A Little Sun Peeking Behind the Clouds

This morning I woke up to the sounds of Henry screaming. I'd have to say that I hate waking up to an alarm and I usually woke up before it went off when I had one, but the most jarring way to start one's day is to the sound of your screaming child. Apparently there was a juice cup issue that was of monumental proportions for a couple seconds.

I've been feeling ill for two weeks because I have a cold that my asthma lungs cannot shake and I woke up to another humid, dreary morning.

I walk down into a warmly lit kitchen with the children seated at the table having their breakfast with daddy. They are both already dressed, Hallelujah, this means we can get out the door on time.

After breakfast, the kids snuggle up on the couch for a "morning show" and we hear a baby crying on the monitor in the playroom..then we hear a faint "Head and shoulders, knees and toes...and a baby laugh." I point out to my children that there is a baby crying on the monitor and they hold their bodies still and listen carefully. They hear the mommy singing and the baby stop crying and laugh. They both explode with giggles. This lightness, compassion and happiness envelopes me and takes me out of myself for a little while out of my cold, somewhat frenetic, racing life. We sit there together listening and giggling. That sound of laughter as a reaction to laughter is exponentially lighter and more joyful than any other.

Then, I swear it really happened no lighting or special effects, as we gathered our things to walk out the door, the clouds floated by and the sun lit our day.

Happy Thursday.

Running Part II

(soon...but not yet).

Running Part 1

I've been running all day every day for at least the last four years and really as long as I can remember.

As a child I remember loving hallways and big open fields to run through. The feeling was one of freedom and space and pure bliss. Once I started school I remember running at recess with my friends. We were always inventing games, running around the small school yard that seemed enormous at the time. As we got older, we played organized sports: hockey on the makeshift ice field, baseball, races. When we were a bit older we ran to tackle "keep-away" was the game of choice and it encouraged a lot of physical contact.

At Bates dance camp, I began to run before classes just for the extra work-out since one of my dorm-mates wanted company. Summers in between college I ran at home to stay in shape until I realized that running made me feel like @#$% and I hated it.

Most recently, after Henry was born I chose to enter a triathlon with my friends and relay-mates Megin and Sue. I thought I'd have no problem training for a triathlon so long as I just did the run. I had a single stroller and a double stroller for the kids and I'd just go running. I see moms in the 'hood doing it all the time. Well I never did run much with the stroller. I trained a bit on the treadmill, worked with a trainer and tried to run. But in fact, I realise now my running has never been primarily on the track, at the gym, or around the neighbourhood. I'm much to much of a philosopher, an over-thinking, a critic and a judge to be the child I was running through the tall grasses or shiny hallways. I can sometimes re-create that feeling when I go for a run/walk at the track nearby or playing with the children in the fields at Danehy. I loved to run as a child not because of the running and the speed. I loved to run because I was celebrating the space around me...I relished the feeling of being alone in the world with no strings attached.

Judgement Days

Today, I learned a bit more about myself and have perhaps found a little key to change and to free myself. I know that I'm judgemental. It is part of who I am. I remember in my senior year at Fox Lane High School in Bedford, NY that we all took the Myers-Briggs test. My results were ridiculous looking, but probably quite true to self. Each bar barely left the center, except for two N and J. The N was for intuitive. The longest bar was the J: Judgemental. I wasn't surprised by any of this. I'm honest and think that I see things as they are, but really that's not the whole picture. I thought seeing things as they are and highlighting all flaws and noticing "perfections" was seeing things as they are. In fact, what I now know is that I don't have to judge everything.

What brought this to my attention was seeing my daughter be tentative about trying new things. After ballet class, she'd say "Mom, I didn't know how to dance like a dolphin. How does a dolphin dance? Do you know?". She's judging herself before she even gives herself a chance. She "over thinks". At home in just the right setting and with the right activity, she lets loose and is herself; her carefree self. Our best times together are when we both let loose, dancing in the kitchen, laughing about a moment that just tickled our funny bone.

The moments that I enjoy most myself are when I'm watching the kids' play alone or with one another. These are magic moments and I know now, they are moments without judgement. I'm not looking to improve, modify, assess, valuate anything. I see, I hear, I smile, on occasion cringe, and sometimes I swear I can feel my heart swell.

So now along with baby steps, I am going to try to have more moments without judgement.

bisy backson

As some say...

(and a tiddly pom too)

(For fun, you could google bisy backson. Quite interesting in fact.)

Coming to Terms

I'm just about ready to face 2008. Yes, I think I'm a bit behind, but really thoughts of 2008 and that it is a new year according to the Calendar on my wall have only just become a reality.

