365 | sapphires, allodynia, elves, and dragons

055/365 | Sunday 29 December 2019 - I am grateful for the little strawberry pastries my co-worker, Kirk, buys us that taste like Spring. I am grateful to all my neighbors who recognize and compliment Atalanta's beauty as I walk her. I am grateful for my dainty antique sapphire ring and the pleasant ghost of the tiny woman who wore it before me.

056/365 | Monday 30 December 2019 - Me and my little man had a rough morning together, butting heads. I was out of sorts, my feelings hurt, and then I watched him squeal and yell with delight as his kite picked up air and sailed over our heads, in the yard but especially on our walk with the dog, Mads running ahead of me (precariously, in crocs). Life is like this.

057/365 | Tuesday 31 December 2019 - Journal prompt: Who is the person you are when you're with your person? How does being in your (romantic) relationship make you feel? Who does being in your relationship make you feel you are?

058/365 | Wednesday 1 January 2020 - New year, new look.

059/365 | Thursday 2 January 2020 - I like to dip into Middle Earth at the Yuletide. We got a late start this year and powered through these, which is how this tradition began as newlyweds--all three LOTR movies on Christmas day.

060/365 | Friday 3 January 2020 - Nothing like being knocked-on-your-butt sick at the beginning of the new year.

061/365 | Saturday 4 January 2020, work - Wall! Of! Fortunes!

062/365 | Sunday 5 January 2020 - We buried Granny today. Afterwards, we picked Mads up from Grandma's house, and he was very impressed with his dad's suit. I told him, "Baby, your daddy only wears suits to funerals," which is no exaggeration (he did not even marry me in a suit). Unlike his dad, Mads appreciates the lines of a good suit and dressed in his own approximation of one when we got home. He ate a dinner of star fruit and deviled eggs and watched a Scooby Doo in a jacket and tie.

063/365 | Monday 6 January 2020 - Ludo follows us on our walks. Between the cat trailing us on our walks and the life-size skeleton on our porch, we've established ourselves as the neighborhood eccentrics in record time.

064/365 | Tuesday 7 January 2020 - Tonight Mads had me sing every single bedtime song I've ever sung him--we sang through our entire six-year catalog before the bedtime kiss.

065/365 | Wednesday 8 January 2020 - A gift from my beau, who knows me so well.

066/365 | Thursday 9 January 2020 - Atalanta Strawberry Vaughn

067/365 | Friday 10 January 2020 - Mads has been forbidden to sing Christmas songs by his exasperated father, but it doesn't stop him. I've polished off the last of the mulled wine, we've finished watching the Lord of the Rings, our Christmas decorations are tucked away in the attic, and it is a relief.

068/365 | Saturday 11 January 2020 - I try to strike a balance with the kids between firmly setting my boundaries and expectations and meeting their needs with active listening, respect, and compassion. Ella is easy. Mads is a rebel.

365 | I wish I had a river I could skate away on

027/365 | Sunday 1 December 2019, Work - I work with Christmas people. I don't know how to feel about Christmas. This time of year I waffle between being Sandra Bullock slumped over a counter, separated from humanity by a plexiglass window, wearing a stocking cap and fingerless gloves, counting change apathetically and Meg Ryan decorating her tree alone, listening to sad Joni Mitchell songs and thinking of her dead mother and failing business.

028/365 | Monday 2 December 2019, Cary - This pizza gave me a bellyache so I left the last slice as an offering to the Kids Together Playground squirrels (who have lion heads only figuratively).

029/365 | Tuesday 3 December 2019, Work - Communicating with ease, directness, humor, and aplomb today. It is Day 28 of my cycle. I often feel that the days leading up to my bleed I am at my sharpest, moving through my own life like a blade.

030/365 | Wednesday 4 December 2019, Grandma's House - I believe Entenmann's "rich frosted" chocolate donuts are the greatest donuts in existence. Mads almost agrees with me but says the Duck Donuts maple bacon "kill the chocolate ones dead."

031/365 | Thursday 5 December 2019, Bond Park - A hike with some of the homeschool group today. We started out at the back of the group but somehow ended up at the front with most of the older kids (over 10s). As Mads and the other kids stood off the trail at the water's edge, tossing rocks and examining mussels, Wolfman stood above them, dad-ing (reminding them not to throw rocks bigger than their fists and to aim carefully, guiding them, complimenting them). He can't help himself. He's been dad-ing since he was just a kid, himself.

032/365 | Friday 6 December 2019 - Photo by Mads

033/365 - Saturday 7 December 2019, Work - Santa Paws Day is like our Rex Manning Day.

034/365 | Sunday 8 December 2019, Work - Special delivery of assless chaps for Shamble Pill. I did my training for this company in early spring (2017), and one of the employees referred to the upcoming Easter holiday as "Zombie Jesus Day." I knew I'd fit in just fine.

