No couch potato
I'm NOT going to San Francisco. It struck me that this will be my last weekend to be home for a pretty long time (until the end of July) and I should take advantage of it. Yes, yes I should. It's all right, Chinua will just go by himself, which is more simple anyways. Although I hate to say that. I dreaded becoming a family that does everything separately because it's too hard to schlep the kids around with us, but although I don't believe we're too separate, we definitely have our moments of looking at each other and silently and simultaneously opting out of baggie lunches and changing diapers in the van. And, as I found out last week, sometimes it's nice to get away. It makes it all the better when you get back.
Life with my kids has been sweet lately. It seems to me that they always do better when they're able to have a lot of time with Chinua, and after they spent the last week with him they've been so great. Kid A's arguing has definitely passed crisis stage. He's actually agreeable again. Which is good, because I was about to give him up for adoption.
Today the three of us went down to the river to color rocks with chalk. I was hoping that it would be a sort of Andy Goldsworthy experience, with the three of us making amazing sculptures with patience and grace, but it was more like Andy Ghettos-worthy down there. My towers kept toppling over and I just don't have the patience. I don't have that kind of time. And Kid A insisted on washing every rock we colored in the river immediately, so we didn't leave any traces of our artistic endeavors. The two of them left some traces on my night table, though, with the chalk, after we got back to our cabin. I swear that I only had my back turned for a moment, but they had the whole thing colored fuschia.
The things I'm trying to do right now are hard. I've realized that I am not willing to not have art in my life anymore, and I feel like I'm finding to ways to mold all my life callings together. But what it looks like is putting the kids to bed and then painting until my knees give out. Which is so, so worth it to me because it gives me the excitement I need to be able to wake up the next morning and go through the day and even do some trouble shooting (my least favorite snack) in the office. But you can't have your cake and eat it too, so painting after my kids go to bed cuts out zoning out on my couch in the evenings.
Too bad.
Life with my kids has been sweet lately. It seems to me that they always do better when they're able to have a lot of time with Chinua, and after they spent the last week with him they've been so great. Kid A's arguing has definitely passed crisis stage. He's actually agreeable again. Which is good, because I was about to give him up for adoption.
Today the three of us went down to the river to color rocks with chalk. I was hoping that it would be a sort of Andy Goldsworthy experience, with the three of us making amazing sculptures with patience and grace, but it was more like Andy Ghettos-worthy down there. My towers kept toppling over and I just don't have the patience. I don't have that kind of time. And Kid A insisted on washing every rock we colored in the river immediately, so we didn't leave any traces of our artistic endeavors. The two of them left some traces on my night table, though, with the chalk, after we got back to our cabin. I swear that I only had my back turned for a moment, but they had the whole thing colored fuschia.
The things I'm trying to do right now are hard. I've realized that I am not willing to not have art in my life anymore, and I feel like I'm finding to ways to mold all my life callings together. But what it looks like is putting the kids to bed and then painting until my knees give out. Which is so, so worth it to me because it gives me the excitement I need to be able to wake up the next morning and go through the day and even do some trouble shooting (my least favorite snack) in the office. But you can't have your cake and eat it too, so painting after my kids go to bed cuts out zoning out on my couch in the evenings.
Too bad.