Happy Anniversary to my Love

2007

Today is my fourth wedding anniversary and I have a little story to share.  Actually, I have many, many stories to share, but one will suffice for now.  My husband, Chris, and I met while attending the same university.  Winters were bitter cold, as our sprawling campus was on a hill in upstate New York.  We walked with a group of friends into a house just off campus and a visiting priest happened to be with us.  He was visiting from Africa and shivering in the cold living room as he joked about our "pleasant" weather.  Without hesitating, Chris took off his gloves and offered them to the man.  I caught a glimpse of the generous and loving man I would fall in love with. 

Saltwater Air

Have you had moments with your family which make you think to yourself, I am going to look back on this-- years from now-- and I will desperately miss this time?  I've been lucky enough to have a few of those moments this weekend. 

The easy smiles on my children's sun-kissed faces and the laughter between my husband and me as we dug our toes into the sand and admired the mountains across the Sound. . . I wish I could bottle that kind of happiness.

Memories and Keepsakes

I just ordered a photo book for Henry.  It took me fourteen months to create a comprehensive collection of special pictures for Evelyn, but I realized that this time around, I probably won't have blocks of two hours at a time to work on something like that.  I had some time this morning while the kids played (mostly together) and then again while Henry nursed and napped, so I decided to seize the moment.  This book is about twenty pages, but covers birth, professional newborn shots, and the few baptism pictures that remained after my laptop's harddrive crashed (for the second time!  Back up those precious memories, folks!).  I think it will be beautiful.

Keepsakes and mementos are important to me.  I keep handwritten baby books for each child in addition to the bound photo books.  Right now, my plan is to create one photo book (and order two or three copies, so that each child can have a copy to keep) with memories every year or two as a way to document their development and whatever fun things we do as a family: travels, vacations, holidays, and the like.  Digital cameras and online photosharing make it so simple to snap an adorable shot and send it to dozens (or hundreds) of friends, but I am not convinced that this is the best method to preserve photos for the next generation.  I'll have to keep thinking about that.  

baby Evelyn Spring 2009

Cheers!

Happy New Year!  I don't know about you, but this has been a big year in our family.  When recalling the high point of 2010, Chris and I simultaneously proclaimed, Henry!  This decade has been ridiculously packed with life-changing events.  Some highlights between 2000 and 2010:

• graduated high school
• attended NYU for a year before transferring to Cornell (where I met some of my absolute best friends)
• met the love of my life
• graduated from college
• married the love of my life
• moved across the country (opposite coast)
• gave birth to a daughter
• bought a house
• gave birth to a son

Here's to a year in which I am fully present and in the moment more often.  Here's to adventures as a family of four.  Cheers!

The Greatest gift

In one week, we celebrate Christmas.  For me, Christmas entails fragrant incense, a community gathered together, beautiful music, and precious time with some of our family.  We'll cook a nice meal and splurge on wine and rich desserts.  There will be prayer and laughter and (hopefully) some rest.  I am looking forward to all of this.  Still, I've been thinking a lot about the gifts we will place beneath and around the tree.

Gift-giving is a big part of our celebration.  We are finished with our Christmas shopping and I am so excited to see Evelyn's reaction.  Henry will be happy to be in the arms of someone who loves him (or on the ground, crawling toward wrapping paper).  I'm not worried about what to give him this year!  Evelyn, though, will have a lot to say.  She is very expressive, often exclaiming "Oh, I would love to do that!" or "No thank you, Mama.  I don't like that!" 

Throughout my own childhood I didn't get everything I ever asked for-- and I didn't expect to receive it.  Half the fun of creating a wish list is the element of surprise, I think.  I'd come up with a long list of ideas and, somehow, my Mom knew which items I wanted or needed the most.  I have been trying to think of a favorite Christmas gift.  Certainly, there are a couple of large stand-out gifts.  One year, I received a nineteenth century dresser (I'd had my eye on it at a local antique dealer's shop).  Another year, my Mom gave me a hope chest.  Looking back though, I think the best gift I received was not something that I used every day.

