Ava would often come into the bathroom when I was getting ready. She always asked for “lips”. Sometimes I said yes, bending down and giving her a quick wave of lip gloss and sometimes I didn’t.
Too busy, too tired, too expectant that there would be tomorrow.
That’s life, I know, but of course I wish I could do it over.

The wishing is also a gift though, not just a regret. Ivy can have the lips. She can stand on the basin. She can play in my brushes. She can even use the thirty four dollar lip-gloss for nail-polish.   It’s all more than fine by me.    I’ll just stand back and be glad.

I love these moments.  It make me feel that, at least some of the time, my resolution to approach life and parenting differently after losing Ava  is still in place.  Of course I want my lessons to be everyone’s lessons but let it be said..For all the different ways I go about my day since Ava left, I still get tired and impatient and shout. I don’t want to be perceived as a perfect parent because I’m not. I still fall down, I still get grumpy and I still think parenting is one of the toughest gigs on Earth.

But what I do have, just underneath all of that, is an appreciation for their being that completely fills me..it never wanes. I can be so fed up with the fighting and the pesting and the complaining but still be so very grateful they’re here to do just that.

I have a card, it says I love you with a thousand hearts. And that’s what I do, every single day, I love them with one thousand hearts.

S x

I’m turning into Grandad.
This is what makes up the greater part of my meals lately.
And positively delights me in the process.
Tea and bikkies, anyone?

Ironically, my last post before Ava left was titled “Happy Days”.

It was Australia Day.  We took the boys and Ava to the beach, to Shearwater Crescent..a tiny little strip of coast off a quiet suburban street not far from home.  It was our favorite haunt.   They were having so much fun, making snow angels in the sand, having running races, throwing water over each other – much to Ava’s annoyance.

We sat watching them, talking about the happy little trio they made.  I also remember how many times we told them not to go too far into the water – we were worried about sharks. And how Ava didn’t dress to swim and ended up soaking wet..She traveled home in a shirt and nothing else and threw a tantrum when I wouldn’t take her half naked into the store on the way.  I even remember putting her dinner on a plate when we got in.  Silly little things.

I took a lot of photos that day but in the blur that followed so soon after, I could not find where I had put most of them.  I’ve had three computers since.    I’ve shuffled photos all around and in the back of my mind, been increasingly  worried that I’d lost those priceless images.

Something about me though.. When I’m worried, I avoid.   I pretend and delude and hold some hazy belief it will all be okay in the end.   That approach has meant it’s taken me two years to get brave enough to really look for the rest of those pictures.   And today I found them.   And I caught my breath and I couldn’t look as properly as I wanted to and then, I sobbed.  Not with relief because I’d told myself they weren’t lost.  It was with the intensity of missing.

It wasn’t just missing Ava though..it was the missing of so much more.   Looking at those photos, I didn’t feel a knowing.  Not like then.   I couldn’t hear her voice or remember what it was like to have her here.  To just be together.  To think for four.  To watch the clock on kindy days,  to expect her to walk into the room any moment, to know what she needs for dinner.   It’s not clear any more.  I can’t believe she’s not here yet I can’t believe she was here.

I feared this very thing.  Two years ago I was so scared of anything fading, knowing I couldn’t stop it.  It’s the price you pay – the pain recedes, ever so slowly,  but so do the memories – much, much too soon.   Until now, I’ve desperately yearned to see her again.  To hold her.   Today, I would gladly step back to the start, amidst the full force of grief, just to feel the missing without the haze of seven hundred days.

Today, I miss the missing.

Just a little update for those wanting to start the Explore workshop in April.   Registrations will open this week but I am only able to offer places to those on the waitlist – I won’t be providing a public registration link.   The waitlist holds many more names than places so I will be sending emails in order of when the expression of interest was submitted.  If I don’t hear back within three days, the place will be offered to the next person on the list..and so on.

The 2008 workshops were hugely successful and all of the information shared and feedback has helped shape the 2009 workshops into something really special.  They’re bigger in content with a slightly different structure and extra resources but will be smaller in numbers so unfortunately this means not everyone will have a place right away.

I am working hard to find ways to run extra workshops this year so hopefully everyone will have a spot at some stage.. I love doing the workshops and have been fortunate enough to find a most willing and glamorous assistant, the lovely Fran, to keep things running smoothly so my focus is definitely on these for 2009.

I’m away in the States mid year so Evolve is due to run in August and presently that waitlist is looking pretty full..If you’re interested in securing a place, please make sure you email info@eyecandyworkshops.com or fill out the contact form on the Eye Candy page here and either Fran or myself will get back to you.

S xx

I’m aghast.  Apparently I have a child who turned ten this week.  If there’s one thing that makes you feel older than your own birthdays ticking over, it’s your childrens.  I distinctly remember a time in my life where I believed people with ten year olds were all grown up. They were responsible, fully fledged adults, cooking dinner, doing school runs, raising real children.  So, how did I get here?   I’m thoroughly perplexed, as well as aghast.

And while we’re making this post all about me, lets focus on the fact that it is,  after all, a celebration of birth and it’s quite clear who did the birthing around here.  I still believe the mother should get all of the adoration, most of the cake and a little Tiffany on the side.   Raise your hands.

Okay, so none of that is happening any time soon so back to the ten year old child who claims he’s mine..Yes, he’s too old but he’s also too clever and too funny and too compassionate as well. Along with thoughtful and helpful and really very brave.  He’s not going to be someone amazing, he already is.

Happy Birthday, my darling Mister Luca.

Some pics from this week…

A little brotherly love:

And a couple from his Laserzone party.  (See, I can endure anything as long as I have a camera in my hand).

Oh, and Mason being Mason.

S x