Yay!

Been a terrific day.  :)

Had dinner and a good chat with a friend at our favorite restaurant, yay!

Got a new shirt (from Goodwill, my favorite store) from my God-daughter, and it's a Jane Austen shirt of all things, double yay!

Spent about an hour hanging out and chatting with my Middle One.  She's in 6th grade and my social butterfly, so her time is often dedicated to her friends.  I find it wonderfully special when I get a small window into her world and she shares her thoughts with me, triple yay!

And lastly, here is a shot of the continued Going Gray process. I didn't actually plan to take this shot so my hair is just sorta doing it's own thing.  It looks rather swoopy on top in the picture, but oh well. :) And when I look at this shot it feels like my forehead goes on for miles!  LOL!

I'm still absolutely loving this journey of finding my authentic self, quadruple yay!

A little over four months into the growing out process.

The Artist

I read with my Little One every day.  We read a lot.  She is four and loves picture books, so we look at a lot of illustrations.  She is four, so she asks a lot of questions.  Questions like, "Why is she wearing a blue shirt?"  or "Why is there a bird in that tree?" or "Why does the house have an orange door?" or "Why does he have curly hair?"  or "Why is she taller than her friend?"

After many, many, many, many of these type of questions, and many, many, many well thought out and detailed answers, there are times when a mom just needs the book to be completed.  :)

At times like this, when endless questions about illustrations abound, I have found myself eventually answering, "I guess it's because that's the way the artist drew it."

Evidently this answer makes a lot of sense to the concrete mind of a four year old. Once I use this answer, she seems to simply accept that this makes perfect sense, and she never questions WHY the artist chose to draw it like that.

So earlier today, out of the blue, she wonders into the kitchen and says, "Mommy, can I ask you a question?" Which may or may not mean she has an actual question.  She might simply state that her name is now officially Panda Bear and then scamper back off to her toys.  She's four, you never know.

But this time she had a question.

"Mommy, if the artist makes us, who makes the artist?"

I love these little windows into the mind of a child.  I love seeing how she's working to piece her world together.  Seeing how she's learning to incorporate into her conversations all of the various words she hears.  Seeing her question and explore the world around her.

I am fascinated with how she uses language to express her thoughts and how it can reveal her level of understanding.

This is what I gleaned from her question.  Evidently, since "the artist" creates all of the illustrations, "the artist" is the creator. People and things in the books are created by "the artist," so all things must be created by "the artist."  Which means we are created by "the artist." And if there is an "artist" doing all of this creating, from whence did this "artist" come?

"If the artist makes us, who makes the artist?"

I'm not about to pretend like I can even begin to answer that question.  My answer to her was simply, "That's a wonderful question!"  And because she is four, that was all the answer she needed.

I love my Little One.  I love my life.

Life is continually being illustrated around me and, in my humble opinion, "the artist" is doing a stunning job!

Curve Ball

Sometimes life just throws you a curve ball.

I mean, you've completed spring training.  You worked your butt off at all the practices and pre-season games.  You played well in the season opener.  Your batting average is climbing.  You're learning how to see what might be coming from the pitchers a bit earlier.  You don't have all of the pitches figured out, but feel like you can stand in the batters box and take a swing with confidence. Even when the count is full, you have faith in all of the hours of batting practice.  You believe you'll make it on base. And then low and behold, the biggest curve ball of curve balls comes at you.

Three strikes.  You're out.

What I'm learning in life is that there are times when it doesn't matter how much you've practiced, prepared, studied, worked, struggled, and fought, you get thrown a curve ball and find yourself turning slowly and dragging your feet back to the dugout.

So here I sit, head in my hands, trying to figure out if there was something else I could have done, or some way I could have better anticipated the pitch.  Wishing I could call for a "do-over."  Wondering if I'd practiced a bit longer or worked a bit harder maybe I'd have made contact with that pitch.

But that game is over.  That pitch has been thrown. The bat has been silently swung. The call has been made. The out has been recorded.

Now what?

Now I'm going to sit with the silence and breathe.

Now I'm going to take time to take time.

I'm going to hug my kids and pay attention to how much taller they may be since the last hug.

I'm going to hear to the music playing in the background.

I'm going to watch spring slowly return.

I'm going to live, and love, and laugh, and learn.

Will I see the next curve ball when it's thrown?  Maybe so, maybe not.  Will I hit one out of the park or will I find myself once again sitting silently in the dugout?

Who knows?

If I'm triumphantly jogging the bases, head held high, watching the ball soar over the outfield wall, I'll enjoy that moment.  If I'm quietly returning to the dugout I hope  I will have learned how to be present in that moment too.

Four months into the "growing out" process!  :)

As for the 'going gray' process, I'm now four months in.  This is a shot of me sitting here as I finish up this blog entry.  I have not done a thing to my hair today aside from pull it back into a scrunchie.  Just thought I'd share a shot so you could see amount of gray that has grown in.

I'm still very much enjoying the process of returning to my authentic hair color.  There are moments when I think I'll cut off all of the colored hair and just try a short style so it's at least all one color.  Then I have a good curl day and I decide I like my curls too much to chop them all off.  I go back and forth.

I think I'll get some length trimmed off soon, just because.  Maybe I'll be in a courageous mood that day and just take more and more off.  We'll see.  :)