Hey, guess what?

After weeks of "dadadadadadada," Bea let out her first "mama" today. Music to my ears!

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Tine Trccee by Josie

Thought I would share one of Josie's latest books, perfect for this time of year. "Tine Trccee" (or "Tiny Turkey" for those of you not experienced in reading four-year-old-ese). Gobble, gobble.

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This is what is (in honor of Linda)

As many of you know, my friend and colleague Linda Sanders-Wells passed away three weeks ago. I've mentioned her on the blog before - as she was a real influence in my life over the past couple of years. Her story is a tragic one, as she left behind a devoted partner and a high-school aged daughter that together formed one of the most beautiful families you can imagine.

Linda's death has formed the subtext for much of our lives in the past several months. We knew the end was coming and it was so difficult to watch her deteriorate - powerless like so many to cancer's final, hostile push. Linda was brilliant, and she faced everything with a straight-forward boldness that many of us recognized as true courage. I've lost people close to me before, but this was the closest I have ever been to participating in the end of someone's life in a meaningful way - and doing so has been a life-altering experience.

In everything that we have been through over the past several years, we have come to rely on a couple of simple truths. Of them, there's a lesson in everything. As I have searched and searched for the lesson in Linda's death, last night as a large group of her community gathered under the full moon to honor and celebrate her, that lesson has begun to reveal itself.  It's a lesson that the universe keeps bringing me back to again and again...

Be present. Be grateful.

As I walked into the memorial at Grailville last night (in lieu of the standard viewing/burial format), the first image I saw was of a young Linda holding her newborn daughter in what appeared to be the first days of her life. That image, that so many of us have of ourselves with our children, moved me deeply. Those early days of their lives together - so filled with the imagination of a long life, watching her child grow, move into adulthood and maybe one day have her own children - the imagining we all do in assuming somehow that it's guaranteed. I wept at the thought. All the beautiful moments captured of Linda with her friends and family - and hidden behind all of those images - the reality now that we now know how this story ends. It was too much to bear. Last night as Louie and I talked after the memorial, I shared how my heart goes to those moments I've had with my family and how my heart aches for knowing one day it too will all end. One day all these moments will be hanging on a wall for grief-stricken friends and family to view through their tears.  Lou, in the way that only he can, pulled me up out of my despair and brought me back to the importance of gratitude and presence, because in the end that is all that we have. 

This thought connects me back to Linda's partner, a talented writer himself, who has this collection of essays online. Linda shared this link with me before she passed and I began reading through his essays in the final days of Linda's life. This one really resonated with me and the lesson inside of it is one I will carry with me always. Howard, in recently overcoming cancer himself and in facing Linda's terminal diagnosis, shares his frustration with the phrase "it is what it is." (A phrase I will add that has become synonymous with "F it" in our house.) He says: "I'm not sure it should be applied, as it sometimes is, to things or situations under human control. The danger is that if you repeat it enough you may apply it inappropriately and it may forestall positive acts of change...sometimes the 'what is' can be changed for the better and must be."   

He shares a section of "Finding Balance" by Eckert Tolle: "When something drastic happens, if you can learn to accept it, a little bit of spaciousness comes into your life. You say, "this is what is." A little bit of space just opened up, and you're no longer just a resisting entity." Howard reflects, "The difference between saying 'this is what is' and 'it is what it is' is remarkable. If I utter the former I feel an expansion, and opening not the contraction and resigned finality of the latter."  He goes on to share the rest of Tolle's passage: "Then you realize that you are essentially formless space. In other words, you find inner peace. At first it is very gentle in the background, in the midst of any situation. That peace is powerful. It can become so powerful, that it obliterates almost anything. Peace is the formless in you. Be accepting the form, the formless within you opens up. This is how something seemingly bad - a limitation - becomes an opening for realization of who you truly are."

When Howard called me the morning after Linda's passing, we talked some more about this phrase - "this is what is" and the peace that rises up within you when you face life in this way. What an enormous gift Linda gave us in her passing - a route to finding peace through acceptance. Is there any greater gift? 

As I continue to process, it occurs to me that if the route to peace is acceptance and presence, this acceptance must be cultivated by gratitude to prevent acceptance from slipping into hopelessness (which is exactly where I started to head last night before Lou brought me back). And this is where the real learning happens.  

