my life in pictures

I spent last weekend at my mother’s house. Some of our favorite family members were in town. Saturday night there were seven strong females, all with the same blood running through our veins, sitting in my mother’s living room drinking margaritas, kicking up our heels, and laughing. A lot.

After everyone left, my mother and I pulled out several dresser drawers full of old pictures and sifted through them — every single one of them –remembering and reminiscing, laughing and crying and, sometimes, hooting and hollering. Some of those pictures, they were vey, vey funny. Oh my.

I came away from the experience appreciative of how well my life has been chronicled. There are pictures from my babyhood and toddlerhood:

And pictures from my grade school days:

Pictures from high school in expensive formals:

Pictures from my college days that I can’t decide whether to burn or frame since they remind me that I used to have a killer bod:

(The piggyback picture is for you, Keith)

Anyone looking through those photos could see that I was much-loved and very spoiled. Not much has changed since then. I am still spoiled. My birthday present from my mother is to fly to Las Vegas for the weekend to see Phantom of the Opera or else spend a spa weekend in Dallas. Whichever I want. She still likes to buy me pretty clothes from time to time too. I wear a little red crushed velvet robe that was a gift from her quite often. It’s feminine and beautiful and it makes me feel like a princess.

Some things never change. I still feel loved and doted on. I love the picture of me in the cowboy hat because my stepfather grinned and stuck it on my head just before he snapped the picture –just because he thought it’d look cute. That was just before he asked me to dance a waltz and just after he’d proudly introduced me to several friends as his daughter.

I am loved. I’ve always known that but it’s only now that I’m realizing how much that love is in evidence in all of these old photographs.

And here I am now, happy and healthy and still having my picture taken by people who love me — in this case, my husband.

healing

She’d been feeling tired. Older and more tired than she should feel at the ripe old age of twenty-four.

One day her synapses sparked and it occurred to her that she could be pregnant. She asked a doctor friend to write an order for the test and, when it came back positive, she and her husband looked at each other confusedly, “Pregnant? But when . . .?” and then shyly as a memory came back to each of them. “Oh. Now I remember.”

It wasn’t exactly good news. She was working full-time and he was going to college and working part-time. They got by. Barely.

The timing was all wrong. They hadn’t planned to get pregnant for at least another year. How would they manage during her maternity leave? How would they pay for child-care for two children? How could this be happening right now?

And so, she cried. For a couple of weeks, she cried. She cried right up until the night when she and her husband lay side by side in bed and recounted the memories of the birth and babyhood of their three-year old son. She remembered the slight weight of him in her arms in the hospital. She remembered his first smiles and coos. She remembered how cute his pudgy little feet and legs looked when he was taking his first steps.

She stopped crying.

A few days later, there was some spotting. Nothing to be too concerned about since she’d experienced the same symptom during her otherwise healthy first pregnancy. But she and her husband went to the hospital in the interest of caution. The ultrasound showed the baby wiggling around and there was the steady reassuring blink-blink on screen as their baby’s heart beat.

It seemed like things would be okay.

But the doctor told them, “You are probably going to miscarry. I can prescribe progesterone injections and it might improve your chances of keeping the baby. But it is unlikely.”

Of course, she chose the injections. The heartbeat on the screen had been strong.

She gave herself twenty-one progesterone injections over the next three weeks. The hormone was mixed in a thick, oily solution. The needle had to be big, she had to use the z-track method, and she had to inject a big muscle. As a result, the injections were painful and she always whimpered a little before twisting around slightly to swab her hip with alcohol and ease the needle into the muscle.

For each day it seemed to work, she said a prayer of thanks.

On the 21st day, there was more spotting. She wasn’t too worried. It seemed a familiar and harmless part of pregnancy by now. But she called her doctor, just in case.

She knew. Before looking at the screen. Before hearing the words. She knew from the way the ultrasound tech’s face fell. Moments before, the tech had been scowling a little because she was called in from her weekend plans to perform this STAT ultrasound. One look at the screen and her face softened and her eyes filled with concern.

