It's Happening

And it's just about all I can think of.  I'm gathering information, deciding where everything's going to go.  Counting my seeds, wondering just how many carrots I'll get to have homegrown this year, trying my hand at tomatoes, wonderful, delicious, useful and intimidating tomatoes.  The first round of seedlings are started and the first sprouts arrived yesterday afternoon, oh wonderful kale of course you're the first out of the ground.  I wonder who will come in second, I wonder which crops I'll be most impressed with this year?

 

   

 This was the first morning I found myself up before the rest of my family, I popped on my jacket, donned my mudboots and walked out into the crisp and bright morning air.  The ground was soft yet crunchy with ice beneath my feet and the morning was filled with promise.  Seeing the first garlic sprouts between the seaweed mulch and imagining my garden plan in action there.  I find myself wondering what will be the goals of the yard this year, I see little pieces coming together, and I find myself planning on so much more for this piece of ground that we work.

Pride

Today I turn 30.  Correction, today I turned 30.

Living in the past or the future, we come to milestones.  When the numbers change from a 2 to a 3, or 5 to a 6, it feels monumental.  Society makes these numbers monumental.  We are to come to these numbers with a feeling of dread or of fear.  However I don't feel those things.

I feel as though I'm 30.  I feel as though I have two children, a husband, a home, car payments, animals who rely upon me, family who respects me, community that I make a difference in, friendships that support me.  It feels just as one would hope.  responsibility, passion, balance: these are all mine and I hold them with pride. 

So when you ask me how it feels to be 30, I'll answer, "I feel proud."  I couldn't ask for more.

I Have Great News!

With pregnancy passing so has my eczema it seems.  Gone are the raw patches stretching across knuckles, fingers and backs of hands!  Gone are the itchy, debilitating raw patches!  Oh hurrah! Hurrah!  Hurrah!

I welcome back in to my life ease and ability.  Washing my hands becomes an easy task.  Washing dishes?  I can do it with gusto!  Digging in the garden this Spring will be a snap!  And oh, the greatest joy of all...

I can knit once again!!!!!!!!

Transition.

 
There are so many moments as our family adjusts to it's 1/3 increase in size that I feel how dramatically this foursome is changing us all.  I feel how quickly every routine, schedule and reliable moment of our lives has quickly shifted.  And what is that shift exactly?  And how are we different?  And how do we make the same time and space for individuality in all of that? 

The most needy person in this shift is, of course, Cecilia.  While, yes, she welcomes her baby brother, and exhibits pride and love and caring and comforting; I can also see how much she's struggling.  There are so many daily moments that feel like we're walking a tightrope. 

I am quite aware of her searching for the balance in life once again, for we're each just a little off track right now.  We're each floundering about trying to feel a morning, trying to understand filling everyone's needs at once, feeling around to see how it is that we each fit together exactly now that there are more of us.  Simple tasks take longer.  How do we all get in the car?  How to do we make and eat breakfast with a baby attached to me?  How do we fold the laundry, make the bed, brush our teeth, take a shower, go to the bathroom?  And how do our children each stay contented through all of these operations?  How do we all remain balanced?

As we awaken from our joyful bliss bubble, we walk straight in to a bog where we do not know the answers anymore.  Luckily we have a very bright lantern.  And quite thankfully our mud boots are warm.  For as many unknowns as there are to find answers to, and hours of sleep lost, and moments spent with a movie instead of a parent.  There are also baby dimples, playdough cakes, friends with open arms, hugs and kisses and tickles, and quiet morning snuggles with the sweetest family I've ever known.