It’s hard for me to work: grade, write, prepare for teaching, etc. when I don’t have a pressing deadline.  I call it living in crisis mode. I put things off and put things off until they literally can’t be put off anymore, and then the pressure forces me to get things done. It’s a terrible way to live, because I always feel anxious and guilty.

After reading a wonderful article on procrastination I decided to have a productive Sunday. I did yoga, graded a bunch of papers…and then stalled. I ended up reading blogs and a memoir, languishing in the late afternoon, feeling what I always feel on Sunday, a sense of dread for the coming week.

Then, I shook myself out of it. I sat at the kitchen table with my computer and papers and decided to plow through the worst of my tasks first, finishing up some grading. Oscar went to his room and came back out with some paper and crayons. He climbed onto the chair next to me and began coloring. With his companionship I was able to finish the grading. Darin put on some music, and Oscar got down to dance around the kitchen. Inspired, I began writing, getting a satisfying number of pages done on my book.

As I was working, I thought to myself, “Right now I don’t want to be anywhere else doing anything else.”

It was a truly perfect moment.

For more perfect moments, visit Lori.

Every once in awhile I get bit by the exercise bug. I draw up a plan for doing cardio, strength training, and yoga several times a week. I make a schedule. I read a couple of magazines. I dust off a few exercise DVDs I bought back in the 90s.

It never lasts.

This was one of those weekends. I put on a DVD that combines cardio and weight lifting in a series of short segments. Thinking I was putting on a Thomas the Train video, Oscar came running into the living room. Then he stood and watched, puzzled, as Mama jumped around imitating the lady on the television.

He proceeded to “spot” me by jumping on my back while I was doing Child’s Pose, trying to lift up my head while I was doing crunches, and applauding happily after each segment. I’ve never enjoyed an exercise session so much in my entire life.

For more perfect moments, visit Lori.

Oscar loves taking a bath in the sink.  He transforms from a grungy toddler to a sweet-smelling baby swaddled in a bath towel. It’s a perfect moment for both of us.

For more perfect moments, visit Lori.

I was raised to fight any pack rat tendencies. When I was growing up we held regular yard sales and we also moved frequently, getting rid of stuff every time. You might even say I am addicted to giving stuff away. I love the clean, light feeling I get when I free up space in my closet or dresser.

Since becoming a mom, my house has been joyfully taken over by baby stuff. A friend of mine calls this the baby creep, and it’s insidious. Don’t get me wrong, I love a living room strewn with bright-colored toys. It’s something I thought I would never have.

But over the past year our loft has started to look like an episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive. When you have to move piles of stuff just to find clean underwear or running shoes, it’s time to do something.

So I went through Oscar’s baby clothes for the first time in a long time. It was a bittersweet moment. The last time I inventoried his clothes was two weeks before he was born.

I remember lovingly counting onsies and receiving blankets, trying to imagine the baby that would one day be wearing them. It was a magical time, and now, deep in the trenches of motherhood, I sometimes miss it.

At first I was tempted to keep everything. These clothes represent so much. They represent the lovely generosity and good will of friends and family and memories of excitedly opening presents while pregnant. They represent Oscar’s first year of life. I can still see him in some of the outfits and remember where we were and what we were doing when he first wore them.

But, alas, there was too much. Nobody, and certainly not a baby, needs that many clothes. Looking at photographs, I realized that this was Oscar’s favorite outfit:

I also realized that when not clad in solely a diaper, Oscar (like his parents) pretty much lives in pajamas, which offer warmth, comfort, and range of motion.  Babies don’t get up and go to the office every day, they don’t need dozens of pants, shoes, and button-up shirts.

Don’t get me wrong, I certainly kept quite a lot. We don’t know if there will be more babies in the future, and it’s good to be prepared. And he has a lot of lovely clothes that I will save and give away to friends or family members in the future. But I also got rid of a lot, and it felt good. After hefting several garbage bags full into the back of the car and dropping them off at Goodwill, I felt like I had removed a very large, benign tumor. I now have room to organize the rest, and much more breathing room upstairs.

My perfect moment:  the realization that memories are not housed in things, but in our hearts. The realization that holding on to stuff does not stop the passing of time. And the realization that I have been very lucky and very blessed.

Another perfect moment was reliving all of Oscar’s different stages, like when I came across this outfit (which I saved, of course):

For more perfect moments, visit Lori.

Recently we were in California to celebrate the first birthday of my great nephew Damien. That’s right, my great nephew. I became a great aunt before I became a mother, and currently have five great nieces and nephews. I am the youngest of four, and my siblings had their kids early in life while I had Oscar late in life. As a result, all of Oscar’s cousins are either high school teenagers or adults in their twenties. I adore my six nieces and nephews, but as they grew up I became sad that my kids (if I ever had them) wouldn’t grow up with their cousins.

However, a small baby boom has occurred in our family, beginning when my nephew Ryan’s daughter Layla was born seven years ago, followed by Rylan, Zack, then my son Oscar, Damien, and Zoe.

Much to my delight, most of us were together for Damien’s first birthday party. At one point all of the new moms were headed outside and I realized we might not all be together in one place like this again anytime soon. I asked my niece Britney to take a picture, and what she captured was an absolutely perfect moment.

This is my little posse of new moms. From left to right, Ganae and Damien, Cerrina and Zack, me and Oscar, and Caitlin and Zoe.

There is nothing like the mother of a baby or toddler to say, “Yes! Exactly! I hear you. I have been there.” I am often stressed out, at my wits end, and frustrated by the well-meaning advice that so many people feel they need to dish out to new moms. But at the party, my niece Caitlin plopped down next to me and said with dry sarcasm, “So how is the whole motherhood thing working out for you? Is it everything you dreamed it would be?” We both looked at each other and then burst out laughing. Caitlin makes me laugh, Ganae swaps c-section stories with me, and Cerrina brings me bags of hand-me-downs for Oscar.

I am a proud aunt.

Proud of these young moms, who are doing an amazing job raising their babies. Proud of my nephew Cody who couldn’t be there. Proud of my nephew Ryan who is a talented chef and a wonderful father.

Proud of my nieces Britney and Ashley, who love Oscar like a little brother.

When Oscar was born I was sad that his cousins had all grown up and moved on with their lives. I never realized that this new generation of babies would bring us all closer and teach us again about the meaning of family, and the sweetness of love.

For more perfect moments, visit Lori.

I learned a long time ago that a moment cannot be created to look like a professional wedding cake.

We try to create this:

And we end up creating this:

(images from Cake Wrecks)

We tend to think of the best moments, the important moments, as being those that happen on big days: holidays, birthdays, weddings, parties. We try to orchestrate the big moments, and we pay a lot of money to make them happen.

But I’ve learned that the perfect moments happen when we least expect them. They happen when we might be too busy or too distracted to pay attention.

In order to experience perfect moments, we have to learn how to slow down and live each day as if it were precious and whole, not just one more day to be checked off of a calender before the important, official moments happen. We have to be fully present, quiet, and still. We have to give ourselves over to them.

We do not make perfect moments happen; perfect moments happen to us.

To see more wrecktastic cakes, visit Cake Wrecks.

For more perfect moments, visit Lori.