She forced herself into her professional nurse mode as she spoke to the doctor on the phone. He said, “Heather, make yourself NPO. You’ll need a dilatation and curettage. Call the house supervisor for instructions on when to present to 7 Central.”

She called her husband but he didn’t answer. Another nurse took report on her patients and a nurses’ aid drove her home despite her protestations that she could drive.

She walked into the house and straight to the back porch that her husband was enclosing and converting into a family room–since the family was growing. He hadn’t heard the phone because he was working with saws and drills and hammers and the like.

He smiled at first. Then it seemed to register that his wife wouldn’t be home in the middle of the day for any good reason. She cried, “I lost the baby.” He reached her in two long steps and they sank to the floor together, her crying in loud, wracking sobs and him crying silent tears that dripped down his face and soaked her hair.

Family members were called. Arrangements were made for the three-year old. They spent the time before going to the hospital lying together on their bed, rarely speaking.

As they drove to the hospital, she felt cramps ripple across her lower abdomen. She embraced that pain as a gift. For, up until then, she couldn’t help but wonder if the sonographer was mistaken. The pain seemed confirmation that yes, the baby was dead. Her body was beginning to understand that the baby was dead.

For, you see, the ultrasound showed that the baby had died three weeks ago. Probably on the very night of the first progesterone injection; the same night when the heartbeat had seemed so strong.

She checked into the hospital, had the D&C, and woke up from the anesthesia to find she had been crying before she even woke. The recovery room nurse stood over her, patting her hand and wiping away tears. When she groaned in pain, the nurse decreased the rate on the culprit — the pitocin drip.

The floor nurse told her, You have to eat, drink, and pee. If you do that, you can go home when the pitocin drip is complete.

She gave her sandwich to a hungry family member. She couldn’t eat and didn’t like sandwiches anyway. She reached over and opened up the pitocin drip all the way and gritted her teeth against the cramping as her uterus clamped down.

Then she called the nurse, signed her discharge papers, and went home. That’s all she wanted: her own home, her own bed, her husband’s arms around her.

A week later, at the follow-up appointment, the doctor asked how she was doing. She nodded her head, said, Fine, and burst into tears. He reminded her of the story of David and Bathsheba — how David fasted and lay on the ground and would accept no comfort when their baby was born ill. But when he received news that his baby died, he washed himself and ate food saying,

“While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; For I said, ‘Who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’

“But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him but he will not return to me.” (2 Samuel 12:22-23)

So there was healing, after a time. She found comfort in the hope that she will hold her child, someday. She accepted that her experience was not unique; many other women have experienced the same hurt and there are many who’ve experienced far worse.

Now, many years later, she can look back and be grateful for the family who surrounded her as she grieved and for the medical professionals who took time out of their weekend to care for her. She is able to accept that things happen for reasons that are outside of our comprehension and that we may be lucky in the end to have a limited understanding of the grand scheme.

But every year, on this date, she honors the life of the child she carried for a short time. She prays and begs the angels to love the child as much as she would have, had he been born.

And then she gets back to the business of loving the children she was able to carry and deliver safely.

And she is thankful.

ice storm

We’re in the middle of an ice storm here. The prairie grass is laid over from the weight of the ice and the bare trees look like intricate ice sculptures.

Ice and/or snow storms are rare around here. So rare, in fact, that the kids squeal and sigh in wonderment at the sight of icicles hanging from the eaves. I remember being little and wanting nothing more than to pull an icicle from the roof of the house and suck on it like a popsicle.

I can think of few things less appealing now.

I have, in my consciousness, two distinct memories of past ice storms. It may be possible that they are the only other ice storms I’ve experienced, but I don’t think so.

The first storm that comes to mind happened when I was a little girl somewhere between the ages of five and seven years old. I’m not sure. I’d have to ask my mother to be certain.

That particular storm was bad in that it caused tree branches to snap and fall on power lines, thus leaving our town without electricity or phones.

