Josh at 2!

My new committment is to...

only be on my blog (or Facebook or Goodreads) while my children are asleep or at school. I've made that committment for this reason-

Josh turned 9 on Monday.

Let me explain...

I can't shake a sadness that has been following me around for weeks. It started after we returned home from Disneyland. I didn't want my babies to go back to school. (Zach and Jace may object to me calling them babies... too bad) Summer was too short. Even if it was cram packed with slacking off and doing crazy fun things. Shortly after, Ron, Jed and Jordan died. (I'm still obsessivly reading the Mingo blog and Kirsten's blog.) Now Grandma Mingo is so unhappy and while I'll miss her, I want her to let go and die. In turn, this is all making my mom unhappy, which worries me. And then Josh turned 9!
The common theme here is "Loss." The loss of summer, of childhood, of youth, of bright futures, of loved ones. Everything and everyone seems fragile. I feel sad and guilty for every moment with my family that passes unused to the fullest. And for being impatient, angry or thoughtless of anyone I love so dearly. So as I was tucking Josh in bed the night of his birthday, I said, "I love you so much! I'm so happy you're mine forever. Did you have a good birthday?" Josh replied," Yeah, I wish it wasn't over." As I kissed him, I breathed in deeply. He smelled like shampoo, chocolate frosting and some unknown little boy scent and it hit me - a panicky feeling, kind of like when I realize that I've forgotten something really important, or something bad is about to happen and I need to prevent it, or like the other day when I couldn't find Sam when I went to pick him up after school. Exactly like that. Then the feeling was gone and I was left feeling very sad that Joshua, little, beautiful, talented, creative, tenderhearted Joshua was one year closer to growing up. I stood there for a moment, my nose in his neck, until he squirmed and pushed me away.
Point of my rambling - the only thing that gives me comfort is to try spending more time creating memories and building unbreakable bonds with these crazy awesome people that are my family. Habits are hard to break and I'm used to being busy to the point of ridiculous. But things have slowed down somewhat so I figured now is a good time to reprioritize how I spend my time. That being said, my kids will be home shortly so I'm logging off my computer. Let me know if we share some of these same feelings.

Update... 2, maybe 3, days later

How long have I been working on this? Last night I received a comment from the "back seat bloggers" at home. Yea! (Not really) Josh informed me that my blog looks like "Twilight" and can't it be more colorful like Cali's? What??? Twilight? Did I subconsciously do that? Am I not a bright, colorful person like Cali? Well, whatever... Maybe I'll overhaul it at a later (much later) date. Right after I post some pics of Edward and Bella! Ha! Ha! This morning I'm obsessed. I haven't washed my hair or used the bathroom in hours! Every time I change an element on my page I have to look at every other blog that I know of. I'm not making much progress but I'm getting to know a lot of you better! I'm still having problems with the "about me" element - it simply isn't there! I'm trying to edit the html to see if there is a problem there (oh my gosh! Did I just say html? Did I ever really care what that was?) but no luck so far. I think they wrote the instructions in super geek - a language I don't read, write or speak! And... do other people blog about blogging? Well, I'm going to the bathroom!!

"What the heck!"

is what I said about 5 minutes into making this blog! So much more time consuming than expected. All this work for the only 2 people who will actually follow my blog - my mom (who in all things is dependable and supportive) and Em, my baby sister, (who walked me through this and should probably check and see if I'm doing it right!) And thanks to Natalie who said something to me that made me think, "Maybe blogging is a good thing... I should do it." And Zachary for all his great input on the designing of this blog (Oh wait! Zachary was NO help at all! He totally washed his hands of it after only 2 minutes, proclaiming, "I can't help you... I'm single and don't yet have a licence to blog." I announced to Brent and the kids that "I'm making a family blog and if you're embarrassed by that then don't read it!" Most of them just nodded distractedly and mumbled something like, "okay... have fun". So, here it is in all it's glory! Please remember that it, like me, is a work in progress.