> > settling in <
this summer, when i was conjuring up ideas of what life in sayulita might be like, i was given a piece of advice from a friend who had previously lived abroad with a small child. she said "just remember - it's not vacation." we've been here in mexico a little over 2 weeks now and it's true. we're not on vacation anymore. we've found our way around, gotten our rhythms down, made some friends. it feels like we live here now.
we do get to swim in the pool, surf, paddleboard, build forts on the beach - all sorts of things that we don't do back home. but in between all of that stuff it's still just the 4 of us doing our thing - working, schooling, grocery shopping, eating, cleaning, sleeping, laughing, crying, screaming. (some of us do those last 2 more than others.) just daily life stuff. and so, though nothing is exactly the same, in a strange way it doesn't feel all that different.
it's just life. beautiful life.
> > marvelous <
2 years ago today, i was leaning against ian in a tub of water in our parlor holding our new baby boy, marvel heron ingram. in his two years of life, marvel has grown and he has grown ME in ways i never imagined. he is an astonishing being. a lover and a fighter (much to koruna's chagrin), a trucker, a dancer, a sweet sweet soul. his joy is expansive and brings a whole new dimension of beauty to this life.
he tumbles, he twirls, and he talks - an ocean of words with celestial inflection. it makes me think of whitman:
"Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best, Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice."
i hope i can keep the two-year-old lull of his voice, the tilt of his head, the weight of his hug forever imprinted on my heart.
love. marvelous love.
> > flip flop anyone? <
marvel lost his flip flop on a walk the other evening. this was koruna's attempt at recovering it.
note the sad face.
also note that mars is wearing undies. we decided to test the waters on potty training. unfortunately i decided to start before i bought undies so his first morning we made do with hello kitty panties turned inside-out with a dinosaur drawn on them.
he now refuses to call his undies anything but "panties".
> > swimmin' <
we've been swimmin'. all summer. almost every day. and we intend to do it all fall in mexico. so for the second year in a row, runa and mars took swim lessons with ms. cathy. these lessons are no joke. they are intense. there is crying and screaming and running away and sometimes throwing up. the lessons are WHOA. i think they're so worth it.
koruna just turned 4 and marvel is almost 2. in eight lessons, ms. cathy had them both swimming from the deep to the shallow end of her pool, swimming through hoops, and jumping off of her waterfall.
all they want to do is swim now. if we're not swimming, we are talking about swimming, drawing mermaids, or practicing "dolphin dives" off the arms of the couch onto the cushions. ian drew the sketches below at runa's request the other morning.
and koruna made her own additions to the drawing of her brother.
we're headed to galveston in a couple of days. ya know, to get our swim on.