birding

looking for life and noticing history…

my knee hurts

i think i had a bit of a knee jerk reaction there.

maybe not.

either way, i can’t find an easy way to password protect a wordpress blog…so, i have decisions to make.

but as i wandered through my bloglines tonight i felt humbled at all y’all out there doing the same thing…writing and taking pictures and sharing lives…and maybe i’m not as vulnerable as i felt.

so, let me nurse my knee a bit and see what i can figure out.

in the meantime, school started and there are stories to share.

thanks for keeping up, friends and family.

the blog you are looking for is now password protected. after receiving some comments from readers with inappropriate content on their own blogs, i am fencing in a bit.

part of what i love about this blogland is connecting with people i wouldn’t otherwise, finding kindred spirits, feeling surrounded by others who i have never met, nurturing relationships with those i know, satisfying a creative hunt, finding hope in what others offer. i am not ready to lose that, but i am ready to bring the fence a little closer in.

if you are interested in reading more, leave me a comment so i can give you the password. please be ready to share who you are as well!

onward through this daze, kristin

school

oh, my children are blessed with kind and amazing women as teachers.  so why is the angst still so great?

i finished an hour tonight of caring for a crying micah.  it came down to him saying he was afraid he was going to get in trouble.  i know how well he did in the classroom last year, so i assured him he knew what to do and we weren’t afraid he would get in trouble.  he said, “but i always get in trouble at home and you and daddy never believe me.”

well.  humbled again.  this dear child is hurting and we are on a new road now. we had a great conversation of what we can all do to make it better.

naomi is settling in deep to a calm classroom…a teacher who appreciates that.  i am so grateful.

and eliza is making her list of all the things she will do when she is 4 which now includes going to first grade and fifth grade.

fencing in…

i got two spam comments tonight.

i followed one to his website and wish i didn’t.

this seems timely after my last post about wanting to put a bubble around my kids.

and i will remain in prayer for the lives i witnessed on his blog. dear god.

even if those comments were random, it is no longer worth it to me to be out in the open.

so, i am in the process of making my blog password protected.

part of what i love about this blogland is connecting with people i wouldn’t otherwise, finding kindred spirits, feeling surrounded by others who i have never met, nurturing relationships with those i know, satisfying a creative hunt, finding hope in what others offer. i am not ready to lose that, but i am ready to bring the fence a little closer in.

what this means is that i have a username/password for anyone who wants to access this blog (well, unless you make my stomach hurt).

just leave me a comment and i will pass that info back to you.

if i understand wordpress procedure correctly, you will (eventually) use that to log in and we continue on in a blissful blog bubble.

oh, yuck.

EDITED: let me clarify that there was no mean comment left…it was a fairly vague comment about “cute babies.” i think i would have let it go except that i followed one comment to his blog.

so i don’t feel scared. i don’t think we are being targeted, i simply don’t want to be a prop.

plus, in case i wanted a little more nudging, this morning i found three comments on my last post with some guy leaving me his phone numbers. i’m not going to call.

play their way

i know that children will act out what they see and hear and feel.  i know that.  i am humbled by all that i expose my children to.  i am humbled that i used to stand outside movie theatres handing out hand written caution to certain movies…and now my kids are watching things similar.  i do have boundaries…and i am ready to kick them up again.  as i told micah:  i don’t want to interrupt your spirit and your brain from growing as well as it can.

i’m not sure that the demolition derby is the best thing to act out over and over…but that is what’s happening.  maybe that is what brings me pause.

when i told micah today that i wanted the inside of our home to be gun free he enthusiastically said, “oh yeah!”  gun free to him meant that guns would be free.  i explained the difference.  i asked (again) why his interest in things that will only hurt or kill…no fruitful conversation…just me releasing to be a sponge to soak this unfamiliarity up.

how can i help them feel and know the power of light that is in them?

i know we all need to find our way in this parenting gig.

and i know that i am tired of my children being mean to each other.

and i know i want to blow a big bubble around them…big enough for uniqueness, big enough for startling newness, big enough for wonder…but holy.

summer kitchen

sammy checkers

meet sammy checkers (naomi and eliza wanted sammy and micah wanted checkers…kind of like lucky frank when i was little). we’re taking care of this little guy (complete with live music serenades) until he finds an adoptive home.

it has been so fun to watch a mini-sally do all the things she was doing about a year ago.

and watching them together is like me-and-my-shadow…we’re careful to say the dog we are taking care of rather than our new dog…jerry is in his element with training him. it’s kind of like the joy of a second child…we aren’t as freaked out…can recogonize the joy a little more quickly.

but as i type i have a keen eye on those two romping in the living room (dear god, please may i not need to write that sentence again)…waiting for a bathroom need to become evident.

the kids are elated. sally is curious and calm. the cats are less impressed.

lucy

cuter than our cat is this lucy.

the youngest of her family of 7 she is so sweet. so happy. so dang cute.

i did take pictures of the bigger kids, but definitely most of lucy. kind of like when i was about 12 and would take ROLLS and ROLLS of pictures of little jorge….remember that, bonita? only then i would have had many hard copies that weren’t worth developing. now i simply hit delete about 25 times.

it was great to see each other again…i don’t know why we wait so long.

orphanage. jail. school.

it seems that there are only a handful of things that i can do to truly connect with micah…build with legos, jump on the trampoline together, scratch the itch on his back, cuddle with ollie cat between us in bed and build fire.

on this rainy morning he thought it was a good morning to build fire.  out we went and with the aid of lighter fluid, got a damp fire going.

he wanted to fry up some meat.  i suggested potatoes instead.  we just read the wild boy and i’ve been thinking about that dear child ever since.  the story read that he ate potatoes straight from the fire which had micah look right into my eyes then gaze to the ceiling, then back to my eyes.  straight from the fire?

while we were tending our potato fire, ollie cat was mewing from the window at us.  my mind escaped to my childhood games and i thought ollie looked like he was stuck in jail or an orphanage longing to be free.  at that moment micah said:

oh look.  poor ollie.  it’s like he’s in school.  he can’t wait to be free.

uh ho. one week til school starts.

may my micah not be preoccupied with wanting to be free.  please.