Going with the Flow

Rumor has it that runners---when others (e.g. people like me who find long walks exhausting) would collapse in pain---hit a euphoric stride, a tipping point wherein "tired" teeters into total focus. Flow.

Studies now reveal that other activities lend themselves to equally (and in my view, far more pleasurable) entrancing immersion. Practices that by their simple, voluntary, prolonged pursuit provide a sense of continuity, progress, accomplishment and perhaps even healthy, intentionally out-of-the-fray escape.

After receiving the September Fishful Thinking newsletter wherein the amazing Dr. Karen Reivich extolled the value of encouraging "flow" with our families, rather than simply appreciating the calm of quiet moments in our twin-blessed household, I've looked up from my laptop (where I often find some personal "flow!") to discover my little ones engrossed. Happy. Tuned in--of their own volition--without parental "force."

Whether it's writing or reading (and not always in 3-D!), drawing or dancing, take a moment this week to acknowledge the activities---predictable or unexpected---that absorb your little ones...and YOU! (Me, I'm fond of the the stress-relief provided by polishing my fingernails. How could you chart your "flow?" Do tell!)

Way Back When-esday: Wombmates to Roommates

Dateline: June 2003
Twins' Age: 21 months

From their conception right up until Tuesday night, Sarah and Darren have shared a room. As of this Wednesday morning, our twins wake up in separate spaces.

Looking back at our crib-contained little ones laughing it up warms my heart this Way Back When-esday.
What glimpse into the past makes your mid-week wonderful?

Play along with Way Back When-esday!

Dive into those digital photos, scan a scrapbook find and join in. Be sure and link back to participate in the web-wide reverie, pop in to visit other players' pasts...and leave a comment when you do!

Let Them Eat Cake

While I drank coffee, the twins consumed a leftover birthday cake breakfast...

Darren (waxing poetic): "You know, I think we should always have cake for breakfast-- today and everyday..."

Sarah (snapping things back to reality): "You could, but if you do, you're going to be really fat."

Where was Sarah when I was developing my breakfast rituals?

Makes My Monday: House of Cards

...or more like building with books.

Sarah's architectural artistry Makes My Monday.

New to Makes My Monday?

Share on your blog what warms your week's beginning: Post a picture and tell the tale.

Go visit other celebrants for more Monday cheer, and don't forget to leave a comment when you do...comments from friends old and new are always Monday makers!

Communion II: The Not-So-Sacred Revisiting

Such a short seven days separate last week's sublime sacramental experience and this week's ridiculousness...

One thing is for certain, sitting with Darren in church is never dull...

Finished for Friday: Notes of Niceness

After birthday kindnesses, a little letter writing was in order!

Stamped and sent, okay...maybe a few more to do...but most of the twins' birthday thank you notes are Finished for Friday.

What has your household accomplished this week? Play along with ThreeUnder at Lit & Laundry!
Happy Almost Weekend

Way Back When-esday: Swingers

Dateline: September 2009
Twins' Age: 8

What glimpse into the past makes your mid-week wonderful?

Play along with Way Back When-esday!

Dive into those digital photos, scan a scrapbook find and join in. Be sure and link back to participate in the web-wide reverie, pop in to visit other players' pasts...and leave a comment when you do!

While you're looking "Way Back," if you're feeling "Wordful," join in with Angie at Seven Clown Circus!

Balancing My Business

Last year, quite unpredictably, I returned to the out-of-home, full-time workforce. Despite the titular tease, this opinionated oration will not be another diva-composed diatribe rehashing yet again the frustration borne from attempts to effectively juggle both occupation and offspring. Ladies, this one's quite literal---truly about the division of my dollars.

Be not deceived: corporations are people. Sure, it may be easy to villify and dehumanize them---you certainly hear it daily in the news. Link them to soylent green if you must, but corporations are made of people.

Fully prepared to lose followers with this confession, but fully believing the truth will set me free: I love Walmart.

