Cuatro

Four years ago, this:

And today, this:

 

My baby is four years old! What the Doc McStuffins?? I can hardly believe it.

 

Before Ceeya was born, I worried whether I would be able to love another child as much as I loved Viva. Ceeya just tromped on in and claimed her space in my heart with absolute certainty that that spot was hers. She is super intelligent, hilariously funny, incredibly stubborn and heart-rendingly sweet. She is my roll dog -- anywhere I am going, she wants to go along for the ride. She has made our family all the richer for being in it and I adore her.

 

Happy Birthday, my little pumpkin. You make Mama proud!

 

 

Every Day, Beauty

Every day there are moments, small things really, that are possible to miss if you are not paying attention.

There are Big Things Happening:  Dub Senior has passed away. Sweet Dub is overcome with wave after wave of sorrow. Sometimes it comes over him at completely random times. He is bewildered by this: he thought the anxiety and sadness would end when his father's suffering was over. I had to tell him no, dear sweet darling, that is not how grief works.

Other Big Life Things are happening: Viva is solidly into her tweens and has begun wearing a bra. (Oh, I can't even believe I just wrote that. Where is the time going - it is spinning wildly fast.) At preschool, Ceeya hit her head and gashed it badly on Monday; Sweet Dub and I dropped our day off plans and rushed to see if we had to take her to the hospital. Speaking of which, we were having our day off together because of another life event: our wedding anniversary. Eleven years, which we didn't celebrate on the day because Dub Senior passed away that very morning. So our date was cut short by another emergency. It seems like this is the new normal, crisis after crisis.

So I try to take a moment here and there to enjoy a small thing of beauty, here and there. Today I found a gorgeous potted orange Gerbera daisy plant at Trader Joe's on my lunch hour. I bought one for myself and one for our receptionist, because she is being let go today and no one wanted to acknowledge it. She has worked here for 8 years and she was being made to feel she had to slink off into the night. Ugliness. My co-worker got a few people together and we are throwing what was to be a small get-together this afternoon. What we discovered is a lot of people didn't know she was leaving, Suddenly we had offers of food, people wanted to sign cards, people rallied around and now most of the employees at our site are coming to this little shindig. It gives me hope. It's the right thing to do.

There is so much nastiness in the world sometimes. I am trying to train myself to be alert to the positive.

Signing off.

Stay classy, San Diego.