who loved him. Who were inspired by him. Who were praying every single day of the previous year that he get to continue this journey with us all longer.

As I was thinking about Bruce tonight, and what I did and did not know about him, and all of the people all over the world who rallied around him and his wife and their beautiful girls, I realized that it was likely that someone didn't like Bruce. It seems almost inconceivable to me, for this was a man of formidable character, and yet, I know life being what it is that someone must not have seen him like we did. It got me thinking a lot about myself, and the people I love, and how people see other people.

As I pondered these things I realized that we tend to view people in vacuums. Not as persons who are walking around with a million different life experiences that may or may not be the same as our own, but rather as mirrors of our own reality, who either measure up or do not to our own standards. For those who don't some of us are open minded enough to find out why, but even with that we judge those reasons against our own set of beliefs, morals, and life experiences and decide whether or not that person is worthy of our friendship, our love, our compassion even.

I've been told I'm amazing. That I am so strong. I've had many many wonderful things said about me, and I do not doubt that those people who said them believed them. Heck, I'm not even saying they were wrong. But really if you measure me just by what I have accomplished than depending on what period you look at you would see very different people. If you look at me as the sum total of all of my life experiences, right now, you'll come up with an assessment of me that will vary depending on your own outlook and life experiences.

Not a single one of us exists in a vacuum, or as an island. Every single one of us has made mistakes, and been forgiven by someone. Likely by many someones. No one becomes great without someone else whispering words or actions of encouragement to get us there. It could be simple or it could be large, but in the end, those of us who have no one else in the world to smile at us, encourage us, love us, whither and die.

Why does all of this matter? It matters because life matters. Because as I sit here looking at my self and my own relationships I realize that by looking at others through who I wanted them to be rather than who they are, I set myself up for disappointment, and I set our relationship up for failure. Whether it was a Mom I met at the playground with her kids, a friend, a family member, or a stranger on the street, I've fallen short of loving people where they are. Not always, but far too many times.

I am who I am because of the people who loved me. Who smiled at me on the street when I was having a bad day. Who had a friendly word when I ordered my coffee every morning. Who joked with me as they held the crosswalk sign to help me cross the street. Who held my hair as a puked and my hand as I cried. I am who I am because of those people far more than I am because of those who judged me harshly, spat cruel words or unkind stares at me, used me and abused me. Those actions against me broke me down and shaped me, no doubt, but without the uplifting experiences in my life I guarantee I wouldn't be alive right now.

Life matters. Loving isn't easy but it's powerful. We all judge, but just as it is important to check our Priviledge not so we can make it go away (we can't) but so that we can live our lives with it in mind, it is also important to remember that every person who we meet and judge has a different sum total of their life experiences. That doesn't make them wrong, or bad, just different. And as much as we all tote the line of "difference being good" we don't embrace it in many ways, especially I've noticed in how we try and make others fit our own worldview.

I've seen the other side. I watched my three year old befriend an unshaven, unwashed man with a long ponytail in the grocery store the other day. While I was busy judging, he was busy chatting with the man about Ice Cream and Batman. When we left he told me "That man is my friend Mama. That man had sparkly eyes and he was really nice. Can he come to our house sometime do you think Mama?" That man, who I was busy judging for life experiences that may or may not have been his choice, was radiating a common compassion and human love for my boy, and he saw it, and shined it right back. When I thought about the man some more I realized how many different possibilities there could have been for why he acted why he acted, and how quickly I was willing to dismiss them all as unimportant.

I'm guilty of it not only with strangers but with the people I love the most. The unbelievable loss I've felt this past year has made me rethink and reexamine many areas of my life and relationships are among the most important. To those who read this I offer an apology if I've judged you out of hand. I offer an explanation of only that my life experiences led me to believe what I believed was right. And I offer an open offer to try again, if you'll let me. I think that this world needs more compassion and love and less judging and closing ourselves off from each other.

Thank you Bruce for bringing an amazing network of people together from across the world. Thank you for the lessons you taught us. In your memory I'm ready to love like I've never loved before. Thank you family and friends and even strangers who have loved me to this point. Without you, well, without you I'd be withered away on an island instead of living life to its fullest.

