I’ve often found it difficult to blog these past weeks of 2012. Writing about events (family visits, cooking, DIY projects…) is easy. The sharing of thoughts and feelings is hard to articulate. Perhaps you’re like me, and the blogs you find particularly fascinating are ones that give a glimpse into the writer’s mind and heart–their true personhood. Unfortunately I don’t know that I can find much of a voice here on the web for those sorts of things. I do try, but in the end, I opt for privacy.

So, when life is just life, I find it hard to write. I do love these days at home with my one year old. I love the evenings with my man. This season of my life has an ebb and flow to its tides that I realize is fleeting. Fleeting because one day (one very sad day) school days will be upon us. Right now, life is simple. We have no ties to a school calendar. Only 5 more years–wait, only 4 more years–until again one of us is in school. (Where did this first year with Silas Clark go? How could I have only 4 more years at home with him?)

Until the fall of 2009, my life had been governed by a school calendar. Now the tide of life rises and falls with a steady rhythm, a cadence. No deadlines, no snow days, no conferences, no homework. The school calendar has been replaced by holiday celebrations, family birthdays, trips back home, and the changing of the seasons as the markers of the passage of time. I could ride this tidal wave for a very long time!

The quiet, steady rhythm of life for me as a stay-at-home mom has required adjustment. The week’s climax is Sunday. Very often our Saturdays have become days to prepare for Sunday. I recently began babysitting for a friend twice a week. This has added a new cadence to our current.

I won’t have these days forever. So, Elisabeth, take the time to soak in the roundness of Silas’s cheeks, the way his lips curve to form that new fishy-face he’s discovered. Sit still and notice Stephen’s strong arms, his dark waves of hair. This season of life has its many stresses (don’t think for a minute that I sit idly sipping tea all day). To be perfectly honest, this week was very difficult and full of lots of human, selfish, cranky moments for me. But I want to remember this beautiful current I’m riding. One day this season will be gone.