Poetry

I was just sitting here trying to find some inspirational quotes for someone, and Peter says 'what are you doing on there?' to which I replied in great length what I was doing, along with a couple of quotes, yada yada. He tuned out, obviously, and when I'd finished he said 'Forget about your poetry and prose, here are my feet, tickle my toes' and shoved his foot in my face. Nice.
As a lot of 17 year olds, I went through a phase of trying to find myself through poetry. This included songs like 'Take another little piece of my heart'- Janis Joplin, 'I got life' - Nina Simone, 'Believe' - Lenny Kravitz, this was the soundtrack of my teenage life (along with burning incense and an embarrassingly angsty diary or 5!) but I was also quite into real adult poetry that I had to go to the library and read through volume after volume of (mostly crap) poetry to find. So, I found W.B. Yeats and I printed on a dot matrix printer and glued it to a picture in a child's storybook I found at the church market

“A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.”

It's been YEARS since I stuck that into a frame and hung it on my cupboard, but I couldn't bring myself to empty the frame when I came across it recently.
Another Yeats,

When You are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars

.

Awww - that one reminds me of one of our wedding songs, and another more relevant quote to life nowadays

They say time takes its toll on a body
Makes a young girls brown hair turn gray
Honey i don't care i ain't in love with your hair
N if it all fell out well i'd love you anyway

That'd be Forever and Ever Amen by Randy Travis.


I also found Desiderata on a bookmark around those teenage years - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderata
(I'm going to figure out how to link that nice and neatly later, you'll just have to google the song lyrics if you want to)
I related that poem to my life at the time so deeply that even today when I read it I think of certain people who were in my life then who were loud/aggressive and thus vexations to my spirit! And who I compared myself to here -

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

oh I just remember the jealousy of others more able, more beautiful, more funny, more skinny, more clever than I in my teenage years just like it was yesterday. I'm much more accepting these days :)

The noise (omg the noise!)

Something people with only one or two children can't begin to understand (much in the way I couldn't understand more than 4 kids, or multiples!) - the constant noise of playing/fighting/talking/crying etc etc Today at the park we had a lovely time with a friend, who has three similarly aged to my own. Out of nowhere, one stood still, hands by side, and squealed. High pitched, lengthy, ear piercing. Child number two joined in, then child number three. It was a practiced harmony, a game that it appeared they'd played once or twice before. My kids thought it was hysterical, and their laughing egged the other family on for rounds 2 and 3. My friend just kept talking to me over the noise, as you do when you want to have a conversation with children around.
Just then, I heard (as I lie in my bubble bath lol)-
C1 - it's your birthday next week!
C2 - yes it's my birthday next week!
C3 - no it's not, mum said it's your birthday today
C2 - oh yes it's my birthday today
C3 - but maybe it's your birthday next week? (to C1)
C1 - no it's definitely C2's birthday next week. It's my birthday today
C3 - nah, it's not
C1 - yes it is. And I'm getting a pony.
C2 - I've already got a pony
C3 - I've got a black pony
C2 - I've got a black pony too. C1 has a white pony
C1 - no I want a black pony too
C3 - ok, let's all have black ponies
There's going to be some posting malfunction here, as I can't edit on my phone the bit I've already typed. But just for a moment imagine there being no C3, and all of the discussion following whatever C3 has said or started being filled with silence! Of course it wouldn't necessarily happen like that, but there's no doubt there is less words spoken by 2 children than 3.

I have 2 in the bath with me now and they haven't stopped talking either. But the noise levels if my life are more than doubled as I hear discussions taking place in the kitchen, and Peter becoming involved as well.

I'm getting out to continue on the bed routine.
Now, just imagine taking C3 out of the equation and

House of sickness

I'm sick. My head is full of snot and my body is aching. I've done nothing but sit on the lounge and do credit card damage for 2 days. Every second step I take I'm knocking into something left where it's dropped on the floor - current inventory 1 pair of New Balance kids' size 13 joggers, 1 size 11 Target pink jogger (ugh I'll have to track down the other one later...), Sylvanian families paraphernalia, a towel that is covering the coke Curtis spilled while pouring the leftovers from fast food Friday/movie night from one cup to another, a small pound puppy, wipes, and a pair of size 14 New Balance joggers that almost perfectly match the child's but yeh, belong to someone who should have put them away instead of leaving them scattered. That's what I can see. Behind me is the craft table, and there's sure to be about 3 days worth of paper cuttings and crap underneath it. To my right, boys, quite handsome little boogers, but attacking each other while yelling fight fight fight.
I think I'm getting better, but I'm not sure I want to! Because getting better means cleaning up, and perhaps even scarier, looking after the sickies that will fall after me. Kimbal is showing signs of a sniffle, and Peter is resting on the lounge nearly asleep at 8.15. Oh no. And it hasn't been that bad doing nothing for 2 days, although you can only refresh facebook so many times and check the chat lists before you think perhaps there is something more productive you should be doing.
One enjoyable thing we did do today was sit and watch the photo dvd's my stepdad made for the kids. The first one was Kimbal's christening DVD, then last year he made one for Olivia's birthday and then Luella got hers made because she was the only one who was aware of the dvd's to wonder why she didn't have one. It was very predicably cute to see them all as little ones again, no feelings of dread, and we all oohed and aaahed and giggled at appropriate places. It's funny how they look so different to when they were babies, but still so much the same. It's also funny seeing the changes I've had over the past 7 years, the self cut ultra short fringe on black over dyed hair probably wasn't my best look.
Righto, I'm off to have a bath before Peter does fall asleep and I get the supervision of the kids by default.