Picture Sunday :: 31 days of messy parenting {day 21}

It's all a blur... just how I'll remember their childhood.

But still, it is one of my favourites. 

I'll be sharing some of my favourite family photos on Sundays this month. Join me and comment with a link to your favourite (or not so favourite) family photo; one with a story to tell, maybe... let's remember the moments that go by in a blur.

Family fun gone awry :: 31 days of messy parenting {day 20}

Do you remember how cute and adorable Asher was last week at the farmer's market, all dolled up in his new monkey leash and curly, dew-dropped hair?

Yeah, well, that child is missing today. As are the other two. They have been replaced by ransacking criminals. And their parents are gone, too; we are their henchmen.

Contract killers of Saturday Morning Family Fun.

:: at least i got some good images before the sadness ::

I like to think I roll with the punches, that I bend down on one knee, look them in the eye, and firmly (yet softly) tell them their behaviour is a little wanting and I need their help in adhering to a more affirming family philosophy.

But I don't. We whisper fiercely through clenched teeth, grab an arm and sigh loud enough so there is no mistaking the foreshadowed consequence. We heave and pull and walk quickly to the exits. In fact, the only parent worth her metal is my mother, who keeps a smile and easy-going "You're doing grand" look on her face. She's got more experience, after all.

We are the amateurs.

So a morning of family fun has gone awry. This sometimes happens. Ok, this often happens.

Does this ever happen to you? How do you shake off the shame and frustration, and reconcile with your precious fam?

15 years later :: 31 days of messy parenting {day 18}

Behold, the people behind the messy parenting. Our first date was 15 years ago today.

15 years is a long time to live with someone - anyone - particularly a boy from Wisconsin who left a giant piece of wood in the closet that I banged my foot up against today. This is how we roll. He the woodworker and I the writer, and I know if our habits were reversed and computers no longer existed, he'd be yelling at me for all the paper cuts he'd receive from the journals and scraps I'd leave all over the place.

But the writing - like the handcrafted furniture and toys and frames that dot our life across two continents - is about us.

Two broken people who love hard amidst the daily mess, and the little people who inhabit the stories.

It's not clean and it's not perfect. But I can live with that.

Where does your story begin?

Naptime :: 31 days of messy parenting {day 17}

He's switched the beds, old for new, baby for toddler. The crib held all three babies born, built by their father, stained and assembled with care the night before we welcomed the first.

A gift of love.

But it's gone now, and it's ok. It did it's job. All babies deserve a comfortable, peaceful, safe place to sleep. And ours had that. Thank you, Lord.

And now? Well, now it's not as peaceful and a bit more explosive. Bedtime routines are less predictable now, and don't even get me started on naptime. Naptimes barely exist anymore. It's not just that he's three, but it's that he's no longer penned in. A toddler bed of pallets and an old door cannot contain him.

And it's ok.

He loves this new freedom, the feel of the bounce when he runs and jumps in. How we can lay next to him and read. How he can exhaust himself from playing and land in a heap. How he can wake up, nose to nose, with the father who gave him a place to lay his head.