Five of the most wonderful months of my life

The giggles and smiles of this one get me.  They shoot little love arrows straight at my heart.  He is my personal cupid.  I bet you can see why.  Third baby.  Laid back, happy baby.  Joyful, giggly, oh so very wiggly, lovely baby.  Your eyes have that same exact mischievous tilt that your Papa has.  Happy 5 months, littlest guy.  We are crazy about you.

I Never Wear High Heels - and my other failings as the mother of a girl

If you know me, you read that title with the sarcastic lilt that you know you would hear in my voice.  I don't think it is a failing as a mother to not wear high heels.  IN FACT, I think I personally am a better mother because my attention isn't on what my feet look like.  Or my outfit.  Or my nonexistent makeup.  However, I do have awesome hair.  When I wash it.  Ha!

But I didn't always feel that way.  My mother didn't wear shoes often at home and if she did, it was wooden bottomed clogs, or boots.  It was the 70's.  It was Texas.  (now she wears sliver and pink sneakers...go figure)  And there was a time I was sort of ashamed that she wasn't more cool.  Or more dressed up.  Or teaching me how to wear makeup.  I learned haphazardly from friends and from watching my older sister.  It was a rough route at times, but I settled into a style that, when I am not between pregnancy fluctuations, is a comfy jeans a t-shirt kind of style.  With sneakers.  Or flip flops.  And a ponytail.  Not that fancy isn't fun, but it's just not for me on a daily basis.

I see women who pull off the coolest outfits and walk flawlessly through this journey called motherhood and I am in awe, because when I put on fancy clothes, I feel strangled.  And unnatural.  And I sure can't ride bikes, or go on hikes, or scrub toilets, and sweep floors, sort laundry, clean up poo and pee accidents, or get puked on every feeding by my babies, (3 for 3 in the reflux department...awesome) or read books on the floor, or play chase like a bear, or wrestle my children without worrying about those clothes. *For those of you who do it, more power to you.  Your fashion rocks my face off. 

When I do take the time to dress up, the appreciation on the part of everyone here is great!  All the kids who can talk and my hubs take the time to tell me how lovely I look and in the mirror, I know it's true.  But I also know I am lovely like I was today.  Slightly grubby.  Wearing yesterday's jeans, a t-shirt with a spit up stain on the shoulder and having an indoor reading fest of new library books, spread out on the floor around us like a feast of words.  I will teach my girl all the fun of being fancy in years to come (as if she isn't already schooling herself), but I will also enjoy days that end in mud and dirt and a different kind of fun.  And I will LOVE not having crumpled up feet when I am on old lady from wearing heels.  Just my thoughts for today.

The world stops

 

I have housework to do.  I have laundry to wash.  I could take some "me time."  But some how none of that matters when these babies fall asleep on my shoulder.  I let it all go and stay here in this moment.  Wouldn't you?

Music in her blood...or not

Music runs in my family.  My parents play instruments and sing, and each of their seven children (my siblings and I) sing and play an instrument of some kind.  My grandparents played instruments and sang.  Three of four of my uncles have made a career of music of some kind at one point or another in their lives.  My mother taught us harmonies in the car when we drove anywhere and dragged us to nursing homes to regale the elderly with our Von Trapp-like musical styling.  When we get together, we sing and make music.  It's just a natural thing we always did.  I also married a musical guy.  He has a great voice (that he rarely uses) and played musical instruments for years. 

It was always my assumption that my children would be musical, but in truth not all of them are.  Cora sings but only to herself when she thinks no one can hear here.  She flat out refuses to sing with me, every day.  She was nearly four before she could sing a song back to me.  In the car, I love to listen to music and sing, Cora, from babyhood until recently, would cry if I turned it on.  She just wants to talk to me.   Judah came out with music in his veins.  He would match pitch as a six month old when I sang to him.  And now all he wants to do is sing.  He sings songs all the time and I love it.  I also began to noticed a little twinge in my heart when he wants to listen to music and she doesn't, and I thought to myself, this is when it begins, if I let it.  This is where the divide could happen.  Music doesn't run in her veins the way it always has mine.  She isn't 'just like me'.

So many moms and daughters butt heads and have such a hard time being together.  Even my own mother has the power to make me batty.  But this is my only girl.  She and I will share a unique bond through the years.  I will weep when she weeps.  When her best friend says that she is no longer my girl's best friend, I will see the hurt in her face and cry for her, all the while teaching her about sharing her friends with others.  The same thing I struggled to do in my childhood.  I know what it is to be a girl growing into a woman.  I could smother her with motherly wisdom, not leaving room for her to talk or feel, or I could try to mold her into a mini version of myself, or I could let her grow into who she is.

I am choosing today to not focus the thing she does not do, but the things she does.  I hesitate to call her an artist or a dancer or a deep thinker, because those are just things she does.  She IS a wonderful little girl, my daughter, and when we are older, she will be my friend.  Even if she never loves to make music.