14 Things

I have been a mother for 14 years.  To celebrate my 14 years of motherhood, here are fourteen (of many) things I love about MY mother.  I wouldn't be the mother - or the person - that I am if it were not for her.

My Mom and my Spencer

1.  She is beautiful, inside and out.

2.  She's a klutz, just like me.  No really, that's a good thing.  It's important not to feel alone.

3.  She loves to learn new things, and try new things, and isn't afraid to jump in with both feet each and every time.

4.  She is the best cook I know.  Her apple pie is beyond compare.

5.  She drops everything and comes running when I have gall bladder problems.  And kidney problems.  And babies.

6.  She's supportive of my choice to homeschool... or at the very least, she keeps any negative opinions to herself

7.  She raised me to have deep appreciation for good chocolate, good wine, good coffee, and God (not necessarily in that order)

8.  Once when I had a really, really bad day in high school, she let me take the next day off as a "mental health" day.

9.  She came to every concert, every recital, every play, and every sporting event... even if I was sitting on the bench the whole game.

10.  She moved across an entire country to be nearer to her children and her grandchildren.

11.  She made me wine glasses with elephants etched on them.

12.  She left me with a lifetime supply of inside jokes, funny memories, and crazy family stories.

13.  She treats my husband like her own son, and has done so ever since the first day I brought him home 20 years ago.

14.  She treats my kids with patience, kindness, and respect.  She gets down on the floor and plays with them, which is far and away more important to me than any of the above.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  I love you more than you know.  And Happy Mother's Day to ALL the mothers out there, and especially to those mothers whose babies are no longer with them, and to those mothers who are still waiting for their babies to arrive.   I am thinking of all of you today.



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To Everett, who's still brave and strong

Everett turns seven today. In honor of his birthday, I decided to write him a letter, just as I did for Tegan when she turned three, and will hopefully continue to do for all four going forward. 

To my sweet Everett,

Today's your birthday, which means I'm thinking of your birth story again.  It's always hard for me to re-visit that day, because it was one of the most truly frightening things I've ever experienced as a mother.  No mother ever dreams about her baby being born blue, not breathing, and not making any sounds.  No mother wants to watch, desperately praying, while doctors work to resuscitate her newest son.  It's still hard for me to look at those early early pictures, even after you were breathing well...  you looked so pale, so fragile.  I like the pictures that were taken a little later, after you'd finally been placed in my arms.  So alert, and so, so beautiful. 

I do think about that day though, and I do talk about it.  Mainly because you like to hear it so much. You love to hear, over and over, about your entry into the world.  You love to tell me how brave you were, and how strong, and how you started breathing because you couldn't wait to meet me. 

And I couldn't wait to meet you either.   How did I get so lucky to be blessed with a third son?

Everett, you inspire me.  In so many ways.  I love how excited you get to try something - anything - new.  I love how quick you are with a smile, and how you're even quicker with a hug.  I love how affectionate you are.  I love your sense of humor, and I love hearing you laugh.  I love your enthusiasm, how much you just love life.  I love that no matter what you're feeling... whether it's happiness, sadness, fear, or elation... that you let yourself feel it, and express it, fully.  I love how authentic you are.  I love how you're flat-out wrestling with your best friend one moment, and painting your fingernails the next.  I love your gap-toothed grin, and I love the way you lisp when you talk.

But mostly, I just love YOU.   I am forever grateful, and proud, to be able to call you my son.

I'm Officially Old

Spencer is fourteen as of two months ago. Last night, I was sitting at my computer, minding my own business, when he came in and asked me a question. This is not unusual for him - or for any of my children - especially in the evening. They're often wandering in and out, asking questions, chatting for a little while, then going back to their own projects.

What was unusual was the question. It was a big question. It was the question.

"Hey Mommy, how old were you when you started dating?"

Now I, of course, answered with immediate and unflinching honesty.

"Twenty seven. And I was 30 before I had sex."

No, what I really told him was the truth: that I'd officially started dating when I was around his age.

He was pleased with this information, and didn't miss a beat before asking, "Well when can I start dating?"

"When you're twenty seven."

But the fact was, I didn't have any magic age for him. Like anything else, I told him, it would happen when it happened. We'd deal with it together when the time came. That answer seemed to satisfy him, and he wandered out again... only to return about 18 seconds later.

"Mommy. How do you do that thing on Facebook? Where it says so-and-so is in a relationship with so-and-so?"

