The Art of Becoming

The man who lives behind us has a beautiful lawn. Nothing too fancy, but the grass is green, there doesn't seem to be any weeds, and he waters it daily with a sprinkler system. It's clear he cares about yard cleanliness. Come to find out, he more than cares . One day he approached our other neighbor with a plan to stop the moles. Sidetrack here: moles are digging up all sorts of tracks in our neighborhood. My father-in-law tells me that moles can dig many miles in one night. Many, many miles. This angers our neighbor. Let's call him George. This angers George. So George approaches my next door neighbor, Beckie, with a pair of gloves and pack of gum. He tells Beckie that he's done all sorts of research on moles, and that he's learned how to get rid of them. First you must buy a pack of Wrigley's original gum. Not spearmint. Not winterfresh, but ORIGINAL. Then, using the gloves, you unwrap a piece of gum, wad it up into a ball, and - stil...

Sean and I have butted heads recently. Specifically around the potty. Yesterday he pushed me to the brink of my sanity having slapped my leg twice. Once was in response to multiple pleas for him to clean up his blocks. The next was in response to getting ready to go pick up Tom from work. The second hit, much later in the day, my patient-reserves were low, was while I was sitting on the toilet. It's true. I was sitting on the toilet, he was discussing something with me and getting disgruntled about it. He did not like the responses I was giving him, so he slapped my leg. me: When I get off this toilet, you are going to sit in time out. Sean ran out of the room with a smirk on his face. Any sentence that begins with "When I get off this toilet..." is not really an intimidating sentence. How can his 2 year old mind know that when I am sitting on the toilet, I am not a force to be reckoned with. In fact, I am at my most vulnerable! Today, we were discu...

Our move to Minnesota began a couple weeks ago when I finished my last day of work. We frantically packed the house for three days, moved on a Friday, came to Golden Valley on Saturday, and have been Minnesotans ever since. But the details of the actual move can be followed by some major/minor medical incidents. Wednesday, August 3 - 2:58 AM I wake up with searing pain on my left side. I am convinced this is an ulcer that has burst due to the amount of coffee I have been drinking. Between sleeplessness with a newborn, keeping up with Seancito, and going back to work for July, I was enjoying coffee every morning. Then, my office mate, Beth, was kind enough to surprise me with lattes a couple times at work. As delicious as all of this was, I knew that I had given myself an ulcer. A coffee-induced ulcer. Brilliant. I am terribly nauseous along with this pain, and I can't even lay back down in bed, so I prop myself up in the recliner and try to go back to sleep. I waver b...

This is the first day of my life. I officially completed my last day of work and started a life as a full time mother. I could not be happier. This evening, my co-workers threw me a going away party and the volunteer ushers asked me over and over again what I would be doing when we moved. I felt so vindicated in saying, "I'm going to stay home with our kids." I received a variety of reactions; everything from, "oh that's wonderful" to some blank stares to looks of bewilderment that I didn't have another job lined up for myself. It's this process of becoming. I'm sure it doesn't make sense to some people that I wouldn't have something else on the horizon. Thank goodness for the space to figure out what might be next. Someone said to me last week, "we know where we are born, but we do not know where we will die." What's more fitting to where I am right now is "we know where we are, but we have no idea where we a...

I've thought for a long time about starting a blog. One that would accurately reflect the beginning of our new life in Minnesota. This is a place for me. This is a place to reflect, to honor and to celebrate a new beginning. Some of the volunteer ushers I've worked with have commented that this is the best time of my life - having young kids and my husband starting a new job. I have tried to take this to heart; is it just nostalgia talking when they give me this advice? There is a kernel of truth as I see it; each day is new. Our little kids are growing every day, learning something new, constantly changing and taking in the world around them. Because I am leaving a job of four years that hasn't felt fulfilling, and because Tom is starting a job that he will hopefully find fulfilling, we are starting with a clean slate. As a family of four we are constantly in the process of becoming who we will be and who we are. The art of becoming. To memorialize my first post -...