Bittner Brief

What’s been happening with us since March? Perhaps after scrolling through this post some might say we’ve done absolutely nothing. But, while I was sifting through photos, I saw that all of our nothing has been full of so much fun… so much little fun. The kind of little fun that fills up your soul. The kind of little fun that gives you those feel-good, core-of-who-you-are memories. While our family is in the little years we’re staying close to home, not stressing ourselves out with big vacations or anything. We’re making our own fun.

We started with watching the world around us slowly open up and proclaim life after a winter that seemed impossible to shake. We did a lot of mulching, a lot of weeding– learning hard work. Rethinking, rearranging, re-coloring.

We’ve been biking around the neighborhood and on rail trails– slowly building muscles and confidence.

We’ve been to more playgrounds than I can keep track of.

Walking the dog, wrestling & giggling. We’ve had timeouts, hurt knees and hurt feelings– slowly learning love, learning forgiveness and learning the importance of what family means (and what it doesn’t mean).

We’ve washed cars, spotted pirate ships (they may have been container ships… who can really say??) on the Chesapeake Bay and we’ve admired the simple beauty & wonder that’s all around us. We’ve been planting and we’ve been harvesting.

We celebrated motherhood, fatherhood and our country’s independence. Lance & I took such delight in experiencing fireworks through our children’s eyes for the first time. We’ve been with family, we’ve been with friends. We’ve danced, we’ve snuggled, we’ve been silly… sillier every day it seems.

We’ve been sidewalk chalk artists.

We’ve been firemen who can put out any “fire” with our dollar-store squirt guns.

We’ve been bakers, we’ve been painters. We’ve been hiders, we’ve been seekers.

My days end with sweet stories and sleepy snuggles; with precious hugs from little arms and tender I love yous. What more can I possibly ask for? Sure, right after those sweet little heads are laid down to sleep, Lance & I walk out to a tower of dirty dishes, laundry taking over the couch and dog hair skating and swirling across the floor with every step. But when I pause and look at all I have, all of the other wishes in my life seem really unimportant and arbitrary. I can’t express how thankful I am for the gift of being present in my children’s lives during these too-few years that I have them home with me. Soon enough they’ll be off to school and into this big world. Right now, we’re doing the important work of instilling in them who they are. We’re teaching them that they can always come home; family is their safe place.

Looking forward to more adventures this summer.

<3

 


 

 


 

I told you… a lot of weeding.

  1. M-E says:

    Beautiful – inspirational – well said… Thank you!

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