Three days, all I did, seemingly, was stand in the kitchen, chop, steep, simmer, stir and wash my hands. Grace came home from her weekend away with a cold. This one was a little more tenacious than the usual variety that we've been able, the last couple of years, to knock off in a couple of days. Chop. Chop:  homemade chicken and rice soup with onions, garlic, celery and carrots. Chop: fresh apples; peeled, juicy clementines. Chop, steep, stir: garlic, mint, ginger, lemon and honey–a cocoction of herbal tea that sssshhhed! the cough and shoved it out the door.

I had my mothering mojo on and it felt good. I remember the first time I experienced the pleasure of taking care a sickly version of my beloved flesh and blood creation. She was a wee one then, first exposed to the buggy mother's day out culture. It took her until about age eight not to bring home half the germs she met out there and me about four years to align my immune system and mental-emotional health to not welcome them into my own body.

Lately, I've been in the kitchen a lot. I'm cooking again now that we're nearly all settled in our new condo. I didn't cook much the last five years. I was in a relationship with a gourmet and between eating his rich, fatty fare and ordering and eating out, I lost my groove there.

Thinking back, I lost a lot of my mothering mojo those years. Distracted and winding blindly around an enormous learning curve of life. 

I start to go there, grieving the loss of that time, but remind myself I nurtured, tended and helped build a life with my daughter and for my daughter in other ways, such as her art.

I think we parent in seasons. Especially as special needs parents. My wonder friend John Shouse, said once that sometimes we are on fire with passion in our parenting advocacy for our differently abled children. And then other times, we are still parenting at our best, but it looks different. It looks different because of whatever is going on in our lives, with our energies. We are still at it, still there, though it may may look and seem like less at the time.

We can't be full throttle all the time, can we? We risk burnout if so, I believe. And, this is definitely a long haul journey that needs our constant, steady stamina.

Meanwhile, apron tied on, it feels good to mother-nurture her body and mine with the fruits born of our rich earth mother. It's fine mojo and it feels good.