Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
Once a week we engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too.
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While I was working at home one day, Tessa set up her "desk" and began writing furiously, getting her thoughts down the way Mommy sometimes does.
I forgot about it until the next day, when I noticed this, which gave me a glimpse into Tessa's mind, and an absolutely perfect moment.
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To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:
Between Sunday night and Tuesday night, write up your own Perfect Moment in a blog post, on Twitter, on Facebook, or simply leave a comment below.
Grab the URL of your Perfect Moment.
Use MckLinky below to enter your blog's name and the URL of your Perfect Moment
Visit the Perfect Moments of others (from the links below), and let the writers know you were there.
Once you make a Perfect Moment post , you may place this button on your blog.
What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Be sure to visit these moments and share the love, and please come back next week (click to subscribe).
Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
Once a week we engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too.
====================================
I checked out a Black-Eyed Peas CD from the library and listened to one song over and over again while out and about with the kids this weekend (not many of the songs are appropriate for young ears).
It's a happy-happy feel-good song, and I wanted to share the video with the kids when we got home. But often, an official video isn't appropriate for young eyes. So I knew a preview was necessary.
Good thing.
Instead, I found this, which is a happy-happy feel-good video. Watch it before you read my commentary, below.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I love it because while contrived, it speaks of the power of one person following her bliss at the risk of looking like a lone fool.
And then a wave of 20,000 people following the bliss, as well.Tessa and I are now learning the dance moves, in case we one day find ourselves in a flash mob.
Perfect.
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To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:
Between Sunday night and Tuesday night, write up your own Perfect Moment in a blog post, on Twitter, on Facebook, or simply leave a comment below.
Grab the URL of your Perfect Moment.
Use MckLinky below to enter your (or your blog's) name and the URL of your Perfect Moment
Visit the Perfect Moments of others (from the links below), and let the writers know you were there.
Once you make a Perfect Moment post , you may place this button on your blog.
What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Be sure to visit these moments and share the love, and please come back next week (click to subscribe).
I took the kids to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science last week to experience Exhibition Health. It's a fabulous display, enthralling for both kids (school-age) and adults alike. I found out cool things like the fact that my stride length is 3 feet 2 inches and my wingspan is 5 feet 10.5 inches (which matches my somewhat generously measured height).
There were dozens of fascinating stops, but I'll share just a few.
To learn about the respiratory system, kids got to watch a dissection of the lungs of a sheep. I was afraid my children would be squeamish, but instead they were right in there, asking tons of questions and poking around.
There were long lines for the pièce de résistance, a photo booth that ages you up to 70 years. You can choose to also see a projection of your aging with one of three factors: smoking, sun damage, or the effects of obesity. The idea is that kids may not forsake smoking for health reasons, but they might for vanity reasons.
Here's me: Yikes! Aging sucks, except for the alternative.
Would you like to see Tessa and Reed in another 6+ decades? These are the BIG shockers for me.
^^images removed^^
P.S. We were told not to smile. Now, get off our lawn, you young whippersnappers!
See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.
Grandma Marshmallow (as she calls herself) and Tessa went Christmas shopping while I met a Twitter friend. Tessa got to use a contraption she's always wanted to use but has never been able to extract permission to use. You know, from Iron Mom.
When I came back to pick them up, this is what I saw.
How did I finally pry Tessa's fingers off the control panel?
Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
Once a week we engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too.
==================================== I stayed in bed until 8 o'clock Saturday morning, finishing up The Primal Wound for the upcoming Examiner book tour (tune in there next weekend for some fascinating observations by a few dozen people interested in adoption).
When I came downstairs to already-made coffee, I also was greeted to a heartwarming scene:
Tessa was cuddled in her Daddy's lap as she read her first CHAPTER book to him.
I will not go into great detail about why, but trust me -- this is a HUGE and long-awaited accomplishment. Passing on the ability and the love of reading to my children is something I've wanted since my own days of reading Nancy Drew under the covers by flashlight.
The proud look on Tessa's face when she looked up at my own proud face was priceless, perfect. ==================================== To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:
Between Sunday night and Tuesday night, write up your own Perfect Moment in a blog post, on Twitter, on Facebook, or simply leave a comment below.
Grab the URL of your Perfect Moment.
Use MckLinky below to enter your (or your blog's) name and the URL of your Perfect Moment
Visit the Perfect Moments of others (from the links below), and let the writers know you were there.
Once you make a Perfect Moment post , you may place this button on your blog.
What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Be sure to visit these moments and share the love, and please come back next week (click to subscribe).
We spent last weekend in Colorado Springs with 19 extended family members. Seventeen of them cheered at the Air Force/Army game (for the away team). But Tessa and I headed to nearby Manitou Springs for some girlie-girl time.
Manitou Springs is an earthy, small mountain town with an inviting personality. Tessa and I window shopped along the main street, played with toys in the toy store, sat on benches along the street, evaluated artwork in the many artisan stores, chatted with store-keepers, found a chocolate shoppe and had one of each (yum).
We weren't really looking for anything -- the ambling being the point. I just wanted to make some memories together. We got our chance at the last store.
The shop smelled of patchouli, and it offered tie-dyed t-shirts, peace signed clothing, Om symbols galore, silks from India.
And a woman who applied tattoos. Henna tattoos.
I didn't even debate it in my mind. Tessa and I were gonna get tatted.
Tessa chose vining skulls. With bows.
I chose a Tao symbol encased in the sun. With moon and stars to balance it out.
It took about 10 minutes each to apply the henna paste to each of us. Deb, our artist, blew on some very fine glitter to adorn this phase.
We were to leave the paste on for as long as possible -- 4 hours minimum, or even overnight. The longer we waited before flecking off the dried paste, the deeper the pigment would go and the longer our tattoos would last. Palms are especially good at holding in the dye.
Tessa went swimming in the hotel pool later that night, so her paste came off on the early side. But I kept mine on until the next morning.
My henna paste and Tessa's henna tatt
Tessa's beribboned skulls
My yin/yang
With luck, I'll still have a visual memory of this day on Christmas.
See what my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.
Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
Once a week we engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too.
==================================== Watching my daughter surf the snow, from our dining room window (hence, the haze). Notice her bare foot. It was in the 70s this day, just after the Halloween blizzard . Gotta love Colorado.
And I do. ==================================== To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:
Between Sunday night and Tuesday night, write up your own Perfect Moment in a blog post, on Twitter, on Facebook, or simply leave a comment below.
Grab the URL of your Perfect Moment.
Use MckLinky below to enter your (or your blog's) name and the URL of your Perfect Moment
Visit the Perfect Moments of others (from the links below), and let the writers know you were there.
Once you make a Perfect Moment post , you may place this button on your blog.
What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Be sure to visit these moments and share the love, and please come back next week (click to subscribe).
Tessa was distraught, after a Halloween party, for not getting the nod for a sleepover at her aunt's house. The excitement of the kid-oriented haunted house, the disappointment about the sleepover and a sugar high made for a meltdown.
I got her into the car and she continued to wail about how mean her dad and I are. Roger and Reed were in the other car (long logistical explanation), so Tessa and I had some rare alone car time.
The wailing changed tone as we headed home.
"Why can't Crystal and Joe be my parents!? I have never even been with both of them at the same time!"
Whoa.
I silenced the GPS lady so I could focus. Here's a slowdown of my processes during moments like this.
1. Calm, center, open. Breathe, and be aware of my breathing. 2. Listen. Let her do most of the talking. 3. Assess. What is she really saying or asking? 4. Trade places. What might this look like, feel like, to her? 5. Abide. Give her space to feel her feelings. 6. Speak. Equal parts head and heart
Following are the salient parts from the ensuing conversation, which lasted about a half an hour and culminated while we cuddled in her bed.
"Tell me more," I said while driving home.
"If they got together, maybe they would LIKE each other. And then..."
"And then...?" (pause) "And then they could be your parents?"
"Yes." (pause) "But Joe is married, and Crystal has L---." (pause) "They will never be married, will they, Mom?"
Now, the best thing I did here was not personalize this and make it about ME. Her words, and the thoughts behind them, had NOTHING to do with her feelings for Roger and me, her attachment to us, her love for us. The best way for me to help her find resolution about having two sets of parents, and about her own road not taken is NOT to pretend that one set of parents doesn't exist, is NOT to feel bad that I can't be everything to her, is NOT to "fix" it for her by pointing out all she does have.
It's by giving her space and support to find her own way.
"No, Sweetheart. They were together many years ago, but they were not a good match. You know, don't you, that they both love you?"
"Yeah, I know that. But why aren't they my mom dad?"
"Would you like me to tell you the story again? After we get home we can cuddle and talk."
"Yes!"
10 minutes later we pulled into the garage. Tessa got on her jammies and brushed her teeth. We climbed into her bed, about an hour past normal bedtime.
"Crystal and Joe were very young. Twenty may not sound like young to you, but it's a time when some people don't have a lot of skills in dealing with other people, with being frustrated. You know that class we took together, Taming the Anger Monster? Well, at that time, neither Crystal nor Joe had learned how to tame their anger monsters.
