Ready (repost)

**** I was thinking about this post and decided to go re-read it. Here I am a year later feeling exactly the same way. i thought it was hand foot and mouth that had "slowed" us down last year, and yet here we are all healthy and still we've spent the last week just chilling at home, fighting the urge to fill up the last few days of summer. This summer I still scroll through my instagrams and think, Yup! my kids got another killer summer, lucky dogs. We're tired and happy to just look back at all the sun filled fun. Levi regularly turns to me just as he's about to fall asleep and says, " 'Member we went in da boat! and it bounced and bounced and bounced!!!!!"

Yes Levi, it was fun wasn't it.  (too bad your mom didn't blog any of it:) *******

Oh ya!  read this awesome back to school post too!



"Mom, I need you!"  Mckye says in that perfect frequency my kids learn before they can say a two syllable word. 

The frequency that makes your brain vibrate. 
You know the one I'm talking about. Most people call it "whining" but it's way too penetrating for such a weak description.

I've talked to a few other moms who summer is starting to wear on

Last week, I was frantically reviewing our summer buckets list, trying to cram in every last bit of summertime fun we could muster.

This week, I'm dreaming of routine. 
Craving some structure.  
Welcoming the consistancy that comes with the falling leaves. 








Most of all I want bedtime back. 
My kids haven't slept all summer. They stay up incredible late and though we've had a few sleep-in mornings, usually at least one decides to be on wake-mom-up-early-duty. 



At first it was fun, dozing off around a bonfire, jumping on the tramp under the stars. 







Oh, but it is taking it's toll. 

We can't drive anywhere past 3pm or the kids inevitably zonk. It's amazing how even a few minutes, sleeping with their heads hanging from their carseat restraits, can rejuvenate them so completely. Their re-found energy in those lovely after dinner hours, (well if you can call our random snacking and smoothies "dinner") are especially hard when your utterly exhausted from hauling them around in the sun all day.

Our kids rooms are way too hot, and a few merciful nights of letting the kids crash on our floor with a fan blowing on them, has turned into quite the habit. 

Combine that with a case of hand foot and mouth, last night I'm pretty sure I feel asleep no less than 50 times in atleast half a dozen locations, half of those being on the floor. I'd exhaustedly drift off laying next to one child only to be aroused by the cries of another. 











I'm ready for some winter hibernation! 
Some evening darkness to lull the kids under their covers.
"Is not bed time, look, the sun is still awake!" McKye informs us, rattling the blinds out of the way to prove his point. Can't convince a 3 year old that rule doesn't apply for three months of the year.

The result? an added measure of crankiness in our household. 

Maybe this hand foot mouth quaruntine is a blessing in disguise. 
At first I was annoyed that I'd miss any amount of summertime galavanting. 
But maybe our pace was a little unsustainable. 
Maybe I needed a bit more transition back into "home life". 

I've gotten pretty good at parenting from my camp chair, watching them splash at the lake or run through the spray park, having them riffle through the swim bag for random snacks when they get hungry.







But there is just something about their little voices bouncing back off the drywall that amplifies annoyance in my mommy-mind. 

Outside mothering welcomes the loud, the active, the wild, in a way that our suburban homes resist-- like an elderly relative just wanting the little ones to calm down, sit down and for heaven's sake be quiet!

I have loved this summer though. My boys have soaked in the sun, and browned despite the constant smearing of sunscreen. 

I catch myself just scrolling through my instagrams, smiling and think, "What a summer! What a childhood!" 

We've played HARD. With a level of independence my little family has never felt before (sans non-walkin and/or nursing babies of summers past) and I have truly reveled in it.

"Mom, I need you!" my growing  boy calls again. 

And I believe him.

He needed the freedom of sunshine and laxness of schedule and his mom to sit and chat with friends while he ran on the playground navigating his own new little friendships.
He needed to learn the thrill of spontaneity, the fun that comes in some flexibility.

But now he needs me to get back into the rhythm of routine, and feel the comfort of life's predictability, the calmness of the expected and the ordinary.

He needs bedtime.
And so do I.

Tree of Life and (because Aaron is up so early) the other nominations. ie My random ramblings on my love of film.

I thought I wanted a good book.


Turns out I wanted to see a good movie.


Back in University, one of my most favorite classes of my entire degree was film studies.


It's such a powerful art form, just has it all! There's dialogue and image and music all working to create... an experience. And yet within that experience we are subject to the perspective of the story-teller, sculpting what we see and how and what we hear, to influence what we feel and think.


I'm playing catch-up trying to get ready for a "Oscar Party" we're attending, trying to familiarize myself with the nominations.


So while Ben spent the night being sick, I watched Tree of Life. (trailer anyone??)

