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1095

Posted on April 30, 2011

Oh, Finley, you are 3 years old today. It sounds so trite, but I just don’t even know how that’s possible. You, more than either of your sisters, have grown up in the blended community of real life and online. This keyboard is so much a part of how I explored the months with you inside of my belly and the days and months that followed. The day you were born I knew that there were so many people already loving you. Photo Credit: Grandma, 4/29/11 Somehow it seems absolutely appropriate that people who’ve never met you adore you. You have a way about you that is so easy, able to create bonds that seem to have been in place for a lifetime, after…

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Cookies = Tossed

Posted on April 26, 2011

The great sick of 2011* continues with colorful ferocity. I discovered today that, while I can, under normal circumstances, manage the roundabout of Glens Falls, it is considerably less navigable whilst tending to the spontaneous vomiting of a not-yet-three-year-old strapped into a seat very close to her not-yet-five-year-old sister. I wish there were something else to say. Oh. Wait. That’s right. Ave has a fever. My stomach is cramping. That about covers it. *Thank you for the flowers, the food, the calls, emails, visits and more. Briar was back at school today 🙂 Here’s hoping the other two quickly follow suit.

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Mercy

Posted on April 21, 2011

Twenty minutes ago I reached for the white flag. I am too tired to cry. Too tired to be angry. Too tired to do anything but stare out the window until the next plea for help. My hands are raw, cracked and bleeding from the incessant hand washing. I am, probably hopelessly, trying to prevent the spread of the bug that has battered Briar to but a wisp of her self. I’ve laundered everything, scrubbed, and then scrubbed again, every surface. Neither my cleaning nor my attempts to soothe are making a bit of difference for Briar. Her underwear balloon around her shrunken pelvis, her lips are split and scabbed and her body is so weak she literally cannot brush the hair from her…

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DIY Timber

Posted on April 18, 2011

Last summer we kind of took a pass on yard work, between moving and my accident, it just wasn’t a priority. Recently we realized that between the long, hard winter and the pecking birds (Finley’s word for woodpeckers), the yard needed attention. Sean made it clear that he wanted to cut certain trees down and when I say that he wanted to cut them down, I mean that literally. Saturday we put the girls down for a nap and gathered the necessary tools to cut down the trees. Jokes danced on the tip of my tongue, but with the exception of one little aside— I stayed on task and what a task it was. It is better told in pictures. Here is the terminally-injured-by-pecking-birds…

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Anytime

Posted on April 16, 2011

Yesterday I changed my approach. Fridays are always a work-from-home day, which, loosely translated means failing-as-an-activities-director and also ill-equipped-to-accomplish-much-beyond-frantic-email-replies. I’d worked all week to cross things off my list, not so much from anticipation of a different Friday as it was a fatigue from feeling inadequate. I’d come to expect the ping of new emails and the “Amanda, line 2” announcements to be bad things; dissatisfied clients, cold-caller requesting things I cannot give. I was dodging things that never materialized, which is exhausting because when they don’t arrive you don’t stop worrying, in fact you worry more. When I’m not fretting over work I am fielding requests from the girls: Can we go swimming? Can we go bowling? I have a play date. Can…

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