Happy Mommy Moments, 27 May 2014

Today I'm a happy mama.

Nothing particularly huge happened today--unless we count G giving his first-ever speech in front of his 2nd grade class--but I felt delighted at a number of little moments.

I arrived at the kids' school early enough to catch G's oral report on the common hippo (I'll refrain from quoting the whole thing right here, although I could probably do it from memory myself), and as I walked through the center common room on my way to his classroom, a little Kindergartner from Z's class walked past me on the way back from the restroom.  His face lit up in recognition when he saw me.  "Hi, Z's Mom!" he grinned.  At that moment I realized I love being known as Z's Mom.

And known as G's Mom too, as the 2nd grade kids refer to me!  I'm not gonna lie, I burst a few buttons as my darling 7 year old presented his research on the animal he'd chosen for his year-end project.  He remembered everything we'd practiced!  Deep breath to start, feet rooted to the floor, talk slowly, glance down at the cue cards and then look up and speak to the class with eye contact.  For this project, which included a multi-page written report, a diorama, and the speech, we were handed blank grading rubrics along with the assignment.  When I saw those, I gulped.  We're in the big leagues now, I thought, with rubrics and bibliographies and clay-baked sculptures.

G insisted on reading through the rubrics ahead of time to see what he'd need to do for the full 4 points per element.  He didn't want to mess around with 2- or 3-point quality work.  "Mommy, I want to get 4 points on everything," he declared.  We haven't gotten his grade for the written report or the diorama yet, but immediately after finishing his speech today, he turned to his teacher and asked, "Do I get 4 points??"

She chuckled, and that's all the grade he's gotten so-far.

But it sure seemed like a 4-point presentation to me!  His diorama is pretty cute too, and I'm especially proud because it's the the first time we've done baked clay for anything.

Presenting a common hippo and her calf wading somewhere in Central Africa.  I should have photographed this before taping the plastic wrap on it.  G told his class he'd used "assilic" paint.

Another absolutely precious little thing warmed my heart today.  I'll be revealing something about my age when I say that I grew up on the show Reading Rainbow, hosted by LeVar Burton, and I recently discovered that our instant-streaming video provider carries the old episodes.  Naturally, I have been eager to watch through every episode myself share the show with my kids.  It turns out that Z's Kindergarten teacher has shown his class a couple of episodes too, so he's already a little familiar with it.  (I have to admit, it takes the wind out of my sails a bit to hear, "Oh, I've seen this one.")

As the two boys and I sat on the couch tonight, taking an inside-tour of the Library of Congress and getting up close and personal with the Statue of Liberty, I couldn't have been more full of warm fuzzies.  That is, I thought I didn't have room for more fuzzies...until the final credits and the reprise of the theme song--when Z started signing along.

My sweet little boy in his wandering soprano voice, singing a theme song that was heard in my childhood home almost every school day?  That is a happy feeling.

While we're on the subject of nostalgia combined with literacy, I recently brought out my copy of Heidi, on which is penned the inscription, "To Rachel, on her 7th birthday.  With love, Mom and Dad."  I could have handed the book to G to read, but I love reading aloud to my kids.  (Plus, I don't want him to crinkle the pages.)  Reading aloud, I get to use my college drama skills which don't see the light of day very often!  So for the last couple weeks, whenever the boys and I have some downtime, we sit together and I read about the little Swiss girl in the Alps who eats toasted cheese on bread (Z's new favorite breakfast) and delights in the beauty she finds in wildflowers, goats, glaciers, fir trees, and old grandmothers.

P.S. I'm ready to move to Switzerland.  Now.

Both boys love the story, although I think Z enjoyed The Secret Garden (which I read a few months ago) more.  Maybe something to do with the ratio of girl:boy characters?  [Teacher Note: It is way cool to do a compare/contrast with Heidi and The Secret Garden.  I hadn't realized how many similar themes they have until re-reading them so close together.  The kids and I had a great conversation about this during breakfast at a buffet this weekend.  SPOILER ALERT  And we haven't even gotten to the part where Klara starts walking yet!]

