Evelyn and Emerson have a new bedtime habit of getting up, playing, wandering around, inventing new must-haves, instead of what we've been so spoiled by -- a little tired complaining about not wanting to go to bed, and then the sudden crash into deep sleep. Emerson seems to be the catalyst. He has decided that playing on the carpet next to his bed, then migrating to the doorway, and eventually moving the party fully into the hallway, is what he is supposed to be doing after we put on pajamas, brush teeth, read a couple stories, hugs and kisses, a song, and lights out. (Oh and have a quick trip back to the potty. And then maybe a drink of water. And then, can Poppa come up and say goodnight and sing us a song on his guitar?) Evelyn, meanwhile, announces with her full lung capacity that "Emerson is out of bed!!" "Emerson won't get back into bed!!" "Emerson is making noise!!" "Emerson is in the hallway!!" This can go on for an hour and a half.
Now that I think about it, it might have all started when we plugged the disco nightlight they got from Santa into the hallway outlet outside their bedroom door...
Tag is in the kitchen taking a whack at tying flies. Fly tying. There's a certain way to talk about it - a new set of vocabulary - fairly involved and sophisticated. He's looking forward to trying out his new nymphs on the end of his new fly pole next weekend. He's on the hunt for some trout that he can bring home and grill on his fancy Green Egg. He's got it all goin' on.
I'm sitting in our beautiful bed in our spacious bedroom, cozy and warm hearted. Potter is snoring softly somewhere down on the carpet. I've decided this is a year of gratitude. Pushing through all the changes and stressful stretches of last year, arriving to a place of contentment and simple possibility has tumbled and softened my spiky sense of drive. I feel ready to simply enjoy and breathe and keep it simple, plan trips for our family that will generate more of those intense memory sets that my children will be able to keep. Explore the coast just 3 short hours east of here. Explore the snow slopes a mere hour from here. Make friends. Be with my family. Be grateful. There is simply too much good to consider in this life I have. I hit the jackpot. And I'm going to revel in it and use it as a force for grace and generosity, which I have been lacking in this past year.
Speaking of grateful, I started this whole blog for my amazing children. For my firstborn, to be precise.
Evelyn has such a regal presence when she's studying something, watching something in the distance. She is really such a natural beauty with power and elegance even just in the way she holds her head. It's incredible. I love just watching her.
It's been a really tough year of transitions and tensions for a 6 year old child. She has been torn a bit this past year, caught in a battle between saucy girl and gracious young lady. Gracious young lady seems to win out more often these days. Ev seems to be settling into herself, still hit with pangs of jealousy for her little brother every now and then - but she's able to express those and move through them more easily. She's maturing. She takes care of Em like I never imagined - he relies on her. She helps him with all kinds of things - and if I ask her to please run upstairs and get Emerson some socks, for example, she'll say "sure" and off she goes. Like magic. So great! They are friends like I'd dreamed they'd be. They play and laugh and goof around and gang up on me and Tag - it's awesome. And they are simply comfortable around each other. I'll find them cuddled up on the couch watching a show. Perfection.
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| Em and Ev tootsies |
Emerson is obsessed with Spiderman. He keeps asking me if its Halloween, and can it please be Halloween now? Not sure why the focus on Halloween - doesn't stop him from wearing his costume all the time.
He's the yummiest little boy this planet has ever known. I could drop the mic right here. Nuf said. He is joyful, compassionate, willful yet amenable, strong, funny, and so very loving. He'll say, out of the blue, "I love you Evey" "I love you mamma." He knows all the names of the various construction vehicles (he's known them for some time actually - I remember many moons ago when he corrected me, "No mamma, that's a excavadah"). He'll sit and enact elaborate scenarios with his toy bulldozers, motorcycles, cars, airplanes, trains, helicopter -- singing and playing all by himself, content and happy, lost in a story of his own making.
He's the yummiest little boy this planet has ever known. I could drop the mic right here. Nuf said. He is joyful, compassionate, willful yet amenable, strong, funny, and so very loving. He'll say, out of the blue, "I love you Evey" "I love you mamma." He knows all the names of the various construction vehicles (he's known them for some time actually - I remember many moons ago when he corrected me, "No mamma, that's a excavadah"). He'll sit and enact elaborate scenarios with his toy bulldozers, motorcycles, cars, airplanes, trains, helicopter -- singing and playing all by himself, content and happy, lost in a story of his own making.
He's a serious little man too. He brought home a Spiderman encyclopedia of super heroes and their enemies from the library, and we both studied the pages carefully, determining which of them were bad guys "is he a enemy?" and which were Spiderman's friends, learning the word "ally." I think we could have sat there for another hour before he would've become bored of it.
