Another Five Minute Friday :: Older

Before They Grew Older

August 2005

Older ...

Bei Bei lost her first tooth, in the first week of first grade. Just another reminder that she is getting older. We are entering the phase of gap toothed smiles and lisps and change from the tooth fairy. And all too soon those big teeth will descend and her smile and face will change forever. My baby is getting older.

Older ...

Each of the three are now enrolled in the next grade ... legs a little longer, faces a little thinner, baby fat now really just a distant memory.

Older ...

We can wax wistfully about them growing up ... each year closer to that gown and mortar board and tassel, to that day when their full names are read formally and they walk that stage and shake a hand and accept a diploma. But there is joy in this growth, in watching them become something more, while at the same time retaining that distilled sweetness that is their own unique personality.

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The Scoop on Five Minute Friday:

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking. 2. Link back to the Gypsy Mama {http://thegypsymama.com/}and invite others to join in.
3. Get a little crazy with encouragement for the five minuter who linked up before you.

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes for this week's prompt: Older

Everyday {Another Five Minute Friday}

Everyday I drink coffee in the morning.

Mr Johnson boils the water in the black tea kettle, scoops out the coarsely ground Starbucks coffee {gifted to us by my sister the Bonita Barista}, and then lets the dark liquid brew in the French press for a few minutes before pressing the coffee and pouring out giant steaming mugs of our everyday experience. {Sometimes, like on weekends, or birthdays, or holidays, he'll whip up a milky espresso based latte, but usually the espresso machine is saved for after dinner, and the French press is our daily everyday standard.}

Other parts of what I do everyday depend on the season.

We've just commenced school holidays and our everyday will change from the strict morning schedule of getting three 12-and-unders out the door by 8:08 {A luxurious morning schedule to be sure! Certainly better than leaving the house at 7:20 as they were previously accustomed to.} Maybe we'll have breakfast on the porch everyday. Hopefully we'll spend a half hour or so reading everyday.

But one certainty is that everyday there will be coffee. Thanks, Mr Johnson!

I am linked up again this Friday with Gypsy Momma. Check out this week's Five Minute Friday @ http://thegypsymama.com/2011/06/five-minute-friday-every-day/

On Forgetting {Another Five Minute Friday}

Sometimes I forget to pack someone's lunch {and then I scramble to throw something together for the kid who refuses to eat the All-American hot dog lunch with the rest of her class on Field Day}.

Sometimes I forget that she's only 12. {or she's only nine. or she's only six.}

Sometimes I forget what baby noises, and sounds, and faces look like until I hold a borrowed baby in my arms and all the memories come flooding back.

Sometimes, back in this land, where I lived for 17 years before moving away for five, I forget how to get somewhere and need to use a map. {Usually, it's only when I'm thinking about where I need to go, often once I'm actually behind the wheel I enter auto-pilot mode and remember the way after all. Which is not to say that I don't heavily rely on map apps and google!}

Sometimes I forget that we've only been here five months, and that boxes and longing, and a still-not-yet-completely-settled feeling is normal. Sometimes I just need to be reminded of that.

Sometimes when I talk to one of my sisters on the phone we say the exact same thing at the exact same time, and I forget that we are eight years and miles apart....

Linked up, again this Friday to the Gypsy Momma, who's prompt for this week's Five Minute Friday was: On Forgetting. Read more at: http://thegypsymama.com/2011/05/five-minute-friday-on-forgetting/

When Seasons Change: Another Five Minute Friday

The sun is setting on a phase of our lives. Six more mornings of kindergarten, and I will have my youngest child enrolled as a full-fledged, full-day school-aged child in the fall. Next year, with our oldest, we will also enter the teen years, and linger in them with three girls rotating through for 13 years. It's sad to think of this change in seasons. But exciting at the same time. Our baby is ready to move on. Our oldest is maturing towards that next phase of life. We can't stay in one season forever. (Thankfully). So wistfully we hold on to those last moments. Those last mid-day picnics in the playhouse with a little girl who will only have lunch at home on the weekends come autumn. Lots of trips to her favorite park. Reading and chatting and loving these last fleeting moments before we begin a new and exciting season of life.