"They broke up because they were hurting each other. With words -- you know that words can hurt. And as much as they both loved you, they knew that neither one was able to give you a stable home, a calm home. At that time. You needed a forever family then, though. And that's what you got. Daddy and I will always be your mom and dad, no matter what.
"The Crystal and Joe you know now are different from who they were then. It's OK to imagine what life with them would be like. What do you think?"
"Well...I would have an older brother from Crystal. And a younger sister from Joe. I'm not sure if we would live at Crystal's house or at Joe's house. And I would probably go to a different school. One I don't even know. I might not even know Reed. Or Grandma and Grandpa. Or the OTHER Grandma and Grandpa. And all my aunts -- I wouldn't have any aunts! That would be weird."
"It would be very different, wouldn't it? You can tell a thousand stories of what your life is not. And only ONE story of what your life IS. This is your life, Tessa. Lots of people around who love you now and forever, including Crystal and Joe, daddy and me. All of Crystal's family, all of Joe's family, all of our family."
"Mama," she said sleepily, the anxiety and sadness gone for now, "I love you."
"I love you, too Tessa."
*****
There probably were wiser words I could have said, and things I shouldn't have said. I'm putting this out there because in this space I try to share (within the limits I've set regarding Tessa's privacy) as many facets of open adoption parenting as I can. It's important to know that "open adoption" isn't just something you do when you exchange photos, send emails, have a visit. It's something that can come up even when you have other plans.
Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
We gather once a week to engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too.
==================================== This is my live-in-the-moment daughter, Tessa. In her new Halloween wig. Several weeks before Halloween. I give her roots; she gives me wings. Every once in awhile I notice how perfect this is. ==================================== To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:
Between Sunday night and Tuesday night, write up your own Perfect Moment in a blog post, on Twitter, on Facebook, or simply leave a comment below.
Grab the URL of your Perfect Moment.
Use MckLinky below to enter your (or your blog's) name and the URL of your Perfect Moment
Visit the Perfect Moments of others (from the links below), and let the writers know you were there.
Once you make a Perfect Moment post , you may place this button on your blog.
What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Be sure to visit these moments and share the love, and please come back next week (click to subscribe).
Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
We gather once a week to engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too.
====================================
At dinner last night, I jokingly said to my family: "It's only 24 hours until my Perfect Moment has to be up, so hurry up and give me one!" (Please ignore the fact that this is NOT the way that perfect moments are supposed to happen, through sheer will.)
Tessa said, "Let's have Cuddle Time!"
Which is when we all four get into the master bed and cuddle and giggle. It happens not as often as it should, due to various time-sucking necessities, but that's what makes it special. We talk, we read, we laugh, we cuddle.
What made this perfect WASn't that it was a perfect moment for ME (though it was) but finding out that Cuddle Time constitutes a perfect moment for Tessa.
And that in giving it I also get it.
==================================== To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:
Between Sunday night and Tuesday night, write up your own Perfect Moment in a blog post, on Twitter, on Facebook, or simply leave a comment below.
Grab the URL of your Perfect Moment.
Use MckLinky below to enter your (or your blog's) name and the URL of your Perfect Moment
Visit the Perfect Moments of others (from the links below), and let the writers know you were there.
Once you make a Perfect Moment post , you may place this button on your blog.
What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Be sure to visit these moments and share the love, and please come back next week (click to subscribe).
Tessa is as thrilled to climb trees and engage in swordplay as she is to put on fake fingernails and find just the right shade of lipstick for a self-choreographed dance show.
This photo may not do justice, but she's put a gold headband on her baseball cap.
I love my zest-for-lifey daughter!
See what my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell. And show something yourself -- everyone is welcome.
This is a cucumber plant in our yard. I did not put it there. I planted cucumbers about 75 feet away in a carefully tended garden. But this rogue cuke somehow grounded itself in the rocks, near the children's swing set and assorted pairs of stomping feet. Stubborn thing.
In that carefully tended garden, I have melons. I did not plant these melons. Earlier in the summer Roger served a breakfast of honeydew with prosciutto and lime juice, and then mulched the waste. I suppose the seeds took root. Stubborn things.
In the front yard, hanging over the driveway, there is a sunflower (? botanists, please confirm?). I did not plant it. There are no similar flowers near it. It is so florally prolific that it droops in the path of Roger's car as he heads into and out of the garage. It's taken quite a beating, but still keeps producing flowers that reach for the light. Stubborn thing.