How's that for a pooh-pooh to popular hip parenting, anti-financial success propaganda? Naturally, the prices are a lure, but Walmart---our Walmart---is made of people.

People who've known my twins since our near daily trips in the double stroller. People who hug them---and me---on sight. People who ask---and genuinely care---about my husband's health. People who exclaim how unbelievably tall the kids have grown. People who've electively retained jobs for at least 9+ years that the media populace actively leads audiences to believe are unbearable and inhumane. Walmart is made of people; and I patronize them with unapologetic pride.

Honesty again at the fore, we're not all about the savings.

Bargains are appreciated, but maybe even more so, businesses that intentionally fill---if not create---a needed niche. Storefronts that are neighbors...people.

Within walking distance of our home are:

...a coffee shop, complete with play space and rotating art exhibits by local artists, run by Mr. Jerry.

...a wine shop, run by Mr. Bob, who doles out Tootsie Roll Pops to underage customers and projects family-suitable movies on a flanking brick wall outdoors Friday nights during the summer. His dog, a King Charles spaniel named "Mac," is undeniably an added attraction.

...and a book store, run by Mr. Rick, who built a kids' castle in the back of the shop stocked with age-appropriate literature, who hosts a summer plant camp for kids, a family game night, and the annual RABL--Reading Aloud of Banned Literature---festival, wherein people volunteer to read aloud much-loved texts like In The Night Kitchen, To Kill a Mockingbird and Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. 

Proprietors such as these make their livelihood lovely with their care, their outreach and their inventiveness. We're elated to pay a little extra for service superceding simply merchandise.

So give up the guilt and go ahead; kiss your favorite corporation. Love up your local business. Manage your money accordingly.

Makes My Monday: Silly Strip

As if the mini-corndogs, Segway rides, SpinArt and smorgasbord of sweets weren't enough, last week's Family Night festivities at The Martin Agency featured an old school photo booth. My new favorite bookmark Makes My Monday.

New to Makes My Monday?

Share on your blog what warms your week's beginning: Post a picture and tell the tale.

Go visit other celebrants for more Monday cheer, and don't forget to leave a comment when you do...comments from friends old and new are always Monday makers!

Semi-Spiritual Sunday Snippet: Communion

Post-sleepover, Dozy Darren stayed in church service with me---as opposed to evacuating post-Children's Moment for some kids' fellowship outside the sanctuary. As we held our morsels freshly distributed, Darren leaned his head into his hands...

Mommy (whispering): "Darren! Don't eat it yet, we are going to wait until Pastor Carolyn blesses it and reminds us of what Jesus said..."

Darren (calmly whispering back): "Mommy, I wasn't going to eat it, I was kissing it. It's supposed to remind us of Jesus' body."

Whether a symbol or transubstantiation, think He-Twin has the right idea.

Stream

Through the window, I can see him. He's on the phone and he's annoyed...rightly. Much like I'd be in the same situation. Service depended upon, neglected. Ill-delivered. Cancelled without warning. So he talks. And he holds. And he is polite, even when the occasion for others would result in tone and talk unbecoming an adult.

On the patio, I cannot hear him, but I can watch...and admire. His reserve. His persistance. His conscience.

Still on the patio for time beyond what a service call should entail, the motion detecting lights halt. The dog, bored with the quiet and the lack of activity, goes inside to observe his master's resolve in nearer proximity---undoubtedly now recumbent upon his master's feet.

The movement of my head seems too insignificant to reactivate motion sensors. A glance upward, and from my now-pitch-black position, pinpricks of glowing red from the twins' east-facing window nightlight look foreshadowing of holidays ahead. A headtilt downward and siteline reveals my love still on the phone. Calm. Transfixed with purpose.

Will future Verizon users experience saved messages unprovokedly erased? Probably.

Will a Richmond wife always remember a cool, atypically mosquito-free September night admiring her husband's tenacity and unwillingness to accept the less-than-acceptable? Most assuredly.

