a.rose

I generally shy away from publicly stating my political beliefs.  I am pretty open about my religious beliefs, but for some reason I don't like to participate in conversations about politics on open internet forums.  But I can't stop thinking about some recent events, and I don't know, maybe you have too?  I don't claim to have the right answer, or to know exactly what we should do, but I need to process my thoughts and there's nothing quite like writing for sorting out what you are thinking. First of all, perhaps you've heard what happened in Beirut, and what Adel Termos did?  Another article reporting the story, here . I read about Adel and his sacrifice and I feel good inside, about the decency, the absolute heroism left in some of humanity.  But then, I turn around and I see news reports of states here in the U.S. making the decisions about opening their borders or not, governors taking one position or another about harboring refugees. I read through

There is something in this moment that grabs at my throat and pulls at the tears gathering in my eyes. Something that makes me aware of every breath I take, and every beat of my heart.  Something elusive and fleeting, and I worry that if I don't sit down and try to capture it in words on paper it will float out the window on the warm gentle breeze blowing through my windows, carried away with the sunshine and sound of birds. I hear it in the sounds of laughter and voices calling from outside, as Heather plays on the swings and Hazel dumps sand on herself in the sandbox.  I am in their bedroom, the window just above where they play.  I watch their tiny bodies as I fold laundry and pick up the flotsam and jetsam of childhood that is strewn about their room. I hear it coming from the next room, as Hallie giggles softly to herself.  She is surrounded by piles of books that have been pulled off the bookshelf, in careful search for the one that was just right for the afternoon.  

Five years ago, give or take a couple weeks, a younger Devin and I spent the day with our younger Hallie and Hanna at a car dealership. We were trying to decide which Mazda 5 to buy.  It was a big gulp for us to drop that 20 some thousand dollars, but our little family was growing and it was time to upgrade to a second car and a bigger vehicle.  The next day we drove past a different car dealership on our way somewhere else, and saw a beautiful sight - a slightly used Mazda 5 for half the price we had been planning to pay.  We squealed a u-turn, marched in, and dropped a fat check on a shocked salesperson's desk. It was a happy five years, 100, 000 miles, and a million memories.  That little car drove us to Utah, Texas, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  It knew our little section of Lincoln like the...backseat of... itself.  And then, in the way that you know things that you know, it was time to let it go. Our family had grown again, and that little micro minivan was getting

My friend Holly recently organized a busy bag exchange, and so I decided to make a little playmat.  The idea was for them to be small enough to be carried around in a purse or diaper bag, to pull out whenever you need something quick and entertaining, like at the doctor's office, or post office? driver's bureau? waiting to pick up big sister from school? So for my playmat, it was easy to find printable ones online that were for cars, you know, roads and whatnot.  I found a bunch like that, and then I found some that were like for jungle animals and dinosaurs, and that was cool too.  I printed off those, and then I thought of all the little toys we have that would work so well with a playmat like this (see below), all the little farm animals and people and I searched and searched for something that would work for that kind of creative play, and couldn't find anything. So I just made my own, even though I don't have photoshop and wouldn't know how to use it even if

It's one of those things that I can't make up my mind about.  Part of me wants to talk about it, and part of me doesn't.  And part of me shrugs and admits that I wouldn't know what to say even if I did start talking about it. I don't even know exactly what it was, exactly, that hit me after Hazel was born, and the fog that I lived in that year.  I have wondered if it was postpartum depression, and I have wondered if that is why it is hard for me to talk about it. I still have trouble finding words to describe my experience, because I don't know any words heavy enough to convey how it felt in my head.  This, written a few weeks ago, is as close as I have been able to come. we dance and we are drowning in the flames, burning in the waves yet the sweet, sweet agony summons it is seductive, shrieking, screaming, the sounds of a pain so caught up in pleasure a mask of cocoa mist obscured by moss and blood and still we dance our eyes closed to the

one hundred cornflakes all over the floor / little feet stepping / each time breaking / each flake / into / a hundred new flakes I sigh I bend down / and I begin / picking up each one by hand / it would be easier / of course / of course / of course / to use a vacuum or even the broom / but / of course / I don’t think of that until the job is  all but done / of course / but the job is never done / and there are puzzles and books and papers and crayons and dolls and trucks and bits and pieces of a life / in the middle of living / if archaeologists dug our / house out of the rubble of time / frozen exactly as it is now / they would know just how we lived / and what we wore / and what we ate / but they would not hear your laughter / your little voices calling / your feet padding / down the hall / en route to new adventures / they would not see / that spark in your eye / of creativity as you make / a paper towel roll into a telescope / of discovery as you learn you can hop on one foot / of

I left all of this behind for a weekend to go to Charleston, South Carolina to have some therapy and fun with some of my very all time, top of the list, holding nothing back because I know they love me, friends. I got on a plane and I flew across the country and spent the next few days just basking in the glory of beautiful places, good food, the silence in conversation that is only possible when there are no children around, and the people.  Yes, these people. The kinds of people who will do yoga on the beach with you, and just roll with it.  The kinds of people who will do crazy jumps, and wild dances, all on a public beach all while filming everything, just in case we wanted the footage someday.  This picture makes us look like any of the other tourists who were out there on that cloudy, windy day, but it doesn't show the wild antics that would follow immediately after.  It's no wonder that even in our 30s people kept thinking we were college kids on spring brea

Swimming lessons.  It's the sort of mundane thing a mom has to organize and do that terrifies me. I am afraid I am going to sign up for the wrong thing, and show up at the wrong time, and that my kids will have all the wrong things, and that everyone will look at me and know that I have no idea what I'm doing, that all along I've just been faking it, this job called "mom" that I try to do every day. So I signed them up, Hallie, Hanna, and Heather.  We have been largely unsuccessful with swimming lesson ventures in the past, for various reasons, but now we had a membership at the Y and I was going to just hold my breath, cross my fingers, and fling money at the people there hoping they would make everything right. I got an email reminding me to sign up, and as I had completely forgotten about the deadline and knowing that these classes fill up fast I jumped out of my chair and ran straight past go without collecting $200 dollars and started filling out the f

I sleep through the night, and then I wake up and I feel so tired, and in my head I feel fuzzy and foggy as if maybe, am I still asleep? I lay down and take a nap and I wonder if I am resting, or if I am just ruining any chance of getting a good night's sleep that night, and so I toss and I turn and all I can think about is that I am so tired. And I wonder when this cycle will end. But it is spring and today there was sunshine and warmth followed by a thunderstorm complete with lightning. Big fat raindrops hurled through the sky at the roof and pattering at the windows, and I thought maybe I can wake up. Tomorrow is a new day, and maybe tomorrow I will wake from this living dream. Sometimes I think, the sooner I go to sleep, the sooner it will be tomorrow and I can test my theory for a new and better tomorrow. And so, good night.

I kiss your nose, your forehead, your cheek, your chin. I squeeze you tightly to me and feel your soft squishiness give. I look in your eyes and you look back at me and in my heart I feel a tugging ache I cannot fully define. I ache because you are my baby, mine to squeeze and squish. I ache because in this predawn darkness under the blankets we form a cocoon and every day you are closer to emerging out of it into the world. I ache because every morning you wake up you are my baby, but every morning you are a little less my baby and a little more your own self. I ache and I ache and I laugh at the joy it makes me feel to hurt this way. You look at me laughing and it makes you laugh too. It seems that this might have been your last time nursing.  It felt that way, how you kept your body unusually still as if you, too, were savoring the moment.  Your legs were carefully curled up, tucked tightly next to mine, your little hand free and tapping gently on my chest, just

Last night as I was talking with my sister the topic of all the junk that sits on our computers for years that we don't really know what to do with but we never look at and where did most of it come from anyway? She emailed me a few items that she had on her computer that she thought I would find interesting, and she had some real classics.  I was really happy to see this one resurface, I don't think I even have it saved, having gone through so many computer hard drive crashes over the years. I really need to figure out some way to back up my system so that I can save all the random junk that collects on a computer over the years. Because you know, as you look back on it, some of that junk is pretty priceless. "PhDevin" Devin is a person Who speaks in weighty terms, He puts the Cossack curse on Bacteria and germs. In mystic laboratories, With tubes, retorts, and sinks He wins undying glories By making

Here are a few of our little stories from this week. Two or three (or more) nights out of the week Heather gets out of her bed and crawls into "mother's bed", as she calls it.  It doesn't bother me, as long as she is quiet and falling asleep I am happy with it. Tonight as I tucked her in "mother's bed" I realized that our curtains were still wide open, and the full moon was shining brightly down, it's light landing gently right on my pillow.  I knew it would keep me awake, so I asked her if she wanted me to close the curtains, or if she wanted to fall asleep looking at the moon. She whispered back at me, "Looking at the moon, mother." I kissed her forehead and said, "ok, the moon will watch you sleep and keep you safe." She turned away from the moon to look at me, "Who will watch me sleep, mother?" "Well, the man in the moon of course," I answered her, wondering how old I was the first time someone

Heather has taken to calling me mother, lately.  I like it. Every day I sit down with Hazel and I look deep into her eyes and I say clearly enunciating the word, "Ma-ma". And she stares at me and she smiles and she drools and then she stands up and walks off to go see what sisters are doing and so even though I am pretty sure she says "dada" and even a mashed up version of "sisters" - sounds kind of like "de-s-ders!" She has yet to say "mama." I'm resigned to it. By the time she starts really talking she will probably just call me "mother" anyway. Good thing I'm used to it, yeah?

The basement guys showed up bright and early yesterday morning to begin working.  They worked all day, leaving at 5:30 and then were back at it again this morning.  They hope to be done before too long and then I can have my house back! Yesterday just as they were getting started, the crew leader, Mike, mentioned that I would have to turn my heat off, because the dust from all the concrete they would be breaking up would filter through the whole house otherwise.  And so with below freezing temperatures outside, I turned off my heat inside and we all huddled in my bedroom with a space heater on all day.  As I sat there in my bedroom for hours with my three little girls, I thought I could probably complain about this. Or I could be grateful that my bedroom is the size of the houses people lived in a couple hundred years ago, when things like furnaces and solid walls and running water were unheard of dreams.  I chose gratitude. At one point I was in my bathroom cleaning out my closet

Right now I'm thinking about family.  My mom just left, she was here for a week as a stop on her trip from Michigan to California, where she will visit my brother.  While she was here I took the opportunity, as I do, to take the pictures of her phone and put them on my computer.  As I scroll through all the pictures of my beautiful, wonderful, crazy awesome family, I feel really happy that they are mine, lucky that I get to be a part of this group. We were in Michigan for a wedding/family reunion/ camping trip.  Michelle, Clay, Amber, Me, Susi  Great Aunt Cathy and Hanna  Great Aunt Phyllis and Hazel  Great Uncle Larry and Daniel  Allison and Jamison  Great Uncle Geoff and Jill  Dancing!  Grandpa and Uncle Dan, with Daniel, Hallie, Emily, and Jill  GG and Alice, Hanna, Hazel, Hallie, Heather, and Jill Golly gee gosh I love those faces.

My mom sat me back down on the couch and wrapped a blanket around me, then went to get her own shoes.  She was not sure Devin would make it home in time and she was going to drive me to the hospital if he didn't show up. He made it just in time and helped me out to the car.  I remember wishing he would drive faster, I remember I couldn't understand why he didn't understand that he needed to go faster.  I remember there was a white van in front of us, and I was so angry at that white van for not understanding that it should not be in my way. I remember looking at the clock, and out the window, back to the clock, and just breathing.  At one point Devin made a comment about how it didn't seem like I was really having contractions anymore, or that they weren't too bad.  I remember my head exploded because I didn't know if I wanted to laugh, or cry, or scream, or hit him, or hug him, or throw myself out of the car and just start running to the hospital.  I remem

Can I talk about this again?  Every month this past year as the 28th has come around again the memories would resurface.  I would let them in, almost embracing them, soaking in as many of the little details from that day as I could.  As the months ticked by I looked toward the year mark with some trepidation, some anticipation.  I wondered what the memories would do to me on that day.  And each month as I let the memories in I thought that maybe, on one of them I would be able to let them out again.  But month after month I never did, just tucking them back in to my heart and keeping them safe for the next month. I think it's time now, though.  I have held on to them long enough and I am ready to be free of them.  I am ready to release myself from all the tiny moments that added up and became the whole day, a day that has haunted me this past year. I had been in the hospital about a week and a half prior because there were some "things" they were "concerned"