Little gifts

Every once and again I will leave my camera out on the table. The kids will see it, of course, and being kids they will pick it up.  Once they realize I'm either not looking or indifferent to them holding my camera, they start to take pictures.

I like the images that kids take. Usually they show what the kids find interesting. They often show movement. I used to give the kids a disposable cameras. Yes, we would end up with 20 pictures of Barbie, but among those were gems. A 4 yr old Beks posing a 2 year old Luke by the dress-up trunk. A photo essay of what can be done with a chalkboard and a new package of sidewalk chalk.  An expose of everyone knees at a church event. Close ups of what, exactly, is under the bed. It was almost worth the expenditure.

Now that I don't actually have to pay for the bad, the blurry, and the what-the-heck-is-that pictures, I think of them as little gifts. Gifts of my kids being kids.  A still life of lives that are in constant motion.

Pass the wine and cheese and let's have a look at this recent gallery created by my children.

A popular pose is what I call Open Wide

                                                                             Lovely.



Another favorite theme is food. Luke is usually consuming it or taking pictures of it. Food is very important to an 11 yr old boy. I never realized HOW important until I had to hide things from him. Leave a baked chicken on the counter to serve for dinner, and Luke will have it torn apart, topped waffles with it, and be emptying a can of whipped cream over the mess all while asking " what's for dinner?"

This is actually a failed loaf of bread. I forgot it was rising in the oven, and turned the oven on 10 hrs after I had put the frozen dough in there. This is not recommended on the bread dough label. Luke ate this after he took the picture.

This is dinner. Or part of it. He's wondering where the rest is.

Another frequent pose is kids acting goofy. I actually delete a lot of these, but here is one to sample.

And sometimes they take my picture. ish. Maybe that is how they see me. Just a big smile. I kinda like that image.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The fact that I have a history of really sucky birthdays is well documented. I have carried on about it in person and print for years. Some of those birthdays were really bad. Space shuttle explosions, full family multi-orifice stomach viruses, city stopping ice storms,attempted home invasions-- bad stuff by any standards. Some were only bad to me, lest we never forget the year Brian gave me Clorox wipes as a gift. The only gift. Not valuable at the time, and very hurtful, I have gotten a lot of mileage out of it so really was a gift that kept on giving. It's all about how you spin it, right?

Last year I thought it would be fun to get together with a bunch of my mom friends and celebrate our mutual sucky birthday histories. We would laugh , eat and drink in the face of our common bond and scare away the sucky mojo. It was not only a fabulous party, but it worked! Last year I had a great birthday!

So, I did it again. Last weekend several of the same women, and many several more, met up again. Same restaurant. Same day, same time. Here is me and my friend ( I consider every woman at that table my friend so let's toss the description) Michelle being goofy:

Down the table, one part of it anyway... no matter how few times we had met we all chatted and laughed and carried on like we got together every week. But the truth is, all of those women " met" in an online message board  ( mom2momKC  ).To be in the same room as each other rarely happens. Some had stepped way out of their comfort zones to be there. I think all of them were happy they took the risk.

Megan and Other Susan got the " wear black" memo.

Karen and Sally showing their cheesy side.

Tracy likes a little wine with her fruit.

  24 women, a few sangria's, and many laughs. It was the perfect preventative medicine for any curse. It totally worked for me,and I hope it works for the others who have a similar birthday curse. My actual birthday was wonderful! Nothing bad happened, exactly the opposite. It was the kind of birthday that we all wish for- I imagine- but don't really verbalize. You can't plan for days like that, they just have to happen. Flowers, calls, notes, and a few gifts rolled in as the day and the delivery drivers went by. It wasn't about the objects, it was about the meaning behind them. I felt loved. The best gift of all.

Melissa made me a coffee themed table cloth, Lee sent a beautiful bouquet!

I got to hang with my kids while my fabulous mother-in-law cooked us dinner!

I have steak about once a year.. this was that night. I'm not much of a meat eater, but once in awhile I get a hankering for a hunka beef.

What kinda awkward body twist I got going on there? Ahh, Brian. Smile. Please?

The cake was carrot ( my favorite) homemade , too, and not by me! Bonus!!!

Tracy - the sangria drinker- send a flamingo with a fairly large seasonal wardrobe. This was a seriously cool gift.

Thanks to a bit of planning, a lot of people who love me and one fabulously outfitted flamingo I turned 47 with glee in my heart. A new tradition has been established and, on  a purely selfish note, I hope it happens every year. Aging has enough of a bad reputation, anything we can do to spin it is essential in my book.

