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Monthly Archives: September 2011
The second post in my “We the Grateful” project. You can read the who, how and why behind it, and view the whole project in progress here.
They are grateful . . .
   
I will be adding to this project each week and it will live on this here page, so swing by again soon!
If you would like to post a photo of yourself and what you are grateful for, or someone you meet and their shared gratitude, please add to the Flickr group.
And a big Thank You to all the lovely people who are part of “We the Grateful” !!!
A healthy obsession, I soaked baby man in this same week in September, a year ago. We slept and slept, when awake I gazed on each precious bit of him. Memorizing the furry hair on his shoulders, his skinny wrinkly legs, that crumpled ear, how he cocks one eye half open, fresh lips sucking, tiny fingers curling, toes reaching, and his silly little tummy. I absorbed him as my 5D sat in the corner, new a month before it was still unfamiliar in my hands. More than that it was a lens, heavy between us. I wanted no barriers, no cutting up of time. I needed to steep in it all, knew I must just BE with him, and every spare shred of energy was to tell my boys I was still with them and would be stronger soon.
And now a year later I open the birthday onesies my mom, his Gramz sent and I find the bigger hidden present. I flip through myriads of snapshots, uploaded to my Mac twelve months ago by Gramz with her iphone and a bit more energy than me. Her never feeling like an artist, she captured me and him, his Dad, his brothers meeting. And as stingy as I am with my Jeremiah, every time she held him she snapped all his tiny bits, hands, feet, a chubby cheek, his fuzzy hair. I am overwhelmed to see that now I can remember what it was to hold his newness on my chest, to glance down through bits of dream and see the miracle grow. What a gift, accidentally given by a heart enthralled, obsessed just like mine.
(and it makes me want to say – just take the pictures! No matter if you think you can or if anyone will care, just reach out and scoop up the time )
9 – 10 . Gramz’s iphone, my editing
One year ago my baby was one day old. My man and I were still in shock from his early, crazy traumatic arrival, trying to get Gramz across the country to take care of our boys. My legs were barely starting to function again as I learned what an emergency c-section felt like, traveling a road I had never expected but always feared. Amidst the fog of doctors, nurses, pain meds and hormones, we snapped iphone pictures that don’t do his newborn beauty justice, but that capture those first surreal hours.
An hour after he was pulled from me breathless and I lay bleeding, just one hour and I was reassembled, nursing my baby. Flat on my back so I wouldn’t pass out, still able to nourish him, supported, encouraged by kind women. My man holding my hand, keeping watch over us.
Light years away it seemed from my first sons’ smooth, natural births. Pure miracle it was, less than a year after losing our Joshua. No matter the way precious Jeremiah arrived, the joy and relief, the overwhelming love was just the same. His birthday was beauty through and through, moments that can’t be touched except in that day of heaven sent magic. Moments that took hold of me, changed and informed every step of my life from then on.
One year later, I hold a healthy baby man whose smile lights up our world. Once more I am taught what it means to be mom, and I am so. very. grateful.
Grateful for this year with him, praying for the ones to come . . . Thankful for beauty from ashes, for good gifts from above, a baby asleep on my chest, a silly little man climbing on my lap!
Always there is that tension, I don’t want the time to slip away, but I wouldn’t go back. I want to see him grow, but I always want to hold my baby. My man and I rage and crumble from all that has battered us these past two years. Still he tells me he wouldn’t change a thing, and I can agree because I hold my Jeremiah Asher.
One year from today I hope to have lived better, loved truer, praised God more, forgiven faster, holding tight the hands of my boys, in the arms of my man.
(a photography project)
Through my journey of pain and loss, blessings and healing, mistakes and miracles, I am learning gratitude. I wanted to explore and document what others are grateful for, to join them in their thankfulness and show it to the world. And so I walk up to complete strangers, ask them what they are thankful for and take their pictures.
We the Grateful is simply their gratitude, their images shared for all to see. They are grateful . . .
I will be adding to this project each week and it will live on this here page, so swing by again soon!
If you would like to post a photo of yourself and what you are grateful for, or someone you meet and their shared gratitude, please add to the Flickr group.
And a big Thank You to all the lovely people who are part of “We the Grateful” !!!
My boys are growing SO fast! Our summer was just fantastic and I felt sad to see it end. But, now that the first week of school has come and gone we are all happy and excited to be back in the school groove.
They go to a charter school (that I am very very thankful for) and are home schooled three days a week and in class two days a week. I am enjoying my time with just the baby man and am motivated for our lovely days learning together also. Early readers, Saxon math, Greeks, Romans, home made volcanoes, and insects galore, etc etc Here We Come!!!
This year I vow to stay committed to not succumbing to any real or imagined pressure to do numerous soul crushing worksheets and busywork. I will teach the things that matter in a way that makes sense to the little boys that I know better than anyone else. And I pray that this will lead to their success in life, but most of all that they will understand the world they live in as best they can, be happy, and NEVER stop learning!
It boggles my mind how amazing it is that people have worked together to make this charter school thing a reality, and at the same time I don’t understand why the option isn’t available everywhere. I love that we can be a mix of a classical education, Charlotte Mason philosophy, traditional teaching methods and curriculum, learning styles, some Montessori and Waldorf, maybe even a bit of unschooling when the day demands it, and still be in step with State standards. I love that we have support, documentation and community through their school while still having freedom and lots of time together.
We will see what the year brings, I’m optimistic . . . and I’m stickin to that! I’m so thankful for this time with them, and I’m savoring every moment alike, the ones ripe with discovery and they ones where I sound out three letter words for what seems like hours . . . I know it will go way too fast.
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