We were lucky in that we had a wood-burning stove in our den. The den had a big arched entry leading into it and we nailed blankets over it so the heat wouldn’t escape to the rest of the house. We sat in the den, toasty warm because of the fire and waited out the storm. I can’t remember what we ate. I am certain, however, that my mother had a time feeding us as my brother and I were such picky eaters. I didn’t like bread (still don’t) and thus refused to eat sandwiches. Eating anything out of the refrigerator was probably not an option since the power was out. I suspect I probably subsisted on cheese and crackers.

We had another ice storm the first winter after Brad and I were married. Bump was only a couple of months old. Our little house was warmed by a wall furnace in the hallway. As cold as it was, the furnace was mightily ineffective. The house was freezing cold.

We had a little space heater in our room, so we all retreated to the master bedroom, closed the door, and bundled up under the covers. Brad and I spent the day playing board games while Bump slept on the pillows between us. Bump would wake up and we would hold him and behave like perfect loons, talking baby talk and making silly faces, in order to illicit coos and smiles from him. Then, I would nurse him, he would fall back asleep, and we would continue playing games.

There was no place we needed to be, nothing else that needed to be done. Our only job was to stay warm and entertained.

To this day, the day we spent snuggled together in our little bedroom, in our little house, during an ice storm, is one of the happiest memories of our marriage. We didn’t watch TV, play on the Internet, or play video games. We simply snuggled together, played with our beloved baby son, and enjoyed our day.

No matter how much money we make or will make, no matter how grand the house in which we live, I think I’ll never be richer than I was that day during the ice storm.

Of haircuts

A girl who works with me has the cutest haircut. I admire it every time I see her. I asked her one day who cuts her hair and she told me that her mother is a beautician and has always cut her hair.

I was thrilled to get her mother’s phone number. I called her and said, “I want my hair cut exactly like Leslie’s hair.” We set an appointment for today at 12:30. I walked into the salon and had barely introduced myself before I asked, “Well, do you think Leslie’s haircut will work on my hair?” She said, “Absolutely,” and went to work.

As she combed out my wet hair, she wore a puzzled expression. “You already have layers like Leslie’s.” I said, “Well, maybe my layers are longer or something?” She agreed to trim up the layers and continue cutting it in the same style as her daughter’s.

The result? It looks exactly like it did before the haircut except maybe it has a few less split ends.

It turns out that I’ve always thought I want this haircut or that haircut but, what it really is, is that I want different hair. I have a full, thick head of hair. Everybody else uses volumizing shampoo and styling products to add body to their hair. I use a special “skinny” shampoo to make my hair have less body.

I told one of my friends today, “I want hair that just hangs there.” She said, “Well, I want hair that goes out and has a good time.” I think we all want something other than what we’ve got when it comes to our hair.

Today I was reminded of the time when I was in elementary school and one of my classmates named Marla came to school with a haircut that I thought was too precious for words. I wanted that haircut so bad that I came home and told my mother all about it. It turns out that Marla’s mother was a beautician (do you see a pattern here?). My mother called Marla’s mother and we happily floated along to the beauty shop where Marla’s mom did her best to cut my hair just like Marla’s. Only thing? Marla’s hair was fine and fairly thin and mine was coarse and thick.

She cut my hair and I quietly left the salon and quietly rode home with my mother. And when we got home? I threw myself into the floor and threw a silent, spastic fit. I refused to show my head in public and insisted on wearing a jacket with a hood at all times. The next day, my teacher pleaded and cajoled and implored me to remove my hood but I refused.

I suspect that she pulled some strings and that is why the school nurse picked that exact day to come to our room to do random lice checks. I was forced to remove my hood and everyone ooohed and ahhhed over how cute my hair was. And I glowered and sulked. And waited for my hair to grow out.

There was no damage done to my hair today. It looks exactly the same as it did before the haircut. But you’d think I’d learn my lesson and stop coveting other girl’s hairdos.

