Friday, August 28, 2015

My Uterus On My Sleeve


My uterus on my sleeve.

That's where I wear it.

Why?

I guess because that's where I keep my heart...and because the two are beating as one again.

Maybe the two vessels are more similar than not.  

Maybe the uterus quivers and groans like its counterpart, the heart. 

Maybe both are sentient organs, flush with feeling and much to say.

I wrote and wrote in May about the 'maybe baby' who didn't come to stay.  

Well, in July we conceived again...but just a few days ago we said goodbye, again.

I guess I could pretend nothing happened, just keep my uterus tucked in nice and quiet.

But the open door policy in my womb and the soul baring policy of my heart just happen to coincide with my mounting desire to write and write and write, so here we go.

My womb.  Two times abandoned in the last few months. Wow.  I could go a lot of different directions with that.

But I will start...here.

I forget how old I was.  Maybe 12.  When I lay in bed, stretching my mind as wide as it would go toward the farthest piece of the Universe I could imagine.  Then, tracing with infinitesimal awe the likelihood that I myself would ever exist...

What if my parents had never met...or what if they just didn't get cozy that particular night in 1979...or what if a different sperm had won the race, or the DNA did just a slightly different twist?  

Boggling.

It's overwhelmingly All or Nothing.  

Conception, birth, health, the gift of existing...or...not.

(Is it any wonder I had a full-blown existential crisis when I was 16 and stayed waaaay down deep till I was 22?)

This life is a gazillion to one lottery, or...

We are all living, breathing miracles
born with purpose and destiny.

And that is what I absolutely believe.

 That's why I am flooded with supernatural peace 
even as I bleed away another potential child.


What can compare with the weight of a human being?

Only the weight of their absence.


The weight of an embryo is relatively light;

but sometimes its absence is gravitational 

like a black hole,

pulling at every passing thought

(like my fingers irresistibly, wistfully drawn 
to the sweetest sunset cotton baby dress 
as I walked through the thrift store today)


I truly, deeply feel for those who get into orbits of grief, loss, impossibility, and the thousand other woes that attend this most noble organ, our uterus.

But my reason for letting my empty womb out to talk today is not because she's sad.

This lovable friend of mine, who has brought me three babies and lost me three babies, 

I let her share our little un-birth announcement with you because...

she's glowing.

I'm glowing.

I can't explain it, but I feel so full of other gifts:

the pure tears
the thankful prayers
the wonder of being alive
the three I have
the more 
I may.


Dear uterus, I love thee, I marvel at your ways.  

 I love how both You and my Heart 

stay in your orbit...

around the sure and certain Sun

who saved us

when we were 22.


Thank you God, for all you give and take away.

In the light of your majesty I find
family "planning" and birth "control" 
such funny ideas.

All my babies have come and gone 
by the word of your power.

It is a
great mystery.


"For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake,

I am still with you."

Psalm 139





























 

Friday, August 21, 2015

In the Animal

Friday

It had been a rough night.  The fellow in the RV next door had an issue with coughing, hacking, and throwing up ALL NIGHT LONG, which was only interrupted by the long whistle blows of the Okotoks train line.  I think it must have looped round and round our campground, for it never seemed to fade.


So our last day began with....yummmm...the best cappuccino EVER while my body, mind, and iphone charged up for the day.

(Having left my cord at home, I had the daily distraction of finding a stranger to bum an iphone charger from, ideally overnight, but I took what I could get)

Ah well, I like a little touch of dependence on my fellow human beings...



We enjoyed our treats (also the best cinnamon bun EVER), planned our day at the zoo, drew pictures of our trip, and woke all the way up.



The Calgary Zoo was the most expensive part of the trip by far, but worth it.



Especially for Madelyn, since the grade 4 Waldorf curriculum begins a deeper exploration of animals.

God sleeps in the mineral, 
Dreams in the plant, 
Stirs in the animal 
And wakes in Man

 - Rumi 

Davis bonded with the Lynx.  

For Brayden it was the tigers. 

Madelyn was drawn to the lanky flamingos and elegant peacocks (fascinating! how the 2 birds combine to offer a perfect metaphor of Maddy's tall, slim awkward beauty!)

And all of us got lost in the gorilla lair.  We must have spent an hour revelling in their fascinating human-like qualities. Eating, puking it up, eating it again (when it tastes so good, why eat it just once?)   

What....you don't do that?


All in all, it was a fantastic day of animal osmosis. 


We put in our 5 hours and left feeling very full and satisfied as we ran back to our van through the cooling rain.

Then we headed to Ponoka, where my sister and her husband had cooked up a big pot of vegetable soup.



If it hadn't been raining we would have camped out one last time, even in the yard, but as it poured all night I was very grateful to be in a cozy dry bed.

It was the perfect ending to our trip; starting with my brother and ending with my sister. 


Tom and Char, with their magnetic listening skills, got the very best out of the kids -- all their funny stories and favorite moments of the trip.




They all laughed themselves hyper, played monopoly, danced, and had bedtime stories

.....while I sat down and began to blog.


Thanks for joining me on this read-a-long adventure :)

I have enjoyed the telling!

I did it!  I did it!  I am a formidable woman of nature now, 
I graduated Tenting 101.

And...

One more diddle on ducklings...

Road sign outside of Bashaw, where our journey began

 How I loved the sweet trust ~

    the directional thrust of the open road...

            How I loved the synergy ~

the scalloped arc of geese in flight...

v           v
v      v
v v
v


There's something to it...

The beauty and simplicity

~ the ease and grace ~

the way of birds with their young. 


Being home, 

       the energies tend to run every which way again.

                                  But there is a way, 
                                  even at home in the nest, 
                                  to stay in divine constellation  




There are secrets to this thing of family alignment, 

and it's my passion to find them, live them, share them.

So.

There is this one little thing I've found to be true...

deliciously true and easy to do...

If you do this one thing you can parent with mama duck power from across a room, you can swoosh your ducklings safely into the reeds when eagles go for the dive.  You can be sure that they remain in your orbit, even when you're apart.


It's a beautiful, beautiful key, and I can't wait to tell you about it because it's made me a very, very happy mommy.

More on that and many other things, soon!











Thursday, August 20, 2015

Just Keep Waddling

Thursday

Mama and her ducklings




Awesome swinging suspension bridge from the mid 1930s


Climbing the coulees  


Davis on the summit



A bottlecap is also a good tool


for excavating dinasaur bones.


  


The marvelous mushroom rocks known as the Hoo Doos




Then a 2.5 hour drive to Calgary to meet up with my forever friend Lindsay at her exclusive lake community......a perfect oasis for a plus 38 degree day.

But before we reached the bliss of this picture...



We had just made it to the southern fringe of Calgary when our lowest point of the journey began to unfold.  

By Maddy's hysterical shrieking I gathered something was wrong.  

A simple travesty: one of her crocs had apparently fallen out of the van two and half hours ago when I opened the door, and she had just discovered its absence.  

"We have to go back!!!"

"I won't have another single moment of fun for the rest of the trip!!!"

"It was so special to me!!"

"It's all your fault!!"

and other such carrying on at the top of her lungs.

Those of you who know Maddy cannot begin to comprehend the volume of hysteria that she is capable of.  It may shock you to realize that this most quiet, demure child regularly shoves off from rational planet earth and goes into orbit.

Multiple times a week in fact!  

(Someday I will write more about that, because it is fascinatingly difficult)

Anyway, Cinderella's bellows of rage and grief over her lost croc soon roused poor Davis from his nap...

And the two of them went on and on in their duet of doom, inconsolable, until I pulled into the parking lot of our destination.  

Then they ramped it up all the more.  

After our 2 and half hours of driving, all they both wanted was for me to turn around and go back! 

At that moment Lindsay arrived to witness my sad fate and, luckily, her charm seemed to break their mad spell a wee bit, so I threw our bathing suits in a bag and we slowly waddled and wailed our way over to the gate.

Now...

Here is where I sprinkle a little Sugarspoon Parenting Magic on Davis....

(one of my favorite tactics, which I will also be blogging more about soon!)

      There he was shouting, "no! no! no!"

              trying to climb out of my arms, "go back! go back!" 

                           just a total wreck from lack of sleep.  

And in a hushed tone of wonder I posed, "hmmmm, would you look at that locked gate...I wonder what's on the other side......there must be something so special through that gate...I wonder what is on the other side....and they only let some people in....oh look! my friend over there is one of the special people who they let through the gate....and that woman is about to press a button to unlock the gate...."

As I narrated the scene with expectant delight and intrigue, my little fellow's eyes came back into focus and started to see the real world again, he flickered a micro smile, and he stopped crying.  

He had been enticed out of his blind tantrum :)

It's a magic that works for me (which I am continually experimenting with)

Some of the keys being:

my persistent calm 
   a musical tone in my voice, 
       my authentic curiosity and wonderment, 
                soothing repetition, 
                        determined optimism, 

Basically, staying calm and confident in my position of authority, unfazed by their ridiculousness.  

I am the Mama Duck!  and I will gently call them back into formation (just keep waddling, just keep waddling!)

I share this story because on the other side of all the trauma was purest bliss.  We swam and swam and washed away the sorrows of unrequited crocs and hijacked naps.  

We pressed the re-set button and I was able to relish my time with one of my oldest friends.  

Well, we then proceeded to spend about 2 hours in a grocery store.  Have you ever had that experience where you've been roughing it awhile and then you walk into a real store -- everything becomes so interesting and desirable!

After 4 whole days our cooler was finally empty, as was the gas tank, and our water supply.  We made countless rounds around the upscale Save on Foods, ordered and ate their cheap Thursday pizza special, and eventually headed out towards a setting sun to find a campground!

Okotoks :)



Last gem of the day...

It was his first time: gathering the stones, forming the circle, collecting the sticks, lighting the match, tending the fire.

All evening long Brayden was utterly entranced, in his own little seventh heaven.




My little camping man.








Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Armpit Safety



Wednesday

I found myself swept up in the scientific glory of palaeontology, passionately learning alongside my kids about the world of fossils at the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

Madelyn decided she wants to be an archaeologist!




Davis, on the other hand, decided he wants to be a dinosaur. 

And I don't mean the stomping, roaring, living kind.



He spent much of the day imitating the dead dinosaurs -- striking the official death pose on the floor (you know, how the prehistoric sun would pull taut the wilting muscles and contract the rotting flesh so that the fossilized spine stiffened into an arch -- a very convincing posture of annihilation).


Umpteenth time on the floor, his ever-patient siblings trying to rouse him.

It can be difficult solo parenting 3 different interests and paces of life and learning, but we did our best.



Then we headed downtown to the indoor/outdoor pool for a couple hours of swimming.  Few things I love more than swimming with my kids.




Then at last it was time to prove myself as a camper: our first homemade dinner over the fire.



This is where it got interesting!

I had failed to bring any real BBQ tools and the fire pit itself was deep, with no grill.  

So I was poking way down in the coals to toss our baked potatoes with forks and sticks and oven mitts.  

There was smoke in my eyes and soot in the soup, the pot handle melted, and I almost singed my armpit hair, but overall, success!  

Brayden, my pickiest eater, raved about his potato, "this is the best meal I've had in weeks!!"

(How did I almost set my armpit on fire?  After poking around in the fire with the oven mitt I tucked it under my arm and didn't notice until Maddy screamed that it was smouldering and smoking!  Just one good reason to shave your pits once in a while)

One of the highlights of the whole trip for Brayden was using his real (very sharp) jack knife for the first time.



He spent over an hour whittling and carving 3 willow branches to make s'more sticks for us.  

What glow of satisfaction he had over his workmanship!

Another fantastic evening.  Tomorrow we break camp....