beautiful!

 a few weeks ago, after dinner in the backyard, scott lit a fire in the chiminea and let the girls make s'mores.  we haven't used it much since moving to california, but it used to be part of our friday night routine in la grange.  we would go to palmer place for dinner and then have s'mores on the back porch. it was always so lovely to watch scott and e build a little fire and then indulge in this simple treat.  d would sit in her bouncy seat playing with her toes and i would watch from a patio chair, bursting with joy at the blessing of my life- the simple things that make life so rich.

i didn't realize it, until i was laying in the grass with my head in scott's lap watching the little girls partake in this tradition, that i had missed this routine ever so much.

it was one of those mental photograph moments where you capture the essence of the experience deep within your soul and file it away under the heading "love" in your heart.  the smell of fresh cut grass, the crackle of the fire, the melty goo of chocolate, poppy spinning around from the sugar high and blowing bubbles for scott and i to enjoy from her bubble wand, music playing softly in the background, the weight of scott's arm around me.  it is one of those moments where you just want to freeze time- push pause - and  rest in the simple offerings of life.

and then the moment ends someone cries, somebody needs something, (or in our case- a snail crawled onto scott's leg causing him to jump up and declare he needed to get out of the grass) and time moves forward and the moment comes to an abrupt finish.  but the feeling stays with you.

last night i went with my beautiful friend leslie to see francesca battiestelli in concert.  she was performing at the alameda county fair which is housed in our town.  i have loved her music since i first heard it a few years ago and we both jumped at the chance to see her perform.  it was nice to sit in the amphitheater chatting together and just allow ourselves to be in the moment of two mommas away from kiddos enjoying a night free of baths, teeth brushing and the tuck-in routine.  the concert began and both of us were taken by the scene.  there was this precious couple at very back of the arena standing in the aisle dancing to the music.  we both happened to glance towards the back as he spun her around.  it was beautiful.

there were three teenage girls standing up and dancing together to the music.  they giggled and whispered and sang along, capturing the moments on the iPhones (as i suspect is traditional for teenage girls to do).

as the concert continued i kept looking around in awe.  i don't know why, but both leslie and i were amazed by the crowd and we kept wondering about the story behind the people that were there.  i wanted to get to know the dancing couple at the back and learn about their story.  were they dating?  newly weds?  did francesca have something to do with their story and how they met?  i was intrigued.

a few songs into franny's set, i happened to glance down the row and notice a girl dressed head to toe in bright pink.  she looked to be in her 20's and she looked to have some sort of physical limitation and possibly a mental limitation- downs perhaps.  she appeared to be alone and was clutching a pink stuffed bear- won on the mid-way at the fair perhaps?  she was singing along and gently swaying to the tune.  she knew every word.

moments later francesca invited everyone to stand and she invited the crowd to sing along to a worship song...  it goes like this:

your love never fails 
it never gives up
it never runs out on me

your love never fails 
it never gives up
it never runs out on me

higher than the mountains that i face
stronger than the power of the grave
constant through the trial and the change
this one thing remains

your love never fails
it never gives up
it never runs out on me

your love never fails 
it never gives up
it never runs out on me



i looked down the row at the girl.  i glanced at the dancing couple.  i smiled at my friend.  the girl was standing and her arms that were once curled into her body were now stretched straight at her sides and she was bouncing to the beat of the drums.  the dancing couple were arm and arm swaying together worshiping God in pure delight and experiencing love.

it was beautiful and i felt that mental photograph begin to set up the frame in the viewfinder of my mind to capture the moment, but before i could hit "click" francesca transitioned into another one of her songs.  this one titled beautiful, beautiful.

now there's a joy inside i can't contain
but even perfect days end in rain
and though it's pouring down
i see you through the clouds
shining on my face

like sunlight burning at midnight
making my life something so
beautiful, beautiful
mercy reaching to save me
all that i need
you are so
beautiful, beautiful...

the girl down the row had her chin lifted towards the heavens and her arms outstretched belting out the tune.  and she was so beautiful.

a few songs later francesca and her husband took stools on center stage.  he picked up a guitar and she sang along as he strummed out a song they had worked on together.



