It’s late. My big girl is curled up in our bed waiting for me. My little girl is snuggled in her Moses basket next to me as my outstretched leg rocks the cradle it stands on just enough to keep her steady breathing from awakening.

It’s been a very good couple of days where, on reflective evenings like tonight, my soul settles into its grateful place…a very good place to be.

And grateful places need good rest. But before good rest comes our acknowledgement of good things.

With no further ado…
We are enjoying…

Our Tulips.

Our third bouquet this spring…and as those perfect purple cups open wide with their last hoorah, I can’t help but think they are celebrating something.

I forgot how full of life spring really is.

Responsive Smiles.

All the time. She drinks in our faces, our coos, our eyes…like a drug. And just when your heart’s about to bust, it comes…this tiny grin and squinty eyes and sometimes, if you’re lucky…a gkooooo. I’ve been waiting for this…and it feels amazing.

I love my kids to the moon and back and ask for nothing in return, but when they love me back and I feel it…oh, it’s heaven.

New Friends.

I’ve been blessed to have some amazing people brought into my life this past year. And, while I don’t have a ‘little black book’, I do have a rich blend of beautiful souls that have been poured into my life for good reason. I love my village of kindred spirits.

With that said…California Chick, you rock.

Sunflowers-to-be

Lainey’s pots have been transplanted, and we are enjoying watching our green friends stretch their stems a little higher each day, growing layers of broad leaves and promising happy blossoms to come. In the meantime, she learns the joy of watering and watching and knowing amazing things can start with the smallest of seeds. The smallest of ideas. The smallest of souls.

Her Creative Heart

I never tire of hearing her ask to color. to paint. to create. Or of watching her, all tongue-hanging-out and shy-smiling as she swirls her brush to make beauty.

Continued Party Plans

Planning my girl’s birthday makes my heart happy, and I can’t wait to see her take it all in on the day we celebrate the magical day she was born.

These can be found in the dollar bins at Joanns…and, with some tiny funnels and an array of shimmer dusts, our party guests can create their own layered fairy dusts in these sweet little bottles. Add some ribbon and a cool tag and voila…super cool party craft, not to mention a great take-home treat for little girls to lure fairies and ensure some sweet dreams.

Watch Dog

She may be little, but she is mighty. Latte takes the role of watchdog seriously as she oversees the sleeping babe. Dude. Don’t mess with a poodle.

My Second Mama

She knows my soul. She lives across the street. She holds and hugs my babies like they’re her own. She’s our Nana Kate, and she is special.

She asked tonight if she could have Nella forever. I said “no,” but we settled on a custody agreement of Friday mornings so I can have some alone time with the big sister.

And Nana Kate’s grandkids are here for spring break and consequently, my girls’ love-ometer is off the charts.

Friends

It’s magic to behold. The enchantment of little souls interacting. Smiling. Taking each other in. Oh to be little and to have friends.

Knowing what my village of kindred spirits brings me…what a joy it is to see her build hers…soul by precious soul.

Sock Monkeys

Ours come with lots of love from Aunt E. And Nella just got her own today. We think she likeys. Thank you, Aunt E.

My First Girl

I had a radio interview the other morning. And as I smoothly retold the night of Nella’s birth, I felt it happening again. The lump in my throat, the hot tears pooling, and the beautiful heartache of love as I neared the part where my beautiful girl taught me how to love. She teaches me more than that every day, but to her I am ever grateful…just for being her.

Oh, you little willow. You blonde little sprite. I love you.

Our Street

For it’s a happy place. There are kind souls that live in the houses that line our street…and that makes it the Boardwalk of our Monopoly. Prime location. And not for what its worth in dollars. No. Prime for its worth in friendly faces that smile and wave and run to see how big the girls have gotten when we walk by. For its driveway firepits on Saturday nights and doors that I knock on Sunday mornings because I’m out of coffee cream again. For its mess of bikes and trikes and wheeled thing-a-mabobs that end up in our yard every weekend, but that only means there’s kids inside. For its borrowed mamas and grandmas that fill in when mine are far away. And, tonight, for the happy huddle of souls that lined our friends’ driveway as we watched fireworks for no good reason but to celebrate togetherness.

And, as I watched as kids danced in cloudy smoke and friends swaddled my baby, I was reminded again that life is very good, we are very blessed and the good always, always outweighs the bad.

Hey, tomorrow’s Friday…and that’s always good. Celebrate life this weekend. There’s lots of it.

We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be. – Anne Lamott
(Thank you KC for your always perfect quotes)

T’was a gauntlet week. The kind you dread on Monday but feel victorious on Friday when it’s over. So we celebrated with a huddle of neighbors in our kitchen last night, and it felt exactly what it should feel like…Friday.

Friday nights are like pre-vacation as a kid. Going to bed knowing your parents will wake you in the dark, lead you to the mini van–the one strapped with cargo carriers and stuffed with pillows and snacks and travel bags–and drive your can-hardly-breathe excited little self to Disney World the next day. Fridays are the rehearsal dinner before the wedding. The cocktail hour before the big moment. Fridays hold promise of what is to be. Like mornings that linger with coffee and bathrobes and syrupy waffles, afternoons with fresh air that sweeps through the open windows and evening with impromtu gatherings of friends in your living room…evenings that stretch long into the night because life is good and no one wants to leave.

Nella had her first therapy evaluation visit this week. Four friendly women entered our home and found spaces on our floor and played with our girl while I listened to numbers and scores in a new world I’m not quite used to yet. And then two seperate packages came this week…wonderful, informative packages full of resources on this new world, but it’s still overwhelming at times. Our playroom looks like a Down syndrome library. I cried at one point…just ‘hit’ again by that stinkin’ bus–the I-can’t-believe-we-are-THAT-family bus, but soon followed with laughter because six books on Down syndrome stacked up on a coffee table can be really funny. Life is hard. But it’s funny too, and that’s what makes it great.

Every time I begin to sink, I remind myself that I am a rockstar. And rockstars know that life is beautiful. Life has challenges. Life teaches you things. And life is all how you look at it. We are a happy family who loves life, and we ride bikes in our neighborhood and share Friday evenings with friends in our kitchen. We go to the beach and anticipate vacations and togetherness and now, sometimes we’ll have therapy or doctor visits and we can make towers with our Down syndrome books on our coffee table, but nothing else changes from the foundation of who we are.

And who are we? Well, according to Lainey, she’s a licensed therapist because Sister got all grabby with Miss Martha who was evaluating Nella and thought she could do it better.

And our Nellabean is just fabulous. Stretching that head up to see the world all the time, and every time she gets it up and steady, her eyes get huge, and her lips go all birdy-pursed and she’s just so proud of herself. It’s precious to behold.

And her doctor visit this week shows us once again that she is…perfect. 8 pounds and 15 ounces of perfection.

ha ha…I love that picture on the left…like she was just scoutin’ out her mama.

She drinks us in these days, completely receptive to our coos. We goo and ga and tell her we love her and she, in return, squints her almond eyes into flirty smiles and grins soft and sweetly. I can’t imagine life without her, and it is so perfectly clear now…we needed her.

Our walks continue as once you start something with Lainey, it won’t be forgotten.

We walk late in the afternoon when the lawn mowers are humming and the barbecue smoke is wafting and the neighbors wave and smile as we pass by. Afternoon walks are delicious.

As are evenings on the beach as we gathered with friends for Lainey’s bud Baylee’s birthday party last night.

The tourists will pour in this weekend for spring break, and our town will awaken with vacation liveliness. We’ll escape to the beach as much as we can to people-watch and sink our toes into sea-foamed covered sand.

And the weather is pure perfection lately with the gulf still cold and nights still breezy, but this beautiful calm sun that mildly warms the day and allows for a pleasant evening at the beach.

The weekend is still young, and I’m all kid-before-vacation just thinking about the possibilities. Perhaps we shall bake. Perhaps we shall color eggs. Perhaps we shall invite friends for drinks and good food or stay out well past dark and play kick-the-can.

But we will suck the nectar out of life this weekend. Because we can. Especially when our neighbor just got a new go-cart and despite the fact it’s made for kids, my butt sorta fits on it and my hair looks really cool blowing in the wind when I ride it.

Have a fabulous weekend.
Go color. Invite friends over. Play music. Smear on some red lipstick (preferably stolen from your mom’s bottomless purse where it was found between a used wipe, some pen caps and a gum-covered penny).

Life is freakin’ fabulous. Live big.

P.S. I’m working on some blog revamps with good things to come. And thank you again for your beautiful, insightful, funny, poignant and inspiring comments. Giveaway winner revealed tomorrow night.

So, I’ve sat here in my chair for five minutes wondering how the heck I am going to de-jumble all that’s on my mind, shave off a writable bit and actually have it make sense. I’ll peck a line, read it and just as quickly backspace, backspace, backspace until I’m again left with the bright white screen of an unfinished post.

However, when the formatting portion of my brain is shut-down, there’s this really cool back-up portion that runs on a generator apparently…and it’s called stream-of-consciousness. Stream-of-consciousness and I are great friends. We coffee together in the morning and popcorn-and-beer it at night. Stream-of-consciousness knows me and loves me for who I am. Random and completely and utterly Type B.

So, Stream-of-consciousness…dance with me tonight, my friend. Take me.

