Thanksgiving dinner is over and gone.  But leftovers appear tomorrow.  And there is a last batch of potato rolls in the oven that will soon become my ritual before-bed milk-making snack.

Mom is walking Levi round and round the house in the umbrella stroller…he managed to cough himself awake after being put to bed.

I slept in a little this morning, despite Devo leaving at 6:15 to play a thankful round of golf.  He had thought to change his plans when he heard me talking to Levi in the middle of last night.  Yesterday was a really long day.  Tonight is a really long night.  Tomorrow is going to be a really long day.  Won’t you please sleep, baby boy?

There is a typhoon passing by the south (or is it the west) and we are experiencing barometric pressure fluctuations.  Changes in barometric pressure causes young children to bounce off the walls.  Almost literally.  Very odd phenomenon.  Very tiring phenomenon.

On the morrow we hope to take Liana driving.  Because we’re cool.

It must have been an unofficial Dress Up Day.  Amelie was parading around in her wedding “tail”.

“Wedding veil?” I ask.

No, her wedding tail.

Lia is five years old today.

(Well, actually tomorrow, if you take the international date line into consideration.  But we’ll pretend it’s today.)

Five years ago I was in the throes of first-time labor…which is different from subsequent labors in that everything is new and not familiar.

Five years ago I saw her sweet little face for the first time.  It seems impossible that it took me several days to get used to her face.

Five years ago I was experiencing my first day as a mother.

The morning after she was born, she heard me walk into the room and smiled.

And now she’s five.  She’s my smallest best friend.  My grocery list reminder.  My great experiment.  My sous chef.  My wide-eyed wonder, reintroducing me to this great big world.

This year I aim to give her space.  Space to be herself.  Space to be a child.  Space to learn and grow and change.  And lots of space for daydreaming.

I’m thinking of it as the difference between taking a clump of clay and molding every surface with my hands…and letting the wheel spin while just guiding things along.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl.

Love to hear Lia sing “Worthy is the Lamb”.

It usually comes out, “Woolly is the lamb!”

Or, on occasion, “Whirly is the lamb!”

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Lia ::  Levi sounds like a motorbycle!  (Which would be a cross between a motorcycle and a motorbike.)

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Lia, coming into the kitchen :: I want to eat the smell that I smell.

I’ve been having a hard time managing my time…usually sleep wins out over an uninterrupted session with Mr. Mac here.  But I have been faithfully jotting down a few thoughts each night (often losing the small window of opportunity to say a real goodnight to my husband, Mr. Insta-Sleep).  And tonight I’ve laid some precious sleep down on the altar of Blog-dom, and transferred my jots to the screen.  I don’t know if this will be a sustainable enterprise, but it’s worked tonight.

So you have a choice facing you.  Read it all at once (a record-breaking six posts!) and curse me when nothing shows up here for another week or so.  Or read a post a day.  Do you eat your chocolate whole or do you nibble?

Now I really want to know.  Do you eat your chocolate whole, or do you nibble?

I nibble.  Lasts longer.

I went with Liana (my sister, she’s 14) to an island-wide trivia academic competition today.  And chauffeured her three friends – all of us smashed into the king cab of my mom’s truck, a delightful after-school combination of like, you know, girls and sweat.

The competition was held in an all-girls Catholic school, my first foray within the hallowed grounds of <introductory music> Academy.

And while first saying that I had a great time meeting Liana’s friends and trying to answer all the trivia questions, apparently I haven’t quite come to terms with my former adolescent self.

How is it that 14 years, one high school diploma, one college degree (and the accompanying education and time), half of a masters, one husband, three children, and seven years of marriage later – just stepping into a high school environment transports me instantly into my previous incarnation?

Ill-clothed, uneasy in my own skin, eager to be liked (or at least to not make myself ridiculous), aching to be something other than what I was.  But at the same time unwilling to relinquish my social independence, my intelligence, or the convenience of a pony tail and t-shirt.  I was just hoping that somebody (preferably somebody cool) would see me for the gem I was and lift me to a happy and peaceful agreement between my inner and outer self.

College was much, much better.

I read recently about a man who decided to go back and redo the less-than-positive experiences of his life.  So he went back to kindergarten.  And had a wonderful time.  Rewrote history, so to speak.

I could hope for a redemptive high school experience.

I’d reincarnate myself as myself – just better dressed and more comfortable with things like, you know, standing and walking.

I’d like the ability to see people my own age as people like me, not as people about to humiliate me with their indifference.

Oh, and I’d add an increase in the ability to converse with said (now rendered also awkward and searching for their eventual selves) people.  Even if that meant said conversation was, you know, like, kinda high school-ish.

I looked in the bathroom to find my mom perched on the edge of the tub, doing sudoku.

“It’s supposed to help with brain fog,” she says.

She read somewhere that when you suffer from brain fog, you should engage in something that uses a different part of the brain.

Hence, sudoku.

Does it help? I wondered.

“I don’t know,” she says.

I close the door on my way out, leaving Mom hiding in the bathroom, that most sacred of all mommy hiding places.  Doing sudoku.

This morning we heard the rain on the roof.

The entire family (minus the sleeping infant) dashed for the door and threw it open, all of our faces alight with expectation, awash with desert dwellers’ joy in a two minute tropical shower.  Two year old to 32 year old joined in a perfect moment.

And as we stood there marveling over the miracle of rain, I felt us simultaneously take what I’ve come to think of as The Great Big Breath.

It seems to be a sabbatical phenomenon.  Or, perhaps, a Sabbath phenomenon.

This series of unexpected, invigorating, rejuvenating, glorious Great Big Breaths that only happen when there is space for them.

On Sabbath I spent time thinking (or not thinking, as the case occasionally was) about be.

I seem to spend my days striving or trying to be…something.  Be responsible.  Be a good wife, mother, housekeeper, cook, daughter.  Be calm, kind, frugal, organized, educated, well-spoken.  Be. Be. Be. Be. Be.

Even the Sabbath is filled with wearisome BEs.  Be on time (!!!).  Be at church.  Be happy. Be friendly.  Take away church and I still feel the pressure to be faithful, be in tune spiritually, be good to people in need, be a student of Scripture, be still, or be still and know.  Be. Be. Be. Be. Be.

Take that away and I feel that I need to be me.  But that, also, is an awfully tall (and messy) order.

A Sabbath (sabbatical) is, I think, divine permission to just…BE.

No strings attached.

Thoughts (while sitting on the beach) about my usual life:

This is not the only reality.

Just remember that.