A couple days ago I finished reading a couple chapters and left the room to go work on something.  Thirty minutes later, I noticed it was still pretty quiet in the living room.  I could hear Z talking to himself a bit as he played with toys, but G seemed to have dropped out of sight.  Did he fall asleep? I wondered incredulously.  But his bed was empty.  Not seeing his fuzzy head peeping over the back of the couch either, I walked around to the front of it to see if he had lied down.  He hadn't.  He was kneeling on the floor, Heidi spread out on the couch in front of him, reading ahead from where we'd left off.

Talk about simultaneous horror of "He'll find out what's coming!!" and immense gratitude of "He cares about this story enough to read it himself!!"

The latter feeling has definitely won out.  And--thanks to those drama skills coming in handy--he's not bored listening to me read the parts he's already seen.

I'm not bored either.  In fact, reading this story again as an adult, I'm astounded to rediscover the incredibly strong theme of redemption in this story.  I choked up, right on the living room couch, reading the Grandfather's break-through moments after hearing Heidi tell him the story of the Prodigal Son.  And I again had to clear mist from my eyes when the story revealed that the darkness Heidi had experienced during a hard period of her life directly brought light to the heart of the Grandmother--a woman whose blind eyes saw nothing but blackness.

It's a good book, people.

But I've digressed from refraining to give you a report on the common hippo to giving you a report on Heidi.  That wasn't my intent!  I just wanted to take some time tonight to share a few ways that I'm loving being Mom to my boys.  There's been so much sadness and darkness in my adult life...I'm so thankful for these beautiful moments of recognition that all is not dark.  There can be light in my heart.

With that, in the iconic words of LeVar, I'll see ya' next time!

Missing Out? 8 May 2014

Today would have been my mom's 57th birthday.

Mom (and Essie) blows out candles on the cake I made for her 38th birthday

This year, it comes three days before the now-dreaded Hallmark Holiday called "Mothers' Day," which after my four years of grief would be better named "Rub It in Your Face That You're Sad Day."  Rub it in your face that not only I, but also my husband, no longer have a mom.  Rub it in your face that my friend was supposed to celebrate Mother's Day as a mom this year, but because her baby died, she won't.  Rub it in your face that the little boy across the street has a mother who only comes by his house every couple of weeks to raid the frig...and he doesn't even really notice when she's gone.  Rub it in your face that my dear friend longs to be a mother, to be married, to be cherished by her own little family, but yet-again this year she hasn't met Mr. Right.

So I make a wide berth around greeting card aisles this time of year, ignore advertisements that glibly invite "Celebrate Mom!" and wrestle with whether to attempt attending church on Mother's Day.  And I feel sad.  And angry.

And I've been feeling sad and angry on various levels for four years--ever since I discovered that "bad stuff" can happen to me and to those I love.  Now I'm more aware of bad stuff happening all over the world, too, and the weight of grief and anger for the injustices and brokenness of the world is heavy.  Which brings me to a realization I started having while lying in bed at 11 p.m. last night.

I think I've been clinging to my right to be angry.

In my quest to break free from my culture's stifling you-have-three-days-of-allowed-bereavement and don't-cry-in-public and you're-not-over-that-yet? attitudes, I've tried to be open about my feelings, embrace the reality of pain, and encourage others to be honest with God about their anger and sadness.  Just look at this blog!  Over 1/3 of my posts since beginning two years ago are labeled with grief, sadness, crying, or death.

This has been--and is--important.  But am I now so focused on the need to work through grief that I've lost focus on the greater need to be whole?

"Gee Rachel," you might be thinking, "it's been over a month since you blogged last and this is what you show up to write about?  We want to hear about your music job!  How are Jay, G, and Z?  Made any ridiculously-large batches of food lately?  Why so philosophical today?  Oh, it must be because it's your mom's birthday."  Actually, that's only partially true.  The real answer to this morning's frame of mind has to do with those other questions you asked, so let me back up a bit. 

April 28th was the last day of my wage-earning job as a church music director.  The very next day, Z got the flu.  Three days after that, G got the flu.  (Thanks for waiting for me, guys.)  So I came off four months of being absolutely in my element in an office outside my house with adults away from Mom Duty to a week and a half of being glued to my house with sick kids.  Moreover, their school class schedule is different this week, so we've been given extra homeschooling work.  From half-time professional to full-time mom/nurse/homeschool teacher.  Brutal.  I'm not making light of this; it's been rough.

Yesterday evening, wandering listlessly around the house after a day of homeschooling, washing sheets, doing dishes, finding food that would tempt an indisposed child, and being sick of trying to pass any remaining downtime with Facebook and television, I picked up a book that had been sitting untouched on my nightstand for months.  I'm not even sure how it showed up there.  (If you loaned it to me, speak up and I'll return it to you when I'm done reading it.)

Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts looks boring on the cover, honestly, and it's a pretty generic title.  I only picked it up last night because I was tired of muttering to myself, "I'm bored."  Turns out, the book isn't boring.  It's about the journey of a stay-at-home mom with grief skeletons in her closet, struggling to get out of bed every day, and sick and tired of not having a full, whole, joyous life.

It sounded a little too familiar.

When I put the book down at 11 p.m. and Jay turned off the lamp, I had a lot of questions for myself in the dark.  What do I want?  Am I letting my right to grieve hold me back from joy in the present?  Are daydreams of Someday Success cheating me out of Today?  Are there wholeness and health in the daily doldrums?  What if I make peace with the pain?  Will I just be given more pain and more humdrum, or could making peace make more space for goodness?  At least if I'm braced for pain I'm not caught off-guard when it happens.  But am I watching out more for blows than I am on the lookout for beauty?

I fell asleep and dreamed that my mom had decorated the house for Christmas in October and that I was practicing a fantastic soprano part for a women's quartet.  I woke up five hours later, feeling surprisingly rested, but with the night's questions still swirling in my mind.

Now the sun is up; the boys are getting out cereal and I need to pour milk in bowls and get started on their homework and sort the laundry.  Life is happening, whether I'm geared up for it or not.  Today, I miss my mom--I miss our moms; and I'm starting to ask myself, What else am I missing?

Introvert Meter, 07 February 2014

Know what my favorite part of being alone in a quiet house is?  The quiet.  Oh, and being alone.

Today I awoke with one main objective: Recover.  No, not from the flu or a nasty shock or an injury, but from people.  Perhaps some of you don't know this, but I'm what I like to refer to as a "high-functioning introvert," which means that I--generally--don't hide in the corner during parties and--generally--love having people over at my house and--generally--can keep up an animated phone conversation, but all of those things expend energy that isn't recharged until I get some alone-time.  The more people-energy I use up, the more recharging I need.

Like this.

Yesterday I made a big mistake and skipped my normal two-hour siesta (my daily prescription of being alone in my bedroom with the door closed, during which I read some Scripture and then sleep).  I've skipped my naptime before without my Introvert Meter reaching critical lows, but the combination of 4 hours of office work Wednesday morning, followed by 2 hours of rowdy kid music classes, followed by co-leading a worship service, followed by a choir rehearsal; and then on Thursday driving five goofy kids 20 minutes to school, followed by grocery shopping (yes, being in a grocery store uses up people-energy, especially if one of my kids is with me), followed by a visit to a children's museum with a friend and her son--great hang-out time, but still depleting the Meter--, followed by helping both boys in woodshop at school, followed by driving goofy kids back from school, followed by making some work-related phone calls, followed by making dinner, followed by doing homework with the kids...!!!

I drove away from the house yesterday evening for my 7 p.m. Al-Anon meeting, but when I got there, I parked my car and sat staring out the windshield for about 5 minutes.  Each time I pictured getting out of the car and joining my friends in the meeting, I felt like throwing up.

I think even this kind of meeting would have been too much for me!

It was at that point I realized I was running on empty, and I drove straight back home, put on my pjs, closed the bedroom door, and sat in bed under the covers.  All I could do was stare at the wall.

By 8:00, I was asleep.

