how to have 'quality' time...

Today while tooling around in the car, an add on the radio announced that I could indeed have "more quality time with my children" if I had some kind of expensive strange hair removal...... because I would no longer need to spend so much time in the shower shaving..... REALLY?!?!?

I can't believe I did not know this! How could I have missed it?

My kids where laughing so hard there was spittle flying about...

Naomi "Oh mom, if only you didn't spend sooooo much time shaving your hairy arm pits!"

Connor "Yes, then we would feel like you truly LOVED us!!"

Ellie rolling her eyes and sticking her tongue through the gap where her big girl teeth are coming in all too quick.... "hehehehe you shave hair in your arm pits?!? hehehehehehehe" eye roll... more lizard tongue movements, head bobbing from side to side... (the picture of crazy town!)

Oh man, they crack me up!
This is why I have kids.
This is sooooooo why we homeschool!
(Do I really want to expose this kind of fun to the world at large?)
And I obviously need to consider all my options in hair removal, because clearly I need more 'quality' time with this bunch!

"Snap" a portrait of a daughter.

My own mothers fingers were intertwined within the strands of my grown up 'lady' locks.
The hair her hands had braided a hundred times over the years.
Safety in her hands, love in her words, warmth in the visit. I confessed not feeling well.
She smiled.
My sister snapped a photo at that very moment. It is framed on my walls forever more.
My head bowed, being plaited for the day, my mothers smile as she considered my confession. "snap" and everything changed.
Greg and I rushed to the drug store.
And then there was Naomi.
Lovely Naomi, the baby even the Doctor gasped at.
It was a struggle to bring her in, everything said no in my body. no no no.
But my mind, my heart, my love said yes. and never looked back.
Greg held my hair back when I was forever leaning over white porcelain.
reading doctor Seuss books to distract her from my moaning.
We sang to her, and when they said she was breach ~
we played Neil Young way down low and she turned just like the good baby she was.
When the water rushed, she woke me and told me first...
It's just the kinda girl she is.
The day we drove home with her, I felt like we had something breakable in back.
The first night home....... she slept.
Late in the night I came down stairs, crawled up next to my own mother and I cried.
I cried for all that could be, could happen, will happen.
I cried for the hurt. The pain, the boys, the friends... all of it.
The uncertainty in life, the questions, the searching she would do.

And then I prayed. And I Knew.
Knew she would face this life, head on.
She would hurt, feel, love, win, lose.... all of it.
And I knew that Greg and I would give her our all.
The good the bad and the ugly... all of it.
And she would come out knowing her God.
All of Him.

Today she is 12... and so far...
Well, what can I say? Its just the kind of young lady she is.

Setting the 'proverbial' clock

I find that I have never been able to accomplish the elusive adage, "early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise." I am neither healthy, monetarily wealthy (though I feel sufficient) and most would just laugh at the 'wise'. (I say this because every public dining experience I have ever had with my siblings and parents as an adult has gone something like.... "Aubrey, shhhh, stop it! Did you really just say that?.. eye roll, laugh, cough, no really, honestly be quieter!" and somehow this has never felt like I fell into the wise category.) And yet this quote goes through my head like many others do.. a lot.

I desire to know how it feels to slumber in the actual slumbering hours. To rise when my husband does (dawn) and maybe even prepare breakfast, something other than cold cereal.

I long to put my children to bed at sane hours (that make me feel like I am running the show) and bring their darling heads off pillows at reasonable times that others would not scoff at. I do, I really do. And some how this eludes me, it always has. It started in the teen years and never rubbed off. I blame the bird in me. Damn the night owl and his ways.

To this end I begin my only new year's constancy, fortitude, DECLARATION if you will. Because clearly if I accomplish this one, I have accomplished them all: health, wealth and wisdom, no less. So tomorrow I dive in. I am setting an actual alarm. ON MY SIDE OF THE BED (cringe)for the wee hour of 6:30. I will go to bed by no later than, oh good grief I don't know what is reasonable, 10:30. We will do this all month. It is set in stone, or rather, Internet script.

And my kids? They have no idea what is coming, but they will find the dream state earlier than usual as well. That being a firm? (shaky weak fingers type this) I am so new to this... no later than????? 8:00?!? ahhhhhh! I must breath, breath and begin this new year, with its perfect plan, the setting of the proverbial clock.