"I keep growing and growing;

I'm getting like a giant, I think."

Audrey the gorgeous

Meet Audrey Ellen, my niece!  I've never been an aunt before, but two weeks in (today), it's fabulous (as is she)!!

As you can tell from this photo, she's tiny - 5 lbs 4 oz, and 18.5" long.  She's perfect.  This humongous outfit she's wearing is newborn size.  It wasn't my fault that I had to run right out to the store and get a couple of preemie-sized outfits.  Not my fault!  Someone had to help out a potentially-naked child!

Honestly, it's amazing to see my baby sister as a mom and see her fall into it so naturally.  What a gift!

Progress?

I didn't think I'd be so excited about having a good time at Disney on Ice.  However, this means a possible trip in December! 

Aidan has been horribly afraid of any type of mascot or costume for quite some time now.  My sister is convinced that it's her fault due to an unfortunate costume store excursion and his continuing questions about whether they have to go back to the costume store, but I understand that it's very common at this age.  I think to excrusion was a coincidence. 

We had a slight turning point when, a few weeks ago, Brutus the Buckeye showed up at his gym class.  At the beginning, Aidan was extremely wary and not at all interested in interacting.  He told Daddy that "I don't like  Brutus; he's not a nice guy."  However, after watching Brutus stand on his head, play with other kids and be all-around charming, he had an epiphany.  About three minutes before Brutus left, Aidan yelled, "I like him now!  He is a nice guy!"  Ever since, he's been talking about Brutus.

Yesterday, at Disney on Ice, Aidan was not at all scared.  He didn't try to run from the room (as he did at Sesame Street Live), and he didn't cry or hide his face.  In fact, he was excited about it, clapping, singing, waving at the characters, and asking whether we could skate with Mickey.  I hate to get my hopes up, but I believe this may mean we're turning the corner.  Fingers crossed....

Taking action

I feel the winds shifting, and I know things are changing.  Hopefully what's changing is me taking action; that's what I think it is.  I feel myself being moved toward action, and it's taking a couple of different forms.

I'm planning.  I'm planning a trip and things I want to accomplish, as well as planning little projects and such with my boy.  I'm planning get-togethers with friends instead of wondering when I might see them.  I'm starting to be able to give more, of myself.  I'm beginning to work on a committee for a new venture related to the United Way in my city.  I believe I'll be able to start volunteering at the local children's hospital soon, if only I can pass the FBI background check.  Fingers crossed.

I'm not sure what brings this on, but maybe it's something to do with the restoration of balance.  I would love to spend every second with my boy(s), but I'm starting to be able to back up a little and do things for me too, or someone else.  I've been able to cook for my sister to help out, when not too long ago cooking at all seemed a distant reach.  I've been reading much more for fun, and am starting a book club with a neighbor.

It's a little of everything.  It's good.  I recognize this, and it's good.

delightful read

Just devoured The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society; some great reading for book club this year!  I really had trouble putting it down.  The last book I read that was in the form of letters was years ago, Dangerous Liaisons, another one of my favorites.  I think it would be tough to convey a narrative that way, but when it's done well, amazing!  I love the sense of characters in the Society, as well as the sense of history.  We really are lucky and spoiled never to have lived through such a war on our home land, and spoiled to live as we do generally.  Stories about German occupation during WWII and about concentration camps are so horrible and so humbling.  I love that this book was able to convey what it did without being preachy and while still making me unable to put it down.  If it were twice as long, I'd still be reading it now.  I wish I were.

I also just read The Wednesday Sisters, another book club book.  I love book club!  The sense of true friendship shown there, through thick, thin and growth is wonderful.  It shows the best in friendships among women, even when we're not exactly at our best.  Can't wait to read the next couple of books.  It's February 14, and I'm ready to start the June book.  Hee hee!

Look, Mommy - I'm swinging with a hooker!

I know that you shouldn't lead with the punchline, but honestly, who can resist that one?

Any Spidey devotee knows that web swinging is an essential skill.  My little superhero swings through the house often.  Today he found a new gizmo to help him in lieu of "real" webs, a pink (his favorite color) plastic hanger.  A hanger has a hook on it....

I really want to know....so tell me who are you?

So many women I know struggle with identity throughout their lives.  It's silly; a waste of time, and I don't just mean them - it's me, too. 

I've been thinking about how weight is such a struggle in one way or another.  Aside from pregnancy, on my adult frame my weight has ranged from about 95 to about 145, and at very few points anywhere on that scale have I been happy with my body.  Okay, at none.  That's asinine!  I've seen photos where I can see now that I looked dang near perfect - how could that not have been enough for me?  Why am I still, in my forties, struggling with what I look like?  More importantly, who cares what I look like?  Honestly, who does?  Who cares if I'm a couple of pounds heavy (which is what I've thought I was at all of those 50-pound range of weights)?  Nobody.  Why can't I drop it?  It's one step forward, not two back, but maybe one back.  Slow progress.

Along those lines, what's with changing faces?  I think that I look at least a couple of years younger than I am, but even if I didn't - who cares?  Who cares whether I look 20 or 60?  Why do I care?  Why should I? 

Men.  Through many years of being single, I made what I thought were good choices along the way, but looking back it's clear that I tried time and time again to force square pegs into round holes, and/or trying to change myself to be acceptable.  Tried to be perfect, interesting, and assumed that if something didn't go right, it must be something wrong with me, not just not a fit.  Square pegs don't go in round holes - they just don't! 

And then, as a mother, so many women seem to struggle, aside from all these other issues, with losing their own identities in a way that doesn't seem to affect men.  Our whole being changes when we become mothers - our bodies are unrecognizable, and our priorities are so different.  I'm happy to have different priorities - I love these priorities, and I'm grateful for them.  When I think about things that happened a decade ago, it seems like another lifetime or someone else's experience.  It's not that I don't like who I am, it's that I don't really recongize myself.  Is there such thing as a happy struggle?  I want to be the best version of myself, but I don't always hold up to it.   Keep trying.