Time Flies

My son planted a branch, cut from the bottom of our Christmas tree, into the snow. I'm planting a tree, he explained, in the snow. He paused for a moment to look down with pride at the bristling green pine needles poking up from a small mound of white-white snow. It's going to grow up and be a snowball tree and we'll have snowballs all the time.

This is my Boss man.


He is less than two weeks away from turning five. Five. The number is incomprehensible for me. It's both impossibly old (afterall weren't we all just here a moment ago?) and impossibly young (how can it be that this most integral extension of myself was not yet in existence a mere five years ago?)

Just now, I looked back on posts labeled The Boss. Man, he has always been a source of inspiration. I should probably spend more time here, reading, writing, keeping myself going.

Here are some of my favorites starring The Boss...

Boss Vs Hardwood Floors.

Learning to get dressed.

Turning Two.

And of course: How to Be the Boss

Free!

In case you didn't hear my son exclaimations yesterday - he's FREE!

I went to work in the afternoon, but not before giving him a miniature birthday party (complete with miniature cake and gifts wrapped in inside-out Christmas paper decorated with glitter, stencils and crayons, because that's how I roll.)

Happy Birthday

Oh how things change in a year.

It dawned on me recently how much less time I spend chronicling my daughter's life than I did with The Boss. It's a phenomena that I associated with lazy parents prior to having my own second child, the syndrome of having boxes and boxes of nostalgia from their first child's first few years - and then nearly nothing for the second. Yet, here I am. Even in the blogosphere, I haven't given her the focus that I gave her brother.

I don't feel guilty, it's really just more the acceptance that life does get in the way. And that working two jobs and taking care of kids/house/husband and trying to somehow construct a worthwhile writing life, it all sort of leaves you a bit lacking - not as much time to time to sit back and ponder things.

For my son's first birthday, I ran a countdown here of now and then, a timeline showing how we'd grown and changed, how life had spun us and where we'd wound up. For Lila, there is only this. A happy family, albiet in the midst of a whirlwind, still waiting to see where we'll wind up. And perhaps then there will be more of a chance for retrospection and creative expression.

But in the meantime, I'm going to take my beautiful birthday girl out for a birthday ice cream. And enjoy the moment while I'm in it.

Twenty-Eight

We shop on my birthday. This has become our tradition - saves my husband the ordeal of maneuvering his way around a store in the hopes of finding the right gift. Not that I require a 'gift' to begin with. Still, once we're in the car, he asks repeatedly what do you want? And follows up with the reminder that, it's your day, you can get whatever you want.

A good cup of coffee? I ask. Check. We stopped by my favorite old cafe on the South Shore and each came away with a nice hot cup of goodness. Then we began perusing stores. What do I want? What do I want?

It shouldn't be such a difficult question. But it is.

We shop the clearance racks, hunt for the best pair of running sneakers at the lowest possible price. Score. And then I settle on a pair of birthday shoes, a BOGO deal at Payless and we buy a pair for Lila as well.

All the while, I'm thinking about what I want vs what I need.

Want:

A fabulous new camera to take sharper, better, faster, pictures of my family.

Plane tickets to Florida (so that we can get on a cruise ship in October)

More good coffee.

Membership to a decent gym (and the time to get there)

Fancy pants (new clothing in general)

Need:

...I realize there isn't anything pressing or urgent.

I have a home. I have vehicles that take me from point A to point B. I have friendship. I have love. I have, I have, I have...

And this makes me happy. Needs are met. Life is good. Wants can wait.