The Sense of Wonder

"A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."

 And:

"I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused — a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love — then we wish for knowledge about the subject of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate."

- Rachel Carson, "The Sense of Wonder"

Oh please, please, please let me be that companion for my children.

2014 shall be a year of wonder, a year of change, and new discoveries. Starting now.

Also, read this book.

I Resolve

I usually make too many vague resolutions and half keep all of them. You know - read more, work out more, be less lazy, make friends, save more money, etc.

2014's resolutions may not be very specific, but they are The Most Important (to me) and there is a semi-plan for accomplishing them.

I resolve: (a) To read more, to write more, to keep a daily journal with Justin. (b) To watch less, to scroll less, thereby resulting in more time for (a).

The End.

Annie

Little Lydia, my Annie, you are my dream come true, the dream I wake to every morning.

Since I was a little girl, I dreamed of you. Before I liked boys, before I knew where babies came from, before I could weigh "career or stay at home mom," I dreamed of a little girl who would share my name, the name of the amazing women who came before us. You were a vague, beautiful spirit, somewhere deep inside me and far off in the future. You came true.

Your grandfather dreamed of you, also (he secretly hoped your brother would be you, but don't tell Mateo that). I think with my birth he discovered the magic beings baby girls could be, the way they can capture your heart and unearth new wells of love within you. He has waited for you for a long time; three grandsons came before you, for you he has waited longer than I.

You are my dream, the keeper of a beautiful future, my calm and peace, my reminder to love myself just as I am, so that you will always find within yourself perfection and grace, just as you are. May you have the curiosity and resiliency of Lydia Maria Chomat, the generosity, energy, beauty, and independent mind of Lydia Maria Ferran, the sensitivity, heart, and gifts God bestowed on me, your mother, and your own unique spirit yet to be revealed. You are loved, just as you are, my own Lydia.

Today

Between the sighs, tears, the "how am I going to do this?" and the overwhelming...desperation of it all is something else.

She is my something else. My Lydia Antoinette, my Annie. The quiet, easily startled, sleepy, frightened eyed little girl who constantly occupies my arms, my lap. Fifteen days old. So...easy. She is my world and easily forgotten. She's here. My daughter. She epitomizes sweetness, meekness, she asks so little from me. To nurse, to be held. To stare into my eyes, to speak to my soul, to say, "I'm here. At last." She barely spits up, her burps are quiet little lady burps. So unlike her brother, who charged into the world screaming for his dinner, and still bangs his way through our home and hearts two years later. What a relief she is, what shelter from this storm that is my transition to mother-of-two. And yet...she did this. She is the reason for this storm. I look at her peacefully dozing and wonder how that can be true. How can this quiet, wide-eyed, kissy lipped, dark haired angel be the reason for my chaos? Did Mateo take so much of me that I cannot spare even the small bit she asks?

I am letting go. I am breathing, in and out, in and out, in and out. Three deep breaths to eliminate the fright or flight response. I am choosing not to care about these things, to love my little boy first, and my home last. To shelter my new baby in my arms, to wear her close to my heart. Water, clean diapers, food. The necessities. One day at a time, that's all we have. I have this day with her, tomorrow she'll be bigger. I have this moment to play with him, tomorrow he may not want me. I am theirs for today, one day soon they will be gone. Today, love for today. That's all I need. Love is patient, love is kind. Today, now. Not in a little while, now.

They are changing me, with their love, with their cries, the lips they both inherited from their father, sucking my heart out with the milk one requires for survival, and the other requires to feel the fullness of my love. Their eyes, so big, his, mine, challenging me to love them more, love them first.

Today, love for today.

Mateo Leon

This task seems insurmountable, but it will only grow more so if I put it off...

I'm not going to write about Annie. Not today, not now. This miracle angel baby's story will have to wait.

Today is for Mateo. The tears that flow daily are for him, because of him, in spite of him. It happened, what everyone said does when you have a newborn...my toddler is suddenly a grown up. How did his head get so heavy? His hair so thick? When did these sentences become so complete?