I laughed a little bit. I couldn't help it. He wanted to know how people made their relationship "Facebook official."

"It's just an option in your profile. You can go in and edit it, and then it just shows up."

He thought about that for a second. "Does the other person have to be on Facebook too?"

"No," I told him, "You can say you're in a relationship with anyone."

He left again. I chuckled. It's funny, this new age of dating. It's when he came back for a third time to ask, "So if I meet a girl, is it better if I get her email, or should I just get her number so I can text her?" that it hit me:

I'm old.

Not only am I old, but I'm also profoundly and hopelessly out of touch with the times. I have no idea how people date in 2011.   Now if he'd asked me how to fold up a note into a neat little triangle, I'd have been able to help him.  If he'd wanted to know about slipping said note into the slats of his beloved's locker, I'd have been all over it.  I could have even helped him make a mixed (cassette) tape of songs I'd recorded from the radio, and shown him how to wrap yarn around his class ring so it'd fit on his girl's finger.

But Facebook?  Texting?  Emails?  None of that existed when I was his age.   My gosh, was it THAT long ago?  I'm 37, not 87!    But alas, it's true.  It's a whole new world out there.   I was 14 over 20 years ago.  And because I met and married my now-husband when I was still in my late teens, I never knew the joys of waiting for a returned email (only the joys of waiting for a returned note to be passed in between gym and science class)  Never knew what it was like to have a picture instantly text to me (only what it was like to bring my film to the one hour photo developing place a week after I took them)  I never knew the sadness of having 200 friends watch at once as my relationship status changed in a blink from taken to single (only the humiliation of having to tell everyone, one at a time, until the word had passed... that yes, I'd been officially dumped again) 

Is one way better than the other?  Was I missing out on the wonders of communication that were yet to come?  Or is the other way around? 

I don't know the answer, but I do know that the realization of this gulf between my teenage son and my teenage self made me... tired.  The whole thing was making my head spin, and it was making me tired.

I'm old.

But the conversation wasn't over yet.  I'd already gone to bed to watch TV by the time he came to find me again.   "Mommy.  How do I set my phone to have a different ringtone for different people?  So like when I have a girlfriend, I can have a special song just for her?"  And finally I had a good answer, the answer that would give my poor old tired brain a rest from trying to wrap itself around the fact that the last time I was dating there was no such thing as Facebook, George Sr was president, and gas cost $1.50.

The phone that Spencer and Paxton share used to belong to Mike, and I have enough trouble with the intricacies of my own phone, let alone someone else's.  So it was with honesty - and relief - that I tenderly looked him in the eyes and said,

"You'll have to ask your father."  And so he did.

And I went off to sleep, dreaming of a simpler time.

Catapults

I have fond memories of sitting around the dinner table as a kid. We'd finish dinner, hang around talking, and inevitably start to do something like hanging spoons off our nose or bouncing things across the table. There was fun, and there was laughter. In fact, when I get together with my whole family, it's still like that, which is one of the biggest reasons I so look forward to Thanksgiving at my parents' house every year.

I was reminded of those memories last night.

Our kids have full reign of a house full of toys, books, and games. Three video game systems, five TVs, satellite, Netflix streaming... and the freedom to choose any or all of the above. Last night the youngest three chose a box of multi-colored craft sticks, and their imaginations. There was fun, and there was laughter.

So I grabbed the camera.

The Zoo

Phoenix Zoo, December 2005

Phoenix Zoo, April 2011

Pictured above are the boys at the zoo for their very first visit, one month after we moved here.... and at the zoo today - along with the girl - for their (??) visit.  It's still just as fun as it was 5 1/2 years ago.

Nostalgia

I had a post all planned for tonight. Got ready for bed, replaced my jeans with yoga pants, got a glass of water, got all settled in with my laptop.... and proceeded to stare at my screen. And stare some more. No words. I'm very much inside my head tonight. Not in a bad way, but in a I'm-so-distracted-I-can't-possibly-write-something-new kind of way.

I've been thinking a lot about the past, and about what brought us here. In lots of ways, I feel like the person that I am - and the family that we are - was not really born until we moved here to Arizona. Everett was just a baby when we moved, Paxton 5, and Spencer (who will be FOURTEEN the day after tomorrow) was 8. And we of course had no idea that we'd eventually have a Tegan. In more ways than one, we were different people when we moved. And for better or worse, our life together will now forever be divided into "before" and "after" that move.

