Three

My James is three years old today. While I know that I am supposed to say that I can’t believe it, and it is true that time has flown, it seems like there was no me or us before James. He is a powerhouse of personality, a key figure in our whole family and universe, it is hard to believe that he is ONLY three.

He’s always been such a boy, to the point of making me paranoid and ever-watchful, but he has gone from being rambunctious and rowdy to outright defiant and violent at times. Faith gets the brunt of this, mostly because she taunts him into action, and action is exactly what he provides. A swift kick, or a toy thrown at an impressive speed. My poor girl sported bruises on her school picture day because of Jamie’s inability to just calm on down.

On the flip side, the boy has charm. My father once said that he’s going to smile his way out of trouble all of his life and truer words have never been spoken. He already does it. James is in possession of one of the sweetest smiles I have ever witnessed in my life, the kind that lights up his whole face, the kind that lights up the whole room. I have gone to him, fuming and angry over something awful and deliberate that he has done and he has looked up at me, eyes twinkling and crinkling, and I have been disarmed by his smile, having to catch myself from smiling back. I will have to find a way around that smile, it will be my kryptonite.

Ever since he was old enough to have a preference over anything, he has loved trains. Perhaps a better word would be obsessed with trains. Of course Thomas the Train became a favorite and still is. There are trains and tracks littering my whole house. The trains were essential in potty training. The trains are his best friends. The trains go everywhere with us. In the past few months he has started broadening his horizons, enjoying cars and loving the movie Wall-E, but trains are still the elite of his likings.

I’m so relieved at his appetite that includes a willingness to try anything. His easygoing attitude about going here or there, no need for any sort of routine. His need to cuddle and be loved, hugged, and kissed all throughout the day. He is an affectionate boy, not stingy with touch, willing to give it to anyone who seems to be in need. He will climb onto my lap, look deep into my eyes, and just kiss my nose, my cheeks. I laugh and kiss his neck, savoring these moments, afraid that they will be gone too soon.

He is my heart, my three year old boy.

He taught me Nawlins and Spanglish too

This is such, SUCH, a bummer but I think I need to get this out.

I just found out that an old co-worker died. He died several months ago, but I found out about it by boredom, snooping around on the internet. I found his facebook page and instead of just his name, it was followed by “memorial page” and then after frantic googling I found his obituary, stating his death as being in March.

I’m just shocked right now. This man was not just a co-worker, but a friend of mine. I started working at a small construction company when I was barely twenty-one and he was about forty-five at the time, a small man with an ever-reddish nose and a permanent grin on his face. He was hilarious, and had one of those laughs that was just contagious, whenever you heard it you wanted to laugh too, even if you weren’t in on the joke. He was a nickname type of guy, he had one for everybody. Mine was “Woodstock” because he had an image of me, long-haired hippie chick, peaceful and free-spirited. Our entire office started calling each other by their nicknames and we even had an official nickname board which needed to be updated every so often.

Whenever I was distressed at work, he was always there with grounded guidance and he was one of my favorite things about that job. I loved seeing him come down the hallway and always couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say. He made my two years at that company immeasurably better.

He had a great love for music and we had many a long conversation about it. When I told him that Jeff played he was overjoyed and often sent home music or videos with me for Jeff to watch. He’d ask me every so often about Jeff, wondering if he was “still pickin’ and grinning”. He was from Louisiana, which oozed out of his voice and was a great sense of pride for him. I learned all about Mardi Gras from him, proper Mardi Gras, not just the partying (although he told me about that too).

I left that job one summer, after management shifted and things got to be unbearable for me. He pursued other avenues as well, for the same reasons. He kept in touch afterward and when I got married I made sure to send him an invitation. His R.S.V.P. card was the fastest one returned and at my reception he was waiting for me with a big hug and an even bigger grin. The last time I talked to him he said that I needed to go ahead and become a mama, and then time sped by on warp speed and I never talked to him again and it breaks my heart I wasn’t at his funeral.

He was a good man, with a wife that he loved very much and three children that are way too young to have lost a father.

I’m remembering good times Andy, and I hope to see you again someday.

Melancholy

Jeff and I took the kids camping this past weekend and it was The Awesome. We went to Stone Mountain which isn’t deep in the woods or anything that proper camping should be, but it’s so much fun for the kids. They went to the pumpkin festival, we watched a 4-D mini movie that I think may have traumatized James, we went on the sky lift that I know traumatized me (I had a “bad imagine” as Faith would say, about us all plummeting to our deaths. *shudder*), and we went on the train, we walked around the top of the mountain, we went to the old plantation houses and petted the farm animals. At night we roasted marshmallows and made smores.

It was the weekend that we’ve been looking forward to having with them for, I don’t know, forever. Just Jeff and I, and our children, all in one place, doing wholesome family type things. It was rather dreamy, actually, and not in a Stepford way because they were still screamy, terrifying children at times, but just . . . good. It felt good.

