Cheesy-sausage legs? Hell no.

We are fourteen days into the New Year. That means we are fourteen days into our New Year’s resolutions. Some of us are making incredible changes, while others of us are fourteen days into failing to make changes at all. As my political lean goes, so go my resolution successes. I’m a moderate.

As I drive through town I notice that every gym parking lot is bursting with cars (not mine), and at the grocery store yesterday I was shocked to find the spinach and leafy greens shelf almost empty. Never ever have I seen that before. Like ever. (A shout out to Taylor Swift here, from my daughter.)

Ninety percent of Americans make resolutions for the New Year, while only thirty percent are still working on them come May. We all do it differently. Some of us set specific goals such as no late night eating, while others favor to-do lists to jumpstart spring cleaning or household projects. Regardless, our resolutions are all in the flavor of having a fresh start.   

I find that the New Year feels like the ultimate cleansing shower.  I begin by officially forgiving myself of the bad habits I fell into, leaving my pre-frontal cortex’s dry-erase board wiped clean. It is similar to the feeling I get after visiting my priest for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is definitely a “Yippee!” moment.

In addition to a sort of exfoliating shower, I begin the New Year with a stiff drink laden with bold hopes and dreams for the coming year. My goals this year are two-fold. Some are on an energetic level, or spiritual level. They are food for my soul. Others are purely physical in nature, and will inevitably give me a run for my money.

I decided not to be too overzealous this year with my resolutions.  In years past I would categorize my goals for the year, listing financial, spiritual, health-related , family, and personal goals. I even prioritized within the categories. It looked really nice and covered the gamut of things I wanted for my life but it felt very unforgiving. It was too black and white, with hard edges and tall cliffs to fall from. In the end I found it scary and repulsive.  So this year I am in a forgiving mood and decided to list only a couple of things that will greatly improve the general health and happiness in our home.  

I came across this quote the other day and have decided to make it my mantra for 2013: “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”  Thomton Wilder said it, and I am going to live it. So first I decided that my heart is not conscious of anything other than survival when I am pursuing high intensity, strenuous physical exercise. So this year, for my physical goals, I have decided to embrace some of my innate comforts. Slow, long, mindfulness exercise such as yoga, meditation, long walks, and farm chores are on my list. I am leaving triathlons to my husband.

As for seeing and appreciating the treasures around me I am looking closely at my precious little family and making goals for more ease and enjoyment out of each day. “Less on our plates” is a physical goal referring to ice-cream portion sizes, while it also encompasses the goal for our family’s calendar. Fewer afterschool activities will leave more time for cuddles with Brooklynn at bedtime, and testosterone-rich activities such as boxing and wrestling for my boys. Daddy gets to referee.  

Another resolution for the New Year involves my hubby. After seeing the movie This Is 40 together over the holidays, we have decided to bring the fun back. Tree climbing, skeet shooting, and trail riding are a few of the ideas we came up with to enjoy each other sans kids. Spending time together uninterrupted by Star Wars conversations will be good for us, I think.

So that is it. New Year, new fun, and happiness in abundance. Oh, and I am swearing off cheese and sausage because I ate so much of it in Wisconsin at Christmas time that I’m afraid my legs might begin looking like cheese and sausage. And no one wants that to happen in 2013.

Xanax has met her match

Dear readers, I have missed you. I feel as though I blinked a bit too long and sixty days of my life have gone by without a record of it having happened. No blog posts, few (if any) emails, and even Facebook has been eerily vacant of my witty ramblings, loveable links, and photo books of the ever-adorable Hellenbrand kids. October has a way of doing this to me each and every year. 

While I was busy running around with an errand list as long as Tolstoy’s War and Peace, girlfriends have begun calling me concerned I am home dying of some fatal disease because why else would I not have joined them for coffee!? TopMommyBlogs.com went so far as to send me an email implying I can no longer call myself a blogger with a recent activity of “None”. It happened when my kids were born, it is happening again: I have fallen off radar. This would be a good time to rob a bank and head to the islands.

Here is the thing…when I wasn’t running around with my To-Do list, I was actually relaxing. Sitting on my porch knitting toys for my daughter, trail-riding on Daisy Girl, leaf-blowing my yard… all of these activities require quiet time to accomplish them. All of them mean I must turn off the ringer on my phone and be in the moment. I wish I could say that I found balance in an otherwise full schedule, but at least I gave it a shot. And although a satellite could not find me these past sixty days, my children could.

