1-Oct-07 Kids-in-a-box

Today we received some pictures of Malia in the mail! Hooray! She is so cute. I want to get in the car and drive up there and see her!!!! If I didn't have several singing gigs coming up in the next few weeks (starting with this Thursday), I don't think I would be fighting this urge.

I have a link over there --> to Catherine Newman's blog. She writes columns about parenting for various websites and magazines, and wrote a book called "Waiting for Birdy." I have been reading her columns since I was pregnant with J (she was also pregnant with her second child at that time). I don't know her, but it is interesting to me that her family lives where Darell and Kathryn live. Anyway, reading her columns always gives me a "whoosh" feeling inside, because I just relate to them so viscerally. Really, when something hits home, I get either all teary-eyed, or butterflies in my stomach, or a sudden head rush or something. Kinda weird.

Anyway, her blog is mostly just links to her columns. She has just written one about how love ebbs and flows. Really, she is so brave and honest to write about the times you don't love parenting so much, and somehow she reflects on them and they become a celebration of the wonder of parenting too. She makes me feel so much better about both the good times and the not-as-good.

I was reading her column on Friday, and I thought, "she is so amazing. I want to be Catherine Newman when I grow up." Then I thought, "Well, I really want to be KT Tunstall when I grow up (although I would have to go back in time a few years for that). I want to be some kind of combination of Kate Tunstall, Catherine Newman, and Anna Armitage when I grow up!" And then I thought, "wait a second, I think that's what I am!"

So that made me feel pretty happy with my life, and so does THIS: (taken on Thursday)

I think there is a similar picture of Darell and I somewhere!