In my little journey into the past, I went back to re-visit some old posts. This one from November 23rd, 2005 gave a recap of the week-long trip as we moved across the country. It was odd to read it, almost as if it'd been written by someone else. But I read it, and I remembered. Bittersweet is the word that comes to mind... such a big move for us, such a huge leap of faith, but one that we were so very very excited about.

Here is the post from that trip, the bridge between "before" and "after":

Day 1 - Departure

We planned to leave NH at 8:00 AM, and ended up leaving at 8:45. Not bad considering that it was a cold, rainy, dreary day. The first leg of the trip went incredibly smoothly. The boys slept off and on, and we rarely heard a peep from the animals. We had lunch in New York, and it was also somewhere in New York that I first noticed that our trailer swayed like crazy everytime a tractor trailer passed us. I vowed I wouldn't look back anymore, because it freaked me out, but of course it just made me look EVERY time. The drizzly sky finally completely opened up and poured on us as we entered Pennsylvania, and we all laughed as we ran through the rain into to PA Welcome Center. First overnight stop: Mifflinville, Pennsylvania. We got some sandwiches from Arby's, then spent the evening playing the bingo game that Paxton got in his kid's meal at lunch.

Day 2

We woke to freezing temperatures and snow. It snowed on and off all day, but thankfully never enough to delay our trip. We entered Ohio, and had lunch in Akron. There were tears in Akron too - lots of them - over where we were going to eat. A scene was made, and I think there's a distinct possibility that we won't be welcome at that Subway ever again. Ah, traveling with kids. Everyone felt a lot better after we ate, and we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset coming through Columbus. The boys broke out their gameboys after lunch, and I ate my way through a box of Junior Caramels while I read two more magazines and caught up on all my pop-culture news. We noticed a strange thump in the trailer, and couldn't figure out what it was. We were excited to see gas prices drop below $2.00, a very good thing since our 4Runner was barely making 11 MPG with the weight of the trailer. Second overnight stop: Dayton, Ohio. There was a Perkins right next to our hotel, so that fit the bill for dinner. We'd never eaten there before, but the boys and I were able to get pancakes, and Mike got some sort of meat, so we were happy. The hotel was NOT a four-star establishment, and I had to laugh each time I found something wrong.... a lamp that didn't work, a missing clock, a shower drain that didn't drain, and not even a single spare roll of toilet paper.

Day 3

This time we woke to the first casualty of the trip. My Christmas cactus, lovingly grown from a shoot from a plant that was originally my Grandmothers, was frozen dead in the truck. Our luck continued through the morning into Missouri. It was a boring stretch of highway, and a rough stretch of highway, so much so that I was starting to feel carsick. Everett was starting to get grumpy and bored, so I picked up a little chalkboard for him to play with. It kept him happily drawing for 20 minutes or so, until he found more creative uses for it, like bopping his big brothers in the head. It revived me a little bit to come into St Louis, and I took several pictures of the arch. It finally started to warm up a bit too, something that made us all happy. We played the alphabet game in the afternoon, and we got to "Z" just as we passed a Lake of the Ozarks sign. Third overnight stop: Lebanon, Missouri (at a much nicer hotel than the night before.) We rolled into the parking lot with less than a half a gallon of gas, checked in, and ordered a pizza. While we waited for dinner to arrive, the boys ran around the courtyard for a good half hour, waving their arms over their heads, shouting "We're freeeeeeeee!!"

Day 4

We had a rough, windy ride first thing in the morning, but it cleared up as the morning wore on. The boys played their gameboys, and I finished the second of the 4 books I brought with me. We crossed into Oklahoma, and had lunch in Tulsa. We saw our first official cowboy in Wendy's, complete with Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, hat and silver belt buckle. The boys were excited at lunch because they got new prizes in their kids' meals (we'd already eaten fast food enough times that they'd gotten some repeats) The day was going smoothly, if long, and we booked our hotel for the night. We were about 60 miles away from our destination, and I turned to Mike to tell him what good time we were making, how happy I was that we were ahead of schedule. BOOM. Or bang or pop or whatever words conjure up a dreadfully loud and sudden explosion sound. In the ten seconds it took me to realize we weren't in fact being shot at, but had blown a tire out on our trailer, Mike already had the truck under control and was maneuvering it onto the shoulder. Unfortunately it happened on the one of the worst possible places on the highway... a barely-there shoulder, a tight curve, and a 75 mph speed limit. We just sat in the truck for a minute, looking at each other, while tractor trailers zoomed by fast enough to make our teeth rattle. We did have a spare, but neither of us were comfortable with Mike changing a tire by himself on that section of road. We wanted a professional, preferably with flashing lights. We called AAA, who sent someone out, and it took about 20 minutes for him to arrive. It was dark by this time, and 2 of the 3 boys were crying, exhausted and freaked out. It was a quick fix once he got there; and ten minutes (and $120) later, we were on our again, stopping at a closer hotel than planned. Fourth overnight stop: Elk City, Oklahoma. We were exceedingly thankful to get there safe and sound, and the hotel room - complete with its hot pink sheets - was very inviting. I stayed with the baby, while Mike and the older boys ran out to pick something up for dinner. I found Racing Stripes on HBO, and thought they'd be excited about that when they got back. They were.

Day 5

Everett woke up hot with a fever, but with no other symptoms. I felt bad making him get in the car for another day of driving, but knew that he'd get the sleep he needed to fight whatever it was off. And sleep he did. We drove around most of the morning looking for someplace to buy another spare tire for the trailer, but it was a difficult feat being a Sunday when everything was closed. Walmart's tire center was open but did not have the right size. We took the chance while we were there to grab a few things we needed... snacks, baby tylenol, another magazine, new magnadoodles for the kids. The guy at Walmart sent us to a truck stop, also open, also wrong size. We finally found a service station that appeared to be open. The guy who worked there, called in on an emergency repair for somebody else, was gracious enough to help us. We were back on the road by 10:30 AM, and finally crossed into Texas. Lunch was at McDonalds in Amarillo. The boys wanted an icecream after lunch, and were bummed to find out that their icecream machine was broken. After lunch we crossed the border into New Mexico, and it was just as beautiful as I remembered it from the first trip. There's just something about the miles and miles of wide open spaces, mountains, and red rock buttes that's good for the soul. I love the southwest; I always have. The difference between this time and our trip in June is that in June it felt like a vacation, and this time it feels like going home. Fifth overnight stop: Albuquerque, New Mexico. The kids made me smile when they walked into our rather typical $60 a night hotel room and said, with all sincerity "Wow, what a great room!" We had dinner at an interesting cafeteria-style family restaurant in a not-very-nice part of town. We'd promised the boys icecream.... and the icecream machine was broken there too. We headed back to our hotel, and to the McDonald's sharing its parking lot, for icecream and another night of much needed rest. We pulled out the US map as we had every night so far, and marveled at how far we'd come.

Day 6

Everett's fever was thankfully of the 36 hour variety, and he woke up cool and happy and his usual stinker self. The older boys however woke up with their own unique versions of impending colds... Paxton a hacking cough, and Spencer a flurry of sneezes. We'd set the alarm for 7, but not being used to the time change we woke up at 5:45, ready to get going. We had our first really good cup of coffee of the trip when I spotted a nearby Starbucks. Mike ran in for them, and came back swearing that he was never going to Starbucks again.... too many complicated choices for a simple cup of coffee. We enjoyed a relaxing drive through the rest of New Mexico, and I finished my 3rd book of the trip in between drinking in all the scenery. We crossed into Arizona before noon, and began the long stretch of desert highway. Exits were few and far between, so when we stopped for a bathroom break, Mike decided to fill up the gas tank just in case. He was already up to $40 before he realized that the gas was almost FOUR DOLLARS a gallon. We shed our jackets sometime around lunchtime, and enjoyed the warm air. Lunch was at Denny's in Holbrook, and we decided to call it a nice early day. Last overnight stop: Flagstaff, AZ. We stayed at a nicer hotel than the previous ones, in a two-room suite, which was fitting for our last night of the trip. We got their at 4:00, enjoyed a complimentary cocktail social hour, gave the kids baths, ordered room service, and vegged out in front of the TV.

Day 7: Arrival day

We woke up early again, and were lounging around in bed watching the local news. Mike got a weird look on his face when he heard that it had dipped below 20 degrees overnight. I just stared at him until he said "Paxton's fish." It had been so warm in the evening, we hadn't thought about the fact that we were in the mountains and that it might get cold at night. Paxton's fish - who'd made it completely across the country just fine - had been left in the truck in the cold, and didn't make it. We'd brought him into the hotel with us the nights we knew it was going to get cold, but were fooled by the warm Arizona evening. We felt HORRIBLE. Paxton was of course sad, but handled it better than either one of us would have expected. He seemed as excited as the rest of us that it was our last day of driving, and that we were only 3 hours away from our new home. We fueled up at a nice breakfast buffet, complete with belgian waffles, and let Everett run up and down the corridors while Mike loaded up the truck. We took it easy on the 2 hour drive down to Anthem, both because we didn't want to blow another tire and plummet off the side of the mountain, and because our overloaded trailer didn't let us do otherwise. The views coming down into Phoenix were, as we remembered, spectacular.

