Slow, Easy, Beautiful

It's so amazing what two weeks will do to a family.  Two weeks of ENOUGH time to get it all done.  Two weeks of both parents getting what they need to make their days work.  Two weeks of both kids getting enough sleep, enough attention and enough affection.  Two weeks of a pace that is not only managable, but fun and easy.  Two weeks of what feels like heaven.

To say that we are doing better would be an understatement.  We are rockin' in every sense of that word.  all four of us in our own ways.  We all four have had very different needs and we have all needed something different to "fix" what was ailing.  But somehow this arrangement seems to be doing just that. 

It's just, simply, working. 

I don't have internet access during the day - I am completely disconnected.  No blackberry, no computer.  I have my phone, so I can make calls...but I am completely disconnected from the world during the day.  Except for the parts of the world that I choose to include, like our classes and our friends.  I thought that I would hate it - that the disconnected part would be what I would struggle with the most.  But I don't.  Honestly, I feel so free.  I am not constantly checking this virtual world and what is happening with other people's lives.  I am focused entirely on my world - my children, my home, the day's events, the cycles that happen each morning and afternoon.  I do not miss a moment of my children's worlds.  They are in my full sights, with my full attention.  I haven't been so focused in my entire life.

Honestly, I can't remember another time when I have had enough time to get it all done.  For the first time, EVER, I feel like I am not over-extended.  I spend hours and hours on the floor with my children, watching them, playing with them, reading to them.  We tickle, we laugh, we cuddle, we chase.  I break up their fights, teach them manners and witness their passage through each day.  There are very, very few moments in my life now where I am racing to the next task.  There is almost always the option to just delay whatever it is that I was going to do for a tea party, or a "chase me" game with Connor.

This is revolutionary.  I don't know any other word to describe it.  I have never, ever lived like this.  I didn't know it was possible to live like this.  I had myself convinced that I needed to run at 180 miles per hour to be happy.

God, was I ever wrong.