Silas is golden

Dear Silas,

Recently, I made the mistake of telling you the story of you, including my initial desire of wanting a girl.

You know, so that as siblings, you could do all the things sisters do ...

Share a room ...

And secrets ...

And hand-me-down-clothes.

Turns out you didn't have any idea what I was talking about.

You heard "I wanted a girl," and that was it.

Heartbreak.

It wasn't like that. You weren't a disappointment. You were a happy surprise. I had no experience with brothers, and no idea what an amazing experience having a boy can be.

You were a wonder six years ago today. You are a wonder still.

I know you probably can't take my word for it. My words are always be tangled up with convoluted thoughts

But, as a dear friend once said: "Silas is golden."

And that's pretty much how I've thought of you ever since.

If you don't believe it's true, you can see for yourself.


Love,

Mommy.

Take five, clown

"Hey, mom! Look! I made a balloon animal all by myself."



"I'm going to tell Tots the Clown she can take a break now."

Normal findings

*********
I wrote this six months ago, but I couldn't bear to publish it then. Superstition perhaps? I don't know.
But it's been a year now, and today the findings are still normal. The voice in my head is calmer. I can let it go.

**********

“What are you going to do today?”

And so begins the game.

Twenty questions.

“What was the best day in your life?”

“The day you were born.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What was the best Christmas present you ever received?”

“You.”

“But I was born a week before Christmas.”

“Still counts.”

“What about my brother?”

“What about him?

“What about the day he was born?”

“This isn't a contest. You arrived first.”

Qualifiers …

They frighten me. Always have.

So quickly our favorite holidays turn on us.

It only takes one thing to change the experience forever.

Life's ups balanced by life's downs.

“So … What ARE you going to do today?” She asks again.

She worries about me. I know I don't smile as much as I should.

The corners of my mouth are always pulling in a downward direction.

Sadly, she's never known me to be overly smiley.

I tell her not to worry. I explain what it means to be a "natural frowner." That I don't want to be a frowner … it just happens.

She's taken to just asking me to translate my expressions.

"Are you upset? Angry? Did you stub your toe?"

“No, no. I'm fine. Just have a lot to do today. Have to get started as soon as you get on the bus.”

“So … what ARE you doing today?” she asks again.

“Oh … I'll putter around; walk the dog, feed the cat, clean up the breakfast dishes, finish up some work I've been procrastinating … get a follow-up diagnostic mammogram … and maybe, if there's time and inclination, I'll go shopping. For Christmas presents.”

I didn't tell her that middle thing.

I didn't really want to think of it, either.

When I counted six months forward from the last time -- the time they found possibly suspicious looking calcifications in an area of my left breast … that weren't there nine years ago … before children … before breastfeeding … before I had anything as big as a family to lose – that put the follow-up smack dab in the middle of Christmas.

Merry-frickin'-Christmas.

My husband was nervous, too.

His questions skirted the issue even better than my answers.

“What do you want for Christmas?”

“I really don't want anything.”

“No really? What?”

“The only thing I want is to not have cancer.”

I can't say such things to my kids.

It's Christmas. And they still believe in all the magic it promises.

I tried to go on as usual. I tried to put it out of my mind, but I didn't. I didn't shop, or write cards. I didn't even walk the dog or clean up dishes. 

Instead I sat in a room with a half-dozen other women – all of us dressed in a kimono-style uniform –

one question bouncing around in our heads: “What if I have cancer.”

I don't have cancer.

The woman with my folder smiled when she told me.

I smiled, too. First time all day.

But can't say I felt enormous relief. Not after sitting in a room with women just like me. Only maybe some of theme weren't as lucky.

#GameofGroans

Summer is coming ...

Found objects

The Champ dug this old, frightening thing out of the bottom of his toy box today:



Though, it kinda warmed my heart to see the old monster pillow back in action, gobbling up LEGOs by the dozens before the interlocking bricks were lost forever to the whirling vortex that is our vacuum cleaner.

I didn't even mind doing a little reconstructive surgery this evening when it turned out the poor critter's gullet wasn't as strong as it used to be.

Can't have reclaimed monsters leaking the building blocks of childhood now can we?

And now for something COMPLETELY different ...

I'll just be hanging out on the porch, waiting for the locusts.

Fancy that

Bagel Tyme.

This guy ...

  "Mom ... Who is this guy?"




"That is John F. Kennedy. He was your grandfather's favorite president."

"That makes sense. He has really cool hair."

What do you mean "uneven tan lines?"

Oh relax, she's fine. It's not broken.

The bad news is: She fell off the side porch this morning and sprained her thumb. She's going to be in a splint (that looks conspicuously cast-like) for a few days.