035/365 | Monday 9 December 2019, Grandma's house - My new morning routine living at Grandma's house includes turning on the kitchen faucet for this running-water-obsessed cat, Billie Holliday. She may die of thirst when Mads and I leave for our new house in January.

036/365 | Tuesday 10 December 2019, Grandma's house - The dolls are not what they seem.

037/365 | Wednesday 11 December 2019, Cary - A teenage girl at the downtown fountain offered to take a picture of us. I wasn't sure she'd ever used an old point-and-shoot camera like mine, but she managed one perfect picture which I'll send out with my Christmas cards this year. It took until December 11th, but I'm finally feeling kind of festive, or at least less outright ba-humbuggy.

038/365 | Thursday 12 December 2019, Grandma's house - Ludo tried to leave with Wolfman, Mads, and me this afternoon. He has a bad habit of trying to hop into cars and go for rides if we let the doors linger open too long in the drive way. Wolfman carried him away, into the yard, and whispered a secret in his ear. I think I know what the secret is, but I won't say it out loud.

039/365 | Friday 13 December 2019, Apex - These two are a planet until themselves, and I am a satellite, circling them, admiring them.

040/365 | Saturday 14 December 2019 - This Fittonia has been with me since April of this year (my only pink plant). It survived two moves and then nearly perished from neglect when I forgot about it in the window of an upstairs bedroom at Grandma's house. I thought it was surely dead but soaked it in the bathroom sink, with many apologies and laments and curses against myself. And here it is, a couple days after its long drink, very much alive and very forgiving.

Thankful Thursday | when you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart

I Am Grateful:

• I am grateful for the Duplo blocks that quiet Mads and capture his interest.
• I am grateful for every part of my body that jiggles because I'm made of flesh not paper.
• I am grateful when I hear sirens, for the people who make livings of helping others.
• I am grateful for my grandpa, steady and good and full of love.
• I am grateful to come home to a house full of good cooking smells after a long day at work.
• I am grateful for little gifts left in my cubby at work from co-workers.
• I am grateful to Grandma for picking us up and taking us to dinner at Martigan's favorite, Firehouse Subs, and I am grateful to her for her good humor when Mads eats only chips and does not touch his sandwich.
• I am grateful for citrus-scented dish soap.
• I am grateful for the jingling tinkle of my many charm bracelets (Christmas gifts from Grandma this year) against china coffee mugs as I put them away in the cabinet.
• I am grateful for the way salt patterns swirl on roads and look like some ancient magic runes, and like snow, impervious to sun and heat.
• I am grateful for the competing morning sounds of Uriah Heep on the turn table on one side of me (in the living room) and Wolfman tuning up his guitar on the other (in the bedroom).
• I am grateful for the tradition of wearing my husband's boots and coat (so much more practical than my own) to tromp around in the snow.

"La Vie En Rose," Louis Armstrong

Madmartigan, 4 Years Old | I'm a man you don't meet everyday

My guy, he hates the snow. He hates the cold. He wants to watch the same episode of Rescue Bots over and over (the first episode; he loves watching the autobots choosing their earth disguises). He tells me, "I just love toys! That's the thing I really love." Some days he's not much interested in food and meal time is a struggle; other days he is ravenous and eats two adult sized sandwiches for lunch. He talks, from the moment he wakes up in the morning until he falls asleep at night. I know him by his little voice, his chatter, his questions, his games, the songs he sings. He also tells jokes. He also lets the people he loves know he loves them. I worry I let him eat too many sweets, and I worry that he is a little soft (see the last photo, of my supposedly wild boy wailing his dismay at the existence of weather), but he is articulate and hilarious and so full of love, so I'm doing something right.

About Mads, 4 Years & 5 Months Old:

• When he plays with transformers and action figures, his Big Bad is "The Nothing" (from Neverending Story).
• While sick, he woke suddenly one night crying out, "I ran out of batteries!" then fell back asleep.
• We've done away with television in the mornings, and instead, to much objection and with many failed attempts at negotiation from Mads, we listen to music, play games, and I read from magazines and books of fairy tales. Mads objects the least and engages the most when I read recipes. And, in fact, once or twice he has even requested we flip through recipe books together. We have big plans to make pretzels this week.
• As his dad and I giggle together in the kitchen, Mads demands, "You tell me your secrets or you're fired!"  
• His big Christmas gift this year was a bike, from his grandmommie, Sandra (a Batman bike and an Iron Man helmet). He got sick almost immediately after Christmas, and then we had record low temperatures the following week, so he hasn't done much riding yet.
• He can draw a perfect circle.
• He is not a fan of Dim Sum.
• Favorite books: Sam's Sandwich, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Little Blue Truck
• Favorite shows & movies: Transformers: Rescue Bots, Boss Baby

"I'm a Man You Don't Meet Everyday," The Pogues