Baby girl on my left.
Hubbie on my right.
Kisses on my left.
Kisses on my right.
I was sandwiched in kisses tonight!
We aren’t taking for granted the fact that we can safely be around each other again… sans masks, sans 1.5 metre social distancing. We can hug, we can kiss, and we can sit right up against each other, just as we did tonight on the couch.
Feeling the love. 💞💞
Baby girl and I are having some really nice bonding moments. I am loving it. The smiles, the hugs, the happiness.
She is happy to be back at school, and me with her. It makes the moments in between – waking her for school, brekkie, picking her up at the end of the day and hearing about her adventures, holding hands on the couch – all the more special. 💖
Today was baby girl’s first foray into school camp!
2 nights, 3 days. I gotta tell you, I was nervous as the months, then weeks approached, knowing I would be without my baby girl for two whole nights!
TWO WHOLE NIGHTS!!!!
Although Hubbie and I joked about ‘us time,’ the sickening feeling in my stomach grew, as she got more and more excited about going away with her school friends.
Then, some weeks ago, a message on the school app.
Camp was going ahead, for sure…
But, only as day camp.
🙏
I thanked ALL my lucky stars as I read the message. Good ol’ covid meant that keeping with certain restrictions while several people slept in a cabin would be made difficult if not impossible, so it was arranged that the kids would be bused to and from camp from their school base over those 3 days.
Did I say already?
🙏
I know at some point, I need to let go. I need to get over it.
But also, I am her mum. And I know, despite her excitement, her friends, the camp activities, that come night-time, she would have missed us SUPER SORELY.
And we would have whole-heartedly reciprocated.
Today, when I picked her up after day 1 of day camp? (tee hee hee 😁)
She ran to me and yelled “Mummy! I missed you!” And gave me a huge hug.
🥰🥰 And I hugged her right back. 💞💞
On a day when my mind went round and round in rumination, I had little to give me a reprieve.
Or, so I thought.
I found little, oh-so-little things to help me out.
First, a good cry. 😢
Second was finding the will for a walk around the block. 🚶🏽♀️
Third, was pruning some weeds at the front of the house. On a day when I had motivation for NOTHING, when I started this therapeutic job, I actually couldn’t stop. 🍃
Fourth, music. 🎶
Fifth… a 10 second hug. 🥰 It’s apparently meant to last for at least that long for your body to let go of stress and realise its in the presence of love and support. 🤗
Nothing is magically better at the end of the day, of course, but somehow, all of these things lifted me, and will take me into tomorrow with a bit more hope.
🙏
Something we rarely have time to do is watch movies together.
So when we have any time off, it’s always so nice to be able to sit down for a lengthy amount of time and indulge in the screen.
I taped A Star Is Born off the TV a good while ago, and last night we started watching it…
…and tonight we finished it.
You know how everyone tells you they cried at the end of it, like it was SO sad?
Well…
That was me tonight.
As much as I was appreciative for the us movie time, I was just as glad that I had Hubbie’s arms around me for such a heart-breaking ending (I heard him sniffle too).
I had to immediately move onto something happy and light-hearted, and thank God we found this on TV…
Ahh, good ‘ol Aussie comedy. 🤣
While waiting for baby girl to fall asleep tonight, I went over my day…
Looking for gratitude, as I do.
But… hmm. Nothing sprang to mind.
Hey, haven’t I been in this place before?
I sure have. Where there is nothing particularly enlightening or fascinating about the day, but at the same time, nothing is bad.
Things are good. Even amidst all this corona, things are good.
I reviewed some more of my day as I heard her breathing even out.
I had a great day with Hubbie and baby girl. Her home-schooling was finished early so that gave us the whole day to do… whatever.
We organised quotes for around the house. That was exciting (oh how very grown up we are).
I wrote.
I sent emails.
I caught up on STUFF.
I made yummy pasta with parmesan and pepper.
I pat Mister F.
We played Trouble… I won.
I heard from someone who really, didn’t need to call me, but she did… and it meant a lot to know, and feel that she really cared.
That, was lovely. 🙂
But other than that…
Oh, let’s not forget Bachelor in Paradise!
Hugs and kisses from my family.
Cuddling in baby girl’s bed at the end of the night.
And now, just chilling.
It’s nothing in particular. But it all amounts to something.
And these some things, are actually BIG THINGS.
It’s good. I’m happy.
So, I’m still grateful. 🙂
Today my gratitude is a bit weird.
Because it’s got to do with death. Death has been creeping into my thoughts.
A person doesn’t have to die for you to think about death. I think at a certain age we start to think of it more and more. Hell, with all this coronavirus around us, it’s a wonder that we don’t talk about it ALL THE TIME.
Past trauma can remind you of death. The process of life can remind you of death… it is guaranteed we will all end up there at one point or another.
Sometimes for me, just the simplicity and beauty of life can remind me of it.
Today though, it was death that reminded me of death.
My mouth dropped open when I heard the news that Kelly Preston, John Travolta’s wife, had died on July 12th following a 2 year private battle with breast cancer.
She was 57.
Floored, was an understatement. Even though I saw it on a reputable news network, I had to look it up to confirm it was true. I watched the news report on it later that night. Tears welled up, my mouth turned downwards.
It was so unfair.
Did I really know Kelly Preston? No, not really. I knew her as Avery in Jerry Maguire, one of my favourite movies of all time. She plays the classic high-brow, over-achieving, sexy, sassy and totally bitchy fiance to Tom Cruise’s sports agent character.
She played the role so well, I almost forgot it was Kelly Preston. In real life, she seemed so sweet, happy, her face was so gentle. I knew she and her husband had lost their 16 year old son to a seizure, and they had been able to have another child some years later.
John Travolta’s wife.
Maybe it was because of him that I liked her so much. I grew up loving John in Grease… another one of my fave movies of all time. Scenes will play, and I will recite, word for word from that movie.
I know there has been a lot of scandal surrounding them, especially John over the years. I know there was speculation about their relationship, and I know the way John was perceived in his younger years started to change drastically, for the worse, in these recent years.
But today, all I could think of was his tribute to his late wife.
All I could think, was how they had experienced so much pain, to have to lay their child to rest, and they got through it, somehow.
All I could think, was how their relationship stood the test of time, through scandal, through sadness, through HOLLYWOOD.
So many relationships out of there don’t last months, let alone years and years and tragedy.
And it just makes me want to cry.
These stories are sad. They are true. They aren’t taken from a movie, and then lo and behold, surprise miracle cure! The person is alive again. They beat the disease.
They beat the bastard cancer.
Some real life stories do take a turn of events, like in a fairytale. Many don’t.
Today, after hearing the sad news of Kelly Preston, I hugged my daughter, tightly.
We sat on the couched, rolled around and tickled each other, and I didn’t mind one bit as our heads collided, my nose bumped hers, and she swatted my kisses away playfully.
I didn’t mind it at all.
Because I had someone to hug.
This is my cat, Mister F.
Baby girl will argue that he is her cat and he loves her more, but lets face it, if it weren’t for me being a cat person…
We wouldn’t even have a cat right now.
In the picture above, Mister F is being Tarzan, balancing the fence and weaving between the giant leaves of our neighbours fig tree.
He is hilariously clumsy. Moments before I snapped this photo he almost slipped off the fence – like, you are a cat. If you can’t balance on a fence, no one can!
I love his awkwardness. Amazingly what I am loving about him lately is his coat… rather, the cuddly coat.
Hubbie calls it his leather jacket. So black and shiny and smooth. He’s a medium hair so a fair bit of fur still finds its way wafting through our home… which I can’t stand, since I’m the one that cleans it.
But he’s sooo soft. Like today when he wandered into a room he wasn’t meant to go into, I scooped him up flat like a pancake (the way I used to do with my old cat) and hugged him against my chest as I carried him downstairs.
And Mister F? He was totally cool about being a pancake. He looked around curiously as I held him close to me in a hug, and didn’t try to escape even once.
He lets us get away with almost anything… don’t feel sorry for him though… He has a butcher as an owner.
Sardines for dinner? His favourite ❤😻
First on the agenda for mine and baby girl’s day off together?
Cuddle in bed under the covers. Ahhh. Because with all our early school starts we haven’t done that in ages.
After lots of laughter together, breakfast and brushing of teeth, it was time to…
Build LEGO.
It was this 6+ marine biology type set she got for her birthday, and she had been wanting to build it all week, and had waited pretty patiently all week… ’til today.
It took 1 and a half hours to build 3 of the 5 sections… and it still wasn’t done. We had an impromptu interval where we got up and danced to the ipod music, the sun streaming through the windows, encouraging Mister F near us and our bird outside, we’ll call him Orange-cheeks, to dance along. Mister F stared wide-eyed while Orange-cheeks did a kind of bob, and we just laughed.
The bigger fun came in the afternoon. After a quick coffee and babycino stop, dressed as Snow White as per her Book Week character from the day before, we went to the park.
Now it was sunny, but it was also, breezy. So cold, I ran to get our jackets from the car as she headed toward the monkey bars. Nice move Melbourne. Nice move.
Despite the cold, it was so good to be out. So close to the water. Amongst the grand old trees. Just reminded that soon, the weather will shift, adjust, and these park days will be more frequent and enjoyable.
As she lay in bed tonight baby girl said “Mama, I had the best day ever with you.”
I smiled. “Me too honey.”
♥
A hand hold.
A reassuring hug.
A kiss.
“You OK?”
It doesn’t matter what the answer is. Sometimes the affection a loved one shows to you when times are tough, is enough.
carcrashgratitude 