Way, way past bedtime

We had a really full weekend - saw lots of friends and family, ate lots of yummy food, sampled some delicious wines, and generally just said 'yes' to summer. Mirelle stayed up way past her bedtime Friday, Saturday and Sunday just to make it all happen. And we forgoed Sunday's nap too. We celebrated Sophia's second birthday Friday night, and welcomed Jay and Mimi to Boulder. We clinked wine glasses and bidded for silent auction items Saturday night in Denver at my cousin Eric's gala for his non-profit organization, while Mirelle ran around in the grass with Olivia, the 4-year-old of the hosts. Sunday we visited new second cousin Brayden (9 days old) and Great Grandma (almost 89 years old) in Colorado Springs, then had dinner with friends visiting from Albuquerque. Mirelle romped, frolicked, got dirty, sifted rocks, slipped in the grass, got grass stains on her PJs, ate drive-by dinners (ie put a forkful of food in her mouth as she motors by), and mimicked the wanderings of McKenna, our friends' little girl exactly 1 year older than Mirelle to the day.

Ross sent me this link to this great little article about discipline/permission and letting kids be kids. I particularly like this part:

So breathe deeply and pray for gentleness, patience and the ability to forgo perfect control or perfect behavior at every turn. Guide, and then let them run and tumble, and go by themselves, and sometimes fail. Let the little ones get wet and get dirty, let the teens borrow the car and go without you. They grow anyway, hindered or unhindered by us.

What are some other ways to let our little ones be a little more unhindered? What about ourselves? (This is definitely a challenge for me - I usually like to keep things pretty orderly and on schedule, both for Mirelle and for me.) Time to say yes to spontaneity and things not always looking tidy!

Aliveness

I made the stunning realization yesterday that the reason I enjoy going for runs (especially on dirt trails, next to streams, and past blossoming trees) is because it makes me feel really alive. It reminds me (subconsciously) about what I really am and about what I'm here to do. My body gets to work hard, I get to be connected and in touch with the natural world and the rhythyms of the changing season. I made this realization yesterday after being at my desk all day. At 4, Mirelle woke up from her nap and we went outside. Aah! It was such a glorious afternoon. Glorious is the most fitting description. Little blossoms were emerging on a red-leaved bush, the delicate first shoots of growth on the tree in the front yard were starting to shift toward leaves, purple flowers had already appeared on a creeping vine. I plucked one, two, three, four and five ! purple flowers and placed one in each of Mirelle's button holes on her sweater. We watched a fat robin dart from tree to tree. Since Mirelle notices everything, I start to, too -- we are a good team. I show her new things, tell her what things mean; she reminds me of the beauty and wonder in the mundane.

But spring is anything but mundane, and it was just then, laying in the grass with Mirelle, already a world away from the glow of my computer screen, that I remembered/woke up/realized what I already knew: that doing things that make you feel truly ALIVE are really what it's all about. And I remembered how I had felt the day before on my run: it was that feeling. I do love my job, but it's still a job: Working at my computer, sitting, moving from task to task. My work is so much easier at my desk if I instill some aliveness into my day, away from the computer.

Other things that have recently brought on a sense of aliveness: hot yoga class, being creative with paper/collage (need to do this one, but I know it works...)

More aliveness. More often. What does it for you?

Brekkie at our house

Still life with brekkie

Our breakfast this morning made such a nice little still-life that I thought I'd take a quick snap and let you in on a typical brekkie at our house. I think 'what do you eat for breakfast' is sort of an intimate question ... breakfasts are so personal and I think most people have a pretty standard fare that they stick to. My friend Alice, for instance, is a yogurt and homemade granola kinda gal. Her husband is a raisin bran and diet dr pepper kinda guy. My mom has a buttered toast and tea ritual. My dad prefers oatmeal, or toast with lots and lots of jam.

My typical weekday breakfast? (Mind you, weekend breakfasts can be quite different.) Pretty much just a variation of what you see here. Lemon yerba mate tea with honey and milk, maybe some yogurt (today it was lemon brown cow), perhaps with grape nuts or granola, and/or some raisin pecan bread with butter and creamed honey from Colorado's western slope. And some grapefruit. That's Mirelle's menu too (sans tea) and plus an egg.



Breakfast is a favorite meal around here.