Today I am thankful for him, thankful with my entire soul and being. For the way he says, "I like it?!" When he does indeed like something, or when he's asking you if he will like it.

For, "I downdt!" His own made up word that is said with such enthusiasm whenever he's in a highchair  (or otherwise confined), meaning, "done," "down," and "out" all at once.

For "Ready?!"

For his unbridled enthusiasm for EVERYTHING. His spirit is strong and unshakeable, like his strong limbs that hug me tightly and can be such a source of frustration when his will is opposed to mine (he is a toddler, after all).

How is he already two? How are those first years behind us? And yet, how is he ONLY two? How can so much heart, imagination, curiosity, determination, sweetness and craziness come about in only two years?

Nothing has baffled, surprised or amazed me more than living with 2 year-old Mateo. I understand now what it means to be a mother and love someone so much your heart feels as though it would break. As much as I love Justin and my family, this is the most intense love I've ever experienced...probably in part because it is so fleeting, this day in his life will be over before I know it, my time with him will be up and he will be gone from me. There is no promise of forever, no "til death do us part." Never again will he need me so desperately, love me so willingly, share all his smiles and tears with me. No one warns you that motherhood will be so beautifully sad.

When I was preparing for Annie's birth I focused a lot of my mental preparation on living in the moment, dealing with one contraction at a time and then shaking it off, neither lingering in the pain or anticipating the next. It is clear to me today that living in the moment is crucial to surviving motherhood; not just in dealing with its stresses and frustrations, but in allowing the fullness and richness of its love and glory to wash over me daily. To embrace the little person in front of me without regret for the bygone days of tiny  baby whimpers and smiles, and without fear of tomorrow, when he will be one day bigger, one day older.

God, help me to love him today, fully, uncompromisingly, as he is, not as I want him to be. Help me to set aside concern for anything else but him and Annie, to accept my failure to love them both as I should, to do my best and move on. Thank you for giving him to me.

Snapshot

Tonight, while nursing Mateo to sleep, I sang "You Are My Sunshine" to him. Not our usual bedtime song, but the first thing that came to my lips. When I got to the chorus he unlatched and started singing (his version) along with me. My heart is so full.

Sunday in July

I'm not one to get caught up in national trials that would have me hanging on Nancy Grace's every shouted word - Casey Anthony, Jodi Arias, I know there is horror and evil associated with these cases but I choose to avoid it. The feeling that someone's real tragedy has become my entertainment doesn't sit well with me.

Maybe it's because I live here in Florida, or because I have a son, but these past two weeks I've allowed myself to be drawn in, to listen and feel and form my own opinion about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. My heart has been heavy today. I watched last night, waited for the verdict, tense, and I cried, knowing that there would be no peace or justice either way. No matter what the jury decided we would be forced to confront the ugliness of this world and know that there was nothing we could do or say that would force George Zimmerman to confront the full weight of his actions, no way to return Trayvon Martin to his parents, no way for us to look into that evil night and know with 100% certainty what happened.

I don't believe justice was served. I don't believe Trayvon's life and death meant as little as this verdict indicates. I have lost a sense of faith in our judicial system that I was probably naive to have in the first place. I think lawyers, loopholes, and powerful words twisted the truth, or as close to it as we could get, into a version that allowed law to triumph over the justice we feel in our souls wasn't done.

I equally know that a guilty verdict would also have brought me heartache and tears. I weep for George Zimmerman. I don't think he's an evil person. I think he made a terrible mistake with devastating consequences. How often have we all been on the verge of committing a terrible act, a mistake that might forever altar our future, whose consequences we would never have predicted? But for the grace....I wonder if his future would be safer if he served 10 years behind bars, and then faced the public as a man having paid some sort of price, rather than the "free man" he is now. He holds a truth within him that he must live with the rest of his life, and it is that burden that must suffice as our justice.

This world is not our home, that's what my heart has been pounding all day. It's a reminder I don't like to get in this way but one I imagine we all sorely need. If we are the most just, democratic, free country on earth than God help us...

This article is my prayer:

Not Guilty: Now What?