TILT - stillness and observation

Apologies for my weeklong absence. I've been sick since Sunday and trying to relax. Joe has been awesome, getting E ready for school in the mornings and taking her in for me, plus doing dishes and making lunch and dinner for us. He's been really helpful, which is nice because usually when I'm sick I have to just march on and do everything for myself anyway. I feel special!

I've been spending lots of time on the couch and in bed, resting. TV kind of sucks now, and aside from regular night time shows we watch together we usually just watch movies or kids programs. So I've spent a fair amount of time in silence or listening to music. I do laundry here and there, but mostly I'm just resting.

I've noticed lots more in the stillness of the week. It's strange how when you're busy with chores, bills, or just every day stuff how seldom we take the time to pause, breathe, and be still. And with that, sometimes when I pause there is still chaos…thoughts of things that need doing, people who need calling, and so on.

As I type now I can hear Sable giving herself a cat bath and purring. She was really frustrated and sat herself next to me to get even with Miss Marvel.

I'm able to witness their interactions more organically now. Usually when Joe and Eleana are home we don't notice the drama leading up to the hisses and the barking. But in the stillness of the day I saw the two of them, kitty and doggy, argue without using any words.

Sable loves the sunshine patches on the floor during the day. She falls asleep in them every day, one on the stairs and one in the living room. When she wakes up she eats and then goes back to her sunshine patch to nap some more. She found a really nice patch in the family room today, and planted herself at the tip of it just before Miss Marvel came trotting along. Miss Marvel plopped down right in the middle of the sunshine as if to say, "Hey, doggies love sunshine too," and Sable did not like that. Undoubtedly Sable was preparing to venture into the patch fully and found it offensive that the dog took her spot before she could act. I had to take photos of the two of them in the sunshine…their expressions were so priceless.

Sable eventually figured the dog wasn't moving, so to spite her she came with me to the couch and has been sitting here with me since. To heck with the dog and her sunshine hogginess.

So the thing I love today is being able to witness these little interactions, the moments the two furbabies have with each other before they try killing each other.

things I love thursday - creepy fog

It's kind of creepy, right? I took this picture of our street this morning at 10am. The fog settled in two nights ago and made everything look very creepy. That evening everything almost looked apocalyptic with the yellowish street lights glowing in the fog.

It makes everything look so very halloweeny. Eleana loved walking to school in the fog yesterday morning. The fog looks thinner in the afternoon, but it thickens up overnight. It's amazing. People are going to work later because of the low visibility and I can hear the ships in Port Anchorage blowing their fog horns. The only thing I don't hear is jet noise. It's actually almost eerie, the lack of jet noise given we live on an Air Force base.

things I love thursday

Morning kisses
Originally uploaded by soleclaw23

Morning kisses! Miss Marvel is cuddliest at bedtime and in the morning. Eleana is constantly kissing her and hugging her when she wakes up but this was the first time I captured her grabbing Miss Marvel by the face. Moments like this remind me of why I love having Miss Marvel in our family.

wordless wednesday

*I know this is supposed to be wordless…but this is my first time participating in Wordless Wednesday so I just wanted to get the info out there and say hi! The Wordless Wednesday website isn't working right now, miraculously enough, but it just so happens that today is my first really busy day here in Anchorage and I don't have time to post anything of substance aside from a quick photo. Hence, my clumsy start participating in Wordless Wednesday.*

the kissing hand

Between the years 2000 and 2002 I bought a children's book for my boyfriend called The Kissing Hand. The bookstore was always a favorite place of mine, and I stopped there any time I was at the mall. I've loved books all my life. My mom took me to libraries as a child weekly, and when school started requiring we do research in the library I knew my way around already. Children's books are amazing. Before I had my own child I was often found reading Shel Silverstein or Roald Dahl.

During that time in our relationship Joe made up a simple hand gesture for us to use when we were saying goodbye, something to ease the pain and remind us we'd be seeing each other again soon. At many intervals in our relationship our time spent together was regulated and enforced strongly by his mother. I still remember the rules - we were never allowed to see each other two days in a row, and usually only on a weekend. So essentially we could see each other Friday, but never Saturday because we went to church together and Sunday counted as a day we would be together. We didn't go to school together after my senior year, so for two years we only saw each other twice a week. The thumb kiss gesture helped a lot. It was so sweet and a little goofy.

When I saw The Kissing Hand on the front shelf in the book store display back then I was immediately drawn to it. The concept is so sweet, and the story is about a mother's love for her baby, but the story spoke to me and I bought it on impulse to give to Joe for Christmas. I remember putting it in the shirt box I wrapped for him. The book wasgently placed under a shirt I had gotten him. I'm pretty sure I wrote something on the inside jacket of the book, too.

A few years later, after Joe and I had been married and had our own baby, my mother-in-law found the book and asked if I had ever read it. I started to say yes, as a matter of fact I bought that for Joe for Christmas when we were dating, but before I could finish she started to explain how she bought it for him a few years ago. I'm sure if she would have opened the book she would have seen my handwriting. I felt a little embarrassed and somewhat shocked. The woman buys so many books anyway, why should she remember whether or not she bought something for her son? I never brought it to her attention, because the book is probably special to her and I didn't want to embarrass anybody.

Yesterday when Eleana came home from school she had a picture she had colored and glued. The pictures were based on the story The Kissing Hand, which they had read in class. She had brought home a raccoon puppet she had made the day before and I didn't even think it was related to the book, but it was. I told her we had that book, and we could read it at bedtime if she wanted. She was thrilled.

Bedtime came and I started shuffling through her books in the boxes that sit in the hallway. (Her bookshelf was broken in the move and we haven't replaced it yet). I couldn't find The Kissing Hand. The one I bought for Joe years ago was nowhere to be found, and it was a hardback! I have two copies of The Polar Express - the one Mom got for me with the book on tape and the bell, and the one we bought for Eleana when she had her first Christmas - we have Bearanstein Bears, Care Bears, and Little Critters, but no The Kissing Hand.

Eleana settled for If You Take a Mouse to School. When I was done reading my story I let Joe go in and do his part. They started reading Falling Up last week and they are almost done with all the poems! While he was reading to her I ran down to the garage. I had a feeling, a hunch, that I had seen that book in a box or bag somewhere.

I found a box in the garage that had a bunch of random things in it - unopened toys from her birthday, special Christmas gifts my mother-in-law had bought in London and Ireland, and things we just didn't have time to pack properly. In the bag from my mother-in-law were several books - Zen Shorts, If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, Paddington, and The Kissing Hand. She had gotten the paperback version of the book for E two Christmases ago and I had totally forgot!

I ran upstairs with the books to show Eleana and she was absolutely thrilled. I read it to her when Daddy was done reading his poems and she fell right to sleep. We haven't taught her the thumb kiss yet, but I think we will, it'll be a very sweet family tradition to start I think.