Beckley is contentedly sleeping in a suitcase at night (for the first time she’s not in our bed), she practicing her crawling stance, shrieking voice, and insisting on trying more solid food every day.

Finn is learning to ski with great help (thanks Yvonne!), asking to ice skate every day, and seems to really truly love the snow. And the hot tub? Yes please.

Dustin is getting his fill of fresh powder, card games, and long discussions about hockey and programming.

Me? I am just soaking it all in, joyful to see my family so happy in this lovely cabin in the woods. I’ve done a little skiing, knitting some tiny things for the baby, taking pleasure in helping to feed this group, and admiring the beauty of our surroundings.

I’m thinking about the memories this trip is making for us: Beckley’s first family holiday; this perfect little cabin in the woods that makes me want to come back here every year (or just live here!); the dear friends we are enjoying this trip with, and the memories our combined families are making together… All of these things will be part of the stories and memories we will recall as the kids grow older. Just thinking about it brings such pangs of wistfulness- oh, I want to hold my babies so close and just pause time for a while. Just a little while, enough to breath their scents, study their hands (baby chubby fingers grow into toddlers WAY to fast), snuggle them into my arms, and not have to do anything else but HOLD them. And even though it is an absolute joy to witness life through the beautiful eyes of a child, I am getting older every day and watching them do the same. Of course this journey of parenting is to help get these little people to the other side of childhood in a healthy happy way, but I can say with absolute certainty that I miss this already. I miss them.

Both babes are upstairs sleeping in their respective make-shift beds, and I am down here by the fire feeling the size of my heart swell in this longing to hold them closer. Maybe this is the desire for a shared family bed- it’s been hard having Beckley sleeping away from me. Night time sleeping is a perfect time to hold the kids close, breath and dream next to them while they are still and perfect and the darkness exposes all of our vulnerability and loveliness. The universe has tucked us into bed together as a family… Oh what a gift, I love them so much.

May we all find this kind of love in our lives…

Ok, I’m off to bed in this winter get away, to get a night of sleep and to be met by an early morning wake up with a sweet sweet baby girl.

Ciao.

I was cleaning up today and found a little poem I wrote when I was a couple weeks away from meeting Beckley. I remember sitting and writing it, so very aware of that giant creaking force that mega-pregnancy brings, and I had the sense that any moment the whole universe was going to fold up into a little paper cup and pour out a new life into my hands, and I knew that would happen with the greatest of ease (it did, birth story coming soon, promise!). Here’s my little poem:

~~~
Spinning

Centrifugal force, commanding
That invisible and felt pull,
Working with, within and without
An intention of stability.
A pull that is, responding and reacting.
Today as the body waits, oh so patiently,
For another to emerge from the warm held place
That only the mother’s birthing body can ever know.

Do you feel the spinning, pulling force
As you grow, child?
Do you hear my sighs and signs as
Hips and back and you shift,
Every day opening my body further
To the day that we would Meet…

I wait. I spin and wait.
~~~

Beckley and I, out in the rain on the weekend:

Ciao, dear reader.