18. Makayla

Maybe it's easy to write this post because Makayla is gone for Christmas with Dave and my heart has grown fonder, or maybe it's easy because Makayla is a powerful, wise, creative, loving, adventurous, joyful spirit being of light. 

Makayla is the embodiment of fun and will to do anything at least once. Horseback riding, yes. Soccer, yes. Skiing, yes. Ding-dong door ditching experimental subject at the wrong door, YES!

She loves to laugh, tell jokes, and play pranks. When the mood dips in our home, she's the first to contribute by suggesting something to get us laughing again. 

Makayla and I made an agreement to experience this life together. And even though Makayla and I are probably more dissimilar than we are alike, I appreciate her differences. 

Her personality is perfect for her life experience moving 10 times in 11 years and flying at least 40 times a year. She adapts easily and has acceptance for what is.

Most amazing and very unlike me is her ability to envision and create an ingenious outfit with irregular pieces and bits of anything. And her outward beauty complements her inward character. Here is her most recent Halloween creation.

She isn't passionate about schooling, but loves to connect with everyone at school. Makayla has never met a stranger, and she holds a special place in her heart for those children with special needs. 

She is clever and wise beyond her age and always has been. Once in the first grade, a boy was picking on her and instead of giving her a solution I supported her resourcefulness. She came home triumphant. 

Makayla has sound thinking, which showed last week when she was tardy and accepted it completely. She told me later, "There are no accidents." And she's right, it wasn't an accident that I am her mom, even though she still thinks it is negotiable. 

Maybe it is, I'm probably learning more from her than she is from me. She inspires me with love, acceptance, humor, patience, wisdom and joy. In judgement I am inclined to want more for Makayla, but have learned that my decisions are perfect for her journey.

I honor her in that journey of joy, sorrow, faith, acceptance, growth, beauty, and love. May this bond we share unite us as one, as we experience and remember our own feminine divinity is my prayer. Thank you, thank you, thank you for allowing me to be your mother.

17. Matt

Matthew was born a hero, my hero, his brother's hero. In this picture, he is wearing the personally-made cape from his dad which he's had since he was three. I've always described Matthew as my breath of fresh air, although he is admittedly exhausting too.

Matthew is the type of child that would say, "Wow, mom, you washed all my clothes? Thanks mom" and he has. Or get an ice cream at McDonald's and say, "Let's go home, bud, and we'll share it" while putting his arm around his brother's shoulders.

I love how he watches over his younger brother, how he shares everything with him, and how he plays on his level except when they are running and somehow Matt gets lost in the present moment and finds himself the winner. The present moment is where Matt lives most of the time and I know this because for the most part I don't exist in his moments.

I exist in the organized world of order and Matt exists in fun, imaginative, Matt world. I noticed his world today when he stood in the field of grass with his sport suit coat on and a skull belt cinched around his waste while playing his 5 stringed guitar to the rhythm of the practicing marching band. 

I love how he is the first to express sorrow if he offended or injured someone because everyone is his friend. I also love when he hugs me because he reads my energy and knows when I deserve Heavenly Father's love, which flows through him.

He isn't aware yet what the notes say from all the girls in his class at school, except that they say "I Love You" and that they mean thanks for making me feel special. He makes everyone he meets feel special including his toy dogs. In this picture he's declared today their birthday. We celebrated with cake, ice cream, and of course gifts.

Matt can go shopping for hours and only say once before we ever enter the store he'd prefer to stay home.  He'd also never need to buy anything at the store during the trip even if everyone else carried out their golden bags.

Matthew has been cracking jokes since he was 18 mos. old when he put his tongue on the kitchen table and whined mimicking Christmas movie with the ice cold telephone pole. He enjoys making other's laugh even if it includes crude noise like armpit farts or underwear talk which usually only impresses other boys.

I love how Matt will thank me for a delicious dinner and admit "oh ya I forgot" when I remind him for the 5th time to pick up his things. His papers, robes, back packs, toys, money, letters, whatever collection he is playing with at the time. And it's always a collection, a gathering of things. We've agreed that he can bring whatever he can haul himself . 

I honor him for his clutter, his imagination, his selective hearing, his forgetfulness, his funny dress-up clothes, his collections, his joy, his acceptance, his gratitude, his faith. 

16. Travis

For a half an hour this afternoon, Travis walked around like this because he couldn't find the other shoe in his shoe box and I was with Matthew doing homework. He came to ask me to find the shoe, and after I told him where to look or to wait until I was finished he chose to wait. 

He was astonishingly patient for a 3 year-old. When I finally finished with Matthew and after I forgot about Travis' missing shoe, I headed over to the dryer to switch another load of laundry. Travis came to me and asked calmly if now I could help him find the shoe.

Travis is #3 and has been such a joy to have. He was the perfect pregnancy, the perfect nursing baby, the most content baby, the most cuddly boy, and I feel grateful to have him in my home. I love his 'good morning' greetings and the way he runs to me open arms, screaming "mommie" when I return home regardless of how long I've been gone. 

His hugs are so often and so welcomed. I love when I hold him how his hand is always softly touching my neck and how he can fall asleep in my arms.  I love his laugh and his humor and his huge belly adult sounding burp. 

I laugh inside when he says he doesn't like his house or his new Star Wars room or his bed when he really wants to say, 'Can I come and fall asleep with you?' Then dragging in his pink blanket which he loves in spite of his uncle making fun of him and his mom unwilling to spring for a blue one to snuggle me.

When we went on a vacation with my sister's family and joined them for a 31 mile hike or what seemed like 31 miles and maybe it was only 3.1 miles, Travis' famous words were and still are "almost mom" while I carried him up the steep hill at mile marker 2.0.

I honor him in his clear intention and his ability to soften my heart, in his provoking language and his short lived anger filled rejections. And I honor him when he refuses to smile for family pictures or preschool pictures or even pictures in the back yard because he's embarrassed, shy, or just plain skillfully controlling. 

Travis, I honor YOU.

15. Profound Words

I'm not admitting that writers know the profundity of which they write, yet I am convinced many readers are unaware of the written intellect. Just read book reviews and sift to find the unconsciousness. I am moved by these profound words and am grateful to them because they fed my intense desire to know more philosophy and human nature.

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. 

It is important he included 'spirit' of a man for this truth.

 And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man.  By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammer-blows of conditioning, the free roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged.  

And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.  I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system.  Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beast.  If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

Yes, yes, a thousand yeses! 

14. Grills and Southern California Weather on Nov. 3rd

As I stood over the grill tonight in the dark cooking our buffalo chicken for dinner, I got excited to write about my gratitude of year round grilling in California. 

Who's not to love quick dinners and easy clean up? Who invented broilers and why do they even sell them in this town? Last night was a perfect night for a quick dinner and I was grateful and glad I had and used a grill.