Happy ThanksBirthday!

Being a late November baby as I am, my birthday always falls on Thanksgiving weekend. I wish I could find the card Laurie made for me when she was about seven years old - complete with a happy birthday girl, a turkey, and a mash-up name for a Thanksgiving birthday. I still have it somewhere... if I find it soon, I'll add it to the post.

Anyway, in spite of the stress I'm carrying around under the surface as mentioned in my last post, I do always feel like I am living my dream. The "problems" I have to solve these days are all a result of choosing this life, and despite the uncertainty and inner turmoil, I am grateful to have the opportunity to work through this all and come up with the next plan.

Thanks for Photos and for Family

Last month I told you we were going out to have a photo session and never came back to it. Well, we recently got our photos, and my friends, they do not disappoint. I can't tell you how special it is for Laurie and I to be captured playing with (read: chasing) the boys. I am filled with such deep emotion seeing the four of us together - you never know how close you will end up to your siblings, and let me tell you, I couldn't even dream up a better sister. To have her with us, to be a part of her developing career as an illustrator (can we say major new wholesale accounts??), to have someone to share the daily joys, laughter, exhaustion, and discovery of my miraculous children with... it is all a gift beyond measure. I know I go on and on about her, but really - how lucky are we? Soooooooooooooooooo lucky!!

up and down the stairs at Portland's Downtown Library
Photo by Nicole Renae

Nicole, our truly lovely friend and photographer, wrote about our session here, and has given me permission to share her photos online. If you're in Portland and want to meet both a fabulous lady and a gifted photographer, give Nicole a call. She's terrific. Here's a flickr set with some additional photos that aren't in either this post or in Nicole's.

reading is fundamental!

we thought the children's room at the library would be a great fit, given our family's culture of loving books.
Photo by Nicole Renae

Auntie and Shoghi signing "bird"
Photo by Nicole Renae

There is such an abundance of things that move me to send my deep thanks up to the heavens: my incredibly supportive parents and brother (and Whitney!), Korin and my amazing community of friends both in Portland and spread out across the country and world, this beautiful place we live... the list is continuously flowing. Thanks to you and all of this goodness from my heart and soul - 36 was a great year. May 37 (for me) bring us all light upon light, joy upon joy. Thanks for being a part of our journey.

the new normal

I am totally overwhelmed. Today, it seems, nothing is going right -- in fact, I'm so screwed, I am just sitting here on my couch, feeling frozen and unsure of what I can even do.

I hate feeling this way. I look at other women mothering toddler twins and can't imagine how they do it. Keep a clean house? Cook good meals that the babies will actually eat? Keep up with laundry; keep the children from biting or hitting, or otherwise hurting each other; pay the bills; deal with paperwork; create interesting things to do; find a way to earn some money???? I feel like I am failing on every single front.

I am trying to run my Etsy shop and get a marketing workshop organized for January. It's becoming clear to me that this path isn't going to work. Not only am I not making any money - I'm losing it. Re-investing in my shop is turning into a nightmare. Finding time to promote either of these ventures is completely impossible. I want to cry at the thought of it all.

When I was pregnant, I thought of China as my backup plan. If I ran out of money and couldn't find a job, I'd just move back there for a year or so. It's cheap to live, the food is great, work is plentiful, and it's easy to hire a nanny. Now that I have children, moving to another country seems insane. There's no way I can take the boys away from their auntie - their other parent. This morning I was lying in bed with Max, and in the dark he awoke, saying "Mama, Mama, Mama. Auntie, Auntie, Auntie. Shoghi, Shoghi, Shoghi." It was so sweet - that litany of his favorite people. It still amazes me to be at the top of that list. Hell - it amazes me to be ON the list. I'm a mother! Despite the feelings I describe in this post, I am filled with gratitude for even having these problems... to say I love these boys and being their mama doesn't even begin to convey the depth of that emotion.

Anyway, it is just so clear that I have to make this work. Here, in Portland. And "MAKE it work" is what it feels like. Forcing something to happen. "This shop must generate some income;" "This workshop must get off the ground." This feeling of desperation is backfiring, though... I feel everything I try to push into existence full of resistance and refusing to budge. My grad school application got filled out, but when it came to sitting down and articulating my goals, I froze. I tried for weeks. Finally, I gave up and told the admissions coordinator that I'd finish the app for summer session.