One critic wrote

The Tree of Life is maddening, exhilarating, gorgeous, ponderous, insightful, pretentious, epic, shallow, beautiful, and strange — essentially the apotheosis of Terrence Malick’s entire career. It will divide audiences like few films have in recent years.

Apparently at the Cannes Film Festival it got simultaneous applause and boos.


I would have been applauding. But I get the boos.




I think I dozed off during the long drawn out creation scenes...woke up to a dinosaur a little confused.

Oh but there were other scenes I just held by breath.


I'm want to write about it. So bad. But I'm struggling, because the whole thing was such an.... experience. I keep using that word don't I. There was only a handful of dialogue because the concepts it was conveying were slightly beyond words. 


Enough blabbering... why did I love the movie?


First, I loved the mother character. She represented the "way of grace" VS the "way of nature" or that which thinks of itself, personified by the father. 


There were all these wonderful scenes of a child's life, enveloped in a world with his mother, his safety, his joy,  his everything.  It wasn't what she said to them, or did for them, it was just HER, being there, letting them experience life WITH her.


It made me think about what my boys lives would look like if filtered through a lens representing their experience.  Would it be warma and light filled? twirling and free? exciting but calm? 


As the main character grows up, he enters more his fathers world, where expectations, fear and harshness seep in, making him question his own worth and goodness.


"Mother, Father, always you wrestle inside me. Always you will."  
The haunting nature of our parents influence, 
our lingering desires to be like them but to not be them too. 


It was interesting watching the psychology of boys, played out. Again, I'm finding my head filled with images and scenes that gave me a new understanding of the roughness of boys, but in very intangible, indescribable ways.


This films emotion was better than words. And I like words, a lot.


The last scene, for anyone needing nice narrative, "makes sense" endings, would drive you bonkers. 


I loved it. 


It was mercy and grace, washing over not just these characters and their story, but everyone. 


It was the hope that all would be made right, that all could be forgiven. That anything, no matter how soul crushing, one day we can be at peace with it. 


Not resolution or restitution or even change.  Just acceptance. Only peace. Peace born of Grace -- gentle, sweet, soft, and encompassing. 




I'm going to stop now, because my clumsy words are in no way touching the glory I felt the film offered. 


There are many films I can watch and forget almost instantly. 
This was not one of them. 
It's imagery, floats in my mind. Refusing to be forgotten, even if it wasn't completely understood.


Whispering their meanings. At least their meanings to me.


I hate reading comprehension tests always have. I think they try to objectify art. Which if they succeed, in my mind, they destroy it. That is part of the power of the arts to me. That we all bring who we are and what we've experienced to it and that in part shapes what we take away from that piece of art. That our own perspective becomes one of the factors. 


My first English professor did not agree. At first. He was a sad man, who found the dismal in everything. In a way, sought it.  It baffled him that I could always find messages of hope, in even the darkest of pieces. Because, again that was what I was seeking. 


Maybe Terrence Malick would hate that. But I don't think you make a film like Tree of Life without expecting people to interpret it to fill their own needs. In many ways, creative expressions are usually an outflow of needs. Needs to understand or be understood. Needs to create meaning within our lives, or find meaning in the lives we've created. Needs to examine the darkness and hopefully discover some light. (Oh my English prof would have hated this:)


I think a character from another nominated film "Midnight in Paris" put it best

“The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.”

                     *   *   *   *   *

While I'm quite happy leaving the movie reviews up to Nate and Tony, seeing as Aaron is up at 4am(again), you get my thoughts on the other Oscar nominations.

I've super enjoyed "preparing" for our Oscar party, but now I have no idea who I want to win  Best Picture! What a great year for film! And scores?!? They all had such great music!

Midnight in Paris was really fun (that trailer makes it look like he's having an affair when really he's going back in time every night to Paris in the 1920's). Made me want a refreshers course in the 20's artists and writers though. It is so easy to glorify the past. I would love to go to Europe, but I'd rather go see the Europe I know in books and movies, than present day. It's true on a large scale with different eras but also in or individual lives, it's hard to appreciate the present.  

 “That’s what the present is. It’s a little unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying.” 

I'm not sure I agree with the last bit, but instead would say sometimes satisfaction or the appreciation of life,  just takes a little perspective sometimes. 

The Help, of course I loved! I didn't get around to re-watching this one, was worried, when I loved the book so much. But they just cast it so well. Wasn't surprised at all that it was nominated.

The Artist, I confess didn't grab me and I only watched the first little bit (seemed like a Singing in the Rain re-make but I wanted the singing! THose who've seen it all the way through can tell me if it's worth a watch.)

Hugo, didn't offer the magic I wanted it to. Pretty sure it's cinema motif is what got it its nomination.