Six Week Countdown

My Little Malachi Elf, Christmas 2010

Six weeks. That's all the time left until Christmas Day. I was talking on the phone with my sisterbestfriend yesterday and we were both a little panicked at the reality of how close it is getting. It's even less time until the season of Advent, which is one of my favourite times at church. A time of preparation. For many things.

There is much to be done. Plans need to be made for what celebrations we will be at when. We need to prepare the gifts we are giving. There will be extra time at church, extra time with family and with friends, and on December 15th, James comes home from the hospital for good so in the midst of this Christmas season we will be readjusting to being a full time at home family of five.

Lots to do. Lots of preparations to make. I better get going on my list.

Why Are You Sad Mama?

That was the question my two year old asked me when he came upon me today, tears slipping down my cheeks, lost in my own world.

"I'm remembering baby", I answered him.

"Remembering what?" Those big blue eyes looked up at me and he reached out and placed his hand on my own.

Remembering what? This was a harder question for me to answer completely. At two his heart is big and open and wants to take away everyone else's hurt. I didn't want to burden him with the depth of what I was feeling.

I told him I was remembering Poppa, which was not a lie, although it wasn't really the whole truth either. My four year old piped up with his own memories of Poppa John (his great grandfather).

Poppa John was a veteran of World War II and although he survived the war and came home and went on to be father to eight children, we lost him earlier this year, at the end of June. He was not a perfect man, but he was perfectly what I needed him to be as my grandfather. Fitting then, on this day, for me to be remembering him, along with the other men and women who have served and are serving this country proudly so that me and my children can have our freedom.

This day, in some ways, marked the end of my own freedom several years ago. That pain, those memories, were in fact also bubbling over into my tears when my son found me. I couldn't really explain that to him though, indeed I can't really put into words the depth of my feelings at all. That will be a post for another day. Tomorrow perhaps, or perhaps not.

Right now I will focus my thoughts on gratitude for those men and women, for the ones who came home and the ones who did not, for the ones who fought before and the ones fighting today. For my Poppa. For all the others who were and are spouses, children, parents... loved.

Thank you. I will never forget. May none of us ever ever forget.

Helping Hands

This is a difficult blog post for me to write. I am someone who is not good at asking for help. I'm not even really good at letting people know how they can help. It has been pointed out to me that I should be asking for help, as hard as that is... and there are people who have said that they would help us right now only they don't know how.

Mostly what we need right now is practical help. I'm overwhelmed at times with the constant chaos that is my life. Taking care of the three boys, being at the hospital with James (which I'm not able to do as much as they'd like me to because I have the boys with me), keeping up with the housework, packing up the house, etc etc etc. Plus taking care of myself, which falls to the bottom of the priority list and often doesn't get done.

Help could look like a number of things and since I've been asked I'm going to put some of them out there:

*spending time playing with the boys in the park next to our house so I can get stuff done without them underfoot
*coming and chatting with me and keeping the boys occupied while I get things done
*taking the kids away (even just for a short time) so I can get a quick nap in or finish things that need doing
*dropping off a meal that I can pop in the oven for us to eat (you could even join us if you'd like!)
*calling to check in on the phone and just listen, even if that means I cry or vent a lot
*picking up an extra bag of milk (I can even provide gift cards for stores so it isn't out of pocket) and dropping it off... we go through a TON of whole milk here since M drinks it and I can't ever seem to keep up with it
*running errands with me so that I have an extra set of hands (when all five of us go it involves me both pushing James' wheelchair and pulling the cart behind us)
*taking boxes of stuff I pack to get rid of and dropping them off at Value Village (or really anywhere else that will take them, I'm not picky)

I can see how helping us could seem overwhelming. There is just so much that could be done. Really small things really make a huge difference though. There may even be ways that you could help that I haven't even thought of. One of my dear family members has offered to come over and help me put my garbage out every Thursday. It won't take long but it is hard for me to fit into the million other things that take up my time on Thursdays and sometimes the garbage just doesn't get put out (which means I have another two bags that have to wait until the next week). It's a very large blessing for us that she offered to do that. Now I know that it will get done.

