One week from today we will have a new president of the United States. Please God, let it be Barack Obama. Let this country heal, let our nation be lead by intelligence, competence, respect for humanity, and diplomacy.
A few weeks ago I took all three kids to see Obama along with 20,000 other Cincinnati residents. We saw old, young, black and white waving flags and being proud of their country...feeling hope in our future.
We have a nation in transition. We have a world full of evil. But we also have the promise of a nation that has the power to do good things in the world.
Get out and vote. Help someone else to get to the polls.
Peace.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Leaf Flurries
The gorgeous days of early fall are here with their vibrant hues of orange, red, purple and gold. Already it is mid-October. I've been holed up in my house for the past two months grading papers and taking care of my new teaching responsibilities after going back to work as an adjunct in the English Dept. at Northern Kentucky University. I've never felt pulled in so many different directions. I have my three babies at home to watch over and feed and nurture, then what feels like my 60 babies to teach, remind, assess, respond to, and redirect. Somehow I imagined that teaching would be this perfect part time fit for me; I could not have been further from the truth.
But we're hanging in there. John has really stepped up and taken on a lot more around the house and with the kids. He's morning carpool driver, chief lunch packer, and cooks dinner at least two nights a week.
The fall has also brought new challenges for the kids. Julia has started playing soccer and has about 3 games left to her season. For a kid whose never played a team sport before, I think she's been amazing. She's typically cautious on the field, but she's made contact with the ball and even made a few assists. Plus she's just so darn cute out there in that royal blue Nativity Kings uniform with that strawberry blond ponytail blowing in the breeze. She has a look on her face that is a cross between concentration and fear, as though she is praying, "please don't let the ball come my way." I remember similar prayers as an outfielder when a heavy hitter would step up to bat.
Ian, too, has taken to the field playing in an instructional soccer league called Ken-Sil. He plays on a 4 and 5 year old team and though they've yet to actually play a "game", they seem to have a lot of fun just doing drills. He waves at me wildly from the group making sure that I saw his kick or stops mid-run to ask, "can I go climb that tree over there?" He has entered a whole new stage of his life that exists outside of our home; school, sports, friends. He is growing up so fast. Just today I noticed this little box of blocks he hasn't played with in such a long time. My heart just tightened at remembering his little hands on those blocks and how big he seems in comparison to them now. This is what people should think about when they are rushing around to fold laundry and clean kitchens, that there are only so many afternoons they'll want you to get down on the floor and build miniature villages out of those little blocks.
Oh, but thank God for little Norah...one last chance to get it right! She is so fast and nosey! She is climbing up and down stairs (though not well enough to allow me to exhale once in awhile). She dumps over art projects and destroys Lego cars that took days to build. She piles mardi gras beads around her neck and crawls from room to room jabbering away, dragging her beads behind her. She has these two adorable, unbelievably sharp baby teeth with which she regularly reaches out to bite you. Despite her miniature size, she eats at least as much as the two older kids, if not more. She bangs her fists and demands more spaghetti before anyone else has even sat down! We think she went straight from breast milk to a taco. She's my pal, and we've got ourselves a little rhythm now.
Life is full, and we are blessed. This is a mantra I have to continually remind myself of in these trying times. I turn on the radio or news and I'm bombarded with all there is to fear in the world; money problems, job insecurity, health care woes, and it is hard not to be overwhelmed by these things. I have to just keep looking at my little family to realize that if we have each other, we can take care of the rest.
But we're hanging in there. John has really stepped up and taken on a lot more around the house and with the kids. He's morning carpool driver, chief lunch packer, and cooks dinner at least two nights a week.
The fall has also brought new challenges for the kids. Julia has started playing soccer and has about 3 games left to her season. For a kid whose never played a team sport before, I think she's been amazing. She's typically cautious on the field, but she's made contact with the ball and even made a few assists. Plus she's just so darn cute out there in that royal blue Nativity Kings uniform with that strawberry blond ponytail blowing in the breeze. She has a look on her face that is a cross between concentration and fear, as though she is praying, "please don't let the ball come my way." I remember similar prayers as an outfielder when a heavy hitter would step up to bat.
Ian, too, has taken to the field playing in an instructional soccer league called Ken-Sil. He plays on a 4 and 5 year old team and though they've yet to actually play a "game", they seem to have a lot of fun just doing drills. He waves at me wildly from the group making sure that I saw his kick or stops mid-run to ask, "can I go climb that tree over there?" He has entered a whole new stage of his life that exists outside of our home; school, sports, friends. He is growing up so fast. Just today I noticed this little box of blocks he hasn't played with in such a long time. My heart just tightened at remembering his little hands on those blocks and how big he seems in comparison to them now. This is what people should think about when they are rushing around to fold laundry and clean kitchens, that there are only so many afternoons they'll want you to get down on the floor and build miniature villages out of those little blocks.
Oh, but thank God for little Norah...one last chance to get it right! She is so fast and nosey! She is climbing up and down stairs (though not well enough to allow me to exhale once in awhile). She dumps over art projects and destroys Lego cars that took days to build. She piles mardi gras beads around her neck and crawls from room to room jabbering away, dragging her beads behind her. She has these two adorable, unbelievably sharp baby teeth with which she regularly reaches out to bite you. Despite her miniature size, she eats at least as much as the two older kids, if not more. She bangs her fists and demands more spaghetti before anyone else has even sat down! We think she went straight from breast milk to a taco. She's my pal, and we've got ourselves a little rhythm now.
Life is full, and we are blessed. This is a mantra I have to continually remind myself of in these trying times. I turn on the radio or news and I'm bombarded with all there is to fear in the world; money problems, job insecurity, health care woes, and it is hard not to be overwhelmed by these things. I have to just keep looking at my little family to realize that if we have each other, we can take care of the rest.
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