Embracing Our Potential

Today was really a chicken soup day. It was a curl up under the covers and ignore everything except what cartoon Bub wanted to watch next, day. A feisty summer cold has invaded the Rassette household, and it is exhausting. It started with Bub and spread like a grin on a face. It always starts in the dead of night, with soft whimpers that explode into bellows until Tom or I wipe away the sniffles and try to unplug the stuffed up nose. And after we've nursed and loved the cold (almost) away, we are rewarded with sneezes and coughs and sore throats of our own. But I thought maybe, just maybe, if I refused to believe the scratchiness behind my tongue and the raspy tickle deep in my chest---maybe---this cold would realize it was no match for me and fizzle away. So we postponed the chicken soup for just a little bit and took a walk around the lake instead.

Sometimes, especially when we are run down with colds, it feels like we are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The next germ, the next tantrum, the next sleepless night. The next bad day, late day, ruined dinner, misunderstanding. The next time Teebs acts like a maniac. The next time Bub is afraid of something/anything.

There is always that potential. That potential for something bad to happen. Or not even necessarily bad, but maybe just big. There is always potential. Because if there is one thing we have learned as parents, it is that nothing ever stays the same. It seems like just hours ago that Bub was cozied up in a little stroller with big, wide eyes examining the world. And now he stands behind the stroller of a baby brother, for a few tiny seconds before jetting off with his fast three year old feet and quick thinking mind of his own.

That looming potential is sometimes a heavy burden. The summer cold that starts with a few small sniffles in one child and spreads around the whole family is always potentially going to happen. A bad day or bad attitude is always potentially going to happen. There is always something bad next, or later, or again.

Because things aren't always going to be good.

But they also aren't always going to be bad.

And I think it's learning to handle the potential of both that really matters.

Like the little boy with a little rock,

who is overflowing with potential...

 ...to crack the calmness of this lake---

Sometimes life is as placid as a still lake. And sometimes life is full of potential of inevitable chaos, like when the calmness still exists but the pebble that will change everything is looming just a blink above the water---

And you can worry about the bad potential while things are grand and it's nowhere in sight, and then brace for its impact when the chaos is clearly a blink away. Or? Or...just sit back and take in the beauty of a little bit of disturbance.

Today we coughed a little, sneezed and whined just a tad. Scowled.

But we brushed our negativity just enough to the side to embrace a little bit of disturbance in our lives. Things might feel little overwhelming now. A little exhausting. A little daunting. A little bit unstable like a little teeter on the edge of a lake,

but this---this Rassette cold and uneasy worry, this cough, this runny nose, this set of warm tired eyes, this doubt---this has the undeniable potential to disappear as quickly as it came until there is no teeter at all:

Sniffles, whines, short fuses and all, my boys and I went for a walk today. Tomorrow has a whole new burden of potential for anything at all to happen, but today, before our chicken soup and cough drops and complaints, we went for a walk.

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Bub's World

 The new Monday blog feature--- photos straight from Bub's own Lego camera. Unedited and unprompted, this is the world completely through Bub's eyes.

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A Love, Life, Family, Wedding, Babies, Summer Post

Every time Tom and his siblings get together for a big event the picture happens.

When someone says "Hey, we haven't had a picture of the siblings in a long time!"

So they all jumble together in a bunch. Sometimes the five of them squeeze in line to fit on a love seat built for three. Sometimes they group in a lump of limbs---arms and shoulders and elbow jabs---outside in the yard.

But out of the five of them, someone will not smile at the right time. Or it won't be the right kind of smile. Or a brother will make a silly face or a bodily function. Then someone giggles. Then someone yells. And the whole thing is ruined. Sometimes someone will even have to apologize to the baby growing in their tummy for putting them through the chaos of the picture.

Whatever it is, something happens. Every. Time.

That chaos---the loudness and zest that is at every one of Tom's family functions---is why I love this family. But it's more than just that. It's the camaraderie, the passion. It's when someone is having a baby and getting married so everyone comes together, parking their cars in a heap whichever way they'll fit; to celebrate. 