Thank you for all of the help that has already been given to us over the last two months. It really, truly is appreciated.

Gratitude Project

I've decided that as part of my overall plan of living my life with gratitude to spend some time checking in with all of my facebook friends. I have over 200 of them (closer to 300 really) so it won't be a one day project, but I want to make sure that all of my peeps know that I care that they are on my list. Spread a smile and some love as it were.

I'm grateful I have such wonderful people on my list. I hope they know that. :-)

Sometimes A Little Means A Lot

Sometimes an unexpected visit can be exactly what we need.

Sometimes a hug and a smile and some love is all it takes to turn someones day around and make them smile.

Sometimes a helping hand for a few minutes can make the load seem not so heavy.

Sometimes the little things mean the most.

Today all of the above was true for us. For that, I am grateful.

A Whole Weekend Ahead of Us

That's the gift we've been given. The boys and I picked James up at 3:30pm today and he's all ours until 8:00pm on Sunday night. This is the first time in seven weeks that we are all together for a whole weekend.

Our plans? Sleep (well, that's my goal anyway lol), and lots of time spent together. We are going to get some necessary productive work done but other than that just hanging around close to home and relaxing hopefully. No commitments, no timelines.

I'm grateful for days like these.

A

Happy Father's Day... to my Dad

Today was a bittersweet day for me...

Father's Day always is. As I celebrate the father of my own babies and am surrounded by friends and family celebrating their own special fathers I feel alone in my grief over not celebrating my own. I can neither join in the celebration of the living, present fathers, nor join in the solemn grief over fathers who were present and have passed away into whatever is waiting for us after this life.

My father is alive. He is well as far as I know. He lives not two hours away from here. He is not a criminal or a violent man. He is not batshit crazy. He lives and works and functions in normal society and has friends and even family in his life.

The last time I saw my father was in October, 2008. Almost three years. He has never met my middle or my youngest sons. Despite living only three streets down from us when my oldest son was born he saw him only a handful of times in his two years of life before the last time I saw him. Even though he regularly came into the city where I live to pick up my much younger sister for weekend visits he has never been to my home.

Two years ago, after over half a year of not seeing my father. After not hearing from him after the birth of my second child. After years of hurt and disappointment had built up, I made the decision I couldn't pursue him anymore. I couldn't put myself, and now my children, into the path of being hurt when we felt like we didn't matter enough to him to warrant his care.

It was, hands down, one of the most painful, heart wrenching decisions I have ever made in my life.

And still, even now... I miss him. I grieve for the relationship I wish we had. Right now, as I sit here typing this I am not a rational, calm, collected almost 25 year old. I am a hurt little girl with tears running down her face desperately missing a man who has always been there... but never really been there.

My Dad is alive. I hope he is well. I hope that today was filled with laughter and life and music, because if there is one thing my Dad loves it is music. Happy Fathers Day to the man who gave me the gift of having music in my soul. Who taught me that having a play list with every type of artist and song and time period on it together (except rap, that was our one agreed on type missing from the list) was the way to express everything in life, all the ups and all the downs to help your soul feel better. Who only yelled when it really mattered (which was less than a handful of times my whole life) and never, ever raised a hand to me, to my siblings, to the woman he loved in our home, or to our animals.

Happy Fathers Day to my Dad who grew up without a Dad, but also without the ability to grieve that Dad because his Dad too was alive. And my Dad never stopped loving him.

With tears on my face and a lump in my throat I wish my Dad a Happy Father's Day. I wish it was different. I miss the good times we've had.

I'm off to soothe my hurt with some music... and while I grieve I'll remember that gift of music in my soul and I'll remember that I'm lucky to have that.

What Makes a Family

I am one of those people who has all sorts of notions in my head about what family should be. About what a family should look like. About what is best, in terms of what family should be doing, for the children involved who have no say yet.

