On Mother's Day.
These days we stay up later than normal and get up later. This morning we all slept until 8:30. Way to start a kick-my-ass mother's day.
How vain I am. My weight frustrates me. Now in my late thirties, I can no longer binge eat and eat anything. I had a pretty good run of it, but it's over. And so that last 10 pounds...that last 10. I lose 5 - it takes me three weeks of no gluten, no dairy, no meat - and then I feel great and so I stop trying and gain it back.
The garden consumed my free time and energy for a couple of weeks there. I'm bubbling with projects and have trouble stopping. This past week I've been winding down and today, there it was, Mother's Day. Anneka said to me at bedtime, "Mother's Day is for Mum's, but on Mother's Day the kids kind of miss the moms and the moms miss the kids too!" Gawd, I love her! I'm the kind of mom that by noon on mother's day am ready to stop mothering and start just being me! Biked to the chief, hiked the chief with a friend during which we each had a catharsis of verbal output, and biked home. Paul happily made the day for me. We did all have a lovely time together in the morning. I was served cafe con leche in bed.
I want to blog about Halle and Anneka. Such amazing people each in their own rights. So, so lucky we are, but I don't even know where to start. They are as I have described them in the past just more developed. Anneka's doing some early reading. Sounding out words and playing with letters to create words. I'm sure if we worked with her she would be reading, but I like how it is just coming out of her as she is ready. During brunch she told us how to spell cat, so we went through rhyming words with her and she soon got the pattern and was pretty speedy with spelling them. I asked her if she sees the letters in her head and the word in her head (we do a lot of this stuff verbally) she thought for a while and said she does. Certainly, quite spatially inclined. She does simple arithmetic too, on her fingers. A technique she arrived at on her own. The kid goes to Waldorf School for goodness sake where there is no propensity toward early reading. But there she is - it is her. So like Paul in many ways. Perhaps it is why she and I are so close - we are a very good mix. Paul and I are quite similar in the way we learn, although the way that learning manifests can be quite different. We certainly have similarities in our cognitive strengths, which I see in both Anneka and Halle, but with Paul and I our emotional responses to our world and the way we deal with them different. Anneka and I are a great mix - her so like Paul cognitively, but with an emotional approach more like me.
Halle I just bang-on recognize at a basic level - as does my sister. It's like "I get you - I just do." There's a slightly odd but tangible and infectious intensity inherent on my side of the family which some of my siblings display and I feel but display a calmer disposition, without so much of the nervousness. She loves animals, especially dogs passionately. She is passionate and boisterous and loud and totally silly and wild, but also can become very nervous, stranger shy, angry and heartbroken. She is so much fun and some times quite a challenge. She can also really focus for a long period of time and loves to draw and read books. She's great at imaginary play and does it on her own and with Anneka or I. She definitely been a bit precocious in most areas of her development. Yesterday she drew circles, coloured them in in pink felt, then in red drew eyes, nose and a line for a mouth. She made a whole line-up of them. I think, but I'm not sure, that that seems pretty advanced for 27 months. She's very goofy, (tonight she made a four sided garbage bin out of her carrots, then started putting her salmon into the "bin" in little pieces, and in a goofy voice and laughing starting shouting "garbage" as she stuffed the salmon in the garbage bin). Anneka thought that was the greatest thing ever!! (Anneka loves to laugh.) I was a goofy little kid too.
And so was Paul - and he still is. And there we have it. Four bright, goofy people prone to emotional outburst inhabiting the same small space. Paul and I have learnt not to have emotional outburst (the negative kind we still have lots of the positive kind), at least not in the presence of the kids. He has his downstairs while he is editing. From the sounds of it he's lost everything, so I tread gingerly downstairs, only to be greeted by a smile and an assurance that everything was fine.
On this mother's day I can same I'm a lucky Mummy in a crazily sane family.
Was just reading through previous posts. I embark on graduate studies starting July (actually just a pre-req) then the real-deal in Sept. I hope it's not too early to still meet the needs of my children.
