"Fanx". A lot.

Somebody else had a birthday. (Um, it may have even been in the fall. That's what happens sometimes. Sorry buddy. I wrote about you then, but didn't get to publish it.)

On the day before you turned 5, amidst a great deal of giggles and birthday pancakes, I recounted in my head the day you were born and how I worked with such intensity to get you with your sideways turned head here. The way that you greeted the world with such calmness and keen observation, not even crying.

These days you are not always calm. Things change pretty rapidly for you. But you do take in everything.

All year your art has really developed. Your pictures, like your life,  are filled with great details and voyages and heroes and quests. Your horse teacher is right that someday you may write a very complex book.

Bastilla: The girl elf

Your gratitude for the world around you is always near the surface and just hearing your simple "fanx" always makes me more energized and generous. Also you very astutely have discovered that, "magic isn't real; except when it's in yours heart." So, in you my darling, never forget that it is actually overflowing.

 

Music also is slowly opening itself up to you. You surprised us all when suddenly you love to do your own funky dances, especially to Latin rhythms, and, unlike so many other times, do not even care if anyone is watching you.

Your humor has developed and as you remind us, can be a great coping mechanism for all of us. Sometimes we meow together when you are upset (I have no idea why this works, but it does), or your toothbrush has to talk, or you and I play a complex game where I am you as a grownup and you are me as a little girl. I get to give you permission to be a lot less serious. And through it all, you remain a small man of great mystery.

Before you turned five you had the firsts of learning to ride a horse, singing in front of an audience, the two of us starting Tae Kwon Do together-- that thing you have "waited for your whole life." You also make some pretty mean pancakes.

Lake Ft. Smith

And some pretty silly faces. You are trying to be a good brother, going along with crazy exploits, enduring being dressed, positioned, and frequently bossed. However, you are also starting to take on new roles as director and crafter of stories. And you stand up for yourself. Fiercely. With your toddler sister you are more willing to indulge, occasionally adore, and even collaborate with her.

You are exacting and careful. Few adults notice or care about all of the details that you do. And you also have the artistic gift of thinking non-linearly and in multiple directions, dimensions, and story lines. Your giggles are amazing and I am so thankful for the quiet mornings when we are up before anyone else in the house. And that you still have a Dragon, who grows and that you make nests for. Dragons, are after all, sometimes very delicate. You help me to learn about patience and living with intensity and completeness. How I love you and your daisies that fill my days.

-XOXO Mama

Of cabbages and kings!

This week was the Medieval fair, and indeed,:

"The time has come...

[the family said],

to talk of many things. 

Of shoes--and ships--

and sealing wax--

of cabbages and kings."

[And while the sea is boiling hot,

Oh! -Hear the mermaids sing!]

-Lewis Carroll The Walrus and the Carpenter

Slice a cabbage the most thinly or
"plummet" (a.k.a. pummel) the opponent to win.

After chasing knights down, sometimes one is just speechless,

OR must undertake a quest of their own.

Presenting: Sirs Cristopher and Connor.

Baby "dragons" require great gentleness

That mermaid gave her a shell!

["O Children," said the Parents,]
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
[They're snoring, every one.]

Happy birthday to my maniac man on the move!

Dear Cris,

What an important year it has been! You my dear are learning so many things like how to unlock the secrets of letters and to have big aspirations, such as being a practicing ninja when you are 100. On your first day of kindergarten your biggest aspiration was to learn to be a spy. I have no doubt that you could have physically done it, you would have already engineered a pathway to the moon.

You have left the shadow of babyhood behind and now stand straight like a knocked bow string. You can still curl yourself into my lap, barely, but mostly I spend time looking at the back of your head as you dash to complete your next brilliant idea. You push ahead past naysayers, dream droppers, and road blockers, and sometimes even advice givers. Sometimes, sadly, even when that well wisher is me.

