Sadie's Picture

My Little Jane,

Oh I love you. I swear sometimes it's like I'm raising myself. If it weren't for your blue eyes, I might get your baby pictures confused with my own. Your flippy pigtails and adorability, it's just all so natural to you. It comes so easy. Your girly mannerisms. Your ruffly goodness. When you're just waiting in the line with your brothers and notice a bar that is the perfect height to hang on, it's all so present even when you aren't paying it any attention.

There will be times when it doesn't seem like this prettiness will come so easily. There will be times when you're not so sure and won't feel like you're radiating joy the way you do in this picture. But Sadie, this picture is you. You are knowing and enjoyable and so completely lovable. Know that even when you don't know it.

Always your fan,
Mom

P.S. I love your shoes. I'm glad you picked them out.

In response to an assignment

On the first day of the National Writing Project institute, we were asked to think about our favorite moments as writers and explain those experiences as narratives. I wrote about my experiences keeping a personal journal in college. Here's my response:

Unnerved. At a time when I was wounded and out of place, there was no sense of security in being around other people, calling home, or asking for advice. There was no relieve in the things I was raised to believe in. I felt like such a fool, and I needed to bring myself out of desparation. And so, I fell back on a practice that I ad truned to since I was twelve. I needed to write. I used to just go through the motions - writing down someone else's words, like lyrics to a song or copying out of a book, and sometimes still do. But I had experienced the writing-out of feelings now and was compelled to allow myself another self-indulgent session.

Out in the woods on a nearly vacant trail, only another jogger every ten minutes or so. I'd gone for a run and stopped in the middle. I sat on a rock. I breathed and let the trees soak into me. I closed my eyes to feel the spots of sun blinking through the leaves like whispers to my soul. Then a jumble thoughts would flow through me and right out the top of my head, most of them unclear - that scattered uncertainty of unrequited love and wishfulness. And then one thought would come, and I'd know it was brilliant. Before I forgot it, I'd scribble it down as quickly as I could on a piece of paper I had folded into quarters and tucked into my waistband. It was as if I was watching myself from a distance yet could not me any more in the moment as myself: the slowness of writing not keeping up with what I wanted to say, that slowness shaping my next thought into somehting more clear and poignant than my original idea. Such release and feeling of being real and knowing who I was. Ending when I was exhausted or it just felt like I'd reached the perfect concluding line. I'd read what had spewed out of me and be so pleased with myself. Feeling centered and proud and like someone ought to be there to see me like this, all figured out.

It is those moments of writing which make it important to me, which inspire me to want to ensure that the ability to ground yourself is available to everyone: the young, the underprivileged, the forgotten. The self-serving, the bullying, the greedy. For better than any prayer with a thousand meaningless "Oh Lords", writing can help you see through the clouds of life. It helps you define values, see situations from broader perspectives, calms and draws conclusions. It is that communication with yourself that I learned to cherish. It is because writing has the abilityto search and affirm. And also to preserve, so that when you need to, you can read over again that moment of clarity to reconnect with the self you intended to be.

National Writing Project

This summer I'm taking part in the inaugural institute of the River Bend National Writing Project at USI. It's a professional development program for teachers focused on improving literacy skills, and I'm hoping that it will lead to productive professional opportunities for me in the future. You can read more about it at www.usi.edu/riverbend.

A part of the institute is centered around teachers developing themselves as writers. We've been given a few direct assignments, but are mainly encouraged to find our own "projects" to work on. I don't have access to a classroom in which I can do research, and I don't have an idea (yet) for a novel like many of the other participants. I do have this blog, though, and one of the books that has been lying on my shelf for a long time is called Legacy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History by Linda Spence. That's exactly what it is. There are hundreds of simple prompts that ask you to turn your life into stories.

Originally, I had bought this book to give to my grandma because I wanted to know more about her childhood, but that didn't end up working out. And now, I'm thinking about my kids, wondering if maybe they'll ever want to have a personal link to a tiny piece of history.

I don't have too many followers of my blog, but for those of you who do read my response to these prompts, please comment and let me know what you think. If you were there in those moments and remember them differently, fill me in. Also, I'm hoping that some of these might inspire you to tell your own stories. Even if you don't think of yourself as a great writer, there are people who want to hear what you have to say.

Little Man Blake

In early May, we were putting the finishing touches on packing for our trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Yeah, I heard the babies awake in their cribs, but no one was crying, so I let them stay there while I finished getting ready. I came upstairs for the last time to go wake them up, and who should greet me but Mr. Blake - who had stripped down to a diaper - marching with purpose passed the staircase where I was standing. That boy had climbed out of his crib and opened his bedroom door. He glanced at me, said "Hi," and waved, but he didn't slow down. He turned and walked into the kitchen, opened the dishwasher, pulled out the top shelf and got a cup. I just stood there in shock and watched him. He held the cup up to the fridge and got some water. Took a drink. Got more water. Spilled it. I promise you, he shrugged his shoulders, got a towel off the edge of the counter and wiped it up.



Blake and Sadie are my babies. I don't like when people call their kids babies after they are way passed the baby phase, but honestly, my babies are babies. Toddlers at most. To see him unexpectedly whiz through a complicated series of tasks like that - and to do it with such nonchalance! - well it makes me think I've been mothering blindfolded.



