Recently, our niece, Suzanne, celebrated her eighth birthday. This past Sunday, her mom asked me to take some pictures to continue a family tradition. Suzanne's little sister, Lia, and Lucy tagged along. Towards the end of this mini "photoshoot," Suzanne was helping Lia and Lucy into the flowers, and I caught this with my camera. Pretty cute, if I do say so myself.
Here's another idea of why I haven't been posting:
good, old-fashioned writer's block. (?!)
...And here it is again. See, I've STARTED about 3 posts lately, but they've all been too lame to keep. Sometimes I do that and then I'll go back later to add a post to sort of fill in the gaps. I had some really good ideas to write up last night, but as usual, they're gone in the morning (along with the finer details of my my crazy pregnant dreams).
On pregnant dreams: this is one of life's beautiful compensations. My days are not the most exciting; they're full of love and sweetness and meaning, involve a lot of mundane, but essential, household tasks, and I get long stretches in which to practice patience, clamness and sanity. Like everybody, some of my days are more fulfilling than others. Like everyone, I sometimes get bored, and sometimes lonely. (Lucy is fantastic company, however, she is a two-year-old, and my daughter--not a peer.)
Pregnant dreams, though? Most mornings lately, I find myself waking from a completely unexpected, drama-charged, exciting dream. Yay.
For as long as I can remember, I've had vivid dreams (and can remember them, obviously). This contributed to a LOT of tardiness when I lived at home and had to get up in the morning for school. Since then, I've learned to wake up in spite of a nice dream if I need to.
***
Today is one of our niece's and my mother-in-law's birthday. My mother-in-law asked for a photo of Lucy--that's all. I've ordered it, just have to pick it up...but it seems so little.
This, of course, comes down to expectations. In my own family, birthday expectations are very low. The standard is to call on the birthdate. That's it. It makes things pretty simple. Once in a while, one of us will actually send a gift. Since he's been married, my brother Mike is very good at this. He claims it's all his wife. I give her 70% of the credit, since I know for a fact that Mike has put work into picking out fantastic, thoughtful gifts way ahead of time.
Come to think of it, I am pretty good at getting gifts to my in-laws on birthdays. All of said in-laws live within a half-an hour's drive, too. That makes things a lot simpler. It's much more difficult to forget a gift if you've been invited to a birthday party--to which we are, invariably.
Maybe it's the distance and the long history of not thinking about my own family that makes it challenging. ...I also can't help but think--if it has been fine as-is for all of these years, why create more for myself to do? I myself don't mind if I don't get a gift from my brothers. Of course, it's always really nice to be remembered; and I have to admit that a well-chosen gift is one of the best ways I know of to let someone know they're cared for (and remembered).
Mike's birthday is coming up. So what does one get for a 34 year-old who seems to have everything he wants? Something he doesn't want? That, unfortunately, may be the all-to-common answer. I'm trying to avoid that this year.
Besides birthdays, sleep, and it's dreams, there are a lot of other monotony breakers for stay-at-home moms like myself. There's the park, the local pool, the library, outings with friends and family, the zoo... (Although, I discovered that I really can't stand the zoo with all the sad-looking animals.)
Lucy and I like to drive a little ways north to see my sister and her family. When we went to play a month-or-so ago, we got to play in/on the big, wet inflatable thing you see in the picture above. (Also see above to gauge Lucy's enjoyment level.) My brother-in-law, Eric, took this picture of Lucy and his nephew, Josh. I know I didn't take it, because my blindingly-white foot is in the picture, too. Eric also took some pictures of my
End note: While I was typing this, my fantastic husband sent me a very sweet text. Yay!
Men: don't underestimate the effect of these small things!
Men: don't underestimate the effect of these small things!