Oh, and to top things off, the beautician pointed out to me today that most of my new hair is coming in gray.

*sigh*

My life, it is very busy right now. Work is hectic with retreats, meetings, data harvests, and new goals and projects for the coming fiscal year. My job as a mom is busier than ever with two children for whom to check homework, pick up from school, and fix snacks, all while trying to work out the best way to shape and mold their characters without breaking their spirit. Some relationships need attention as evidenced by the fact that I am taking a dear friend to dinner tonight for her birthday; her birthday was in August. I have several long distance trips coming up and I am busily making preparations for those. There are a few top secret labors of love, gifts for friends, that I want to complete but I can never seem to find the time.

One of the tasks that has graced my to-do list lately is a baby quilt that needs binding. Brenda made the quilt. My job is to cut the binding into strips, sew them together and bind them onto the quilt, wash and dry the quilt, and place it in a gift bag with a signed card noting that the gift is from both of us.

I like making quilts even when I am only binding them. It will be nice to cross one task off of my to-do list when it is completed, that’s true. I never look at it that way, though, because a baby quilt is so pleasant to labor over. My hands are busy working, yes, but my mind is dreaming and my lips are smiling.

I sew memories into the quilt of the many times I’ve draped a quilt over my babies to shelter them from brutal heat, nipping cold, or fat raindrops. I recall the times when my children rocked on chubby hands and dimpled knees on quilts laid in the floor to protect their delicate skin from the carpet. I grin and my vision blurs a little to think of the many times I’ve bent over a crib to smell my child’s sweet baby breath, to lightly press the back of my hand to his dewy skin and, if he felt cool, tuck a quilt around him to keep him warm.

As recently as Sunday night, I tiptoed into my nine year old son’s room before crawling into my own bed and found him clutching the quilt my grandmother made for him when he was still safe and warm inside my womb. As recently as two weeks ago, my five year old chose the quilt he slept under as a baby to take along on an out of town trip.

I have been cheered by sewing my friend’s baby quilt. I like to think that I am contributing to some sort of richness in someone’s childhood memories. I hope I am helping to create a blanket that will always somehow be comforting, long after babyhood has passed.

Life is what happens while you’re making plans

What is it they say? Oh yes, I remember. Life is what happens while you’re making plans.

All week I have been going about the very time consuming business of getting the kids ready to head to New Mexico for a week and for Brad and me to head to Florida. I’ve been checking a mental to-do list:

• Insurance card to send with the kids. Check.
• Laundry washed and folded and ready to pack. Check.
• Ask neighbors to watch the house. Check.
• Ask my mother to babysit the dog. Check.
• Healthy children.
• *ahem* I said, healthy children.
• HEALTHY CHILDREN? Um, not so much.

It would seem that Crash has hand, foot, and mouth disease. He’s on his third day and it usually lasts 2-7 days. His mouth and throat are broken out in sores and he cries every time he tries to eat. It is likely that he will break out in sores on his hands and feet by tomorrow. And he’s supposed to be going to stay with his grandparents for the week starting, um, tomorrow. His doctor says he is fine and that he will be feeling great by Monday which is when he will be leaving to go to the New Mexico mountains for a week. He even said it is okay to send him to his grandparents tomorrow as planned. But lawd Jesus, it is hard to think of leaving my baby when he is sick.

We’ve hit upon a sensible plan. Instead of spending Saturday and Sunday night at Brad’s parent’s house where he would be running around playing with his brother and his two cousins and not only wearing himself out and making it harder to get well but also potentially spreading the virus to the other children, he is going to stay those two nights at my mother’s house where he will be the only child and thus will be more likely to stay still and get enough rest. Brad’s parents will pick him up on their way out of town Monday morning when, according to the pediatrician, he will be feeling perky and bright.