Way Back When-esday: Coneheads

Dateline: October 2003
Twins' Age: Freshly 2

Summer may be over, but we're still fond of ice cream year-round! Scenes of our confection-loving fans from seven years ago warm my heart this Wednesday!

What memory makes your mid-week wonderful?

Play along with Way Back When-esday!

Dive into those digital photos, scan a scrapbook find and join in. Be sure and link back to participate in the web-wide reverie, pop in to visit other players' pasts...and leave a comment when you do!

While you're looking "Way Back," if you're feeling "Wordful," join in with Angie at Seven Clown Circus!

Upstairs Downstairs

Prior to plural pregnancy, my man and I watched TV of all ilk on whichever* of our two televisions seemed most convenient---or comfortable. (*Hardcore Cosmopolitan magazine followers, forgive us; for we have sinned. Yes, we have a potentially sex-trumping TV in the boudoir. We find intimacy in shared entertainment.)

Once the babes were born, our then weekly screenings of  The Sopranos segued down the stairs. The shared 1929 wall separating our rooms--while undoubtedly thicker than modern counterparts---was surely incapable of blocking the Bada Bing language.

Now nine, from context clues alone our twins can catch cues and readily voice new vocabulary.

So Mad Men? The closest our kids will get is to make their own Mad Men versions of their daddy and me.

Rescue Me? Off their radar.

The Wire?  Waaaay low on the volume, on another floor of the house.

What in-home date-night delights do you "duck" away for?
[Feel free to 'fess up to a sleeping space set-up!]

Makes My Monday: Mythology in Miniature

She-Twin as Artemis

He-Twin as Ares

He-Dog as Zeus

Sunday matinees of improvisational Greek comedy Make My Monday.

New to Makes My Monday?

Share on your blog what warms your week's beginning: Post a picture and tell the tale.

Go visit other celebrants for more Monday cheer, and don't forget to leave a comment when you do...comments from friends old and new are always Monday makers!

Semi-Spiritual Sunday Snippet: Stewardship

Stewardship. It’s a churchy word.

Right up there with consecration, sacrament, covenant, vestibule, and of course, stewardship’s close-cousin, the tithe.

Somehow I doubt I’m the only one, but instead of stirring up the soul-bolstering underpinnings of those words’ definitions, reflexively, I tend to distance myself a bit, and wince a little. Instead, upon hearing the word “stewardship,” other words spring to my mind: obligation, inadequacy, resentment, inability, apprehension, pressure, guilt.

Thankfully, semantics are easily manipulated; and synonyms are amazing mood and perspective modifiers…helping those of us who are easily swayed toward the cynical response to access the more genuine, motivating morsel of meaning inherent in those words.

The reality is, stewardship is the behavior exhibited by a steward….someone responsible for---or entrusted with---the care of things valuable---be they animal, vegetable or mineral. For me, an applicable “real-world” non-churchy usage is to think of the stewards on an airplane…excluding that recent JetBlue flight attendant who perhaps rightly annoyed abandoned stewardship altogether by hastily grabbing a couple of beers and evacuating via the inflatable emergency chute!

In our day-to-day lives, we’re not all that unlike more typical, well-behaved airline stewards. For a designated—and largely determined by our own choice---window, we’re entrusted with an uncanny overflow of belongings. We’re responsible for our relationships with---as well as the safety and well-being of---the people in our immediate surroundings. We’re charged with making sure the essential-for-life needs of others---even strangers to us---are provided. We’re also well-educated on how to ensure our own safety, as well as that of others’, in case of an unexpected emergency.

And guess what? No matter how limited our personal snack cart may appear, no matter how tired we may be after a full day’s work, no matter how ungrateful or unknowing the recipients’ of our generosity may appear, we’ve got a job to do.

