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365/205, originally uploaded by sufferingsummer.

Day Dreaming probably of bacon...

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p
365/203, originally uploaded by sufferingsummer.

new old boots from Nana...Mama wants some of her own!

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hands, originally uploaded by sufferingsummer.

again with the hands...I just can't stop taking photos of hands it seems.

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365/201, originally uploaded by sufferingsummer.

Discarded

From the Mouths of Babes...

Bean, originally uploaded by sufferingsummer.

My children amaze, astound, and teach me every single day. For this I will be forever grateful.
Here are two examples. Tonight when getting bean's jammies on she very sweetly looked up at me and said, "Please, please, Mama, self?"
This was amazing to me on a few levels. One, she doesn't often speak in more than one word statements so that was fantastic. Two, she was able, without complex language skills, to get her point across quite clearly and three she did it in a very kind and polite manner. I mean, she's 18 months. She's in the full on temper tantrum twos for sure. She likes the words "NO" and "Mine" a great deal but here she was just asking very nicely if she could get her jammies on herself. Of course I obliged. Then it hit me that she has been witness to how we have been talking to Indy a lot lately about how she asks to do things. If I am helping her get her Pj's on and she doesn't want help she can often respond with drama, quite a bit of huffing and puffing and pouting but lately she's been remembering to just ask, politely if she could please do it on her own. Obviously this is wearing off on Bean. I couldn't be more proud of her or her sister for that matter but it was also a very good reminder for me that how we speak is often just as powerful if not more so than what we actually say.

The other great reminder I was given was Indy's response to what she wanted to write on a leaf for our thankfulness tree, "Thank you to God for putting me in the life that I am in".
Seriously wonderful, challenging, and made me nearly break down in tears of joy to think of how much my child loves her life. I know she's only 3 and my prayer is that this would be something she'll always be thankful for but even when or if she isn't I know that the lesson will not have been lost on me and I will strive to always be as thankful as I am right now for this specific life that God has given me, challenges and all, I wouldn't want any other.

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365/201, originally uploaded by sufferingsummer.

It was a 3 tea kind of day...this is cup #3.
I really adore this little spirit.

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365/200, originally uploaded by sufferingsummer.

I can't believe I am 200 days into a year of photos...and I can count on one hand, one finger even how many times I woke up not really wanting to take a picture...I thought for sure keeping consistency would be a lot harder for me but I'm so far (knock on wood) really enjoying it!

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365/199, originally uploaded by sufferingsummer.

She's full term now.

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365/198, originally uploaded by sufferingsummer.

Indy's Fairie boat.

Humanness

Sky, originally uploaded by sufferingsummer.

They both woke with a start at what seemed the same moment. The phone was in my ear and I registered the sound late.
"Your Dad just walked in the door, I'll call you tomorrow"
on cue they both startled.

I curled up round my eldest daughter, her legs seeming lankier than when I tucked her snug in hours earlier.

"I don't want to cry Mama"

"I know darling, you don't have to"

"Ok"

Silence from the left side of the room.

Continued refrain of "Mama, Mama, Mama" from the right.

Untangling my hand from one tiny grip I ebb my flow to the other occupant.
Her eyes are wide in the slanted light from the cracked door. She is glazed, neither waking nor sleeping.

"Tomorrow you'll see your Auntie"
a grin takes her face captive and the angelic melancholy is lost.
"yeah, yeah"

I edge towards the door, creeping like a cat on the trail.
"Mama?"

"Yes Darling?"

"Why are there peels on things you peel?"

"to keep the fruit inside safe until it is ripe and ready to be eaten"

"oh, ok"

My father's father is dying tonight. My Uncle's father. My Aunt's father. My Grandfather who I know by little more than story and sight.
I see him frail, his peel slowing being pulled back. His soul beautiful and ripe, ready. His children have grown, bearing fruit of their own and it is time.

Again I am struck by the author of this story so artfully crafting the sorrow and the joy.
Tomorrow we will rise, we will drive, we will celebrate. I will gaze at a soul not yet introduced even to light. I will take one last picture and I will be perplexed, amazed, overjoyed at what these poor vessels are capable of. I will simultaneously revel in the joy and sorrow of what it means to get to be human and God willing, my Grandfather will know what it is to shed that tiresome peel once and for all.