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dear Mikki and Katie….

it’s been a tough week for us in the health department at the Burse house. colds, tummy aches, hives, and general overall yuckiness has prevailed and none have been left standing. in our quest for health there have been a few trips to the doctors and one to the ER. and, i have a confession. while i have been trained severely in proper manners for a lady fit for a seat next to the queen {aka: my grandmother}, something crazy comes over me when you guys are sick and i put on my tiger suit {not the cute and cuddly one either} and armor up for battle. i morph into an entirely different person. to you both, i am the one who rubs your back and holds your hair back. i am the one who lathers you with calamine lotion, and holds you on the couch, and serves Popsicles by the bouquet. i am the one who says, “yes, i can make it all better”.

and i am very polite and kind to the doctors…at first… until they tell me the one thing all mothers hate to hear.

“…nothing to do but wait….”

when the word “wait” tumbles out of their mouth, i can feel my brain get hot and my pupils dilate.

“how long?”  {why do i INSIST on asking this question}

“oh….about 5-7 days…”

and that is when they know. the cat is out of the bag and they know that i am not the seemingly well mannered lady with two little ones, i am the savage and uncouth woman behind curtain 2 who is demanding answers and prompt resolution for your most recent ailment. WAIT?!?!?! who do they think they are talking to anyway?

because i promised you that i could make it better. and sometimes, i can’t. at least not right away. it is the hardest lesson to learn as a mother…sometimes you just cannot make it all better.

….but 98.2% of the time, i can.

all my love darlings,

p.s: daily mantra: the moment a child is born, the mother is also born. she never existed before. the woman existed, but the mother, never. a mother is something absolutely new. {rajneesh}

dear Mikki and Katie….

i couldn’t think of anything to write today. i thought about it all last night before i went to bed and then again when i got up to let our meowing {howling really} cat out into the garage at 2:30am. i stared at the wall next to the bed thinking about this, and about all of the other things i had to do today. i dozed finally and dreamed about a clean desk with no post it notes {love post it notes in all shapes, sizes, and colors} and no lists of venders to call, emails to send, orders to ship, more calls, more emails, more studying. it was a great dream. alas, i awoke at 5:30am to find that the pile had not only stayed there on my desk, but had given birth to babies like those furry, bizzaro creatures in the Gremlin’s movie {you have no idea what i am talking but don’t spill water on them}.  there was a time in my life when i wouldn’t procrastinate or wait until the last minute…when i would get my papers done a week before they were due, or even pay my bills a month in advance, or buy toilet paper before it ran out. i would color coordinate, and put things in pretty folders, and separate my paper clips by color.  i call this time, Amanda BC. Amanda Before Children. or life. somewhere in between conception, pregnancy brain, giving birth, and finally realizing that ‘pregnancy brain’ doesn’t actually leave after you aren’t pregnant anymore…yeah, it stays…i found myself in a cyclical procrastination pattern that can only be compared to some type of black hole out there in the universe. so today, i sat down in front of my desk, put the gate up for a while to allow for no sudden interruptions of uttermost urgency (such as…you needed another snack because the one i just gave you, Katie, was eaten by your imaginary friend), and whipped out work like a crazy woman. of course, this is last minute. as usual. i emerged from my desk with victory none the less, and a topic for today….don’t put off what you can do today, until tomorrow.

all my love darlings,

p.s. daily mantra: “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”….{lao-tzu}

Soooooo…another day that looks like THIS….

I decided that today we would spend most of the day in. What is a girl to do in Maine when its snowy, and cold, and just…late February?

Welllll…this….

and then the “spa lunch”…peanut butter and jelly..perfect day..

Daily Mantra: “love of beauty is taste, the creation of beauty is art…{ralph.waldo.emerson}

dear Mikki and Katie…

this morning we were sitting at the kitchen table doing homework. katie, you were there…don’t worry…you were drawing spiders. {might i digress for a moment and say that you mentioned that you would like to have a pet spider, to which i said no, and for future reference, i will always say no about this pet choice of yours so please find something semi cuddly to ask for next time} anyways, we were doing homework…homework, by the way, has not gotten any more fun since i stopped doing it. but Mikki, you were completing it joyfully, and seamlessly. as we were wrapping it up, Mikki, you said something unexpectedly prfound…”mom, i want to be a teacher when i grow up because i LLLUUUVVVE to help people realize that they can do stuff.” at the time i think i said something  ridiculously unenthusiastic like “awesome”…but in my own defense i had not had my cup of coffee yet and i was still sleeping even though it looked like i was awake. {yes this is an bad excuse for not paying attention to your epiphany, Mikki, but when you are a mom you will understand} later in the day, after you had gone to school, it did dawn on me {finally} how brilliant and amazing your statement truly was. i stood in the middle of the kitchen and all the times people told me i couldn’t POSSIBLY do something flashed in front me. sometimes, i listened, and gave up. sometimes, i moved on and did it anyway. somtimes, i failed. most times, i didn’t.

