Friday’s post is still simmering and until it’s finished, I’m stopping in real quick. Tonight we are off to watch Austyn walk across the stage for graduation. I may not blog about the boys as much because–well, teenage boys aren’t really into that sort of thing. But they are very much a part of our life, and watching Brett button up the sleeves on Austyn’s shirt tonight and helping him loop his tie, I felt so proud. Of both of them.

I read one book on step families when I married Brett, but mostly I’ve learned by living it. More kids equals more love–for everyone. And I am so proud of this young man who would laugh if he knew I called him a “young man.”

He’s kind of awesome. And tonight he graduates.

I’ll be back in later for road trip prep, Friday Photo Dump and some new fun ideas brewing.

Give a girl a list, and she’s going to want to cross things off.

That said, I’m movin’ right along with my mini bucket list. Large paint strokes in varied shades of pale blue are staggered across one living room wall, a thin layer of sand covers the laundry room floor from our return from beach sunset Monday night, and last night, the girls and I transformed our bathroom into a spa.

This will be a weekly event now because all the sistahs in the house enjoyed it.

Lainey: Mom, we need cucumbers for our eyes.
Me: We don’t have any cucumbers.
Lainey: We can use bananas.
Me: You are brilliant, Child.

Moon River can accompany anything. I love that song.

*****

And ballet? One week in, and Sister owns the place.

I can’t take the leotard off after class. I let her wear it all day because it makes me smile. And then at night, when I finally take it off and put it aside, I stand there for a minute, next to her dresser, staring at the small square of folded pale pink spandex next to the tiniest ballet shoes you’ve ever seen. And I have a mama moment where I connect with my twelve-year-old self. The one who spent many daydreaming hours wondering what it would be like to have little girls.

So maybe I cut a shirt. Do it. Take a little baby t-shirt and cut the neck off. Bring back the Flashdance.

*****

Finally, the beach. Monday night was glorious–glorious, I tell you. A spontaneous text. Mamas who answered. And this wonder-twin-powers-activate moment where we put our imaginary fists together and promised that yes, we’re doing this. Many times this summer.

Lainey’s friend Lauren giggles. All the time. If you barely look at her, it starts. Belly-shaking giggling. It’s contagious.

Nella ran fearlessly, right toward the waves and right past the shells that border the water’s edge. And yet she knew to stop at shin depth, bracing herself for the few white caps that knocked her down, and then standing again, proud and smiling.

And this one?

In a book club Skype chat the other night, we were discussing sibling needs. I explained some recent feelings I had regarding how we recognize and praise Lainey’s strengths. Her attentiveness and love for Nella is, no doubt, obvious to so many, and she hears “you’re an incredible big sister” almost every day. I love that–I dreamed of that, and yet I’ve been very careful lately to recognize the other qualities that make her who she is as well–her creativity and ingenuity, her free spirit, her imagination and her constant awareness of others’ needs. Her personality is complex, and it’s important for me to continually embrace the many things that make my girls unique individuals, one of which is their incredible attentiveness to each other.

I love that these moments of recognition and readjusting how we parent just naturally evolve. We figure things out. That truth reminds me not to worry so much about the future. All those questions we have? What will their relationship look like? How will we meet their needs? How will we teach them? How will we know when they need something? I am confident that we will figure them out. And it might mean doing something one way and changing it a week later because we realize we need to readjust.

Either way, we’ll know. Mama’s intuition.

*****

I loved reading your week mini bucket lists and made note of several new things I want to do this summer.

A few of yours:

* Pay for someone’s order behind me in the drive through line ~Maria
* Write a heartfelt letter to my daughters AMAZING kindergarten teacher’s principal about how incredibly awesome she is ~Michelle
* Learn some crazy Thriller moves and practice the hoola hoop for our last day of school teacher skit ~Kelly
* Pick pea shoots from my vegetable patch and eat them on the lawn ~Fiona
* Celebrate the end of another successful school year for my kiddos with roasted hot dogs and marshmallows ~Halie

Summer is on the horizon, and an upcoming family road trip has me excitedly dreaming.
(Chicago and Michigan book signing information to come!)

*****

Tea Collection is returning in sponsorship this month, bringing beach essentials and vibrant prints, just in time for summer. Tea’s soft, lightweight knits are perfect for our tropical weather, and I love the global infusion their styles reflect. We love our Indonesian Batik Dress (on sale!) and wear-with-everything Sanuk sandals (also on sale).

Inspired by world travel and notorious for comfort and style, Tea Collection continues to provide unique and colorful clothing for both women and children. In addition, their company supports global efforts that benefit children. We love our Tea clothes, and we love having Tea Collection a part of Enjoying the Small Things.

*****

There is a happy summer laziness that is slowly seeping its way in our home. The boys are counting down the days for “school’s out.” I am making lists in my head of what we will pack for our road trip. The bucket of sidewalk chalk holds nothing but nubs, and we’re due for new bubbles, new chalk, new flip flops and some front yard planting.

Good night.

Our kitchen is a scattered mess of bowls half-filled with soggy cereal, coffee cups, a few groceries that haven’t yet been put away and a pile of bathing suits, towels and sunblock sticks set aside in preparation for our Mother’s Day celebration today–an afternoon at our happy place. I’m waiting for Brett to return home from some errands, and while I prepare beach bags and attempt to clean up a bit of our morning, I sit down again and read through your stories, narrowing down my list from twenty to ten, from ten to eight, from eight to seven…they are all so important.

When we hear stories of heartache and loss, I think we naturally immediately turn to our own good fortune and say things like “Wow, am I ever grateful.” Gratitude is a wonderful and necessary emotion and yet, in these instances, to say I’m grateful doesn’t seem enough. It can sometimes feel rather like “I’m grateful those things happened to you and not me.” Although these story-tellers, in all the infinite wisdom and perspective they’ve gained through challenges would tell you just that…be grateful.

True gratitude is not simply self-serving though in the “I’m thankful I have a wonderful life” sense. True gratitude is not just a passive recognition but an active responsibility, a complex relationship between awareness and our own capabilities to make change. True gratitude not only makes us appreciate what we have but draws us closer to our most compassionate selves, allowing the stories of others’ challenges to extend beyond a thankful acknowledgment for our lack of such challenges and forcing us to analyze our own stories. How can we learn the same lessons? How can we relate? How can we better help those around us in dealing with their pain?

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than to share a few stories from readers–stories that made me grateful in every sense of the word. I am thrilled to continue sharing on this blog my own joys and struggles and all the yellows, parties, cute sandals and beach sunsets in between. Thank you for reading and, for this invitation, thank you for sharing. Inspiration is always a two-way street. You have to take, you have to listen, you have to embrace in order to give anything back.

In sharing your stories, many of you expresssed admirable honesty–that you are still struggling to find peace, happiness, the “good” amid the challenges. I love that vulnerability–a rich soil for seeds of confidence and gratitude to begin growing.

Whether it’s been poverty, abuse, accepting special needs, depression, failed relationships, or loss, we are together learning that overcoming the unexpected takes work and sacrifice. It also yields rewards, even if it simply means we say we survived, we learned something, we helped someone else.

The lessons in these stories and the many others shared poignantly relate to motherhood. It takes work and sacrifice but truly yields the most valuable rewards.

Happy Mother’s Day to anyone who has ever loved a child, and to everyone who has been changed by a mother’s love. That means you.

The Stories of We Bloom (I chose five…just couldn’t settle on four)

Ellie; her blog: Facing West:

The hardest thing I have ever done — the very hardest thing, in a life of hard stops and painful lessons — was saying goodbye to my children as I was wheeled into surgery to remove a brain tumor.