Memory Lane: Not quite the Autobahn, but a wild enough ride.

This is a picture of me 5 years ago to the day.It was me giving myself my last insulin shot before bed. The next day I was scheduled for a c-section and would say " Hello, Noah!" and then " Toodles!" to my gestational diabetes.

I remember the pregnancy well,I still wear those pajama pants, and I don't think I look all that different than I do in this picture, but it seems like a lifetime ago. Sure, it was Noah's lifetime, but it seems like a long time. More than five years.

Some moms look at pictures of themselves pregnant and think " where did time go?" and " it seems just like yesterday that I was feeling you move and kick me from inside." I am not one of those moms. Maybe I will be, someday, but now? No. When I think back, I think to all the work, all the challenges, all the wonderful days, but I can feel the difference between the mom in that picture and the mom I am today. It's a big chasm.

Noah is our 3rd and last child. I was days shy of my 42nd birthday when he was born. The line we give is that perimenopausal means  " you can still get pregnant". But I knew I could still get pregnant. Although the chances were slim that I would, we didn't do anything to stop it. The truth is that was the second pregnancy within a year. 7 months before getting pregnant with Noah, I had a miscarriage at 10.5 weeks. On Thanksgiving. After cooking, and serving the family meal.

 I had found out I was pregnant with that child the day before I was scheduled to go in to get my tubes tied. The same doc asked, upon confirming that I had lost this baby, if I wanted to get that done. I couldn't. In my head I could not go from pregnant to never being able to have another child, although we did not plan on having any more.

The other line we give is " once we found out where all these babies were coming from, we put a stop to that!". This is entirely true. When Noah was delivered I did have my tubes double knotted. I KNEW this was the end of the baby making for me. While my sweet OB hummed as she worked on my fallopian tubes, my newborn son was struggling for breath. He was born with premature lungs, an easy fix once he got to the right hospital, but we didn't know that at the time. We just saw another baby heading to the NICU unable to get a breath. We saw another child whisked away from my arms, unsure of what was wrong with him but having a sickening feeling of deja vu.

Luke was born that way 6.5 years before Noah. He had a very rough entry into the world. For medical reasons, he couldn't be held until he was a week old. Actually, Bekah even did a NICU stint after swallowing a wad of meconium. Then Noah. Three babies, three trips to the NICU. Two of them via ambulance to Childrens Mercy Hospital. Cut, knot and hum away Doc. We are done. We are grateful for what we have, but we knew the challenges ahead of us. Or rather, we knew the challenge of uncertainty that was ahead of us.

The mom flashing a goofy smile in that picture, she didn't know what her next few weeks would feel like, look like, or how they would play out. She had forgotten the feeling of nursing, and sleep deprivation and the tug of her heart when a newborn makes eye contact. She could not know what it would feel like to have her first and middle child bond so deeply and so quickly with the newest member of her family. She couldn't foresee the triumphs and challenges of being a mom at such an age. She had no clue as to the joy and hurdles that would lay ahead of her and her family. But she can now. In her rear-view mirror. And those five years have been a long and curvy road.

I'm not writing this looking for sympathy by any means. I want you to see the gratitude that I have in my heart for the wonder that is my children. For this late in life surprise baby who tomorrow celebrates his 5th birthday. Happy Birthday, Buddy!!!

Giddy to Snapped In No Time Flat

After three long weeks of school vacation followed by bitter cold and another week of snow days, I awoke this morning giddy. I skipped out and flipped on the TV. The scroll at the bottom of the news, the place we had looked first each day for the previous week was different. Instead of school cancellations I saw stock prices. And then I saw news headlines. YES!! School is back in session!! Elated I packed lunches and took Beks to school.

In our little town, the Elementary School, Middle School and High School share a campus. A service road, with two major road accesses, connects all three schools. Each school has a bus lane and a drop off lane. The rule is that cars do not belong in the bus lane. Sure , it takes a few minutes in traffic to follow the rules and drop your student off in the car drop off lane, But the rules are there for a reason: safety.

I know that our school drop off situation is similar to other schools. And I know my frustration of people who think the rules do not apply to them is shared by many. The problem that I mostly have is the safety factor. High school students ( and yes, some parents) who feel that the rules are for others and drop their students off in, or at the entrance to, the bus lane. Sometimes I blow my horn , sometimes I just catch the drivers eye and make a " naughty!" face". Mostly I just rant to Beks. She rolls her eyes, often laughs but mostly she knows me and rolls with it.

