Yup, this is my 101st blog entry.
I sat in my girls room recounting another childhood story last night. It is always their last request to either Jody or me before they drift to dreamland. I relived the day my dad drove down the road with my sister and me past our church and then past the ATV store. It was Mom and Dad's 17th anniversary.... I think. Suddenly, dad pulled off the road, turned the car around and headed back to the ATV store. He had an idea and nobody knows how to be completely impetuous like my dad. He pointed at the huge trampoline on display out front and announced that it would be the perfect anniversary gift to Mom. Gin and I wanted it and I mean BAD but we just weren't sure how Mom was going to feel about it on her anniversary. It didn't matter. Dad had sold himself on it in a split second. The salesman quickly convinced all of us that we needed the one with the 25 year guarantee. We took it home, broke open the boxes and pinched our hands a zillion times putting the thing together. Dad was positively giddy and completely sure it was the recipe for an unforgettable anniversary. Ginny and I had finally reconciled ourselves to the fact that we might enjoy Mom's anniversary gift more than she would and maybe we'd just have to live with the guilt. Mom came home with Daniel and we led her to the trampoline. She saw it and laughed. She walked up to it and tears of laughter were pouring down her face. She held onto the side of it and laughed. Then she got on it and jumped and laughed harder. Very quickly she jumped off and headed to the restroom laughing. She came back and started laughing as soon as she got back on it and I guess I had no realization at the time but now I see how my parents were able pull through all of the tough times. It wasn't a perfect life and none of the six people in our family were perfect people but we all instinctively knew how to make something special happen for one another in a completely selfless way. That memory is so clear and yet the one thing I'm fuzzy on is exactly how long Dad just stood watching my mom's joy. I guess my family thinks that I'm fortunate to have a crystal clear memory of my childhood and also be able to cling to the happy moments, put a glow around them and call them my childhood. Luckily, I'm also able to remember the tough times, when my parents chose to love no matter where their partner was at, and I know that is what pulled them through. Mom and Dad have been through alot in the years since that anniversary. As a matter of fact, a house fire took every memento, ever love letter, every gift from every anniversary and every love song Dad ever wrote for Mom but they still have a trampoline for a romantic night under the stars now and then.
Jody loves for me to share it all. He sat and listened to that story about the trampoline and I saw a wistfulness in his expression but also a recognition of what to want. His only comment was "That is a wonderful story." It told me he was so glad that I had that memory and that now we can give our children such memories together. I feel the same unbreakable thread of love in the family Jody and I have been given. It is the thread of love and selflessness that always pulls us through the impatience, the miscommunications, the hard days and the uncertain moments.
But to my parents, I can only say, thank you for the gift. Thank you for the example to follow. The gift of perservering through every hardship, side by side, slugging it out together, for God, for each other and for your children. Of all things, I think to myself that I want to give to my children more than anything, I just want them to always know that we love God, we love each other and we love them more than ourselves.
I think my next blog will be a collection of the love shown by each family member just to me, that I will never forget from those not so long ago days on the farm.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Map Loco
I am loco over my map loco. I had peeps from Dublin Ireland and Cali visit my blog today! It's so cool! It made me want to keep writing. Maybe someday I can get a paying job writing. I think for that to happen, I would have to morph overnight into a planner with a writing career plan.
I'll add a little onto my last blog just because my mind has expanded on it. If you are not a planner, it means you are a dreamer. You replace your planning time with dream time. For instance, this AM, I knew I had to take food to the teachers at school. I toyed with making bread, dreamed about all of their faces when they saw the homemade bread, tossed aorund the idea of making other tantalizing treats from my kitchen, like my homemade macaroni and cheese but I had no shell pasta or maybe piles of scones, but I would need cream, perhaps fratata but I had no hashbrowns. While I was dreaming up the tantalizing treats to place before the worshipful teachers and school staff, I took care of the feverish children and wondered if they would ever get well. I wandered over to the computer and what to my dreaming eyes should be on craigslist but another leather couch. I pounced on it and the lady gave me first dibs. I loaded up the groggy children, dashed over to Niwot and discovered a not so great couch. No worries, I could go home and still have time to whip up something nice for the teachers. I called Jody and he said I should go to Sam's for a replacement camera and so I decided with my poor miserable children in tow that I should just find some easy pre-made treat for the teachers at Sam's. It would feed them and they might not contract our terrible virus. That is what happens to dreamers. Planners, sit down a week in advance, plan what they'll take to the teachers and go to the store several days in advance and purchase all of their ingredients. Then they place tantalizing homemade treats before the eyes of the adoring school employees.
