Archive for

Protecting Hope

Posted on September 30, 2011

My life today is so vastly different than I expected it to be and yet, there cannot have been another life for me. These girls, this man, these moments. It isn’t always easy, but we have fun with one another and try to focus on how we improve, rather than how we fail. Right now Finley is upstairs napping, her sisters are at school and I am taking a break from a copywriting project. Outside the window, amber colored leaves are fluttering down, their flight pulling my eyes away from the monitor. Off to my other side sunlight is pouring through the sliding glass door. Every so often the house creaks, the gentle sound comforts me. Outside those trees that I’ve loved since we…

+Read more

Categories: Love

Who’s that girl?

Posted on September 27, 2011

Ever since a boy in Avery’s pre-k class destroyed, or at least put a major chink, in her love of navy blue and superheroes, I’ve been incredibly mindful of how I manage self. How exactly does one raise daughters without letting the pendulum of self swing too far to one side or the other? I suppose that sounds wrong, how can you modulate self, right? Let them be who they’ll be. Do you demand that the superhero things not be pitched or do you let them say they are done with them? Do you turn the orange Joker shirt into a night shirt or do you let her wear it to school and hope that this new crop of kids doesn’t pipe up that…

+Read more

Categories: Love

Tagged: , ,

Sleepless

Posted on September 23, 2011

“I can’t sleep.” It floats down from their room often; the voice behind it is always Briar’s. It’s never Avery, for her sleep comes like breathing. Sometimes Finley chimes in that she can’t sleep either, but she doesn’t mean it. Finley chooses not to sleep. She squeezes a bit more out of the day and then sleeps. Our Briar, though, she really can’t sleep. The nightly ministrations of lotion and brow stroking, storytelling and singing only deflect from the eventual struggle to sleep. Last night when she called, “Mom and Dad, I just can’t sleep,” we looked at each other and knew. It was 9:05, they’d been in bed for an hour and half. “Come here, Briar,” Sean called. “What?” she asked. “Come down…

+Read more

Categories: Mama Sap

Tagged: , ,

Durable Ribbons

Posted on September 19, 2011

Every once in a while I hesitate about a post. I learned a long time ago that some things, even though they are a part of my life, are not mine to tell. Still,  I’m pretty honest here, though there is an increasing awareness of how proprietary some of this is getting as the girls get bigger. Sometimes I write posts and delete them or just save them in draft form, catharsis without life on the internet. Other times I feel like I need to hit publish and put it out there. Discovering that you can’t teach something hurts. All the wonderful intentions I had to mold certain characteristics in our girls have slipped through my fingers like so much sand. Suddenly the time between…

+Read more

Categories: Love

Tagged: , ,