The Unsaid Thanks

It's so easy to say "I'm thankful", like spouting off an auto-programmed I love you. And maybe sometimes there isn't the meaning it deserves backing it up. So while taking my shower this morning, the hot water raining down on me and clearing my head, I thought about it. I think it's a given that I'm thankful for my health and that of my family and friends. A given that I'm thankful for my loving supportive husband, and my beautiful little boys, and a given that I'm thankful for a roof over our head and food on the table.

But what's not always a given, auto-programmed answer, is that I'm thankful for the downs. The curve balls that life throws my way. The times when you are so blinded by what you don't have to be thankful for what you do. Yep, I'm thankful for those times. They put into perspective the blessings that I have in my life, and make me even more grateful and thankful for times when life is good.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to chase my dreams, to live in a country where the sky is really the limit, and I have the chance to do what I have always dreamed of doing. And right along with that, I'm thankful for my two brothers and many friends who serve this country so that it may continue to be the land of dreams. And so thankful that at this point in time, every single one of them is home on U.S soil, safe and sound. Of course there are many who are overseas right now, and I'm so thankful that they are willing to put their lives on hold, and even sacrifice it like one of my brave childhood friends, to defend our countries honor.

I'm thankful that my two boys have a father who comes home every night, and would rather wrestle around on the floor with them then go out on the town. And that, that father is also an amazing husband who respects and values me as a wife and a mother and always makes me feel like a partner and an equal to him, because I know as husbands go, that isn't always the case.

These things may seem simple, but hey after all, it's the simple things that make my heart sing. The simple little joys that define who I am, that make me grateful and thankful day in and day out. And though we only designate one day to give thanks. Every morning, when I get up with the sun, to two little groggy, bed-headed boys. And see their smiles cutting through the dim of the early morning, I give thanks.

Busy Bee

I've been busy, very busy, with this: www.erinotnessphotography.com

More on kids, life, home, and everything else under the sun later!

Something To Be Proud Of

I felt like my eyes were deceiving me today when I glanced at the calendar while passing through the kitchen. I did a double take followed by running my finger down the line of numbered boxes, yep, November somehow slipped by me. Can Thanksgiving really just be next week? I guess that's what happens when your everyday seems like a roller coaster ride (the good kind where you are laughing and happily screaming because it is thrilling your socks off and not the kind where your stomach is lurching and your eyes are shut tight, while silently praying that the cart stays on the tracks and please for the love of God, stops soon!) Yep, things are in full-kids-keep-you-busy-swing. Time to sit in front of the computer and type for more then a two minute block has been limited to after bedtime. And still then sometimes my hands find better things to do, like work on the boys Christmas present, and so our blog sits idle. And I think some days "oh that would be great to write about" then when I finally sit down, those thoughts are long gone, and I look at the blank page with the eagerly blinking cursor for what feels like an eternity, before I click away to etsy to see what goodness I can find.

But lately there is something that just melts my heart and makes me beam with pride. It's seeing the little man, and the awesome big brother that Wyatt has become. Of course he has been a big brother for four months now, but just like I had to find my groove with two kids, he had to find his brother groove. And it took him a little while, but now he is rocking it. We've started letting Ben sample some "solid" foods here and there, and Wyatt jumps at any opportunity to feed his little brother. He loads the spoon up with just the right amount of goopy orange sweet potatoes, navigates the spoon through the obstacle course of Ben's grabby hands, and lands it right in his happily awaiting mouth.

We also have had frequent requests for "brother dance" and "brother play trains" Of course those are also balanced out with the "ahh no touch Wyatt's toys brother!" But the "please dos" are starting to out number the "please don'ts" and it makes me so proud to see the brother that Wyatt has become.

His imagination these days is like someone just suddenly lit the fire underneath it, and sparked this amazing amount of creativity that pops up and fills our days with endless laughter and smiles. The past two nights Wyatt has been scouring the house trying to find himself a pair of roller skates. He tried binoculars on his feet, blocks, train tracks, a toy seahorse, and finally found tonight that he can take two foam bath letters, set them on the floor and stand on top of them. Yep, those work nicely for roller skates. We've also been instructed on several occasions over the past week that he is a baby dinosaur, and not Wyatt. And any following questions have been answered with little baby dinosaur roars. I love having such an imaginative dinosaur for a son!

And, big doings going on over in this house. Brother has learned to sit up on his own! There was no fiddling around with it, trying it out for a couple days, testing the waters. Nope just hello, I think today I shall sit. And he's a pro to boot! He'll sit on his own for 5+ minutes, talk about jumping in with two feet.

