A Mindful Life

I marvel at how Claire’s existence has opened my life. It’s also reassuring to see how people react to her. We go out daily (for my well-being as much as hers).
On Thursday we went to the mall. I’m not a fan of malls, but I thought it would be interesting (anything different is inherently interesting [...]

In honor of Beverly Cleary’s birthday, tomorrow April 12th, is Drop Everything And Read Day.
Give yourself permission to do nothing else if you so desire!

As soon as I write about how Claire is now taking her morning nap later, it changes. Today she’s whiny, clingy, and fussy. She napped briefly in her swing. She won’t fall and stay asleep for me to put her in the crib. I put her back in the swing instead so I could get [...]

And I’m a little slow adapting mentally.
Now Claire wakes at 6 a.m. So do I. We’re going 3 to 3.5 hours before her first nap (she won’t sleep unless she’s really tired). That puts my free time to take a shower smack at the same time Husband gets up to shower. She’s not really napping [...]

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
–George Santayana

Flickr is offering Pro users the option to upload short videos. I tried it, and it worked!
For people who friends and family contacts of mine on Flickr, you can go to my photo stream and view the video. In order to see the video you need to log in to your Flickr account first.
If [...]

Today Claire hardly napped. She was clearly tired and often rubbed her eyes. (What a pretty mess that made when she had sweet potatoes on her fingers!)
We went to music class, and she recognized the room and the teacher. She loved being there, smiling and participating the whole time. She dozed briefly on the ride [...]

It occurs to me that I don’t always exhibit kindness. In fact, I can be a defensive, judgmental, argumentative, entitled, and angry person. I had an encounter just now that showed me this. It’s not how I want to be. Let me put it this way: I’m not very graceful when things go wrong and [...]

When Claire was born, all helpless and uncoordinated, I had difficulty imagining she’d have control over her body someday. And now, seven months later, the child is rocking (gets on hands and knees and rocks as if revving her engine) and rolling all over the place. She’s just a week or two away from crawling, [...]

In case readers wonder (some do, and they’re basically relatives), Claire is much better. She is still snotty and congested, but the sneezing, coughing, fever and vomiting stopped. She’s back on solid foods and seems to be having another growth spurt, because today she ate a 4-ounce jar of peas & brown rice, a 2-ounce [...]