You take the world at full throttle and are utterly captivated by it. And you create curious and marvelous things- a periscope out of a rain gutter that stretches in a tree over our back fence (and thankfully wasn't quite long enough to reach the power lines above), custom holsters, trap doors, booby traps, propellers, catapults, bridges.

You have spunk, in abundance, and frequently lead the dance raves or the party, test your boundaries, and, completely shocking to me, even occasionally moon me. Your favorite things are bold and brassy, so it was completely fitting when you begged to join band this year to play trumpet. You were completely undaunted at being the youngest student that has ever been in the program. Yet you had to learn some valuable lessons about the power of persistence, team work, and humility. Keep coming back to those.

I hope you will continue to be undaunted by learning or paradigms of knowledge and know that it is awesome to keep learning about cosmology, and meteorology, and Gaelic, and knighthood- right now- because they are interesting to you and because only through our questions can we unlock the world.

I hope that you will let this world keep spinning you around and never ask to get off until the ride has come to a complete stop.

I hope that you will remember just how much love you have to give out from that very big, all be it, very crazy, heart of yours.

We love you so much.
X-O-X-O

Mom

3: Notice

 

1. (Noun) The act of observing or perceiving what is going on all around.
2. (Noun) Respectful or courteous attention.

One of the most beautiful things about Calyn's personality is that she sees details and notices everything and everyone around her. She can find even a glimmer of sparkle and detect a glimpse of sadness. She finds so many things that everyone else overlooks everyday. She takes in the high and the low and whatever she discovers she gently touches.

We are hoping our Christmas tree will survive her inquiries!

May you notice blessings and people this holiday season that you would normally overlook and welcome them with reverence.

1: Deck

Last year my Christmas words series were an important meditation for me and a way to cultivate mindfulness during the holidays and try to capture and share glimpses of the beauty of my life. I decided to continue them this year. I hope they are lovely for you as well.

Christmas in the main square, Mulhouse, France

1. Verb. To adorn festively
2. Verb.  To knock someone very hard to their knees or to the ground.
3. Verb. [Clear the deck] To prepare for action.

This year our holiday started with some unfortunate news about a job. There were so many opportunities, possibilities, dreams from the past bubbling into hopes for our future that seemed packaged just right. We were all completely wrapped up in what might have been, perhaps more than we ever have been before. And now it isn't. 

So now we are here on our knees, on our faces, wondering what comes next. We are assessing, we are searching, we are making preparations; but for what exactly we do not know.  

One final word: Nativity

Nativity

Calyn about one hour after birth

    1. (noun) The process, circumstances, and place of one's birth.

   2. (noun) The coming into life or into the world.

For Christians, of course, Christmas culminates in the coming of the Christ child. But, I think it is imperative to remember that as much as we try to make Christmas about flaunting and fulfilling our images of perfection, that originally it actually must have been pretty un-idealistic circumstances. You know...the unwed teenage mother has her baby in the donkey's dish without any birth attendants. 

This is not an anesthetic, sterile, or managed experience. Rather it seems that it was most likely animalistic, alarming, unpredictable, and empowering. These are the circumstances where that child, whom we call God, came to dwell. And ours are the situations the people, whom God calls children, are called to live. Powerful.

Should this not make us revere the birth process and women's roles in it a bit more? Check here for some ways we can do that more.

The years that I have had a baby at Christmas, I feel these dichotomies acutely. It also feels that God and others are nearer in this season; perhaps as a more loving spirit permeates everywhere. In that magic of the incarnation God dwells with us and also in us. In Les Miserables they say "to love another person is to see the face of God." Always I have believed this to be true, especially of a baby. Interestingly the Indonesian people of Bali also believe that a child is a full deity for the first 6 months of life (Thank you Eat, Pray, Love).  (Hard to not believe so, really.)

So as the new year begins, welcome new life and see if you can feel the presence of those who have gone before especially close to our world, dwelling on the edge.  

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray...O come to us abide in us, our Lord, Emanuel.