The doctor recommended mixing up a cocktail of Maalox, Benadryl, and Orajel to apply to Crash’s mouth to relieve the pain caused by the sores. I stood at my kitchen counter tonight preparing the mixture and then leaned over to swab his oral mucosa as he opened his mouth wide saying, “Ahhhhhhh.” It suddenly put me in mind of the last time, nay, the only other time I’ve ever swabbed the same cocktail inside someone’s mouth.

It was when I was in nursing school. We had two weekends where we had clinicals in a much bigger town with a much bigger hospital. I was assigned to the oncology floor. Oncology was not my choice. I have never, ever entertained the notion of becoming an oncology nurse. I don’t like watching people suffer as I look on helplessly. But I digress. The point is, oncology was my assignment.

Both weekends I took care of the same patient. She was a middle aged woman who had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and was receiving inpatient care and chemotherapy because she had been so weakened by her treatment. She had no hair but her daughter kept beautiful scarves tied in a turban-like fashion on her head. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent with blue veins showing through. She was thin and weak and stayed in bed most of the time. She had a potty chair at her bedside but it sometimes required more energy than she had to get to it, even with assistance. Despite being sick and weak as a kitten, she was cheerful and smiled through her pain. I remember her smiling up at me as my instructor watched me hang an IV piggyback medication. My hands shook and I tried very hard to remember exactly how I had been taught to do it at school. It seemed very different when I knew it wasn’t just practice but someone’s medication that I was administering. The patient said, “You’re going to be a good little nurse. I just know it.”

Between the first weekend and the second weekend that I took care of her, she was given a dose of chemotherapy. I was alarmed to see how weakened she had become when I returned to her. But she was still smiling. Chemotherapy often causes the skin inside the mouth to peel off and it causes excruciatingly painful sores, much like Crash is experiencing right now. When she asked me for something to help with the pain in her mouth, it was obvious that it hurt her to even try to speak.

I fetched the cocktail from the med cart and remember thinking how child-like she looked when I asked her to open her mouth so I could swab the medicine inside. She smiled and said, “Ahhhhhh.” just as Crash did earlier tonight and I leaned over her and ever so carefully, so as not to cause her more pain than necessary, coated over the sores in her mouth. What I remember most is that, when the lidocaine in the medication took effect and her pain abated, she looked up at me with tears pooling in her eyes and whispered, “Thank you.”

That was when I knew I would never make an oncology nurse. When a patient is so miserable that simply swabbing her mouth inspires such gratitude, well, let’s just say that is too much misery for me to stand. It may sound selfish. Maybe it is. I just know that I am far too tender-hearted and empathetic to surround myself with humans who are so desperate for healing and in so much pain. I also know that I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I ever became hardened to such pain and suffering. And so I work on people with sick hearts. They are very much in need of my nursing skills and worthy recipients of my tender-heartedness.

I guess they are right. Life is what happens while we are making plans. And sometimes, Life is about recalling memories we had buried deep in our hearts. Swabbing my son’s mouth reminded me of a woman I met long ago who had a beautiful spirit and, in turn, reminded me of the rewards that small kindnesses can bring.

Life is in the interactions we share with the people we meet along the way. Life is in the kindness we show to others and the kindnesses we receive. Life is what happens when we aren’t expecting anything wonderful. Life is in the routine tasks we perform every day.

Life is a precious gift.

Was it Cool

We went to see Cars this weekend and the kids loved it. As we drove to Brenda’s house to swim this afternoon, Bump said, “You know Radiator Springs? That little town in Cars? I’d like to live in a town like that.” I told him that the little town I grew up in was a lot like Radiator Springs. He asked, “Was it cool?” I told him, “No, not really. There was nothing to do.” He asserted that he remembers me saying there was a swimming pool. Yes, there was. He asked, “Was there a movie theater?” No. “Was there a miniature golf place?” Um, no. “Were there any places to eat.” Not really. He asked incredulously, “What did you do, then?”