It's seeing Bub mesh with his cousins like they are not his family, but his childhood friends, and playing until the parents pry their hands of toys and drag them inside to eat only to dash outside again as soon as they're done.

It's the movement of this family that I love. That slowness that comes from growing up in a small town. Where time never stops but it might just move a little bit slower because there are things that matter more than they would somewhere bigger.

And it's knowing that there is never a shortage of people who are begging to love my babies. That is what I love about this family.

Yesterday we came together to celebrate Tom's sister's marriage. But it was really more than that. We celebrated the anticipation of meeting the baby shes growing. The anticipation of the next cousin, the next best friend, the next set of little hands and feet to play at a family get together.

And Tom's family knows how to celebrate.

Which is exactly what I love about this family.

So when the sun starts to sink in an unstoppable way that says "this day is over," and everyone grabs a tired and cranky child and begins to gather belongings, there is always a sense of "until next time." Because there is always, always a reason to get together. Another summer evening, another celebration, another stomach that was empty but is now full of homemade food. There is always another.

There is always another reason to take a picture of all of the siblings together. And someday I really think they are going to rock that picture.

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The View from the Rocking Chair at 3 a.m.

The view from the rocking chair at 3 a.m., where I put my slippered feet onto the footstool and hold close a baby who is months too old to be waking and keeping me up at night. Where I watch his jaw chomps and milk gulps get slower and deeper and his eyes get heavier and smaller. Where his left hand fidgets with my eyes, and my cheeks, then tangles itself in my frazzled hair chunks, pulling, until his thumb pinches my nose, his palm slaps my neck, and slowly his belly fills and brims over with calmness. And his fidgety hand closes around itself . And he tucks it away. And his eyelids soften into sleep, for an hour, or two, or until morning. 

The view from the rocking chair at 3 a.m. where I struggle to cherish the 3 a.m. moment that someday will never happen again. Where my chin nods and my head bobs and I hear every vapid fog of silence racing through the house and I stare into the hallway and squint into a bedroom where a husband is still asleep in a warm cocoon of heat and blankets. Where my memory folds over and around and the minutes don't hold any meaning and I'm counting the little baby blinks until I can sleep again.

The view from the rocking chair at 3 a.m. when the baby is finally in a milk drunk slumber and one tiny half bit of his lip curls into a lazy smirk and I feel old when my body creaks out of the chair and I tip toe a loud and awkward tip toe over to the crib and lay him down and for the one moment where the warmth of his body is now on his bed instead of on me I feel a pinch of regret because it is one 3 a.m. closer to the last 3 a.m. that this child will love his mother so convincingly that I will run and scoop him up and nurse him looking out from behind the view from the rocking chair at 3 a.m.

Summer!

When the heat index is 115 degrees, it is really, really summer. Summer has arrived with a big gust of straight out of the oven door heat---bam---right in our face. It's sticky and revolting, a sweaty mess. Secretly? I love it.

And secretly, I love that Bub makes me suck my gut into my bathing suit and soar down our brand new Slip  'N Slide in the front yard. I put up a little bit of a fight at first, because it seems like the adult thing to do, but as soon as Tom jumped on the Slip 'N Slide bandwagon we became the neighborhood afternoon entertainment. There is no shame in this family.

Teebs is of course in the background giving me his infatuated glare, or, maybe he was just jealous of this:

Because nothing says summer fun, nothing says pure kid-joy, like not even realizing the heat index because the water straight from the hose is always the coldest water you've ever tasted.

And when the dampness and coldness of clinging swimming trunks starts to set in right down to your bones, there's only a few minutes of laying and baking between you and the roasting summer warmth.

Yesterday was quite possibly the most fun I have ever had with Bub. It's hard to see that kid-ness in him...those streaks of brilliant sentences and new ideas that he forms all on his own that reek of being a kid and very faintly resemble toddlerhood. And he notices it too.

