A recipe for calm

I was out for the day yesterday, and when I came home, my kids were over-screened and tired of each other. Sam went to a friend's house but the other three were home with me and cranky as bears.

I thought a big snuggle would help, so after supper I called them for a coze on my bed. They started sniping and snarking at each other, and it soon turned into a knot of unkindness.

I knew they needed a change, a reset, something fresh, but I was also tired and didn't want to go out anywhere. Two dirty pairs of feet were wrestling near my face. 

"Let's do a foot spa night," I suggested, grasping at straws, and they all stopped, delighted. 

"Really?"

"Really."

We set up candles and filled the tub with hot bubbly water. Vava laid out clippers and nail polish. We covered a folding chair with a soft blanket for the pedicuree. For a true spa experience we added sliced cucumbers and epsom salts to the tub, which elicited oohs and ahhs (and a few attempts at soggy heads-or-tails). I found a peaceful spa soundtrack and turned it on.

They sat on the edge of the tub and luxuriated in the sounds, the scents, the feel of a foot scrubby mat. They laughed and chatted and I brought in drinks and Eevee came in for a curious sniff.

After the foot soak they changed into pyjamas and we painted each other's nails.

Finally we ended up on my bed again, relaxed and happy. I read them a few chapters of Pascal's current bedtime book, and then they all piled on top of me.

"Group hug!" they squealed.

"Seriously, thank you Mama."

"This was the best night I've EVER had."

"Thank you for taking such good care of us."

And it was so simple. So small. Just some deliberate softness and togetherness after a day apart.

I love these lambs.

(this last pic! we'd been doing silly faces and then V said, "let's make the face we'd make if we got to see Papa right now!" and it was the happiest one.)

[And a brief aside to my Christian friends, because of all the political uproar about the last supper vs bacchanalia vs Olympics that's roiling around: 

We don't honour Jesus at the last supper by hating people, even if we might think they're mocking him.

We honour him by doing what he did at the last supper ... He washed their feet. Even Judas's.  xo]

Let there be light

When Patrick and I first started wanting to get pregnant, we had a few years with no success. We went to visit a doctor and I found out I have PCOS, which makes it harder to get pregnant and carry a pregnancy to term.

I miscarried our first baby at just a few weeks - I found out I had been pregnant in the losing of the baby, so while it was sad, it wasn't the same as a loss after knowing.

The second time, after another cycle of fertility treatment, I knew I was pregnant right away. Having a high risk pregnancy meant I was scheduled for regular weekly ultrasounds, as my specialist tracked the growth and safety of the tiny little baby bean. 

The ultrasounds were so cool. A little beating heart, a tiny little grain of rice full of light and life. We watched over twelve weeks as the head and torso grew, and arms and legs and impossibly tiny fingers and toes.

I didn't know it was extraordinary then, but unlike subsequent pregnancies, I experienced a conscious connection to this baby. I felt like we were holding a continual conversation, a flow of love, yes, but also words and thoughts back and forth. 

And then one day it stopped. There was silence.

And I went to my doctor for my weekly ultrasound and she confirmed it. The baby had died. 

She turned the screen toward me and I could not get over the difference in this ultrasound. It was like the lights had been turned off. The baby's body was there but its life was gone, and the ultrasound was dark.

It's been a long time since I thought about that. It's been fifteen years since that day. But look at this wonderful article that I stumbled across.

There is light. I wasn't imagining it. There's light. When life is created, there's light.

We call it the dawn of creation. Yeah - dawn.

Way back at the cusp of us, in the immortal eternity, God began us in the same way, with these words flaring in the darkness: let there be light.

You know I struggle with depression - I share this a lot. But this article has brought me a lot of joy this summer.

We began as light.

Collectively, but also individually - at the dawn of our own creation, a spark and flare, luminous in the dark.

God thought of us - of you, of me, each of us - and said, 

Let there be light.