This morning was our last day with E, our babysitter who has taken care of the boys on and off since they were about 2 months old. Just thinking of it brings me to tears, not only because of how much the boys and I will miss having her around (she's about to have a baby herself!), but on a very basic level, it simply means that I have no more help. I have no more mornings to sit at the cafe for a couple of hours and organize my thoughts. I have no more time to deal with a job search without the boys pulling at me or threatening to bite me (or each other). I have not been able to afford having her for some months, but the alternative of not having anyone has brought me to keep having her over. That luxury is over, though... I'm not in a position to find someone else.

I just feel like it's all building up to a big disaster. I feel incapable and paralyzed. I feel, every hour, overwhelmed. Sadly, this has become my new normal.

sun kissed

we had some unexpectedly warm, sunny weather today, and the boys were just overjoyed to be released into the yard (still in pjs).

brother!

My little brother is in town! Simon and Whitney came in last night and we've been having such a lovely time visiting, playing and eating! Just for my parents, I wanted to share some of the photos from today. I finally broke down and abandoned my search for the perfect camera - after purchasing 5 new ones, I found my good old FujiFilm E900 on ebay last week. Laurie busted it out today at the park, and the difference really shows.

Shoghi warming up to Uncle Simon.
It took a while, but now he's completely enthralled.

Whitney and Max on the see-saw...

a sweet uncle/nephew moment

not so blomo

I guess I'm not cut out in my present life for daily blogging. I thought last night that I wouldn't throw in the towel yet, but really what's the point of just putting up a desperate paragraph right before bed? Then I woke up this morning and realized I'd forgotten to publish what little I'd written. So, I guess we're going to go back to old school blogging for now. Maybe next year!

Speaking of next year, I wonder what life will be like. It's one of those times when it's hard to see into the future. The boys will be more than two years old, talking and running and playing in all sorts of new ways. Will they be sleeping solidly enough that they will be back in a room together? I wish for it... wish that they have that brotherly togetherness as soon as possible. Will they be using a potty? Chatting and laughing with each other? Will I still be with them during the day? Running my own business(es) still? In school? Living in this neighborhood? Will I have dated at all? Will I be doing daily yoga? Found a love of cooking? Will we be financially secure? Health insured?

I've been spending a good deal of time giving voice to my dreams and sending any and all forces of momentum to those joyful wishes lately. We are at such a turning point... or at least I am, and the boys are along for the ride.

One of the challenges set before us in Mondo Beyondo was to dare to speak our dreams out loud, so I'm going to put myself on the line here and send my most immediate wish out there - to you, to the Universe, the angels, the goodness and abundance and constant flow of generosity and love that moves in the world. I tell this to you with the hopes that you will cherish and dream this wish for us, too...

I wish to be given a home to live in for the next year.

What a huge dream. What a bold thing to ask for. I so deeply want to be home with my boys for the next year, and having a place to live would give me that opportunity. I don't want to cart them around for other people who only have a care-giver's relationship with them to educate them for this next critical year of their development.

I remind myself that the world is full of possibility, and that there may be just the right person who needs us to care for their home for a year... a reciprocal dream. I remind myself that it is not greedy or lazy or selfish to dream and wish that this could come to us.

Please, friends, wish it with me. A home for a year.

unfinished

So, I tried for like 3 hours to upload some new video... my efforts failed miserably! What's up with Blogger video uploading lately, anyway?

Tomorrow Laurie and I are taking the boys out to have a photo session! I'm so excited - it is going to be so special for us all to have some beautiful shots to capture our little family.

I'll tell you all about it tomorrow!

5 o'clock coffee

It's been 10 (or more??) days of sick babies over here, and I'm feeling the strain. It's not even that they've been terribly sick - just fevers and flu/cold symptoms. But it's been a whiny, clingy, night-sleep disturby enterprise, and now as I'm sure we're close to the end of it, I feel like I'm dragging myself to the finish line.

So I'm just gonna keep it short today, sip some decaf, eat a late dinner, and take something for this headache I've been lugging around all day.

Cheers, internetty friends!