Letter to a Mother

Steph recently blogged about this amazing project, called The Mother Letter Project. A husband and wife promised each other no monetary gifts this holiday season, so he's set out to collect letters to his wife, from one mother to another. It's beautiful, and I can't imagine how blessed she'll feel for this gift. If you submit your letter prior to Christmas, you'll receive an electronic copy of all the letters. How wonderful is that? So go, submit!


Dear Mother,

Maya Angelou once said, "You did then what you knew how to do and when you knew better, you did better." This is being a mother. No one knows how to be a mother. Sure, we glean information from friends or from our own mothers, but mostly, we forge this path alone.

Maybe you don't always know what to do with a skinned knee or how to handle it when your baby is sick, but you'll do it with the grace of someone who knows just what to do--even if you're scared.

It's not always easy. Sometimes the fear will get the better of you, and you'll find yourself in tears, wondering what you could have changed. You'll doubt yourself, you'll wonder if you're really fit to be called a mother. But you are. In time, you will become a mother in ways you never dreamed, just by doing what you know how to do--even if you make it up as you go along.

This is a beautiful journey. It is filled with love and laughter, happy smiles and bright eyes. Take the time to enjoy it, to sit back and breathe it in. Smell your children's hair, count fingers and toes, and don't be afraid to let the world stop spinning just for a few hours, just to bask in the greatest gift of all.

Love,
Erin

Blessings

These days where we're almost forced to step back and count our blessings are the best. I am thankful for so many things this year!

+ My husband. I won't get in to everything now, but suffice to say, he has been wonderfully patient and understanding lately. He's let me go to bed at 8 if I need to, without even bothering to clean the house. He cooks fabulous dinners every night and never so much as complains about doing the dishes. He's an amazing Dad, and I love listening to him play with Luke.

+ Luke is great. Even though he was up all night last night coughing, I'm blessed that he's a pretty healthy little guy. He's growing in leaps and bounds and every day learning new words. I am so lucky to call him mine.

+ Friends. New, old, and yet to be made, friends are amazing. I have some of the best.

+ Although I might complain about my job, I know I'm blessed to have one to go to, one that allows me to pay the bills, buy clothes, and every now and then, splurge on a little something for myself.

+ This blog. Really! I've met so many great people here, and I've found such a happy, healthy way to vent and share. Thank you to all of you who keep me going.

+ Last, but certainly not least, BACON. Unfortunately, today's meal does not include bacon, but I am thrilled to tell you that one of my students gave a $40 gift certificate to Heavenly Ham (first time ever that I've gotten a THANKSGIVING present!). Now, Shane won't get a ham there because they are precooked, so HELLO $40 worth of bacon! I have thoughts of making myself a bacon dress and eating my way out of it. Is that weird?

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you have a wonderful day, and I hope you have much to be thankful for as well!

This photo was taken Thanksgiving last year. It's hard to believe how he's grown from a baby to a boy.

Wordless Wednesday: My Dishwashers

Feel Like Bacon Love

I need to attend a 12-step program for my bacon addiction. It's disgusting. Seriously disgusting. I love turkey bacon, I love bacon bacon, I even love the fake no meat in it bacon. I just love all things bacon. Is it Jim Gaffigan who has the bit about loving bacon so much that he'd eat bacon wrapped bacon? I don't know if it's Jim Gaffigan or if I'm thinking it is because I love Jim Gaffigan, but at any rate, it's so me. I could eat bacon wrapped bacon. I could eat an entire PLATE of bacon, then go back for seconds. And thirds.

I recently heard about bacon ice cream, and while I feel I should be appalled at the joining of bacon and ice cream, I'm not. Rather, I feel it's the perfect dessert to pair with my dream meal of bacon appetizers followed by a bacon entree.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), my husband--you know, the guy who does all the cooking--doesn't care for bacon that much, so we don't eat it very often. So, there's my confession. I know bacon is disgusting. I know that grease pours out of it when you cook it, but I love it. My guilty pleasure is not alcohol (although I do really like alcohol) or tobacco or gambling. My guilty pleasure is bacon. If bacon was illegal, I'd be heavily involved in the bacon black market. You'd find me hunched over in a dark room, shoveling it in my mouth. Actually, that thought isn't too far from what I'd like to be doing right now...

