Rhythm

Things for our family are starting to fall into a routine of sorts. A gentle rhythm is working its way into our lives. A heart beat, the slow thump of a lifeline. A simple comfort to hold onto in a time where at any moment the heaviness of our reality can come crashing down on us. Finding joy in the sun beaming on our faces. Or the way the baby grabs our faces with his chubby hands as we hold on to that memory, savour it, pause.
I want to be completely honest here for a second. Our pictures here yes they seem joyful and perfect. They are joyful, but perfect, no, a far cry. We have good an bad days. Heck, we can be having a great time and in 3 small seconds it can turn into full on pandemonium, in a complete shit hitting the fan sort of way.

Examples!? Yes, I have a lot, but I will mention only two... The other day I received a phone call about art grant funding, 4 minutes I walked upstairs to popcorn up and down 4 flights of open stairs, then wandered into the pantry to find popcorn sitting in a puddle of urine. All the while not being able to do or say a darn thing because I am on a business call with this nice lady the arts board. Or, I thought it would be fun to have a dance party! Lighten things up! Well Gus (who is 5), who just entered kindergarten (the sweetest little guy) said this is "fucking stupid" (words I have never heard him say). My husband said well were you being fucking stupid? I guess. Because I didn’t see that my little man was in pain, emotional pain. He didn’t need a dance party. He probably needed a hug and a snuggle, he has had his new world stripped away. Stripped away by something that he cannot fully understand or fathom. He misses his little dance partners in life. We all need space, and we all need to acknowledge how this all makes us feel. REALLY, this is all fucking stupid, it fucking sucks. However, the alternative is a lot worse. But what can we do, just our best. I remember once I handed my mom a test paper. I was a terrible test taker (weird that I turned out to be an artist). Nothing came together for me when taking an exam, the puzzle pieces just fell into place for me. You know what my mom asked me "well, did you do your best"? Yes, I had done my best, I just stunk at test taking. So let us just do our best here! Just take this moment by moment. Sometimes we have to feel our feels as we fall into this strange new rhythm of our lives.

Our family lately has enjoyed our movie nights in our garage, watching and then rewatching Onward, it pulls on our ever aching heart strings. We have had music days, where Uncle Zach played for us live on FaceTime, and we finally put together a music corner with that old set of drums we had in storage. We made a snow shark, we had a pizza making party, we have had an array of blurring together beautiful moments. We play, we cry we yell, we laugh, we are alive.

A tad bit of advice from a long-time stay at home parent, GET THIS BOOK: "Happiest Toddler on the Block", IT IS THE BEST! I have probably read it about 3 times now. I am reading it again right now, because I need to!! It talks about getting on the same level as your child and nipping breakdowns, screaming, etc in the bud. My favourite is the "time-ins and time-outs", which is giving a little to your kids and then going back and making dinner or whatever it is you need to do, it works like a charm! It touches on relating to all kinds of personalities and understanding people in general. I could go on and on, but this book has changed our day-to-day lives in a monumental way!

Love to everyone!

​Brandi