For those of you still hoping to hear back from me… please know that I do not wish you ill will. Both my mother and mother-in-law have - in differing degrees of niceness - told me that they are fed up with waiting to hear from me. The tone of their voices suggested that I must be intentionally ignoring them, or trying to hurt their feelings. This is not the case, of course. I have just been detained by my overscheduled life and Keeping In Touch took the brunt of the hit.

Here’s the other thing… I feel guilty already. So guilty that Overscheduled has invited her friend Anxiety over to play. When your Gastroenterologist prescribes you Xanax, it is time to give up the guilt game and rob a bank and head to the islands. Or… schedule more quiet time.

My yoga DVDs are back out in full view, my blogging fingers are taking some time off to work on my next highly anticipated Big Book Project, and my dogs are thrilled with all of the long autumn walks we are going on. Xanax does not fit into my equation, so my phone will be turned off.

As fall rolls into town and trees burn with red and orange leaves, I wish you all peace. Take time to find your island.

sepia

Brooklynn lounges on the old stone steps, smiling at her collection of acorns and acorn bits. “Mama,” she says, “This one looks like a pear, but this one looks like an ice-cream cone.” She licks her lips as though she can taste the delicious ice-cream it resembles. My neighbor Cheryl, tired from a long afternoon of yard work, looks at my daughter with delight. “Oh, I love this girl.” she dreamily states.

Cheryl is a lover of nature, much like my little Brooklynn. With her home nestled amongst acres of Georgia pine trees and wild magnolia, Cheryl feels as though she is already in Heaven. Wild birds sing from the tree tops, squirrels skitter across her stony walk probably looking for the very acorns my daughter is now hoarding in the palms of her hands.

It is peaceful here in Cheryl’s yard. The gradual descent to her home on the long, meandering driveway with the gentle canopy of leaves overhead, feels protective. Miniature stone figurines of children and forest animals reflect a maternal touch, while long-rotten logs and mossy outcroppings suggest a respect for the natural order of things. Her home is suggestive of a carefree life, which of course is too simple an assessment to ever be true. Her yard is a little bit messy, and yet so very beautiful. In all likelihood, a good metaphor for her life.    

From the other side of the yard come the sounds of raucous laughter and the snapping of sticks and twigs underfoot. “Come here Tristan…,” taunts my son Blake.  My boys are having a sword fight, their royal blue school shoes crushing leaves and mushrooms while they chase each other through the underbrush. “No way, you dirty patootie!” Tristan retorts, barely escaping his brother’s blade. Giggles erupt.

My neighbor sits next to me with her hands on her knees, serenely watching my three children make themselves at home in her yard. Her eyes water a bit as she tells me about which trees her son used to climb, or which path a huge Snapping turtle once took back to the creek after laying a nest of eggs in her yard. Her husband, John, sweaty and tired from a day on the tractor, is ready to move from here. Maybe to a piece of land that is smaller or easier to manage, or possibly closer to family. But Cheryl will hear none of it. She grins and tells him to be sure to come and visit her.

We continue to perch on her front steps, the hour seeming to gently dissolve away. A dusty, old photo album now sits on my neighbor’s lap, filled with pictures of her once-little girl in her ballet leotard. My daughter is soaking it up:  the costumes, hair, and makeup, even the strong limbs stretched to impossible heights, puts her in awe of this young lady she has never met. Brooklynn has just begun taking ballet lessons herself, so when Cheryl insists that we buy her tickets to our first performance, my daughter spins her head in my direction.  A look of pride and excitement flashes across her face. Then just as quickly she softly resumes her study of her acorns.

Cheryl pauses for a moment, tilting her head toward my boys deep in her woodlands and then gently on my daughters bent form with quiet chitter-chatter heard barely above the sounds of the forest. “You will miss this one day, you know,” she states simply to me. I slowly nod, gazing at my surroundings. For a brief moment it seems the world is in sepia.

quintessentially my father

First, let me send out a sort of disclaimer. Some blogs have very clear target audiences. For example, If you want to read about couponing, this is not your blog. I spend way too much money buying really awesome food at Fresh Market, and I do not feel one ounce bad about it. Second, some blogs are more like twitter posts than personal essays. If you want to know what I ate for dinner last night, you won’t read it in my blog unless I am discussing hoeing, sowing or harvesting from my garden.