The Pledge

I took the pledge to buy handmade for Christmas this year, and so far, I am loving it! I really haven't spent that much more money, but I've found items that are so much more unique than anything I'd buy at a mass retailer.

I know that some of you support this same cause, so I thought I'd share some of the gems I've found this season. But only if you promise to share the gems you've found as well, because I'm not quite done with my Christmas list!

My one sister is getting a Junk Metal sculpture for her garden. I am so love in with his stuff! It's artistic plus eco-friendly. The best part is that I discovered that he lives only ten minutes from me, so I was able to pick up in person and skip out on shipping. Score! Even if he hadn't, I would've happily paid shipping for such a creative gift.

My niece is getting a nonny & boo Garden hoodie. My other niece got one for her birthday and loves it so much that I had to buy another. Luke has a nonny & boo Monster hoodie, and we get so many compliments on it. Ashlee also has an etsy shop.

My other sister just got a Basset Hound, so she will be getting a Puzzimal, personalized with her new dog's name.

Friends with babies are definitely getting a pair of shoes from Kiddie Winkles. And because Keely loves me so much, she's giving any of you 10% off at her store with the code charpie. How can you beat that?

I'm not entirely sure if this counts as handmade, but I'm going to venture a guess and say it does because it's through support of a local, independent business. Both grandparents will be getting photos, courtesy of our recent photo shoot with Beth Fletcher Photography. That is, if I can bring myself to tackle the daunting task of narrowing down which photos I like the best by Christmas! It's going to be a tough choice.

Luke is getting some more blocks from Barclay Blocks. This company is right down the road from us, so again, shipping fee waived! The blocks are really high quality, and I feel safe knowing they have nothing nasty on them when Luke starts to use the blocks as chew toys.

As for me, I'm getting a new wreath from Golden Flower Creations. Our fall wreath from her shop is about to be retired, so I'm thrilled to get a new wreath just in time for Christmas.

Unfortunately, I can't share all of the gems I've found because I'd spoil presents for a few people! So now it's your turn. What are buying this holiday season?

Winner!

Here are your random numbers:

25

Timestamp: 2008-11-22 02:41:48 UTC

Congratulations to Jen of Mommy Instincts who was the lucky winner of the Kiddie Winkles shoes!

And since you are all winners, even if you didn't win the shoes, you can get your very own pair for 10% off by using the code 'charpie' at checkout. Not bad! Thanks to everyone who entered.

TGIFFinally

This week has been trying. Really trying. I'm exhausted. Truly, utterly exhausted, to the point where I fall into bed at 8:30 every night. Once Luke is asleep, I'm asleep. And speaking of Luke, my usual happy sweet boy has been abducted. He is replaced by a drooling, screaming, crying, hitting monster who has four sharp, giant molars about to erupt through his gums. As a result, he wants to nurse nurse nurse, and mama wants to cry cry cry. I canceled on plans last night because he was such a wreck that I felt awful leaving him with Shane. I thought about canceling my hair appointment tonight, but no. I need this. I need the head and neck massage. I need to put my feet up and get new highlights and just relax. Lsat night, he woke up crying at 2AM, which he hasn't done in ages. My head is swimming this morning.

Wednesday, I had a student behave so rudely. Much more rudely than I've ever had a student behave (except for when I was seven months pregnant and a kid ran into me, then swore at me), so much so that I took her out in the hallway and yelled at her. And I feel awful. Really, horrible, bottom of my stomach awful because I don't like to yell at kids. I could say that she yelled at me first, but I'm the adult here, and I shouldn't yell, no matter how many buttons are pushed. Thursday, I spent all of 9th hour in Guidance with this same student, who insisted I was bullying her. Not because I yelled at her, but because I didn't believe her when she said I wasn't allowed to give her a tardy and she would tell my principal on me. She was completely, totally lying about the tardy issue, but STILL. When I spoke to her in Guidance, I said, "I'm really sorry for yelling, I shouldn't have done that. But I hope you can understand that even if you thought you were right in saying that you didn't deserve a tardy, you came across as very rude and disrespectful." She still insisted that she was not and is merely opinionated, without so much as an apology to me. She wouldn't even look at me. This is a girl who, just a month ago, asked if she could call me mommy because I was so nice to her. I won't even go into the whole sordid story of why I yelled at her, but suffice to say, she probably did deserve. That doesn't make me feel any better about it, though. It's like those days when you're short with your child, and you feel awful about it later. Only I have 100 children, and they can all be intensely irritating, yet I still love them and want the best for them.