Today, however, I saw a parent and a high school student, two cars, pulled off to drop middle school students off by the bus lane. The road was icy and slick. I had enough. The accidents that I had imagined for the past two years were highly probable today. We all had been out of practice with our school week routines, and the road conditions made for a situation that inexperienced drivers never could prepare for. There was no cars behind me, so I stopped, got the high school students attention and signaled for him to roll down his window as I rolled down Beks's.The parent in the other car was already cutting in front of me to make an illegal U-turn, I could only honk at her.

As the kid rolled down his window I realized I knew him. His sister, getting out of the car, had been in Beks class before. Heck, I think she had even played at our house  before. His parents are acquaintances of mine who I really adore. I know this kid to be kind and sweet and funny-- a good kid. But it was too late, I couldn't turn back or say " hey, Jacob! Say hi to your mom for me". No, I had to tell him that was not the drop off lane.

I wish it could have been a kid I didn't know. I wish it could have been one of the kids who stops in the middle of the road and really causes a hazardous situation. But poor Ethan got two years worth of memories of those kids in my comments. I didn't yell, but it may have been more anger than he was used to ( his parents are VERY sweet). He said " ok" , but I'm sure the unsaid part was " you crazy lady".

Then, from my passenger seat, Beks said very loudly  " Please excuse my mom!" uuuugggh. I just committed a huge middle school social faux pas. My stomach dropped and I apologized to her as we drove on to the drop off lane. She said it was ok, but if I was here I wouldn't have. She got out and said to me what I normally would have said to her " have a marvelous Monday!" Commence Internal Self Abuse!

An hour later, I was backing out of our driveway to take Noah to school. Thanks to illness and really cold weather that kid had literally been home for three weeks. He NEEDED to spend time with kids his own age. He needed to go to school even more than I needed him to. As I was backing out of the driveway I backed straight into the 4 foot pile of snow and ice at the end of it. I got stuck.

I would like to say that I calmly dug us out. But calm was nowhere to be seen. " Are you KIDDING ME!!!??" I muttered as I went to get the snow shovel and deicer out of the garage. Then I accidentally dropped the bucket of  deicer IN the garage and hauled out the motherload of curses. My 4 yr old , still strapped in his carseat then heard words that he should never hear. He heard combinations of curses that I never would have imagined could go together, and yet were flying out of my  mouth.

Fifteen minutes later I finally got on the road. Huffing and puffing from my workout, I spent the drive to school apologizing to him for what he heard, telling him that is not the best way to handle stress, and pleading for him not to EVER use those words.

In this brief morning that should have been filled with giddy bliss I embarrassed my 13 yr old, taught my 4 yr old creative cussin'  and gave myself the Mother of all Guilt trips. And we all know no one does guilt like a Mom.

A Merry and Colorful Christmas to you!

The presents are wrapped, the house is clean, the cookies for Santa are baked and the To Do list is dwindling to "Cooking for Christmas brunch". And watching the weather. And putting on our  Roll-With-It Vests. It seems we are having a bit of a winter storm, now rain to become snow at some point in the not too distant future. This does put a bit of a wrench into our plans, but the holiday isn't entirely controlled by us.   It's God's gift to us, so I have to trust that He knows what He's doing.

I can't say that I have been a big ol' bag of jolly this year. I get blue every Christmas. I know it's coming, and deal with it, but that doesn't change the feeling. Because of choices that we have made we live far from the family I was born into. I miss them and the traditions of my Connecticut childhood. It's not possible to have it all, so I try to fake it til I make it.

 I smile and list all the wonderful blessings that I do have.  Eventually the Dark Navy Blues fades to Cornflower, then Light Sky. I can manage Light Sky Blues. Hallmark commercials won't make me cry with Light Sky Blues. I don't want to sit on the sofa watching Happy Ending Lifetime Movies with Light Sky Blues. I can get on with my daily chores and responsibilities and life. I can be the happy mom decorating the house with silvers, reds and golds.

I know that without the Deep Navy Blues I can't appreciate life. I want to live a life of all the colors, the icky and the glorious. The rainbow of emotions is what make life interesting and comment worthy. It's how we learn and grow.

Today I wish you a day of  Warm Golds , Familiar Greens and Cheery Reds. I wish for you the color  of hope that  I see when I read this:


But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.



Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
 
 
Merry Christmas!!!!!
 
