random conversation at the breakfast table

Greer: "I'm a japanese girl"
Isobella:  "And I'm a rock star girl"
Greer:  "And you're a japanese mum!!" (laughing)
Isobella: "Yeah mum a japanese mum!" (more laughing)
Me: "Why aren't I a rockstar mum?"
Isobella:  "Because you're not wearing sunglasses!

Ofcourse... stupid question. ;)

Want to smile?

Follow this link here and play the youtube clip to see something very lovely.

The "Let's Colour" project is a worldwide initiative to transform grey spaces with colour.  I could be cynical about the marketing aspect but I don't want to spoil it for you. ;)

a day

Today was a good day.   It started with me leaving home with no kids in the car.  I went and saw my spiritual director (yes, flash I know) and we talked about one of my favourite topics of the moment, the feminine attributes of God.   What I like to think of as "the she-ness of God."  There's another whole post in that... Then from there I went to my favourite library, the Kinder Library at St John's Seminary. I am reading through the diaries of Eliza White, a missionary in the Hokianga in the 1830's.   Research for that book.   That dream.  I sat in silence, in a beautiful space, with views of green and trees ahead of me.  A perfect day.  A day lived mostly in my head.  Do you know how peaceful it is in here?

Ten years ago I couldn't have imagined this kind of day.  I never could have dreamed that it would be possible, or that it would make me so happy.  Fifteen years ago you could have told me about today and I would have scorned it and told you it belonged to somebody else.  But I'm finally beginning to understand myself.  It will be a life's work, as it is for all of us.  By the time I'm eighty I'll know a thing or two.  For now I'm nearly half-way there and I feel like the journey's only just begun.   I know enough to have wanted today, and to have made it happen, and that's a revelation.  Today I was myself.

and the baby ate cake!

I always knew this was going to happen.  I've been thinking it and we've been saying it ever since that incredible day a year ago yesterday.  We knew she was going to be one in a flash.  And she is.   And it has been in a flash.  Knowing that time is going to go quickly doesn't really help you savour it though. Time just keeps on going, whether we stop to notice it or not.  And so I have a one year old.

She had a great day.  Dancing and friends at Mainly Music, then lunch with Abuela and Auntie Esme and cousin Jacob, then afternoon tea with Grannie and Auntie Joy and Uncle Dan and cousins, followed by dinner with Gran and Poppa.  Whew!  That's what you call sharing the love!

How does it feel to be one?  I used to think I could remember.  There's a photo of me at my first birthday with a bowl of ice-cream in front of me, my tongue stuck out as far as it can go.  As a child I knew all about that photo.  I remembered being that one year old, sticking my tongue out because I'd never had ice-cream before and I didn't know what to do with it. Well that was my story, anyway.  This one year old here, this darling Abigail of mine, she'd never had a whole piece of cake stuck in front of her either, but she sure knew what to do with it!