God's creation

A couple of weeks ago my grandmother, my sister and I, along with our children, spent a week at a cottage together.  The temperature soared into the 40s with the humidex, and sleep was hard to come by in the stifling air.  That was how one morning found me wandering the shores by the cottage at sunrise, well before my children began to stir.

The heat was visible in the hazy air.  The lake gave no relief; even its colour was a purple-grey that gave no indication of the deep blue cool promise it usually offers.  I grabbed my camera to capture some of the stillness of God's creation.

After the trip, when I looked back over the footage, I was disappointed by the results.  The images I captured were beautiful in their own right, with the light playing over the angles, sunbursts on the water, well framed and focused photographs, but none of the shots seemed right.  The wide angles were too wide to carve out detail and the close ups excluded the vastness of the beauty.

There was a moment as I stood on the shores of the lake in which the horizon receded into a tiny strip of land, and the towering trees were but a pencil line above that.  What caught my breath was the vast expanse overhead, the feeling of the infinite atmosphere bent in a covering arc over the earth below.  The uniform colour of blue was light and hazy and, at the same time, at the feeling of expanding forever into space and folding in to protect its inhabitants.

It's in these type of quiet moments that my soul knows this life is not an accident.

Little town

There is something in me that has always yearned for the country.

But today, I needed to do a quick cut on my mitre saw that my sister-in-law had borrowed.  So we hopped in the car with the wood, drove five minutes, cut the piece, and came home.

On the way, I dropped off a cup of coconut to a friend who needed some for a recipe.

Last week we had friends over for dinner, and had two surprise drop-ins from other in-town friends to borrow items from us.  Each stayed for a half hour visit to chat and let the kids run around.

This wonderful idea of community is only possible because we live in town.  It's giving me seconds thoughts about so passionately pursuing country-living.

Colinism

We've been doing really well on our goal to bike more and drive less this summer.  Caleb is getting really good on two wheels, and Ben will reluctantly get into the trailer when we have to go across town and I know it's too far for his training wheels.

I've also been taking the boys one by one on nice days, after dinner, for a ride just the two of us.  Each ride is completely different, both because of the skill level and the personality of the rider.

A couple of weeks ago when Colin and I went biking at the local conservation, we biked 11 km together.  As we went along, we would pass about ten minutes in silence.  Then one of of would speak a sentence or two, to which the other would reply.  Then we would fall once again into our comfortable silence.  It was striking to see how alike Colin and I are, both introverts, both love nature, both happy to just be with each other without feeling the need to fill the beautiful peaceful silent with words.

Juliettables

Oh, how those early months of life mean so many changes, so quickly!  I tell my kids almost daily to please stop growing.  They get a kick out of smiling and swearing they are growing taller before my very eyes.  Then they stretch themselves up onto their tiptoes and widen their eyes to huge saucers (not sure why they equate big eyes with growing!) and giggle as they "grow."

Two weeks ago, on the very day she turned 13 months, Juliette started walking.  We spent the morning at an indoor playland, and with all that room to roam, she let go of my hand and wandered off in amazement.  At the rate she walks now, you'd hardly believe she only has two weeks of experience under her belt!  And she is in love with shoes.  After the last week on vacation up at a cottage, she stubbed her big toe so many times it was permanently scraped and bleeding all week.  And so I reluctantly covered up those lovely little toes that I've let go barefoot everywhere for the past 13 months.  Now she wants to wear shoes everywhere.  There are a handful of different pairs on the shoe shelf, and she loves to go and bring you some to put on her feet.  This morning when I asked the boys to get their shoes on to go, she was right in there, sitting on the floor with them, trying so hard to wiggle her feet into her sandals.

She is also moving past her simple finger foods.  The easy to make peas, carrots, blueberries, raspberries and bananas are holding no interest.  About a month ago she gave up on pureed food completely in favour of finger foods.  Now she seems to understand that the "big people" have full meals on their plates, and she wants some of that.  Unless I serve her chicken.  That girl could eat an adult size chicken breast and still ask for more!  I'm on a quest now for some more complex food ideas for her, but it's not an easy task.  I need foods that can be made in advance and frozen, so I'm not preparing an entire second meal every mealtime.  And they need to be grain-free and dairy-free.

Juliette puts herself right into the fray with anyone and everyone.  I guess that comes from the chaos of three older brothers who aren't really that much older.  There's a lot of movement in our home, and she is not one to sit back and watch or get lost.  It's good to see her brothers pulling her right into the fun.

My arm muscle definition is massive.  I spend most of my day carrying her, sitting on my hip and balancing her in the crook of my arm.  I don't use my baby carrier because most of what I do during the day requires me setting her down and picking her up a hundred times an hour.  Built in gym.

