At least we have consistency

April 26, 2012 08:55:06 pm

The last time Jay and I were in the city together I was watching with amazement the people dashing around in the roads. At one point Jay nodded his head and said, "he just decided today isn't his day to get hit by a car. That's the way it works you know."

And so all weekend we would giggle about how that guy'd made the decision or that girl had decided on not getting hit. Sunday though I went to step out on the curb (more like run across a street) and Jay grabbed my hand and said "we didn't decide today." And we waited for the bus that would have hit me.

Today as I dragged through my house which has been under construction in some way for two months I wondered if I could decide that nothing new was going to happen in 2012. Good or bad...I just want a constant for a few months. It seems as though in order to bring balance any time something bad happens we have to bring a new something into the house.

So we have the indoor garden, which I'd started to set out for hardening off (yes that's what it's called) but then brought it all back tonight thanks to the frost advisory, we redid the floor which was a colossal nightmare which I'm glad we lived through (though mostly Jack because for a few days there it was touch and go) and oh yes, the back doors we replaced. That didn't create quite the upheaval as the flooring but surprisingly swapping out entertainment centers so we could fit Jay's new TV has created quite the raucous. Like Who Knew we had so much crap stored in the old entertainment center?

Piles and piles of photos, books, movies, CDS? Who still owns CDs??

And it's all dusty.

Dusty? Jack forgot his allergy medicine today. So I run upstairs with his pill, hand Ali hers and go into his room. I asked him to wake up for just a second and he doesn't. Obviously. He's a three year old boy. So I sit him up. Nothing. "Bubbie...you need your pill." Nothing.

So I stick the pill in his mouth and ask him to chew it up. He does nothing.

And it suddenly occurs to me that he's not a cat? And I can't just massage his throat for it to go down.

So I start sweeping his mouth with my finger in order to pull the pill out, but like find WAY more crud in there than I ever cared to know resided in his mouth. After cleaning off my hand and NOT finding the pill I started to panic. What am I going to do sit here all night while it dissolves? So I grabbed a glass of water thinking maybe I would get him to take a couple of sips in his sleep, which would send the pill further along.

So as I prop up the child and attempt to give him a drink (mind you he is still passed out cold) my hand twitches and I douse him in water. Solving the initial problem but now leaving me with a very confused three year old who can't figure out why I just poured water on him or why there is a pill in his mouth.

Normal. I'm not sure why I seek thee.

For us, it shall never be.

Trees

April 25, 2012 12:39:59 pm

Six years ago (2006) I ran off to my folks house with the girls one Thursday afternoon, following a call from my husband to let me know that he would be working well after midnight, and then all weekend. I was stressed out, needed help and had a two year old that needed to run free. And my folks' property is perfect for such fun.

I had a colicy four month old that would not be calmed by any one other than my husband and if he wasn't going to be around I was at least going to have someone to whom I could pass her so I could walk away for a few minutes.

By dusk I was sitting on what we call the south porch with my mother and my tiny little Ali. There had been rain that day and it was overcast and the world was perfect. My mother was smoking cigarettes and telling me about work and ministry and the corn and I was marveling at the green. And my daughter was quiet.

The two year old had run off to play and I just remember that space, where everything was green and alive and humming. My world was perfect in that moment of fresh air mixed with second hand smoke (my favorite combination) and green as far as the eye could see. My father bought an acre of land about 40 years ago now and started planting trees. It's an amazing sight they way he has brought a forest of wonderment to this property.

This was the spot we claimed for the weekend. My father had just finished the porch the summer before, it was aways a good place to hang out but he wanted it perfect, and with Jay's help they were able to....I have no idea. But it was great. And during this time my dad noticed that Addy spent a lot of time off at the swing set while my mom and I hung around the porch. He had built the swing set for my sister and I 20 years back, a deck on both sides, one built with a table and bench, the other with climbing posts. In between hung two swings.

After I left that weekend he expanded the deck with the climbing posts to accomidate seating for ten people. It was perfectly situated in the yard to allow no sunlight to shine at any point in the day. A few weeks later when my husband was off at a conference I camped out at my folks house again. My mother sat on the deck smoking cigarettes while I held the now 6 month old and my sister pushed the two year old on the swing. For like 5 days.

In the mornings I would wake up early and practice yoga on the deck. By midday it was where we ate lunch and once the mosquitos were too thick we would retire to the south porch to watch the fireflies.

Four years later (2010) I remember sitting on the deck looking up at the maple trees, the pine trees and thinking that if all of them failed and were gone, so long as the walnut tree stood this place would always be perfect. This thought came to mind as I came to this space any time I needed to reset. I would sit in the shade among the grass, the flowers, the trees and the walls of corn that surrounded the property and feel enveloped in a world I loved.

If my mom were smoking on the deck with me it was even better as the magical quality of second hand smoke always eased my mind further. (I smoked for ten years before I had kids. It was really hard to quit, but cold turkey was the only way).

The next spring the walnut tree was hit by lightening. It was like God himself spelled out on the bark that I would find rest in him alone and not his creation. The tree put out some sickly buds and had some tiny leaves but we were not very hopeful, seeing as how the ground was splayed with bark, and the trunk was completely open on one side. I purchased an oak tree from the local garden center thinking that I would start my own tradition in my yard. Get some good shade going for my back deck. In 20 years.

