just cuz your breathing it doesn't mean you're alive

Sometimes at the end of the day, after the Boy and the Bird are fast asleep, I hold my baby. I lay him on my chest over my heart. I nuzzle my face into his neck and breath his sweet baby smell and his downy baby hair tickles my nose.

We take deep breaths together. He grunts and whinnies and stretches but he always resettles back into me as if there was some sort of magnetic force pulling us together. Who knows, maybe their is such a force between mothers and their babies.

There have been days lately when I haven't felt human. Honestly I feel like a robot mommy. Change the diapers, make the bottles, pick up the toys, bathe the baby, haul the kids to the car, buckle, get the snacks, wash the onesies, etc. etc. etc.

I don't think, I just do. Just get er' done.

But every now and then I snap out of it. I will glace over at my daughter, squatting on chubby legs, stacking blocks or trying to wrap her baby doll in a blanket and my heart sings. I feel more alive than ever.

And at night, when the house is quiet, when I breath with Henry, I am reminded that this is life. This is what it is all about.

And I don't want to miss it.

I will continue on with all the daily chores. I will take care of my family to the best of my ability. But from here on out, I'm making a little promise to myself that I will open my eyes and watch my children grow.

the domestication of rosie

Rosie and my brother broke up six months ago. Rosie and I never broke up. We are still good friends. And we try not to talk to much about my brother, but it is hard. Ryan is larger than life.


Rosie is almost done with her college degree in human performance. She is one of the irritating skinny girls who never eat sugar and only drink water. She fully disapproves of my Redbull habit.


So Rosie is busy and unmarried and totally non-domestic. She claims she really is a good cook, she just doesn't- cook that is. Something about a delicious lasagna came up, but I'm yet to see her chef anything more than a turkey sandwich.


She claims she dislikes children, and yet she has been my live in nanny while she has been here. She and Thom caught 55 potato bugs and 11 snails. I think the whole "disliking children" is a rouse.


It was time to share my appreciation for domestic arts with my friend. And so we made an apron. She isn't quite sure when she will be able to wear it. She decided she would put it on when she gets someone in her family a glass of water.


On the agenda for tomorrow- how to barbecue lobster (lobster season started yesterday) and prepare artichokes with garlic butter dip.


I'll make a domestic goddess of her yet.

You have until tomorrow morning to put your name in for the drawings. Come one, come all!