I'm gonna give myself credit and say that I look a bit chippier when I have a full tank than this fellow does, but I'm pretty sure Jay would attest that last night my expression looked exactly like the one on the right.

Going to sleep early saved me from self-destruction, but it didn't restore my Meter to "full," so when I woke up this morning I set some parameters for myself: 1) Take a nap this afternoon.  2) In the evening, put on pajamas at the earliest possible moment.  3) Don't hang out with anybody anywhere tonight.

Which is why I'm sitting in a quiet house.  By myself.  The only noises I hear are the kitchen clock ticking, rain pattering on the skylight, and the soft hums of my laptop fan and distant traffic.  Bliss.  (Quick word to explain why I'm the only one home...the kids are with Mr. and Mrs. FIL tonight, and Jay--who is not an introvert--is hanging out with buddies.)

Slowly but surely, I'm recovering my sanity, which is just in time!  Tomorrow is Baby K's 2nd birthday party, followed on Sunday by leading a worship service, followed by a Bible study, followed by a group dinner/Olympics viewing at a friend's house.  Followed by work on Monday...

But no need to think about all of that!  I'm doing what I need to do to recover today--which, by the way, is something I've been learning in Al-Anon.  :-)

P.S.  Shout-out to Mrs. FIL for taking me to a lovely early-Valentine's day lunch today!  She picked a quiet restaurant with delicious food and we had some great girl time.  The perfect way to get me loosened up and relaxed before my nap.  Thank you!!

Many Hats, Few Hours, One Head, 24 July 2013

Hello Blog!  I've missed you.  Whatever may be said about lazy summers, this certainly hasn't been one.  I suppose if I were a professional making money with my writing, I wouldn't relegate composing posts to irregular lazy moments, but that "really makes no matter," as Lady Bracknell says in The Importance of Being Earnest.

Obscure literary quotes (or movie quotes) aside, it is good to sit down and write!  It's nice to be a whole paragraph into this post without having said anything of real substance yet, which is perfectly fitting for a lazy moment.  I did, however, open this page with the intent of writing about something, and must just call it to mind.  One moment...

Ah yes.  Stay at Home Moms.

Actually, not all stay at home moms-- just me.  When a neighbor recently dropped his young grandson off with me because he was late to work and the babysitter "was only about 30 minutes away," and I supervised/entertained/mediated between three little boys for the following three hours--and it wasn't the first time this had happened, or even the second or third--I realized that (1) I should stop agreeing to watch neighbors' grandsons for indeterminate amounts of time and (2) some people must see me as having a lot of extra time on my hands.

Obviously, my readers all know I don't have a lot of extra time on my hands, because if I did, there would be a lot more blog entries.  But not everyone I come across is familiar with my 2-3/month posting trend, so I would like to elaborate for those people.  (Nevermind that "those people" don't read my blog and won't see this post; we'll just call this scribal processing.)

In a few weeks, Z will be starting Kindergarten (!!) while G continues on into 2nd grade.  When I mentioned this fact to an acquaintance earlier this summer, she said, "So what are you going to do with all your free time?  Get a job?"

The irksome idea that what I do now isn't a job aside, I have to admit, I had a moment of panic.  "Oh no!  Is that what I'm supposed to do??  Am I suddenly going to have all this empty time on my hands that will be squandered if I 'just stay at home'?!  Do I need to squeeze myself into some mind-numbing clerical position so that I can earn money instead of having 'free' time?"

In spite of Jay's insistence that I need those eight hours, I still felt guilt about not wanting to get back into the "work" force.  I calmed myself a bit by remembering that once the school year starts, I'm actually only going to have 8 hours per week without kids (we do a hybrid homeschool program, and Kindergartners are only in class 9 hours/week).  But thinking about the new phase I'm entering caused me to look again at the jobs (yes, plural, thank you very much) I already have. 

