I grew up listening to hip hop. Sad that now I can only listen to a select few. I can still appreciate JDilla (one of hip hop's more imaginative producers.) I discovered recently that Miguel Atwood-Ferguson had re-fashioned four of Dilla's songs into orchestral masterpieces for Suite for Ma Dukes as a tribute. I was intrigued. Then blown away. Dilla's original song is here. Hope I come back in another life as a musician.

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When Mateo was about 2, he entered into the boyhood rite of passage that is Thomas the Train. He soon moved onto to other things–such is Mateo's nature. But now that Nico is 2, there has been a renewed interest in trains that has caught on like fire in our house.  We've tried very hard to keep one room in our home toy free, but we relented and the wooden tracks have been in our living room for weeks now in dozens of different configurations. Because of Nico's emerging interest, Mateo has become very involved in the building and maintaining of the tracks. With all this train work going on, we felt it necessary to augment it with a trip to Travel Town. Nico ran down the train aisles yelling "All aboard!" to everyone who passed. 

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We take a lot of photos around here. Hundreds, it seems, every few months. Every now and then I see one that offers me a glimpse into what my children are shaping into.  This photo was taken at Mateo's basketball class, and to me he looks much older than his four years. Suddenly I could imagine him at 10, at 15, at 20, holding that ball and looking the same as he does here. There's something so comforting in that, as though I will be blessed enough to watch my little son grow into a young man. This photo, I hope, is a promise of that. 

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A few times a year, the Lombards take a massive tumble down the illness abyss. It always begins with one of the boys, and usually Matt and I are able to thwart the nasty germs from embedding themselves in us, but occasionally we aren't, no matter how much prevention we do. Everyone in the house gets sick, and it begins a week-long interruption of school, work, and life, until the last sick one is up and running again. 

This time it began with Mateo and his usual drippies, but then Nico caught some horror of a stomach virus that laid him out like a newborn. I know my sons love me, but the only time one of them will stayed curled up on my lap longer than 2 minutes is when they're sick. This photo of Nico is how he stayed–asleep on my left shoulder for two straight days. Never mind the black circle under my eye. I'm the one pulling up the rear on the week of sick this time, and hopefully all will be well again in the next day or two, or three.

NOTE: I’ll start right off and say that I do not consider this a blog. Yes, yes, I know that there are photos and text and that it’s online and all that, but I do not believe that what will be on these pages will be of interest to everyone, or that I have a particular statement to make about anything. I’m not selling anything. I’m not promoting anything. I also don’t want to consider it an “online journal” either. I’m not planning to get all that personal. So what is this? Well, in my journey of parenthood so far, there have been days, moments that were tear-your-hair-out crazy. When I really wanted to hang it all up. But there have also been many, many days, moments (sometimes a second after a bad moment) when I was blown away by the lessons and blessings my children give me. It never ceases to amaze me.

So my intention for this space is to give myself a way to remember the joy that I find in being a mother. A mama. My hope is that this will also serve as an incentive to seek out or carve out the time to create uplifting memories that will linger here, and that someday my children will also be able to use it to remember. The fact that it’s online simply allows me to share a little slice of our lives with those who are close to us.

Here’s hoping that those intentions come to fruition, and that these snapshots of life as I see it will do justice to my sons who inspire me to do my best every day.

Thank you for reading!

love-
Mazi