There Was An Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe

Originally uploaded by abroadermark.

There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children
That it was hard to get them all together for the traditional Shoe family Christmas pajama picture.
And harder still to snap a photo where everyone was still wearing his or her “official” 2007 Christmas pj’s (diaper issues), and looking at the camera, and smiling, and sporting a clean face (look carefully for the chocolate ring around Mamie’s mouth).
She took several shots
And hoped for the best.
Then hugged them all tightly
And (finally) let them get dressed.

Oh, how I love this tradition!

Just look at those sweet babies! And they’re all mine!!

I am one lucky mama!!

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

 
Originally uploaded by abroadermark.

Simple Pleasures

Sleeping late
Breakfast prepared by Old Man
A warm bath + a good book + chocolate covered pretzels
Elephants and mood rings
Reconciliation
An exciting secret
Dancing children
Getting out of the house for a while
Clara’s sweet hugs
Choosing a new book to read
Silence
Love all around me

I’m Back

I’ve been so busy with preparations for Christmas, Christmas itself, and then post-Christmas recuperation that I haven’t had time to write.  But I’m back now – for a while, at least.

Old Man figured out a way for me to retrieve the pictures from my camera without having to use the silly Kodak software that keeps messing up his computer.  Now I can share some of the pics I’ve had to keep to myself for the past 2 or 3 months!   I’ve decided to post them where they belong date-wise, so if you guys want to see pictures of the little Shoes at Halloween, or of what St. Nicholas left in the kiddos’ shoes on his feast day, or of my “students of the month”, or of the December birthday boy and girl you’ll have to do a little back tracking. Everything should show up in the months of November and December…eventually.

Okay, I’m off to see if I can make my plan work.

Happy 3rd Birthday Sweet Mary Amelia Anne!

Sisters Can Be “Fosterating”

Just minutes after Gus unwrapped the paint set Chelsea had given him for his birthday, Mamie quietly claimed it for her own. We found the almost 3 year old carefully applying paint to the couch as the rest of us visited in the other room!  Luckily it was that invisible-until-applied-to-special-paper Crayola Color Wonder stuff, and it didn’t damage the furniture.  After scolding Mamie and cleaning up the mess she had made, we noticed Gus sitting quietly at the dining room table.  Old Man went to give him a pat on the head, and Gus looked up at him and calmly said, “I am just SO ‘fosterated’ right now!”  Old Man asked him why he was frustrated, and Gus answered, “I’m fosterated because Mamie ruined my paints!”  Yep, this is a boy who has no trouble expressing his feelings – even if his word pronunciation is a little…shall we say…childish.  

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

I told Oma in an email last night that, while I am enjoying reading Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik, I don’t think it’s the best book I’ve ever read.  I still think that but, now that I’ve finished it, I can tell it’s going to be one of those novels that stays with me for a long time. 

Angry Housewives is about a group of women who start a book club in the late 1960’s.  The book follows the womens’ lives over a 30 year span as they share their thoughts about the books they read each month and, even more importantly, their lives.   It’s a nice story of love, friendship, the importance of being “real”, the power of forgiveness and the beauty of change and growth.   Made me long for a bond like the one the Angry Housewives shared, and for a book club of my own. 

Anyone want to borrow it? 

Gus Meets a “Vampirate”

Henry and Gus have recently become fascinated with the idea of vampires, which they call “vampirates”. It’s almost all they talked about yesterday, and while Gus was getting ready for bed last night this is what he said. “Vampirates are very sneaky, you know. I was playing in my room and I saw one behind me, but when I turned around he went under my bed. Then when I started playing again, he came out from under the bed and started sucking on my leg! See! (pointing to a small scratch on his ankle) This is where he bit me!  Oh, it was just SO creepy, Mom!!”

What an imagination that boy has! It’s hard to believe that, with all those crazy stories swirling around in their heads, neither of my little guys had nightmares last night. Here’s hoping for the same good fortune tonight.

It’s All About Forgiveness and Love and Happiness

Take a look at this post over at booklady’s place.  It’s about forgiveness and it’s very good!

Here’s something else I recently read concerning love and forgiveness.  It’s by Rabbi Harold Kushner – a man whose work I’ve always enjoyed reading. I found it in book entitled, Handbook for the Heart (which is a compilation of original writings on love by several different people), that I picked up on one of my latest thrift store trips.   

People can do this for one another, can love one another with understanding.  All around me I see many people whose lives are not as fulfilling as they might be, simply because these people are too involved with themselves.  I think our society puts too much emphasis on finding someone who will love you; our culture focuses too much on being loved and not enough on being a loving person. It’s much easier to be a loving person, to give away love.  This ability is something you can have control over.  None of us has the power to make someone else love us.  But we all have the power to give away love, to love other people.  And if we do so, we change the kind of person we are, and we change the kind of world we live in.

This attitude is what works for me in my own marriage. The essence of marital love, I have learned, is not romance, but forgiveness – accepting a person’s imperfections and understanding that each of us has his or her quirks that would drive our mates crazy but for the love between us. When I’m in a bad mood, I can only hope that my wife is perpared to write it off as just a bad mood, not the essential me.

Some years ago I read a wonderful newspaper column. A woman sees two children in a playground get into a fight. One of them says, “I hate you. I never want to play with you again.” For two or three minutes they play seperately, and then they come back and start playing with each other again. The observer says to a woman sitting next to her, “How do children do that? Be so angry one moment and together the next?”" And the neighbor says, “Oh, it’s easy. They choose happiness over righteousness.”

That is the advice I give a lot of married couples. Choose happiness over righteousness. Even if you’re right, don’t demand recognition of the fact. Sacrifice the victory for the sake of a happy marriage. In a happy marriage there are no winners and losers, only two people who agree to put up with each other – exasperating as that may be.

It seems that the essence of, not only marital love, but any kind of love, is forgiveness. And I believe that choosing happiness over righteousness is the key to any lasting relationship. We can’t make others love us, but we have the power to love them. We can’t force others to forgive us, but we can (and must if we want to know true peace of mind) forgive them. We have the power to choose happiness over righteousness, to change ourselves, to change the world. The little children on the playground knew it, Rabbi Kushner knows it, booklady and her family know it and I know it. I hope that my trespasses against others have been forgiven as completely as I have forgiven those who have trespassed against me. Not so much for my sake (although I do hope it for my sake to a certain extent), but for the sake of those I have wronged. To be forgiven is one of life’s greatest gifts; to forgive an even greater one.

The Call Finally Came

The call came today. The news was good. All is well.