I Would Do It All Over Again

April 1, 2008 / Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

Eight years ago today we forsook all others and committed our lives together as one. It has been an amazing eight years–I look forward to the many many more years we have together–being married and raising our children. You are my rock, my best friend and my biggest supporter. I don’t know what I would have become if I hadn’t met you. You have given me a life that I could have only dreamed of. You have pushed me to discover who I am and whom I want to become. You believed in me when no one else seemed to.

Marriage is a compromise and you are a great compromiser. I have learned so much from you. I hope that you have gained as much as I have during our marriage. I love you Hubby and I would marry you all over again. I won’t go on being too sappy as you know what you mean to me. You are strong, sensitive and caring. You are intelligent, witty and downright humorous. You are my husband and I am the luckiest woman in the world. Every woman deserves to be loved the way that you love me.

My Dear Minnow

March 31, 2008 / Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

Where have you gone? Last night you went to sleep a sweet little one-year-old and woke up this morning a full-fledged two-year old. Happy Birthday my sweet baby boy. Well, I guess you aren’t a baby anymore. You are now officially two. How fast time flies. It feels as though only yesterday we were in Ethiopia picking you up and bringing you home. How much you have changed from that tiny little boy who couldn’t sit up or roll over. Now you run everywhere you go. I am pretty sure that you don’t know what walk means–even though you ask to do it all the time.

You make your dad and me smile every day and your happiness lights up our life beyond explanation. There is something very special about you Minnow. You have made me a better person and your spirit lifts me up when I am feeling down. You are quickly growing into your own person. You are much more expressive about what you want and what you don’t. You are happiest when you are the center of attention and you love being around other people. You say hello to and smile at nearly everyone that you meet.

Your laugh is absolutely infectious and you laugh constantly. I have been completely unable to discipline you–I am sure I will pay for that later, but you don’t do things…well let me stop there. I am usually laughing as you do the things you shouldn’t because you are quite a funny child. I will have to get better at that or you will have a hard time. But right now we are having too much fun and there will be endless rules as you get older. So for now if you want to throw the occasional crayon in delight and karate chop me while we are playing and laughing then have at it son.

You have changed so much over this last year. You are outspoken, gregarious and social beyond my own comfort level. Just yesterday at Borders you walked up to an older lady, sat down next to her and proceeded to “tell” her a story non-stop for nearly 5 minutes. You get that from me your father says. I don’t know where you get that from. I get great joy from seeing the smile on a strangers face as you talk to them and smile. You have a powerful gift Minnow and I hope to be able to help you foster and develop that gift to change the world.

You are currently going through a phase now where you don’t really have time to eat. You are non-stop action. You run and play and jump and clap and sing and dance and color and ride your bike and play the drums and the harmonica and the guitar and watch a little tv. Then 15 minutes later you start the circuit all over again. You keep me on my toes.

My favorite time of day is just before nap time when we snuggle on the couch. I love holding you. I know those moments are fleeting as pretty soon you will be too big to snuggle in mommy’s lap. I can’t bear to think about that day. For now, I will enjoy the moments we have.

Oh, Minnow there is so much more I could say. There is so much more you have done. But today at the end of your birthday all I can remember is you taking my face in your hands, kissing me and saying “gnite mama.”

Good Night Minnow. Happy Second Birthday. I look forward to many many more.

A Boy’s First Worm and a 2nd Birthday Party

March 29, 2008 / Dawn Kasal-Finley / 5 Comments

Minnow touched his first earthworm today. How exciting for a little boy. He did try to stomp on it but I stopped him, teaching him that we must be nice to all creatures–note to self “do not stomp spiders in front of young child”. He then picked up the worm and put him back in the dirt pile. He thought it was pretty cool. He spend half of the morning holding up his finger reminding me that he “touched a worm.” A true highlight of a young boys life.

The worm touching was just the first in a long line of excitement today. We celebrated Minnow’s 2nd birthday–his acutal birthday is Monday but that really isn’t a great day for a party. Minnow had a great time. He loves having company. He got lots of great presents–mostly clothes–which is awesome as the child doesn’t really need anymore toys and I figure that this is one of the last years that he can get clothes before he starts making that face when he opens that clothes. Come on–we all know that face. Just think back to that sweather your grandma gave you when you were 13. Yeah. That’s the face. The highlight in terms of presents was the 6 pack of bubbles and the bubble mower.

What 2-year-olds birthday party is complete without a Mickey Mouse Cake. I am proud to say that he blew out his own candle and helped himself to the cake before I could even cut it. Did you know that you can cut pieces of cake too big? I didn’t. I can’t believe that pieces of cake can be too big. Live a little people!

Lastly, the mural is Minnow’s new big boy room was completed today–after 14 hours of work by an absolutely amazing artist. I hope that Minnow will love it for years to come. I think it turned out absolutely amazing….We are having a mural also done in Peepers room. I’ll post pictures of it on Monday when it’s finished.

It has been a crazy weekend and I am now ready for a glass of wine and some relaxation…

I’m Just Going To Say It

March 27, 2008 / Dawn Kasal-Finley / 6 Comments

I am not proud to be an American. There the cat is out of the bag. I am quite sickened as of late for what our country seems to stand for. I know there are those of you who are preparing right now to stop. reading. my. words. But before you stop reading let me just say that I am also not very proud to be a human being at this time either.