As the leaves fell from the walnut tree the last time my mother was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma in her right lung.

It was 33 days from the day she was diagnosed until she took her last breath, watching a football game one Sunday night with my father and sister.

In those 33 days I dragged my fledgeling herb garden in from the cold and decided to nurture it back to life. My husband rolled his eyes at me but didn't really complain. He's a good man. I planted some other seeds and tended to this thing night and day.

I ordered seeds from cataloges and the day after I came home from my mother's funeral I bought 40 pounds of potting soil, seed starter soil and sank my teeth into gardening indoors.

My dining room table is shoved under a window with a southern exposure and is covered in plants worthy of being sold at a nursery, as they have been growing for three months already. I spend my days hovering over them, reading gardening magazines and now that the weather is getting better, digging up garden plots, planting bushes and some days, destroying things.

Monday I was particularly irritated so I mowed the yard. My cathartic moment came when I was studying the main line of the back yard and thought to myself, why oh why have I not accepted that the oak tree is dead? So I cut it down. Sure enough it was dry all the way down, not a hint green, the dead leaves from last year still firmly attached to the limbs that did not budge.

And for the first time it occurred to me that I've been avoiding this 7 foot tall oak that I could take out with a kitchen knife. My father has a fifty foot walnut tree.

I'm still not sure where to go from here. I don't know how to do this. Luckily my mother never wanted children who were perma-dependent so I'm not missing the day to day help that comes from a mom, and she wasn't much of a phone talker in these last three years, but I'm like, now what. I've lost my compass.

I love you mommy! I love gummy bears bubbie

April 18, 2012 05:22:59 pm

My son came barreling into the house yelling Mommy? Where are you?

Hiding! I replied.

Why? Mommy?

I thought we were playing hide and seek?

Oh but I've been with Addy!

Yes. I've been hiding for awhile.

My world crashed around me and the only remaining words are...you need to remember what you have and be thankful for that.

My mom died. The hamster died. The word which shall not be spoken on this blog crawled into my house and nested in my childrens heads.

And mine.

And here, in my pit I think to myself....I have clean running water. I have asthmatic but living children. Albeit digusting children. I have the ability to run. I have an amazing husband that buys me beer and chocolate and shower caps every night on his way home from work. And trashy books. And rubs my back while I verbally vomit all of my lack of understanding of what the *&^% happened this year.

I'm not back. I just felt inspired while I made dinner.

Crafting again

January 16, 2012 03:03:05 pm

This morning I woke up and the dog was not in his usual spot (right where my feet drop). I looked around and a form emerged from the other side of the room. This is odd because he normally likes to sleep with some part of his torso against our bed. Then I noticed the pile of Christmas stockings that still haven't been boxed up.

Our tree is still up. Yesterday Ali plugged in our exterior lights. We are just going to be those people this year.

And I decided that was just so so sad that today would be the day that I make him a bed for our room. I had talked about it and thought about it but never really in a concrete way.

As I was brushing my teeth it occurred to me that if I just sew together two king size pillows that I hate and just keep in the closet because I don't throw anything away and then sew two pillow cases together over it, that this would be easy enough and he would have a bed.

It sounds nice.

I realized about three inches into step one that the pillow that was sewing machine side had gone as far as it would.

So I flipped it around and figured a few stitches is better than none.

I looked at my pillow cases and decided I really wanted to stay in the same color theme as the room and thus navy blue would have to be reserved for the underside. So I had to find the material I used to make a coordinating bedskirt.

After finding suitable material I carefully measured (HA!) and started sewing. It was during the second turn that it occurred to me that I wasn't filling this with stuffing, I was shoving two pillow in to it. And that means closure takes on a new twist.

Now, had I allowed for slack, it probably would have been as easy as "place pillows in pouch. Turn top fabric over bottom layer and affix with pins. Sew closed."

But not only was I short two inches I couldn't find any pins.

So I called in Ali to hold the pillows up while I used one hand to hold the top closed, one to hold the bottom together AND feed it into the machine.

Sounds like less drama than it really was five minutes ago.

Because after about 3 minutes of this Ali looked up with her little inquisitive face and said "Mom can I just go play?" And walked away. It was then that I noticed that she had taped princess plates to her feet.

After several more minutes and a now broken bobbin case I was able to finish affixing the case to the pillows. I fluffed the product, called the dog to follow me upstairs and he very obligingly crawled onto the bed, curled up and smacked my arm with his paw.

I took that to be a thank you.

And that made it all worth while.

But the next time I wake up and think, really how hard can it be to make a dog bed? I'm going to go back to sleep for a little while. Because clearly my sleep deprivation is making me delusional.

January 12, 2012 06:20:24 pm

Every year it snows in the midwest and every year a quarter to half of the drivers slow down and drive more cautiously. Some drivers actually speed up in a show of how awesome their SUV is, but typically they don't make it to the finish line. And the rest of the drivers spend at least 3 to 4 minutes per interaction with everyone they see the day of a snow fall complaining about the slow drivers.

What amazes me is that these people stand here complaining about how "it's Chicago it's always snows. Get over it."

Like, it didn't happen last year? Or the year before?

Not the snow, the slow drivers. Quit complaining.