moments worth noting

Some days, you blink, and look around, and things are good.

Really, really good.

And it's as if you're surfacing from a dream, where all the edges are just a little hazy...just a little unstable. And you're not sure when you woke up. You can't quite pinpoint when that clarity hit, just that it's there.

My life right now? It's that soft edge of waking.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

 I remember when the kids were young... three under the age of four... and every deep breath I took hurt. Every moment my eyes were open was a struggle. But I remember it abstractly, as if I read it in a book and can recall it in muddied images. And I look back almost fondly now at those years; and wish I could remember with more clarity how my children looked, when they sweetly rubbed the sleep from their eyes, told me they loved me in the soft lisp of a two-year-old. But I know that it's just my body's self-defense mechanisms kicking in, protecting me from the sharp edges those memories also carry.

 And I don't want this year to be like that.

Years with extremes tend to be just that: Extreme.

And this year has been amazing. We've managed to compact years of joy and tears and firsts into just a few short months. And I am already afraid that ten years from now, I'll look back at this year with the soft edge of memory, forsaking all those brilliant sharp edges that made it worth remembering.

Those sharp edges? They give clarity. They extend meaning beyond the soft blur. They're the good stuff. Hell, sometimes they're the best stuff.

Tiny Heart Attacks

A hundred tiny heart attacks...for the next six weeks

New chapters in life are both terrifying and exhilarating.
And it is only right that they should be both.
How else will you know you're alive if you're not terrified of taking the next step every so often?

Resiliant

If you had told me prior to this, that in less than a month after major spine surgery, The Monkey would not only be up and about like normal, but also running, jumping, wrestling with her brother, and playing violin on stage at Hilbert Circle Theatre again; I'd have called you a liar in a heartbeat.

 

I've been absent this blog too long. 

My apologies.

But life has this habit of getting in the way of things.

Exhibit A: The Monkey undergoing a Posterior Spinal Fusion at St. Vincent's Payton Manning Children's Hospital this April.

I'm not sure where April went, honestly. It flew by in a blur of hospital waiting rooms and family surgery centers and humming fluorescent room lights and reflective tile flooring and the soft buzz of sympathy and machinery hooked up to my child...

If you haven't hugged a nurse today? Do it. Right now. Those people are the strongest, most caring group of men and women I've ever had the privilege of being with. They are at the same time soft and hard, caring and insistent. They move mountains and wipe tears with the equilibrium of someone who has lived a thousand lifetimes. 

And, while I've purposefully left off grand details of The Monkey's particular ordeal, because the memories of that little body post-surgery still brings the sting of tears to the back of my throat, I will say that the capacity the human body has to heal has absolutely stunned me.

By all rights, this kid should still be in bed somewhere, and yet here we are...back in the thick of things again.  And, while I white-knuckled every new step she took post-surgery, I've finally come to the point where Sophia's back isn't my first and last waking thought. She's healing. In the way that only that scrappy little monkey can - at warp speed.

god help us all...I think that kid could do just about ANYthing she puts her mind to.

Shit I've Made This Month...

Predictably, when my life starts to spin a little out of control, the amount of baked goods and crafts I turn out increases exponentially. I crave the control that I can exert over these small things...when I start to lose it in other areas. The last 30 days have been no different.

Things I've purchased in the last 30 days:
4+ yards of miscellaneous fabric
2 yards elastic

6 spools of thread

two new skeins of yarn

two new crochet hooks

half pound felt

new needles for the sewing machine

6+ yards nylon cording

12 D-rings

5 onesies

2 packs iron-on letters

...

It's a sickness. I know.

 One handmade 'Owie Doll'
Both machine & handstitched cotton blend body & face, felt accents and accessories.
Complete with 30 handstitched, multi-colored band-aids, machine stitched arm sling, faux-casts, head wrap, eye patch and roll of 'injury tape'.

Both sets of clothing for the doll are reversible - so she's got four outfits (one of which looks shockingly like a hospital gown. Go figure, right?). This was, obviously, too labor-intensive a project for a kid who couldn't even play with the finished product until after she left the hospital. But it kept me occupied in the wee hours, when I would otherwise be obsessing over our impending hospital stay.

One (of three made) machine stitched, front-tie shirt for The Monkey.
Post-surgery the kiddo couldn't dress herself, let alone lift her arms up enough to put on a regular Tshirt. Everything itched, or hurt her incision site, so I altered a pattern from Meg Mcelwee's 'Growing Up So Liberated". I added internal and external side ties, rather than finishing off the full side seams. I also opted out of binding the neck and arm holes to make the shirt as simple and quick and soft as humanly possible for The Monkey. She lived in these 100% cotton knit shirts for nearly two weeks.

Necessity being the Mother of all Invention...

I made belts this month.
The Munchkins are outgrowing every stitch of every thing that they are wearing. Belts included. And I refused to buy $50 in new belts of all things. So a quick trip to the notions aisle at Joann's resulted in $20 of yards of nylon cording, a couple spools of ribbon, a handful of D-rings. Ultimately turning out about nine new belts for the kiddos.
There are an abundance of tutorials out there on making your own belts, but I was just sort of winging it and they all turned out just fine...

Word to the wise - tighten your stitched reinforcing lines nearest the D-rings as possible, kids. Trust me on this one.

Random onesies for the sister with the new twins. 

Because I couldn't help myself. And it only took 15 minutes.

I love it when a project both turns out AND can be completed in under 20 minutes...

So, there you go. 

Midnight crafting continues to be my coping mechanism.

I want to say "it could be worse" but you haven't seen my fabric stash lately...

Quotable

"I am lonely, yet not everybody will do.

I don't know why, some people fille the

gaps and others emphasize my lonliness.

In reality those who satisfy me are those

who simply allow me to live with my idea of them.

-Amais Nin 

It takes a Village

"We made that" the ex-hubs nudges me with an elbow, smiling and nodding toward our nine-year old perched on a riser at the front of the school gym, singing with the choir.

"Yes," I agree, recalling the obstinate tilt to her head & the tip of her tongue that peeked out in concentration earlier when she was accompanying on the xylophone. "But I think there's more of you than me in there today..." her crystal blue eyes flash up at us with a quick pre-teen twist of a smile lobbed at us both, squeezed from her almost painfully in front of the throngs of parents and friends in attendance.

The strains of Carole King's 'You've Got a Friend' bring pinpricks of tears to the backs of my eyes, and I glance up at the gym rafters and blink. Hard.

"Nah" he continues. "She practices! That's all you...that dedication"
I snort softly, instantly taken back to days of endlesd band rehearsals and auditions. These kids all have their father's music in them at a cellular level. It sems like just yesterday they were climbing into his guitar case, curling up in the body of it like a nest While he picked out a tune & crooned soft, nonsense lyrics to them as toddlers. A lifetime ago.

But it's comfortable,  this patter between us.

Meanwhile, our youngest slips her hand stealthily into Penny's a few feet away, and my phone vibrates, a message from The Captain. And I marvel at how lucky we are to have built such a cocoon around The Munchkins. To have found people so willing to accept them into their hearts.


Co-parenting is a rough road. Whether you live in one house or two, whether there are one,  two or four of you, it's just rough. And it takes time to hone out what everyone's roles are along the way. There's no right answer,  no cookie cutter that fits everyone. You try and fail and try again.  Our village is ever-changing, ever-expanding.

We've clawed our way into a good place, though, think.

And for this I am so, so grateful.

default settings

Happy is not everyone's default setting.    And that's okay.

There's a lot of beauty that can come out of sadness. Out of anxiety. Out of being uncomfortable.