It made me laugh to see him act like such a mini-man. (Although, I know of at least one man who wouldn't have bothered to wipe up his spill. Hee hee) It made me breathe a sigh of relief, like maybe I should start expecting more out of him. Maybe I should expect him to use more words instead of constantly trying to guess what he wants. Maybe I should expect him to follow more directions. Blake can be oblivious to the world around him when he is focused on something that catches his attention, but I think he also has a greater ability to calculate situations than I used to give him credit for.

So, way back in January, we decided that we should look for a new house. We seemed to be outgrowing ours little by little, and had enough money in savings to afford a bigger, more "what we always wanted" kind of place. We looked and looked and found some that were close but none that were perfect. The complexities of house hunting are nerve racking. One would have 4 bedrooms but not enough family space. Another would have a great fenced-in backyard but be in a neighborhood we didn't really like. We have now looked at over 50 houses.



On April 28th, with the tax credit deadline upon us, we had all but given up. We decided to take our house off of the market and just hang tight until we either had a little more money to spend or the right house fell into our laps. But we got a call that night from someone who saw the sign in our front yard, they came to see the house at 8 in the morning, and offered to buy it by 4:30 that afternoon.



At that point, we had sold our house and have to move out by June 25th, but we had no place to live. There was not a house on the market that would be the right fit for us. We knew that the "right fit" house exists since we'd let two of them slip through our fingers early in the house hunting game. And so we were torn. We looked for rental homes, apartments, thought about moving to Ohio.

And then, we went to see a for sale by owner house that we had seen months before. At the time, we loved it, but felt it was simply out of our price range, especially for a 3 bedroom. However, some magic fairy dust was blown our way. The price had dropped, and upon seeing this place the second time, we fell in love with it.

Today we went to the bank to sign another round of papers. We're closing on Thursday and getting the keys to our new place. It's a place that has been so loved, even from its planning phases. The father of the woman we are buying it from planned the subdivision and hand built the grand curved banister that welcomes you in the entryway. The couple created the plans and ensured that every inch was cared for for the last 24 years. They've moved closer to her parents to help care for them as they age and are understandably emotional over the decision to move. I cannot imagine. We get the sense that it is some relief to them knowing that there are 3 new beautiful children who will have the chance to grow up in that house, who will get to run down that hill in the backyard and play in those bedrooms. The home has such a feeling of love and happiness running through it. We intend to keep it that way.

A Good Sneak

Owen has this new habit of trying to make a "good sneak" whenever he knows there's something he's supposed to do. It's fun to be sneaky, but he has tried to do things like sneak outside without permission or sneak into the snack bin and the results were less than favorable for him. So, we told him that it's still fun to sneak for good stuff that he knows he won't get in trouble over. It worked. It worked very well. Almost too well.



Owen sneaks into his clothes in the morning, coming downstairs fully dressed in long sleeved shirts, shorts, and argyle socks. He sneaks into the van when I'm getting everything loaded up, which would be great if he didn't leave the door open, allowing babies in bare socks to run out in to the muddy yard before I can catch them. He sneaks into the tub after dinner, claiming his spot near the faucet before the twins get carried down.



But his favorite sneak, the one he tries every night, is the sneak after bath, into his room, into his pj's. Usually, I'll be checking facebook or doing dishes, and I'll hear a little giggle on the stairs. I'll turn around and see a naked booty crawling under his towel/invisibility cloak back to his room. He loves this sneak, and I think I know why. He tries to pull it off before he gets his hair and body washed. Getting to play in the tub without the nuisance of having to get clean is a win-win in his book. A lot of the time, I just let him get away with it too.

If he sees that I've seen him sneaking, he gets so disappointed. Most of time, he burst into tears. "I was trying to do a good sneak! You ruined my sneak!" So I have learned not to turn my head to creaking noises in the hallway. After 10 minutes or so of playing Transformers in his birthday suit, he'll come out all pj-ed up and ready for bed, saying, "Mom, guess what? I did a good sneak!!! Aren't you proud of me?"

Yes, buddy. I am.

Owenisms #5

On Monday nights, when I teach ENG 201 out at USI, Tim and the kids have pizza night. When the pizza guy showed up and dinner was served, Owen told Tim, "This pizza sets me free!"

"Molly, don't go out there. You don't want to get your fleas wet!" Yelled to our cat who does not have fleas, but did run out into the rain as we did our normal 3 trips into the house (one for each baby and one for the stuff)

While we were the only family playing at the Chick-fil-a playground, two little girls came in. Owen was up in the tunnels when the oldest girl (6-ish) asked him where her sister was. Owen was on a mission to find the younger sister (3-ish), and after he did, he went back up the tunnel to inform the big sis. When he came down the slide, he got right up next to me and said very seriously, "Mom, I think I'm starting to like woman." Woman, not women. Oh my.

"Dad, I'm starting to fall in love with Wheely." Wheely is a little Transformer.

On an ordinary day in March, "You deserve a Mother's Day. I'm gonna give you this day for mothers." Nothing else happened that day, but it may have been my favorite day this March.

"Do you know why they call it a pacifier? So that if you were in a burning building, your mouth wouldn't get burnt when you were getting out."