[Dis]connected

On Fridays, Lisa-Jo, the Gypsy Mama, challenges her readers to write for just five minutes on one word.  Today's word is CONNECTED.

GO

I am fighting to feel connected to any one thing at the moment.  I'm feeling frazzled trying to wrap up some business items by the end of the year, so I rush through things with the Moose.  I've been up during the night with a coughing Moose and have less patience and tenderness for my husband.  I'm falling behind in housekeeping because I'm trying to carve out time for myself to write, knit, and read . . .

[As if to punctuate this point perfectly, my cell phone rang while I was writing this with a matter I had to deal with for a client - even though it's my usual "at home" day.]

I feel like some sort of flying creature - not a bird, I don't feel that graceful at the moment - that never actually touches down somewhere.  And my wings are so weary from the constant flight.

I could blame it on the season - that doesn't help - but that would be disingenuous of me.  I feel like this all the time to some degree.

In the moments that I remember to look heavenward to be grounded, I only have the energy to give thanks for the momentum to keep going and beg for it to continue.

STOP

Won't you accept the challenge and join us for just five minutes at the Gypsy Mama today?

Color Exploration

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"Mommy, color?" is a request my ears frequently hear these days.  Except that I don't have much in the way of adorable toddler scribbles to show for all of the trips to the kitchen table to sit with the crayons (the Moose was banned from markers after he colored his scalp green at daycare).

Instead, he dumps the crayons out.  Sometimes he looks at each one individually.  Other times he sees how many fat, triangular crayons he can hold in his little fist at once.  Then he places each one back into the cup before declaring he is "all done".

My Type-A-ness is constantly frustrated by this.  Why won't he just use them like they're meant to be used?  I try to console myself that at least he is getting some great fine motor skill practice.

But today I realized that something more was going on.  He was looking at these colors like it was his first time.  And it dawned on me that my eyes had been dulled by the 64+ crayon profusion laid at my feet by Crayola since a very young age.  Moose has been exposed to the main colors since birth, I suppose, but I realized that the crayons he was focusing on were the ones that were variations on a main color.  A teal blue.  A red-orange.  The white crayon.  He really was looking at them for the first time.  Exploring them.  Taking them in.

And it reminds me to be patient with him, because there is so much I take for granted that is still new to him.  Like helium balloons.  Clouds in the sky.  Lights on the Christmas tree. 

When I can catch my tongue and slow down, I get the deep satisfaction of exploring all over again these things I've taken for granted.

STOP

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Tired Is a State of Heart

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My son has been coughing at night.  Nothing to be worried about.  One of those air-getting-drier coughs that sets in after you've been sleeping for awhile and your throat catches a tickle.  Still, I refuse to turn the monitor off, just in case it suddenly worsens.  So his coughing has meant some nights of very interrupted sleep this week.

I was really dragging on Monday.

I started Tuesday with three cups of coffee instead of my usual one.

And then I remembered that two years ago this week I had a one-week-old baby.  And I jumped when he cried.  And I watched him sleep.  And I barely slept - both out of amazement at his little life and out of first-time-mom terror.  And I wasn't tired.

Tired has a lot to do with sleep.  And a lot to do with stress.  But it also has a lot to do with where your heart is at.  When it's held fast in the right place, I can be pretty run-down and pretty weary but still not tired.

STOP

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