I don’t tend to like the platitude, “God only gives us what we can carry,” as it doesn’t really square with my theology. I don’t think we’re necessarily fated to walk certain paths. Free will and circumstance and accidents and God’s mercy and grace, they all weave together and either we grow or we don’t. Some of us learn to carry what we are given with joyful hearts and open hands; it isn’t easy, and it isn’t a given. I am grateful for all that I have learned, for how much I have grown, in the twenty-two months since that surgery.

I am disabled now. We live in poverty. I cannot work, or run errands, or cook, or do household chores; I cannot drive a car, or take walks, or use a desktop or laptop computer; I cannot comfortably use the telephone, go to a movie theatre, or listen to music. The tumor was located in the cerebellum — the balance and muscle coordination center of the brain — and I am well-scrambled, now. I have chronic vertigo, unceasing skull pain, my altered balance affects every moment of every day; my brain is constantly struggling to properly sort sensory input.

So many cannots and not possibles. So much loss and adjustment and pain. And yet …

And yet … I can love my children. And nurture them, and laugh with them, and read to them, and listen to them, and guide them, and teach them Latin and Greek and Algebra. So what if the laundry rarely gets folded? We are so blessed. So blessed. Every single day is imbued with grace. I am a better mother now, my children are thriving, my faith has deepened. And it is enough. It is enough. Life is a glorious, gorgeous gift and I am nothing but grateful.

(a note about the next story: Diana has been commenting on my blog since Nella was born. I always wanted to know more of her story. I knew she had lost a daughter based on a few comments. Diana has always shared the most encouraging words on this space and, during some times when I questioned my own acceptance–if perhaps my happiness lost its credibility because we were in some kind of denial–I remember feeling confident reading Diana’s comments. She was, no doubt, deeply hurt by the circumstances in her life but, even from the few words she left on this blog, she was clearly making the best of her life, helping others and…smiling. Her profile pic was always smiling.)

Diana Doyle; her blog: Sunshine in a Blue Cup

Within 3 years I lost 3 of the most important people in my life.

My sister was killed in a car accident, leaving 4 little ones behind boys aged 8 and 5 and twin girls only 6 months old. I’ve learned it only takes a moment to change a life….my roller coaster carriage had commenced its uphill climb…..

During that year, my adored mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

While coming to terms with mums fate, and caring for my sister’s children, we were hit with the ultimate tragedy. Our beautiful 2 year old girl Savannah was diagnosed with the terminal illness Metachromatic Leukodystrophy, which is similar to Lou Gherig’s disease. Over the course of the next year Savannah lost the ability to walk, to talk, to eat and became a tiny rag doll in a bed that could only move her enormous blue eyes.

I don’t have the words to describe the pain……

Amongst all the chaos and grief I gave birth to our second child Dempsey who is thankfully happy and healthy and doesn’t have the genetic fingerprint her sister had. My sunshine in a blue cup!

I nursed my mother that year until she passed away. Savannah and Mum being in sync with their dying.

Savannah died at the age of four and a half. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss those eyes or who she’d be now….

Throughout my journey I’ve discovered the gift of grief, the awareness it brings and a gratitude for life.

Challenges create growth and strength and are fuel for the soul….the human spirit can survive anything…..

Today, I’m grateful for my memories that are trapped like the snow in a snow globe…sometimes shaken up, sometimes bittersweet, however there to remind me to never to take a day we are gifted with for granted.

Miggie, Her blog: This Little Miggy Stayed Home

With Beanie’s baby pictures in hand, I started cutting. Cutting around the perfect outline of a perfect baby’s body. As I take scissors to paper and trace around our first born’s body I wonder how this will turn out. This wasn’t an art project or scrap-booking fun, this was practical. I needed to have a visual, some preparation. Then in what seemed like something only a deranged person would do I cut off all the limbs one by one. Who would mutilate a picture of their own child? It’s not something any mother would do willingly. Consulting the notes from my ultrasound appointment, I reassemble each limb in a best-effort attempt to create an image of what our unborn baby’s body will look like. There is however, one limb that doesn’t go back on. The end result is sobering and my heart breaks all over again.

