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five finds friday. (homemade board games, babies & Bergen)
Friday’s here. It always comes quickly. Even when it feels like I’ve not been busy and even when it feels as if I am moving at breakneck speed. I’m somewhere in between right now. Last week I was sitting on a dock staring at a lovely and calm lake. But that’s not my normal. Honestly, nothing feels normal. And hasn’t for a long time. Distracted and without direction has been my M.O. lately I think. Although, if I analyze my time usage and productivity, that’s not exactly accurate. But – something is off, that’s for certain. funny Last night Piper and Otto and my faux son Matthew stole an idea…
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five finds friday (otto’s birthday, boots I can’t wear & chili)
Today my youngest son turns ELEVEN. I’m almost entirely out of the “kids eat free” stage of parenting. In fact, I’d say I’m pretty heavily into the “kids eat expensively” stage of parenting. (Maybe that’s EVERY stage of parenting.) Anyway, he’s an easy fella to celebrate and I’m looking forward to celebrating his Harry Potter birthday. (That’s what the kids are calling it, since that fictional fellow’s 11th birthday is when all of his adventures began.) Let’s hope Otto doesn’t attend a secret wizarding school and run into a lot of problems that keep his life almost constantly at risk. funny The other day I walked into the living room.…
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from the cabin: Bergen Hawkeye at Lost Valley
He doesn’t know I am watching him. My fourteen year old son. I’m on the porch, settled on the porch swing. Basha blanket from home wrapped around me because of the surprisingly low temperatures. Hot tea in a Lost Valley mug by my side. Pen. Notebook. It’s all good. He’s well below the cabin. Waiting for his friend to exit his cabin and to join him in some wild outdoor adventure of their own design. He’s got some pole with a red rope attached to the end. He’s whipping it around. Occasionally hitting himself. Grinning. Content and absolutely present in his own life. Bergen is a master at creativity. Simple…
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He’s Thirteen.
I’ve been writing about this boy for his entire life. That time he brought me flowers in his grubby four year old hands. His obsession with soy lecithin and BHT that sent our entire family down a new food direction. The lessons he has always been teaching me. If I spend too much time reading back through old blog posts and looking at old videos and photos, I’m afraid my heart will implode and I’ll be a blubbering mess. From his first breath in this world to this very evening when I tucked him into his bed, his last night as a twelve year old boy, Bergen…
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Adventuring with Bergen: An Early Birthday Trip
What a busy busy week it was last week. Even though it was a few weeks early, Bergen and I took off to celebrate his thirteenth birthday. We had to seize our opportunity early because his birthday wish for his adventure was to go skiing. And you just can’t go skiing in the south in April. Shoot, often you can’t go skiing in the south in March. But like a little birthday miracle, not only was the ski slope open for one last week, we actually even had legitimate snow falling all around us. We drove up in the mountains north of Asheville and the snow was…
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Beyond Wildwood: Ranch Ramblings (On Hawkeye)
Deep calls to Deep. Wild calls to Wild. Where have I heard that? Did I read it somewhere? Did someone speak it to me? I’m sure I’m forgetting my source and not giving credit where it is due. Last year I wrote the same thoughts in some other version. When I say these words – Deep calls to Deep – I am thinking of my oldest son. It’s written all over Bergen Hawkeye’s face. His body language. His grin. His easy conversation with the folks at the ranch. This boy feels at ease here. Feels comfort and feels free to be wild. (Not rowdy-wild, free-wild.) And…
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From One Gigantic Number to the Next: Happy Birthday Bergen Hawkeye
Today my oldest son turns twelve years old. Twelve years since I hugged his wee baby self in a hospital room in Virginia. His Monday night birth caused us to miss Riley’s third grade recorder recital. A recorder recital. With twenty third graders. Playing their plastic recorders. (And Bergen’s been bringing good gifts like that our way his entire life.) Ironically, the delivering doctor had a daughter in Riley’s third grade class as well. A third grade fellow recorder player. He, also, offered his sincere thanks to our freshly born son. The very next day after Bergen was born, he and I alone in a…
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watching the hawkeye shed his skin
I watch my children. I study them. Like it’s my job. Because, I think it is. For the past few years I’ve noticed a trait in my oldest son. Possibly it’s hereditary. Or circumstantial. Or both. I’m not sure that it matters which. I just know, I’ve seen it on my boy. I have seen it on him like you would see a heavy cloak – or a bathrobe – or if he decided to play dress up in a grown man’s oversized dress shirt. Fear. It’s dangly and uncomfortable and it doesn’t really fit his form. It’s hindering him at every single step and he is certainly…
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Five Finds Friday (boots (what?), kettles & ice skates)
Every week, the feeling never changes. The week was both slow and fast. At the same time. Reminds me of a quote by Oscar Wilde – Does anyone ever realize life while they are living it? FUNNY Amazon Prime is not funny. It’s fabulous. And recently our family has met a new friend through Amazon Prime called the Firestick. It’s not funny either. No – it’s also fabulous. It’s probably been out for ages, what do I know about anything having to do with technology? The iCloud confounds me and I can never even find my charger cables, let alone download anything properly. How do I…
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the end is not like the beginning: A God story
I don’t have a new year’s introspective look-back look-ahead kind of post inside me tonight. Not for this year. Not for the last year. Maybe next year? Who am I kidding? I can’t emotionally afford to think about New Year’s Day 2018 right now. I’m literally sitting at my kitchen table with zero plan of how this simple blog entry will even end in a few minutes, I certainly don’t have what it takes right now to envision an entire year looming in front of my face. To my right, my vanilla tea is hot. I’m thankful for that. The fridge is a wasted storage space for nothingness because…
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words for bergen hawkeye
Recently I had an opportunity to watch my son interact with a bunch of other fellas in a group setting. I was able to sit along the side, unobserved, and just watch all of the boys and the group leaders work together. It was funny, for sure, to sit quietly in a room exploding with boy and to watch the conversations and the awkward and the regular. Of course, I had to write down words, which led to other words, which led to this poem of sorts. __________ Oh, these boys. The hair choices they are making. The both wanting to fit in and the wanting to…
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Five Finds Friday (cute pottery and cute earrings and cute sons but not cute grocery bills)
A couple of sleepless nights, a week full of appointments and a little leaf catching on a windy fall day – that’s the quick highlights reel of this week I think. FUNNY The boys had a camp out last weekend. It was cold where they camped. (Really cold.) Their socks got wet. They shivered in their sleeping bags and stayed constantly dirty for three days. They loved it. Otto, who had won the bottle rocket contest at the pervious year’s camp out, set out with a rickety bottle rocket co-built by his brother to defend his championship title. He came back proud of his second or…
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Eleven. (Say it ain’t so.)
He is such an easy boy to love. Known for his entire first year of life as The Model Citizen, Bergen Hawkeye has been charming my heart for eleven solid years now. I’ve written about him tons and tons of times. The funny things he says and his kind manners and his all boy not-enough-fear adventures. I love being his momma. “For your birthday son, what would you like to do?” And he says, “Play Legos with my friends.” Done. And done. (Talk about your low key birthday parties.) Bergen is handsome. He’s smart. (A mom can say these things about her boy.) He knows more about space and robots…