I've written before about the many "hats" I may wear in a given day; looking back at just the last seven days, I think I can group my activities into a few broad categories.  In no particular order:

• wife
• mother
• multi-organization volunteer
• relative (sister, in-law, auntie, etc)
• friend
• informal grief consultant (which often overlaps with "relative" and "friend")
• home and garden caretaker
• motherless daughter

During the past week, I have spent every minute being/doing at least one of these categories.  Now, I know that I'm a mother every minute, but--moms of infants and toddlers have hope--there are times of the day I'm not actively doing something with my kids.  Believe it or not, the two boys do have moments of entertaining each other without eyes-on supervision from me, at least for part of each day, which is wonderful.  Jay also does a fantastic job of doing things with the kids sans Mommy.  Naturally, during those times I put my feet up, put in earplugs, turn off my phone, and eat chocolate.

NOT.

Although I think my life would be better if I did that combination of things a little more.  Huh.  Let's put a pin in that.

No, the moments that active mom duty is on hold--and even quite a bit of the time it's not on hold--are moments filled with one or more of the other categories.  I'd like to go over some of the things I did this past week, and "those people" who think I have lots of extra time might understand my reality a bit better.

Since all of my readers are above-average intelligent (they have to be, to read this; after all, I quote Oscar Wilde), I'll dispense with delineating every category each activity belongs to.  They often overlap, anyway.

Last Wednesday, Jay gave me the day off from active mommy-ing.  I filled the day with birthday shopping for Z, and lunch and dinner out, catching up with two different friends.  Arriving home refreshed at 8 p.m., ready to have a quiet evening with Jay in front of the TV, we unexpectedly got an urgent request from a friend whose grandmother was in the hospital.  The next 4-5 hours were spent in caffeinated "friend" and "informal grief counselor" modes as I transported our friend from another city to our house for the night.

Thursday was mostly spent in that same mode, driving our friend to transport her out-of-town relatives to the ICU, where I stayed with them until the grandmother passed away Thursday evening.  (Thankfully, Jay thought to remind me to get a sub for my volunteer duties at my Thursday Al-Anon meeting, so I was able to coordinate that in time.)  As much as I tried not to slip into the "motherless daughter" category, the traumatic memories from my time in the ICU with my mom took their toll.

I spent Friday working off physical and emotional exhaustion.  In the morning, I got a message from another friend whose dad was in surgery after a heart attack, but prayer doesn't take too much physical energy, so I was happy to support her in that way. I also prayed over my daily email update from a friend whose 1 yr-old has stage 4 neuroblastoma.  Those updates aren't fun to read.  :-(

Perhaps surprisingly, by Friday evening I had recovered a bit, so I cleaned a bathroom and the living room floor, picked some tomatoes, and had a wonderful visit with a local friend who came over after the kids were in bed.  We chit-chatted over a wide variety of subjects while experimenting with a new French macaron recipe in my kitchen.

At about midnight, seconds away from being fully asleep, I suddenly realized I'd forgotten to wrap Z's birthday breakfast gift.  Enter mother mode again.  I get up.

Saturday morning officially began awfully early, because Z was so excited to start his 5th birthday!  Who wouldn't be?  The morning continued with making a grocery list for a 12-person dinner, packing the boys off to the store with a long shopping list.

The afternoon was filled with birthday/dinner prep (along with stolen bits of auntie time with visiting Baby K), and I spent the evening hostessing.  Incidentally, that may be the last 12-person birthday dinner I make.  There was too much work and not enough fun.  Putting a pin in that, too.

The guests were gone and excited boys in bed by 8 p.m., and my aching, grumpy body had just sunk into the couch when Jay said, "So I guess we should start planning tomorrow's Sunday School lesson."  Scream!  He reminded me that this Sunday was our turn to lead the 3s-5s class.

Finding me taciturn (that's a nice word for "surly," right?), Jay did as much planning on his own as he could, leaving a few bits for me to look over before church in the morning.

Sunday morning started well, perhaps in part because I donned an adorable outfit, and even though we scrapped our Sunday School lesson because only two kids showed up to class (one of whom was Z), I was content with being in volunteer mode.

But in the parking lot, headed toward lunch, "motherless daughter" showed up out of nowhere and smacked me across the face.  A friend at church asked me if I knew how to can peaches.  I'll leave the peach-canning back-story for another time; suffice it to say that it triggered a lot of happy memories of growing up with my mom, and a lot of weepy feelings that I can't call her and talk about it.