and i melted as i took it all in.   i snapped my mental picture and filed it under the heading of "love".  God's love is beautiful- the love found in friendship, in a boy twirling a girl at the back of an amphitheater, a girl recognizing that in spite of her challenges she is truly beautiful, in a husband and wife singing a ballad together on stage...

and once again, my heart nearly burst.

ribbit

many moons ago i told you about this.  (yes, you should click on the word "this" and come back when you are done...  i'll be right here when you return.)

a common theme for this momma (as of late) has been a theme of growing up and moving on.  it makes me sad.  i am entering a new era of motherhood.  i'm standing in the gap between toddlers and adolescents.  some days they act more like teenagers and other days they act like very overgrown babies (you should have seen the melt down at the pool the other day...  mortifying).

anyways.

it is officially summer and this momma is in heaven.  i love summer.  i treasure days of no schedules.  i delight in the ability to be impulsive and jump in the car and do something unexpected.  i savor lazy days at the pool (minus the recent epic melt down).  i crave impromptu play dates.

while this does get old after a bit (i also love a well planned schedule), the first few weeks always feel like a "get out of jail" free card from the structure of the school year.  and as of this moment, i am still in the honeymoon phase of that.

i am getting away from my story, though.  usually, the first few days of summer evoke a nesting instinct in me.  i often find myself wanting to clean out the closets and sort through the school papers (it is part of the anomaly of me that craves impromptu while really also loving structure).  it is confusing from the outside, but in my mind it makes perfect sense.  it is preparing for the ability to be impulsive.  if life is in order than you can jump out of that order more easily to do something on the fly.

again...  getting off topic.  i have a story to tell.

the "beginning of summer nesting" has settled in around here and i have been in a frenzy to get the girl's rooms in order.  i was cleaning out bins last week and stumbled upon the item that triggered the telling of this story.

and now the story.

when e was about the ripe old age of one, scott went to some sort of work conference.  he came home with this squishy rubbery frog that was half white and half purple.  it was about the size of the palm of your hand.  inside of the belly of the frog was a glow light.  if you squished it, the light would activate and the frog would glow.  ellie was fascinated with it.  she carried it around with her for weeks and weeks and weeks.  over time, it became an attachment object that brought her comfort (sort of like sophie the giraffe...  a few years before he burst on the baby gear scene).  the frog was with her always.  she even took it to bed with her.

one day she brought it to our playgroup.  my friend sara found it to be disgusting (and might possibly have thought that i was the oddest mom ever, giving my daughter such a strange thing to play with and allowing her to toddle around with it as an attachment device).  ellie accidentally left the frog at their house.  sara called me immediately- she was laughing her head off that this nasty frog had been left in her possession.  there was one small problem though.  they were on the way to the airport headed out of town for a week long vacation.  she lived in a gated complex, so there was no way for her to leave it on the porch for pick-up.  she felt bad knowing that we would have to go for the next week or so without it.  as a mom of a one year old, she knew this was going to be tragic for e.  secretly, i think she was pleased at peach that the universe had intervened in my bad parenting in such a perfect way.

and so there we were, frogless.  e eventually went in search of her glow frog and momma had to tell her the sad news.

as usually, she turned to her other frog friend for comfort.  the original froggy was the real tear wiper at our house.  e adjusted and went on with her little toddler self, but not without frequent asks for the frog.

a few days later she and i visited the local boarders in uptown.  we read oodles and oodles of books, perused the sale section, played in the kids section and hung for a bit.  she had been so good that i offered her a treat at the checkout.  she went up to the wooden rack by the register and carefully examined the chocolates and mini-treasures that she was to choose from.  she came back with the small box of jelly belly beans and a bag filled with....

wait for it...

miniature rubber frogs!

they lacked the uber cool glow element in the belly and were way smaller, but e didn't care.  she was ecstatic!  i was so happy with the find that i agreed to let her get both items instead of making her choose between the two.

and so off we went with our box of beans and bag of frogs.  we held hands and walked to the car with smiles on our faces.  all was right in the world (of one toddler) once again.  hooray.

i could end the story here.  but i won't.  i'll tell you the rest.  it is too funny not to share.

after buckling her into her seat i opened her box of beans for her and the bag of frogs.  in one hand she had beans and in the other a myriad of colorful rubber frogs.  on her face was the grin of all grins.  on the short ride home she munched beans.  i kept noticing these funny looks on her face in the rear view mirror.  it was odd.  she didn't say anything, but after each bean an odd expression would show up on her face.  and then she would look at the frogs and a smile would reappear.

i love jelly belly beans.

they are my favorite candy.

i asked her to pass me one.

and then i understood the reason for the expression on my girlies face.  they were the grossest beans i had ever tasted!  so gross that i couldn't swallow mine.  they were nasty!

when we arrived home i checked out the box.  it was not the typical white and red box, but i had just assumed that it was some sort of new packaging.

yup.  it was.

it was the bertie botts pack- from the newly released harry potter movies- with flavors like earthworm, earwax, soap and black pepper.

yum.

i laughed at loud and asked e how she could stand to keep eating them.  she just shrugged and toddled off with her fist full of frogs.

a few weeks ago, 8 year old e begged me to take her to the fish store to replace her 999th dead fish.  i might be exaggerating here.  it is possible.  but it doesn't feel like it.  i swear, it feels like e looses a fish a week around here.  anyways, i obliged.  once in the fish store, e declared she did not want a fish this time. 

"could she, would i, pretty please....  with sugar on top...  i'll be good forever and ever....  will you get me...

frogs?"

without remembering the story of the bertie bott beans, e named her new frog friends salt and pepper.  could it possibly be a subconscious recollection of the black pepper bean?  i guess we'll never know for sure, but i'm banking on "yes".

you've got mail

third grade.  

i remember my own experience in third grade vividly.  i had mrs. wellman as a teacher and i loved watching her draw cursive letters on the chalkboard.  the fluidity of her hand as she carefully formed her loops that magically turned into letters is still fresh in my mind.  i still can hear her voice reading aloud from the boxcar children after lunch and remember the mental movie that she created for me.  i loved getting lost in the adventures of henry, jessie, violet and their little brother benny.  i remember my third grade love and playing kickball at recess.  the memories are magnificent.  shortly after winter break mrs. wellman became ill.  they found cancer.  she was out for the next few months getting treatment.  i believe that she returned at the end of the year for a few weeks, but i remember those months being hard...  missing her...  being still little and not understanding things like cancer.  

this year, my e had a similar experience.  our first day of school began with her teacher going to the hospital with a severe medical condition.  she left school shortly after the kids arrived and didn't return until january.  it was a difficult school year.  we are so thankful she made it through her ordeal.  we feel so special to have had her as our "teacher" (aka:  step-momma, recess situation handler, daily dose of smiles, beautiful calmer and comforter, math mentor, writing coach, project planner, mental challenger, smiler, read-a-loud extraordinaire...  etc. etc. etc. you know...  teacher).  it is hard to let her go.  it is difficult to walk away.  i miss the comfort of her already.

third grade has been fun for my e.  i believe it is fair to say that this is the year that her personality spiked.  she went from being e, to being E.  i know i've already told you all my momma dotes, so i will spare you from doing so two posts in a row.

instead, i'll share two highlights from this year from the momma perspective.  these are two things i want to carve into the mental archive and retain forever and ever.

the weeks leading up to summer i asked e what sort of lunchbox she wanted for third grade.  i showed her a few options on-line, thinking she would choose one, we could click "order" and then move on.  no.  this was not to be.  she loathed each and every one of them.  (really?  how does one loathe a lunch bag?  i promise.  my E did.)

plan b.  i took her to the mall and showed her the plethora of options that pb kids had to offer.  (one of these overpriced little numbers was certain to fit the bill, right?)

no.  they were too pink, or too chunky, or too girly or too...  lunch boxy....  or whatever she said.  (who can i remember?  i was too busy running out of time and scratching my head trying to figure out why such a little thing was becoming such a big thing.)

plan c.  i took her to a local cooking store with some options.

i should probably interject at this point that i might have been part of my own issue.  if i am clear, i did have my own list of criteria for the lunch bag that needed to be met.  everything i needed, E did not desire.

anywho... we found a suitable little number (that was uber expensive) at plan c.  i was exasperated and e knew she was pushing my buttons.  she chose one half heartily and we moved on.

"are you sure you are going to like this one?  you're going to use it for the entire year, you know!"said her annoying thoughtful mother.

she hated it almost as soon as we left the till.

(oy.  and this is only one of my three children.  help me rhonda!)

she lost her lunch tote before the end of september.  lucky for this momma, our lunch crew has a pretty fool proof system for recovering lost lunch sacks.  it turned up a few days later.  she swiftly lost it again.  and again it turned up.  i was beginning to think this was deliberate.  i refreshed her memory about our chat in the store at the till.  again she lost it.  again it was returned.  she lost it once more, just before the holiday break.  it has not been seen since.

and what's a mom to do?  i had already told her twice that this was her means of lunch transportation for the year.  a momma must be true to her word.  and so true to my word i was.  i offered her the old school sack until the bag was found.

just to make the sack even less desirable than apple dents in your pb&j and warm cheese products and leaky corners, i began to draw pictures on the sack signed by moi.

epic fail.

she (and the littles) began to fall in love with the drawings.  every morning they would anticipate the big lunch bag reveal.  they would giggle and poke fun at moms lack of artistic ability.  when i would write her loving notes she would give the obligatory, "aw mom!", while grinning from ear to ear.

it became our love language.  and so i declare third grade the year of the retro lunch sack- adorned with terrible art and conveying daily messages or adoration for my E.

(i can't wait to go lunch bag shopping in august- said this mother NEVER.)


the second memory that i want to preserve is that of my first emails with my girl.  in september she saved up a boatload of money and bought herself a tablet.  i kid you not.  i told her i wouldn't buy one for her, her dad echoed my sentiments and she declared she would save up and get one herself.  and get one herself she did.  in order to set up the tablet an email account was needed.  we decided to let this be her big moment and give her one of her own, with the caveat that she couldn't really use it.

recently, she asked me to show her how email worked as she looked over my shoulder while i was composing a message.  i decided it might be time to give this a whirl and loosen the reigns a wee bit.  i sent her an email.

she replied.

i sent her a message back.

she responded.

what does emailing with your third grader look like?  well, check it out below.  here are some excerpts from a recent exchange:

me:

her:

me:

i giggle every time that i see her name in my inbox.  

and that's a wrap folks.  third grade has come to an end.  i am officially old and she is officially sassy a fourth grader.  hello, summer break!  it's nice to see you once again!

let them be little

i have been somewhat nostalgic for the past few weeks.  i've found myself looking at baby books and squinting in disbelief as i look at pictures of my sweet e.  there have been moments where it feels like she has grown inches in the night and that she has matured in mere moments.  

i look at her pictures and reflect on how i had no clue about anything related to parenting.  eight and three quarter years ago, (a third grader demands this sort of age specificity), this little ladybug flew into our lives and changed it in ways that we could not have imagined.  my early walker.  my night owl.  my articulate speaker.  my not so in love with messy hands or unpredictable situations.

and then i think about her first day of kindergarten.  we were three weeks late into the school year and still living in a hotel as we waited for our moving truck to arrive.  i can remember dropping her off that first day and filling out the paperwork.  i got to the section of "emergency contact" and almost began to hyperventilate.  we didn't know a soul here.  i had a moment where i wanted to grab my e by the hand and run...  fast.  it felt overwhelming, terrifying...  maybe even negligent to do this to your first born.

i didn't take a picture.  i couldn't stand the thought of having that photo if things didn't turn out well.

i remember driving away that day, in this sunny new town, feeling fear pulse from my head to my toes.  i am not typically a fearful person and this was a new experience for me as a momma.  i hated everything about it.

and as fear rippled through me, i remember calling out to God, "why is this so hard?"

and just like my Father always does, he stilled my soul.  you see, when we were planning on moving to california God declared a verse to guide our family as we walked through this experience of unknowns.  in some time of prayer, He guided me to Jeremiah 29:11

"for i know the plans i have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

and now... four years later, as my kindergartner becomes a fourth grader i scratch my head and wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes.

we have prospered.  we have hope.  and our future is bright!  i love everything about my girlies academic journey- even the hard stuff!  yep, even the hard stuff.  you see, my little e has had a less than desirable academic storyline.  she has had two sick teachers (out on very extended leaves), been part of a discontinued educational program, and moved schools (after being on a very uncertain waiting list).  nothing huge, but none of these hiccups are things you would wish for.  and as we have walked through each one of them, my e has been a shining star.  she just powers through with a smile on her face.  she has had a few moments. i have had a few more moments.  but in watching her and clinging to this beautiful promise from God, i have been able to set down my fear and just walk forward in hope.