My favorite Christmas gift is a hard cover, three volumes in one, Anne of Green Gables book.  This is not my favorite book, but I treasure it because of the way it makes me feel.  I received this book in 1994 and I clearly remember where we were when I pointed it out to my mother.  My siblings and I were with my Mom in her college book store.  You see, she attended college after the four of us were born, and after she and my father were divorced.  Needless to say, a single mother of four children isn't exactly rolling in money.  When I asked for the book that summer, I knew it was likely that my Mom would say "no."  She did, but she also said she would keep it in mind for the future.

Weeks and months went by and I forgot all about it until Christmas morning, when I unwrapped Anne of Green Gables.  On the inside cover, my mother wrote the year alongside "Merry Christmas!  Love, Mom and Dad" but I know she chose this gift on her own.  My mother remembered that I had liked the looks of this hefty book.  I felt so loved and so heard-- an important feeling for one of four children, especially during the stressful days of divorce and working parents.  It is this sense of a treasured feeling that I hope to capture in my own gift-giving as a mother.

Little breaths and feathery wings

After hearing that I have two small children, women (whose children are now young adults) often say to me that they wish they could go back to the days of babies and toddlers.  Even though they were tired and overwhelmed and sometimes forgot very simple things like where on earth the car keys might be, they wish they had taken time to slow down and enjoy their babies more. 

On the one hand, I think these women probably had many wonderful and loving moments with their children, but on the other, I wonder if the rosy fog of time has clouded their memories!  I don't know of a way to slow down while caring for a baby and a toddler.  I truly believe that mothers do the best they can with what they have.  Still, I really value this piece of advice and I do try to remember the little moments, the small pauses in our days together-- because these days are not my own.  These days truly are our days. 

My children and I are sort of a package deal at this point; how could I not know by heart all of the beautifully silly dances Evelyn likes to do and the slobbery raspberries Henry blows with his pink baby lips?  I spend my nights next to a sweet baby boy, whose milky exhalations are the very personification of satisfied sleep.  My lively daughter took great delight this evening in shrugging her shoulders while we danced to music in the family room.  She flapped her arms like wings and exclaimed "look, Mama!  I'm a bird!  Tweet, tweet!"  What else could I do?  I joined her in flight.    

Snapshot: Evelyn at about five months

I found a photo of Evelyn when she was Henry's age. Besides the fact that she had quite a bit more hair, I think Evelyn and Henry look alike as babies. It will be interesting to see if the trend continues as they grow up. My siblings and I look alike. As children, one of my sisters and I were occasionally mistaken for twins. We certainly are not identical at this point, but it is obvious that we are related.

Hello, fall!

Ever since the days of John Barley Corn-- and probably well before-- there has been a certain excitement and magic to the idea of the Harvest. I would venture to guess that most of us don't have strong ties to the actual harvesting of crops (in terms of our livelihood, anyway). But, with CSA's, U-pick fields, and Farmer's Markets, there are absolutely ways to join in and share in the Harvest.

Let's forget, for a moment, that the corn maze down the hill is perhaps the saddest looking one I've ever seen; I don't think it was a great summer for corn. I ams still very excited to take the kids to nearby farms for pumpkins, squashes, cider, and mud. Well, I'm not thrilled about the mud part, but it wouldn't be a good hayride without the muddy boots of a toddler dangling against my jeans! Each year I load up on oddly-shaped gourds and alabaster pumpkins. I tie dried corn stalks to our front porch, all the while muttering about how absurd it is to pay for dried cornstalks when it is easy to obtain these for free in many other communities. Oh yes, and the mums! The flowers I planted last year have mostly returned. Strangely, just the white mums. So I bought a big bushel of dark red ones for the little brick patio in the front of the house. I'll update with fall photos when we start seeing the beautiful foliage. Last year, our neighborhood had some gorgeous fall leaves and I hope we'll see them again!

Snapshot: Future student?