How then do we cultivate gratitude?

For us, this goes back to one of our wedding vows 10 years ago..."to build our dreams together in a common search for the pure and the beautiful."  We have been given the enormous blessing of two daughters and don't take that for granted. We spend a great deal of time talking about the house in which we want them to be raised, the people we want to surround them with, the example we want to set in our own relationships. We are deliberate about seeking purity and beauty together, and try to create opportunities to our children to discover those things themselves. The discovery for me through Linda's death is that purity and beauty don't necessarily mean joy. (This lesson first revealed itself in witnessing Josie's passage through loss with our little spider friend Charlotte.) 

As we often do when someone dies, we ask ourselves how Linda will live on. As was very evident last night, she will live on through the many lessons she taught so many of us - both directly through her mentorship and indirectly through her example. 

Last night I shared the following piece with Linda's community at her memorial service. I'd like to share them again here in hoping that there's something each of you can take away from Linda's words. 

***************

Linda and I began working together about five years ago at KnowledgeWorks. Over the years we worked more and more together, although to call her a “colleague” doesn’t seem quite right.

Those of us who had the opportunity to work with her over the years know that the line between a professional and personal relationship with Linda was hard to discern.  To so many, Linda wasn’t a colleague, she was a friend.

My relationship with Linda was one that deepened as we both faced the realities of life and death over the last couple of years.  Linda’s gift of writing worked miracles on the job, but also saved me in some of my life’s darkest moments.  I’d like to share some of her words with all of you this evening.

When we lost our third baby in 2010, Linda sent me this note and I wanted to wrap myself in it. We always wanted to have another child to give our daughter Josie a sibling, but we finally gave up. We were so grateful for Linda’s words about just how special a family of three could be. But Linda’s words don’t just shed light on my experience. They shed light on how much her family meant to her.

She wrote:

“It's all pretty complicated, isn't it, this business of trying to figure out if our lives are going the way they're meant to… I'm sure your sorrow will always be with you too, and the question about what your lives would have been like if you had had another baby. Like you, I think about Abbie having a sibling and what a great sister she would be. I wish I could tell you that would go away, but I think you already know it won't…

What I can tell you is that our family life is incredibly rich and full -- and complete. We are very, very close and each of the three relationships that make up this little triangle have their own nuances and strengths (and oddities)…

Could Abbie have turned into the same wonderful young adult she is in a bigger family? Of course. But is our family somehow lacking? No way. Ten thousand times no.

You are a thoughtful parent who has good instincts and great values. I'm sad for the whole world's sake that you aren't going to be raising another child. We could use more Josie's and Abbie's. But I can promise you that your life as a parent will always be full and rich.”

As unbelievable fortune would have it, just a few months after we lost our baby Camille in March, we discovered we were pregnant again. Linda’s sincere, exuberant joy showed just how committed she was as a friend. Complications with the pregnancy left me on full-time bedrest. It was about this time that Linda received the cancer diagnosis, and we became a support system for one another as we both faced heart-breaking odds. 

We all knew Linda, so this won’t come as a surprise – but even with all that she was facing, she still had so much to give in the name of friendship. So when everything ended happily for us and our second daughter Beatrice was born healthy in March, Linda’s cheers were among the loudest.

She shared these words…

“If it's not an intrusion, I wanted to let you know how connected I've felt to your family through this time...and how important that connection has been for me. Beatrice is your own private miracle, but she's been a lifeline for me in some ways as well.

I was moved last year by how you and family handled the loss of Camille and how you've since incorporated your losses into your life. The entire time that you were pregnant and dealing with so much, your strength and hopefulness were inspiring. Then, as your due date neared, I enjoyed thinking about how soon your family would be together and what these first days would be like. Abbie was born at Good Sam in March, and it was of course the sweetest and happiest time of my life.

So your story has been kind of a beacon for me as I've dealt with my illness. Then, ironically, I ended up admitted to Good Sam on an emergency basis when an MRI showed a blood clot in my brain. It was an awful time, another dip of the roller coaster that has been our lives the last few weeks…When I was in the same hospital, I was checking Facebook and following Beatrice's arrival. It was so heartening to me to think of the joy she is and that she represents in the world. I always try to let the good things about each day soak in where I can, but I don't always manage to be open to hopefulness. She was a doorway when I needed one.

