Important Penn Things

I have a five year old little boy. I love him. He often confounds me. And yet, I almost always know what he's trying to say. I almost always know what he means. I don't always have the patience or take the time to teach him the potentially better, or at least most socially acceptable way, to get his message across. But I think Penn also knows what I am trying to say, even when I could say it better.

Penn and I understand one another. We often speak the same emotional language.


I see Penn as this amazing ball of potential right now. He's reading words to me. He's talking about his friends and the playground. I love the boy he has claimed as his best friend and I admire how he handles himself with other boys when there are natural personality difficulties.

I'm stuck between wanting him to grow and show me everything inside his head and wanting him to please just hold on a second and wait for me.

The baby is so time consuming I feel like I'm missing out on important Penn things. I fear he will resent the time he doesn't get with his mom, but I think I'm probably making that last part up.

Maybe the most beloved thing about Penn is how trustworthy he is. I trust him. That's not something I can teach. That's just who he is.

Being a mom twists my words and feelings up into an inexpressible jumble. Perhaps that's why I quit writing and turned to photography.

The last day of the Texas State Fair

Rain and obligations had us procrastinate the Texas State Fair until the very last day. Big Tex was still there to greet us.


Daniel pulled Penn onto his shoulders for a closer look at a man I dubbed "The Torso." The Torso referred to Penn as "The boy with the man growing out of his butt."


I like the fair. I like the bustle of people and smells of fried foods, the fluff of cotton candy and the romance.


I like watching the people line up to mount colorful machines that twist and twirl screams and laughter through the sky.


I like that there always seems to be more right around the corner. There is no way to look at it all no matter how hard you try.


Because the chaos is so massive my brain launches its tried and true coping mechanism for making sense of the world. I start breaking it all apart into bite sized morsels and gnawing on each piece.


Twice the crowd mentally overwhelmed me and I felt uncomfortable tugging the children through the bottleneck of games and carnival barkers. I yelped for help.


Daniel came back and pushed through the crowd. I drifted behind in his wake.


Towers and balloons fascinate me. This photo is my favorite because it looks like one is going to eat the other.


Daniel spent eight clams to let Penn bungee jump on this trampoline. I'm not sure how to describe it, but the bands allow him to jump really really high. Penn figured out how to flip on an early bounce and from there he was as graceful as a bird. He flipped over and over again. I felt lucky we were in the golden hour.

The fair is a good place to be. I wish I could go back partnered with just my camera for a full exploration. My photos are random images caught between my constant checking that the baby ducks were in a line. The rest is in my head.

...and in this flickr set.

Budding Artiste

"Work"
Black paint.


"Tree House"
Mixed media.


"Daniel playing guitar" 3rd panel in a series.
Ink on Star Wars notebook paper.


"Storytime"
Ink and pencil on copy paper.


"Daniel smoking a cigar"
Pencil and ink on copy paper.

I LOVE Penn's artistic creations. I love seeing what is important to him and how he draws it. Right now his eye flattens everything out but manages to get everything in at the same time. Like Daniel's hat brim in the "smoking a cigar" or the bed in "story time." He's also playing with squiggly and scribble lines as some primitive form of shading. I'm trying to keep everything scanned in. Mostly it's just a mountain in my inbox.

Stocking Capped

Stocking Capped, originally uploaded by carissabyers.

Jackpot

Daniel brings me flowers a lot. Daniel does a lot of really amazingly thoughtful things that go a long way. He should teach a class. I'll try not to be too mushy here in such a public forum. But usually the first words I hear every morning are, "I love you." And, get this, don't forget it's first thing in the morning, "You're so pretty."

Hullo?! Can you say jackpot?

[eternal swoon]

You're doing it wrong

1. Post something to your blog.
2. Tweet about it.
3. Share it on your facebook.
4. Email everyone to let them know you've blogged, tweeted and facebooked.
5. Leave a voicemail to ask if they got the email.
6. Text to remind them you called.
7. Repeat three times over the next week to remind them about the information in the original blog post which probably consists of an entire article copy and pasted in place of what should totally be a link.
   

You see where this is going. You can totally stop now. Just because you can tell everyone about something via your various communicative outlets does not mean that you should. I've heard it claimed that we need reminders because, "there's so much going on." Maybe I could see what's going on if my various inboxes weren't so clogged up with reminders.

You're doing it wrong.