The Gift of Mortality

Five years ago there weren’t any children in the family.  I take that back…five years ago, my brother, sister and I were the children in the family (at ages 25, 30 and 35 if you can imagine).  Then my brother and his wife had a baby, and another one, and then I followed suit with Matteo. Three months ago my sister adopted another one, and in no time our family has doubled and everyone’s roles have changed.  My parents are Granny and Grandpa, my siblings and I are mommies and daddies, and my grandparents have all passed away.  This gift of mortality - new life coming in, old life going out - has created a new dynamic, new perspective, and for me, new inspiration to dream.

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Palin: McCain’s Patriotic Baby-Making Machine!I’m totally turned off by John McCain’s choice for Vice President, Sarah Palin. Besides the obvious reasons (I’m not exactly a fan of anti-choice, gun-totting homophobics), I found myself disgusted (yes, disgusted) by the fact that she has five kids. Being a beauty pageant contestant didn’t help her image any with me either, but the kid thing is the driving force behind my total and complete dislike of her. The Democratic party gives us Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton and all the Republican party can come up with is Palin? For real?

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Flyer for the Marbling Class at the Santa Fe Art InstituteNothing says “childfree” quite like booking three trips over a three-week period in 48 hours. But that’s just what I did a month ago when three different adventures happened to present themselves to me at the same time. I have to admit, being able to travel freely, unhindered by the details of traveling with kids or leaving them behind, is the one thing I definitely gloat about when talking to my FWKs. That probably means I’m a bad friend, but sometimes I just can’t help it. Traveling ROCKS and the fact that the choices I’ve made in my life allow me such a wonderful opportunity is something I just can’t stop gushing about.

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Mira loves the computer!I know I’ve posted once already today but I just came across something I wanted to share.

For all those “you just don’t know love until you have a baby” people, for anyone who thinks having pets (or a career or food or a lover or whatever) is not as fulfilling and life altering as having children, please read this wonderful blog entry by mermaid and all the comments left by her readers. Truly touching and I can totally relate.

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Creative brainstorming and inspiration in the backyard at Lori’sAfter spending Monday night and all day Tuesday last week with Lori working on our Micromovement Monday lists and just having fun together, I drove home with this thought in mind: there’s an actual chance that Lori may end up being a cool FWK. My cool FWK. As in a friend I could describe to someone else like this: That’s my girlfriend, Lori. She’s a mom. But she’s cool.

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One Thing Leads to Another

It’s Friday today, and it’s been a particularly rough week.  Matteo has been fussy because of an ear infection and three teeth cutting their way through his mouth, and I’m not sleeping much and running out of steam.  My to do list is growing and I can’t convince myself to care.

To top it all off I went to happy hour and proceeded to smoke, drink and talk too much.  So this morning when the alarm (i.e. Matteo) went off I started doing my thing.  Little did I know inspiration was right around the corner.

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Free association, the process of saying or writing whatever first comes to mind, can give one a glimpse into the unconscious mind. Of course, for some of us, free association is just plain ol’ “diarrhea of the mouth” and can get us into trouble every once-in-a-while! For this week’s Whatever Wednesdays, we picked out a few words for our own free association session and maybe, in the process, will discover something about our current (or future) state of mind.

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Welcome to Mommyland

I’ve had quite a few interesting interactions with mommies these days, and for some reason I can’t really relate.  I don’t know if I’m the odd one (likely) or if they are, but there are a few things I don’t understand about this world that I’ve recently entered, and I’m sure it’s about to get even moreso.  Now I understand why my mom (who stayed at home after I was born) didn’t have very many girlfriends.

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