This was my answer:

Nana had to be at work by 7 AM. In the summertime, Uncle Jon and I woke up, fixed ourselves breakfast, donned our bathing suits and walked about 1/2 a mile (across a highway) to the city pool. We stayed there all day. Nana sent us money for lunch but I always spent all of mine on Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. When the pool closed, Nana either picked us up on her way home from work or else we just walked back home.

He asked, “How old were you?” I thought about it and realized that I was about his age; nine years old. That means my brother was about seven years old.

I could’ve gone on to tell him that, during the school year, my mother woke us up and she helped me fix my hair before she left for work but that my brother and I still got ourselves dressed and fixed ourselves breakfast. We watched the clock and, when it was time, we gathered up our schoolbooks, grabbed our jackets and walked ourselves to the bus stop.

Thinking about those days of my youth made me nostalgic for a time when the world seemed a lot less frightening. My mother would rather have been home caring for my brother and me but reality dictated that she work long hours so we wouldn’t starve and so we could have a roof (no matter how modest that roof) over our heads. But she didn’t worry overmuch because we lived in a very friendly and close-knit neighborhood and the neighbors would have called her in a heartbeat if we had behaved badly or if we were hurt or sick. She didn’t worry too much about us crossing the highway because we had been taught to look both ways. She knew the people who ran the swimming pool and knew they would keep a close eye on us.

My brother and I were self-sufficient because it never occurred to us to be any other way. We made our own breakfast because we were hungry and it just made good sense to eat. We walked to the swimming pool every day because it beat playing in the pastures all day long in the heat. There was no Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon channels for us to watch all day long. We paid close attention to the clock in the mornings because there would be hell to pay if we missed our bus. There were just certain absolutes in life and they were not questioned.

I am still independent and self-reliant. I think the responsibilities placed on me as a child went a long way toward forming my character and work ethic. My mother and I were talking about this same subject this weekend and she made a good point, “Well, you and your brother both turned out to be good people who aren’t afraid to work and have never had trouble holding a job.”

Bump and Crash will not have a childhood like mine. My situation is easier than my mother’s was when I was a kid. I am able to spend a lot of time at home with my kids and we’ve had the same woman looking after them when I am not here for the past five years. I won’t even let Bump ride his bike to the park that is one block from our house. I know our neighbors but only a few of them would call me if my kids were hurt or sick. In fact, I can only think of one neighbor who even knows my work number and that is because she knows me from work. Bump is a good swimmer but I still don’t let him out of my sight when we go swimming, much less send him to the pool alone. And Crash still can’t swim despite the fact that he is only about a year younger than my brother was when we spent our days at the pool. Hell, half the time my kids can’t even find their clothes, much less dress themselves. Bump walked around the house this afternoon hollering, “Mom, I can’t find my swim suit!” He never would have made it in my house 20 years ago.

Even though my boys’ childhoods are very different from my own, I have to keep in mind that they will still have their own fond memories and their own stories to tell their children someday. And, if they are anything like me, they will look back and not be able to imagine their childhood being any other way. When I look back and imagine anything being different from the way it was, I can only think that it would’ve spoiled the perfection. Those summer days at the pool and the days spent living in the tiny house in the camp are fond memories for me. I just hope Bump and Crash are able to look back and recall their childhood as fondly.

stars on the ceiling

I’m in my hometown tonight staying in the house in which I grew up. I tucked my children into bed a few moments ago and turned out the light as I walked into the hallway. Bump noticed something I had forgotten about. “Mom, have those stars always been on the ceiling?”

What he was referring to is the circle of glow-in-the-dark star and planet stickers surrounding the light fixture on the ceiling. I put them there many years ago because . . . well, I just thought it was cool. I also had a thingie that projected constellations onto the ceiling. I guess I’ve just always been fascinated by the stars. The stars on the ceiling always glowed brightly as I fell asleep because the material they are fabricated from soaked up the glow from the overhead light during the day. As the night wore on, the glow grew dimmer but was always still visible. I remember waking up during the night and gazing sleepily at the stars before falling back asleep.

