Memory Making

I really write all of this down to remember.   The details of life are so small, but I know that at this point in life, they are also so unique to the age and stage of our kids.  So, let me catch up a bit.  I am clearly awful at sitting down and writing during a move!  

  The first thing to remember I have no picture of.  We went to the beach for a few days before our move, trying to play as a family before the work ahead.  John Mac loves the beach.  Of all our kids, he loves being outdoors, being messy, and so the sand and surf are just a perfect combination for Mac.  Well, this year we took our bikes.  The first time we told John Mac that he could bike in the edge of the surf he was so excited.  He took off splashing through puddles as he drove down the hard sand of the beach.  And then he kept going. and going. and going.  I suddenly panicked.  He was atleast a mile down the beach before I was able to keep everyone safe and signal Brandon to bike off and rescue him.  Of course, when Brandon did catch up to John Mac, Brandon found him to be completely surprised that he had travelled so far.  He was just delighted to be riding down the beach.  The next day John Mac had a speckled sun burn on his back from the sand that had sprayed across his back while he rode in the surf.

  On to the pictures.  The first picture is from shortly after we made it to our new old house on Long Meadow.  Hannah really hurt her nose on the brick patio.  She fell and cut the bridge of her nose badly.  She was in tears from the pain and it of course bled copiously.  Caroline swooped in without a word.  She found a small Tinkerbell sticker to cover up the last Spiderman bandaid that we had had to use on Hannah's nose.  Then she took Hannah to her room to play dolls and she dressed Hannah up like on of her dolls and then dressed up herself.  It was the perfect cure for this four year old girl.  This picture was taken just an hour after the injury;  immediate improvement!

This is Caroline and William climbing on one of the trees to the side of our new old home.  The best part of our home so far has been the yard.  The kids have loved to explore and play and climb.  We have played wiffleball with all the bases and they have hideouts of mudpies and kitchen tools.  We have found roses and gerber daises and now blooming hydrangeas.  There have been many gifts to our whole family outside.

Caroline turned nine recently and she had her ears pierced.  This is my favorite picture from our time: her friend Sydney taking pictures of Caroline during the piercing.  Sydney and her mom came with us to celebrate and she was as excited as Caroline, maybe more so.  It was a great gift to be with old friends while doing something new and different.

I have to write about Henry and William.  They are so very similar.  I feel like I am having a great big do-over!  But the sweet part is that they have a real common understanding of each other.  Henry can make William laugh and smile when all is lost.  He has given his momma lots of sanity in this!  Here they are just playing around on the sofa.

And finally, I need to remember how friendships with siblings grow and change.  Hannah and William are sharing a room now and they have become fast friends (or double trouble depending on the day!).  They are having a great time playing together and it has been fun to remember how similar they are to Caroline and Henry when they were this age.  Dressing up is always fun and it seems that girls outfits are always more fun as well.

Canyon Trail

There is a house in my heart that is my favorite house.  It is on Canyon Trail and I know I can never go back and see it, because the pictures in my mind are so good, so beautiful that reality would only harm them.  I lived there for a short time when I was around the age of three.  It is a yellow two story with hardwood floors and high ceilings and windows that shout with light.  And I love it.  My memories of the wooden stairs and small kitchen make me feel safe and small and happy.  And I remember the smell of dry leaves there while playing in the carport.  I know I made my first batch of real "candy" with a tall thermometer in that kitchen.  We only lived in that house a few months, a time of transition.  It was never even owned by my parents, but by my godparents.  But it my mind it is what a home should be with simplicity and warmth and classic lines.  No frills or fancy, a little small even....but practical.

As we are looking for a home in Columbia, my children want to go back to our small yellow house in Williamsburg.  They talk about the yellow paint and the red door, and the boys love their "blue room".  And I wonder if that will be the home they always love.  Nothing logical about it...not necessarily where life was more blessed or money was more plentiful.  Just because it is the home in their heart.  

To start....this is a picture of post-nap William.  He is now fulling entering the land of being two, where everything is intense and extreme: the way he runs, his frequent demands, his relentless questions and the way he sleeps.   He sleeps hard and wakes up even harder.  It is a reminder to me that time is passing quickly.  It is the post-nap grumpies that finally encourage a mother to let go of the afternoon nap and quiet and aim for an early bedtime instead.  But it will be the end of a season; the end of forced quiet and being homebound for afternoons.  Naptime can be good for the whole family.  

And this is a picture of my Dansko shoes that fell apart after 15 years.  Yes, fifteen years.  Fifteen years that included walking hospital floors, walking city sidewalks and occasionally through snow.  Years in which I wiped bodily fluids off of them after lots of different exposures and years in which my body was always grateful for 24-36 hrs. of a shoe I could live with.  These were my "doctor" shoes and this week when I put them on, they felt different.   I looked down and saw the gap with saw tooth staples smiling back at me.  It is time; they are finished.  But somehow it feels wrong to throw them away.  They are a piece of that life, one that I have so little material reminders of any more.  Soaked with fluids of patients I cared for, babies I delivered....it is a shoe tied to the lives of others.