The Descendants, was depressing and had too many F-bombs. I hate when language is used to try and make a movie more "profound" or "mature", like we're suppose to take it more seriously because the characters curse. The teenage daughter had the worst potty mouth, and I found it really distracting. If it wins I'll be mad.

As much as I loved Tree of Life, my two favs for the Oscar are

War Horse and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Both are journeys about overcoming all odds, and finding out how brave we truly are. Both have characters that should not have been able to do what they did; whose trials, in the end, became their salvation. 

I didn't think I was going to enjoy War Horse, but it was excellent. I kept turning to Ben in the theatre with tears streaming down my face, " I hate this movie!" I'd blubber, which he knows means I was absolutely loving it. 

It should win an Oscar just for the scene between the German solider and the British solider cutting the horse free. If you haven't seen it. You should. 

Other than the fact that I can never remember the title right, Extremely Loud and Incredible Close was superb. It was so perfectly focused in on people (which I'm not sure a 9/11 show has really done well yet). I loved the whole thing. Of course, it features an "asperger-ish" kid, which I've decided the reason we like that type of character so much, is because we ALL think different and have really personal, different challenges and fears, but it's takes the amplification for us to really see it in ourselves. 

I made up my mind  that nothing,  

nothing was gonna stop me, 

not even me.

Loved that line.  Loved the movie.
Loved this whole week, remembering how much I love a good film.
I get discouraged by the filth and just waste of life movies that there seem to be no end to.
It was refreshing to remember the feeling of watching credits roll and not wanting to move, because your just so glad you got to experience what you did the last 2 hours.

To me a good movie changes you. Gives it's audience something. Hope. Courage. Faith.
And they "give" their messages in such a beautifully powerful way, that they, like any good artform become a part of those who experience them.

And this week, that was me.



PS If your wondering how the heck I watched that many movies this week? A few got watched in the middle of the night, with Aaron playing with my hair. And my house is totally trashed!!!
I'll clean next week.

My husband slept on the couch...

...but so did I. 


Because we've officially been kicked out of our room by our baby.


Our baby, one week shy of turning one, who if we are in the room will eat like a newborn, waking for a little snack every couple hours. The same baby, who if we are not in the room, will pretty much sleep through the night.


So our king-sized bed remains vacant, a hostage in our on going negotiation with our children, who have kidnapped any and all hope of us ever sleeping again. If only we could figure out the ransom.


Well tonight, because we left Levi the master bedroom to himself, and after discovering our normal secondary bed, the old double mattress on the playroom floor, "just for bouncing"
(and apparently displaced parents) was full of mystery crumbs, Ben and I grabbed some blankets picked a couch and hoped for some sleep.


It took me a while to fall asleep because I was thinking about the ever important conundrum of "What shall we wear for family photos?" Mentally going through everyones wardrobe like my own personal version of the Bretzke family paper doll collection. So dumb.  Not long after I finally convinced my silly brain that sleep was more important at this moment than co-ordinating sweater colours, or trying to remember if McKye had any jeans left without holes, I did fall asleep, for a little bit.


Because anyone who has children (nope that isn't true,  I know many of you who have lovely children who sleep very well for you, and well, frankly I just don't wanna talk about it) but the rest of you know that they totally tag-team you. Like they communicate, okay I've been up a few nights with them, and I'm getting real tired so can you take one for the team tonight?


Levi slept, and Aaron must have drew the short straw. He took his assignment very seriously.


He woke up at 3.


And for the next 3 hours jumped off his dresser, flipped on his bed, and basically had the time of his life.


My sister in law phoned a few days ago around like 8 or 9 and asked, "oh, did I wake you?" I thought, is  that seriously an option in some households? "Nope, we're good, Aaron's been up since 5...what's up?" "Oh, is he still doing that?" she asked.


Yes he is.


I'm pretty sure he always will. I really have stopped torturing myself with the idea that this could be a "phase" he'll just grow out of.


We'll just be smart enough to one day build him a room above the garage, where he can happily squeal away a night here and there, with less disruption to the rest of the house.


At one point in the night (in between listening for Aaron running a sink over, or turning on lights in our, I mean the baby's room, or even going outside to jump on the tramp!) I'd managed to drift deep enough asleep to have a bit of a dream.


I dreamt that it was the middle of the night and a bunch of my friends showed up. They were all sad about something, needing to chat, needed to cry, needing to eat chocolate.


Needing.


And even though it was the middle of night, these were all girls I love to pieces and I wouldn't dream (well I guess technically I was) of not being there for them when they needed me, no matter what time of day or night.