Evie does know how to sing the alma mater.

Story for my daughter

Growing up, my father had two favorite sayings involving my writing. The first: "if it says your name at the top, you'd better make sure it is something you're proud of." The second: "don't carve into your paper with your pencil, it makes it very hard to erase." Naturally, I developed a strong inclination to write my name on practically every paper item I owned-- and sometimes I did carve my words. It might have been easier to erase math mistakes when I wrote softly (and thoughtfully), but I always wrote with a vengeance-- either because I was angry that I had to finish math homework (and I never liked math) or because I was passionate about whatever it was I happened to be writing.

I want to create a tangible story for my daughter. I want to explain the little nuances and complexities of life that I so often discovered (and continue to discover, to be sure) only after tears or loneliness or, worst of all, embarrassment. Of course, I fully realize that she needs to live her own life, but maybe I can soften some of the blows or draw a map detailing the whereabouts of the silver lining to at least a couple of sticky situations.

There are so many unwritten rules. Perhaps she will be spared my tendency to observe and assess virtually every social situation immediately upon entering a room. This constant "temperature taking" is mainly the result of my own experiences, but it is also something I've always been rather good at so maybe some of it is innate. I do hope that my daughter will have the ability to understand the subtlety of social interactions-- I have little patience for the oblivious among us-- but I also hope she will be able to recognize her own agency in her life. She is primarily responsible for herself and for her own successes and failures. I hope to convey to her that she is not living under a microscope, even when she is thirteen and it feels like her every move is being scrutinized by her peers. I hope she can see another person's reactions not as her's to re-shape but as a part of life, of the human condition. She can show empathy without sacrificing self.

I often think about how layered our stories are-- all of us. I have a story and it is my own, and yet it is tangled-- often at the most pivotal of moments-- with the stories of others. I know that my story will become a part of my daughter's and it is mostly for this reason that I want so badly to clean it up-- to lighten the marks so as to be able to erase the mistakes. I want my daughter to see my name, her name, and be proud. Most of all though, I want my daughter to boldly make her mark wherever she sees fit.

A reminder . . .

Look at how little Evelyn was . . . (early Fall '08). I can't wait to meet her brother and marvel at his tiny hands and feet.

Stock Photo?

At least one person has wondered whether my header features a generic "pretty" picture. Well, nothing against stock photos (OK, I hate stock photos), but it is absolutely not a random image. It's one of my favorites. I took the photo while in Sintra, Portugal and it reminds me of a great adventure with my husband.

I love to look back at photos like this. Even on days speckled with mundane chores, life is still a great adventure, filled with little out-of-the-way nooks and hidden beauty.

Snapshot: Evelyn, a few days old

Evelyn was so itty bitty (although at the time, she always seemed big!) It's surreal to think that in a few months, she will be a big sister.

Summer Breeze

The boats in Yarrow Bay are bobbing gently and the tall grasses are swaying to the South. Evie is asleep. We've been enjoying one of the most beautiful summers I can remember: plenty of sunshine and warm, even hot, days. Somewhere on the lake, friends are water-skiing and families are tubing. I know this because we can hear their excited shouts echoing across the lake from our living room when our windows are open. I don't mind the noise. It reminds me of childhood days at my grandparents' house on Seneca Lake, one of New York's Finger Lakes.

We didn't water-ski, but we went on countless boat rides. I loved to feel the wind whip through my hair and I ignored the inevitable tangles. It felt like flying. We spent hours swimming in the lake and playing on the smooth slate rocks-- nature's slip-n-slides! The zebra muscles were sharp and the rocks were hot but we rarely stopped to put on water shoes before traipsing into the cool water. There is a feeling of immense freedom and inherent pleasure to be found in the shutting of one's eyes on a hot summer day. Laying back on a warm dock to dry after a swim, family (and cold drinks) close by.

I hope with all of my heart that Evelyn will have many memories like these. Memories which, for me, because of their innocence and unadulterated happiness, outshine and outlast the painful ones.