8 will be a wee bit late...

after all of the prep and festivities of miss p's birthday celebration a proper post about my lovely little girl will have to wait as it is now so very late.

heartache for haiti

today i have been engulfed in a sadness that i can't quite explain. i do what i can; send a bit of money to oxfam, gather as much information as i can, light candles for those & their families who are suffering. but what i think is, i am not strong enough to be an adult yet. these things that continue to happen that seem shockingly surreal and unbearable; 9/11, hurricane katrina, darfur, the war in iraq.....i could fill pages of disasters that have passed, disasters that continue and disasters that will continue to come our way as a human race. and yet as humans we are also incredibly resilient but i admit that as i grow more in to my adult self, the more i want to retreat to the arms of my parents. to a world that was peaceful and these awful catastropes simply did not exist.

tonight i hold the people of haiti in my heart and my mind-- sending prayers and thoughts for the haitians, our fellow humans, to quickly see the end of this nightmare. may the world quickly come to their rescue.

2010

hello 2010.
i am counting on you.
counting on you to bring about a strong sense of well being.
a renewed sense of self confidence.
a deep restoration of humor.
a sense of ease and wistfulness.
a transformation of sorts.

of course dear 2010, i do not expect you to do this alone.
i commit to doing my part of the work too. i just need you
to provide me with the time. provide me with each day a
sunrise and each night a sunset- giving me that constant
daily rythmn of lifes lightness and darkness- a literal and
figurative message that penetrates me so profoundly.
i commit to holding this lightness and darkness as part
of the whole. i will continue to take the good with the bad
and know that it is this whole that brings about growth and
understanding. i welcome the lessons i will learn this
year while holding strong that i am capable to handling
all of it.

hello 2010, i open up my arms and embrace you.

happy "two" you

happy to you teo.

today you are two and while i am enjoying every moment of watching you grow and change and bare your personality, i find myself feeling like the fleeting moments of your babyhood vanished before my very eyes. you are a full fledged toddler with a growing vocabulary to prove it. i had always heard that boys speak later and with less clarity than girls and since your sister proved to follow suit in that "advanced girl way", i sort of expected to not hear so much jabbering from you. but this proves not to be the case. you can talk it up with the best of 'em. i am amazed by what you say and understand. it is not a new word here and there, it is an avalanche of words that fill your curious brain and you try them out in nearly perfect form every day.

you too, are ALL boy. and this i am not kidding about. you bumble about like a ball in a pinball game-- from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next. you have energy that i can barely keep up with.

you have an instinctive love for music and we go weekly to hear mister ben play at the local coffee shop. he plays the guitar and the ukulele and sings songs that you listen to intently and quietly and sometimes i wonder if you are really listening at all, but then later, at home, you try out the tunes and beat out the rhythms on your drums-- which often are compiled of anything you can find. most everything can become a drum and a drumstick in your world.

along with this musical instinct, is one for sport. just as quickly as something becomes a drum and drumstick, it then becomes a racket and a ball. your form is superb and where it came from we have no idea. since sunday sports on tv simply do not happen at home and dada has never shown you specific ball & racket or ball & bat tricks, it would seem you simply have an innate desire and know-how to play ball. this of course is also rather eye opening to me and your dada as your sister was completely happy to sit and play horses- quiet, organizational play that you just don't have the patience for. it is so fascinating to see how the two of you are so different in your ways- whose to say if it is a girl/boy difference, a birth order difference or simply what each one of you was coded with genetically. but you bring balance to our lives with your spark of energy and silliness.

i love you sweet teo. more than you can imagine. you love to sing happy birthday but when you sing it, it comes out "happy to you". you sing and say this phrase to us often. and it is always a reminder to me of what i really do have in this world to be happy about- you and your sister are certainly top of my list. so on this day and every day mijo, a very happy to you.

life :: kids :: lessons

wow, 2 months gone by. where did they go? where have i been? honestly, i have just been living my life and being present with my family. haven't taken pictures, haven't been blogging. sometimes it just becomes one more thing to "keep on top of" and i just have to say to hell with it. but i do like keeping track of things here and i know one day my children will appreciate it too. so with that, here is a brief update.

pilar has enjoyed a busy fall playing soccer and is now doing a tumbling/circus class. something happened to that little girl out there on the big open field. she found her body and she found that it could move in ways she never quite knew. soccer has given her a sense of confidence in her physical self that she has never had before. while other girls were busy climbing trees, polls or anything else that shot up out of the ground, and swinging from monkey bars, my little girl was busy making fairy houses, drawing, knitting, and creating art out of any material that crossed her path. this girl could fill a gallery monthly. and i worried about this. worried about her lop-sidedness. but once again, life proves me wrong, proves that worrying is futile because things change and grow constantly. she now only has a slight lean as she now slips down the poll on the playground, then bounds across the monkey bars, then jumps in to a game of scramble. and i can see her beaming with pride as she discovers she too has a body that moves and is strong and agile.