The very same day these shoes fell apart, I had a strange reminder of the medical world.  I went to see a new dermatologist, well recommended by local friends.  And she was a strange reflection of the world, the life I decided not to pursue.  She is within a year of my age.  She is beautiful and professional with four small children, the oldest also 8 years old.  She is married to a doctor and has a full time nanny.  We talked and as her eyes and fingers graced over my moles and bumps she asked about my life.  But how do you do it? Do you have a babysitter?  What does your husband do?  I could hear the confusion in her voice: you chose this?  And quite honestly, with a paper towel dress wrapped around my shoulders, I was not sure why I walked away from her world; from the independence of respect and income.  A woman with jeans on and a toddler on her hip does not often have people that wait to hear her opinion on a matter.  I do miss walking fast and having a reason, other than my personal pleasure, to have a phone.  Or knowing that I needed my clothes to match the level of my intellect.  (perhaps they do now!)  But after our short visit, she stayed at her office.  Just like she is at that office most of the week.  And I went home.  And I read books and got hugs and made lunch.  And that is the choice I feel very lucky to make for today..  

Hannah's songs

Lately Hannah asks to sing me a song at night after I have tucked her in.  Who could refuse such an offer?  She sings and brushes my hair and face with her fingers making up words and a tune as well.  Her songs are always different, but they are all some variation of:
Santa come soon,
come tomorrow and bring presents
I love Christmas and fun and presents
I love you Mommy
Jesus loves you
She sings with a soft high voice that echoes the good news of which she is sharing.  At first, I wanted to correct her that life is not only Christmas and Santa; there is so much more.  But then I realized, if she doesn't see more of the good, it is only a reflection of the small picture we have shown to her of the good. We have been studying the book of James at church and thinking through sufferings with a small "s" and sufferings with a big "S" in life.  I have found that just like my children I want to sing of Santa and presents and good times.  And while this is good, there are minor chords in life as well.  James teaches that God is with me and has His good for me, even on the days that are not Christmas and presents....which is a good 363 days of the year.  Hannah's singing at night sure makes it feel like Christmas every day to Mommy though.  May I be grateful for His presence with me on the non-holi-days.

Thinking thoughts....

Words:
William when I got him up from his afternoon nap:  "Mommy, the sun brightened me and I woke up."
Henry's persistent word for nightmares: night dreams.  "Mom, I had a bad night dream."

A picture:
Caroline and Henry, 15 months apart in age, sitting and laughing in the back seat of the van.  She is the only one with whom he has no shame, no embarassment, no striving.  He rests in her company and she in his.

We are looking at houses and trying to find one.  Another move.  But to something older, smaller, closer, cheaper.  We are hoping to be true to us, to our calling as a family.  It may need paint, perhaps an appliance or two? We feel good about moving despite the unknowns...hopeful that He has gone before us to a place where we can really settle in.  Perhaps that is why I didn't send out "we've moved" cards?  I was not really settled here?  We are glad to be in Columbia and hoping to find a section of this area that is a little more like us....a few more chinks, some work to be done, lots of outdoors trying to creep in...

A Good Quitter

Hannah Barrett is a good quitter.  I have just learned this about her.  She is my only thumb-sucker, and quite honestly, she has been "hitting it pretty hard" lately.  She turns four this coming April, and I had decided that would be the time to insist she stops.  I had mentally prepared myself for a few conversations this spring about the importance of not thumb-sucking.  Interesting... in that I have convinced Hannah to do very few things in her short life.  She, herself, climbed out of her crib to let me know it was time for a change, and when she was two she decided over the period of a weekend to stop using diapers after watching her cousin Dory's potty independence.
Last week, we went to the library.  In our usual fury of keeping small children safe and obtaining books for five people at the same time, there were many items in my bag that I did not pick out knowingly.  One of them was called "Thumb-love".  It is the story of a young girl who decides to quit sucking her thumb and the methods she uses to stop.  It is clever and creative and cute.  I read it to Hannah; she had Daddy read it to her.  And then she stopped.  That was it.  A decision.  She told us she was not going to suck her thumb any more and she didn't.  That was about 10 days ago.  No moments of weakness, no crazy tears or long discussions.  WOW.  If only I was that decisive!

Help from a Toddler

Some of my favorite things are small and consumable:  a good cup of coffee, cut flowers in a vase, a good smelling soap or lotion, a candle.  My husband has always been glad that I am easily delighted by things in the less than ten dollar price range (he would prefer an iPad to make him happy).  But I often won't actually use the small good thing I've been given.  I'll just smell that soap in its wrapper, or hold on to the lotion for a special day.  I don't want it to be gone....so I am afraid to use it.
Today I jumped in the shower after Brandon had left early for work.  My toddler busted in through the closed door.  After several minutes of instructing him how to shut the door, (since the neighbors all had a great view through the window and open door), he went and found the new bar of soap my aunt had given me for Christmas.  Now, I had sniffed this soap several times.  It is great.  And the paper is pretty.  Left to myself, I would have saved it and smelled it for quite a while.  William had seen me holding it and had asked me about it.  He knew it was soap and he knew Mommy was excited about it.  So when he realized I was in the shower, he went and found it in the cabinet and unwrapped it before my eyes.  "Here Mommy,"he said with great pride.  No saving this soap for another time.  No more holding and sniffing it without actually using it.
There are so many good things in my life that I actually end up holding at a distance;  I don't want to miss them if they are gone.  My family, God's many blessings...they are good things to enjoy.  I don't need to worry about leaving the wrapper on.  God's good things are to be enjoyed.  So glad for a toddler to help me enjoy the small things.