they named her aurora after the dawn for she filled their lives with sunlight

I just made a fantastically obvious discovery: I am blog with my telephone. Obviously. Sso here I am typing away on the playground of an elementary school. We walked here a couple hours ago... Kids will burn out soon. Morgan is growing a lot these days, every day she looks older and taller. She even speaks like she is older. Her birthday was last week, turned 5, and this change in age definitely coincides with changes in morgan's mind and body. Its incredible how fast this happens.

On a similar note- katniss is growing FAST. Already she is bigger- wider and taller. She is so adorable, we are absolutely in love with her.

Also in love with our place. I was standing in the middle of the backyard this morning and admiring the amount of sky we can see. So much sky.
Last night I walked kat as it was getting dark. It felt powerful out, the air full of life, the sky darkening slowly. It struck me how we lose our moments one by one, we experience and then they're gone, one by one. I need to slow my mind, I forget to forget myself. Its not enough to say life is short, for life is so quick in the grand sceme of things its a moment. I think if we all fully realized this we would have a hard time not gazing around constantly in love with our breathe, touches, heart beat. We would never get anything done if we fully realized the brevity of our time with eyes open and able to speak.
I found some letters yesterday: postcards from my dad's time in hawaii- I must have been about 7, I cried my eyes out reading them last night. What a loving dad I have. Must write him these sentiments. Also found a letter frm my grandpa jim, must be during my transition from high school to college. Found another from grandma sandy that is about friendship, I must have sent her a letter about loving my girlfriends because its theme is friendship and gals. I don't remember receiving any of these letters but I am thankful for them. And now I find myself in that position of missing people who are gone,for feeling like I should have made more contact with them, more connection, spent more time. I know I'm not alone here. Its an impossible situation because what is done is done, once death comes getting to know that person, that opportunity has died too.

monday.

what a weekend, what a day. this weekend katniss escorted us all over puget sound for her first big adventure. poor little girl, we drove her to kingston for chad's graduation and party where she was bombarded by love and a little too much attention. we all spent the night there and woke up still exhausted, had a little pancake family breakfast and took off for olympia. in oly we rented a truck and packed up all of my childhood things and furniture mom had been storing for me, then got stuck in major traffic on the way home, dropped of pieces of furniture off at chelsea's that mom was giving her, than finally unloaded the truck load of stuff at our place. we were finished at about 7pm. treated ourselves to hamburgers and katniss treated herself to a little peace and quiet, finally.

that is the skeleton of the weekend, anyways. it was wonderful to see so many people we love and really everything swam along nicely but we are all so tired now. katniss did so well! that was a lot of her, afterall, she is a baby! :) smiles.

this morning started off fine, we felt semi-rested, each only having to get up once last night. j took off for the bus, i made coffee and fed katniss. kat and i went outside to play, i got out some gardening things and seeds to plant. she kept running inside and all the way upstairs (a new feat for her!) looking for j, i got my exercise running around with her and bringing her back downstairs repeatedly. at some point i decided to close the door from the laundry room to the kitchen-SLAM.
---i should stop here and explain that there are three doors from the inside of the house to the backyard: kitchen to laundry, laundry to garage, garage to outside. well i remembered to unlock the outside two, but failed to unlock kitchen to laundry. one SLAM and katniss and i were very much locked out. it was lucky i was dressed, somewhat, had shoes on and she had eaten.
there was no way in.
i have been meaning to plant a key outside since we moved there, but really i have meant to do quite a list of things that have yet to be done. so after a frantic call to j and freaking out for awhile... i walked across the street to mac and bobby's place.
mac and bobby have lived in their house for 50 years (!!) and when we met them they offered neighborly help and support, tools whenever needed, mac's knowledge of carpentry and handy man skills. no naturally i took him up on in one week into meeting them and being in the neighborhood.
they were in their PJs, enjoying a lazy morning. i was wearing sweats, a nighty, a dirty skirt and flip flops, carrying katniss because i hadn't brought her leash out. my hair was a mess, i had no contacts in and hadn't bothered to brush my teeth. beauty.

katniss was very excited about the whole thing, they have a very sweet dog but kat, being a little cautious, opted to lay in my lap instead of play around. bobby put on coffee and mac went to get dressed and grab some tools. soon we were on our way over to my yard. mac worked on the door for awhile, mumbling under his breathe. he kept exclaiming it was a tough one and going back to the house for more tools. katniss played in the backyard and i set to work planting my seeds (why not, didn't have anything else to do.)

when mac was finished, i had to leave in 8 minutes for work. i got katniss' bedroom ready for the day, carseats in the car, threw on a new shirt, glasses, did a quick brush of the teeth, hid keys in a panic and ran out the door. i made it just on time, thanks to mac and bobby. best neighbors.
must make cookies tonight.

came to the house where the kids both have high fevers today and are exhausted. its morgan's birthday today so the house was scattered with presents, paper, pieces of opened goodies. i feel a bit under the weather myself, which i why i am taking advantage of my 20 minutes of quiet before their mom gets home and morgan gets up, insisting that she napped. yeah right. hard to convince a child she needs to nap when she is so much older now (5 today).

is monday over yet?

-----

katniss and i are having another wonderful morning together. she is getting through the nights well, letting j and i sleep. for the last couple nights she wakes up once in the middle of the night and than again early in the morning...not bad compared to the first two nights when she woke us up about 5 times. ouch. and yes, this is a similarity to babies.

although i am no expert on dog raising, per se, i have found that already i get irritated when people jump in and tell us how to raise her. i know we're doing a great job and have read a good amount on how to raise her to be a great dog. there are always going to be learning curves and some steps backwards, but thats alright. like j says, she is learning as much or more than we are; we speak different languages and we must learn each other's.

i'm sure there are gems to glean from other people's knowledge, but the way some go about it leaves me red in the face and flustered. my dad's hot head is apparent in me at times.

family came over yesterday and my blood pressure rose quickly. i wish i knew what to say. i wish my words were my own, and my tone was familiar to me. at these moments i do not feel my age, i feel like a child with no voice. when i speak i speak quickly, get as many words in there before i am cut off and out-voiced by many. i am competing for attention, for voice, for eyes upon me. and when i tire of this, i agree and agree and lose all sense of self completely.

i apologize for my honesty, but without it i will no longer be able to write in this blog. there is no point writing if i am only writing about the superficial. there are daily moments that are unbelievably wonderful and some which put us at a standstill. and i am still learning and always will be. we are growing and learning from each other. we should all be doing this, but i see so many examples in which we are talking over each other instead of listening.

i am so thankful for my husband who listens to me, is respectful and loves me entirely. i am thankful for the moments where we are communicative about a situation or comment, even when it feels awkwardly honest; example of the framework: "when you said this___ i felt like this___" or "your tone sounded like this ___". these are the moments we all need to hold us together and keep us safe. i am thankful for our mother's, both of whom taught us how to communicate through the every day and the difficulties. nothing in life is seamless. there is a lot of beauty in imperfections and honest moments. i wish we all could see this and learn to communicate and listen, even when our pride overpowers the rest of us. listen. breathe. listen. repeat.

thanks j. thanks mom. thanks family. thanks friends. thanks katniss.

sleepy time tea.

puppy love

just so you all know, my puppy is the cutest in the entire world. ever. she is a timid girl at times, playful the next moment, and then crashes into a deep puppy sleep for awhile. right now she is laying on my feet and legs, sleeping deeply and making little fearful puppy noises. i just pulled her up onto my lap and she fell asleep again. she is just so tired! last night she only woke us up once at 4:00 and then again at 7:00; that is by far her best night thus far. we expect her to take some steps forward and some back, so we're not expecting the precedent to be set at one wake up and an early rising, but it was nice to sleep most of the night. the nights before it was more like: 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 6:00. oh boy. j and i are sleepy little people.

having a puppy is not like having a baby, despite people's opinions. not at all. babies require way more attention, obviously. come on people. for some reason people saying this and people trying to discourage us from getting a pup because of the effort needed, really irritate me. we knew and know what we're getting ourselves into. katniss is definitely worth the time and effort. she is such a great dog, so willing to learn and tries to win praise. she is figuring us and her routine out. katniss is a real sweet heart, follows us around constantly. when we make dinner she lays on our feet, she wants to be as close as possible.

we purposely ignore her at times, the "puppy book" as we have named it- a.k.a. dog training book- says that the owners need to give the puppy time alone, around people but without attention. this is healthy. like children, puppies do not and should not need constant attention. live your life too.

being in the new place feels wonderful. its still messy and we are slowly dealing with that, but its a process and i am coming to terms with this. i've never been as relaxed as i am about unpacked boxes, this may be due to the fact that we have more rooms and doors i can close. out of sight, out of mind... sort of.

this weekend is my brother's graduation from high school. crazy. very excited to see him and the graduation! the next day we drive to olympia to pick up my things from mom. after we have these furniture pieces, we can really begin to put things in their place and settle in. already it does feel like home, but some nesting needs to occur.

back to cuddling my puppy. we love her so much already.