The love and support and help -- even from strangers on occasion -- that we've experienced have been unbelievable and evidence of how much good there is in the world. And I, too, am lucky to have the best family anyone could hope for."

So when I say Linda was a mentor – I don’t just mean professionally. Like so many of us, I looked to Linda as a model example of the kind of mother, partner, and friend I strive to be. I joked with her often that writing children’s books was wonderful, but a break from writing for kids to write a parenting manual for us would be much appreciated.  So unless there’s a hidden manuscript for that parenting manual hiding somewhere, we are left instead with the little snippets of wisdom Linda shared with each of us during our time with her.  And that’s what I want to end by sharing tonight.

She wrote -

“There's nothing I like more than talking about my experience with Abbie, as you can tell. But I don't pretend to be any kind of expert. I know that what works for one family doesn't necessarily work for another.

Mostly, though, I think it comes down to walking the walk. I don't think you can teach your child to be or do anything that's not already part of you and your life. That should be reassuring for you. You're a strong, independent woman and you are building a family that sets its own rules.

My experience with Abbie has been that the best thing I can do for her is stay out of the way. She came to us already wise and sure of herself, so we just try not to screw that up. Let her instincts for herself lead us. If we've been successful in any way so far, it's because of her.

What I didn't get to a chance to tell Linda is this: if I've been successful in any way as a mother so far, much of that is because of her.

So thank you Linda – for your mentorship – on everything from PowerPoint to Parenting. Thank you for your generosity of spirit and thank you for your example.

 *********

I hope that someday with Josie & Bea read back through our family's blog they will discover this piece and be reminded of how special they both are. I hope that they, like all of you, will remember to always come back to presence, acceptance and gratitude and be purposeful about creating the kind of life that you want to have for yourself and your family right now. Because in the end, right now is all that is guaranteed.

Here is a link to Linda's obituary, 

and an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer 

that I was honored to participate in 

for her feature in their "A Life Remembered" section.   

Her first published children's book 

(and I hope there will be many more) is "Maggie's Monkeys"

 and is available on Amazon and elsewhere. 

I hope you will consider buying it 

for a child in your life or to donate to a school or library. 

A captivated little Josie at Linda's book-signing for Maggie's Monkeys in  2009

And for one more reminder about the importance of gratitude, acceptance and presence, please read "A Dragon Mom on Living in the Moment" if you haven't already (or read it again and again and again). 

She's Crafty

This weekend we had a nice, slow weekend that couldn't have been more perfect. The hectic schedule of September and October has finally given way to the slower, calmer autumn that makes it my favorite time of year.

There was a host of creative impulses that needed fulfilled. We made yarn and felt wreaths, we baked homemade bread from scratch, we harvested the garden and hung herbs to dry and we made the coolest cornucopia ever (yep, it's possible).  We took a long, crisp early morning walk through the neighborhood and came home to find out it was only 9:30am (thank you time change). We drank red wine and went to bed early.  This was definitely a "life is unbelievably good" weekend for the four of us.

Here are a few photos from all that Schneider-family goodness.

I told you it was beautiful....

Here is Josie with her yarn wreath. Can't you just see the pride and joy? She really does have a good eye. She picked out her yarn, coordinated the felt and matched the butterflies. She wrapped as much of it as her little hands could handle. Then, she helped cut the felt and wrapped the flowers. She placed all of the flowers and butterflies herself into her own design. She's crafty!

Here's mama's wreath - although Josie and I worked on this one together as well. It's much bigger, so it took lots of wrapping. Still though, a super-easy craft project and we are really happy with the way it turned out. I am now just short of obsessed with making felt flowers so expect those to spring up here and there in the coming months.  (In case you're interested - here is the link to the tutorial we used.)

Here are some of our herbs drying in "Charlotte's" window. Our Thanksgiving will be even more tasty with homegrown sage.

As you can see, Baby Bea was also in on all the action. She's an absolute smiling, giggling riot.

(Our hands were too doughy for photos of the bread - but Mmmmm was it good. Lou is working on perfecting the recipe for the holidays. Anyone have a favorite bread recipe to share?)

8 months

Sweet sweet Baby Beatrice is 8 months old today. 

(Yup, you heard me right - 8 whole months.)  

