Learning to Inflate

Well, we reached another milestone this week. My husband taught my son how to blow up a balloon. Now, if I was forced to teach anyone how to blow up a balloon in 45 minutes or less (or ever), I just do not think I could do it. But together, they emerged from this brief session victorious. And after many many many practises, he has mastered it. His sister has also given him finishing lessons in how to twist close a balloon so that it does not lose air. He will definitely be on deck for the next party as his lung capacity exceeds all of ours put together. Now, he likes to blow up balloons everywhere he goes-in the car, on the way to preschool, while he's watching a show, at the bus stop. I never gave it much thought, but learning how to blow up a balloon is a coordinated effort of timing and muscle memory. So, both his quick mastery of it and my husband's mysterious (to me) instructions impresses me. Just like him putting one foot in front of the other way back when and when he learned how to tell knock knock jokes and when he learned to do so many little(but big at the time) things, the evidence is stacking up, he is growing up.

Blowing up a happy smile balloon

Comments

A Small Craft

I accompanied my mother-in-law to an appointment this week. On the paper, preparing her for the appointment, it invited her bring along something to read or a small craft. As soon as I heard about this invitation to bring a small craft into an otherwise austere waiting area, my mind started to do bouncing somersaults in many different directions. Googly eyes? Glue gun? Feathers? Play clay? Friendship braclets?

The words coming out of my mouth

These days I wear a mask. I don't wear a mask all of the time, only when I am indoors or unavoidably up close with people who I don't usually interact with. I wear one when I am ordering things, or buying things or attempting to enjoy some form of public entertainment. I cannot rely on reading others lips. My lips are hidden. We ask each other to repeat. We move our eyes or our whole heads to try and enunciate more clearly. I say fewer words, more carefully chosen words behind the mask. Sometimes that is helpful, sometimes that just causes more confusion. I walked into the woods. I did not need a mask. I only saw a few other people and they were distanced. Masks were unnecessary. After so much talking and not talking and avoiding talking out loud I am forced to examine when I speak and when I choose not to. This is not a bad thing since I can be an insufferable chatter box, just a new thing for my brain to adjust itself to. When I am not standing aro...

Bringing her back

As the first anniversary finally passed, I exhaled. The sadness still nibbled away at the edges, but not clawing deep into my chest like it had been with varying degrees of ferocity in the twelve months previously. She died in early summer, so I plunged into ocean and lakes and ate fruit straight from the plant. The grief became softer, the folk songs carried me along in the potato patch we planted in therapy. But then, I started to miss her. The deep grief kept her so close and now as the pressure eased, so did her presence. I held my breath and decided to be really sad this morning just to see her face. To sit in her prescence. My breath became jagged as I cried for her, for us. This Taylor Swift cover by Marc Maron broke me right open this morning. Here's to staying broken open enough to keep your loved ones close. And then, I walked into her garden. The garden she envisionied, planted over and over and still pre...

Growing Versions

Search This Blog