capturing quiet moments

This morning, I had a dream that Mount Baker erupted. Mount Baker is an active volcano just south of the border and my Grandma, who has a perfect view of it will often speculate on its steaming. In the dream, the smoke was shooting into the sky like steam from a kettle and then we saw it - the lava. We looked at each other and questioned "Where do you go?" but the only answer was head East and just keep going. (Which, of course, in the dream made sense but in real life, if you went East you would be going toward the volcano). Regardless, we turned and ran. I got the car (which in the dream was my old Neon?) and as Ben ran after he turned a corner and slipped on the pavement as I yelled, "COME ON, COME ON, GET IN!" That's where the dream ended.

I woke up shaken to say the least. I knew it wasn't real. I knew it wasn't Pompeii, which is where I get all of my ideas about volcanic eruptions - people being buried alive, huddled together. But I wondered if we would be those people clinging to each other knowing it was our last moments. And I wondered where my children were in the dream and if it something like that were to happen, what I would do if they weren't with me.

In Cambridge, I had many chances to loiter in book stores. There was one right across from Trinity College called Heffer's, which we always thought was a strange name, but it was a lovely book store filled with all the types of books a good Brit would want to read. One day, I took some time to lose myself in a beautiful book featuring Annie Leibovitz's photography. A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005   was full of personal images from her life - her parents at dawn as they were just rising out of bed, messy houses, dirty dishes and all the mundaneness of the everyday. I was captivated. We have been given the technology of the camera to capture moments, to help us remember. And this morning, as I woke with a sense of anxiety over the safety and security of my family, I wanted nothing more than to remember the togetherness, the peace of the morning, the light streaming in as our littlest cuddled up to her daddy.

I love the purity of this photo - the gentle light letting us know the day had arrived.

It isn't often that I get a few moments of morning to myself. It's like my children have a special radar alerting them when I've placed my feet on the ground. But this morning their radar failed...for a few minutes anyway...

Allowing me to carefully adjust my settings, set up the shot and take pure, perfectly focused, perfectly exposed photos. This is the photography that I love. The kind that takes time. That captures life. The messy houses, the morning light.

When we are feeling inadequate: take two.

One phrase that often lands unsuspecting visitors in this space is "feeling inadequate as a mother". It's true. Blogger allows me to see the searched words and phrases from google that made me, this space, yes, my blog show up as a resolve to someone's question. Usually the words and phrases are things like my name or the title of my blog and the top three that follow are "nativity scene" "paris in the rain" (surprise) and brushfield spots. But there are a few that show up every month faithfully, with a hit or two, and those are "wife of a musician" and "feeling inadequate as a mother" (coincidence?). And I wonder if sometimes people use google as a type of magic 8 ball. This is what I am feeling so this is what I am going to type in and see what fate (or the little men inside my computer) come up with.

Goodness knows I was tempted tonight as I exhaled at the end of a stressful day and felt completely inadequate as not only a mother, but a wife, friend and daughter. I won't go into details but let's just say after a hasty bedtime routine and unscrewing and disassembling the lock on my shed door because I locked the keys inside, I was feeling pretty crappy. So I did what, perhaps many do, and googled it.

"Feeling inadequate as a mother"

I wanted to know what came up. Which post? Had I really used that phrase.
It turns out I had. 

It turns out, it was a pretty good post and was written on a night, similar to tonight. Bedtime gone array and Ben out at some musical rehearsal. And it turns out, that it was also on Mother's day.

A year later and still left wanting, still not perfect. go figure.

"Moments like these are all too familiar lately. After two months of comings and goings, company, trips and the first and most important of Ben's Cambridge exams, I have found myself, in the last week, either completely exhaustedor aching for time to read, to write and to think. I have been absent, perhaps not in body, but in mind and spirit, leaving my children sitting idle in front of The Cat In The Hat and me feeling completely inadequate. But who of us mothers, or fathers for that matter, haven't felt that way at one time or another? Even as I reflect on my own mother: the one who is always at the other end of the line when I am up in the middle of the night with a migraine, the one who is always slipping money into my palm and the one who is always my biggest cheerleader, no matter what crazy idea I have come up with this week. I am sure there are times....I know there were times when she, as a single mother, felt inadequate - felt that she wasn't doing enough, providing enough or there enough. But here I am...hopefully not too screwed up. Sure, I remember the low moments but I also remember the high moments and I know that when my mother felt inadequate she prayed that God would cover us with grace. Because nobody is perfect. No matter how often we read Proverbs 31, we will never measure up. And even if we come close, ultimately, our children could still be led astray - I seen it many times. "Perfect parents" whose children make wrong choices or have mental disorders which spiral into a sinful and corrupt life and all they can do is helplessly pray.

