Taking a mini break from blogging to focus on the girls.

Providing these ladies with a summer of adventures.

This may be the last one where we do not have a list a mile long of all the things that must be done- camps they have to attend or skills they must fine tune.

For now they are at the golden age where summer is best spent at the school yard shooting hoops or catching fireflies with their Momma on a cool evening.

Only 7 more weeks before the school doors open again.

Off to make sure each one is full of our own brand of adventure….

Tomorrow we will wake up early for a trip to Far and Away Farms where Sid will ride her pony and the girls, Brock and I will cheer her on.

We will come home covered in barn dust and cheerful from her well-earned ride to celebrate Father’s day at my house.

A cookout is on the agenda where the girls will “prepare” steak and asparagus while Brock and I ponder how quickly 9 years have flown by from that first Father’s Day spent with a ten month old toddling through the house on Hickory Valley Drive.

Being a Dad to three young ladies is a profoundly BIG job. Not that parenting all together isn’t big but there is something enormous about being given the privilege of shepherding three little ladies through this life.

Instilling in them a healthy dose of confidence and humbleness;

patience and assertiveness;

love of adventure in the bigger world but connective tissue that draws them home.

I am grateful my ladies have Brock.

I am grateful we can continue to parent together even though our marriage did not sustain.

Tomorrow there is joy.

Happy Father’s Day Brock.

Sometimes I can see it coming-  when I’m tired, I haven’t run and work feels larger than life.

I melt down.

Much like Ellie’s tantrum over my denial of her candy request before dinner. Except it’s not about the candy. No that’s just the tipping point for a day full of pent-up anguish and frustration.

And so it was last night. A long day of travel and work; no chance to run and my mind swirling, trying to put things in its place that just aren’t ready for placement.

So when at 10:30pm I found myself locked out of my hotel room, standing face to face with a repairman telling me it would take them “some time” to repair the door that would let me into the room that held the promise of  5 hours of sleep before my early morning flight, I lost it.

Tears welled up in my eyes, my shoulders shook and the flood gates opened.

That poor repairman. The women standing in front of him in her black power suit, iPhone dangling from her hand, hunched over and crying about a hotel room door?

And in that moment he looked at me and said-

“You look tired Miss. It’s written all over you. It’s ok to cry”.

With those words he gave me the grace to acknowledge its presence and to sit in it.

No shame, no embarrassment.

I would like to say the tears dried up quickly but in reality they sat with me until well past midnight. But, the door did open and the promise of now 4 hours of sleep and the light of a new day with kisses from little girls and Starbucks coffee by the liter did eventually make it better.

And that man has no idea this morning what gift he gave me.

Standing in front of room 1068 at the JW Marriot Hotel Washington DC, this stranger gave me the permission, the reminder, that it’s ok to fall apart. In the end it felt not just necessary but good……

Just running slightly behind schedule all week. Ready for a weekend where my soul can catch up with my body. A weekend on Kelley’s Island where God willing I will complete my 6th race of the year (a 10K around the Island).

My friend Robin shot some amazing photos of my little ladies and sent them my way last week. I cant help but stop and pause every few hours to stare and let their little faces ground me even when we are not together. As I looked at these again last night Kahil Gibran’s words popped into my head-

“Your children are not your children. They are the son’s and daughters of life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you.”

Happy weekend!

A baby on my hip and two young girls racing ahead, I recall walking through this house the first time.

The layout, the flow, more than suitable for a family of 5 coming from an 1800 square foot house needing all 3000 feet this one had to offer.

What struck me that day was the three bedrooms and the bath on the 5th level; removed from the master suite on the 4th. After 7 years of babies in bassinets and toddlers crawling into beds we could finally have our own space.

So we moved in and I decorated the girls rooms in bright colors and made the upstairs bathroom a mini oasis for them. I hung a P. Buckley Moss print of three little girls in a clawfoot bathtub on the wall and we bestowed it “the girls bathroom”.

Almost 3 years later the upstairs bathroom (as I now have reverted back to calling it) is seldom used.

Sounds silly to wax melancholy for a bathroom but now that it stands empty I sometimes walk in and get teary eyed.

When  their dad moved out 7 months ago the girls slowly crept back into my bed and my bathroom.

At first it was just their tooth brushes that made the appearance and then before long their bath toys and towels followed suit.

It was just easier to have all of us in one place. Easier for the lone parent to bathe and swaddle those three little girls without  having to climb the extra flight of stairs.

And now I find that we live our lives in the footprint of three rooms- the master bathroom, my bedroom and our kitchen. This house with all of its square feet has shrunk into just 3 rooms.

Some day soon the girls will want their space back. The upstairs bathroom I will find full of the necessities of life with teenage girls. Curling irons, beauty products and wet towels on the floor will define it once again as “the girls bathroom”.

But for now, I bathe them in the cool gray tile of my sunken tub; I comb back their hair with my brush and I welcome their little arms at 1am when they decide that my bed will be their nest for the night.