My favourite line is...

"And the motion of the lives around us
has been like a great bus
slowly turning onto a crowded street.
And some of the passengers
have fallen asleep in their seats,

while others anxiously search
their jacket pockets
for the notes that might wed
their ordinary lives
to something lofty and astonishing."

From the poem:

"After Our Wedding"
by Yehoshua Nobember

As seen on: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2010/12/31

My favourite line is....

"When winter is over

And all your unimaginable promises

Burst into song on death's bare branches"

From the poem:

A Short Testament
by Anne Porter

As seen on http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2010/12/29

Friends and Strangers

Schatzy and I prepared for our guests while Oma and Opa cooked... wondering if the strangers we had invited would even show up, wondering what they would be like, wondering all about them. We knew their names, we knew he was from Turkey and had referred to himself as an orthodox Christian (which led to a discussion on whether he would even eat the pork schnitzel). It was a moment of both excitement at the arrival of the guests and the nervousness of the whole notion of an instinctual invitation of a couple we had met at the Christmas Eve service. We talked about how we liked the notion of inviting a stranger to dinner and wondered if we would ever get a chance to do so again.

They arrived right on time, and they were immediately engaging. They were such a gift to our Christmas day dinner, it was so very special for us to have them there with us. And it was a series of events that even put them in that place. They had been touring California but the storms there were such that they came to Arizona seeking drier skies. They had chosen to walk around downtown and chanced upon the church we were planning to attend, they were early and were invited to return and they did. The pastor introduced himself to them, but found out they spoke German so brought them to my husband and introduced them. I was sitting far away from them, on the other end of the pew but watched them with interest and my mother leaned over and told me we should invite them to dinner... so I sent Schatzy a text telling him to do that. He seemed surprised; more at the notion and not that I had sent him a note to do that. After the service I got to meet them and was happy to see that Schatzy had indeed invited them to dinner.

The day was so very special, that kind of special you can feel in you heart. We made new friends.

When they left, one of them turned to me and said; "You always meet good people in church". Indeed.

We were blessed to also have a couple who have been wonderful to my aunt and were part of her support network when life dealt her one of those trials that seems unbearable. This couple has been together for 42 years, amazing.

And my dear friends, a couple that live close enough to us and are soon to be blessed with a baby girl. They have joined us for Christmas for what now feels like forever. They are a part of the family, and they talk of moving sometime soon which I will admit drives me a bit crazy, and I have in my head a way to plot thwarting that evil plot of theirs. My whole family thinks of them as family and they have no idea what they are in for when the baby girl arrives.

I had a marvelous Christmas spent with dear family, two mothers to be, two couples who have been together for more than 40 years, two men that keep flashlights handy at all times, several fabulous cooks, some awesome desserts and a beautifully decorated table.

This is among my most favorite Christmas's ever.

SQOTD

While at Echo Coffee...

Squink: "Mama, I just saw a person who had a stamp that wouldn't come off".

it goes by so amazingly fast

Six years. I still can't wrap my head around how fast time goes when I look at Squink.

Six years ago, I woke up at about the time I write this now... it was the official get off of bed rest day, get out of the perinatal until day, become a mom day. I had spend the night before looking at the data about what can happen with preemies at this stage. While the data was good, it was still scary. My nurses had scolded me for going there. I was supposed to be scheduled for a 6 am delivery, but there was some trouble... though I never could get my hands on why... but I will assume scheduling the parties (the OB and the neonatology team) that needed to be there was a bit problematic. I did not quite realize how many people have to be there for"scheduled" preemie deliveries. I think we fit in myself (though I had to be there), my husband, mother, my allo-mother, my OB, two nurses, and 2 neonatologists and a neonatology nurse. Wow 10 people, just realized how many of us there were in there.

Squink would go on to give us some of the most harrowing times in our lives, two weeks of his tiny body full of tubes and probes. I will say that from the moment he left that space and as his status improved in the following months that I have been blessed with a miracle. I see this little boy running and playing, saying the most endearing things, and I am happy. That kind of happy that quiets my heart and mind.

Last night he sang me a song about how Jesus was "tumbly" born (which he says is how everyone is born) in the city of "Bek Lah Hem" (which he insists is a city in heaven).

Adele - Rolling In The Deep

Just got around to listening to this... and watching.

I want to dance in a room full of flour now!



Tags: [tagname]

SQOTD

Squink: "Mom, why did you fail me?"

Said in response to my telling him that I'd left his portable game player at home.

SQOTD

We were walking to the car after school when we had the following conversation:

Squink: "Mom, you know you are like Rudolph".

Me: "Uhm, really?"

Squink: "Yeah, you are".

Me: "Do I have a shiny red nose? Is that why?"

Squink: "No, you're silly. You're a leader, that how, mama".

Me: "You may be the only one that thinks that Squink, but thank you".

Squink: "You're welcome".