Looking for my Mojo

Excuse me, has anyone out there seen my mojo?  Because I really need it back.


It's been a long summer, and it's barely the end of July.  And I'm not sure if it's the heat, or the busy-ness, or just general malaise, but I seem to have lost my Mojo.  That ineffable quality that makes me a comparatively decent wife-mother-sister-daughter-friend-woman.  I find myself hot and tired and grouchy.  To say nothing of dull witted and unimaginative.

The people I live with are reasonably patient, but I need to work up a plan for Burnstopia Academy next year, and I've got Christmas presents I need to make, and Heaven knows my kids and I have all been watching too much television. 

It's why updating here has been sparse.  I have stories to tell, I always have stories to tell, but stories are only as good as the beautiful clothes you dress them in, and it's my mojo that comes up with the clothes for the stories.  With no mojo, there's no writing...something has to be done.


So what's a girl to do?  Where am I to find my missing mojo?  Any suggestions out there?

Happiest of Girls

Perfect happiness is a pink crayon and a cookie.

 

Please note that they're THOMAS coloring books that she's currently obsessed with.  

She's a puzzle sometimes. A pink crayon and THOMAS.

Celebrating my Boy

There is no slideshow this year.


I thought long and hard about it.  I thought about music from this year.   I looked at the pictures.  And in the end I decided not to do it.  For many reasons,  partly because it just can't come close to conveying the exuberance of this past year with my Boy, and partly because he changes more gradually, but more suddenly.   So it's hard to see in pictures.  For example, my Boy is becoming brave.  He's never been brave before, but this past year has seen his courage blossom.  He's also reading everything in sight, and he reads it out loud and with FEELING.  It's the funniest thing you could possibly imagine.  But how do you capture that in a photograph?  Or even a video?  What I could show you would be merely an echo of what the experience of it is, and that makes me a little sad.

What I wish, is that I could wrap up and give away moments of time with this Boy, so that each of you could have your own personal experience of the joy that it is to live with him.

As usual, I have been thinking about the passage of time and feeling sort of melancholy about...oh, the fleeting nature of childhood, I suppose.  Just when I find myself really enjoying a stage, he's BANG! and on to the next.

We celebrated down at my parent's house and then the very next day we drove down to Savannah for a quick trip (which is why these are late going up).  The Boy, effectively, had TWO birthday celebrations, and they were both utterly delightful, if only because it makes me so happy to see how much everyone loves him.

 Double-fisting his desserts, ice cream cone AND cake.

He really is magical.  And I know, I know that ALL mothers think their children are special, and maybe that's all this is, but there really is something about my Boy. 

18 Months

My Girl is 18 months old.

And I find that with the approach of my Boy's 5th (FIFTH?!  How the heck did that happen?!) birthday, I feel a little nostalgic. 


Don't get me wrong, I love that she walks and dances and laughs and is hilarious in general.  It melts me like butter on a hot muffin that she cuddles me and pats my shoulder while saying, "Mama" over and over and over and over again.  Her temper is beyond exasperating, but given that I have that same temper myself, it helps me to be patient with her. 

And I'm not even sure that what I'm nostalgic for is HER as a little baby, so much as my Boy at 18 months old.

I was trying to explain this to Chris on Wednesday.  When we lived in GA and the Boy was 1-2 years old, he was my buddy, my constant companion, the center of my very small and lonely world.  We would pick up in an afternoon and go to Michaels or Target and just wander around and look at stuff and crack each other up.  We would cuddle and watch movies or read.  We were just always together, just the two of us, he and I.

And watching my Girl in her bath on Wednesday evening, I was reminded so forcefully of her brother at that same age, doing those same things that I felt this strange combination of longing for him at that time, and gratitude that I got to have all of those days with him.

This is a strange gig, Motherhood.  I'm wondering if I'll ever understand it, or if I'll just eventually give up trying and enjoy the ride.

(I took 47 pictures of her trying to capture the way she actually looks and of those 47 I got TWO where she was actually looking at me.  All of the rest she was wedging herself into that corner or blurry as she tried to run away.  Her loathing of the camera is STRONG.)

But her cuteness is stronger.