Leo Clement

Christmas Eve. Christmas. New Years. What do you think Leo thinks of all the holiday bustle?  Checking back on my latest posts, I notice that Leo has taken the backseat through most of them. But, you know, he is a backseat driver so his presence is hard to ignore! So here is a post all about our little man. Christmas is a time when we see a lot of folks, meet with friends, and in general, do a lot of running around. Leo managed to keep up and take most of it in stride. I'm sure I've talked about his fairly mellow personality before! And he is mellow, except when I'm desperately trying to do get something ambitious done like dinner, or errands, then he lets it known, in no uncertain terms, that IT'S NOT OK, for mum to be doing something that takes attention away from him. Sometimes, I am grateful for this reminder to slow down, to stop and just breathe, or stop and cuddle the lion, which is what usually happens. He is my shadow, my little sidekick,

I'm a bit of a Joss Whedon fan. In particular, my favorite of his many shows is, of course, Firefly. I know I've blogged about it before, but it just seems to fit and highlight so many instances of trueness in life that I just can't resist doing it again and again. Today, on facebook (where else?) someone posted up a link to an article enticingly titled: " 26 Moments That Restored Our Faith In Humanity This Year. "  Though I was feeling rather down and teary at the time, since right above and below that link on my newsfeed were posts about the shooting, I clicked on it with some bitterness. Our humanity kinda sucks most of the time, at least according to the news, so I wasn't holding my breath. But I was surprised. Surprised that I was crying, crying because I needed to be reminded that no matter how much evil and suffering there is in this world, there is also the same amount of love and joy, if not more! The 26 examples weren't particularly earthsh

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Remember.   The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Today our hearts our broken. Our minds are heavy with the tragedy of the horrible violence that took place in what should be, a safe haven.  For all of us, it's painful. For those of us who are parents, the pain is partnered with fear.  Fear for our children. Fear for our way of life. Fear of the ultimate loss. The loss of a child. We feel broken. We think of the grieving families tonight. We can imagine scenes of dark rooms, of the floods of tears, and our hearts break. We think of our own children, and we are shattered, smashed, in pieces, scattered to the depths of our souls.  We doubt the sanity of humankind. In a world where children die, how can there be hope? How can there be love?  For those families, tonight, they are breaking. But. Yet. Somehow.

Its been awhile since our last post, and I humbly apologize for that! I haven't been able to just get it together! I always feel like Leo's fans deserve something special, not just a boring post about the mundane. So I usually wait until something inspiring, or something special happens. But sometimes, the specialness just doesn't seem to come, or at least I'm not recognizing it. The page stays empty in front of me. Then, inevitably, something else comes up, like a kiddo, or work, or..etc. No excuses really, though in my defense, it's amazing that this blog is a fairly coherent diary of Leo's first two years. It's one of the few things I've been able to faithfully keep up, and it certainly is the most I've ever written since college. Who ever would have thought that I've thought up, with Justin's occasional help, two years worth of thoughts about one little boy? As I'm sure you know, when we started this blog, in Leo's little nook in