Sorry for such an emo blog. I promise I'll be back to myself on Monday. I feel like less of a human lately. Like I need a really big hug or a spa day or time to just sit and giggle with someone, because I've forgotten what it's like to not be burned out. Sometimes I joke about yelling and scaring 8th graders, but I don't like it. Of course if I have an entire class out of control, I yell at them to settle down and knock it off, but that's not singling out anybody. Lately, I've felt so worn down by this job that I can't imagine doing it for the rest of my life. I guess I just haven't had that moment this year, the one where I feel like I know why I'm a teacher. I hope it's still out there.

Do My Work, Please!

After the holiday break, I always start a poetry unit. Poetry is my favorite, and it's an easy follow-up to the research project of DOOM which is done before Christmas. The research project of DOOM results in my students working really hard and me grading eleventy-billion essays that by and large disregard everything I've taught them.

At the start of the poetry unit, I teach poetic terms and literary devices, and then to emphasize these, we do a Music is Poetry lesson. In the past, I've played the song "The Wind Cries Mary" and have the students go through and identify all uses of similes, metaphors, personification, etc. This song is an excellent choice because it is chock full of them, as even the title is a personification. That said, this song is not an excellent choice because every year, I hear choice comments such as, "Wasn't Jimi Hendrix a drug addict? Are you telling us it's okay to do drugs?" To which I say, "Yes kids, now shut up and go smoke some crack!" Also, I have yet to find a recording that doesn't sound like it was being sung into a tin can at the end of a wind tunnel.

This is where I turn to you and say, "Help me, internet, you're my only hope!" Can you think of any songs that demonstrate a wide-range of literary devices, such as figurative language, that are also school appropriate? I started looking through Sufjan Stevens' songs last year, and then I just got lazy and played Jimi Hendrix again. Please, please, send any suggestions my way! They can be old songs, new songs, whatever, I don't care, I just want to demonstrate to my students that poetry isn't just written by old dead people, that they can poetry in anything.

Wordless Wednesday: First Snow

Yesterday morning, we woke up to a lot of unexpected snow! As a general rule, I hate snow, but going out to play with Luke in the afternoon made me like it a little bit more (but only a little bit).

(I hate that I leave for work when it's still dark!)

One Hundred!

Somehow, someway, I've managed to come up with enough inane rambles to fill one hundred posts. I am amazed at this because I really thought that when I went back to work, I'd be so busy that this blog would gather dust, until I finally just deleted it. Luckily, I realized that it's a wonderful way to keep myself sane, and I've also met some really great people this way.

So, to mark my hundredth post, I could tell you one hundred things about myself. But wait, I'm really self-centered and already did that.
I could keep you on the edge of your seats by telling you my most secret, scandalous, and sordid story, but wait, I already did that.
I could discuss how much I love alliteration, but you may have gathered that from the above sentence.
I could also tell you about how I have a really weird thing about toes and toenails in particular, but toes are kind of an icky topic. (Sorry, foot fetishists.)

So what's a girl to do? I know! A giveaway! I love freebies and contests, especially with the holidays just around the corner.

I have a pair of Kiddie Winkles soft leather shoes to give away to one lucky reader. Before Kiddie Winkles, Luke was strictly a Robeez kid, but I've pretty much broken that addiction. Her shoes are wonderful, soft, AND you can choose the color and embroidery. Keely of Kiddie Winkles is insanely flexible, so if you don't see what you want, she's often willing to see what she can do. Her shoes range from the newborn to 18-24 months, which is great. Even if you don't have little feet to fit these shoes, they would make a great holiday or baby shower gift (in fact, I won't complain if you win and give a pair to me).

These gorgeous blue birdie shoes are my personal favorites, but if you win, you get your choice of shoe color, embroidery, and size.


