-
Pop!
01.06.13 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Pop!
I guess I just stopped writing for an audience. I don’t post here. I don’t post to Facebook. Maybe because we are more isolated, generally the happiest we’ve ever -EVER- been, and self-contained now more than ever before. My compulsion to share with the world seems greatly diminished.
But Tamara has written lots of loving words of late on here, not just a chronicle of our lives… She is writing about our internal landscape. To let that go unmatched seems unlike the two bookends that we are. In addition, we have always treated this as a document of us, so to that end I thought I would post this. For while I’ve stopped writing for an audience, I haven’t stopped writing. In fact I’ve been slowly building up steam of late.
I love you dear, and I love our life together floating on a little block of ice. -Bradley
POP!
I didn’t expect it
But I turned 40.And after spending my previous 39 years
Running across the meadow
With this optimistic chartreuse balloon in tow
My feet lift up off the ground.I don’t think that the expected outcome
Is for me to let go,
Or to bound and skitter my legs only to touch down once again
On sod, dandelions and the lumpy glacial till.So that leaves me ghosting across the field
like some proto-Wright brother,
Attempting to fly.
I think I am supposed to hang on and just go with it.I am surprised by this moment in time
That snuck up and startled me while I was busy
Being cool with-
Being underwhelmed with-
Turning 40.Looking behind me I gather my wits for, maybe, the first time.
I realize that the kids are running up FAST
Behind me with the balloons we handed them
And they are trying to inflate them
And they look excited
(And a little worried).I thank the maker that I have some more time to
Shout out instructions and see that they get on their way
And I am buoyed by the fact that you are flanking me to my right.
My hand tingles as I reach out, and the air feels crisper,
Knowing that I am gonna do this along with you!And the rest or our lives
Looks overly simple
And reads in a bullet-point format
That goes roughly:• One hand on the balloon,
• And one hand holding firmly onto yours,• Until we hear one…
or the other…
or both…POP!
-
Littlejohns Month by Month, 2012
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
Election Night
December
-
Nicknames
01.04.13 | Permalink | | Comments Off on NicknamesThe checker at the store asked our always conversational little boy what his name was. He replied “Jude” then added “but sometimes they call me pumpkin brown”. LOL.
And they are right. We call him that after the folksong that we sing sometimes.
-
Resolved: Continue Current Level of Awesome in 2013
01.04.13 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Resolved: Continue Current Level of Awesome in 2013Resolved:
1. Health: I’m a little late in the resolution talk. Mostly because my resolution is pretty much the same each year: end it thinner and healthier than you started it. For the most part I’ve met this goal every year over the past few years. I’ve been pleased, but it’s time to kick it up a notch.
I have fifty more pounds, people. Just fifty. Well, it was fifty a few weeks ago. Before birthday season hit in October followed by a really fulfilling Thanksgiving, and lest we forget, a Christmas season filled with a steady stream of chocolate and chex mix…. It’s not just fifty anymore. But I’m forgiving of myself because if there is one thing I’ve learned in this whole dieting thing is that forgiveness and flexibility on choices is important from time to time. I need a week of chocolate once a month. Otherwise the other head that I sprout during THAT week will bite you. And I think it has festering rabies, so feed me chocolate.
So anyways, kicking it up. I want to lose my last fifty by this summer. If I lose my last fifty by this summer then keep it off for a year, the following summer of 2014 will be a surgery summer – cutting off all the awesome skin flaps that are developing… Dangling from my arms and other places… Adding slappy sound effects when I gallop down the stairs or move quickly. Yeah. It’s entertaining to be so musical (I jump extra high to be extra noisy sometimes), but I’m ditching that stuff. I realize that I have one life to live, a few more decades during which I’ll really appreciate the lack of flappy slaps, as fun as they are, and I’ll be really happy if that stuff goes away and is gone during the second half of my life since it plagued me the entire first half.
2. Journal: Other resolutions are just more of the same too. My goals of late include writing more – which I do. It just doesn’t all end up online. I’m a teacher and censorship is a terribly annoying reality that prevents me from getting too explicit, sweary, graphic and colorful. Some of this just stays in my diary. But oh, friends, you would laugh and cry to hear some of my details. I love my job but lately I’m starting to feel its confines…
3. Supermom: I decided to be a Pinterest mama last year. I started during the summer and I’m powering through, I will hopefully continue along this path. What I have figured out about myself is that I’m kinda controlling. And when my kids want me to play with them, I want to control the play. Bradley is really good at the imaginative play. Me? Not so much. Barbies? I want certain furniture, clothes and rooms. The story is often ridiculously silly since I can’t play any of the romance make out plot lines that were my favorites as a kid. My barbies always ended up at the end of the date making out madly with marriage propositions being dropped and mad scrambles were made to get out of Barbie’s Dream Corvette and into Barbie’s Dream cottage. Life was good among the green shag carpet for my barbies. My girls always got their man. Side note story to the side note story: my favorite Barbie was named Tina Turner. She was blonde and lacking MTV in the Hansen house meant I had never seen the real Tina. Imagine my surprise the first time I saw her shimmy across stage in her short dress at the Grammys! Anyhow, I realized there are ways for me to embrace my controlling nature and have really lovely playtimes with my kids, and that’s doing things for them that I am good at- making killer birthday invites and parties, play dates galore with themes and events, doing over the top super fun crafty crafts with them, cooking or letting them do super messy projects without hovering over them with handiwipes and I even allowed elves to invade my home… It’s been fun to be a little over the top.
4. Read: I’m reading to my kids more and plan to continue this resolution. The house, two kids, working, taking classes – all that stuff- made bedtime stories a real drag, quite honestly. I have hated reading aloud in my house – a fact that was terribly embarrassing for me. A TEACHER. You’d be amazed at what is expected of my kids and me because of my job. I actually had someone gasp one time when I told them Gigi couldn’t read yet (Gigi was read to quite a bit, we just didn’t push her to do it). She had just turned four. But I’m a teacher and had somehow failed this person’s expectations because HER child was reading by Gigi’s age. I’ve always operated under the philosophy of being developmentally inspired rather than parent inspired, for Gigi that meant she wasn’t interested in reading until this year. Now she’s above grade level as a reader, which tells me that we were right not to push. Anyhow, I was at school last year reading aloud (I’m a good reader alouder) and realized Jude hadn’t had a ton of exposure to his mama’s read alouds. To my awesome witch cackles and silly boy voices and goofy accents… Then I figured out why: when I’m tired at the end of the day I want to read. But I don’t want to read THAT. ‘That’ being the book with a million words on each page about a topic that I have explored over and over with you already OR is a book that is not interesting to me. I realized I was forsaking reading to my kids because I wasn’t into the books. So I let myself be controlling in this aspect now. I pick a book most nights now that I WANT to read and my kids usually get a story. I know. How lame that mommy gets to pick the book? But when I realized it was my choice or no choice due to exhaustion, I decided A book is way better than NO book. Right now we are experiencing Jude’s first foray into the Dragons of Blueland! LOVE IT!
5. Chill: I’m also working on my patience. Since my adoption of Sir Stress, Lady Anxiety and the Princess of Panic, I’ve become quite able to go from awesomely laid back mama to rage filled tyrant in, like, 30 seconds. It’s uncool. Triggered by really stupid stuff. No one deserves that and I’m so happy to say I’m getting my control back and it’s going really well. REALLY well. I just need to carry on.
Cheers for a happy New Year. I wish you luck in your goals and hope you will support mine as well.
I’m also resolving to make super funny needlepoints like this. They crack me up and perfectly marry my love of traditional things with my love of pop culture and funny.