A major facet of our steward job description? While we’re busily committed to the sharing of our stuff, our time, our care, our energy---it’s understood, it’s expected, and it’s far more pleasurable to do so with a smile. Remember that memory verse from Sunday School "So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7). Make the logical transition from airline steward to giving member of a body of faith.

Survey the spectrum of possibilities for generosity in your daily surroundings. Money, obviously. Time, sure. Your ability to sing, to draw, to share, to cheer people up, to comfort, to garden, to organize, to mediate, to give good hugs, to send cards…do them all.

While we’re thinking outside the churchy lingo box, feel free to exceed 10%.

The Eve of Destruction

In remembrance of September 11th and the indelible impact it had on our country---here's a repost of our family's unique experience. Please take a moment this weekend to remember those lost, and those left behind. Never forget.

It was a Tuesday. Our twins' very first one.

That morning at home began much like the delirious days preceding it: a 7:30am awkward and anxious tandem nursing, followed by double baby burping and dual diapering. As a first-time mom, I was adrift in the new-parent paranoia and hyper analysis of every hiccup and twitch -- and yet simultaneously entranced by each finger movement and chest-inflating breath, times two.

My treks up and down the stairs were strictly limited by doctor mandate to once or twice a day. After helping tend to the morning's first baby maintenance session, my husband Scott was downstairs. In a tone I'd never heard him use before (and haven't heard him use since), a blend of tender concern and clear urgency, he yelled, "Honey, are you watching the news?" I quickly (well, as quickly as one can when maneuvering newborn twins with minimal body control) turned the television to the "Today" show. Shots of a blazing World Trade Center North Tower filled the screen.

In true Elizabeth Kubler-Rossian mode, my embarrassing, sleep-deprived first thought was that surely, the poor pilot must have been killed -- entirely in denial that the hub of American business was undoubtedly populated with unsuspecting workers already seated at their desks for the morning. The commentators were reporting the damage was likely caused by a small plane...perhaps a privately owned Cessna. Never, never did I think for a solitary second the inferno we were all beholding was an intentional impact. An intentional impact. Before that day, unimaginable.

Minutes later, as we watched, the second plane, looking nothing like a Cessna, plowed headlong into the South Tower. From upstairs I screamed, "Honey! Someone needs to call the air traffic controllers in NYC! Somehow they're misdirecting planes into the buildings...another one just hit! Another one just hit!"

Unaffected by the tag team of horror and twin-delivery intensified hormones, and nowhere near as naive as I, my husband knew to come upstairs and explain what was by then terrifyingly obvious to his -- and most other Americans' -- eyes. An attack, here in America.

Chaos and conflicting stories prevailed that morning. Tales of upwards of 50 planes unaccounted for and potentially in enemy hands. White powder delivered to government offices. Estimates of potentially 10,000 dead. Military planes being scrambled. The President was in Florida. The White House and Capitol were being evacuated. A third plane, and the Pentagon -- less than 10 miles away from my childhood home -- was in flames. The hijacked Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania...charred earth the only remnant.

Within hours, New Yorkers rapidly produced flyers with photos of smiling dads, moms, sons and daughters that were hung all over the city. They were held aloft for the television cameras so that someone, anyone, might recognize the person pictured and provide the reassuring news so prayerfully sought. News that with each passing minute was increasingly unlikely to be heard. Hope-fueled optimism reigned - and slowly, against its will, waned -- in the first 24, and 48, then 72 hours. The round-the-clock rescue efforts yielding way too few -- hardly any -- occupants for the recovery areas staffed and waiting nearby.

Those heartbreaking visuals and so many others from those days are seared forever in our minds. The disturbingly twinkly confetti-like papers afloat around the plane-pierced structures. The police and fire department vehicles with their sirens blaring and their heroes aboard, racing full-speed toward an area that survival instincts would reflexively demand one avoid. Stunned people in business suits running out of buildings. Onlookers screaming, hiding their eyes, pointing, praying, crying. Victims waving -- and then beyond comprehension, actually leaping -- from the facades of the burning buildings. A personal video from the POV of being pulled into a coffee shop to escape the billowing cloud of collapse, with the audio of "thank you, thank you, thank you." Al Qaeda training camp videos with hooded practitioners navigating overhead monkey bars. The iconic antenna atop WTC1 descending slowly into an expanding column of dust.