On top of her infinite cuteness, she has also recently accomplished: the move to Stage 3 foods, a constant da-da-da-da babble and picking up food like steamed veg and feeding it to herself. She still enjoys being outside more than just about anything else, wants to stand up unsupported more than life itself, loves long walks in the stroller and long hikes in the backpack and sleeps like a dream.  Oh Baby Bea, we love you so!

Quick Quote, Election Day

Josie was really, really excited to go voting with us this evening (due to a spirited conversation about democracy sparked by her interest in a house with a bunch of No and Yes signs in the yard on the way home from school last week). So, away the Four Schneiders went to the polls. Josie filled in some bubbles with me, helped me scan my ballot, got her sticker and we started walking home.

And on our return walk home, Josie shared some four-year old wisdom: "They should have an Issue that says you can't step on birds...everyone would vote yes on that...And they should have an Issue that says Treat Others Like You Want To Be Treated...that one would get all the Yes votes too, right Mommy?" (Now that's a constitutional amendment I could get behind!)

Carrots (finally)

Our (better late than never) garden is (finally) producing! As it turns out, growing veggies from seed takes awhile - ha. Here is little Josie really really enjoying her first homegrown carrot from our garden and what was left of it.

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Halloween 2011

Halloween will always stand out with special significance for our family. It was on Halloween last year that I was put on bedrest for the first time after starting to show some early complications with Bea's pregnancy. The threat of a fourth miscarriage felt very real as I sat on the front porch last year handing out candy and hoping with all I had that we would be a family of four this Halloween.

The memory of last Halloween is still very real to me, because I tortured myself that night with images of Josie dressed up beside her baby sister and tried not to get too bogged down in the possibility that this image would never become a reality.

But look...it did!  Two magical creatures aren't they - our little unicorn and dragon?

We had over 800 kids again last night for Trick-or-Treat...even more than last year! We love our neighborhood so much and apparently every child in a 50 mile radius loves it too because they were all here.  If you are looking for a good spot next year, come on down and join the insanity.

Here are some shots from Halloween. Bea stayed in her costume the whole time, lots of kids asked us where are Thing 1 and Thing 2 costumes were, and we didn't have a single peanutty-issue.  Tonight we will leave Josie's candy for the Halloween Fairy in exchange for a new book and game and that will officially be a wrap on Halloween 2011.

Our magical unicorn (you can only see her if you are pure of heart)...

Early into the costumes, our little dragon wasn't so sure about the whole thing...

 But quickly got in on the fun...

Just like last year, Josie had more fun passing out the candy than collecting it. It is a little overwhelming to be in a sea of kids in costumes. Here is one of the long lines at a neighbor's house...

Lou dressed up as Super Dad this year (Oh wait, that's who he is every day)...

And I smiled for about three hours non-stop because life is just so good...

And a special thanks to our buddy Brad who joined in the fun and helped man the porch while we went out trick-or-treating.  You're the best Brad! Thanks to you there are lots of kids who brushed their teeth extra last night.

Hope you all had a wonderfully spooky and spectacular Halloween! 

It's quickly becoming a Schneider-family-favorite! 

Josie & Spirit

Just a quickie from sweet Te's birthday party today at Bonnybrook Farm. I forgot my camera but got a couple on my cellphone. Such a great group of kids and a really lovely farm with so much to do - even rides on beautiful horses like Spirit here.

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Little Chompers

I finally captured Bea's two little chompers on film. Seriously - how cute is she?!

Our Charlotte

I have a story to tell, and I hope you will share it with us. Many of you have been with our little blog since the beginning. You remember the early days of Baby Josie - back when she was just a wee little thing. Back when the thought of a four year old Josie felt like light-years away.  Recently, our sweet baby Josie had to experience  true loss for the first time, and it was really hard on all of us.  This is the story of Josie's first lesson with grief and death. And it is a real window into the kind of child Josie is and likely always will be.

