The monsters in my closet

My Photoshop has been wonky and I finally got it fixed. So this post is late, because I wanted to get my photos together. Halloween was incredible. The cubs insisted that they were SCARY monsters not funny monsters. They roared and nashed their teeth. They are enthralled with the idea of monsters right now...going through a bit of fear of the dark. So when they start to worry about monsters mommy just gobbles them up and the monsters go into my belly. The cubs think this is just hilarious...monsters in mommy's belly, come on. It works every time to quell their fears. Chris and I dressed as the kids whose closets these "scary" monsters live in.

They loved trick-or-treating, but even more so loved the chocolate. We gave them a little candy each day until the chocolate was gone. They didn't really care for the other candies, but oh the chocolate. Ursula would smile a glowing grin, nod her head and say most emphatically "I want chocolate. I want chocolate."

Now they still pretend they are trick-or-treating with their daddy, knocking on the bedroom door, opening it and yelling "Trick-or-treat in their lovely sing-songy voices. They have also moved onto a different kind of chocolate...Hot Chocolate. Yum. This is one of their mommy's favorites too so I understand the obsession. We have it every morning now for breakfast.

The weekend before Halloween we also had a huge Harvest Party Potluck. I think around fifty or so people joined us...yikes. The house was packed and cozy. We also had a fire in the backyard with s'mores. There were so many children running around that some of the adults looked a little perplexed...yet nothing went astray. The cubs were excited and overwhelmed. At one point Freya crawled into bed surrounded by a room full of jumping yelling children, and sat there in a bit of a daze. All she could muster was a quiet "No shoes on the bed" refrain that went mostly unheaded. At the end of the night Ursula did have a melt-down...just too tired poor Bear, but that was the extent of it. Pretty good for that many people and that many children packed into one house together all evening. It was festive and chaotic...just like our family. Ah, I love this time of year.

Harvest Moons

Fall in theory is upon us. I chose the above photo of the cubs from Samhain last year because it really expresses my feelings at this time of year. I become wistful and a bit melancholy in a nice turning- inward sort of way. The summer is waning and days of splashing in brightly colored swimming pools are passing away, yet we are still here ready for the transformation continuing to grow, love and celebrate.
This is my favorite time of the year and I'm always ready to soak every bit of it up through my breath, through my cells. Especially since Autumn does not last long in our land. My mind turns to all the beauty and bounty that we have harvested this year. The cubs are so strong and full of life. I still cannot believe I gave birth to these two willful intoxicating gypsy children. I try to remember how much I love these qualities in them even as I am tired from wrangling them all day. I do not want to break their spirits or somehow make them obedient. I just want to continue to revel in their freedom... and be a partner to them...and learn from them. They have so much to teach me...I can see it when I look in their eyes...or perhaps not to teach me, but to remind me. We dance together in this life and I can feel the warm energy that is shared between us, filling up the space that I hope will never be empty. They are my two full-bellied harvest moons. Their light and magnetism creates my tides. Without them I am only salt water.

I am blessed with my Honey, Chris. His open heart and unflinching devotion keep me sane. This quality reminds me so much of my own loving father and my own heart almost bursts because I never realized I could have someone as dedicated to me as my father is to my mother. I am astounded by how selfless he can be when it comes to the cubs and me. Once he told me with tears shining in his eyes that this family is what he has always dreamed about. I'm putting energy out this year for the two of us to spend more one on one time together reconnecting as husband and wife, not just parents.

Now I wait for the weather to grow coolor as the days grow shorter. I feel all dreamy and floaty thinking of pumpkins and cider and fires out in the garden, sweaters and boots and cozy scarves and hats; red cheeks and noses with that slightly damp feel, bare branches and crisp piles of leaves, the starkness of nature, the drawing in, the cuddles under blankets, hot soup with crusty bread, hot buttered rum, the allure of staying inside with books, the smell in the air of earth swept clean by wind, the gray of skies with occasional bright blue warm days (this is Texas after all), wrapping babes in arms and whispering stories of persephone and demeter in their ears. Yum, yum, yum...I ache with the joy of it all. Yes, my love, I agree, this is the family I always dreamed of. I want to scoop you all up and serve you with honey and roasted nuts, my family... so delicious. You, the cubs, the dogs and me...full, round, complete and blessed by this Harvest Moon.

Disguised Perfection

Hand, Toes, Paw
Originally uploaded by Bear Woman

It is 11pm and the cubs are in their darkened room sleeping side by side on their new big-girl bed. Chris is at the studio and I am sitting in the delicious silence. I think about the cubs and I want to run to them and lay my cheek against theirs and breathe in their sleepy warm scent.

Yet, life with them has been a struggle lately. They are two spirited children, thank goodness, but oh it is exhausting me. I am realizing that part of the problem is my reaction to them and my inability to accept reality. The reality is that they are two and a half years old, exploring, living fully, investigating all the ends and outs of their bodies, our home, their world. They also are not logical creatures right now. Trying to use logic and rhetoric on them does not work yet. Trying to make them understand how tired Mommy is or how much Mommy wants something is ludicrous. They are in a "ME" centered age and I need to come to terms with that. I think that sometimes Chris and I expect them to understand things and communicate beyond their years and that just isn't fair to them.









I spoke with Dayna Martin, the radical unschooling mentor I called a couple months ago. It is always so lovely to talk to her because her words kind of shake me out of my victim "woe is me" mentality. I always feel re-energized about my parenting after talking to her. I always come away re-committed to peaceful parenting. I've been so rough with the cubs lately. She helped me understand that I am working against myself with the "Law of Attraction" I told her that though I usually parent in the way she and I talk about, it is often with some nervousness wondering if it is going "to work", wondering if the girls will actually comply with my wishes. Instead of staying relaxed about the whole thing and going with the flow of our lives, I'm attracting more problems to me. Anyway, I could go on forever about this.

Suffice it to say, I am reaffirming my passion for being a mother. I love being a mother, but lately I was actually disliking it. I am also realistic enough to know that we go through these phases of hating and loving parenting and I need to go easy on myself. Since I"m with the cubs all day, I don't get the opportunity right now to do Seva in my community. But I realized that doing for my family IS my Seva. Wholeheartedly, serving my family is how I give back to my community. It is a great gift. By serving I don't mean I'm a servant to them, I just mean that taking care of my family and myself is a beautiful thing to be doing with my time right now. Instead of resenting it sometimes, welcoming it with open arms, could make all the difference in my own pleasure and satisifaction with my days.

And instead of reenforcing this notion of "Oh, I'm so tired and the cubs are so wild and none of my friends understand because they all have one child" I can try to use my yoga methods more and come to peace with the chaos of this phase in the cubs' development. It is really about accepting the situation and not feeling the need to change the situation.

Side notes: The cubs weren't napping again today and I wanted some me time with the book I'm reading "The Lovely Bones" I asked the girls to play together while I read and Ursula kept trying to climb on me. I finally got frustrated and stood up saying with my arms open "I need some space" then I walked into my bedroom and closed the door. All I heard from the cubs after that was "I need some space, I need some space" mimicking me. It was pretty funny and made me laugh in spite of myself. The other side-note is the cubs were fighting yesterday...I mean really fighting, tackling each other, trying to bite, head butting, pulling hair the works. I didn't stop them at first because I figured they were pretty evenly matched. I have never seen children that young go at each other like that. Once again I had to laugh in spite of the situation. Their expressions were quite comical.

So here we are sometimes broken, sometimes shining brighter than the Northern Star, but still this is perfect, as is. Grandly, messily, perfect.

Trying to keep Up

Together
Originally uploaded by Bear Woman

Ok, I'm not doing well at blogging. I really want to do this at least once a week, but....big sigh here...I get so carried away with life that I forget to record it. I suppose things could be worse. I know that being in the moment fully is more important than snapping a photo or writing a paragraph...but I really want to record it, damn it. So here we are, the cubs are almost two and a half now and the last time I wrote was at nineteen months. I have little notes all over the house hiding on scraps of paper and forgotten notebooks of our adventures but no one place to store it. So I'm making yet another commitment to this blogging thing. The community aspect of it isn't even what it is about, though I do lurk on others blogs. No for me, I just want to remind myself of the little things that mean so much to me.

Tonight the cubs are sleeping in their very own "Big Girl" bed for the very first time. The are usually each in their own crib and then come to the family bed in the middle of the night. We tried for nine months to start out in the family bed and then no one slept. It seems so many of my preconceived notions of parenthood have flown out the window. We finally had to give in and put them in seperate cribs, which meant that even though I was still waking every forty-five minutes to nurse a baby (the girls alternated night-time feedings one every hour pretty much on the hour) I could at least sleep for that forty-five minutes. Once we put them in cribs they started falling asleep so easily and early at night. It is the only easy thing about their sleep typically so I was nervous to take the cribs away. But, come on, they can crawl out of the cribs and it is really only a psychological boundary for them.