Then, new pictures. Emerging from the horrific aftermath, a surge of patriotism. On our near-daily drives to the pediatrician's office for twin baby weight checks, ever increasing numbers of flags hung outside homes, offices, stores and from car antennae. Business marquees no longer touted "Buy One, Get One Free" or "Help Wanted;" but instead, proclaimed "We Love You, New York," "We Will Never Forget," and "God Bless America."

The most rote of routines became less mundane. 3000+ families started September 11th as if it were any other day. Re-evaluation of even the most miniscule, theretofore taken for granted aspects of day to day life seemed in order. As I dried myself after a shower, newly acquainted with the word "Taliban," I couldn't help but imagine how grateful an Afghani woman might be for my warm, thick towel. Something that could be used for far more virtuous purpose than merely wicking away the moisture from a freshly-clean new mother. An Afghan mother might have nothing in which to swaddle her newborn baby. What if a woman in this horridly repressive culture had twins? How were those women there envisioning our lives? The concept and purpose of a burqua was (and is) difficult for me to understand. In those first days with our new babies, unashamedly, I found myself not only immodestly "uncovered," but frequently bare from the waist up. Did that mean that I, a new mother of beautiful, pure, innocent twins, would be viewed as immoral? Whorish? Incomprehensible beliefs so varied from our own...felt so very passionately, that dispassionately, murderous evil could be enacted under the misguided assignation of martyrdom.

Vividly, I remember my thankfulness, that amongst so many other blessings -- in positioning the twins to nurse, they were facing me...and not the future-altering images that filled the TV screen. As an adult, as an American, as a mother, it was my obligation to face those images...and to mourn with those who were mourning.

Yet amidst the devastation, the molten towers' girders seemed to find reincarnate solidity in heroes whose stories began to emerge -- and continue to emerge today.

Forever linked to our family's personal history, Scott and I pay rapt attention annually to the documentaries, the interviews, the tributes. Each September, our emotions careen from giddy celebration on the 5th, to grave solemnity on the 11th. Then, we move on. Always remembering. Forever united, a family...micro and macro.

Gratitude. Grief. Grace.

Way Back When-esday: Morning Matriculation

Dateline: September 7, 2010, 8:40am
Twins' Age: 9 years, 1 day

Now that Sarah annd Darren are 9 years and 2 days old and officially third graders, this morning seems ages ago!

What warms your heart this mid-week?

Play along with Way Back When-esday!

Dive into those digital photos, scan a scrapbook find and join in. Be sure and link back to participate in the web-wide reverie, pop in to visit other players' pasts...and leave a comment when you do!

While you're looking "Way Back," if you're feeling "Wordful," join in with Angie at Seven Clown Circus!

Makes My Monday: Newly Nine

**When Tuesday is essentially a Monday (Thank you, Labor Day!), we carry over the Makes My Monday positivity pep rally to the work-week's beginning.  If you have a cheer-bringing post on your blog today---or from Monday proper---link it up and play along!   

In early September 2001, Labor Day had a quite a different meaning for us! Celebrating small scale with extraordinarily special friends---who are more like family---Makes My Monday.

New to Makes My Monday?

Share on your blog what warms your week's beginning: Post a picture and tell the tale.

Go visit other celebrants for more Monday cheer, and don't forget to leave a comment when you do...comments from friends old and new are always Monday makers!

Saturday Snapshots: Lazy Eights

Easing our way out of eight today....

...because nine comes tomorrow!

Let them eat cake.

Share a glimpse into your weekend; link up and let us look!