To enter, just leave a comment detailing one hundred great things about me. Just kidding! All you need to do is leave me a comment. If you want to throw in something about how great I am, I'm not past rigging the contest so you win (kidding again!). Want extra entries? Follow me on twitter and twitter about this contest. You can also link to this contest in your blog, and finally, following my blog will earn you an extra entry. Just make sure you leave me a comment if you do any of the above.
Winner will be drawn at random on November 21. Good luck!

Oh, Motrin

I am often confused when large companies take a stance against the very people to whom they should be marketing. For example, when Victoria's Secret initially came out against breastfeeding in their stores. Sure, Victoria's Secret doesn't sell nursing bras, but women who breastfeed will eventually be buying non-nursing bras. Same with Motrin. Regardless of whether or not babywearing is trendy (and that statement makes me cringe because of course, it's okay to be trendy and fashionable, but surely there are reasons beyond that to wear a baby), a lot of women do it. A lot of women who were likely to buy Motrin products. So why the commercial? Watching it, I couldn't help but wonder if it was meant to be funny, but went too far. What I would love to see in the next few days is not necessarily Motrin yanking the ad, apologizing, then slinking into the corner. I'd love for this to turn into a discourse on how to relieve back pain when you have a newborn (because wow, I had horrible back pain after Luke was born), how to make sure that you're wearing your baby correctly, and other topics that would be so helpful for new moms to learn. I would also love to hear Motrin explain their intent. When I first heard about this last night, it didn't seem like such a thing, until I actually viewed the ad and read the text. The tone of the ad was insulting, not to mention that it supplied incorrect information.

The first time I wore Luke, I wasn't using the most comfortable of options, but it was still love--for both of us.

Even Dad got in on it, when he realized that babywearing meant free hands for beer.

I still love wearing Luke in our wrap, and I can't wait to have another baby to wear in a (much more comfortable) sling!

On a random non-Motrin note, I had a fabulous night out last night with a fun group of girls involving men in dresses and (sometimes frightening) swimwear. I also managed to take not one, but TWO naps this weekend. Does it have to end?

Seven Seasonal Sensations

Darcy at Such the Spot recently did this meme, and I couldn't resist! The gist is that I share seven things about me that relate to the holidays. You read them and agree that my seven items are awesome, then you share yours. Fun, right?

1. I really don't ever want a white Christmas, yet I often get it. I know that's horrible and awful of me. Christmas purists, feel free to come beat me up, but I just really dislike snow. Yes, it looks pretty, but it's SO cold. And inevitably, as we spend Christmas Eve dashing from my grandpa's, to church, to Shane's parents, I end up with a shoe full of snow. Perhaps this is my fault for dressing improperly by wearing open-toed shoes on December 24th, but I fail to see why the weather can't cooperate with me a little bit better.

2. I love love love Starbucks holiday drinks. I love them so much that I can tell you that the drinks came back on Election Day, and I was so overjoyed to have my Peppermint Mocha Twist that it was like there was a party in my mouth. I just wish they were fat-free.

3. I really don't like turkey. As I'm typing this, I realize that I sound like a real holiday JERK what with my snow and turkey hating attitudes, but let me assure you, I have a good reason for hating turkeys. I grew up in the country, and when I was little, we had chickens and turkeys. This one turkey hated me. You might think that turkeys don't have the capacity to hate, OH BUT THEY DO. When I was four, every time I would go outside to play, this monster of a turkey would corner me and peck at me. Being that I was all of four, the turkey was roughly the same size as me. Our fights would always end with me crying, and my mom chasing the turkey away with a broom. I realize that I just made my childhood sound like "The Beverly Hillbillies" with my mom chasing a turkey around with a broom, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I have a really good reason for not liking turkey. Logic would say that I should like to eat turkey because at least the turkey is dead, but no. Dead or alive, I hate it. The only time in recent history I've eaten turkey was a sandwich 20 minutes after Luke was born, and that doesn't count because I would've eaten a piece of plaster at that point.

