Why the word Huge and not Big?

I chose my blog title because I imagine every ones life as a tiny little dot on a map. Like those maps of the world that glows brightest with tiny white dots illustrating population density. If you took just one of the dots in New York and divided it a thousand times and then took one of those dots and did the same...well, there you have your small little dot. Even Oprah is one of those dots. I feel that all of us are capable of doing something big in our lives, ok maybe not Oprha big, but still big...it doesn't have to be publicly known but it can still effect the well being of our world. If I think of the most inspirational people and what they have done and then think of them as a little dot, it seems possible that my little dot of a life may be able to do something inspirational too.
As for the word Huge...my son uses it but he pronounces it Hooj. I take much delight in watching his little lips get perfectly round when he is describing the Hooj full moon or a Hooj truck. How could I not use the work huge. Now the word big just seems so blase.

How do you stay so thin?

I have always been a small in stature but since we have moved around alot, I keep getting the same question from newly found friends. How do you stay thin? The answer...I have kids. Here is an example. Yesterday I took our kids to a resort for lunch and to use their pool. Actually, there are four pools: the water slide pool (located up a few stairs), the hot pool, the little pool, and the big pool. My day went a little like this... Sam, my 2 year old, heads to the big pool, Chloe, she's 4, heads to the little pool. These are fairly close together so I pick a spot on the tiles that I can watch both. Sam leaves the big pool minutes later to play with sister in the little pool. Great! I think as I search for a chair next to the little pool. During the next three minutes I meet a woman, Peggy. She only has a fifteen year old sun who is busy with his ipod and ignoring his mother. We have the standard 3 minute conversation that every mom of a toddler has and then Sam leaves the little pool and heads up the stairs to the waterfall pool. I have to leave Chloe behind to follow Sam. Now I am walking back and forth between the two pools, slowly since the tiles are slippery, to check on the kids. on my second approach to the water slide pool I can see Sam holding onto the railing by the stairs on the opposite side making his "poop" face. I know what is coming so I jump into the pool and swim as fast as I can to retreive him...he is wearing a swim diaper but those things don't keep the poop from turning to mush and then leaking, trust me on this one. I walk past the little pool to check on Chloe and to let her know I will be next to the stroller by our table in the shade changing Sam. She barely hears me as I walk away carrying a 33 lb wiggling and wet toddler. I change Sam as fast as it is humanely possible and bring him back to the little pool. Chloe is still there enjoying the tiny waterfall in that pool. Sam only stays another couple of minutes before he is off to the water slide pool again. This time Sam decides to tackle the water slide so I jump in the pool and swim across the pool to catch him at the end. Then I swim with him to the stairs and pull myself out to go check on Chloe. She has moved to the big pool. Peggy calls out and says that she will look after Chloe. Bless her! I walk as fast as the ground permits to go back to Sam who is waiting impatiently at the top of the water slide for me to get into place at the bottom. I jump back into the water and swim across the pool just in time to catch him. We swim to the edge and I get out to peek at my daughter still playing happily with other kids in the shallow end of the big pool. Peggy waves. I wave back and re-enter the waterfall pool. This process lasts 5 HOURS. My kids only spent a half hour total in the same pool. I watch other parents sitting on their chairs watching their kids and hardly any of them seem as busy as I feel. Cue the feeling of doubt that creeps into my mind and always has me wondering if I am doing this whole mom thing right. The smiles on my kids faces quickly wash away those feelings. I also feel pride in my weary body when I look at their tired non sunburned faces. No one has any boo boo's today even though Sam fell 4 times on the slippery wet surfaces and all of those were easily fixed with a kiss to the effected area. I must be doing something right! At the end of the day we head to the restaurant where their father is waiting for us after playing a leisure round of golf. Cue irony.

Babies see Angels

Two nights ago I didn't sleep very well. I couldn't blame it on caffeine or a full moon and both of my kids were asleep. I just couldn't fall into that last phase of deep sleep. For some reason I started thinking about angels and wondering what they were doing at this hour which led me to think about moments when my children were babies and I caught them staring out the window looking at something. Everytime I followed their gaze I came up with nothing but the look on their faces convinced me they saw something. The best part of their facial expression was that they looked incredibly peaceful. My kids had exceptionally long infant stages since they were preemies so I got to experience those wonder moments, where I felt like they could see something I couldn't, many many times over.
I wonder now if it was just one angel, one special spirit that hung around to make sure they were ok or if they could see any and all angels in the sky. Why I was thinking of those precious moments, I don't know. It could have been because I had fallen asleep with my daughter again and just the closeness of her little body had triggered those memories or maybe her angel was there with her while she was sleeping. I will never know. But, it does give me comfort knowing that maybe there is someone besides me that is paying attention to all the little details in my childrens life. Someone else who can shoulder the worry that all of us parents go through.
So of course the story that came to mind that I thought I could write about was, what if we all could see our guardian angels, maybe even talk to them? What if I could write a story through a babies eyes? What does their world really look like. That is when my imagination really kicked into gear and kept me from sleeping the rest of the night.

Starting out

There are moments in my life that I look back on and realize, that day changed my life. Sometimes the moments seem inconsequential at the time and others are the typical moments that we know will change out lives; marriage, babies, death, etc.
What brought me to start this blog is from one of those inconsequential moments that happened on a day this last April.
I can only call it a daydream that lasted all day and then seemed to take over my mind for the next ten weeks. My daydream had characters and conversations, landscapes that I had never seen before. I was compelled to write it all down, I had no choice really. It took over my thoughts and the minute my kids went to bed, I wrote. I wrote on my lunch breaks and during any other breaks I could find in my day. My poor kids had to wait patiently in their carseats many a time when I was busy jotting something down in the car as we pulled up to our destinations.
Now, everything I do seems to have a story that plays out in my head right along side my real life. Hopefully, this blog will help me get it all out so that I am not consumed by my imagination.