A Letter For Mikaela

After E saw my post about the plaque , she wrote this wonderful letter to Mikaela.

Dear Mikaela:

I want to thank you for finishing the other side of the plaque I gave your Mom. It really needed to have your message on it.

You are one smart pony. Every day is specially made for each of us. Every day is meant to be a good day. Every day brings with it gifts we accept and lessons we learn. To be grateful for both the gifts and the lessons - even when the lessons are hard ones - makes it a good day, not just for us but for everyone our life touches.

One of those hard to learn lessons is the lesson of waiting. Sometimes if we have to wait while someone else gets what they want, it begins to feel not at all good. We begin to think, "Whoa, maybe it's not my day after all." That's when it helps to remember that, thanks to you, there are two sides of the plaque I gave your Mom. One side - the one that came with it - says "I can only please one person at a time and this isn't your time." The other, that you wrote, says, "This is your day. Have a good day."

Both are part of the same plaque now. They go together. But how is it possible to have a good day when it isn't our time to be pleased? It's possible because we know that the people, like your Mom and Dad, who love us really want to please us. So we can wait, even if it isn't easy, for our time to come. It will. And because we're sure that it will - very wise people have called that sureness, grace - we're free to go ahead and enjoy our good day - even with all the bumps in it.

Take good care. Love,

Elizabeth

We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends. What a good day it is!

Today is Your Day

On Tuesday a friend brought over this sign for me. It really made me laugh.

E and I were laughing about it but Mikaela just kept looking at it very seriously. Later she asked me, “ so how do you know today what it will be like tomorrow?" I try to explain that the sign was just meant to be funny but is not meant to be taken literally; it isn’t true. She still failed to see the humor. Later when we were playing in bed before we turned out the lights, she pointed out, “look mommy, you are making Nigel and I both happy.” This afternoon she asked me if she could write something on the other side of the sign. I said sure.

I am one lucky mama.

Blessings

I feel a wonderful sense of calm this morning. I leave in two days and I am ready, not packed or finished my to-do lists, but ready regardless. This is the life I have chosen and here it comes full speed ahead and I am happily waiting to meet it. My son will soon be in my arms.
Yesterday my friends surprised me by coming over and throwing me a little going away party. So sweet and just what I needed. Thanks Megan, Lisa D, Lisa C., Kelly, and Colleen. It was wonderful to take a break and appreciate my friends and my blessings.

The Lodge

Winter Solstice at Ashland.




I tried to forget all the things I had to do and escaped with Mikaela for the weekend. I realized that this will be the last time Mikaela and I will spend time alone together before our family gets bigger and more complicated. I feel a great deal of sadness around this. I want to hold onto this time I have with her. She is excited to have a new brother and sister but I know she has no concept of how much her life will be changing. I’m sure there will be times when she begs me to send them back.

The damn husband was grumpy and bailed. When I first asked him about the trip weeks ago he said it sounded like fun but that was when it was far away. Up close he began making excuses. He wanted to have time to work on his music and said his skin was too dry- it was too cold- this is my thing not his- and then he starts his broken record of: you want me to be just like you and now I am going to pay for it if I’m not - they are your friends not mine- everyone will be eating rabbit food- now you will try to make me feel guilty for not going, blah, blah. I made the mistake of saying as we are heading out the door that I wish he were coming which started this particular rampage. It is always something I do that ‘makes him” flip. He makes leaving him easy by making me so angry that I leave with the fantasy that I am running away from home forever. Damn husband. I actually felt sorry for him when it turned out he had to stay home and work instead of playing music. So he had quality time with Wanda (the dog) and Mikaela and I were off for a weekend adventure.


We joined ten other families sleeping over also- it was a giant slumber Party! As soon as I saw the large room filled with bunk beds I was instantly thrown into thoughts about the orphanage in Ethiopia where the children sleep two to a bed in a room set up in a similar way. I spent the night listening to the sound of others sleeping and imagined how it is for my daughter, Yaebsera to sleep each night. I wonder who her bedmate is. I wonder about so many things about her…



Bird watching, great food, wonderful women knitting and chatting, music and stories by the fire, cutting snowflakes, dressing up in clothes and masks from the Lenape Indians. And just slowing down for a little while. I am so lucky to have such wonderful friends.




Everything seems so easy here. How can I make cooking feel like so much fun at home? That would be easy. Cook for this gang instead of my family that complains about everything I make!

Here is one prepared mama!! She's got her tools of the trade and she is camping in style!!!


Paul took us on a night hike and taught us about visual purple, the way our eyes adjust to seeing in the dark. It took about twenty minutes for our eyes to refocus completely so that we could see without any flashlights. When our eyes are without light our rods fill up with liquid and enable us to see in the dark. I’m sure the full moon helped but this was really amazing.

Mikaela: I’m like a cat and I can see in the dark.
Jonah: I can see better at night then I can during the day.
They look at each other as thought they have just met their soul mate. They hold hands and run in front of the group skipping easily on the path with their purple vision.

Thanks Megan for organizing this trip. The timing was perfect. Now I am off to pack for Ethiopia and prepare for the new life we have chosen.