Then we came home and back to the grind. I washed my hair three times and it still smells like campfire smoke. The clothes are still in heaps in the laundry room, and I’m already behind in my nutrition class for the week. This is all okay, though. This is life, this is what happens, I don’t live in movie land where things behind the scenes get magically taken care of except for comic relief purposes. What really does get to me, however, is that real life settles back when Jeff starts his work week.

Having a husband that works nights SUCKS. There is no poetic way to put it, it just sucks. He’s on a different schedule than we are, he’s always tired. I feel guilty for waking him up at 11:00 a.m. because I know he’s exhausted and I feel like crap for the mornings he has to wake up at 7:30 for me to get to school. We both feel awful when we’ve squandered away the moments that we do get to share by bickering about some non-significant Thing. I get irritated sometimes, thinking that he could bathe the kids on his nights at home, or make their dinner, or play with them, or settle some argument since I do it by myself all the time. I immediately get angry at myself for the irritation thinking that while I’m home with the kids, he’s at work, in a shop, on his feet, at night, lonely, deciphering intricate blue prints, all to support us.

It’s not just hard on our marriage, it’s hard on our kids. Faith goes four and a half days without seeing her father. EVERY WEEK. I try to fill him in on the little things, but sometimes they get lost in translation. I feel so blessed, for all the things I have, and then I feel a little wistful, I suppose, wanting someone to share them with daily. I want us to be a family, to be whole, every night together.

Here’s wishing to a brighter future.

Random - Just to hear the keys go click

I spent the entire weekend studying for my first exam, which was today. It covered several huge chapters out of our main text, a couple dozen chapters out of our secondary text, three chapters of medical math, and four chapters of medical terminology. I must be learning something after all because after it was over I thought to myself “well, that wasn’t too bad”. Then I came home, changed into completely unflattering gauchos and a huge t-shirt, made myself an enormous burrito, and have tuned into mindless television shows and looked at silly things on the internet because MY BRAIN WANTS A BREAK.

:::

Jeff and I were planning our upcoming weekends and we have something planned for every weekend until the end of time. On one hand, yay, stuff to do! On the other, boo, whatever happened to lazy weekends where we stay in our pajamas and watch old 80’s movies? I don’t even know the last time we’ve done that. With Jeff working nights, weekends are the only time we have together as a whole family. It’s also the only time we can spend with his folks, or mine, or any of our friends. It’s the times when we do grocery shopping, or house projects. I hate that he has to work nights. It ruins everything. And makes me cranky. This post will start getting out of hand, so I should probably change the subject.

:::

Faith’s teacher brought her out to the car last week (which is new to me, this whole escort to and from the car thing. Just what are they trying to keep the parents from seeing inside?) and told me that Faith had had a good day, but was a little disappointed when no one else wanted to play pretend with her. She was stuffing animals and/or dolls up her shirt and pretending to be pregnant. I laughed and shook my head and tried to appear like a normal parent and informed the teacher that it’s been a big thing with her lately, playing “pregnant”. The teacher eyed me, probably trying to figure out if I were pregnant which would make more sense and so I made sure to tell her I didn’t know where it was coming from, and we went home. Where Faith continued to play pregnant, made her barbies be pregnant, and drew pictures of babies in bellies. So I decided to really blow her mind and showed her the video of her being born and she was FASCINATED. I asked her if she wanted me to have another baby and she said no, that she’ll just have one some day when she grows up a little bit and I could help her take care of it. I’m so proud of her. She wants to have a child, doesn’t care if she’s married, and she’ll make me take care of it. I must be doing something right in my child rearing duties!

Blessed

Not long ago Jeff and I were looking through old pictures on the computer, click click click and we were transported back two years and three. There we sat, mouths hanging open as we viewed our children back then. James, bald, wide gummy smile. Faith, short curls, baby-face. The videos are more extreme, tiny voices that are now loud. Of course, in a few short years I’ll think that these are the tiny voices (hard to imagine) and that time has again back-handed me and left me stunned.

Chubby cheeks are starting to narrow, and short legs are lengthening. Diapers are non-existent and temperaments are well in place. I can hardly lift Faith without a verbal exclamation and James is much more boy than baby. I watched the videos and looked at the pictures wanting so badly for another baby, another tiny thing to feed and hold and be a BABY, but I know that another would quickly grow out of “baby” and into “kid” in lightning time.

I’m trying to make it last. I’m trying to keep our old habits. I swaddle them in towels and hold them in front of the mirror after the bath, something I started with Faith when she was just a wee thing. I sing the morning songs, the patience songs. I cuddle and carry and use our own language whenever possible, transforming hand to “hammy” and flip-flops to “clip-clops” and they are moving on when I refuse to.

It is obvious that each stage is a new wonder, a new sense that I must hang on to this, this right now, and wish forever for the memories to stay clear and never leave my ever-evolving mind. They are wondrous and aren’t I the lucky one to get to experience this? How silly it feels sometimes to complain about this small thing or that inconvenience when I have the privilege to watch them be.

