S P A C E

I think the most difficult aspect of motherhood, for me, has been loss of space.  My space.

I like my space.  I like room to breathe and space to move.  I'm comfortable being alone.  I prefer to fish alone, just me and my rod and my imperfections and tangled line.  When I am in pain, I want to be alone.  Sometimes, I simply need to be alone.

That doesn't happen much in my current life.  Even now, as I type, Rodas is on the arm of my computer chair in her pj's asking four hundred questions to try and delay bedtime. Speaking of which...

...okay, book read and Little One is tucked in.  Computer chair is free for the moment.

Oh yes, I was rambling on about space.  Don't get me wrong, I love my children...heck, we went half-way across the world to find two of them!  But everything worth anything costs something.  And for me, the cost wasn't monetary, simply a matter of personal peace.  I'm willing to give up my space, but that doesn't mean there are times that I don't miss it.

Some mothers are very good at giving all to their family and not feeling spent in any way.  Somehow their bucket just keeps refilling.  One of my dear friends, who has just had her fifth adorable child, home-schools them all, makes homemade bread and bunk beds and has a husband who is gone as much or more than mine, is one such sweet soul.  I don't know how she does it, when after two weeks without respite I tend to become crankier than Archie Bunker.

Even harder is the fact that two of my children, and my four-legged shadow, Silver, desperately need to be within my personal bubble as much as possible.  And they deserve it.  Oh, how they deserve it.  And, I work hard to allow it...to welcome it...but it is so incredibly tough.  And sometimes, I fail.  Sometimes I just shut the bathroom door, closing both Silver and Rodas out for a few brief moments of respite.  Sometimes I ask Tse to move her head just a little bit away from mine so that I can see the words of the book to read them.  I can read the words fine...I just needed to breathe.

And every time I fail, I feel so guilty because I know they deserve so much more.  Children today often are raised by helicopter parents whose lives revolve around their kids.  They end up raising children who get a rude awakening when they are older to realize that life actually doesn't revolve around them and when they demand that it does, they don't get a paycheck.  We won't have that problem, I don't think.  My needy munchkins have such a different circumstance that even if Colt and I gave them all that we could, it still probably wouldn't be quite enough to overcome what walked away from them years ago.  But we have to try.

So, I dream of the days when there was room to breathe...but I am blessed to have incurred such a loss.

So, on to what we have been doing this past month!  Colt has been gone for most of it, spending a few weeks in northern California on a fire and now has been in Idaho (just north of our old home, Salmon) for over a week.  Below-freezing nights in a tent, working 16+ hour days managing a 340,000 acre fire.  That's my man! And we are so proud of him!  Don't have to worry about not having enough space with him, unfortunately! (0:  Anyways, our month in pics:

It's autumn on the Elkhead!

Noah and Uncle Jackie (my brother) playing on the tramp.

My creative children took turns making each other into block robots.  Too cool!

Tse's in there somewhere...

Wyatt (blue shirt, red shorts), Noah (striped hat) and Mom starting the Leaf Cruncher 5K.

The only time Mom can keep up with Noah...when he has a side-ache!

Speedy Wy, off to win his age group.

Wyatt, Rodas and Tse at the start of the Leaf Cruncher 1-mile Fun Run.  

Rodas begged to run the 1-mile race and Wyatt wanted to help her.
I said "yes" but knew it wouldn't be easy...it wasn't.

...but he got her moving...

...and smiling...

...and finishing!  I'm so proud of both of them! 

Vice versa day at school--hmmm.  Thinkin' I like it the other way around!

Tiger, our friendly neighborhood cat, taunting the dogs.
Life can be so unfair!

My Hahn's Peak runners!

Noah coming in for the finish of the 1.5 mile kids race.

Rodas wanted to run again, this time big sister helped
keep her going!  Way to go, girls!

My 1.5 mile runners!

Wyatt at the start of his first 10K (6.4 miles).
He ran it solo, and it was an extremely tough 10K.
1200+ft elevation gain and decline through timber, meadow and scree slopes.

I began to worry at 1 hour and 30 minutes.
What was I doing letting my 9-yr. old run this alone?
But, he's wanted to do a 10K so bad.  He's ran 7 miles with Dad on rough trails.
Even if I ran it, there was no way I could keep up with him...
Please let him not have fallen with no one to help him...
Please let him not get lost...
The first runner came in at 1 hr. 47 min.
He said the little guy was doing well last he saw...
Fifteen minutes later, the second runner came in...
a little red-clad body wearing a huge smile!
What a kid, eh?
(0: