Jumping Daisy

Isn’t she beautiful? My Niece Mabel.

So as it turns out, I was wrong about everything in my garden being dead!  In fact, I came home from vacation to this pleasant surprise!

The other morning I went in to Leila’s room to attempt to wake her up.  She is a sleepy head like her mama so this isn’t an easy task.  Most days we coax the girls into action by challenging them to be the first one up, the first one dressed, the first one in shoes, the first to have their hair done and finally, the first one  in the car.  It does pay off to have competitive children, even if it means that they will refuse to compete when they don’t think they can win. (I have NO idea where that comes from! ;))

On this particular morning even the promise of winning first to the car wasn’t enough to get Leila moving.  I sat down next to her in her bed and I started running my fingers up and down her side.  I had nearly forgotten this trick from Leila’s younger days, but Leila loves goosebumps.  It did the trick, she woke up and told me that Grandma used to give her goosebumps all the time.  She is better at it because she has long nails.

That’s ok with me, Grandma is better at lots of things.  Leila quickly followed that observation up with the fact that Grandma could probably use those long nails to pry open the compartment that Leila can’t quite get into in the back of our car.  It’s funny to me that that had occurred to her, but I guess she is resourceful.

This evening I went in to check on Leila like she always asks us to do while she waits for sleep to take over.  She asked me for some goosebumps so I laid down next to her and went to work, first her legs, then her arms, her back, belly and sides.  Someday she won’t want me to touch her at all, but for now, I am good for bedtime goosebumps.

The last time I blogged, Tinkerbell was still Keekerbell, and now Thea is growing up so fast that her baby language is going away.  Thankfully she still loves a good gissert.

I will get caught up eventually, but today will not be the day.  I will leave you with this gem from our vacation at Truman Lake, just to keep you interested.

We are always looking for fun things to do, and what better way to spend a 100 degree Saturday afternoon than tie dying T-shirts in the yard!

Cassie is the master, and the most popular girl in the neighborhood, so we invited our buddy from across the street and got to work…

A fun activity, and easier than you might guess!

I was lying in my bed, waiting for sleep to take over when the air conditioner kicked on.  I felt the familiar cool air hit my face and I was taken back by the scent of the cool fresh air.  Literally taken back in time, at least twenty years.  Andrea and I were laying side by side.  Her right in front of the air vent in her bedroom, and me beside her hoping to catch some of the cool breeze from my spot in the doorway.

We were probably lucky to have air conditioning in our old farm house, but the cool air never seemed to last much further than that small area surrounding the vent.  It had become our summer routine.  For some reason, lying next to Andrea and sharing the cool breeze was more appealing than the vent in my own room.

From there my mind raced with summer memories of swim suit fashion shows in the backyard, turning a worn out water bed mattress into a slip’n’slide down the cellar hill and finding my place of solitude when I realized that I was the only one who had figured out a way to climb onto the LP tank and sit there in silence, enjoying the summer air.

Andrea and I would ride our bikes up and down the driveway all day long.  Up the driveway, turn around at the mailbox.  Down the driveway, around the big mud puddle in front of the barn and back up.  When I was feeling defiant, I would ride up the “wrong” side of the driveway and Andrea would freak out.  It was great. Then it occurred to me, Thea must get it from me…the pleasure that she feels when she is able to irritate her sister to no end by just making a tiny mark in her sidewalk art.

Oh the memories…so I got up out of my bed tonight thinking about the essays I have written about my childhood.  There are several.  Non Fiction Writing was my favorite class in college, and they let you take it as many times as you wanted.

I located two essays.  One about my Grandma Dalene and one about my sisters.  I am considering posting them here, but that may just be my sleep deprived mind jumping places that I don’t really want to go.  We shall see.  In the meantime, I am going to go back to bed and wait for that nostalgic smell of air conditioning to hoist me off to sleep.

I have been reading a lot of obituaries lately.  Sadly, because I know too many people who have passed too soon in the last few months.  Thankfully, I have also witnessed some amazing recoveries.  Some that I prayed for like I have prayed for nothing else in this world, and I am still trying to wrap my mind around the miracle of survival.  I am holding fast in my faith and knowing that God is good.  He doesn’t make this whole world an easy place to live.  That would make faith easy, and life less meaningful.  But some days, he blesses us with such unexpected joy that his presence is confirmed to my heart.

I like to think that I appreciate life, but one thing that I have seen in both the good and bad stories of struggle, survival and death is that people like to look back at the lives that have been lived by their loved ones and proclaim them to have been, “full of life.”  What does that mean?

I told my sisters while we were sitting out on Andrea’s deck enjoying a warm summer evening, that when I die, please don’t describing me as “full of life.”  The way I see it, we are all full of life, until we aren’t.  And when we aren’t, we have an obituary.

I am thinking about this tonight, as I was dragging myself through the evening routine.  A day spent at a job I am tired of going to, followed by preparing and eating dinner with my family, jumping up to fill my daughters requests and mindlessly finishing my carb free plate.  A quick bath, and then bed time.  As I was laying on Thea’s bedroom floor with her, I told myself, “live in this moment.”  Don’t wish this away for a quiet hour spent alone.  I laid on the floor and played dolls, brushed Minnie Mouse’s ears with my beautiful baby and read her books, all the while concentrating on keeping my mind in that room, my eyes fixed on my sweet daughter.  I want to be present in this life.  What a gift it would be, if at the end of my days I could know that I had been present in my life, to have lived each day for what it is, to have made the best of everything that was given to me and to enjoy each moment for the gift that it is.  I am not there yet, but that is a hope for myself that appears in my prayers each night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B56UjiLuWkk

Not necessarily welcome.  Definitely freeloaders who think they own the place, but I am a sucker, so here they are, perched on our garage.

ETA: Speaking of Obituaries…one of those birds is no longer full of life.  It is now empty of life and half hanging out of its nest.

I love watching fireworks.  One of these days I would really like to watch them from a truly prime spot…with my camera and tripod. For now the best part of the fireworks will have to be seeing my kids enjoy them as well.

Mabel’s first 4th…I think she approved!