The Phoenix: Epicuriousmothering Rising

I took an hour bath this morning.  I was cold after my tiny yoga/getting the kids off/john off session and so I filled the tub with hot water and climbed in and opened a real book and read read for an hour or maybe . . . more. I don't know because I ignored everything and I only know when I got out, not when I got in. I'm letting my hair dry crinkly and frizzy and I'm wearing comfort clothes and watching the clouds outside my window get heavier and darker.  They look pregnant and I want to yell at them, Just give birth already!  Let that heavy water fall right down on us.  I know I'm ridiculous but that doesn't seem to stop me. These days, now the fifth day, of the children all being gone for a few hours (six may seem like a lot to you, but to me, they seem like a blip in the day), I find I am fiercely jealous of my hours alone.  I turn my phone on silent, I shut my shutters and hide in my bedroom at the back of the house.  I pray that everyone will f...

Woo-wee, what a summer.  None stop action from beginning to end--just like it always is--John'ts birthday trip to the pacific northwest, Colorado, Girls Camp, Calgary, Thomas Family Reunion, Idaho and a whole lot in-between! But now, the third day of school is in progress and I find myself home alone with not only a few minutes, but a few hours to spare. I'm not sure what to think.  I am not sure I can trust this feeling of calm, of peacefulness, of actually picking up something and it staying picked up for more than three minutes. I have, it seems arrived. Where? To the time where I have some discretionary time. It's not that I haven't had it before.  In fact, I've always had it until these last three years where the kids schedules have started overlapping and intwining until I had no time at al EVER.  And I got used to that.  It was the norm.  I remembered vaguely having time to read and write and sit and cook and BE, but that seeme...

I've been thinking a lot about happy endings--mostly about how there aren't really happy endings, just the moment of happiness where you believe everything will be alright.  But that before, as they say at the very end of The Princess Bride , the wounds re-open, the thing you thought was cured comes back, and love has a falling out. Yep, cheery thoughts about happy endings, right? It's quite telling about where I was mentally.  I thought I was being a realist--you know, acclimating myself to the realities of the world.  Toughening myself up.  Facing the hard truth. Guess what? Reality stinks. Seriously. If all these hard truths and realities are all that make up life--REAL LIFE--then call me a dreamer and a optimist.  Call me any sort of "poor her, she doesn't know what's really out there" type of names and I'll happily take them.  I love my world of dreams and hope and faith.  It's warm.  It's cozy.  It's filled with endless po...

I've erased two essays already because they just don't sum up life right now. So I'll sum it up by bullet points: Henry: turns 16 this week (FINALLY), tried to skip his first class but called me to make sure it was ok (I may have screamed no! it's NOT ok! over the line), told us at 1am that he wants to quit soccer (which we may have over-reacted about and perhaps scared him for life), told us his birthday wish was to take his brother and sisters (with out us) to Jump On It (trampoline place) for his birthday after he gets his license.  He wears flannels almost every day.  Size XL. OH, and he's doing a month long Eagle project in conjunction with the Elementary school and PTA of a Book Drive.  Let's just say that he's learning something, but I'm learning A TON.  I will be VERY glad when it's over. Phoebe: ballet, ballet, ballet with moments of home time.  She keeps getting asked to do these things for super smart people (like take special te...

I don't know what it is with music lately, but it's bringing up some amazing memories and feelings. Today, ten minutes ago, I was making Teriyaki sauce for marinating Sunday chicken, when this song on Pandora came on.  I don't even know what it is or was called or who it was by, but it's this beautiful love song about how time and age won't change the love he feels for his love.  All of a sudden, I was crying, big old tears rolling down my cheeks because I was thinking of my brother, Joseph. I know, love song and brothers?  Nope, they don't often (ever) go together.  But today while I was listening to the song, I remembered what it was like to feel completely safe and loved and protected and that's how Joseph always made me feel.  (Well, once he grew out of handing me umbrellas and pushing me out of two story forts to see if I floated like my namesake "Mary Poppins" and sticking boogers on the end of vacuum hoses and sticking them through doors...

Today as I was racing down to pick Phoebe up from ballet, I heard a song by Regina Spector.  In it, she  says something about graffiti-ing up their babies toys and being a super cool parent.  I smiled and thought of all the super cool friends/family we have who do things like that with their kids (not graffiti up the toys--ick, toxic!) and what fun and deliberate parents they are.  For years they think about how their little son or daughter will be, what great clothes they'll buy for them and what fun books they'll read to them, trips they'll take them on, and how they're going to deal with . . . THEM. Yeah, I'm not like that. I was never like that. I never even thought about babies. I knew how they came, but only barely. It seemed all so impossible and far far far off. And so . . . Henry took us both by complete surprise.  To put it mildly. When I think of myself pregnant with him and the first few months after we had him, it's of a young woman ...