I think of my blog page as my professional portfolio. Full of Individual vignettes, reasonably well-written (we can only hope), about what moves me on any given day. I share experiences that have changed me in some way, or at least given me pause. Some of the moments I share are beautiful ones where I did something right, and others are extremely ugly moments where I seriously failed myself or the people I love. I put it all in there. Unless my husband edits it out. More on this in a future post.

Yes, I want an agent to find my blog page,  read It, and love it. So share it. Send it to your coworkers, your girlfriends, your neighbors. One of them might be an agent, or know an agent. Or a publisher. These are hopeful magazine articles, future chapters in my next book, and (admittedly) ramblings of a thirty-something woman who finds solace and inspiration from the act of writing.

Today I am going to share with you an essay featuring my father. He is my lifeline when I do not know who else to turn to, or when I feel too crazy and nuts to share my worries with anyone else. He listens when I need him to listen and he is brutally honest when I need that as well. He is flawed, but lovely. He is my hero. Enjoy the post, and may God bless all parents.

quintessentially my father

When I was fifteen, my parents decided to divorce. We had a yard sale.

Everything other than some necessities was sold: every Barbie I had ever played with, baby toys from deep in the attic, board games galore. In some way I think of it as my childhood having been sold. Twenty years later, my father has decided to move from his retirement state of Montana to my beautiful state of Georgia, in order to be closer to family. He is packing up his entire life on a small U-Haul trailer and moving into a place one mile from my home. Anything not deemed worthy to make the trip will be sold in a small-town auction next month, meaning that everything from my childhood that is quintessentially my father has a pretty good chance of winding up in a cardboard box being sold in a batch designated “man stuff”, for less than ten dollars.

Now, my dad is a collector. Of books mostly, but he also has many small knickknacks from various interests during his life. For example, he currently owns twelve different wrist watches. One is his father’s watch, having sentimental value. Another one he simply liked the blue color of the face, and added it to the pile. He changes which watch he wears on a daily basis, in the same way a woman changes her earrings. He hopes to add a deep sea diving watch to his collection, for no reason other than deep sea diving might be on his bucket list. I love this about him.

Back in his twenties my father was a navy man. He has saved several memorabilia from those fondly remembered years to include navy figurines, photos of ships, and various trinkets. He also collects things that move him. Some are garage sale finds that simply spoke to him, such as an old fashioned scale resembling his astrological sign Scorpio, or a statue of The Thinking Man that sat in his den for my entire childhood. These items are still in a box in his garage in Montana, from his move there ten years ago. The box is labeled “Dad’s Small Stuff”. These are the things that were not allowed to be on display in my childhood living room, but were allocated to his den, the bar, the garage. I can relate to this, as my husband’s Green Bay Packer stuff and bar paraphernalia is allowed shelf space in our guest room, but not in our living room. It is no wonder that men have man caves.

Thinking over this big life-changing move that my father is making is complex. My left brain books a one-way flight to Montana to help him drive the U-Haul. It calls the babysitter and sets up childcare seven weeks in advance. My right brain has a harder time with things. I am overjoyed at the prospect of having my father so close to us. I am picturing family dinners on Sundays, with Papa Roger in regular attendance. I envision him at the boys’ swim meets and I can picture him surprising my daughter at school for a lunch date. My right brain also has the ability to gallop off to a scary place where one day he won’t be here. Will not be on this earth. See, one day I will lose my dad.

One day I will only have memories and a few of those little knickknacks to remember a great man. A great life. One we shared. So now I see some value to all of that stuff that was only allocated to the den or basement. I feel sentimental about the prospect of him packing up his life. My husband, Brandon, understands. If his own father, heaven-forbid, left us suddenly or simply downsized to a condo for some retirement living, Brandon would be on the first flight to Wisconsin in order to make sure that the contents of his father’s tool shed and garage were not yard-saled away into oblivion. I need to do the same. I need to talk with him about those mementos and the memories they represent. One day they will be all that I have to remind me of the complex, complete man that is my father.

 I do not need a lot of material things, just a few special ones. It would be wonderful if some of the items were able to serve a function here, some book ends maybe.  I am also fine with them only serving as a spark for a dear memory, though: a votive holder from his old desk, or maybe a navy print of the ship he sailed on to show where his love of the ocean began. My boys are magnetically drawn to the ocean, to the endless horizon it offers each morning, maybe they got that love passed down a couple generations from my father. Maybe they will one day set sail themselves.  

So, today I will hunt down a few thousand frequent flyer miles, book a trip out to Montana, and reminisce a bit with my father. I can share with him a few of these memories while he is still around to hear them. He can gift those small items to me rather than some estate person doing the same after the business end of his life is taken care of. I’ll enjoy this more. Less bittersweet and more simplysweet.

So, Dad…get ready for some good times. A few tears, maybe, while we pour through your old stuff, but also an excitement as we prepare you for your next step in this life: where Georgia is your home, Montana is your past and Wisconsin is your vacation destination.

Dedicated to my father, who may inspire my bestseller one day.

Wine Book Barn

Okay ladies, we all read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Upon reading it, we realized that we all wanted to eat to our hearts content, that we should all be praying more, and that somewhere there is a hot Brazilian guy that would sweep us off our feet if this marriage thing does not work out. That is all fine and good except 1) my twenty year reunion is coming up and I want to fit into my skinny jeans 2) praying is hard no matter what and 3) I kind of like my husband and prefer to keep it that way.

So I have come up with Wine Book Barn, instead. This little cluster of words is far more than just words. They are the things that keep me from stomach ulcers, panic attacks and from ringing my kids’ necks. They are my refuge when I am overwhelmed and my lifeline in case I swim out too far from shore.

I know women who hit the pavement for a ten mile run with a group of their best gal pals, and others who seclude themselves in a quiet room and practice yoga. Moving, breathing, and exhaling our troubles are the general idea, of which most of us humans need to do from time to time. That is, unless we fall into the group of people who deny our troubles and worries and wind up stewing in them until we resemble green beans in a southern buffet: limp and lifeless, tasting only of the salt we have simmered in for the past twelve hours.

To read the full post, click on this link http://www.peachstatemomsblog.com/. I am their guest blogger today.  : >

eighteen hundred miles to happiness

Having just driven eighteen hundred miles roundtrip from Georgia to Wisconsin in a minivan with over two hundred thousand miles on the odometer and three rowdy school-aged kids in the backseat, (whew) I have decided to reflect on how we pull it off each year and why we continue to make that trip several times each year.

 A week before this year’s annual 4^th of July trip to see our family in Wisconsin I was mentally running through our packing list. Having taken this trip for the past thirteen years, you would think that I could pack with my eyes closed. Nope. I am continually amazed at how my packing list has morphed as twins were added to the trip, than a screaming baby daughter that hated every car ride – let alone a nine hundred mile one. I fondly recall the years before children that I would pack a bag of magazines, books, maybe my knitting needles, and a few crossword puzzles to distract me from the highway miles. In contrast, this year I spent an entire afternoon packing crayons, paper dolls, drawing pads and princess paraphernalia for my daughter, along with half a dozen new chapter books, an old fashion Star Wars video game box, my Kindle (newly loaded with Angry Birds), and four stuffed animals each for my eight-year-old boys.  

Never mind the backpack that each child packed secretly with things they felt they could not survive the week without.

 In case of quiet, rainy days I also pack a few favorite board games and (sigh) a new, unopened box of Legos. That was my husband sighing, by the way. He feels that the 5,768 Lego bricks that we already own should be sufficient enough to pack for a Wisconsin rainy day. I disagree. As a Lego aficionado myself, and cohabitating with two brainy eight-year-old boys who love the first assembly process almost as much as I do, a new Lego set at each of our vacation destinations usually turns out to be my favorite souvenir. I may be a middle-aged mother, but somewhere hidden beneath the newly developing wrinkles and insatiable thirst for coffee, a kid still resides.  

So the minivan is loaded up with every essential, and three extra backpacks. Our five bodies are stuffed like sardines next to suitcases, laptops, Coleman coolers, and pillows. We drive the first five hundred miles without incidence, other than the potty stops every forty five minutes for Daddy. Too much caffeine in one hit and that man leaks. We make it to Louisville, Kentucky which is our half-way mark, and we begin looking for a hotel.

 Let me first say what is obvious: children can be…let’s say, difficult to please. The wrong color of a lollipop, the wrong presentation of a sandwich, jeans with buttons instead of snaps – these are all things that can drive a kid insane and a parent to contemplate just how early in the day a glass of wine is deemed inappropriate. This fickleness does not apply to hotels, however. Just about any hotel on this planet is deemed awesome by the under twelve set. As long as there is an elevator and a free continental breakfast with one of those waffle makers that you get to flip over and wait for the beep, my kids are ecstatic. Add to the equation their mother’s promise that hotel beds are meant to be jumped on, and my children think they have died and gone to Heaven when we pull into Fairfield Inn.

After a wonderfully comfortable night in a bed with more pillows than I currently own in my entire home, and a morning where everyone wants to shower because it is a different and “neater” shower than ours, we resume our journey having Wisconsin on the brain. Mommy is in the driver seat with her cup of coffee, while Daddy is already nodding off again in the passenger seat. This is when things get unfair. As the driver, navigator, and ultimate authority in the vehicle, I really want to listen to a new Kenny Chesney CD that we purchased for the trip. The pipsqueaks in the back row, however, want to watch Spiderman on the DVD player. Upon hearing this, my husband awakens enough to haul his two hundred plus body into the backseat to watch it with them (while Mom gets to listen to Spiderman for the next two hundred miles.) A bag of M&M’s purchased by the grumpy mother in the driver’s seat seems to bring some comfort - until the backseat notices the M&M’s and requests the bag be sent back, never to be seen again. (sigh)

 That bag of M&Ms could be an entire blog by itself by the way, discussing the various methods of finding comfort midst the chaos that is Having Kids. (Use the COMMENT BOX to share your own comforts or let me know if you are interested in hearing mine in a future post.)

 The last two hundred miles of our trip take us up through the beautiful Windy City. Our somewhat unreliable GPS thinks we want to be Chicago tourists so we wind up ridiculously close to the heart of downtown, ambling along at 5mph on the expressway. Trust me, I do not miss the irony.  Lovely.

After having a five minute temper tantrum about something none of us can pin down, my daughter finishes her outburst and falls into a blissful sleep while the rest of us mend our bleeding ears for a bit. I am still driving due to my touch of motion sickness being exceptionally bad this trip when my hubby is behind the wheel. So I have not picked up a book, magazine, or even my laptop for the entire trip.

As we approach the Wisconsin state line, the excitement mounts. The boys are waiting to see the “Welcome to Wisconsin” sign they have come to recognize. Each of us begins to wonder what our destination will look like. No snow on the ground this time of year, but corn and soybean fields will dominate the landscape. Who will be there to greet us at Nana and Papa’s house? Will the cousins be coming? Will Papa have the waterslide up? Will Nana cook us the world’s best cheesy eggs? The underlying thought, the unspoken inquiry is will we have the kind of fun that makes this nutty drive worth it?

Our trip this year really did go off without a hitch. I remember last year when we were three hundred miles into our trip when my son Blake discovered that he was not wearing shoes. Nor did his mother think to pack extras. So a run to Famous Footwear was plugged into our detour feature on the navigation system. That was not as traumatic as our pathetically dying car battery in 2009, the flat in the middle of the night (God help us, on an interstate) in 2010. And thank goodness we have only experienced one Christmas blizzard where Kentucky closed down I-24, forcing us to spend a night in what has been called my Bate’s Motel. Picture a full-sized bed with twin one-year-olds tucked between their mother and father in a room with a broken room heater. We slept in our coats, our hats and our mittens. I remember crying on the toilet seat because I was: So. Damn. Cold. Relatively speaking, this trip was akin to a cruise to the Bahamas.

We do this drive at least twice each year. We do it rain or shine, through snow or ice, come hell or high water. Why? So our children get to see their grandparents while they share lives on this great earth. So they get to play with abandon surrounded by cousins. We do it to touch in with our own parents, our siblings, our dear childhood friends. We may live in a different time zone, and Brandon and I may get so carried away with our own life’s responsibilities for 50 weeks out of the year that we forget to call or forget to send birthday cards to those we love. But we budget, schedule and scheme to make it up to Wisconsin to see them.

My dear sister opens her home to us, knowing full well the chaos we will bring. A couple of my sister-in-laws make countless trips to our old hometown just to see us for the little bit of time that we are there. Parents accommodate our diet preferences, clean their homes for our arrival, and have been known to sit up into the wee hours of the night to greet us upon our arrival. An old friend adjusts his own travel plans so that we might see his little baby girl. Another friend opens up his lake home to us so that our kids might experience their first time tubing.

There are other friends and family members that we did not get to see this trip. Each knows, however, that they are on our short list when the holiday rolls around and we do this all again. We make this trip for so many reasons. We want our children to know how important family is. Through thick or thin, rain or shine, family comes first. We also want them to know what cornfields, ski hills, and trout fishing looks like. This is why we do it. And this is why we leave December 23^rd to do it all again.

she-monster meets dharma practice

I am fragile tonight.

Meaning I am feeling a little punchy, a lot exhausted, and I am seriously contemplating having a wine instead of a coffee during my weekly writing session with a friend.

I blame my daughter for this miserable state I am in. Wait. I do not mean that. I blame my own inability to handle my daughter's emotional highs and lows. I blame the button that resides in my psyche that she so eloquently pushes when my darling little six-year-old crosses her arms, stomps her feet, wails with indignation and generally gives off an ugly she-monster vibe.

I hate that button. In fact, I would give my right arm in order for that button to go away permanently. I have yet to find a surgeon who will perform the surgery and guarantee the desired effect, however. I suspect that doctor would be rich if the technique was perfected.

In the Great Quest for happiness and calm in my life, I have spent many years testing a number of techniques to curb my anger and frustration while increasing my patience and reason. Prayer has worked on several occasions, seeing me through my fears and uncertainties with a promise of protection and forgiveness. Mother Mary is my go-to gal when I need a little mothering myself, and if I feel threatened I have found that a prayer to my guardian angel is reassuring.

In my studies of the Catholic faith and through my (admittedly limited) Bible study I came to discover however, that despair - a feeling in which I am intensely familiar with - is considered to be a sin. Hmm. I would like to share an observation with you: when in the throws of despair the last thing you want to be told is that you are sinning simply by feeling the way you do. When I discovered this, I honestly felt like damaged goods. Pathetic and unworthy. This was not helping.

A few months ago I stumbled across a book club led by a dharma teacher. In actuality it is less a book club, and more a life coach session. She instructs us on the essential rules of a virtuous life. We talk about the human condition of self-grasping ignorance, meaning that it is our human nature to be more concerned for ourselves than for anyone else. This explains why we get impatient in the drive-thru line when the car in front of us takes a full eight minutes to put in their order because they are too busy chatting to the barista. Our internal conversation goes something like this, “Seriously!? I cannot believe this person does not care that there are three cars behind them. I mean what are they chatting about? Eight minutes! I cannot believe this! Great, now I am going to be late to work!!” Never mind that the woman in the car in front of you might have a child in the hospital, or might have just lost their job. Maybe they really needed to hear a friendly voice over the intercom asking if she's having a nice day. Maybe she did notice your car waiting and she felt so bad that she paid for your drink in order to make it up to you. This actually happened to me, of course.

Our instructor talks about dharmic principles such as patience, forgiveness, self control, honesty, and the absence of anger. All of which, if practiced regularly, result in greater happiness for me and for the greater world in which I live. She tells us that our lives inevitably have highs and lows. My husband will upset me or let me down, it is just a matter of time. My daughter will passionately disagree with me, showing anger and resentment, it is just a matter of when. My son will flop around in the restaurant booth, annoying me and everyone around him. Of course he will. The universe will always test us, and we must be up for the challenge. Our reaction is what is important. Dale Carnegie talks about this in his self-help books, he just calls it by another name. Knowing, no - owning that our current upset is only a transient state that will eventually resolve itself helps the despair factor and defuses our own reaction.

Admittedly, in these sessions we also discuss other Eastern principles such as reincarnation that I am slightly uncomfortable with. I am mature enough, however, to take what I need from these sessions and leave the rest behind. There might be Eastern terminology spoken, but I hear universal principles.

So the she-monster has nothing on me anymore. Her release of tension and frustration is a transient state that in no way defines my lovely daughter's soul. Reflecting on this for the past hour or so, I realize that I am no longer fragile. I am powerful. I possess the knowledge and the determination to meet that little girl toe-to-toe and to left hook her with a hug instead of a rebuttal. To show her unconditional love, patience and forgiveness. To practice this learning each and every time I am met with an inconvenience.

My children are the sand in my oyster. They may rub me wrong sometimes, but I cannot grow in virtue without them. They scrub away my rough spots with every trying moment they present. And just like the coffee drive-thru lady, they often reward my patience and restraint with loving acts of kindness. Brooklynn just told me tonight that I'm her favorite girl in the whole wide world. And she is mine.