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Take a deep breath. You made it. It’s Friday.

Got five minutes? Let’s write. Let’s write in shades of real and brave and unscripted.

Let’s just write and not worry if it’s just right or not.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat for pure unedited love of the written word.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Go buck wild with encouragement for the five minuter who linked up before you.

This week's prompt: When Season's Change

From The Gypsy Momma http://thegypsymama.com/2011/05/five-minute-friday-when-seasons-change/

Motherhood Should Come with ... {Another five minute Friday}

It's a Six Minute Saturday today, folks. (I totally forgot to check in and see what the Gypsy Momma had for a prompt this week and, it turns out, it's just too good a topic to pass up. Check it out at:http://thegypsymama.com/2011/05/five-minute-friday-motherhood-should-come-with/)

Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there.

Here's my two cents on the subject ... in six minutes flat.

Start:

Motherhood should come with a disclaimer that reads: it is okay to make it up as you go along. (The disclaimer could also add that what works well for one of your children, may not work for another. And an additional collorary could be added that what works best for your family, may not work well for another family ... and that's okay.)

I don't think that anyone should tell you how exhausted you'll sometimes feel. How you might one day wander around a Target with vomit on your jeans, vomit that belongs to the small person you left at home with your husband, and that you had no idea was there.

No one should tell you that one day when your daughter is in junior high, she will not smile and wave back to you from the stage as she once did when she was little and you sat in the audience. You have to come to these moments on your own. Because they are your own. You own them.

Just like you own every sweet precious moment with a baby snuggled on your shoulder, or in your big bed on a Saturday morning.

Motherhood should could with a little prompt that tells you to follow your instinct and your heart.

Stop

If I Knew I Could, I Would {Another Five Minute Friday}

Write for five minutes on the following prompt

If I Knew I Could, I Would ....

Start

This one is easy ... Jump on a plane. I'd grab up the girlies and Mr Johnson, pack our swim and travel gear and Lonely Planet guides for a number of countries and jet set. If I knew that pulling the kiddos out of school for six months would work out okay in the end; and Mr Johnson could come back to a stable career; if somehow we had the luxury of unhindered travel for six months I would do it ... in a heart beat.

We had friends who took a mid-life gap year, with three kids in tow and a sea shipment of their life's belongings waiting for them in the port of the next city they would move to. It's a bold move ... daring. And in this day, age and economy almost impossible, but if there was a guarantee that it would work out {which is then nice safety clause in this prompt} we'd be off.

Stop

Another prompt from the Gypsy Momma {http://thegypsymama.com/2011/04/five-minute-friday-if-i-knew-i-could-i-would/}

{First} Five Minute Friday

ON DISTANCE

{Distance} A Skype call last night to my friend in QD reminded me that even a half a globe a way that distance can be broken. That we can sit in opposite time zones, me with an evening glass of malbec and she with her morning cup of Joe, and really connect. Hear the words and updates and thoughts. See each other over grainy footage sometimes interrupted by a child sneaking out of bed (on my end) or a toddler needing a snack (on hers).

{Distance} Could it really be that Monday of just this week our sweet old collie girl stood on the sidewalk and watched, for the last time, our girlies walk across the street to school? How long ago that day now seems, and yet how very fresh and real. She would have loved today. She loved standing in the wind, the gusts rippling over her slim dark body. We think of her all the time. We cry. We wonder if time ... distance from the event ... will lessen the pain we all feel.

{Distance} Parents in Canada, Sis in MN, Sis in Canada, Brother in Japan, Us back in IL. Spread out all over the globe. Yet connected. Making our together times more poignant, and our moments more treasured. Despite the distance.

{It's a bloggie challenge. A linky tool event. Five Minute Friday, with the jet-setting mommala over at Gypsy Momma (http://thegypsymama.com/2011/04/five-minute-friday-on-distance/). Link up with other bloggers. Write for five minutes. She'll give you a prompt.This week's Prompt: On Distance}