The Mom Dance

She takes Little Monkey to gymnastics.  Her Little Monkey comes home with us from music class.  We meet to run, we meet to eat, we meet to make it in this crazy season of life.

We weathered the acid reflux years together, all screaming babies, dancing toddlers and not nearly enough sleep.  The soundtrack of our lives then...The Jackson Five and Wee Sing and Pretend.  The soundtrack now...Annie, The Sound of Music and "Poop on the Potty".  We survived the witching hour with tricycles and muddy puddles of melting snow waiting for daddies to come home.  Now...Legos, dress ups and a pot of chai.

We potty trained not just one set of toddlers together, but two (who ever said positive peer pressure isn't effective?).  We pray together, run together, process this crazy life that is made up of so many kids but also so many dreams and gifts and talents that we long to utilize.  I have cheered her on as she has so bravely entered back into the working world (where you get paid).  She has cheered me on as I have tentatively but steadily stepped back onto the stage (where you don't get paid).  We share good books, good music, and great food and wine!

In her words, it is a dance.  The Mom Dance.  It has been my sanity, a source of life and joy and grace. She picks up my big monkeys from school so I can stay home with a sick baby monkey.  I bring her soup when she is crazy mad packing for 10 days out of the country.  It makes life work.  It makes the crazy manageable.

She kept the babe for me so I could simply go sit at my favorite coffee shop and regroup.  

This beauty is more than a pretty swirly froth...it represents the grace of community, the gratitude of a quiet moment to treasure.  Isn't it a beauty?

Lisa McCowen, it is such a joy to dance with you (Zumba, anyone?)!  

My encouragement to the rest of you...find a dance partner to do this crazy life with.  We girls need each other.  It doesn't take away the crazy, but it makes it a lot more fun!

PS...Props to the best little coffee shop east of the Mississippi, Quixotic Coffee!  These peeps are crazy about coffee.  And they can make a mean latte with almond milk.  Heaven in a coffee cup.

Survival Mode

What happens when Momma is laid up in bed with a stomach bug?

Little Einsteins in a blanket fort...and Daniel Tiger, and Wild Kratts, and Super Why...

Tea Time

Oh my goodness gracious.  I knew it had been a long time.  But since July?  Seriously?  I listened to this quote by Ira Glass the other day.  

"...the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions." 

I have been talking (in my head, of course) of recommitting to the blog, to the photojournalistic story of my life since before the first of the year.  And good intentions turn into laundry...and a sick kid...and a rehearsal...and exhaustion.  

"You’ve just gotta fight your way through."

So here goes the fight.

 We've been doing a lot of this lately.  A whole heck of a lot.

 Honest confession...I don't really love tea parties.  But I love watching this baby monkey in her element.  And this baby loves her some tea party.

If I'm lucky, the party just might include live music.  She is a singer-songwriter.  I mentioned that, right?

 I have felt a certain restlessness these last couple of years.  She's the baby.  It's my third time doing this age.  I am watching alot of my friends go back to work.  I am fighting to be in every moment of this stage.  But also beginning to think towards the future.  I know that these days are fleeting and we will never get them back.  It helps me to chronicle the daily, beautiful monotony.  It reminds me how beautiful it is.  And makes me grateful.

 There are so many beautiful moments.

38/365...First fruits

Every time I plant a new seed, every time I gently pat in fresh soil on a young seedling, in my head I am hearing, "This is not going to work.  Its not going to work.  All this work will be for naught."

And then the first fruits...it's like Christmas morning!  Every. Single. Time.

And then my first fruit.  Again, always surprising me with lovely fruit from all that labor. 

37/365...The Best Song

Baby Monkey is three.  And potty trained.  (Woot woot!)  As I was thinking on an appropriate post in honor of her third birthday, the following song by Bethany Dillon came on my Pandora station.  Couldn't think of anything more appropriate.  

You're The Best Song

Good morning

You and the sun are up before I'm ready

But ready or not, you need me

So here I am

I'm learning that in the long hard days

There is beauty

Do you know my favorite place to see it

It's when I look at you

And though I'm tired now

You're worth every sleepless night

You're worth it all, cause I know...

You're the best song I'll ever write

And we're humming and dancing through the years together

You're the best song I'll ever write

And I pray you'll hear Jesus in it when you're older

I remember when you were just a heartbeat that I heard

and now our eyes meet

Forever is not enough to love you

Ooohhh...

Every prayer for you is like a seed in the ground

Every tear I cry is like rain

And in its due season

I pray a harvest will be found

Your heart and mouth confessing Jesus' name

Your heart and mouth confessing Jesus' name 

35-36/365...Mom's Hands

We recently had the pleasure of a visit from Nana and Popaw.  Nana wasted no time trying out our new piano.

I just kept thinking to myself, "It is so right to have my Mom in my house filling it with music."

I grew up in a house filled with the music of her fingers.  Went to bed some nights to the comforting sound of her practicing.  Her music embedded itself into my heart and is still playing today.  It gets in you, music.  It soothes, motivates, cultivates.

That music represents the legacy she passed to me.  The roots that take me back to the

 safe place we called home.  And the wings that are the soundtrack to the soaring.

Now my monkeys, the next generation, benefit from that legacy.  It is a special day, this Mother's Day, to be a mother to daughters and a daughter to my mother.  I am especially grateful today for her beautiful hands and lasting legacy.

34/365...A Dozen Years

I pray my own daughters might be so blessed.  Partnered with a man who not only SEES them...but DELIGHTS in what he sees.  That is what makes a young budding woman blossom into the beautiful flower she was created to be in time.  That is the echo of a creator who creates...and delights in his creation.  He looked...and saw it was good.

He looked...he sees the parts I would prefer to keep hidden from the rest of the world.  He knows my tendancy to withdraw in fear of failure.  How I slump my shoulders when insecurity grips subtle and hard.  That beneath the perceived confidence and strength is an approval junky, a recovering pharisee.  He has seen me lose my cool in a good old fashioned come apart with the monkeys.  How good intentions mean nothing when they don't see/hear/feel love.  He has seen me step up to the edge of opportunity, rare back ready to pounce...only to retreat in fear and denial time and time again.  He never really bought my excuses.  But he never made me feel like a dumb scaredy-cat, either.

...and he saw it was good...when he sees the parts I would rather no one else see, he delights.  He sees good.  He sees value and worth and beauty.  He pushes me to use my talents, my gifts AND makes the path straight for me to do so.  He sees a girl who still has a hard time remembering grace.  A woman miraculously redeemed, forgiven, set free.  He sees freedom.  He sees it when I cannot.  He believes it when I do not.

It is a beautiful thing to be loved by another broken, fallen, redeemed human being.  A beautiful gift indeed.  Here's to a dozen more!