Staying Connected

I don't know about you---well, no.  Maybe I do, just a little.  You're here, reading my blog, which means you have access to a computer.  And if you're a regular reader, then you also use your computer regularly.  Heh.  I'm so smart.

I couldn't survive for very long without my own.  I'm certain.  I've tried, and it did not go very well . . . at all.  Why?  Well...

Being a mom who is at home with her kiddos nearly 24-hours each day and definitely 7-days each week, there are days when I feel severely disconnected from LIFE, you know, like from my friends here and there, bound to me by my best beloved, my internet connection.  I need my daily [read: hourly] fix of LOL'ing all over the place.  I need to commiserate and agree and identify with women much like myself and to encourage with pon-pons a'blazing.

It's my nature: I crave relationship.

And now as a single mom at home both raising & training children and trying to raise some dough [read: cash, but sometimes bread, which is just another word for more cash...really], too, I can often feel even more dependent upon my computer to accomplish all tasks above and then some.  I use it in our homeschool: printing, searching, mapping, all-day Classical stations on Pandora--the basics.  I also use it to stay connected with you and my dear, old friends from grammar and high school and the military through facebook.  And, finally, I use it to write . . . for cash.

But that's changed; well, except for the cash part . . . and the homeschooling part, too.  Ahem.

Recently, like the-other-day-recently, I really wanted a nap.  We had an emotional loss on the sunny soccer field and I was just pooped, so I told my fab four to grab a movie on DVD and wake me when it was over.  Zzzzzzz . . . right?

Nope.  Not at all.  The fab four decided that wasn't good enough.

"Let's ride our bikes to the park and kick the soccer ball around!" they insisted.

"I really, really, really want a naaapppp."  [Um, I never whine, so try that again]

"We're gonna get the bikes ready and fill some water bottles..."

"And then find the helmets!" cried I, figuring I could get 30-minutes for that one, easy.  I told you: smart.

Five minutes--maybe even four, those naughty imps--later, I was poked and prodded awake: "We're ready!  Come on, Mom!"  [Yes, imagine yelling and screaming and whistling and hooting, too . . . naughty, naughty imps]

Not more than a dozen rotations of the pedals away from home, I saw my entire world before me and literally: four wee persons riding their bicycles over bumps and branches under the peaceful and soft afternoon and autumnal sun while wearing delicate and contented smiles (and helmets).

And I realized something: I am fully connected in one of the very best ways possible.  For me, there is no greater connection on God's dried up and parched northern Californian earth than the connection I have to my children, my seed, my heritage.  I know them better than any other persons in this world, and they surely know me, and yet still let me live with them.

In the midst of these thoughts, which never fail to bring the waterworks to my eyes, my eldest daughter rode up next to me and said, "You know, we're blessed to know our mother--like we really, really know you.  Many kids cannot say that about their moms."

Who's smiling now?

Yep, fully connected and staying that way.