This Precious Summer - Grayslake Writer and Family Photographer

Hello there! So I don't have any good excuse for missing last weeks blog.  We didn't go on a vacation or I didn't have anything big planned.  We've spent most of our precious summer at the neighborhood pool.  Precious days hanging out, laughing, jumping, and being together.  We have one precious life.

Why is it so precious?  Let's think about that for a minute. What's the probability that we would exist?  I've heard it compared to this analogy: imagine there was one life preserver thrown somewhere in the ocean with exactly one turtle in all of the ocean swimming underwater somewhere.  The probability of me coming into being is the same as the probability of that turtle sticking its head out of the water into the middle of that life preserver in one try.      

Let's take a look at that mathematically.  Research shows these figures...
The probability of my mom and dad meeting are one in 20,000.
Figuring the chances that they would actually talk to one another, meet again, turning into a long term relationship, and lasting long enough to result in children is about one in 2,000.
The probability of my mom and dad having a child is one in 2,000.
When these odds are combined we are at one in 40 million but it gets even crazier when you talk about the probability of sperm reaching the egg.

The probability of the right sperm reaching the one egg that combined to make me is one in 400 quadrillion.
Here scientist take into account that this has to be true of 150,000 generations of my ancestors.  They all had to have the right sperm to meet the one egg that made all of my relatives like my great great grandparents.  So they add this figure by raising 400 quadrillion to the 150,000th power.

I hope I didn't lose you yet.  I had to read it several times to get the math straight.  We are at the end of this math equation.  When you add all those probabilities up the total probability of you being born is one in 10 to the 2,685,000 power.  

This life we are living is almost improbable.  It's nothing short of a miracle.  It is precious.

Birthday Boy - Grayslake Family Photographer

I apologize for missing in action last Thursday.  It was my little guys birthday and we spent a fun filled day celebrating.  I couldn't and didn't worry about posting a blog.  I knew you would all understand.

Every time I think he isn't listening to me... he surprises me.

Our town did fireworks the weekend before the 4th of July.  During the fireworks you could see many phones in the air recording the visual display.  My husbands asks me, "Why do you think so many people record an event like this?" My response, "It's hard for some to live in the moment, I think."

We spend our 4th watching the fireworks huddled together.  This little guy jumped in Daddy's lap.  I took out my phone to snap a picture of them together as the reflections of blue and red sparkled on them.  "Mommy can't you be in the moment," he says to me...

lol!  

Happy Birthday little guy!  I'll try harder to be in the moment with you.  Love you always, Mommy

Inside Out The Hole - Grayslake Photographer and Writer

After watching the wonderful movie Inside Out, I listened to a talk about mindful parenting.  It was just the next talk in a series of spiritual talks I clicked on so it was a strange coincidence that I learned Dr Paul Ekman has identified 7 universal emotions.  The universal emotions are joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust (these first 5 were highlighted in the movie), contempt and surprise.  In his research he found that these 7 emotions were vital for the success of human evolution.  Biologically we needed and utilized these emotions to survive.

I learned that the emotions are like waves with a clear starting point a climax and an end.  It use to be that these emotions were very short waves, they would come and go as needed.  Now with our complex society the wave never ends for some.

I shared this new information with my kids, who loved the movie.  We then mapped out our waves on the chalkboard we have at home.  Some of us had short waves and some of us had longer ones.  Some of us were able to put our climax point towards the middle of the board and some of us drew an invisible line where the chalk board ended because the point was so high we ran out of chalk board.

Then I read them this:

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson

Chapter 1
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in,
I am lost...I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place
but, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in... it's a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter 4
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter 5
I walk down anther street.

This all happened last week.  Today we were driving in the car and I was having an argument with one of my daughters when my youngest says; "I think you guys are getting in a hole."  I smiled and forgot what we were arguing about.