I found a queen-sized low-profile futon bed on craigslist so that if they roll out they have only a few inches to the floor...they flop around alot in their sleep, which is why sharing the family bed with them can sometimes be...um taxing...to say the least. They were really excited about the bed thing. Freya was crawling into the covers early and pretending to sleep. At one point she said to me "Get off the bed, Mommy. This is MY bed" Ursula also chastised me at least once for being on her bed. But then when it came to lights out they didn't want us to go. Freya insisted on a light being left on. They wanted me to sit with them. I lay down with them and, though I was about to fall asleep they were up wandering and chatting. I know it was so new to them and they were having a hard time closing their eyes, but I also know that having us in there is very distracting for them and if we just leave they fall asleep. So, with an unsure feeling, not knowing if I had ruined our sleep routine, I left the room. They fussed for about ten minutes and then went straight to sleep. They were so tired. Let me just say, that I know when they really need me in there and when they are being distracted by my presence. They behave differently. I never leave them when they are upset. But here they were just sort of goofing around with their droopy eyes.

I'll take some photos tomorrow of them on their new bed. So much going on today. We had a magnificent family day mostly playing outside in our refreshed and tree trimmed backyard. The cubs jumped in and out of their kiddie pool, sprayed Chris and me with the water hose, ran around naked and....get this...pee pee'd in their potties all day long...and Freya pooped in her potty. Wow, big steps. For the past several months they have NOT been digging the potty thing and mostly peeing on the floor. But today they were all about the potty. They would just go without telling me.

They are also both talking so much now. Full sentences of the funniest things come out of their mouths. The cubs and I were taking a bath the other day and I was really tired. I started rubbing my face and Freya leaned over, hugged me and said "Don't be sad, Mommy, don't be sad" It was so sweet. She also was playing a game with me when I was trying to read a magazine. She would take away the magazine I was reading and hand me a different magazine. I would say, "But I was reading that other magazine" She just shook her head and said "So sorry, Mommy, so sorry" and would continue to take away my magazine replacing it with a an unwanted magazine. I'm assuming that was her way of showing me what it felt like to have something you like taken away. Point taken, my sweets, point taken.

Ursula loved sorting coins. We keep a bowl of pocket change that has grown to quite a collection on the counter in the kitchen. She was crawling up ther and playing with the coins by pushing a chair over (my little climber) I'm trying to convince her to just ask me so that I can put the coins on the floor for her. When I see her playing with the coins she says "It's my game...I'm playing my game" I think it is cute that she calls it "her game"

Speaking of climbing. I've called 911 twice in the past week. Last Sunday we were hanging out running around the UT campus when the cubs started hanging on a chain between two posts. Ursa decided to use it as a swing and fell over backwards conking her head on the cement and knocking herself unconscious. I couldn't believe it. Chris picked her up and was trying to wake her but she was out. I thought I would freak out at a moment like that, but instead a calm spread over me. I felt absolutely nothing...no emotions...I think emotions would have clouded my judgement. I didn't even realize that I had noticed the police call boxes on campus, but obviously part of me had because without saying a word, I turned right around and went directly to one hitting the button and talking to 911. She was only out a couple of seconds and had no concusion. The paramedics checked her out and said she was fine. She was jumping up and down within fifteen minutes. But, I just wonder what we are in for. They are soooooo active and fearless. I love how confident they are in their bodies, but I also worry, especially with two of them. Then a couple of days ago, Ursa was on the floor and Freya picked up a dime and stuck it in her mouth. She was acting funny and Chris thought he felt a dime at the back of her throat. It wasn't coming out so we called 911. We were able to cancel that one, and Freya was fine...but ....really...two 911 calls in one week? That is too much. The day before Ursula fell off a bucket and sliced her finger open dripping blood everywhere and making me wonder if we needed stitches, then the day after that she fell out of Freya's crib while jumping and one minute later smacked her chin on the bar...prompting me to get rid of the cribs. Yikes....writing it like this, sounds crazy.

Ok, must go to bed. This is why I don't blog...so much comes oozing out that my posts are long. Maybe if I blog more I can keep the posts shorter. My sweet wild ones will be waking soon to join me in bed so I better brush my teeth. So much to be joyful about still. The energy that the tree-trimming and clean-up of the backyard opened up is opening in me too. I feel good things existing and dancing around every corner. Which is nice because last month I was in a depression. I'm glad I'm coming out of it. Sukha (good/free/beautiful space) that is my new favorite word, which is why I've added it to my title.