girls, don’t let anyone tell you can’t do something {unless its me…haha…joke}. when it comes to going after what you love in life {whether it be teaching, or being a mom, or anything really…or loving a person even}, don’t let a single, minute thing stand in your way. ever. not even me.

all my love darlings,

p.s. daily mantra: most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be….abraham.lincoln

daily.mantra: there are lives I can imagine without children but none of them have the same laughter & noise….{brian.andreas}

dear Mikki and Katie…

i can smell a tantrum in the Walmart toy isle from across the store. the embarrassment that oozes through the mile long isles of worn concrete floors and potato chips in bulk can be felt by every cringing mother thankful that it is not their own child (this time). the elderly people shake their heads in colossal shame, thinking poorly of “the young people of today”, and the underpaid clerks brace themselves for a clean up of epic proportions after the lady, with her screaming babe on her hip, abandon her cart mid-experience. i wish i could say that neither of you two have blessed me with your own spectacular rendition of Midsummer Night Dream meets Macbeth in a toy tragedy, but alas, I have not been spared this all too familiar motherly experience. (hence my plague like avoidance of any toy isle….ever.) still, i have yet to blame a child for any such antics, even in my hot faced, ever so close to crying and/or my ready to severely discipline state of mind. because, girls, there is “too much”. of everything. and we all get wrapped up in the “too much” mentality.  i stepped on yet another “Littlest Pet Shop” walking down the hall sleepily in my bare feet on the way to the shrine (otherwise known as the coffee pot) this morning, and cursed all that is commercial and excessive in explicit, inappropriate detail. and while i feel that daddy and i don’t spoil you rotten, the mounting “i want this” comments coming from the other side of the noise picture box where a commercial presents yet another plastic thing i am bound to swear about has gotten out of hand. and yes, i had a lot of toys when i was a child. too many to count or even care about. but it’s even worse now because instead of just a couple isles of semi nicely made toys there are 12-24 isles of plastic stuff made for a dollar and sold for $14.99. (next week it will go on sale for $9.99 to make room for more and more and more and more). and by the time you guys have kids, there might be 24-50 isles of worrisome, dizzying, “too much”.  and while it may seem like i am standing on my soap box and preaching about the evils of toys, let me say that i don’t think they are evil at all. i love toys. i even love the Littlest Pet Shop animals that i curse on a semi-regular basis. what worries me, girls, is what you can’t find in those endless isles of mass production. and that is attention. and that is a simple conversation. and that is (most times) education. and that is the joy that comes from togetherness. and that is love. and while a toy may certainly BE loved, one-thousand of them can’t.

oh and this “too much” thing applies for us adults too. there is WAY “too much” of everything for us too…and it all makes me want to crawl into the 19th century sometimes (only with toilet paper and toilets because that is just good stuff there) when things were harder i’m sure, but there was less stuff and more to talk about.

all my love darlings,

p.s. daily mantra: “sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” {dr.seuss}

Daily Mantra:

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine

{the.indigo.girls}

daily mantra: “Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.” {mary.jean.iron}

dear Mikki and Katie….

i don’t have much to say today. except you are such genuinely good girls. you bring me more happiness than golden rod yellow striped tube socks and dunkin donuts coffee. i am so blessed my head could pop off.

all my love darlings,

p.s. daily mantra: “what you leave behind is not what is engraved on stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” {Perciles}

daily mantra: space is a breath of art…{frank.lloyd.wright}

me: what do you want to read tonight?

katie: SkippyJonJones!!

me: which one?

katie: the spice one. mommy, i love skippy jon jones.

me: what do you like about the spice one?

katie: the aliens.

me: what does an alien look like?

katie: {see picture 2 alien look-a-like}

me: how big is mars?

katie: its big like THIS….{see picture 3 for example}

me: all done…guess what time it is.

katie: bed time? {see picture 4}

me: yup