I looked around the room that used to be mine but now serves as a guest room. The walls are a sedate taupe color and there is an elegant bedspread. The curtains are a beautiful, shiny fabric and they hang to the floor. When I occupied the room, it went through several reincarnations. When I was very young, I had a pink bedspread with a pink bandana print dust ruffle and curtains. At one point, I went through a phase where I wanted the room to look tropical so I bought a comforter with brightly colored fish all over it. In the end, I had a plain black comforter with pink sheets and pillows. One wall was painted pink and was covered by poster prints of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe but also with pictures of my friends, certificates I’d earned, and corsages that had been bought for me at homecoming. My furniture was painted pink and black with accents of web paint. It was cool, y’all.

Sometimes, it is easy for me to forget that I haven’t always been this harried woman who is constantly playing a game of catch-up. I didn’t used to worry too much about my decisions because, back then, the future of two beautiful children wasn’t affected by every decision I made.

There was a time when I was care-free and had boundless energy and enthusiasm. There was a time when I started my day off singing and dancing every morning in first hour swing choir. There was a time when I loved music and, instead of tucking my head shyly, I pranced about on stage and sang my heart out. I used to be a person who could go to work in a swimsuit every day without worrying if I looked fat or if my legs were too white. At the same time, I didn’t preen before mirrors admiring my body and act like I was all that when I walked out to the guard chair. There was a time when I could tread water with a 10 pound brick held over my head. I could do it because it never crossed my mind that I couldn’t do it. I used to be a person who woke up early and went to bed late and accomplished a multitude of tasks during the day. I used to be the person who drove everyone else to school and didn’t once feel put upon because I had to pick them up every morning. Rather, I just enjoyed the company.

I used to be so many things that I am not now. I wasn’t tired and ambivalent and pulled in fifteen directions at once. I didn’t become so overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of tasks awaiting my attention that I went to bed rather than try to tackle any of them. I didn’t constantly second guess myself .

Yes, it’s easy to forget that I was young. That I was different than I am now. That I was once innocent as to how fickle fate can be. That I used to see something I wanted and go after it with everything in me until it was mine.

And I really might have forgotten, now that the pink wall in my room has been covered with beige paint and my brightly painted furniture has been replaced by a guest bed and stately wardrobe. Except for the stars. The stars are the proof that I was once a young girl who loved looking at stars enough to stick a whole package of them on her ceiling on a whim. The stars are my reminder that I can paint over the girl I used to be; I can tone down my true colors and behave as a responsible adult with a job and a husband and two children to raise. But when the day is over and you take a closer look, you’ll see that the person from all those years ago is still shining through, just like the stars on the ceiling.

Lalalalala . . . Oh, hello!

I’m back from my weekend getaway! Let’s pretend that you missed me terribly, okay? I know that you all love it when Sharon posts for me but let’s pretend that you checked the blog several times a day just to see if I had returned. My delusions are all that keep me going. Don’t take them away.

Friday night, Brad and I stayed in the same hotel where we spent our wedding night. When I first walked into our suite, I looked around and thought that it had changed quite a bit in the last ten years. Then I realized that it had changed not much at all. The bedspread and curtains were not the same, but the suite was almost identical to the one we slept in so many years ago.

So why did it all seem so different?

It finally dawned on me that it was Brad and I who had changed. We are not the same couple who stayed in that hotel ten years ago.

Some things remain unchanged. We are still in love. We are still thrilled to get out of town and spend time together. I still like to have a leisurely soak in a hot bath when we are on vacation and he still prefers a quick shower. I still walk barefoot down to the pool and he still insists on wearing shoes. He still likes to unpack his clothes and put them in the hotel dresser. I still like to keep mine in the suitcase because I don’t see the point in moving them back and forth.

But so many things have changed. Ten years ago, we were so tired when we arrived at the hotel after our wedding that our first priority was to sleep. Now, we have two children and demanding schedules and I can tell you that our first priority this weekend was not sleep.