Love,
 
Susan

Making a list ,cutting it twice

I have this theory. That you can avoid having one of those out of control lives where you are merely treading water trying to survive instead of floating luxuriously. To achieve this lofty goal, to be able to enjoy the life you have, to savor each bite, all you have to do is be willing to prioritize and cut your to-do list. This theory states that if a high quality of life is what you are after, a simple snip snip to the list will give you that. Life enjoyed, instead of life survived.

It's only a working theory and a sucky one at that.

We do cut our list. When Noah said he was scared of Santa this year and didn't want to visit  him -- snip! We sent Santa an email instead. When we got two activity invites and we coulda done both, but it woulda been rushed...we snipped the second one that came in. When I found a great teacher gift from a crafty woman I know, I dropped " Bake Goodies" off my To Do list. All pretty much guilt free.

But it's Christmas time. Busytime. Mommy Crunchtime. Somethings can't be snipped. Some activities MUST be done. All three of the kids have parties and programs at different times. Luke still has basketball practice. homework still needs to be done. Laundry still is created. We still need to eat. Gifts to faraway family and friends need to be purchased, wrapped and sent. Gifts for those here need to be delivered. There are people we must see, places we must go and the pace is quick, and deliberate. I am enjoying the season this year, but I can't actually say I am luxuriating in it.  Thankfully my snipped To Do list is providing me with a floaty and I can easily handle and appreciate the pace.

I'm sure you are the same. You have similar To Do lists. Maybe you WANT to do it all. More power to ya! But, I'm sure you will understand  why the last time I was on here was right after Thanksgiving. For your viewing pleasure, here a few pictures of life since then.

May all of you be able to snip your lists without guilt and enjoy this time of the year!

We decorated the outside of the house

Got some livestock

Beks had her first middle school dance

We got the house ready for Christmas as we celebrate Advent!

Sure there are more, but what will I have to talk about the next time if I show you them now??

On Being Thankful

This past week saw us celebrating Thanksgiving. Nothing unusual about that but the holiday does force us to stop and think of things that we are thankful for. Children, health, family, faith, warm house,balanced checkbook, clean clothes, full table... sounds pretty common. Not that there is anything wrong with common. Common is sometimes very, very good. As is the case with my Thankful List.

This past week also had another celebration that most people do not stop to do anything for. Heck, most years we don't even stop to do anything special. But that is what makes me add yet something else to my Thankful List. This past week Brian and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary.

Ours is not one of those love stories that cause people to stop and take note. Heck, most people who watch us together might even wonder WHY. What did we see in each other all those years ago? Here is our story:

Brian and I met at work. We both had similar positions in different parts of the country. We worked in Marketing for Encylopaedia Britannica. Not sales, but we created sales opportunities and lead generating situations as well as planning educational and community building events in shopping centers. Spelling bees, Safety Cities, Story Times.. we would trade out high quality events for sales space in the malls. The hours were long, the travel was extensive and the position attracted 20 somethings who liked to get out of the office.

Brian had been promoted to a regional position, and I followed with my own promotion and took over part of his territory. My following meant that I had to move from Connecticut to Pittsburgh, PA. Brian was in Chicago. In my move I not only left behind my family and the area I had grown up in, but also the serious boyfriend that I had for 3 years. He was non-relocatable. Nor was he interested in a long distance relationship. It's safe, and simplest, to say that this  broke my heart. Brian was a nice voice on the phone who patched me back up and made me see that I wasn't broken. I had value.

He was in Chicago, I was in Pittsburgh and we often had dates at National Marketing meetings. Most of the time, however, was spent on the phone. After the first phone bill we had to decide if this was a long term relationship worthy of the expenditure. We had a few weekend dates, then he came to Connecticut for Christmas with my family. By then we knew that we got along, were compatible, were at the same point in our lives and, yes of course, we were in love. I moved to Chicago, got a job that didn't pay nearly as well but didn't require travel. He made room for me in the bathroom and gave me half the closet.

Our first official Date was November 16th, 1990. We were married the following November. He was 26, I was 28. We settled down to a very tumultuous first year, which was followed by several more without the drama before Bekah was born. And Brian got downsized for the first time. But not in that order.

The rest, as they say, is history. The 18 years since we have gone out once for our anniversary, to celebrate the completion of the first rocky year. I guess the following years were not rocky enough because we never did anything except exchange cards.

Up to this year. I can't blame a rough year, we didn't really have one. But this year, for some reason, Brian decided to break his no-gift streak and actually put thought into something for me. A three part gift signifying our life together. He is not experienced in gift giving, so if I tell you what it was you might not think it all that smooth. But to me, it was very sweet. Very thoughtful. Very loving. It made me very thankful.

Happy 18th, Brian.