When Wyatt was little, these type of milestones were almost bittersweet because it meant he was, more quickly then I wanted him to, growing out of the baby stage. With Ben though, things are slightly different. There isn't the slight little sigh that accompanies a step out of infant life. This time around there is just happiness, anticipation and excitement. See now I've seen what the months to come have in store, and I know that each passing month only brings more fun and joy as he will start to transform and play and interact with us. I can't wait for the day when I can chase both of my boys through the grass in the front yard and hear both of the shrieks and whoops as I scoop them up and throw them in the air. Of course it will be then that I find that sigh creeping up when I realize how big they both are.

But for now, I'm loving the stage that they are both in. Enjoying every moment as Mama dinosaur.

Color Me Wonderful

It's 5:52am and I'm laying in bed, covers draped over my body and a cup of coffee calling my name on the bedside table. Wyatt, sitting in the rocking chair at the foot of our bed, is lost in a world of Sunday morning cartoons, his feet dangling of the edge in his soft and warm pirate slippers.

Oh how I would rather close my heavy eyelids again and drift off, back to sleep. But alas, the morning beckons.

Although the street lamps are still burning, illuminating the light dusting of snow that fell over night, and the sky has yet to show any signs of life, I can already tell it's going to be a gray day, after all, most of the winter here is just that, one big gray and drab kind of day.

I have this picture tucked into the corner of one of the kitchen cabinets.

My eyes get lost in this sky from time to time. The blue is unreal, as if someone picked the brightest most vibrant blue crayon from the box and carefully colored every inch of sky, and then cranked the saturation dial up to 10 for my viewing pleasure.

On especially gray days I dream of that blue, that sweltering Mediterranean heat, and the clear as glass, warm as a bath, water that would envelop my feet on the beaches in Greece that summer. If I close my eyes hard enough and block out the cartoons and the snoring pile of dog at my feet, I am there. I can feel the sun burning down on my shoulders and the sound of everything and nothing, a million silent people bustling about, soaking in the beauty, the history, imprinting this moment in their minds. But my eyes, although they are begging to, can't stay shut for long, and I open them to my gray day, with my little splash of color sitting just past the foot of my bed.

A recent blog post I read, from an amazing writer, talked about finding the color in life. And some days lately I feel like I went to the box of crayons for the day only to find I had the monochrome collection. And every crayon was a subtly different shade of gray. Yet other days I open that box to find the neons, blaring so brightly that even when I shut the box, you can still see the color spilling out of the cracks where the lid folds in. And some wonderful days, it's the classics. The simple one row box of crayons boasting classic red, blue, green, yellow, and orange. I drink those days in. The perfect mix. Those days fuel me up just enough that I can draw from their leftover energy on days when I open the box to find those shades of gray.

But don't get me wrong. Even though some days I see the world through my slate colored glasses, the color is always there.

My boys, in new handmade by Mama, pirate pajamas ; my ruggedly handsome, I'll open that jar for you type of person, husband ; My parents, who judging by how they play with Wyatt, never fully grew up; my cup of coffee in my favorite cobalt, blue as the Greece sky, coffee mug.. that is the color in my days. It's always there. I just have to remind myself to dip my brush back in the water, and then mix in my rainbow.

And now my littlest splash of color is starting to stir in his bassinet, pushed as close to my side of the bed as possible. His rosy cheeks ready to be kissed ever so softly and his eyes, that same bright and luminous blue, ready to shine their color on the world and blaze up this gray kind of day.

Lessons in Life

It's difficult not to feel every emotion your child experiences, right along with them. When they hurt, and their heart aches, mine aches for them. When their frustration takes over and erupts like a volcano spilling its lava in every direction, I feel the heat along with him. And today Wyatt learned one of life's lessons, that life, isn't always fair. I wish it could be for his sake. That there would always be plenty to go around, so that I didn't have to explain to him through his tears and sobs why.

Today, like every Tuesday, we went to the playgroup. We had talked about it the night before at bedtime, and it was one of the first things out of his mouth this morning when he woke up, to him it is over the top fun. It's an open gym type of playgroup at a local gymnastics place that is sort of come one, come all style. We were running a few minutes behind because Ben was taking a nap, and I told Wyatt as soon as Ben wakes up we would be out the door. We pulled up about 15 minutes after the open gym had started. I shoved cups of water and diapers into my purse, slid Ben into the Moby wrap, and unbuckled one full of energy little boy. He held my hand across the parking lot saying "run run run Mama, PLAY!" I love seeing just how excited he gets to come run and play and hop and bounce.

