A Mindful Life

Poor sweet Claire is ill. We thought it was teething at first, because she said her teeth hurt and her mouth hurt on Saturday. Yesterday I saw very faint red spots on her legs during bath, and a small little pimple-like bump in the corner of her mouth. Today she spiked a fever, doesn’t have [...]

She spins in circles and says, “I’m getting busy!!” and laughs when she falls down.
She adds plural ending to words that are already plural: gloveses, shoeses, kidses.
She adds “ed” to verbs in current tense to make them past-tense: “It breaked,” “I eated.”
She sits in her wading pool, looks up at the trees blowing in the [...]

From this (playing in her pool and having pensive moment)…

…to this (silly with stickers).

But still a little on the small side! I asked Claire’s Grandma to make an art smock for Claire that she could grow into. Claire is modeling it in the photo below. It’s wonderful and adorable, and it will be of use for many years!

Although we live in an urban area, Claire and I find many natural treasures. We bring them home and put them in a shoe box to explore later. There are duck feathers, crow feathers, seed pods, bark, pine cones, and stones to examine. Claire has lost interest in playing on slides and swings. She prefers [...]

Today Claire is 21 months old. She sparkles more by the day.
Claire has a fuzzy sheep toy she was given at Christmas. Until recently he was benignly ignored, but he has become popular enough to be requested in bed. The other morning when I went to get her from the crib, she hugged him and [...]

So many tidbits to share about Claire, who is such a marvelous and interesting little person. Without further ado:

She’s becoming more aware of feeling and articulation and is building a narrative. One say she fell down hard on her back at Little Gym after stepping on a ball. She was uninjured but scared. The next [...]

I’ve been sitting daily for 20 minutes, and I’m amazed how frenetic my thoughts are. They are faster and more erratic than any toddler. I sit, eyes half open, aware of the breath in my nostrils and counting, and all the while it sounds like a cocktail party in my head:
Boy, I can’t believe SHE [...]

The last few days, my joints have ached, particularly in my forearms and hands. They feel stiff and painful to move. This morning, I woke up with completely numb hands. It took about 30 minutes before they were fully mobile. My initial reaction was, “WTF??!!”
Whatever the cause or problem, this will affect my writing and [...]

Life is prodding me to stay present and not borrow trouble in the future. This is a discipline, one that requires traipsing after my thoughts like I do after my toddler.
The microwave broke again, despite our being careful not to use the front burner to cook steamy things (which apparently caused the circuits to [...]