Those feelings stayed through Monday morning, thankfully relieved a bit by two tearfully-cathartic phone conversations with sisters.  Monday was also Jay's first day back at work, so all three of us were missing him after a summer-full of Daddy time.  "Mother" mode was definitely back in full swing, but we made the best of it and had a nice day.

Tuesday started with a playdate with another young mom who is motherless, and while our kids poured sand over each other, the two of us shared struggles and encouragement with each other.  In the afternoon, I found some new fresh tomato recipes and put a lovely dinner on the table (while texting back and forth with my sis-in-law), which felt great!  After putting the kids to bed, I had a conversation with yet another sister, focusing mainly on her boyfriend, whom I haven't yet been able to meet.  It was delightful to hear her gush on about this budding relationship...although I have to admit I felt a bit old and matronly.

Today we got out of town for a zoo visit with another family, and I--mostly--enjoyed cooking another tomato-centered dinner this evening.  The four of us definitely enjoyed eating it, at any rate!

Looking over this rather lengthy narrative, there are two main things that stand out to me:

1. I have a lot of friends and sisters.
2. I have a jam-packed life.

Eight non-mom-mode hours per week might just allow my life to be a little more paced out.  Or maybe other unexpected events will challenge my time in new ways.  Or maybe I'll get to have fewer multi- and more single-tasked times.

Or maybe, just maybe, I'll start the school year by putting my feet up, turning off my phone, and eating chocolate...at least for the first few hours.

A "First" Birthday, 13 September 2012

Today I made it through another First.  Today was my first birthday since Jay's mom passed away; it was my third birthday since my mom died.

For those of you who have had close relationships with your moms, I don't need to explain the significance of little traditions that paint a birthday--the phone call with your mom singing Happy Birthday, or being served a dinner of your favorite dishes, or a card being pressed into your hand. Having a birthday when some of those elements are missing is disorienting and--for me at least--sad.

And yet it's still fun to have a birthday and be treated with extra hugs and gifts and cards, so the day is a very mixed bag of feelings.  One moment I'll be dancing around the room to some tunes and then next moment I'll be crying when I receive a phone call that isn't my mom.

Tomorrow I hope to write about the ways I "mothered myself," to borrow a psychological term, and made the day into what I needed it to be.  Since this is a blog about mostly today, I just wanted to write this quick note tonight to say that I made it through today...and I am still able to look forward to tomorrow.

Nineteen Hundred Thirty-Something, 20 July 2012

        Peering out from beneath the tilted brim of her close-fitting hat, a slender young woman scanned the castle ballroom as she entered through its large doorway.  Heavy chandeliers cast a warm glow over the room, and the shadows of dancers flickered over arched ceilings and towering Gothic columns.  Catching the newcomer's eye, a dapper gent in a snappy pinstripe vest and black patent shoes crossed the room toward her.  Her scarlet lips parted in a friendly smile, and with a little bow, the gentleman took her arm and they sailed across the gleaming dance floor together, swinging in step to the tooting of jaunty trumpets and the swaying song of saxophones.

        Later that evening, after dance and laughter, the young woman said goodnight and ascended to the castle's fourth floor with a cup of hot tea.  She stepped softly over lush Persian carpets lining the hallways, walking past quiet rows of dark wooden doors.  With a click of her metal key, she unlocked her door and entered the small room.  Before drawing a mineral salts bath, she leaned out her window one last time and looked down at the softly-lit, plant-covered terrace below.   She could still hear music floating through the ballroom's open doors, and sighing happily, she latched the window and swished the flowered curtains closed.

        When at last ready for sleep, she eased into a small bed layered with white linens.  The bed's springs creaked underneath her, but were still as she leaned back into a pile of pillows.  She dropped off into a peaceful sleep.