In case you haven't noticed...I'm really good at critique. I can find imperfection at the drop of a hat. What I am terrible at is picking up the hat and looking inside at the small perfections. A busker who loves what they do gets out there and performs to enjoy her art. When the hat gets passed around, it can't be the total amount that's in there that counts...that would be too depressing especially in a country that doesn't value the arts as much as others...but each shiny coin is a little perfect thank you someone took unplanned time out of their day to be your audience and took the time to fish out some coins or perhaps more to throw in the hat. I need to stop my show and look in the hat every once in a while.

So I've decided to make myself a list of things that I need to come to terms with maybe right now, or this week, this month, this year, dare I say this decade?

I need to come to terms with the reality that:

I can't get as much done in a day than I did before....and that's okay.

I can't take on how the kids feel when they are hurt or experiencing an "out-of-control" tantrum. I need not feel their pain, but help the through it and be there for them at the other end. (this is very hard...Dad..this is your genes!)

I can't take on how the adults in my life feel when they are going through minor or major difficult times. I can offer help, and be there for themon the other end.

It is a good thing for me to slow down and that doesn't make me lazy it makes me realistic.

Despite the fact that stress is self-imposed, I can't especially control it at this point in my life (with this amount of sleep deprivation). What I can do, is control how I respond to it.

I need to take baby steps with everything right now...and that is okay. I can save my leaps and bounds for ballet class and "living room balls" with Henry and Isabelle.

I don't need to be understood by everyone around me. I just need to have faith in myself.

That's all for now. I'm sure I have more to add, but that's what this evening has to offer. A final thought, that I taught myself (or rather learned from my many teachers, my mom, Mrs. Hopkins at KW Bilingual School, Kathleen at Carousel Dance, M. Joanis at KW Bilingual school) when I was about 12 is never to compare oneself to others. Somehow I've lost that focus. I'm not a "keeping up with the Joneses" type person, but I still am very competitive and I've forgotten that I'm my best competitor and my most real.

So....February...here we come.

what is a holiday?

So we're in New York for "the holidays" and for a myriad of reasons I cringe every time I hear that term.

We're having a great time. We've spent Christmas in Pound Ridge with Grandma and Grandpa, Auntie Margaret, little blips of Minnie Royce Ormsby (the cat who does not enjoy the company of others especially others of the little sort), and visits from Poppa and Mimi, Baba and Papi and Uncle J and Erinn.

Christmas Eve was our usual tradition of take-out and final gift wrapping. This year we had the added challenge of figuring out how to get the masses of gifts under the tree since Isabelle was sleeping on a bed under the tree. Once her breathing relaxed and shifted to a deep steady whishhh and whooooshh, I signaled to Dadda that now would be a good time to put the gifts under the tree. With a couple scares, when Isabelle shifted and stretched we were able to get everything out.

When Isabelle awoke and Henry and I joined her in the studio, she looked at the tree and raised a concern. "Mom, why aren't they all under the tree?". I explained that there were lots of people and that we couldn't fit all the gifts for all the people precisely under the boughs of the tree." The children enjoyed the excitement of the day with family and new toys.

Isabelle understood that we celebrate Chanukah, but that we have Christmas at grandma's house. I don't like that the kids are always opening gifts, but I know that's the prerogative of a grandparent....Christmas, Chanukah, or random Tuesday in July. What I love is that the best times the kids had were climbing upstairs to Grandma and Grandpa's studio loft for a Tea Party with George (the bear) and Arlette (the bear), walking down to the pond to see if there were any ducks, "skating" through grandpa's garden to the "outdoor tea room", running around Bobba and Papi's first floor chasing one another and Isabelle tickling Henry, choosing books from the Bronxville library, exploring the lobby of the Poppa and Mimi's hotel and running about.

I love how much the children enjoy their grandparents and the energy that bounces between the two generations. The appreciation of one little person for one bigger person...one newer human for one more experienced human and vice versa.

In the dictionary a holiday is: noun 1 an extended period of recreation, especially away from home. 2 a day of festivity or recreation when no work is done.

This whole concept of "the holidays" that people refer to as some combination of Thanksgiving, through New Year's is a nightmare. People feel that they have to see everyone they know both friends and family. You have to have a million parties to attend and/or host. Chanukah becomes the Jewish Christmas. It makes me spin just thinking about it. It wasn't until I moved to the US where Thanksgiving is a big deal and started celebrating Christmas at "grandma and grandpa's" that I even became aware of this plague known as "the holidays". The disease is caused by television, shops at the mall, and our human ability to get caught up in the swing of things so easily. The anti-dotes are family and friends (not all acquaintances), a little baking perhaps, some crafts (that don't have to come close to the Martha Stewart Standard), perhaps religion if that's your thing, and just taking a minute to breathe and think.

So next time you wish someone well this winter. Think about to whom you are speaking and what your wish for them is, but don't feel the need to perpetuate an empty greeting...especially to me.

Thanks...and enjoy the company you keep these cold and dark winter days.

Leah
(and family)