The other day, Kait came to me with her eyebrows scrunched together and said "Mommy, what does stinded mean?" I scrunched my eyebrows together myself and looked into her eyes. I hate asking for more information so I said "Extended?" She replied that yes, I had it. "I sagged with relief because I just love it when I don't have to pepper the kids with questions to figure out what in the world THEIR question is. "Extend is when you make something longer, like a table with the leaf in it or if family visits and decides to stay longer, they have an extended visit." Kait nodded, with that look of a child on a wavy sea of confusion in their minds. I watched her eyes bounce around the room trying to make an intangible connection then she said "well, what if a dogs tummy is stinded, then what?" To me, I just couldn't help but wonder how long Kaitlyn had been contemplating the word distended. How long had she thought about it and tried to puzzle it out and where in the world had she heard it? She hasn't seen Animal Planet in ages.
She calls Halloween "Hallowing." I love that.
Eden was rushing around the other day working on the Thankfulness tree and skidded across the kitchen (her tylenol was working) "Mom, where's the destruction paper?"
One night when dinner cleanup was done, I landed on the couch with a sigh, but it didn't feel like I was alone. I didn't hear anything but it felt like another person was very close to me, breathing distance. I lunged up and looked out the window beside me to see if someone was right outside. Nothing. Still the strange feeling persisted. I heard a little crinkle of plastic. I looked down at the floor at the end of the couch. Nothing. The crinkling plastic got louder and the curtain swayed, a struggling grunt and a heavy breath was expelled almost right beside my face. I pulled the bunched curtain completely away from the wall and discovered Nick, with a package of AAA batteries open looking at a battery. I can't imagine the disappointment. He had planned this, executed it, squirreled himself away, probably anticipating chocolate and all he had was a battery.
I'll add a little onto my last blog just because my mind has expanded on it. If you are not a planner, it means you are a dreamer. You replace your planning time with dream time. For instance, this AM, I knew I had to take food to the teachers at school. I toyed with making bread, dreamed about all of their faces when they saw the homemade bread, tossed aorund the idea of making other tantalizing treats from my kitchen, like my homemade macaroni and cheese but I had no shell pasta or maybe piles of scones, but I would need cream, perhaps fratata but I had no hashbrowns. While I was dreaming up the tantalizing treats to place before the worshipful teachers and school staff, I took care of the feverish children and wondered if they would ever get well. I wandered over to the computer and what to my dreaming eyes should be on craigslist but another leather couch. I pounced on it and the lady gave me first dibs. I loaded up the groggy children, dashed over to Niwot and discovered a not so great couch. No worries, I could go home and still have time to whip up something nice for the teachers. I called Jody and he said I should go to Sam's for a replacement camera and so I decided with my poor miserable children in tow that I should just find some easy pre-made treat for the teachers at Sam's. It would feed them and they might not contract our terrible virus. That is what happens to dreamers. Planners, sit down a week in advance, plan what they'll take to the teachers and go to the store several days in advance and purchase all of their ingredients. Then they place tantalizing homemade treats before the eyes of the adoring school employees.
The other day, Kait came to me with her eyebrows scrunched together and said "Mommy, what does stinded mean?" I scrunched my eyebrows together myself and looked into her eyes. I hate asking for more information so I said "Extended?" She replied that yes, I had it. "I sagged with relief because I just love it when I don't have to pepper the kids with questions to figure out what in the world THEIR question is. "Extend is when you make something longer, like a table with the leaf in it or if family visits and decides to stay longer, they have an extended visit." Kait nodded, with that look of a child on a wavy sea of confusion in their minds. I watched her eyes bounce around the room trying to make an intangible connection then she said "well, what if a dogs tummy is stinded, then what?" To me, I just couldn't help but wonder how long Kaitlyn had been contemplating the word distended. How long had she thought about it and tried to puzzle it out and where in the world had she heard it? She hasn't seen Animal Planet in ages.
She calls Halloween "Hallowing." I love that.
Eden was rushing around the other day working on the Thankfulness tree and skidded across the kitchen (her tylenol was working) "Mom, where's the destruction paper?"
One night when dinner cleanup was done, I landed on the couch with a sigh, but it didn't feel like I was alone. I didn't hear anything but it felt like another person was very close to me, breathing distance. I lunged up and looked out the window beside me to see if someone was right outside. Nothing. Still the strange feeling persisted. I heard a little crinkle of plastic. I looked down at the floor at the end of the couch. Nothing. The crinkling plastic got louder and the curtain swayed, a struggling grunt and a heavy breath was expelled almost right beside my face. I pulled the bunched curtain completely away from the wall and discovered Nick, with a package of AAA batteries open looking at a battery. I can't imagine the disappointment. He had planned this, executed it, squirreled himself away, probably anticipating chocolate and all he had was a battery.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