She's starting to get used to the baby seat on my bike, which makes me happy.  I plan to bike a lot come the fall, when it's just her and I.  In fact, I hope to bike everywhere as long as the weather is good.

She has finally come around to cuddling.  Before, she cuddled to nurse and that was it.  Even at bedtime, she preferred nursing instead of cuddling.  But last week at the cottage we spent a lot of time in our bathing suits, slathered up with sunscreen.  So that meant she spent a lot of time wrapped up in a towel after a swim or a bath.  Now she absolutely loves to bring a blanket or a towel to me, to wrap around her shoulders and sit up on my knee, her head leaning against my shoulder.

She is a tour de force, that's for sure.  We always know what she wants and how she is feeling.  But I wouldn't expect any less from one of my kids :)

Writing

(My absence last week was due to a vacation I took with the kids, my sister, my niece, and my grandmother.  Details to come once I have the photos to include.)

I got word last week just before leaving on vacation that I would once again have an essay published in a book!  Last time it was a small excerpt; this time its the whole essay.  I'm not sure yet what the format is, as I noticed there are only eleven essays to be included.  Nevertheless, I'm excited.

Yesterday I got word that a short film for which I wrote the script has garnered some interest from an investor that wants to move ahead with 4-5 more short films to package together.  I was contacted by the producer in hopes that I'll be on board again.  These projects also mean assistant directing again, which is probably one of my most favourite roles in filmmaking.

I've always loved writing.  I still have a huge box in the basement of things I've written over the years, going back to my elementary school days.  I always wanted to write something bigger, something to submit to publishers, something to find its way to the printed page.  I always thought that would happen once I sat myself down in front of a computer and simply banged out my masterpiece one word at a time.  I've had hundreds of ideas pass through my mind, a countless beginnings of stories that floundered and were abandoned not long after their genesis.

Now, instead of a big bang, there seems to be a slow creation process instead.  A blog to gather ideas, a few blog entries submitted to a website, a couple of essays published online, a produced script, a printed excerpt, a printed essay... I look around at these new beginnings and smile with a little excitement.  Maybe, one day, I will look back at this time and pinpoint it as the true start of a writing career.

I still have those couple of really big projects I want to get to, but not yet.  Those will be reserved for days down the road when my children are more independent and need less of my constant attention.  Funny enough, I no longer feel a sense of urgency to get something done right now.  Now, there is a feeling of a peaceful journey, an idea that I'm walking down a path I am meant to walk, and there is no need to run.  All things in their time and season.  Accomplishments need not be all finished in my early years.  A book written when I am 25 or 35 or 55 years old is still a book written from that which is in me.

And so I write.  Likening the experience to birthing a baby (an often used simile), while the experience is usually painful if it is to be honest and true and if it is to reach others, it cannot be forced too early from the womb.  There is a set time of gestation, and when it is ready, it will emerge into the world at exactly the time it was meant to.

Benjaminugget

Last week we sang "O Canada" at church, in honour of Canada Day.  I love our national anthem.  In grade 5 we had to learn all the verses, and I still remember them all to this day.  I have a real patriotic streak running through me, which has trickled down to my boys.  Even Benjamin known most of the English first verse from preschool this year.

So that Sunday at church, as the organ sang out the opening bars, Benjamin's face lit up, he jumped to his feet and loudly proclaimed for all to hear: "It's the hockey song!"

Summer goals

Okay - so those aren't fabulous pictures, but here are Colin and Caleb's summer goal charts.  (You can see Colin's 5 chapter books already completed.)  We worked on coming up with the goals together, a combination of things I hoped they would learn and things they wanted to learn.

Colin:
- learn guitar, practice 10 minutes a day (I need to buy new strings for his guitar)
- ride his bike twice a week (to help him learn to navigate our town on his own)
- write weekly in his journal
- read 5 chapter books
- catch 100 pop flies (to help him improve his baseball skills for his team this year)

Caleb:
- cook Sunday lunch (he wanted to learn how to cook)
- learn the trumpet
- ride his bike (learn to ride on two wheels)
- write in journal (dictate to me, and then draw a picture)
- read 100 books

Both boys also have a summer workbook to complete about 3 pages a day, to bridge the gap from June to September and keep their French up.  So far things are going fairly well.  Bike riding is something I love to do also, so every day (so long as it's not raining) I'm taking one of the boys on a short bike ride. The workbooks they work on during naptime to keep them quiet.  The journal we write in once a week during naptime also.  The books are on their own time.  The pop flies haven't started yet, but I've top-loaded our summer activities, so July is pretty busy while August will have more time to ourselves.