        In the middle of the night, she awoke with a jolt.   The music below had stopped and all was quiet, but she was sure she had heard her children knocking on the door.  The knocking must have been a dream—or perhaps a door closing down the hall—because her kids were seventy-five miles away.  Jay slept quietly in the small bed next to her, and she snuggled back down under the white linens.  A glance at the time on her iPod showed she still had hours to sleep until breakfast, so she closed her eyes again and let the memory of the evening's dance steps sway her back to sleep.

And that, my friends, is a true description of the first evening of our hubby-wife getaway!  Okay, so I left out a few details—like the fact that Jay was the gent in the pin stripes—and I skipped over a portion of the evening—when Jay and I sat on the plant-covered terrace and played Scrabble on a table-sized board—but everything I described is factual.

Plant-covered terrace: The view from our 4th-story bathroom window!

Yes, we stayed in an historic hotel (the architect called it a “little castle”) for two nights this week.  It was built in 1930, and they have kept the décor true to the period, even down to the original steam radiators in the rooms and fresh flower arrangements on every breakfast table.  On Wednesday night, the two of us dressed up to match the era (I with tilted hat, scarlet lipstick, and frock; Jay with vest, patent black shoes, and fedora) and joined a Lindy Hop dance class.  The big band music was broadcast via mp3 (I didn't say above that it wasn't), but it was still a hoot.  We really did feel as though we had stepped back in time!  I also stepped on some toes during the course of the Lindy class, but I think I was forgiven because of my darling hat.  Or maybe because of the scarlet lipstick.

The hat's the thing

The hotel provided a packet of mineral salts to go with the tub

Because historic hotels tend to be in places without much parking, we parked our car a few miles away and used public transportation to reach the hotel.  So for two days we spent time walking around the old town, discovering restaurants and brick churches; we sat on antique chairs with computer or book in hand; we wandered through the lush gardens tucked around the hotel; and generally drank in the aura of classy history.  (Not to be confused with unclassy history, multiple examples of which I will not cite here.)

Views from the Breakfast Room windows

 

As you can see from how I've rambled on about it, we had a truly lovely time!  Our seventy-five-mile-away children had a fantastic time with their papa, too.  In fact, they didn't want to leave him when it was time to come home tonight, and I was tempted for a moment to turn around back to castleland and leave them there longer.  But tomorrow is Z's birthday, and we wouldn't want to miss that—shaded terrace notwithstanding—so we came home and brought the kids with us after all.


Tonight, perhaps instead of dreaming that the boys are knocking on the door, I'll dream that I'm a brilliant dancer, laughing my way through a castle ballroom.  And when I wake up tomorrow morning, it will be real-life birthday time, which has a fairytale quality all its own.

An Earthly Birthday, 10 May 2012

Today is the birthday of Jay's.
I like him in so many ways!
When I'm in a bad mood
He does more than make food
(Though that in itself is a gift
Which helps the black cloud on me lift).
He listens to me and my heart--
As he's done for me from the start.

On a birthday ten years ago
He popped a question we all know:
"Will you marry me?" he whispered,
And my world very shortly heard
That Jay's the only one for me.
And while the future we can't see,
We're in it together for life.
I'm so very glad I'm Jay's wife!

A Heavenly Birthday, 08 May 2012

Today would have been my mom's birthday, and this morning I got a text from my dad asking, "I wonder which birthday she celebrates now.  Her original body birth or her spiritual birth or her arrival in Heaven with her new, healthy, forever body birth?"

My happy answer to this question was, "Why not all three?  I bet they give great parties up there."  Then later in the morning, I posed a similar question to G, saying I wondered if Grandma was having a party for her birthday today.  I loved his answer:

"I think that probably in Heaven, every day is your birthday!"

What that means in G's mind is, no more counting down the days (364 days takes a long time to count), receiving gifts and special food every day, and continuously feeling like the guest of honor.  Actually, that's not sounding too far off from descriptions we read in the Bible!

Heaven is our true home, so there's no more counting down the days until something better turns up, banquets and delicasies are served at God's table, we receive rewards from Him, and each person is welcomed with rejoicing.

Yup, it sounds to me like G's got the idea: In Heaven, every day is our birthday.  So happy birthday Mom--today and tomorrow and the day after and the day after!