I honor the hearty biology of these organisms, that they strive to grow where they are. I admire their thirst for sunlight, their ongoing quest for growth, no matter what sense there is in their surroundings.
I dedicate this post to Tessa and Reed, the hearty, stubborn rogues that landed in my garden. Grow with me here!
Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than aboutcreating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
We gather here once a week to engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too.
==================================== How can this NOT be a perfect moment?
To make if even more perfect, I was watching Tessa's dance-in-the-sand performance while sitting on the beach with Cassandra.
==================================== Once you make a Perfect Moment post, you can place this button on your blog.
(Perfect Moment Monday now posts on Sunday evening with links accepted through Tuesday.)
Perfect Moment Monday is more about noticing a perfect moment than aboutcreating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
We gather here once a week to engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too.
==================================== Come join me on my perfect moment adventure.
My children and I had an outing to Mother Cabrini Shrine this week along with my sister's family and a friend and her children.
"was established by Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini for the purpose of spreading the gospel and providing a peaceful summer atmosphere for orphan children.
On this site, Mother Cabrini arranged large white stones in the shape of a heart, surrounded by a smaller stone cross and crown of thorns. The 373 steps that lead to a 22-foot statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus are adorned by the Stations of the Cross, the mysteries of the rosary and the Ten Commandments. A cool spring of miraculous water still flows today after Mother Cabrini found it on the barren hilltop."
I enjoy coming up here for clarity. I came once years ago with a group of spiritually seeking women on gloriously perfect late-summer Sunday and I reflected on myself as a once barren place, then flowing with new motherhood. The sky was so blue that day, the clearest blue imaginable. I could look out over my beautiful city in one direction, and into higher mountains in the other. Crisp colors of a perfect world.
I had a moment of being anchored in something firm and everlasting. It was September 9, 2001. Right before everything changed.
Visits continue to bring perfect moments to my body and my spirit. My children now enjoy the rambling about, the occasional elk herd, the fresh air and exercise. This time, Tessa meditated as she circumambulated a rosary of flagstones that enclosed one of the ubiquitous sacred heart symbols on the property. She says she was thinking of the people she loves.
Come along with me.
If the slide show doesn't appear for you, click here.
See? Perfect!
==================================== Once you make a Perfect Moment post, you can place this button on your blog.
Now. What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Be sure to visit these moments and share the bloggy love.
***
Another day, another chance to vote for Weebles Wobblog. Please click on the blue button, scroll down to the Most Inspiring category, look for and and vote for this blog, currently in 4th place. (You can also vote for Luna in the same category, and for Eden in the Most Provocative Blog category.) Rock the ALI vote!
Here's a button if you'd like to help me make a good showing against some fabulous blogs. Not that I'm competitive or anything. OK, maybe inspiringly competitive.
(To those of you with the button: I really won't hurt the cute puppy.)
Perfect Moment Monday is more about noticing a perfect moment than aboutcreating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
We gather here once a week to engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too. ====================================
It was bedtime. Tessa and I had heard Joan Obsorne's One of Us on the radio earlier.
Note: Clue #3 for Name That Blogger! will come later in the day. ===========================
Perfect Moment Monday is more about noticing a perfect moment than aboutcreating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
We gather here once a week to engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too. ====================================
We took Tessa and Reed to the Children's Museum.
I spent the time taking pictures, writing this post in my head, planning dinner, wondering if we'd left any homework undone and trying to remember if we'd fed Fishie.
In short, I was not present and I did not experience a perfect moment.
So I document theirs.
Kids being kids, they were nothing BUT present while checking out groceries, using non-power tools, being a veterinarian, and playing dress-up.
Watching people you love enjoy a perfect moment is almost as good as noticing one for yourself.
==================================== Once you make a Perfect Moment post, you are qualified to place this button on your blog.
Perfect Moment Monday is more about noticing a perfect moment than aboutcreating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.
We gather here once a week to engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. Details on how to participate are at the bottom of this post, complete with bloggy bling.
Please visit the links of the participants at the bottom.
Here's a perfect moment from my week. I hope you'll share yours, too. ====================================
Tessa recently celebrated her 8th birthday. Hard to believe. It was a week long celebration, with a family dinner, a trip with Daddy and Reed to Chuck E Cheese on the same night I was walking on a Florida beach (too bad, so sad -- just a touch of sarcasm), and the Grand Finale:
Aunt Tami joined us to mark Tessa's milestone and to usher in warmer, shoe-shedding weather.
A toosie-licious perfect moment.
==================================== Once you make a Perfect Moment post, you are qualified to place this button on your blog.
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