Inadequate

I've taken a thousand pictures. I have tried different angles, lighting, settings, and distances. I've gotten different expressions, motions, looking straight at the camera, away, focusing on her tiny fists held up for observation, and intensely gazing into my eyes. I've taken pictures of her dark brown hair wisping around her ears, her grey-blue eyes, her puckered mouth, her little fingers, and her chubby cheeks. But nothing comes even close to her vibrancy, how *alive* she feels as you look at her, as she looks at you, completely trusting you. More than trust: it's as if the word trust does not exist, because it implies that there could be an opposite. She lives in a world where she can never imagine harm, pain, or anything but love, devotion, warmth, and kind words. No camera can capture her intensity, her intelligence, her innocence, her knowing. But more than that, no one else could see it either. No one will ever see or feel her as vibrantly and as real as I can. No one can ever see a child through the eyes of her mother.

I am afraid that no matter how many pictures I take, I will forget her just as she is, right now.

Innocent and perfect.

A Recap of January

Well for my first month's worth of goals, I think I did pretty good. Here's the recap:

SEWING: One skirt and head scarf for Lilith.One pair of black fleece pants
for Lachlan.Fabric purchased to make my sister a laptop cover.Purchased
a shirt pattern for the boys.

FOOD STORAGE/PRESERVING: several dozen egg
rolls made and frozen. Not sure on the final count, but I believe I went through
4 pkgs, totalling about 65-70 wrappers. 10 lbs of chicken quarters boiled,
deboned, and separated into 4 meals of shredded chicken

SIMPLIFYING: 1 trash bag of clothes, one of toys, and 2 walmart bags of socks
out

REUSED/RE-PURPOSED: two adult-sized skirts re-sized for the
girls

WORDS WRITTEN ON STORY: 1591 plus one illustration uploaded


I admit, I procrastinated on the cleaning out of stuff. I didn't get one bag out per week, I got one bag here, one there, and then the sock ones on the last weekend. But this month, I'm already ahead :D.

I'm going to add one more goal to this list, and I'm going to challenge Mark with it too: No more "drive-by parenting". No yelling from the other room to stop fighting, no throwing answers to questions over my shoulder, it's time to engage with the kids and treat them like human beings instead of something I "have" to referee or give cursory attention to. I'm going to clear off the sidebar and we'll see how things go from there.