my nine year old, my guru!

     If  I was my own commercial, I'd imagine it to be a Rainbow Brite endorsed version of P90X, sponsored by Nutella and Glitter Glue! Surprisingly, I'm not sure this is the first version of my vulnerable lil' self  that catapults into most people"s third eye when describing me. Funny how we see our selves versus others perception.

   I see this reflected in how my children relate to each other all the time, and I find it mesmerizing. My oldest will land at home from her glorious grade four mother ship, still in the mindset that she is no none(she is way more than some one to me!!)as seems to state the official social structure of the Queen Bee Eat Everyone Else world of the  intermediate school yard food chain. And there are my 4 and 2 year old, clamoring after her as she sulks into our home, following her around like her every word is  a 24 carat Reese Peanut Butter Cup, worshiping her very presence as only Cleopatra could imagine possible. It so catches her like a pop fly, so off guard... and at first almost irritates her. By dinner, the silt of classroom insecurities seems all but banished, and her adoring brother and sister allowed to envision her in their rose colored light. I always say a secret "please let it be so" (as she leaves for the bus the next morning) that she remembers how much we unabashedly love her in hopes  that this reinforces how  ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENALLY okay it is for her to love herself. I asked her what flavor popsicle she thought she was this past summer (sheer academics!), and she rolled her beautiful sparkleblue eyes answering "I'm more than just a flavor, mom" in this wiseYoda way she has. And then she stuck out her tongue at me, fingers in her ears, grinning hysterically... perfect blend of wisdom and irreverence that I so aspire to some day attain. My nine year old, my guru! I think our children hold more answers than most philosophers; less analyzing, more embodying!
    
    

  

Changin' it up

Ever WANTED sooo much that it makes you NEED waaaaayy less?

I really WANT to travel. With My children. EH-ver- eee where. Okay, maybe not to Alcatraz. But when my 2 1/2 year old  pointed to a picture in his bedtime story tonight, and asked me when we could go to that cool(hot) "sandy place with all the camels", I told him yeah, I'd heard Namibia was amazing, and I did hope he had an adventure there one day. He's probably expecting it to happen sometime, oh, next week, but......

I really WANT to owe zero dollars. Not because some generous amazing person provided everything for me, but because I worked my wasabi pistachio off (doing something that gives back)  and lived consciously within my means. Because I lived huge and owned little. Because I reused, revived,  and re-energized what I had, and passed on the rest. Because I rebelled against status thru belongings and namedropping, but saw the well meaning in those still caught in that trap. It's just a trap, that's all. We are no better or yin yangin' worse than each other, let's face the samba music. I really adore Samba music, but I don't want to get ulcer's figuring out how to pay for high octane, super sized, stainless steel model samba music.And especially not just because all the other good samba music lovers(hee hee) have it, by jobe!)

 I really WANT to be with my kids more. Like, soooo much Orangatang in' more.The more we are just together and feel each other's ebbs and flows and ridiculously cool weirdness, the easier we are on each other, and that waterfall of happiness rushes thru with fierce sweetness. Besides, I feel volcanoes of frustration erupting over the social torture chamber girls can ram each other thru in elementary school, and it is like an eight hour session under the dentist drill watching my nearly nine year old dodge queen bee bullets just to get thru a day without having her whole sense of being anialated by that other girl three desks over. I feel as if the only way for me to help her is to continue building her sense of self worth, thus being there for while giving her the space she needs is a gynormous part of that , no? I'm hardly there for her working 12 hour nightshifts and sucking back caffeine 24/7 trying to fend of some serious fatigue the rest of the apple fritter time!

My WANTS go on and on

My NEEDS, however, seem to be staring to dwindle.

I don't NEED brand new deck furniture, or an expresso machine, and if I can buy it in fair shape from the thrift store, then I'd rather donate money to the food bank with the extra moolah, NOT buy it brand new. I don't care if the neighbors have a cooler trampoline, or SUV(and they soooo do, hee hee) or if the BBQ they have goes better with their lawn ornaments. I don't NEED gold or diamonds.....keep it!(but I am weak when it comes to sterling silver and lapis!) and I don't NEED a phone that can make my breakfast for me and walk my dog for me (in 17 different languages,no doubt.)

I do WANT to complete at least three triathlons in the next five years.

I  do WANT to learn how to play the piano and the guitar(with my kids)and to ski (with my husband)

I do WANT to try kite boarding and Aikido

I do WANT to take some jazz /  hip hop dance classes

I do WANT most of my organic produce to come out of my own garden next year, with a good portion of that being herbs for my own tinctures(we're definitely NOT talking Kootenay greenhouse here people... I don't smoke ANYTHING!!!)

I do WANT to write kids books, even if just for my own rambunctious 3

And last, but absolutely not least :

I really really really DO  WANT to spend at least eight hours every holiday season volunteering, with my kids, at a soup kitchen,seniors centre or food bank(starting this Christmas) so that we remember that no matter what our wealth in paper, we are all one, and we NEED each other, whether we WANT to embrace it or not.

gratitude with attitude

       Crazy delicious day, today…. So many madhouse errands to run and details to jubilantly hammer out, but it somehow all fell into place, leaving the dust to settle in a blissful fog of rebellious relief. My husband deflated on the couch when we got home, air leaks in his rhyme and reason due to a year’s worth responsibility high jacked by this past week. He has been a bit of a jalopy, trying to handle the stress of a supposedly indestructible (yet suddenly donE OVER Dead) vehicle that is unsalvageable  for the commute of daily proportions.  Today I saw him go from unknowingly impersonating some odd puzzle with missing pieces , to channeling a Lamborghini of cool. His stride changed, his posture went from wrecker’s yard to porche showroom in the time it took him to eat one hell of a cheeseburger. It was amazing eating two full meals with him throughout the day's stretch. What luxury to fully chew my food and still, between precious bites, be able to answer questions and carry on serenely rowdy conversation with (a wicked rad) grown up .Usually a symphony of  kamakazi interruptions by our wonderful echo chamber(otherwise known as three beautiful busy kids) would blast the serenity clear out of any meal.... amazing and worth it, yes.... but also a little fricken intense on top of a simmering volcano of,well,stress.

      To be fair, I'm sure I wasn't so porche showroom myself this past week. I'm learning this awesome phrase that really is sensational: "one life is just too great a gift to waste trying to meet the standards of those who would rather judge someone else's life than just get on with their own." Plus I watched Henry Rollin's Ember of Anger speech on youtube thrice in a row, feathering the wings of  the free thinker inside of me who needs more than this edgy new haircut and those great thrift store jeans to feel as if I am adequately walking the talk I can sometimes far too enthusiastically talk,hee hee. So tonight, I felt grateful, and as if perhaps my molecular structure had been sneakily altared by a day of doing that was joyous and productive. My kids have stress sonor, and were much more at ease tonight than in the past few days. They even called cut on the echo chamber act and just hung out playing together, but somehow still took turns in my ams.