We live in a time of great excess…for those who have and a time of great pain and sadness for those who do not have. I have felt this sadness at what has become America’s values–greed and violence (military) in the name of our nation’s security. I am tired of our double-speak in terms of our foreign policy and our turning of a blind eye to those who we bear responsibility for taking care of. I watched HDNet’s World New last night and was really shocked, angered, and saddened by the state of things in New Orleans. The number of homeless has increased by 100% since Katrina–you know that hurricane the decimated New Orleans and where we waited and waited and waited to help those POOR PEOPLE. Those poor people are still waiting for our help. There are now over 12,000 homeless (up from 6,000) and there is basically no affordable housing–we rebuilt the rich areas first and somehow have forgotten about the poor/affordable parts of town. Rents that use to cost 3-4 hundred a month are not up to 9-15 hundred a month. People who work jobs cannot even afford to have a place to live. Really America? This disgusts me. Especially as I watch a 10 minute interview with Carnie Wilson about her weight issues. Really America? This is what matters to us? Why don’t we interview some of the homeless who can’t get a place to live and without a place to live its hard to get a job–if you don’t already have one. You can’t get a job without a phone. How are they going to call you? You can’t get a job if you can’t get a shower and some clean clothes. Why do we look at the homeless as though they are somehow less human? It is sad and it scares me that this is what our country is. For what we spend in one month in Iraq we could rebuild the entire 9th ward and give affordable housing to our citizens. Oh wait. I forgot. They don’t really have anything our government wants for needs. Iraq has oil.

I know I sound bitter. And I am. We were so quick to step into Iraq and get rid of Sadaam. Was he a horrible leader? Yes. He killed innocent people, etc. But what about the atrocities in Darfur? The Congo? Oh wait. They don’t have anything we want and we certainly cannot benefit from helping them. It sickens me. We don’t like Castro and we despise North Korea–but Saudi Arabia we like them. Oh yeah…They have oil.

I am tired of the party line. We are free…etc. Really? Tell that to those in New Orleans who can’t get a place to live or a job or any help. We are free to make money off of others. We are free to make and hoard as many resources as we can. We are free to marginalize those who don’t matter and free to turn a blind eye when we see gross injustice. We are free to play on our own field and keep out the riff raff. We only take care of those who can take care of themselves. We only take into account those who have something to offer. We are a nation of hypocrites.

I want to live in a world where others matter. Where others are respected and accounted for. I want my son to see all people as people and realize that all people deserve respect. We are one of the richest countries in the world and we can’t even feed and house all of our people. No. Why you ask? Altruism isn’t profitable.

Peek-A-Boo

March 25, 2008 / Dawn Kasal-Finley / 4 Comments

http://widget-99.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf

I know I have been sporadic in my posting at best. Well, I am here now. So, let’s chat. Things here at Che Dalai Mama have been busy and crazy. This past weekend, we had a dinner party on Friday–it went off without a hitch. It was small only 5 of us, but when you haven’t hosted a real party at your house in about 4 years, you feel a little pressure. It was nice and fun. The food turned out great and Minnow was a party animal. He stayed up partying way past his bed time but did sleep in on Saturday til after 9am. That was great.

We had carpet installed last week as well in our upstairs. We have lived in our house for nearly 8 years now and the floor covering upstairs was circa 1950 and falling apart. When we first moved in the house, we didn’t use the upstairs at all, except for storage of all the crap that I refuse to throw away because “someday I might need it.” We eventually turned on room into a guest room (for my MIL who comes for a week every year)–using a beautifully ugly berber area rung in the mustard variety of colors. Chic Chic–I know! Once, Minnow was due to arrive we had to clean out another room and upstairs to make it fit for a child. That sadly, left us with one room left to pile all of my junk in. Now, with Peepers’ impending homecoming we needed that other room. We moved Minnow into what was the guest room and cleaned out the office–code for room with all my crap in it–and turned that into the guest room for this past Christmas when my MIL was visiting and it will now become Minnow’s big boy room and Peepers will move into her room. The original nursery is now a playroom. I know could it be more confusing? Hubby is often perplexed by my convoluted overly complicated plans.

So, we needed carpet. We thought of doing Pergo–as that is what is in the playroom. But would have been too much work for us to accomplish prior to Peepers coming home or by the time she goes to college. We also felt that carpet is a better choice for a bedroom. Minnow love his “car Pot.” He thinks it is two words with the emphasis on Pot. Its pretty cute. So, to make a short story longer we got carpet and before we got carpet we had to paint. I spent a lot of time painting prior to carpet installation. So, we can now use nearly our whole house. It is amazing how much bigger a house feels when you add on 3 rooms you can actually use.

Then there was easter. Minnow had his first Easter egg hunt. Personally, I don’t know why they call them hunts. It is really more of an Easter egg dash and boy are they fast–it must have been over in about 2 minutes–3 tops. Minnow did okay–he got a few eggs. He got really mad while we were waiting for the hunt to start. He didn’t quite understand why he couldn’t go and get the eggs as we waited. We had to hold him back by both arms and he was not happy. He got to sit on the Easter bunny’s lap.

We then colored Easter eggs on Saturday night. If it were up to Minnow all of the eggs would have been brown. He did get to make one brown egg (had to put it in all the colors).

Minnow enjoyed Easter. He got a basket–he had to find it. He got tons of gifts at my Grandma’s house from my aunts and uncles and his grandpa and grandma. It was crazy how much stuff he got–especially since his birthday party is this weekend. I cannot believe that my little baby is going to be two. Off to put the little one down for a nap and to try and get caught up on my school work.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: