A Sneak Peek with a Look of Love

posted by Melissa
Looking Forward:
Amy and I set out for the city this morning.  Unbelievably unlike our usual photo shoots, we were early and prepared.  We are getting pretty excited and have some big ideas for next month's Urban Homesteading.  I just wonder if I can pull it all off.

Here is a sneak peek for next month's photo:

Me and Amy, with one of our photographers. photo by Tallulah

Be Here Now:
We are still in Hiking and Backpacking month, and as such, we are planning another camping trip.  This time we will be car camping at Mt. Rainier, and of course, we will add in a hike.  I'll have the kids with me, so hopefully they won't complain too much about the hike.

Speaking of kids complaining.  Speaking of kids in general, my kids are back.  They were away, on the East Coast, for three and a half weeks.  Yes, I had over three weeks where I could slow walk to my hearts content.  I could pick whatever god damn movie I wanted and nobody insulted me or hit me because of my choice.  It was a great time.  I blogged at leisure, and nobody stood over me griping about how unfair my computer time is.

Chalk rendition of my love for my children.

But then again, there weren't those cute little faces smiling up at me, like only your child does.  That look that says so much; I trust you, I love you, you're beautiful, you're my Mom.  There weren't those cute, chubby arms wrapped around my neck.  There wasn't another set of eyes watching Project Runway with me.  Laughing.

It's tough.  You love them so much.  But they also drive you crazy like no one else.

Yesterday was the first morning we were all together again, just us.  Tallulah whined at me for the first full hour of the day.  Something about the fact that I didn't want to walk her to the bathroom.  She is 6.  She can walk herself to the bathroom, sorry, I was sleeping.  S-l-e-e-ping.  Was sleeping.

I got up.  The whining continued.  The fighting of siblings commenced.  At one point, Lily said to me, "Mama, Tallulah is whining like this....." and she demonstrated to a T the sound of her little sister's most annoying sounds.

"Lily, I heard her!  I do NOT need a reenactment!" I shouted from my chair in front of the computer.

Seriously.  I was just trying to blog.  I wanted to get my "Backpacking Chronicles: 3" post up before I forgot what happened.  Let me tell you, creativity is hard to come by in those circumstances.  

But that is what we parents do, we're not saints, just parents.  We do it as best as we can.  And we hopefully remember to cherish those moments when we share a look with our child.  You know the one.  No words can describe it, but it goes on and on, and fills your heart so you can make it through all the crap.

-Melissa

I knew everything would be alright in the end

A sweet smelling rose down the street this morning.

posted by Melissa
Juliet:
"What's Montague?  it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man.  O, be some other
    name!
What's in a name?  that which we call a
    rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd."

What a love story, Romeo and Juliet.  Consuming, ardent, tragic.

Back in 1998, when Jamie and I were figuring out our life together around being at the University of Washington Medical Center 12 hours a day, we made a few small attempts at being a couple.  Mostly we tried to be parents to a child born 3 and a half months early, weighing less than 2 pounds.  We didn't know what being a parent meant.  We were so young ourselves, barely over twenty.  We fumbled through the life of a premature baby that we lost, and truth be told, are still picking up the pieces at times.

One of those heartfelt attempts at being a couple showed up as a date to the movies.  We saw "Shakespeare in Love" and I felt my heart swell as I held Jamie's hand in the dark movie theatre, I thought that I knew everything would be alright in the end.  But, when is the end?  Is it when your baby dies?  Is it when you have your next "first" child?  Or is it each time you revisit the perceived hurts of how each parent goes through that experience differently?  Is it when you get married?  Is it when you choose forgiveness?  Is it 15 years later?

No.  The answer is at each point, a resounding "No."  There is no end, you keep learning and living together, and loving each other as best as you can.  It may not be a Romeo and Juliet kind of love story, but it is one filled with life and yes, sometimes tragedy big and small, but one that continues everyday because we choose to keep working on ourselves and with each other.

Last night, in the interest of Poetry month, we had a viewing of "Shakespeare in Love" with Amy and later Bob, at apartment #4.  It is quite a lovely movie; emotionally moving, passionate, funny and refreshingly ends without the typical "Hollywood" ending.

During one of my incomplete commitments to memorizing I intended to take this sonnet to heart, until I realized it is in a man's voice and I had second thoughts.  But still, I love Shakespeare's voice and word choice; and his romantic passion.  Although I am told I lack that in my own life.  Yet, I probably won't choose this one for my classic poem to memorize.

CXLVII
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Haft left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did not except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as a madmen's
    are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
   For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee
      bright,
   Who art as black as hell, and dark as night.

Or maybe I will.
-Melissa