4. That said, I very much enjoy a myriad of other holiday foods. There are things that I must eat around the holidays, even if I don't eat them the rest of the year. I love stuffing and pies, of course. My favorite holiday food are these fabulous rolls my mom makes. They're called butterhorns, and she makes every little bit of them from scratch. It takes hours for the dough to rise, then you have to cook them and brush them with butter, but oh my word, they melt in your mouth. Due to my turkey boycott, I mainly fill up on delicious, delicious carbs during Thanksgiving dinner.

5. I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas. I really hate the materialism of it, but on the flipside, I really love giving special gifts to loved ones. I also really love the magic of the holiday. I love Christmas Eve church, and I LOVE Christmas music. My favorite Christmas album is Songs for Christmas by Sufjan Stevens. My favorite type would be the traditional, religious carols, my favorite being "O Holy Night," especially the Tracy Chapman version.

6. I've never had a fake Christmas tree. Growing up, we'd cut a tree out of our woods. Now we usually get one from Shane's parent's house. Last year, we tried a live tree, where you get a smaller tree in a pot, then plant it outside. Unfortunately, our little tree died, despite assurances from the man at the nursery that it'd be fine, so I don't think we'll do that this year.

7. My favorite holiday decoration is my Willow Tree nativity scene. I collect Willow Tree angels, and I worked on getting this entire set for a few years. I put it up the day after Thanksgiving, and I usually keep it up through most of January because I just can't bear to put it away. See how pretty it is?


Now that you've waded through mine, what are your seven things about the holidays?

Wordless Wednesday: C'est Moi

So, I feel a little (okay, a lot) vain posting a photo of myself for WW, but I so very rarely like photos of myself. But I like this photo. Normally I spend forever trying to pose in such a way that doesn't make me look as though I have 20 chins, but for this photo, Beth said my name, I turned, and she snapped it before I even had a second to think about those 20 chins.


Photo by Beth of Beth Fletcher Photography

Wanted: Real Job

When stay/work-at-home moms take affront to those think that they spend all day sitting on the couch, eating bon-bons, I always nod my head in solidarity. Not because I am one, but because I know what it’s like to have someone insist that your job isn’t a job (and I know that motherhood is a full-time job!). I respect the work that every single person does, and I bet that every job in this world is difficult in many ways (except for my dream job of professional wine and chocolate taster).

In fact, today one of my little lovelies raised his hand and said, “Why do teachers complain about not making enough money? I mean, if you want to get paid more, then you should’ve found a JOB where you have to work all year!”
Let me tell you, a soapbox materialized under my feet and by the time I was finished, one student stood up and clapped, while the rest just stared, open-mouthed, wondering if I’d finally lost my mind.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, and it surely won’t be the last. Indeed, if I had a dollar for every time I heard some generic statement about teachers having an easy job, it’d make up for what my paychecks are lacking! And every time I hear it, I want to invite that person to spend a day in my shoes.

During the course of a school day, I’m a teacher. I’m also a counselor, because in middle school, not a day goes by that there isn’t a crying girl. You think I’m exaggerating? Trust me, with 60 or so girls on a team, at least one is bound to cry before the day is over. I’m a critic, as I grade stacks and stacks of essays. I’m a leader, as I conduct my team meetings every day (can you believe someone trusted me with a position of power, no matter how minute it is?). I’m a learner myself, as the students often ask me questions that I have to look up, before I can definitively answer them. I’m a mediator, as I field rude and often dismissive parent emails (seriously, when you email your child’s teacher about missing work, don’t accuse him/her of losing your child’s work. It happens, but it’s rare). When the day ends, I very rarely just go home. I take home papers, lessons, I work on new ideas. My job doesn’t end when the bell rings.

Yes, I get the summer off, but do you know what I do during the summer? I go to curriculum meetings, I rework old lessons, and soon enough, I’ll be taking college courses to renew my license (which I must do, yet pay for out of my own pocket). Sure, there are days that I do nothing, and those days are blissful. Not only are they blissful, but they are necessary. Can you imagine spending a straight year with 8th graders? I joke that I’ve lost my mind, but if that really happened, I WOULD lose my mind. No doubt about it! I love my job, but I need the summer to refresh and recharge, to get ready to face another year.

