Lucille's first birthday

Lucille turned one today. The day began with a very loud: GOOD MORNING, by Matti, waking Lucille and myself up...Then he said: I got to go to work. I want nam nam and then I have to go, I'm running out of time. :-). (He works at the airforce :-) ...and he brushes his hair to go there :-) ).
We then sang Happy Birthday, which Lucille loved. She swayed with the song from side to side (as she does to music), and started clapping her hands. We got up and Matti had some Apple Pie for breakfast. I didn't even get to eating, as the phone kept rining -
Mum on the phone is not a great idea ;-), and it was quite franatic here.

We spent the day at our favourite park, Laguna Park, with our friends, and it was a beautiful day, nice and windy, low twenties and just very comfy, not too warm and not too cold - perfect Tanja
weather :-).

Lucille received some lovely presents, had a little play with them, and then was off exploring with the older children. Her walking speed has quite increased and she is not often crawling anymore.
Matti also had a great time, playing mostly with Nicholas and they both were said when the day ended and just wanted to keep going.
'When I'm older, I can play all evening and night'....Matti says a lot of the time at the moment: "When I'm older, I can...."...Mmmmh, wonder if someone has said to him: When you are older you can.... Yes, probably, as they are such sponges.
At some point today he stormed out of the room with a huff and a puff, and I got a real shock as I just saw a little mirror of myself :-)...Wow, it gets more clearly with every day, how our children copy everything we say and do...the words we use, in which way we use them, how we speak etc. It's almost a bit scary, as so often we act the way we have been conditioned ourselves...Anyway, my awareness is there and I read something very fitting to this week just before:

"Raging at others is an act of war, not peace. To say otherwise is a
rationalization to protect our habits. If peace is desired, outward raging has to stop. Period. The peaceful habit to choose is to FEEL our emotionalfeelings instead of sliming our beloved family and friends with them.

Expressing our negative feelings toward others does not "get to the bottom" of the feeling at all. Instead it discharges the energy of that feeling into the environment. Zap. Like lightning. Boom. It's a very superficial and dramatic way to handle feelings. It says, "I'm scared, I can't handle this, I'm not response-able, so I have to dissipate it, discharge it." Discharging our feelings outward is done from a position of victimhood, of powerlessness. It avoids getting "to the bottom" by short-circuiting the energy before it becomes too intense. We have many many habits to discharge
feelings, habits that we learned from our parents and society.

Negative feelings are "For Internal Use Only." Put that warning label on them, write it on the back of your hand if you need to, and honor it. STOP sharing those feelings with others. If you're a rager, someone who "has a temper", commit for one day to spend your precious negative emotional energy inward. Give loving attention and acceptance to the feeling. Peace is here." - I really like this and needed to read this, as I have not been responding this week as I want to and have felt like a rager, whom I don't know...

So, from tomorrow on I have to practice this- it has been challening, as I haven't been very centred due to extreme tiredness, the children picking up on it etc....I don't want to go into it, as said above, it would just discharge it more and not help it. A new day tomorrow :-). Children are our biggest teachers, that's for sure.

Ok, one more thing to Lucille's play: she is trying to put little things into bigger things now. You can see that on one of the photos as well. She also new by tonight, when Justin rang, that he would sing Happy Birthday, as she said something that sounded almost like Birthday (BD or so...), and swayed from side to side.
She held on a bit to the phone and then gave it to me.
It puts me into awe, seeing her developing more and more. Children are innately sooo smart and aware, it is amazing.

Ok, and one last quote I just came upon, which is also very fitting and saying exactly how I've been feeling this week:

"Motherhood brings as much joy
as ever, but it still brings boredom,
exhaustion, and sorrow too.
Nothing else ever will make you as
happy or as sad, as proud or as
tired, for nothing is quite as hard
as helping a person develop his
own individuality especially while
you struggle to keep your own."
-- Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons

...and double that for two children ;-)

So, all is good and it's kind of funny that this is all under 'Lucille's Birthday' blog entry....Maybe kind of to summerize the year :-).