Look at Eve. The first mother. I am sure that their banishment from the garden was discipline enough to ensure they lead their boys in the ways of the Lord. But instead, we read about the first homicide in history.

Or Rebekah, mother of Jacob and Esau. Her favouritism was no secret as she helped Jacob secure the birthright in exchange for something as petty as a bowl of soup.

And then there is Bathsheba. The temptress who seduced King David, only to birth the wisest King to ever live.

I could go on. Surely Mary, mother of Jesus, felt inadequate at times....or all the time. But this did not deter her. To borrow from Solomon, "A perfect [mother]? Who can find?" No one. After all, we are still being perfected, yes, even us mothers. But God is in the midst of it all - the sleepless nights, the spaghetti stains and the worry. Lot's of worry. Because when you become a mother, no matter what the means, you give your child a part of your heart. You ache when they ache, you cry when they cry and you rejoice when they rejoice and this is what makes it all worthwhile.

To all the mothers out there, and especially my own: Happy Mother's Day.

Photo by https://thepauhaus.squarespace.com/

A little therapy update: What is OT anyway?

Let’s talk about OT or occupational therapy. What is it and why does Ella need it?

Occupational Therapy is all about fine motor skills. The four biggest and most challenging areas for many children are coincidentally the areas in which they must fail in order to receive funding in the province of BC: washing, feeding, dressing and toileting. Ella however, will fail, inevitably as she is doing very well in all of these areas. In fact, Ella’s fine motor skills are almost on par with her peers. As mentioned before, she is 90% potty trained, spends hours putting on and taking off her clothes (which eventually end up scattered all over her floor),  she has no problem feeding herself and often tries to use a knife and knows how to brush her teeth, wash her face and hands and takes charge at bath time shampooing and rinsing her hair.

Mr....or Mrs. Potatohead is great for fine motor skills because they have to stick each part into little holes, but it is also awesome for language development as they solidify parts of the body.

The next goals for us consequently, has to do with preparing Ella for Kindergarten. The biggest aspect of this is understanding the structures and rules which govern the classroom so that she can focus on being in kindergarten and learning through play instead of how to manage a new environment and how to sit still during circle time or follow instructions. In the OT department this takes the form of hand-eye coordination and writing. But just like in many other areas of life, writing is best developed once you know the basic foundations and “rules”. For example, how to hold a pen. Ella has held her crayon correctly even before Jakob and has always been left-handed...just like her grandpa. And while we have encouraged her to create using different mediums it has been…shall we say, freestyle.

We started with tracing circles. I will have to figure out the best way to upload some of the pdf's we use. But to give you an idea, I just did one "o" inside of the other to form a track and put a sticker at the top. Then we say "go, go, go STOP" when she gets back around to the top. She could always draw circles, they just always came many at a time.

But now that we are introducing the alphabet and phonetics (which I will get into more when I talk about Speech and Language develop), we have started tracing letters.

The other thing we had never done with Ella were things like beading….go figure. I was able to get a ridiculous deal on a tonne of Melissa and Doug stuff so I not only did a little Christmas shopping but bought some things in the name of Occupational therapy. When using the beads again, we incorporate speech and give Ella a choice - "Do you want blue or yellow?" This is part of our goal to have Ella respond to questions appropriately even if she doesn't have the exact sound or word. The point is the response and whichever she looks at, grabs for, or says, then that is the one we give her.

One of the birthday presents I stashed away however, was discovered prematurely when the parents were out and while I was a little annoyed, however, the pure joy they both get out of making art is a quick remedy for any ill-feelings.

So there is our little OT update. We couldn't be happier with our therapy right now. I feel supported in my goals for Ella and she is developing in leaps and bounds. I hope you find it helpful. Have a beautiful colour-filled week!