Beginning with my chair. Let me tell you about my new desk chair. After cracking two cheap Craigslist chairs in half and spending a week sitting on a metal folding chair, I had it. Well, that and the fact that I was going to be Skyping an international interview for CNNI from my living room and I didn’t want to be doing it from a folding chair. It dawned on me that in a hidden corner of our kitchen eating area, there’s a favorite chair of mine that goes unnoticed and unused…and it’s a beauty of a chair. It’s comfortable and butts up nicely against my old white desk. The thing is, it’s not a desk chair at all. It has tall arms that rise from the base like walls so that when butted against a desk, you’re sort of pinned there. That doesn’t stop me. I like the chair. Even if I have to get a running start and jump into it like I’m Bo hoppin’ into The General Lee.

I enjoyed a much-needed Girls Night last weekend that started with drinks at The Pub and ended at the movies. And, can I just say, if you haven’t played M.A.S.H. as a grown-up, you’re missing out. It’s way funnier when you’re in your thirties and that little piece of paper tells you you’re going to live in a shack, drive a riding lawn mower and marry the pimpled, crack-exposing plumber down the street when you grow up.

I hope we never grow up.
At least Anna Ruth hopes she never grows up because her M.A.S.H. has her working the streets.
Happy Birthday, A.R.

Any excuse to be out with the girls huddled in a dark movie theater with a bucket of popcorn, a box of Sour Patch Kids and my jammied little babe is a good excuse.

I hereby announce the first time in the history of mankind that we returned library books when they were due. This may not be a major accomplishment for many, but for us…top five of my life, I’m thinking. Regardless, she is in love with “mine libary books” — carries them around, shows them to company, takes them to bed with her and counts down the days to exchanging them for new ones.

She is also loving the bin of about a hundred old beanie babies a friend gave her. She counts them, names them and knows when any are missing. Because I took Jolly the Walrus and within five minutes, she knew he was gone.

Dude, did we actually spend $5 a pop on those back in the day? I worked at a hospital when I was in college and, I swear, when news got out that the gift shop had new beanies in stock, there was basically a stampede of middle-aged women in scrubs knocking each other out to be the first ones to get their hands on Willy the Wombat. I was one of them a couple times. That’s embarrassing.

The Sprinkler’s Back. Because today the sun was bright and happy, and it felt like full-fledged Spring was begging us to join it in our yard. And so we did.

I think watching a child play in a sprinkler is a spiritual experience. There is nothing more free-spirited or carefree than this willowly heavenly creature hopping sprays of cold water, braving the steady stream with her face and squealing with delight. It’s poetic.

We got new bonnets from our friend Nicole, and after we fell in love with the one she made us last year–the one that has shaded that blonde head many a Sunday on Isle of Capri–we couldn’t wait for a good hot, sunny afternoon to sport our new ones.

After a strange long string of cold snaps, I am happily anticipating more warm afternoons. More barefeet in the driveway. More late-night bonfires and sparklers. More afternoons at the park.

This afternoon, we ventured out for a late-afternoon walk where I let Lainey push Nella all by herself. She was too proud, hiding her shy smile as best as she could and stopping at any slight whimper to console her little sister.

And the warm sun and the bump-bump-bump of sidewalk seams put Nella fast asleep.

Much better than our earlier attempts to push her in a doll stroller. That lasted all of thirty seconds.

…and warm afternoon sun makes for great little girl shadows.

Fairy Party planning continues with invitations almost finished. We are enclosing a little magic for invited attendees…

…and have been talking a lot about how to catch a fairy. We did a little party preview with decorating a couple fairy houses.

But mostly? Mostly, right now, despite the random stream-of-consciousness, I am enjoying being a mama so very much.

Between drinking up the blessed little moments of mamahood and having good writing opportunities lately, I’ve felt so fulfilled. And drawing so much inspiration from these past eight weeks and being challenged to really think about the broader scheme of life and circumstances, events and what we make of it, I’ve arrived at this greater understaning of purpose. Wanting to live purposefully and knowing that, at any given moment when things seem just as they should be –whether it’s enjoying an afternoon on a blanket on the grass watching my girl dance in the sprinkler or sharing conversation with Brett over our morning cup of coffee — my awareness alone for the good little things of our life is the beginning of my purposeful journey.

And either that came out understandable and half-way poignant, or there’s a really good chance I’m tired and am going to reread that in the morning and say What the – ?

Closing this post with two really good things:

Daddy and his girl hanging out in the garage. They do this all the time…sit in his car in the garage and listen to music. Except now she wants to learn the words to the song…and she wants to dance…and she wants to make my cheeks hurt from smiling because it’s so cute.
Watch it here.

And Oh, what have we here?

A giveaway. For you sweet readers. A randomly drawn commenter from this post will be receiving a peice of jewelry (up to $100 value) of their choice from Lisa Leonard Designs.

Be happy.