I wrote that a little over 2 years ago shortly after we learned that our unborn baby would be born with limb differences on all four limbs. Since that time I have learned so much, but one of the main lessons is this: I don’t love my children for how cute they are, how clever, funny or smart they are. I don’t love them for what they do or don’t do for me, how obedient or talented they are. I love them because they’re mine. They were meant for my family, regardless of ability or disability. In the words of another mom, all they had to do was show up.

In an effort to share this message of love, I started a special needs spotlight on my blog every Friday. The situations, conditions, illnesses are all different…but the love is the same and it is always there.

Maggie, Her blog: Pink Shoes

When my husband and I decided to go the route of domestic adoption after five years of unexplained infertility I was determined not to let our social worker talk me into an open adoption. I knew it was becoming the norm. I knew that adoption counselors were trying to “push” it on people and I didn’t care. It wasn’t for me, I didn’t like it and I wasn’t going to do it.

And then we met our daughter’s birth parents and I knew again. I knew I’d been wrong. We were going to have an open adoption. There was no way around it. I fell instantly in love with them and the little girl they were willing to selflessly hand over to us to raise and care for and love like they knew they weren’t ready to do.

When our daughter was born, we cried with them in the hospital and hugged them and clasped their hands and they whispered,“This is right. She is your daughter. We want you to love her like crazy and raise an amazing little girl. We picked you to do this. We want this. It’s best.”

And it has been…….the best.

Now, three years later, our daughter’s birth mom comes to birthday parties, has us to her house to go swimming, and invites us over for dinner. I couldn’t imagine my life or my daughter’s without her in it.

I’m forever grateful that adoption brought me to that vulnerable place where I could admit I’d been wrong, where I could acknowledge that my thoughts and pre-conceived notions aren’t always right, and that I could experience the gift that birth mother’s give their children. I’m a mother because of my daughter’s first mother.

And that is an amazing thing.

Summer, her blog: Running Chatter

Kelle, I read every post, but have hidden in the shadows. My heart quickened when I read your invitation today. . . thank you for giving us all a chance to share our stories. Here’s mine. . .

It’s been two years since my life changed forever. Two years of being a motherless daughter. Two years since I’ve called to say hey, or to ask for the umpteenth time do I grill chicken on direct heat? Two years since I’ve sent a picture just to show her how the kids are dressed. Two years since I’ve wrapped my arms around her and felt her envelop me. Two years since I’ve heard her say we are so proud of you. Two years since her voice uttered, I love you.
It’s been two years since hope for her healing died.
It’s been two years since I’ve cried myself to sleep wondering if she will be okay tomorrow. Two years since she broke a promise. Two years since I’ve wondered will it happen today?
It’s been two years since we lost my Mom.
Two years ago I didn’t know how I’d get through it. Dad’s words, take one day at a time and before we know it, we’ll look back and be surprised at how far we’ve come. He was right. Two years ago I wouldn’t have guessed this is where I’d be.
Over the last two years my world has changed. My courage has grown and fears diminished. Life has become richer and love, deeper. In two years the preciousness of life has become more real and I’ve understood that we only get one pass through life. I’ve vowed that I won’t just pass through. I will live and live authentically.

So here I am. . . a Mom, needing her Mom. A daughter, missing Mom. The hurt is still there and the pain is just below the surface, but you know what? That’s okay. I’ve become comfortable with the crashing waves of grief. Comfortable with questions. Comfortable being me.

Women, you have some amazing stories. I am encouraged and challenged to embrace the ever complex meaning of both gratitude and this honor we call motherhood. We Bloom.

*****

If I published your story today, please e-mail your address to kellehamptonblog@comcast.net, and I will send you a personalized signed copy of Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected