Sharing A Smile

I love life sometimes.

The kind of love that fills your whole body with tingles. When you can't stop smiling and you don't even know why.

The last few days I've been filled with a kind of joy that is surprising. I think entering the Christmas season definitely has something to do with it but it's not all.

It also has to do with taking chances.  Taking chances on people. Opening yourself and your heart to strangers and seeing them surprise you by returning your kindness.  Seeing the good in people and the power of kindness.

I'm glad that I'm still able to do that. Even with my cynicism and sometimes jaded attitude about the world, once in a while I let my guard down and am surprised by the goodness of people and the world.

I send you a big smile and hug!

:)

An Indescribable Love

Sometimes I can't believe how much I love my kids.

It's not like any kind of love that I have known before. Nothing compares to it, not the love for my parents, siblings or husband.

And that's not an easy thing to say because I love these other people in my life dearly. But it's true.

It's a kind of love that is truly frighting because it consumes me entirely. Sometimes when they're in my arms or I look at them I wonder how this kind of feeling is possible. It's indescribable.

With this kind of attachment, however, comes a heavy burden. The burden of a parent. The worry, the suffering for their suffering, the paralyzing fear of the what-ifs, the heart wrenching ache in the core of your being when the bad times comes for them.

But there is also the joy that you feel at the smallest moments, their smile, their happiness, their success, their feeling of safety when they're in your arms.

Sometimes I think my heart can't take it, like it will erupt from the pressure of what I feel for them. But I'm also so grateful for that feeling.

It makes me feel more alive than I do at any other moment in my life.

When I'm Most Happy

I've been thinking a lot about happiness the last few weeks. About what truly makes me happy. The kind of happiness that brings peace. That makes you feel calm inside. Content. Centered. Solid.

So what can bring me this kind of happiness? The question has baffled me over the years. Many times I thought I'd found it. That one thing that makes me happy and fills me up. Finding a man that loves me and I love. Yes that did and still does make me happy. Being successful. Making money. Being creatively challenged. Getting to a place where I'm happy with my body. Yes, all these make me happy (when I can achieve them from time to time) and are all wonderful in their own way.

But I still have those nagging doubts that pop up once in a while and keep me from feeling at peace with myself. Maybe that is just life. The good and the bad. The ying and the yang. Maybe I'm destined to never truly feel the kind of calm that I only see in beautiful old paintings.

Or that's what I thought until recently. I've realized that the time that I feel the most calm, self assured, fulfilled, centered is when I am being the kind of mother that I'm proud of. When I love my children, take care of them, be with them, grow with them, and sacrifice for them the way that I am proud of.

That is the time that I am most happy.

Listen To Your Body!

Putting my kids to bed is always filled with some kind of drama.  Whether it's the brushing the teeth, the reading of the thousand books, the lights, or the repeated I need waters.   It's always something.

But last night, we got a little surprise drama that we didn't expect.

We had just put our four year old son in bed and were about to breath a sigh of relief when we heard that dreaded door open and those little footsteps coming towards our room.

"I can't sleep!"

"Go back to bed."  Take son to bed, put him in, kiss him goodnight.

Five minutes later.  Door, footsteps, "I can't sleep!"  Take him to bed,  kiss him goodnight.

Another five minutes, same thing. "I can't sleep!"

"This is the last time I'm telling you, go back to sleep!"  

"But I can't sleep!"

Then I thought I would try something new.

"You know what, you say you can't sleep but if you listen to your body carefully you'll hear that your body is telling you that it's tired.  Like right now, you see how you keep yawning?  That's your body telling you that you want to sleep!  You need to listen to your body.  Now, go back to bed."

He looked at me for a few minutes and thought about what I said.  Then he turned around and went back to his room.  

I'm so clever I thought to myself.  I reasoned him back to bed!  Yeah for me.

But five minutes later, we heard the familiar sounds again- door, footsteps, and then:

"Mommy, my body is telling me that I need to sleep in your bed for a little bit!"

"What?  I told you not to come out here again?"

"But you told me to listen to my body and my body is telling me that I need to sleep in your bed for a little bit!"

"GO BACK TO BED!"

Then my son starts crying and saying the following repeatedly, 

"but...my...body...is...telliinnng...me...(sniff sniff) that...I.need to sleep in your bed for a little (loud crying with lots of tears for the finally!) BIT!!!"

I start laughing hysterically.  I can't stop.  I'm shaking I'm laughing so hard.  I lift him up and carry him back to his bed all the while still laughing (as he's crying and telling me about his body's need to sleep in our bed).

I kiss him goodnight.

That's the last we hear from him until morning.  

I guess his body didn't need to sleep in our bed after all!

Facebook Status Intimidation

I've recently had a really hard time coming up with witty status updates on Facebook.

I don't know why but I've developed a phobia of the status function.  I used to post stuff all the time....Anastasia is:

...going to the park with her boys.

...wonders when this rain is going to end.

...loves watching the boys on their bicycles. 

...is so excited to go on her girls night out!

and I thought these were great.  But then slowly over time I started to notice how funny and witty other people's status' were.

Those few sentences delighted, entertained or informed everyone.  They were great observations or funny commentaries on life.  Mine, not so much.  I suddenly realized how totally ordinary my status updates were.  I started posting less and less of them.  I just couldn't think of anything that could compare.  I stood on the sidelines and watched the few active status updaters gets more prolific.  One was better than the next until suddenly it was like a status update play off ever time I got on.

How could I compete with that?  

I get on and think, come on, you can do it!  Be funny, be witty, be edgy!

Anastasia is...

-out of things to say.

-doesn't give a rat's bum what anyone else is.

-wishes she could say something that was even mildly amusing.

-wonders how she could possibly join tweeter when the Facebook status is already way too intimidating.

Nahhhhh!  I don't think I'll try any of these.

Maybe I'm not intimidated.  Maybe I'm just over the whole Facebook thing.  It could happen, right?

Dinner Time Laughs

"I said it's dinner time." I tell him for the millionth time.


No movement from the four-year-old on the couch.


"Come to the table now!"


Nothing.


"OK, I'm going to count to three - one, two..."


He comes running to his chair. Thank goodness the one-two-three thing still works. The punishment if I get to three is sitting on the stairs for four minutes. Not that painful but he still hates it and will generally comply with my demands if he things I'm serious about the "stairs."


So he's finally at the table for dinner. But he's not happy about it.


"I'm not hungry!" He declares.


"That's fine, you don't have to eat but you will have to stay at the table while mommy, daddy and B (baby brother) are finished eating!" I say authoritatively.


He starts to eat.


I'm smiling inside. I'm so proud of myself for sticking to my guns and making sure he follows the dinner rules. Then suddenly he says to himself.


"Grown ups are so boring!"


Now I'm laughing OUT LOUD.


If he thinks we're boring at four years old, what is he going to think of us when he's a teenager?

Just Do It Does Have A Nice Ring To It!

I never really got Nike's whole "Just Do It" slogan.

Just go running? Just exercise? Uhhhh, I don't think so. I was never into just doing any of those things and I'm still not.

So every time I saw a Nike ad or commercial with that logan, I tuned it out thinking that it was meant for other people.

But recently, I find myself saying those words over and over again. Just do it!

Just write.

Just create.

Just try something new.

Just keep at it. Don't give up. Don't be scared of failure and ridicule.

Just close your eyes and DO IT!

It seems like in life more than half the battle of doing anything is the just-doing-it part. But that's also the hardest part.

Especially as we get older, it's harder and harder to "just do it." We get set in our ways, we don't have time, we don't the will, we don't feel like it's appropriate to take such risks, we feel old, we are afraid of looking stupid, we start to lose faith in ourself and a hundred other things that keep us from just doing the things that we only dream about.

But then some of us oldies (you know who you are!!!) get a little fire in our belly and we say to hell with it, we're just going to try it. We very well might fail but who gives a damn.

At least we tried!