i have no clue what the future looks like.  but this little love is on the move.  with just three days remaining in her third grade year, i sigh.  oh, how the time flies.  oh, how these loves grow in the blink of an eye.  and while i want her to be little, i also want her to be big.

e, you amaze me!  your laughter, your sense of humor, your intelligence...  they are beyond your years (and so is your sass...  so don't get a big head).  smile.  don't be upset with me if i cry a little over the next few days.  you'll understand in due time when you're a momma.

sniff.  sniff.

you've got to read, baby, read!

i love books!  i love the way they smell.  i love the way the pages feel beneath your fingers.  i love the way they look standing up tall on a book shelf side by side waiting to be chosen.  i love looking at the fonts and the images that are revealed within the pages.  i love story.  i love the unknown as you crack the cover and then discovering the beginning, middle and end.  and then i love imagining what occurs in the lives of the characters beyond the last page.  i love it when the lives of these new found friends linger in your mind and you think about them weeks, months or even years after you have completed the story.

i often think about the finch family.  my favorite book of all time is to kill a mockingbird and i fell in love with scout, atticus and jem, as i'm sure is quite common for readers of this book.  how could you not fall in love with them?   i would read that book cover to cover every time that i returned to my mom's house post college.  when we packed up her home a few years ago, it was still sitting in the bottom drawer of my dresser in my former room.  currently, i think boo radley lives around the corner from us.  i'll show you his house if you want to see it.  my girls even refer to it as the boo radley house and i tease them and ask them if they want to trick-or-treat there.  i'm getting off topic way too early into this post.  you get the point, though.  i love books!

when i was a teacher in chicago i was met with a task that felt insurmountable.  i was challenged with 55 fourth graders that could barely read.  more than a handful of my students were exhibiting  a bare minimum of pre-reading skills.  a few of them were on or just below level.  but the majority of them had skills that teetered between a first and second grade reading level.  my task was to get them up to speed.  as if that wasn't enough of a challenge, most of them lived in non-traditional home environments.  they had daddies they didn't know, brothers in jail, aunties with drug addictions, homelessness, abuse, poverty, neglect...  you name it and i had a student that lived that reality.  teaching them to read sometimes felt like the secondary task and loving them well often felt like the primary task.

during that time in my life, i bought a lot of books.  i felt that if of these precious students could take home a story about someone else's life then maybe they might be able to escape a bit from the harshness of their own home environments.  i also felt like it might open their eyes to a bigger more different world than they had known so far.  or maybe, it might help them cope as they related to a character living similarly to themselves.  books are like that.  they open our eyes and give us insight.  they allow us to get lost in new places and imagine beyond our current reality.  in some ways books are like playing dress-up.  i wanted them to "try on" a different lifestyle and begin to imagine contrasting opportunities for themselves.

as a result of this era in my life my office is currently filled with books of all reading levels.  in some ways, it is like having an on-site library.  my girls rotate the books in their rooms with the books in my office and read themselves to sleep each night.  we have an early bedtime to accommodate this habit and it is music to my ears when i hear them "reading" just beyond their closed doors.  as much as i dislike the mess, i also secretly love it when i find a new stack of books (that wasn't there when i tucked them in the night before) piled next to them in the morning.

i was thinking recently that i wanted to mark some of their favorites at this moment in time.  i imagine that i'll want to do this again in the future.  i also imagine that it will be fun to look back and see their literacy progression.

poppy's favorite book happens to be one that i used to thumb through as a little girl.  she fell in love with it as a baby, rejected it for a bit, and then fell in love with it all over again recently.  it is one of the few books that was given specifically just to her.

her favorite page reads, "...and do lot of things by themselves."  it is referring to what babies do.  i like it because my less than independent third child might take the hint from the text that babies are supposed to try to do things on their own.  she likes it because the boy baby (who is telling the kitty "no") is showing his bum.

a funny sidebar- when i was a girl my aunts gave my sisters and i a book titles gnomes.  it was this huge coffee table book that detailed the life and existence of gnomes.  i can remember sitting on the living room floor giggling alongside my sisters at the image of one of the gnomes showing his tushy while going potty in the woods.  i guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.  pops and i both appear to have a thing for the tush.  giggle.

buggy b has two favorite books at the moment (and she's been loving both of these for the better part of the year).  the first is a book that details the life of a ballerina.  it explores the process of going after something you want and highlights the hard work that is involved.  i like her to see that.  she also loves a fine, fine school by sharon creech.  the main message here is one of moderation.  i like that d is gravitating towards that.  the illustrations that enhance the text are delish.

and my e is also on a sharon creech bender.  she has just recently cracked the cover of walk two moons and has read love that dog and ruby holler more times than she or i can count.  again, apple/tree.  e is, by far, the biggest reading lover of the three.  while she doesn't typically read during the day, she spends hours in the evening pouring over books.

last saturday e, d, p and i all cuddled up in the living room.  ellie read to us for the better part of an hour from a book of fables.  i loved listening to her read- the inflection of her voice, the mastery of difficult words, the process of decoding.  it is a beautiful thing to watch your very own develop in this way...  at least for this momma.

my favorite book as a child was miss nelson is missing.  i can recall reading that book over and over and over again.  i loved detective mcsmogg and the idea of miss nelson getting carried off by a swarm of butterflies.  my kids do not share my love for this book.  we have two copies and i continue to try and push it into the book rotation.  inevitably it will end up back on my office floor.

recently i asked them about this.  poppy declared, "that book is scary, momma."  d refuses for it to even be in her room any longer.  i kept asking them why it was scary when they knew how the story ended already.

pops opened to this page and said, "see, momma.  this book is no good."

i guess sometimes the apple falls close and at other times if falls very far away.  smile.

their first love

you see, he is their first love.

i ended my last post with that thought and am going to pick up where i left off here.  

i keep watching my girls.  as they grow, they continue to cling to their momma.  this is true.  they love me a great deal.  

but they ADORE their daddy.  

if you ask them who they want to marry, almost always they will say "daddy".  

and we giggle and tell them that dear old dad (the most youthful man i know) is taken.  

but it has given me great pause.  you see, i believe that a daughter learns ever so much about choosing a mate from her father.  they watch how he cares for them.  they see the traits he possesses.  they see the ways he shows love to their momma...

if they like what they see, they will gravitate towards a man who is similar.

i can only hope.

and pray.

that they find a man like scott...

this momma knows what that is like.  to be the woman on his arm...  

i don't know how i came into this place, but the three fine daughter of father buser would be oh so lucky to accept the dance of life on the arm of a man like my husband.

i think the gift that is the most valuable right now, that he is lavishing upon them, is the gift of investment.  and i think the key to how he is implementing this lies in authenticity.  you see, he is finding areas that they are interested in that overlap with an area of interest for him.  often this is a new interest for him, but one in which he can pursue with enthusiasm.  and then he takes it further. he helps them develop this interest.  he shows them how to learn, how to develop a skill, how to improve, how to struggle, how to celebrate success appropriately...  it is beautiful to watch.

i am watching it unfold with e as they explore surfing together.  i've watched it unfold with all three as they have taken up hiking together.  and the list goes on.

he leaves them articles at the breakfast table.  he shares photos with them.  he creates movie night around a theme he knows they will love...

if i could give one solid piece of advice to dads of daughters around the world, this would be a leading contender.

invest in their interests with authenticity and then invite them to engage in this interest as often as you possibly can together.


while everyone can have their interests on their own, this takes their interests a step further.

it tells the girlies so much.  it tells them that they matter.  it tells them that their interests are worth pursuing.  it tells them that life shared with someone is rich and meaningful.

and while they are engaging in this intentional overlap of interests, it opens doors for conversation.  dear old dad is invited in as they grow up, rather than pushed out.

relationships are precious but life often gives us more opportunities to push people out rather than invite people in.

it is in the invitation, in the staying, in the trust and the conversation where we develop true character and depth.

we haven't hit the teenage years yet, but i think father buser is on the right track.  i am not naive.  i know that these relationships will have an evolution.  i know they will have hiccups and periods where it feels less harmonious than it does at this moment.  but every step towards relationship matters.  it is growing them and stretching them and building into the little ladies that they are.

my heart bursts as i ponder this!  the beauty and joy of this man loving our girlies well...  lots of dads do it but i don't think that it is celebrated nearly enough.