We got to my sister's house at noon, and it was like no time had passed between us.. certainly not 4 months. We chatted and visited, and the kids wasted no time getting down to the business of playing with their cousins. It was warm and sunny and happy, and it felt good just to be there. We called our realtor and set up a time to meet her at our house. As we drove down to Tempe, I was literally so excited that I thought I was going to hyperventilate. I had to keep telling myself, and the kids (who were nearly bouncing off the ceiling) to calm down. We underestimated how much time it would take to get there, and we were 15 minutes late meeting the realtor. The house was very easy to find off the highway, and the area was just as she'd promised - a nice, clean, beautiful family neighborhood. She promised we wouldn't be disappointed, and we were not. One misconception I think people have about Arizona in general is that everything is drab and brown, and it's just not. As we drove into the development there was green grass and palm trees, petunias and marigolds, and a whole bunch of gorgeous blooming bushes that I've yet to learn the name of. It was everything we'd hoped for... and if it hadn't been for the occasional crying, the fever, the blown-out tire, and the dead fish, the trip would've been too perfect. We made it safely across the country together, and it's all good.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

In his book Walden (one of my all-time favorites), Henry David Thoreau says, "Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify, simplify!" With Thoreau in mind, along with my recent and nearly overwhelming sense of being suffocated by stuff, I have been slowly and systematically re-making my house and my life.

Ten years ago, we moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, and faced a long interim with a job but no housing. We eventually found and purchased a house, but of course the time between finding and closing was considerable. We stayed with my sister for awhile, stayed with my parents for awhile, and stayed at a campground for awhile. I've been thinking a lot about that tiny little camper we lived in... just us and a 2 year old Spencer. It was an undeniably stressful time (living in a state of limbo is a difficult thing to do), but it's a time I'm remembering with increasing nostalgia.

It was just so simple. Mike would go off to work in the morning, and I'd have the day to spend with my boy. The camper just had the bare necessities, so it would take 20 seconds to have things clean and ready for the next day. We'd head outside as soon as we ate breakfast, and walk down to the playground. We'd draw in the sand, go down the slide, dawdle by the edge of the road and collect pine cones. We'd make a daily adventure out of going to the post office to get our mail. We'd make a campfire at night, and ate dinner on our laps.

We weren't bombarded with phone calls and emails, with rooms and rooms of toys and books and old broken things that no one can even identify anymore. We washed our dishes by hand and never had to deal with a dishwasher that malfunctioned more often than it should.

We lived.

Life is good now, but it is so different from the way it was that I hardly recognize that young family in my mind. It's been clouded with details. And surely this house, SO crowded with all these unnecessary things can't belong to those same people?? I don't want to live in a campground again - although I admit to some sincere fantasies about moving us all to a log cabin in the middle of nowhere - but I want to have that feeling again. I want to simplify.

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.”

16 Years

August 7th, 1993:

Green Beans and Memories

Last night the boys snapped the green beans for dinner.


The last time I saw my grandmother before she died was at my parents' house. We were all there for the weekend, and we barbequed, played outside, and took the kids to a local orchard for fruit, rides, and caramel apples. It was a nice weekend. It was also the weekend I first suspected I was pregnant with Everett, and hadn't yet told anyone. But what I'm remembering, what I will always remember when I see fresh green beans, is my grandmother.


Like lots of grandmothers, she so enjoyed taking care of her children and grandchildren. She always kept busy in the kitchen, always prepared wonderful things. Even that weekend, when she was becoming increasingly slowed by her failing health, there was no denying her need to help.

Her assignment that day was the green beans. I can still see her sitting at Mom & Dad's little round wooden table... slowly, deliberately, and happily - always so happy to serve others - snapping those green beans. I have a lot of lovely memories of my grandmother, but that one stays the most vivid in my mind and in my heart... maybe because it was the last time I saw her, maybe because it was one of those little things that truly exemplified her giving spirit. Whatever the reason, I thought of it last night as my own boys prepared the green beans. It made me smile just to watch them, and I know that if she was watching, she was smiling too.