An Experience

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting. Something sad, I suppose. Old people, feeble-bodied and weak-minded, sitting listlessly around a bleak room, lonely and depressed. I figured they would all be sickly and incoherent. I’m not sure why I thought this way, but I suppose I had heard so many stories about the sadness of nursing homes from my in-laws that I expected the senior center I visited today to be the same.

It is part of the nursing program I’m in, a community service type of assignment. We spent some time with seniors today and we’ll go spend some time in an elementary school in a couple weeks. While I was looking forward to the elementary school (a little) I was sort of dreading today. So imagine my surprise, just ten minutes into my visit, when I thought to myself “this is awesome”.

The people I met were upbeat and energetic people. The woman I spent most of the day with, Wilma, was easily one of the most effervescent, witty, quick, charming people I’ve ever met. Her hands moved quickly with her crochet needle, her eyes easily picked up the mistake I made when she was trying to teach me, she had comebacks for every taunt thrown her way in record time. She is 86 years old. Her and another lady, who is 90 and proclaims that she is healthy as a horse, made easy jokes towards one of the only men at the center. They are both widowed but they don’t want “an old man”. Wilma was married for 57 years and her husband passed six years ago. She told me that they were very close and had he been alive she wouldn’t have been out at the center, but that it’s helped her a lot. It keeps her from looking at four walls all the time.

Wilma enjoyed me being her pet today and I didn’t want to leave her side even though the room was full of older people, all in their own groups, all full of hearty laughter. I laughed so much today that I felt my cheeks starting to hurt. Wilma reminded me of my grandmother, my father’s mother, who was quick like her, feisty, and would give those big, toothy, loud laughs when something amused her. I tried my hand at crocheting on a loom, and admired all of their handiwork, beautiful hats, scarves, blankets, afghans, quilts. All made with ancient hands and carefully stored away to be sold at a craft fair to raise money for the senior center. I told myself that I would be there and purchase Wilma’s Christmas quilt.

Every time my eyes met someone else’s I gave them a genuine smile and received one in return. Here were folks who had spent most of their lives, if not all, in North Georgia and spent their days at the same center with the same people and I could just feel a current shift by my presence. They were happy to see me. They wanted to tell me their stories, and hear mine. They were pleased to hear I was in nursing school and that I was a Christian. They were not stingy with common affection, touching my arm, patting my shoulder. They talked about the children at the local school where they sometimes go to read books with the first graders. They are proud of those children, praising their intelligence, as if they were their own. They would like Faith, I think, with her quiet manner and polite ways. They would like James, with his charming smile and his crinkly eyes.

It was time for me to go, it came by too quickly. I went to get my purse and had the director sign my paper saying that I had indeed spent time there, and as I walked back to Miss Wilma to say goodbye, I saw dismay in her eyes.

“Are you leaving, honey?” she asked.

“I am,” I replied with some sadness. “But I’d like to come back and see you again. May I?”

And she smiled and pulled me into a hug and kissed my cheek, said that of course I could, and then told me goodbye and that she loved me.

Riding Down the River

Somehow, it is the last day of August. My summer, which was filled with endless good intentions, has ended. Faith is in school, I am in school, we are all newly adjusted to our fall schedule and all is well, but man, I kind of wish summer had lasted just a LITTLE bit longer. It just seems like we didn’t get to play enough.

It is wonderful, however, to be able to open the windows for the first time in months without feeling like we’re suffocating from the heat and humidity.

In one last summer hurrah, Jeff and I and some friends went down the river. In what might be the most redneck mode of free entertainment, we basically just sit on inner tubes and ride them down the Chattahoochee. What would be a ten minute drive on back roads that parallel the river is a five hour ride on tubes. We take coolers full of drinks and food, and shove them into their own tubes, which we tie onto ours and we just sit back and let the river take us down a little farther south. We always bump into rocks, cover ourselves with bruises, and occasionally flip over when we try to navigate little rapids. We have sometimes lost the contents of our coolers and almost always lose our sunglasses. When the river is down we have to scoot along the more shallow areas and when the river is up we fly along in a more fun and terrifying ride. We always try to cover ourselves with sunscreen but most of the time we end up getting burned anyway. We always straggle out of the river at the bridge where we end our ride, dragging our tubes behind us, soaking wet, red, sore, and dehydrated, usually missing some article of clothing that we went in with.

It is one of the most fun things we do all year.

We always get into the Chattahoochee up near where we live in Northeast Georgia, where the river is clean, long before where it gets near Atlanta and is . . . not so clean anymore. Once on the river we occasionally see kayakers going by, but most of the time we are all alone in our little group. We’ll see houses sometimes, high on the banks, cabins isolated from the rest of the world. It is quiet and peaceful and tranquil. It feels like it is some part of nature untouched from the rest of the world and it’s our luck to be able to enjoy it. It’s several hours of the kind of fun you have when you’re a kid, just a thrill to be moving fast with the sun on your face, laughing until your sides hurt. It just makes me feel alive.

Now, it’s nearly fall, and the river will quickly get cold. And another year until the next river ride.