in the cold of the north

January has been a blessedly more quiet and introspective month. We have just come from an extensive cold snap with below zero temperatures leaving me wanting to not leave the house and curl up like a comma around our wood stove.

I have taken a break from most things online, including the blog, and have been cultivating an "I don't have to rush right now" frame of mind.  My formerly anemic, spread-too-thin, existence is slowly being fortified by living and breathing in each moment (both the awesome and utterly infuriating, child screaming at me ones) and spending a lot of time inside myself.  I am getting up with Sandi at 4:15 most mornings and going to bed with her at 8.  This way I get a few quiet hours to myself, get to feel a little more in sync with Sandi and have erased the opportunity to be on a mindless search for snacks after the house has grown silent.

The process of being mindful and present, of reshaping myself and my life is not easy,and is in fact often very uncomfortable, but I am finding my way.

Here are some snapshots of our last few weeks. 

Ella worked very hard at school to make this "computer" for Maya.  Can you tell what brand our family is loyal to?

 

 

When Maya wants to "work" on her computer, she "presses" the various keys and then swiftly determines her emotional mood in the lower bottom boxes: angry, sad or happy.  It is like an early introduction to Facebook because if her mood changes over the course of the day, she will pull out the computer and "update" her status.  If you make her mad, she will go in search of her computer.

 

 

Ella and Makenna doing three-legged dog in their combined yoga practice.

 

Maya getting ready for bed in style.



The girls during our first attempt at the entire loop at the City Forest.  This was before they started to cry and complain that punctuated the second half of the walk (even though I pushed the jogger stroller the whole way for the weary to rest).  We often fall into the classic parenting pitfall and forget to stop doing an activity while everyone is happy instead of waiting for signs of discontentment.  In our defense, it is hard to stop when something is still fun.

A typical trip to the grocery store:

 

 

We had a really balmy day before the cold set in and the girls took their wheels for a spin.

 

 

As a side note, do other, non-lesbian households of girls, ever have this sort of fraternizing going on?

 

Other things going on right now: Sandi is getting ready to leave a week from Saturday to go on a medical mission trip to Ecuador for a week (gulp).  She will be providing anesthesia services to people who would otherwise be unable to have necessary medical procedures done.  She has fundraised the entire $2,200 she needed to pay for her trip. 

 

Last night when we went to bed, we could hear Maya barking some.  This is without a real cold and just some slight sniffles and sneezing in the last few days.  I can manage without Sandi for a week but I am terrified of a medical emergency.  I am going to request that all my nearby friends sleep with their phones on loud.

 

Sandi leaves on the same day as the day of the PTO Valetine's Dance (which I am in charge of) at Ella's school.  The good news is she will be around Friday afternoon to help with the extensive set-up. The bad news is she will miss the dance.  Luckily, this year being my second year doing it, I am much less stressed and find the whole thing much more fun and gratifying than last year when I feel into an exhausted heap on the couch when it was over.

 

Ella has found a new favorite show on Netflix that she thinks she can't live without.  "Jesse" is supposed to be geared toward her age group, yet somehow, the rating administration clearly doesn't understand how we are trying to raise our eight-year-old.  We are likely going to have to nix the sassy show with made-up girls and smart-mouthed boys and I am wishing someone else would do this part of parenting for me and I could go drink coffee and read a book somewhere while Ella cries over the injustice of it.

As a Maya update, all I can say is that she almost broke my heart the other day when she said, "I miss you and Mommy when I'm at school.  I don't cry really, but my eyes get wet."

And there you have it.