We opened the front door and the noise of happy little toddlers playing flooded our ears. We went to sign Wyatt in, when the lady told us "I'm sorry playtime is at capacity today, you'll have to come back another day." My heart sunk. I looked down at Wyatt who was already trying to take his shoes and coat off. I knelt down, feeling like someone had just pulled the floor out from under me, and quietly told him that we couldn't play today. Well to a two year old who can clearly see 20 or so other kids already playing, it is impossible to explain that they are full and we have to leave. He cried big crocodile tears, and begged me "please, please, play, please!!" I hurt. I was sad, and a little angry, and had to swallow hard as I gathered up my sobbing Wyatt and took him to the car.

I tried to explain to him that it wasn't his fault, but he just looked at me, tears streaming down his face and repeated, "please play." I couldn't help but feel every ounce of sadness and frustration that he was feeling. My eyes welled up with tears. I tried to hold his hand, but he was too busy craning his neck around, trying to see the gym and pointing as we drove out of the parking lot. I felt crushed. I felt like I had let him down.

I don't know how I am going to handle the future break-ups, and didn't make the team type of scenarios. How is it possible to see your child hurt and hold back and not be the Mom who makes a fool of herself trying to talk the coach into allowing one more player. How do I let them learn that life isn't always fair.

Sometimes I wish I could just keep them in my arms. Keep their little hands entwined safe in mine. But alas, that is life. And with it comes many many happy joyous, smile from ear to ear times. But with that is also the let downs, the tears, and the oh so not fair.

We will try again next time, because that's another life lesson, to get back on that horse and try, try again.

Because after all, who wants to miss this:

On Finding Our Groove

Nights and days, days and nights, that's the cycle we live on around here. Justin works 7 days a month, and 7 nights a month, leaving us 14 wonderful days with him to ourselves. Because of how his nights and days rotate, I always find myself asking him, nights or days? And I used to dread those nights. Because it meant almost 15 hours of him away from the house, followed by a whole day of sleeping, and two hours of just getting ready to leave again. These are my single parent days. And I used to dread their arrival, but we've found a little groove, my boys and I. One where our feet fit comfortably and we can keep on keeping on.

There's something unexplainably (although I'll try) special about nights when Justin is working. The boys are mine. I don't have to share their laughs and smiles, they are mine all mine. And while Wyatt splashes away in his bubbly bath water, I can hold my little Ben and just take him all in. And when Ben looks at you with his little bobbly head and his luminous blue eyes, they pierce into you. Seer into your soul just ever so slightly, and then the corners of his mouth start to turn up and before you know it his whole face is in on this smile, grinning from ear to ear. And call me selfish, but sometimes I don't want to share that smile, I want it all to myself. I want all the credit for those ear to ear grins, and the high pitched rich sound of laughter from Wyatt's mouth as I tickle his fresh from the bath body. And no matter how loud the boys are those nights, the house seems blissfully calm and strangely still. Like walking out after a thunderstorm to find the sky still dark and gray but no wind, no rain, just silence.

It's not always easy having Justin gone so many hours out of the day. No, there are times when I want to scream at the top of my lungs, or just collapse into my corner of the couch and pull a velvety soft blanket over my tired legs. There are times when the minutes until bedtime seem to stretch into days, and no one wants to listen, or to put clothes on, or pick up toys, not even me. But for every pull your hair out, sob into your hands, scream into the cold night air type of day, there are ten more these-are-what-memories-are-made-of type of days to somehow, like a dusty chalkboard eraser, erase those bad days away, and start you off with a fresh clean slate.

And so here I sit on this stay under the covers type of Sunday, Justin away at work. One boy leaning into my sweatshirt covered shoulder on the couch next to me. The other trying his darnedest not to fall asleep in his swing across the room from us. The moon still hanging in the sky outside my window, a thin veil of wispy clouds falling across it's face. And when the moon is still out at 10am, I think that gives you a pretty good excuse to have a lazy day. After all, Friday and Saturday we burned the candle at both ends trying to make the most of Justin's days off. We had little cousins spend the night which involved large brightly colored puzzles pieces scattered across the living room floor and eager little hands reaching for just the right piece. And then there were craft fairs, pumpkin carving and music classes, and riding the spooky train dressed up like an astronaut (Wyatt, not me), and visiting Nana, and playing in the snow, and then crashing into bed, deflated like someone just pulled the stopper out and all of your air went whooshing out the back. Curling into the pillow and pulling warm blankets up under our chin. That's the kind of Saturday I can get behind. One that has definitely earned us the right to sit around in our pajamas and slippered feet.

This weekend also brought me a 4 month old! I have asked myself so many times, but for some reason I never get an answer, where does the time go!? He's rolling and laughing and smiling and coo-ing and awh-ing and being oh so can't believe this little boy is mine cute.





Life...you have been good to me lately.