Looking out the kitchen window at Charlotte, Josie looking in from the porch

Near the beginning of July, a little spider built a web in our kitchen window. It was right in the window over our kitchen sink - the spot we all see countless times in the course of each day.  For probably a week, she pretty much went unnoticed. But, it wasn't long before I named her Charlotte and we started checking on "Charlotte's Web" every morning (as soon as I googled her to make sure she wasn't some deadly toxic biting thing and found out she was a simple, harmless garden orb spider).  She was teeny tiny but really fun to watch. Every single morning she would start the day by building a new web. She would catch insects and we would cheer her on as she sprang into action and filled her little spider tummy.  She had a male visitor (who met a tragic end) and it soon became obvious she was full of eggs. Charlotte grew and grew and we became more and more fond of her. Josie couldn't wait to introduce her to visitors and we all said good morning to her each day. Really, she became the perfect pet. And she was really fascinating.

As a child, I loved the movie and book Charlotte's Web, but its themes have always haunted me. I knew what was coming for our own Charlotte and did a little internet research to confirm our suspicions. We found out Charlotte would lay her eggs and die sometime before the first frost. Every single bit of me wanted to shelter Josie from the whole thing. I really got pretty mad at myself for doing everything I did to foster that attachment in the first place. It was a spider - just a spider in the window - but I knew it was going to devastate our tender-hearted Josie for her to disappear.

As parents, we have always valued being as honest as we can with our kids and age four seemed like a developmentally-appropriate time to tell her the truth about Charlotte. That said, we didn't just say "hey there kid-o, don't get attached, she's a goner!"  Instead, we gently eased her into the idea. And even when we told her that she would die when it got cold, Josie instantly volunteered a better alternative - demanding that Charlotte would instead just crawl away from her web, dig herself a hole & stay warm all winter until it was time to come back and live in our window in the spring. That sounded better to all of us, so we didn't correct her.

Oddly enough, on the EXACT day that Charlotte left, Josie asked me what day I thought it would happen. I explained to her that we didn't know when but that it would probably be soon. I explained that Charlotte would know when it was time for her to decide what was next.  That night, I was turning off the lights before bed and I looked into her web over the sink and it was empty.  I couldn't believe my reaction, but it hit me right in my gut. I even teared up as I said to Lou "Charlotte is missing!"  Lou explained that maybe she just left her web for the night. She had done this before, so she would probably be back in the morning. But she wasn't. Crazy enough, that next morning I went out on the porch and in the yard and actually looked for her. (I don't know if my plan was to have a chat with her and convince her to come back or what, but it seemed like the right thing to do.)  By that night, it was obvious she wasn't coming back. And the next morning, a Sunday, we decided to point out Charlotte's absence to Josie in a "controlled environment" while Beatrice was napping so we could help her move through it with our full attention.

Charlotte had left two egg sacs in the corner of the window, so we started with that. "Hey Josie, we have SUCH exciting news! Charlotte left two egg sacs...two! Aren't we so lucky? She must have really liked it in our window because she wanted all of her babies to be born here."  She kind of fell for it at first. We looked at the eggs and she was excited. But, then it started to sink in and it wasn't long before the tears came. Trying to explain away the obvious, Josie suggested that Charlotte must have just gotten on a Spider Plane and gone to the Spider Beach for the winter. "Yep, you are probably right Josie!" We tried to stick with that. But, it hit her. And, I kid you not, my sweet baby girl called out with huge tears in her eyes "Charlotte, come back! Don't go Charlotte! Charlotte No! I don't want her to be gone. I love her." And all three of us were crying.

Even though we miss Charlotte, my tears came more from the realization that life is going to increasingly get more "real" for Josie and we can't protect her from that forever.

So, like the movie that broke my heart as a kid, we will all wait like Wilbur for those eggs to hatch and we will hope that some of them will stay. (These baby spiders will float away on little silken strings just like Charlotte's babies in the movie.)  And, just maybe Josie was right and Charlotte is sleeping in a warm little hole she dug in our yard or will show up again after her beach vacation in the spring.

I don't think she's ready for the movie just yet. Or maybe I'm not ready for her to watch it (among other things, I am not quite ready to explain the whole bacon thing). And I am pretty sure, when the movie gets to this scene, it would be too hard to resist the urge to hit fast-forward. But as much as I'd like to just skip over all the stuff that will be hard and heart-breaking and "real" for our kids as they grow up, there's just no protection from it. (I've gotten another lesson recently on this, but more on that later...)




If you really want to torture yourself, you can click here for the link to the video where poor Charlotte actually sings this song and dies. I couldn't risk the possibility that Josie would want me to play it for her on one of the occasions when she is looking at the blog. Grab the tissues and consider yourself warned...