The good news is: She's going to be in a splint (that looks conspicuously cast-like) for a few days, and her friends will want to know all about how she fell off the side porch and sprained her thumb.

When life gives you lemonade ...

Try to sell it at the end of your driveway.

How to get your kids to stop bickering with two simple words ...

Dance off!

What I learned today ...

I was not cut out to be a stage mom.

Either that or I am the quintessential stage mom ...

So I had to cut out.

Every step we take

We signed up for a spring running clinic last month.

I wasn't looking forward to it, to be frank. 

I like the idea of running ... 

but ... 

After about 10 minutes of actually trying to do it ...

I usually give up.

We signed up because the kids wanted to run as a family.

After yesterday's horrifying events in Boston, however, I've discovered that I'm actually looking forward to the first meet tomorrow. 

I may walk more than I run, but I will be thinking of Boston with every step I take. 

Spring needs to pay up ...

Because it's overdue.

If Spring were a library book it would owe at least five bucks.

And if it were a DVD?

Spring would have owned it by now.

Spring Break. Day two:

This is me.

I am having a wonderful time ...

It's either that or ...

I'm going to tear some poor yak limb from limb.

It's a toss-up.

Skilled nursing

He visits his school nurse probably twice a week.

A fall here, a bumped noggin there ...

No matter what's caused the visit, he usually complains of a broken arm.



She always puts it in a cast before she sends him back to class.

Hop to it ...

Easter's coming.

In a few days ... or something.

Unless you're Greek. Then you have time.

As a non-practicing Catholic, however, I was so busy not paying attention to the election selection of a new pope that I almost completely forgot about the grandest day of the whole Christian whoseamawhats's -- The biggest zombie rising of all -- Easter.

(I know ... I'm going to hell for that last paragraph.)

I was reminded of all the preparations I'd forgotten, when the kids came home from school yesterday with instructions to bring in a dozen filled Easter eggs tomorrow.

So, in my usual fashion, I decided to try and make a craftacular Easter project in three hours, using things I fished out of the trash: Felt scraps, stuffing from an old pillow and paint chips.




The idea was simple:

* Sew together two circles of felt (or furry fabric scraps) leaving about an inch on one side open.

* Turn the seams inward and stuff with old pillow fluff.

* Cut ear shaped spears from the fabric, pinch at the centers and stick into the front-most part of the opening.

* Sew it shut.

* Sew on eyes, a nose, whiskers and a cotton tail. (I used the tops of cotton swabs for the tail when I ran out of pompoms).

* Glue rabbit onto a paint chip because there's no way this is going to stand on its own.

You end up with something like this:




Then I got the bright idea to make a carrot bookmark:

* Sandwich together two rectangles of orange felt.

* Machine sew a carrot-shaped outline, complete with segments, leaving space at the top open.

* Insert a couple of loops of green felt.

* Topstitch the carrot closed.

* Cut out around the stitching with pinking sheers

* Cut a slit in a paint chip, insert carrot.

* Tape carrot down in the back.

And it looks like this:



Hardest part will be cleaning up  ...




since it looks as if the Easter Bunny vomited in my office.

Gopher, schmopher ...

Gopher ... in Pennsylvania ... not seeing its shadow?

Phhhhheeeeeftttt.



Dog ...  in New York ... rolling in deer poo!

Spring is here!!!!

Time marches on ...

It also cuts, cascades, flips, fades, wipes and dissolves.

Holding my breath

A friend wrote about that feeling that might be summed up by people in our lives in a single word: Disillusionment. But how it's really something much more complicated.

She wrote about how a momentary thought breeds other momentary thoughts. Usually harmless day dreams of what life would be like in an alternate universe. Where you've made different choices.

It stirred me.

When I'm at my worst - I think of disillusionment as moribund.

A death spiral. Nothing good will ever be again.

The clinical amongst you might call that depression. I'm sure it is that and more.

But it's complicated.

At the point of disillusionment we try to measure our worth against the perceived value we've placed on others.

It is a losing strategy.

There's always a thumb on the proverbial scale.

I keep having to tell myself that my shortcomings are each important cogs in some machine I can't fully comprehend but must trust.

We could be self assured and be wrong. We can be angry and be wrong. We can be happy and be wrong. We can be kind and wrong. We can be wrong any number of ways. We will be wrong many number of ways.

We can be right and be wrong.

But if we have hope we can be wrong and move on.

We may not know how our stories end but we know they will. Someday.

So today, I must remember that there is always something else. There is always a place to go. To be. To explore. To rediscover.

This life is insignificant and everything - it is tiny and huge - and no one, especially ourselves, has all the tools needed to measure it with any real precision.

Importance is relative.

Placement is arbitrary.

Happenstance can be amazing.

None of it matters.

Breathe in. Breathe out.