Taking the time to daydream…

This afternoon I was handed a book to read by my little guy. I had been running around ( as usual) putting away laundry, straightening up the house and just trying to do way too much (also, as usual!). Being handed this book and having a little hand placed in mine made me stop and sit and read.

And I discovered the wonder of Florina and the Wild Bird, by Selina Chönz.  It is a story about a young girl who lives in the Alps with her family. While tending to the animals she finds a tiny bird that has lost its mother, and Florina takes the bird home to care for it. The girl and the wild bird soon become best friends. She makes food for it using her doll’s tea set and gives it a special basket for a bed.

When the bird grows up, its wings grow larger and it wants to fly. Florina must decide whether to keep the bird or release it to fly back to the mountains.

The illustrations are beautiful, the message lovely and I just got lost reading this childrens’ story. Mind you, my little guy lost interested at about page two and moved on to blocks, but I sat contentedly in the rocking chair reading about Florina and picturing her find her bird in the mountain meadow.

If you get a chance to find this treasure, please read it.  It is beautiful.

Book Blessings…

Even though my little guy is over a year old, I still consider myself a new mother who really doesn’t know what on earth she is doing. Early in my post postpartum days ( about seven weeks, really) I hunted down a Book Babies group at my local Library. This group met twice a week for an hour or so and sang songs, read books and gave the babies a chance to socialize, but most importantly gave the new moms a chance to meet.

This group was my savings grace as a new mommy. There are many moms out there who claim that birthing their babies was the most miraculous moment of their lives, who felt complete with babe in arms and loved every second of it all. I was not one of those parents. I adore my son, but the first months following birth were filled with much anxiety, fear, depression and overwhelming feelings that I just could not control. This group of moms with babies of the same age gave me a chance to be with others that understood, that got it, that either were going through it all or had just come out of it. They understood the soreness, the leaking, the fear of doing something wrong and the incredible lack of self esteem that motherhood can bring.

I have been going to these groups for over a year now, and in that time have watched my son and his pals grow from wriggling newborns into active toddlers. As they grow and change, one thing stays the same: the moms. We share much more than diapering advice, feeding tips and discipline help when we chat at these groups, we share a bit of ourselves. We share woes, tears, pregnancies, fears, frustrations and family issues. We tell each other about our monetary issues, nursing problems, and health problems.

People always say that you should keep your old friends and make some new. I am happy to know that while many of these moms are people I see once a week or so, I feel blessed to know that I could call upon many of them for advice or help if we needed it. As my son grows and becomes more of a little individual, I am excited to see where these friendships might go. It feels like even though we are home alone with our children, we really are not alone. There is always someone to share your woes with.

A bit of humble pie…

As this busy holiday season comes to an end with New Years right around the corner, I feel a need to reflect on the wonders of the season. With summer ending, Halloween approaching and Thanksgiving rushing right up to your nose at light speed, it seems like every year we swear we will craft, bake, sew, wrap, shop, decorate or knit faster and earlier than the previous year, somehow we will make it better next year. My, we are a hopeful species! Somehow though, it all gets done… or sometimes it doesn’t. A little bit of cheer This year’s holidays was an especially bumpy one for our little family. Between small stresses, tube surgery for the little guy and rushing around, we found ourselves with an electrical problem in my little guy’s bedroom on the day preceding Christmas eve. Unfortunately, all this had a bit of a woe is me effect on my moral. I was quickly falling into the , “Oh my goodness what the heck else going to go wrong!” attitude. It is amazing how fast this can happen, you are riding along happy as can be and suddenly you are smacked by parenting or house ownership issues that just deflate you completely. Sometimes, the house, as much as I love it, can feel as much of a child as our child is. That night, the eve of Christmas eve, I ran over to the neighbors to borrow a bit of foil I had run out of for our baking. While chatting with them I mentioned ( lamented and whined and moaned!) about our issues with the electricity of our little guy’s bedroom. If you can imagine my surprise when the Dad mentioned that his brother (who also lives across the street) was a registered electrician. To quote Dr. Seuss, my heart grew two sizes that day. The next day The Brother came over and helped my husband fix our problem. This sweet, kind truck driving man came to my house, got on all fours and rewired three plugs before finding the scorched one in our guest bedroom. He also installed new boxes, new plugs and got shocked all in a matter of two hours. He taught my husband what to do to fix the problem and saved us a bundle that we honestly did not have. It is moments like this that I realize the joy of Christmas, and especially the joy of being loved. We are loved by so many more than we realize, those we see every day and those we don’t, those we cherish and those we sometimes take for granted. It is in these times that it comes to my attention how much people mean to us, how much we really are not an island, how much our family is not just our immediate siblings, children and spouses, but really includes our friends, relations, relatives and neighbors, the people we recognize every day as we go about our business, shopping and lives. Sometimes the people we take for granted are the ones who you will remember and love the most.