Moving through May

Wow - May!  The month of our marriage and the birth of our first daughter.  It's also the month of Saga Dawa, the holiest of Buddhist holidays.  At home, our veggie garden is growing, the roses are in bloom, and the girls are getting big.   This month has been squeezed full of exciting moments - Hazel's giggles and smiles, Tatum drawing "Ts for Tatum" and learning just yesterday "H" for Hazel,  Hazel's ability to now reach and grasp, the birth of two new friends (my friend Sara had her twins born May 15th - Tess and Miles!), Tatum's potty adventures, and soon to be our nine year wedding anniversary where we plan on hiring a real babysitter!
 
Life is guaranteed to move, and baby does it move fast.  Now that I am back to work it seems that the experience from Monday morning to Thursday night is one big hustle and to do list.  I've kept my schedule of Monday through Thursday in the office and part days from home on Fridays.  There's just no way I could bring myself to work in an office on Fridays anymore.  And fortunately, my work isn't fighting me on this one.  Seems like they really need me and enjoy having me back in the main tree seat.  At a recent meeting with the other forestry nonprofits and city agencies I received a round of applause for being back to work.  That experience was very validating; and as a working mother in my thirties, I'll take validation where ever I can get it, including on the freeway.   Last weekend a man tried picking me up from his stakeside truck by honking and asking me for my number as I cruised the 2 freeway home from work.  Seriously!  I guess a carseat is not a turn-off.  Yes, crazy, but in a very real way this random man totally validated me, and I am thankful.

At the beginning of this month I was given the opportunity to lead the Mom's Salon - this is a group of mothers meeting every second Tuesday of the month at the community acupuncture clinic in eagle rock at 8pm (yes, if you are local and want to come, you should!).  My friend started this group out of the need to create a protected space to share experiences of mothering.  Sorry dads, moms only.  So my topic was on teaching mindfulness to children.  But in preparing for the topic, I realized that you can't teach a child mindfulness unless you as the teacher have an experience of it yourself.  So I took the Tuesday evening as an opportunity to share a lesson in basic sitting meditation with a focus on the breath as a tool to develop mindfulness (basic Buddhist stuff).  But it was AMAZING for me to share this with other mothers and talk about how mindfulness can help your experience of parenting.  As anyone who knows me knows I would love nothing more than teach mindfulness to children while exploring the local environment, but the opportunity for this "dream job" has yet to present itself.  Yet that particular Tuesday night at the Mom's Salon was a precious reminder of what it is that I really want to do and it felt really good to be reminded.  So, in the meantime, I practice mindful parenting as best as I can with my two princesses Tatum and Hazel. 



The other exciting news is that the clubhouse is now painted.  Honoring my English ancestry (my father and his line are British if you didn't know) we selected the Queen's Lace (yellow) and the Queen's Jubilee (purple) for Tatum's house.  It is now officially "3520 1/2".  Come over and play!