These things have nothing to do with what sorts of couples should be allowed to marry each other (whether decided based on sex, sexuality, race, religion, age etc.) or how many children they should have (because quite frankly, if a couple wants zero children I am so all on board with that plan if it's right for them... in the exact same way I am totally on board with the couple who wants a dozen).

They have to do with what family means beyond the outward appearance of the people that make it up.

They have to do with loving each other, supporting each other, being there for each other. I feel it is important to not belittle or cut each other down, and that it is important to remember that family is forever and fight for those bonds to remain intact unless and until it reaches such a point where it will harm the people involved to continue. Even then, for me, family is still forever. I have certain family members with whom I have no relationship any more, by my own choice. And yet still, even now, if those family members were to be open to having a relationship with me that was healthy enough to not do harm to me or my children I would have it. I could never just be done, although I know I have family members who could/can.

Also family for me isn't just the people you are born with. I have a third whole family (my other Mom and her family) that I didn't have when I was born. I also have friends, no blood relation, who are some of the closest family members that I have.

Tomorrow I will be blessed to have some of my amazing family members with Malachi and the rest of us as he gets welcomed into our church family and also into our world in general as right after he was born I wasn't well enough to gather everyone to welcome him. I will have some of the family I was born with there... including my mother, my grandmother, several of my aunts and uncles, and some of my cousins. I will also have some of the family I got after I was born such as my brother and sister, and my mother in law and father in law. I will also have a family who are way to much to be "just friends"... aunt and uncle to my kids, and my children's youngest two cousins. Also known as my best friend, her husband (also an amazing friend) and their children. All of these people are taking time out of their busy lives to join and celebrate and support us tomorrow.Some of our family aren't able to be here but would really love to be but distance and poor timing (not a lot of notice on our part, and it's also Fathers Day) prevent it. They will be missed very much.

I am very excited about tomorrow. I love celebrations, and I love being with my family even more. Doing both together is best of all. I am so grateful to the people in my life who are family who gets it and care enough to be here with us (even if they aren't able to be physically here). We are blessed indeed.

Friends From in the Womb

Today we've had a wonderfully lazy, fun Sunday. We slept in (some of us at least...) and lounged about until after noon and then did some much needed grocery shopping to feel like we'd actually accomplished something today. After bringing the perishable stuff home and putting it away we headed off to the Pirate Ship Park to meet up with some friends we hadn't seen in a while. It was good times catching up with R while her daughter E, who is just 5 months younger than Tobias played at the park along with our three boys.

Tobias and E were destined to be friends before they were even named LOL. Rachel and I met at the bus station when we were both pregnant still. It turned out we worked together. We chatted and enjoyed each others company and then realized we planned on doing a lot of the same parenting things with our yet to be born babies. Then after Tobias was born and I'd left my job she ended up moving on to the same street I lived on without even knowing I lived there. In fact, it turned out we even shared family!!! One of my aunts was her partners Dad's partner (did you follow that? LOL).

E was born on a cold clear February morning and I headed to the hospital to help with breastfeeding when she was just a few hours old (our local hospital is not known for it's support with breastfeeding... but that's another post). I ended up staying there until about 10:00 at night. When they came home I was there every day and it was the start of a pattern that lasted the whole time we lived down the street from each other. We never went a day without seeing each other unless we were out of town and therefore the kids spent nearly as much time together as they would've if they had been siblings.

It's funny to see them together now. The five month age spacing doesn't matter much now that they are both four, but yet she is still a "baby" to Tobias who sees her more as the annoying little sister (whom he is of course fiercely protective of) than the best friend. Of course she feels the same way about Linus who is less than a year younger than her so I suppose it's just the way of the world.

We don't see them nearly as much as we used to (although we can always count on the August long weekend visit as it's a family reunion that we share together), but still I remember those days fondly. The kids have grown up like crazycakes. I can't believe that once upon a time they were just hopes and dreams of possibility inside us.

Tobias' WTF face when I held her as a new baby

T and E Father's Day 2007

Wearing Two for the very first time! Summer '07

Tobias (almost 4) and E (3.5) in August, 2010