Ten years ago, we had scraped together a certain amount of money to spend on meals and entertainment for our honeymoon and budgeted carefully lest we run out and be forced to go hungry. This weekend, we went to eat at a fine restaurant and forgot to look at prices before we ordered. The sum of the check was such that it would have crippled us ten years ago. This weekend, we were pleasantly surprised that the meal had “only” cost so much.

Ten years ago, my husband grumbled and complained of his aching feet when he accompanied me to shop for clothes. This weekend, he sat just outside the fitting room and offered his opinion as to which Easter dress I should buy. Then, he singlehandedly picked out jewelry to go with the dress saying all the while that the turquoise jewelry brought out the color of my eyes.

Ten years ago, we took in the sites and enjoyed activities and entertainment with no great sense of urgency to return home. This weekend, we shopped for clothes and gifts for our two children and were excited to drive home so we could hear our boys tell us about their weekend.

Things have changed in the ten years since we married. In the next ten years, our marriage will change and evolve some more. I find comfort in some of the things that haven’t changed though; some of the things that I hope will never change. My husband and I love each other. We are best friends. We look forward to spending time together. We are comfortable together in a way that I never thought possible before we married.

June will mark ten years of marriage. Mostly, when I think of our ten year anniversary, the thought that runs through my head is this: Thank God we will never be twenty years old and newly married again! And please, God, give us many, many more years together.

reading

For several months, I have suspected that my youngest child is reading words without realizing it. So often, he strikes up a conversation about a word or subject that was written on a sign or billboard, etc. And I don’t mean obvious things like the McDonald’s sign or common street signs, either. I mean things like billboards and those boards on which churches write words of advice and reflection. Things like that.

Today, my suspicions were confirmed. He was sitting in my bedroom floor playing with a little massager in the shape of a lady bug. He asked, “Mom, does this say ‘NO’?” He was looking at the power button only he was holding it upside down. So it read “NO” instead of “ON”.

I got so happy and excited that I kissed him and hugged him and praised him and hollered for his father to come quick! It embarrassed the poor child so much that he started crying. Crash is VERY shy. Even that much attention from his parents is distressing to him. His teacher called me and told me he doesn’t know his alphabet on sight and asked me to work with him. I am working with him but I suspect the problem is that Crash is unwilling to perform. He knows the letters but he feels no burning need to prove it to the rest of us.

Crash reminds me of me. I think I sort of learned to read by intuition, or something. I don’t remember ever having to sound out words. One day the words on the page just suddenly made sense. I still remember the day perfectly. My mother and I sat in front of our house on the hood of the car and I read one of my books to her. I’ve had a book in front of my nose ever since.

Once I learned to read, I had an insatiable appetite for words and language. I would read anything I could get my hands on. I don’t remember ever having trouble understanding the vocabulary in the books that technically were written for older kids or adults.

Once, I sat in the kitchen floor and read all of my mother’s recipe cards. I don’t know why. I guess I was bored. There was one recipe for brisket. A friend had written the recipe for my mom and spelled it as “briskit”.

My memory is very good. It is darn near photographic.

Fast forward to the spelling bee. I don’t know how many months or years it was after I read the brisket recipe. I won my school’s spelling bee and got to move on to the district spelling bee. My second word was “brisket”. I walked up to the microphone and said, “Brisket. B-R-I-S-K-I-T. Brisket.”

WRONG!

Suffice it to say that I was furious! I told my mother that I had spelled it right, I knew I spelled it right, because I saw it on one of her recipes. I think I even dug through the recipe cards and found it just to show her. It never occurred to me that an adult might have spelled a word wrong.

I felt so cheated. When I am old and senile, I suspect I will tell the story of the spelling bee over and over. It will always haunt me. I am not accustomed to being wrong, especially when it comes to words.

And now! My baby is reading! Small words now but soon he will be reading sentences. And then? A whole new world will come to life for him! So many adventures await! So many mysteries! So many heartwarming tales!

My baby. He’s reading.