mom's home!

My mom arrived Dec. 21 last year, in the early morn, and has since then been living in the basement apartment downstairs. What a blessing and bounty. I still haven't gotten past the feeling that I am somehow cheating, because I've for so long had the mind frame that I have to take care of the kids and house on my own (when Judge is at work or has been at school)...that it can be tough at times without back-up support, but I can do it, because I have to and I want to...we want this life of stay-at-home-with-the-kids.

It actually reminds me of my mind-frame before meeting Judge, that I could carry my own heavy bags and didn't need any help - and I would not accept help to carry my bags when offered, because I was strong enough to do it no matter how heavy they were (this is not a metaphor, I mean literally, for example travelling or grocery shopping or moving). Now I gladly let Judge carry the heavy bags, even if I can do it myself. I have learned to accept help even when it is not a necessity but rather 'just' a lightening of a burden.

So that is what I am working on changing now - that my mom helping is not cheating or meaning that I can't do it on my own, but rather that this is what we do for each other - we always wish to help lighten the burdens of those we care about when we can, and by us living so close it is something she can do.

So, though getting a breather in the middle of the day because either the girls are downstairs playing at my mom's, or my mom has taken them out for a stroll, is completely foreign, it is at the same time amazing.

(Sure, it was standard fare this summer, but because Cedrik was a newborn and I was exhausted, so though it wasn't any less appreciated...perhaps it was even more appreciated actually, it wasn't the same kind of breather. Plus it wasn't a long-term situation.)

And the fact that there is an inside staircase connecting the upstairs and downstairs, so the girls don't need to put shoes on - or even put clothes on in Eliana's case - makes it even more free and fluid. And yet miraculously we (all parties) have our own space to breathe and be, so there isn't a sense of claustrophobia - my mom can tell the girls that she needs to work on the computer a bit or take a nap or whatever, and they just come upstairs again. So we have our together time, where sometimes it is just being in the same space doing our own things and sometimes doing things together, but we also have our separate reclusive times.

Pretty darn stellar if you ask me.

And the fact that the sun has turned, the days are getting longer and lighter again, and right now the weather is pretty clear and non-windy (compared to the gray skies and rain we've had for the past few months) makes life even better.



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