I woke up thinking of Aaron. I've spent lots of time angry and resentful of his night time shenanigans , and also time learning to accept it, but for the for the first time I recognized in Aaron, not just horrible sleep habits, but a need. I think somehow every once and a while he needs those darkened hours free of expectations, free of brothers and therapists, free of anything but a bed to bounce on and a voice to squeal.


At least now as I lye awake I can compose blog posts in my head, which are way funner than  my old "whoa is me I didn't get to sleep again" facebook statuses.


And when Aaron zonks out 10 minutes before school starts, just as the baby wakes up and wants fed (tag Levi, your back in the game!) and I acquiesce to the fact that I will not be able to go out and get McKye some jeans without holes this , I realize there are just somethings I must not be meant to do.


Shop. Sleep. Or have nice family photos.


Oh well shoppings over-rated.


And I'm still hoping the photos'll turn out.


Or maybe we'll just blow up these babies for the mantle:

Except Aaron isn't in it (this was our FHE activity)

Didn't think Levi could be any tubbier did ya

Still smilin'

I promise I'm done posting these stilly pics. Promise.

And a little bonus:

Jim Breuer on "Why Mothers Need Their Sleep"

You'll never guess what time it is...

Ok I'll try and convince myself I'm happy I'm up ( again) at 4 am, 
some extra time to blog right?


Ugh.


Aaron is happily (and repeatedly) jumping off his dresser, the resulting thud is surprisingly loud echoing through our sleeping household (well, mostly sleeping). He may be loosing that dresser pretty quick. Either that, or I'll be loosing my mind.


Quick random updates from my random posts.


No more flute playing...kinda disappointed actually.


And no run tomorrow. Considering the 4 hours of sleep I may be forced to do this saturday on, it's probably all for the best.


Instead I went out with the girls and ate these:

5k run OR ...an obscene amount of donuts, covered in icing sugar, dipped in three equally delicious choices of bavarian cream, raspberry sauce and fancy chocolate?

Was there really a choice???

Not getting eye surgery. Classic Chelsea back out. Maybe later. 

Oh have a mentioned I'm so bad at making decisions? 

Choices, as in choose the right VS wrong, those aren't so bad, but when it just doesn't matter either way and it's just my choice...yikes. Apparently figuring out what I want is hard for me.

I was obsessing over the eye surgery thing with a friend, who I really ought to start sending checks to for her "therapy sessions", because she is so good at helping me get to the"real issues" behind my general stressing. One thing we distilled was woman (or maybe it's just me) take EVERYTHING painstakingly into account. 

We've lovingly deemed it the "shower principle". Let me explain.

Man thinks "I should shower."

Man showers.

Woman think, huh, I haven't showered in a few days. "Oh but there's the baby, if I nurse first, but then I'll still need to exercise, but I won't have time to blow dry til the toddler goes down for a nap because right now he's whining for cereal, which I could read my scriptures while I eat with him"... but the phone rings and then the freshly showered husband comes down and by the time you see him lovingly out the door, you sit down to another morning of soggy cornflakes, which your forced to scarf down because the two year old now is begging you for a show. When he finally goes down for a nap 5 non-stop hours later, you think I'll quickly put on a load of laundry, but by then the baby wakes up, he could go in the shower with you, but you'll still never get blow dried...in the end, maybe you'll just shower tomorrow.


Maybe I should shower at 4 am...but then I still couldn't blow dry could I.


At this point in the post I'm suppose to post some lovely encouraging quote from Julie B Beck about mothering and sacrifice, but my lap top is dying and those donuts are not apparently the breakfast of champions. 


Hopefully I've tired myself out enough to tune out the incessant thuding.


Goodnight.  
Ah, can't do it, too depressing, I need to redeem this post from it's whiny "woe is me tone"...so for those of you who missed this link a few days back:

No ordinary work done by a man is either as hard

 or as responsible 

as the work of a woman 

who is bringing up a family of small children; 

for upon her time and strength demands

 are made not only every hour of the day 

but often every hour of the night.

--Theodore Roosevelt

I was going to write something cute, like 

"I guess Mrs. Roosevelt saw her share of 4 am's too"

Then, out of curiosity, I went to look up how many kids he had and read this

In 1880, Roosevelt married Alice Hathaway Lee (July 29, 1861 – February 14, 1884) of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. She died young of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure two days after their infant Alice was born. Her pregnancy had masked the illness. Theodore Roosevelt's mother Mittie died of typhoid fever on the same day, at 3 am, some eleven hours earlier, in the same house. After the nearly simultaneous deaths of his mother and wife, in his diary, he wrote a large 'X' on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." (See diary photo).

Diary Entry Feb 14, 1884

He re-married and had 5 more children.

5 am perspective. Aaron means " shining light".  

I need to remember and be grateful for my "little" trials...

that my "little light" is not out, just up.