After taking in a serene, melting sunset, our day was dwindling down to brushing teeth, picking up the remnants of boy toys that get strewn throughout the house and left behind in a boy toy trail of chaos,

and lastly, comes bedtime cuddles.

We read a story, cover up the toesies under Bub's blanket, and then Daddy gives "big hugs." Last night after our story, Bub said out of nowhere that he didn't want to get big. "I want to stay like this" he whimpered. Tom wrapped him up in a rowdy bear hug and asked "are you going to be my little Bubby forever?"

And in his best little boy voice, that didn't even have one hint of kid voice leaking through it, Bub said with hope "I'll try." Tom and I took one moment to quit breathing and look at each other with the "that boy, that is our baby, we made that" look, and the light switch was turned off, and the snuggles were given, and the door was shut, and a few moments of quiet reflection were had. We are trying too Bub, for a lot of things. We are trying too.

Happy. Summer.

Remembering: Why I Blog

At our very favorite park, just a quick drive, a traffic light, and a four way stop from our house---there is a buffalo.

There are real buffaloes at the park, actually. But at the grand entrance stands this statue creature. Bub calls it a "buffle," it's one of his pet names he chooses to keep even now that he's able to say and understand the three syllable "buffalo." That buffalo is the reason I blog.

My Dad and the buffle

I think the word "unmoving" is incredibly moving. And that buffalo is unmoving. My dad sat on that brick of concrete, under that mound of bronze buffalo in the 1960's. But children sat under it for 30 years before him, and decades after him, and as long as there is just a little daylight left after dinner and antsy children and parents with cameras---that unmoving buffalo will move more families to the park for as long as the pages of time flip forward. That buffalo is a reminder of the things in life that are unaltered by progress. For some things, progress means remaining the same. Like the same way that a mother's lap is always the softest place to hush your mind, look up, and giggle. That remaining the same is progress.

My Dad and my Grandma, basking in the park.

Or the same way that a boy and his bike are paired together like a masterpiece 

My Dad and his tricycle

Or how there was always one time, when a dearly loved grandfather was just a kid himself, with his little boy, squatting in the yard on a lazy day. 

My Dad and my Grandpa

These things happened. And for some reason, there was someone with a camera who kept these pictures for years. Because someone thought that it mattered. And that is why I blog---because I believe that life matters. It isn't so much the act of blogging that makes a difference for me, but the act of preserving. It is recognizing that each day is one day in an entire life filled with an eternity's worth of tiny moments. And they matter.

 My Dad's birthday

Birthdays matter.

Dad, excited about another birthday

Men, that were once chunky babies with chubby cheeks stuffed under hats, matter.

My Dad looking remarkably like Teebs

Because, at one time, everyone was at the young innocent age when the person they were going to become was a mystery, and those moments are magical. Especially when caught on film. And when you look back on a photo of a loved one, knowing the person they are, and seeing the person they were when they weren't anyone but a boy with an ornery smile, the connection becomes obvious. Like "Oh! Of course that is you!."

 My Dad looking remarkably like Bub.

Remembering simply matters.

My Grandma

Technology does progress, and the way that we remember changes. But there are moments all over time, when a man loved a woman and a car so much that he wanted them in a picture together.

My Grandma

And those classic, unchanging, facts of life are why I blog. There are so many memories each day that I try to retain, too many, and if I didn't write down and photograph everything I could then someday someone would say "do you remember when...?" and I would have to stop and squint and accept that I did not. For me, this blog is about remembering. It is about remaining the same. Each post is a paused, brief, juncture in time. And the minute I take that photo and pair it with that just right paragraph, then I did it, I saved it. Saving, chronicling, remembering---these things are progress. Remembering that some things remaining constant is a progress all of its own. These things feed our soul, grow our soul, progress our soul with new appreciations for life.

 My grandparents, in 1950's West Virginia

My boys and I are going to take on another Thursday. There were Thursdays before today, and there will be a Thursday one week and infinite weeks from today. But this one is today. We are going to take in each moment and make every effort to appreciate the things today that matter.