mateo is giving us a run for our money. he is everything pilar never was. you could say they are polar opposites (which probably really isn't true and just as i write this something will shift to be certain). mateo dashes off every time you turn your head. every possible thing becomes a stepping stone to get to something else-- ie the drum is a stool for which to use to get on top of the table and swing the lamp from side to side. the kitchen stool is a uselful tool for attempting to climb on top of the refridgerator. when he bathes we have to mop up an inch of water from the floor. he hits, he bites, he pinches and he seems to be oblivious to my words "mateo, we are gentle with people & animals-- here bang on the drum or bite the pillow"-- this works for a moment but then he is right back to his antics. taking him out in public is challenging at best. it never goes very well when meeting another mama at the music circle by saying "i'm so sorry my son just whopped yours on the head". not the best ice breaker out there. and quickly you learn who are the parents who have dealt with similar issues and those who have not. i have always joked that the universe gave me a "pony girl" as retribution for not being so kind to the pony girls when i was younger. and now the universe has provided me with my very own little bully for all the judgement i have placed on parents and there children who were of this nature before having my own little devil. "must be bad parenting going on in that house- can't they control their child!"-- yep, life is funny that way, always sticking you with a lesson to learn. on the flip side, mateo is sweet and articulate. he loves music and requests it every time we hop in the car "mickas please mama". he loves the drums-- we are all for this but sometimes starting out the day at 6:30 with an intense jam session can be a bit much. he has his favorite friends; elephant, guy, monkey and rabbit-- they travel with him from bed to bed. he loves "piyar" and copies everything she does- if she dresses her doll, mateo follows suit. he counts to 20. he loves to be read to and comes to me saying "read couple books mama"-- how can i resist?

i love pilar and all her grace and perfectionism and i equally love mateo and all of his energy and puppy like qualities. i think if i were to ask my mom she would say "there goes history repeating itself". it is bewildering to me how two children from the same gene pool can be so completely different. truly amazing.

brother + sister

there is something extra special about the relationship between a brother and a sister. or maybe i am biased from my own experience. but what i notice is that much of the competitive nature is taken away- they are inherently different creatures both in their physiology and also their personality and they get that on a very deep level so it seems to almost remove the need to 'prove' themselves and stake their claim in the family. i am sure the 6 year age gap also comes in to play here in a positive way- they are naturally at very different stages of life and interested in very different things. while pilar would prefer to make fairy houses, mateo is just as content to sit on heap of dirt and dig. they are truly opposites in most all ways but they are finding the places where they connect.

pilar and mateo continue to discover one another in new ways. yes, they sometimes love to egg one another on- but that is part of being siblings. what is really beautiful to watch is the way pilar looks out for her little brother. the way she likes to talk about him and what he is doing, new words he is saying. she is a proud big sister. lately she loves to set him up in the sweetest, most cozy, wagon ride complete with blankets and pillows and parade him around the yard and down the street. mateo loves the pampering and pilar loves being in charge (hmm, i see history repeating itself all over again). and mateo really just thinks pilar is the cat's meow. he wants to play with her dolls, he wants her to read to him, he wants to be with her. he loves making her laugh and will do something over and over and over again just to see her smile and hear her big belly laugh.

it is sweet the love that continues to deepen between these two. my hope is that a strong foundation of friendship with one another will offer them lasting friendship and mutual respect for many, many years ahead. i think it will.

12 years ago...

i went on a date with the guy who lived across the street from my parents house. i didn't know too much about him except that he loved to play frisbee, rode his bike everyday, worked on movies and he was older and wiser and had stunning blue eyes and was as about as friendly as they come. we went to martino's in ashland and shared some outrageous chocolate something-or-other and a couple of glasses of wine. i was all of 22 years old and he was a "sophisticated" 31 years and little did i know that what sparked that night would be the beginning of a life long partnership and that 12 years later we would find ourselves in portland oregon, with 2 gorgeous children, a lovely home and a heap of issues to work our way thru-- but i wouldn't change it for the world.
my partnership with david is one i know i can count on. sure we drive one another batty at times but i also know that we are both in it for the long haul. the past couple of years have challenged us and our relationship in some very intense ways but we are making it and learning all the time. learning how to be better partners, better communicators, better parents, better people. no it is nothing glamorous and it isn't like a romantic movie every day but it is real and real is real real good.

i love you david and i am so grateful to walk through life with you by my side.