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Previous journal entries:

8/20/2002: San Francisco:Traffic and Hills
7/22/2002: Summer Grunts
7/9/2002: Thank You Excedrin
6/15/2002: Father's Day and Junior Policemen
5/8/2002: Time Insanity
4/9/2002: Good Friends and a Weekend Getaway
1/30/2002: Runaway Day
1/19/2002: Ready to walk
12/16/2001: Ornaments
12/6/2001: Galpals
9/25/2001: Flags
9/7/2001: BabyBabyBaby
8/9/2001: Moving
6/25/2001: Sleeping through the night
6/21/2001: Why Website?

Time is such a weird thing. It opens and shuts and expands and contracts. Usually I feel like I can't fit everything in and there's never enough time to do everything that my silly brain has decided I _must_ do; other times a teenytiny bit of time expands into a span that will never end, usually when a boy is crying in the few minutes after being put to bed. Then two minutes seems to expand into an eternity.

I'm trying to type this as the boys run around in the living room while Sesame Street is on; I have a precious few minutes at most and so I'm madly concentrating and trying to ignore the occasional screams and splats. We've been so busy in the last few months that I feel like there's never any time to stop and catch a breath, much less relax and contemplate anything. Well, here's my moment to reflect, I guess. Think fast...

It's been a great summer for seeing friends and visiting places and going through some family milestones. Paul's brother Jamie and sister in law Didit had a baby girl (Denise); the third grandchild in the Kwinn Clan. Paul's dad turned eighty this summer; his offspring all threw him a fancy party to mark the event. Who can believe that the guy in that photo there with the two boys is actually eighty?? He's travelling more than ever and has more energy than almost anybody I know. Amazing, really.

(Insert a break here to rescue Casey from a death-defying feat of climbing, stop Riley from emptying the entire front closet. Wow, loud screaming... I'm not killing them, really!)

Whew. Back two hours later after: giving the boys milk, folding laundry while playing with them, talking to Mom and Leslie on the phone, reading the boys a book (twice), picking up toys, changing a diaper, helping Riley sweep the floor, changing laundry loads, prepping the boys' lunch, changing another diaper, feeding the boys lunch, changing another diaper (believe it or not), fixing their beds for a nap while Riley dismantles the rest of the bedroom, picking up their bedroom, washing dishes, coloring with the boys (drawing animals like rhinoceroses and elephants and making many animal noises-- well okay, I drew the animals and they made the noises and scribbled), putting them down for a nap (hey, NO CRYING!!!! Calloocallay!!). So here I am during precious nap time, eating a bit of lunch myself while trying to collect a few stray thoughts.

Today is a really easy day; we've had a nice quiet morning.

Our Moms of Twins club had a speaker, Denise Roy, a few weeks back; she was great. She's written a book called My Monastery is a Minivan, which has humorous stories about finding ways to live a spiritually rich life in the midst of the chaos that most mothers live with. During her talk she quoted Anne Morrow Lindbergh:

"With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has primarily to do with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls-- woman's normal occupations run counter to creative life, or saintly life. The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what cetrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel."
--Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift From the Sea

It's very hard to become a really notable artist or writer or nobel prize winning scientist when you're having to wipe noses and asses every five minutes.

Denise Roy talked about how to find time and savor the moments in the midst of the chaos that is the life of any mom. She had the interesting theory that there actually _is_ enough time; it's more a matter of living in the moment and savoring those moments as they come through. She suggested making your art, whatever you enjoy, a priority for your own wellbeing and the wellbeing of the rest of your family as well. It's very reasonable, though I really find it hard to put my own needs ahead of anyone else's; I think the vast majority of women are raised with the firmly planted notion that we're supposed to take care of everyone else first. Putting ourselves higher on the list is a selfish guilty thing to do. Nasty destructive stuff, that guilt.

I like the 'savoring the moments' idea a lot; so far though, I find it's impossible to maintain that awareness and calm throughout the day. Things go in waves: boys getting cranky and crying, me losing patience, there's a brief quiet moment when they're both being sweet, letting them run around outside and actually being able to see them both at the same time without me having to run around like a chicken with a swivelling head. You'd think I'd have lost more weight with all the running I do, but I suspect my body holds onto every bit of excess weight as a last-ditch effort to hold _something_ in reserve for myself, since I'm not good at saving any energy or time for just me. Maybe I just need practice at it to balance everything. Sigh. Deep breath.

Just a little more. This may not be the proper place to say this, but special love and hugs to Alisa and her family as they go through rough times and multiple challenges, and to Alisa's friend Leslie as she tries to recover from a difficult surgery. To Diane, as she negotiates the perils of getting her business going while battling strongarm bully-boy tactics. To Seanan, who lost a loved friend and companion kitty in a hard and upsetting way. Anyone who can spare a kind and healing thought for them, fill the air with love.

*hugs*