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Text of the page (random words):
are created and as she brought me ingredients i stirred them gently with a stick water from the rain barrel twelve tiny round seeds from the dogwood tree which needed to be peeled to the fleshy white center the innermost yellow nectar of the mandevilla flower the smallest scales of a pine cone all summer she d been discovering a level of beauty that i d never seen in my own yard after she declared the potion was complete i was required to sit criss cross while holding the bowl at arm s length as she jumped in a circle around me if the potion didn t spill it was strong enough although she jumped with all her might i managed to pass the spill test i followed her off the trampoline and around the yard as she carefully distributed bits of the potion naming the various types of animals we ve seen out back deer hedgehogs turtles rabbits squirrels tonight i ll tell her that i did recreate one photo from the potion process this morning the inside of a torn mandevilla because it was just too beautiful to trust to my memory and i ll tell her that although she didn t know it she conjured her potion on the eve of equinox when all creatures begin preparations for winter one child s faith in magic will surely bring them strength amy rawe posted in mamahood and tagged beauty childhood equinox magic nature potion 05 sep 2015 10 comments back in the sandbox with summer officially over i face the fact that just like last summer i gave my writing the silent treatment i posted no blogs which is doom and gloom because the publishing industry experts all say that if you want get your book published you ve got to have a lot of followers and you don t get followers if you don t put stuff out there for people to find and follow so i default to flogging myself with brutal mental beatings chastising my lack of commitment and creativity then sufficiently battered i switch to allowing excuses to whine their way in but i ve had a lot of clients blahdee blahbitty blah but if i m honest with myself i ll fess up that i ve felt stuck voiceless and when i ve tried to write the words feel stiff i start thinking about the followers and can t imagine i have anything of value to add to the din of voices out there vying for cyber attention so i hide and don t write and i forget that this doesn t need to be such serious business i forget that my intention when i began rawe struck was to be raw and full of wonder and that if even just one person felt a me too connection with what i put out there that would be enough i forget how playing with words lights me up and i stop playing when i become self concious about who s watching i think about what i would tell nina if she strayed from a practice she loved doing the answer comes simply and clearly just begin again i would advise her not to waste anymore time paralyzing herself with self woven restraints of guilt or worry about what other people think i would tell her to jump in and rediscover the joy of why she wanted to do that thing in the first place just begin again i would tell her that sometimes we lose sight of our path and spend day after day poking about in the weeds and a lot of fast talking should experts live in those weeds we scurry around in circles with them for awhile and figure we ll get back on path someday i might tell her about this time right now when i forgot about why i loved writing and that my someday became a season and that i realized that was ok i ll tell her i had the courage to return and this time because i thought of how i would talk to myself if i were talking to her i said welcome back instead of it s about time loser i ll tell her i even said to myself you re right on time sweet cheeks now get back in that sandbox of words and play posted in mamahood writing and tagged beginning again followers joy play self talk shoulds voice writing 30 mar 2015 7 comments leaning towards love i saw this bumper sticker some time ago and have been thinking about how it applies to so many choices we make or don t make today i m especially thinking about how it applies to parenthood and how love and fear aren t one or the other options the two core emotions are intertwined like the helix s of our emotional dna each weaving through our hearts minds and decisions from conception on the love is fierce and the fears whether real or imagined can drop us to our knees yet when the worst fears for our children become our reality don t we instinctively lean just a little harder into love than fear eight years ago when nina was admitted to nicu for evaluation of the hole in her tiny heart we leaned into love although fear pulled at us like quicksand today i lean with all i have into love for my spirited friend who has rocked motherhood and lives life out fiery loud all while refusing to let years of countless and painful cancer treatments define her or her family and today i also lean with all my force into love for my friends whose 8 year old son will undergo surgery tomorrow to remove a mass in his brain i wonder if this is one of the most essential paradoxes of parenthood that we will never learn about in a guidebook there will be immense breathtaking love there will be immense breathtaking fear sometimes they will coexist each with such ferocity that we can hardly bear the weight but then the burdens we thought we d never face as parents learning the steps required before entering a nicu room setting up a caring bridge sight for a child become things for which we re most grateful we whisper thank you for the safety of nicu we whisper thank you for the outpouring of love that floods the child s caring bridge site and maybe it s the best we can do as parents to grab on and nudge one another towards the greater than guiding force of love rather than crumbling into fear for today i ll go with that posted in mamahood monday s wonder 23 feb 2015 6 comments snow days flashback nina had no school last week due to ice and snow we weathered it without incident snuggling reading and roasting marshmallows the first few days by thursday cabin fever had set in and we seemed to have a primal squaring off bickering with one another and stooping to cheating at board games the week s mix of sweet and sour days brought flashbacks of our first two snow days together in 2010 nina was three and in preschool early december 2010 snow day 1 today was nina s first experience with no school because of snow we had such a sweet and magical day marveling at the peaceful beauty of winter and the good fortune to be together each second we baked cookies and decorated the christmas tree while singing carols i laughed when nina put on her goofy sunglasses because she thought the strands of lights were so bright we snuggled on the couch with the napping cats and talked about how silent snowfall was i love snow days i love being a mother i m going to savor and document every minute of it yay snow day wondrous all is calm all is bright snow day 2 nina just demanded that i take photos of her snarling like you did yesterday do it yesterday had a norman rockwellish glow i gazed upon my child adoringly we savored life i patiently read the same book 12 or 22 times once backwards i generously gave cookies and we sipped hot chocolate after making snow angels in the crystal white whopping two inches of snow snow day 2 carries a different reality after falling asleep way too late last night nina woke equally way too early before the sun came up which i suggested should really be a pretty easy guide to follow no bright thing in sky no getting out of bed she also woke with a bossy attitude way beyond her age allotment she insisted all the stamps on the christmas cards i ve been trying to finish for five freaking days now were stickers that she really really needed and i was the meanest mommy ever for not letting her continue to rip them off and tear open the envelopes the house is a disaster nina spilled the tray of open paints that i d set up at an idealistic christmas project craft station in the kitchen before i could get the spreading blobs cleaned up the cats chased one another through the mess leaving a trail of red and green paw prints on the white carpet in the sunroom nina then screamed and kicked on the floor when i told her she could not follow suit with handprints the cats have been banished to the basement while they lick their paws and think about their assumption that the christmas tree was their new scratching post to climb and topple and that the lights on the tree were well whatever it is that idiot cats think glow and are therefore necessary to chew the day drug on with the same grit nina naturally refused to nap and by late afternoon we were both exhausted by then the roads had cleared and craving a reprieve i bundled her up and we headed to the gym for a regularly scheduled yoga class no class today the perky young girl at the front desk sang out swinging her bouncy ponytail and smiling like she was ready to break into a cheer i stared at her blankly then asked to sign in for childcare so i could at least walk on the treadmill whoopsie no childcare either she chirped it s because the schools are closed today sorr eeee huh what childless genius decided not to at least have childcare at a place of wellness on snow day 2 on the way home i made a quick stop at target where nina immediately threw a fit because apparently i sat her in the wrong cart i persevered and so did she making peace with our perfectly normal cart by suddenly pretending it was a bucking bull and she was the rider in this rodeo she grabbed a tube of wrapping paper from the cart and swung it nearly swiping an elderly lady who spun around and scampered away from us looking back once with wide eyed horror give me that i hissed snatching the tube from nina s grip and mumbling now it s squished i decided to ditch the rest of the shopping list and made a dash for checkout to pay for the crumpled tube of wrapping paper as we left the store marveling that the other customers were refraining from applause nina calmly asked mommy are kids hard to squish here s my question does it make me a bad mom if rather than rushing to assure her that oh no darling children are nothing like wrapping paper i had to stop myself from saying only one way to find out by amy rawe posted in mamahood and tagged humor love motherhood parenting snow day winter wonder 15 feb 2015 4 comments earth s valentine on the heels of valentine s day hallmark has nothing on mother nature stones nuts shell by amy rawe posted in monday s wonder and tagged earth heart love nature stones 15 dec 2014 10 comments holding sandy hook your small self slips under my covers at 3 a m grazes a sleep shrouded kiss on my cheek barely a breeze whispers i love you before falling back into deep sleep i used to lean in close when you were barely bigger than a shoe box holding my own breath to listen keeping vigil during darkness making sure that the hole in your heart had not swallowed your wind not sure how to pray or who what to pray to but silently whimpering please thank you i ve never known such fragile fierce love eggshells know when broken the large of the shell is a magnet for the small shards of itself yearning for the essence of its wholeness now separate but still belonging the cord between me and you was short the delivery nurse said making your separation from me traumatic even within i held you tight but now learn and relearn that what i receive i must also release let me go mama you ll say to me later this day when i hug you too tight after learning that twenty children twenty children barely older than you and six women warriors who fought for them were gunned down in their classrooms there are no words for this one liked to ride horses and had asked santa for cowgirl boots one wanted to be an architect and a paleontologist when he grew up one had convinced her mom to let her wear the pink dress that was supposed to be saved for christmas she was going to be an angel in the nativity play that weekend we don t yet know how we will weep as we study their bright eyes and impish grins how their parents will never wake to shudder and shake off this nightmare but before that darkness corrodes our world you will rise to the dawn of this day fill your backpack with small love notes you ve drawn for your kindergarten friends and when you open the door you will see that shimmering white flurries have dusted the ground and you ll call out mama the world has been frosted come taste it amy rawe 12 14 12 posted in mamahood poems and tagged children fierce love hope letting go newtown protection sandy hook 28 nov 2014 5 comments thanks friday i m feeling more protective of thanksgiving with each year if i could draw i d visualize it this way a turkey representing thanksgiving quivers in the middle of train tracks as a bellowing locomotive called christmas bears down the train is many days ahead of schedule and traveling way too fast to stop thanksgiving is overrun this past month our only holiday decoration has been the twiggy gratitude tree we made out of branches sticking out of a vase on our kitchen table we hang paper leaves decorated with words of what we re grateful for family friends our house marshmallows the sun and for this year at least nina parroted my one holiday at a time mantra when we would hear christmas music in stores or see houses decorated with lights and red bows it s not even thanksgiving yet people she yelled out the window one night when we drove past a house with lighted reindeer in the front yard it s not the meaning of christmas that i want to keep at bay but that i don t want the consumerism of the holiday to trample the season of gratitude i agree with those who say that gratitude should be a state of being year round not one day of saying grace before a big meal but if we do have one day to at least acknowledge it can t we honor it by being fully present without being inundated with black friday deals deals deals or worse stores opening on thanksgiving evening in our society of instant click buy and fed ex fast delivery why are we in such a blazing hurry to buy just about the only thing i can think of that i would stand in line for hours or days as some people do and throw out my elbows for is a miracle cure for my friend with cancer today i trumped black friday by prolonging thanksgiving in what feels like meek protest like putting a rickety wooden gate in line of a roaring avalanche i deleted the flood of black friday sale emails that inundated my in box and i joined in on the say no to shopping on thanksgiving community on facebook as i prepare to enjoy another dinner with my family i ll add more leaves on the gratitude tree posted in mamahood and tagged black friday gratitude no shopping thanksgiving 30 oct 2014 8 comments let her fall this is bike week during gym at nina s school which brought a reckoning nina had yet to attempt riding without training wheels she said she just wasn ...