So if this isn’t a real job, then I guess I’m glad I’m a teacher. And if you still don’t believe me that it’s hard, that it’s real, then I’d love to trade jobs with you, just for one day. Especially if you happen to be a professional wine and chocolate taster.

Thoughts From My Husband

Today we have been accosted three times for a food drive. Once at the grocery store, twice at our front door. Each time, we've graciously given cans of food, but apparently, the third time pushed my husband over the edge and as the boys left, he turned to me and said:
"You know what? Food drives are great, but why is it always at this time of year? What about the needy in the summer? Who cares about them then? I'm pretty sure there are poor people in JULY."

I am dying over here, because while I'm usually the one spinning in circles, ranting and raving about whatever strikes my fancy, he's so calm. But not today. Today, my husband would like you to know that, yes, there ARE poor people in July.

There's a light at each end of this tunnel, you shout

This week I've had one mantra running through my head. Breathe, just breathe. It's been one of those weeks, for about a million different reasons.

Shane's dad had a double knee replacement surgery on Monday (Shane's birthday). The surgery went well, but afterward, he had shortness of breath and ended up in the ICU. All tests came back negative, so they think it was a minor reaction to anesthetic, but still. Stressful. We went up there, and Luke and I stayed in the family room since Luke is too young for the ICU. Since then, we've spent every night either going to the hospital or to Shane's parents' house to take care of their dog. We've eaten fast food every night this week, and we are not a fast food family. I feel like I need to eat nothing but raw veggies for a week to detox.

Tuesday was Election night, and regardless of your thoughts on the outcome, I think we can all agree that it was an overwhelming end to a rollercoaster of an election year. Thank goodness those only come up every four years!

Yesterday was a long day. I was exhausted from staying up way too late on Tuesday, plus running around every night. Oh, and then there's the part of my day that consists solely of 8th graders. We had some discipline issues with a student, and I finally sat her down and said, What is WRONG? She looked at me with tear-filled eyes and said, "I feel like I'm breaking apart inside." She told me about losing her 4 month old baby cousin and how she thinks of him every day, especially with the the holidays coming. She said she doesn't want to talk to her parents because she doesn't want them to worry about her. I told her that as a parent, I would worry more if I found out down the road that my child felt like that, and I wasn't able to do anything to help them. We talked about her feelings and how to deal with grief, and I made sure that she will talk to the counselors, who will in turn talk to her parents, because they need to know.
It's hard sometimes, because you carry this job home with you. You come home with a heavy heart at what 14 year olds have to handle, and it's hard. So hard.

But I know that she will get through this, and I will help her. And I know that this week is almost over. Tomorrow, Shane and I are going out for his birthday. What Shane doesn't know is that I've contacted some of our close friends to show up and join us at the restaurant. I thought he could use a surprise after what would be a long week (watch this be the one time EVER that Shane decides to read my blog), and I know it will be a good night. This week has been a struggle, but tomorrow will be full of laughter and friends.

And next week? Maybe I can breathe.

Many Faces

I always tell Luke that I love his face. While I mean that in the simplest of manners, in that I love every part of him, including his face, I also mean that I love his faces. From the day he was born, he's been full of expression, from the early grumpy old man looks to his first smile when we learned that he had DIMPLES, I've been loving it from day one.

As he grows, so do his expressions, and the ever changing myriad of Luke faces make me smile.
There's the intense stare, which I rather think resembles a Buckingham Palace Guard.

There's the sleepy-faced baby boy, this face usually followed by a "night night."

There's the playful face, often accompanied with running or yelling.


There's the happy face, where you just know that he's glad you're there.


The intent face, when nothing else matters but the task at hand.


And my favorite, absolute favorite, the safe face. The one that tells me that he knows that he is loved and protected. The one that we should all be lucky to make every once in awhile.


Photos by Beth of Beth Fletcher Photography

Wordless Wednesday: Trainspotting

Luke loves trains, so much so that when the world's longest freight train went past us on Sunday, it pretty much made his day.

Photo by Beth of Beth Fletcher Photography

And Here I Thought They Were Mine!

With each day that passes, it seems that Luke's verbal skills increase more and more. And with each day that passes, he says something so silly that I just can't help but laugh. And sometimes shake my head. Sunday night was definitely a head shaking moment.

We went out for a dual-purpose dinner on Sunday. Shane's parents wanted to take him out for his birthday, but since his dad had double-knee replacement surgery yesterday, he was obviously unable to go out on Shane's birthday. Also, due to the aforementioned surgery and the fasting involved, Shane's dad wanted to eat a giant slab of ribs. We went to Smokey's, which looks like a dive but has amazing ribs. Or so I'm told, because I'm such a prissy girl that I can't stand to eat foods that involve getting sauce all over myself. I can attest that the pulled pork sandwiches are wonderful, and the homemade pies are full of sugary goodness. But I digress, because this story has a point, and the point was not to share my culinary likes and dislikes (but for those of you playing along at home, I like sugar and hate messy).

I was wearing a hoodie over a t-shirt because the weather is unseasonably made of awesome right now, and when we got settled in at our table, I took the hoodie off. This somehow prompted Luke to jab his finger into my chest and loudly proclaim, "MY num nums!" followed by the proudest smile and head nod you have ever seen. I should mention that my in-laws are very freaked out by toddler nursing, but even so, Luke's proclamation drew quite the laugh out of them.

AND THEN, after claiming my breasts for his very own, Luke proceeded to eat half my sandwich and ALL of my pecan pie. I can handle a toddler staking his claim to my cleavage, but my pie? That one hurt.

Wonder

Sometimes I look at my little family, and I wonder how they're really mine, how I'm so lucky to have them.





Today is this guy's birthday, and every year on his birthday, I think--selfishly--how grateful I am that he was born and that we found each other.


Amazing photos by Beth of Beth Fletcher Photography.
Although I was excited to get our pictures taken yesterday, I have to be honest and say that I was even more excited to meet Beth! She was warm, funny, and connected so well with Luke (so much that he kept grabbing her hand instead of mine!). Shane hates photography so much that he's considering becoming Amish just to avoid it, but when he left, he told me that he thought Beth did an excellent job because she didn't make us pose, or turn our heads a certain way, she just let us be us. From my photography hating husband, that's about the highest compliment you can receive, as his usual response is AARGH CAMERAS BLARGH.

Of Love

My grandparents were married for an amazing sixty years. Having been married for only three, this number seems impossibly high to me. It’s not that I can’t imagine still being married to my husband after all those years, but it’s that I am simply in awe of the thought waking up next to the same person after all those years.



But what my grandparents taught me was not about the importance of a long marriage, but rather, the importance of love. The kind of love that moves mountains, the kind of love that saves you, and yes, the kind of love that knows when to let go.

The last few years of their marriage were not easy. My grandmother suffered from dementia, and as time continued on, her mind began to deteriorate. Slowly at first, then swiftly, as she lost names and the ability to dress herself. Once, I stayed with her in the evening because my grandfather had to be somewhere, and she pleaded with me to take her home. We were at her house, but this wasn’t what she meant. She wanted to go home; to the house where she grew up because she insisted that her parents and sister were waiting for her. I didn’t know what to say, and I knew that telling her they were long dead wouldn’t matter, so I suggested we go for a walk. We walked past my aunt’s house, and she told me her daughter lived there, and asked if I knew her.

This loss, this absence of my grandmother was heartbreaking to me, so much that I couldn’t imagine my grandfather’s pain. Yet, he was there for her every day, wanting so much for the day when she would turn her sparkling blue eyes on him and remember, remember everything that they had once had. I don’t know if she ever did, but I do know that she once wrote him a note thanking him for taking such good care of her, for being her special friend. She wrote that she loved him. He still has the note in his wallet.

Toward the end, my grandmother was very ill. She eventually lapsed into an unresponsive state, but she continued to hang on, despite the odds. See, every day, my grandpa would visit her and every night, as he left her side, he’d tell her to get well. He’d tell her that soon, she’d be able to come home with him. Until one night, when he said, “Nancy, it’s okay. You can let go. I’ll be okay without you.” The next morning, before the sun was even close to kissing the sky, she let go.

I’ve thought of this story so many times, and it never fails to give me chills when I think of her selflessness in hanging on for him. And of his, in telling her it was okay to let go.




That look touches every corner of my heart