the cheesiest

jeremy williams and i had an on-going challenge to see who could eat the most macaroni-n-cheese. i remember this as vividly as i do swallowing lima beans whole and that cinnamon did not make warm squash taste better. mom babysat. proper nutrition was saved for supper.

even so.

this never occured to me until just today. i about dropped the spoon i was using to divy up mac-n-cheese for the kids: how many kraft boxes did she mix up to aid in our weekly throw-downs? it's been a savored childhood memory. 8 bowls. one summer day i ate jeremy under the table with 8 bowls, and until an hour ago i had never questioned my record's integrity though jeremy did appeal the last bowl should not qualify as a full portion. i countered that i had beaten him with the 7 th to finish up what was left in the pan. not only could i eat more, i was faster.

where my mom was in all of this, i have no recollection. but at 9 or 10 we were certainly not feeding ourselves. and if not for this battle of the mac with jeremy williams i would not believe my mother to ever have let us eat so much of anything in one sitting. she had to have been staging the repeat helpings for us with 2 or 3 bites to a round. had to.

being a mom now. it casts light onto the shadows surrounding some of my fondest memories. i see a new side of who my mom was back then. i like that part. we'll see when maddy hits her tweens and illuminated is what mom must have been doing when i was one. i don't go overboard for mother's day. but in 10 years? the brain cells might be so bright with understanding that i'll be sending my mother a truck load of roses.

pretty toes

i read the first of suggestions from my old college roommate, snow flower and the secret fan, in three sittings last friday. wholly neglecting supper, bath, story, bed and all-heck-broken-loose times. i vaguely recalled later hugs and kisses good-night. it'd been a really long time since i sat down with a book. we had an affair.

it struck me how i was reading a tale about women whose futures were predicted almost entirely on the beauty of their feet. their feet after being bound and broken and reformed into 3" long 'golden lillies'. and when i say women, i really mean little girls. i realized i squint when i am horrified, and it's really hard to read while squinting.

i was born with feet. not raw golden lily material by any stretch of the imagination. as a child i used to imagine where they were. so odd the idea that a part of your being could be lopped off, bagged up and - incinerated like garbage. i finally expressed concern that my feet were just lounging around a landfill to my mother, and she clued me in. this eased my mind that they were not among mounds of disposable diapers nor would i one day bump into them floating in a big gallon jug along with the old basemented canning jars. i was 6 months old when they were removed and the process of reconstructing my knees began.

dad told me had i been born any earlier, and i'd have spent my life in an institution. earlier still, and society would have had my infant skull crushed against a rock. and in this day of ultrasounds, aborted.

i went to mexico my junior year of college. visiting the pyramids, my professor quietly told me had i been born in that ancient society, i'd have been considered a god. that still makes me smile a little, though i know i would have caved under the pressure. i mean a god. having my food brought to me while living in temple luxury is a nice idea, but i'm sure i would also have been expected to have grand thoughts. and possibly speak in public. i would surely have been found out eventually. or murdered by the Christian invaders. or on a really bad day, both.

after squinting and squirming for a good half hour, i had to laugh again. i can only imagine a matchmaker's reaction at seeing my toes. having a crushed skull might have been more out of bewilderment than brutality. and i have to let go of the idea wandering in the background that vern is a little off for finding what's left after my surgeries and amputations to be beautiful in its own right. i'd never considered a pretty foot or lower limb to be such a subjective thing. or at least extend so far beyond the preference of polish color and heel height. i so owe my husband a cookie. or at least one night off to sit and read si's 'brett favre' while i tackle the kids.

what she said

the last 12 lines of this. i had a little light bulb moment. i needed one. bookmarked in this way because sometimes i forget to keep charging that socket's battery and allow what lightens to dim.

fleeting

i caught a glimpse of us in the spinning doors of the hospital headed to the pediatric clinic today, in for owen's 6 month well-baby appointment. just after passing a care provider pushing a sweet elderly woman. widened soft and smiling eyes as we had come into view. "oh, she has her hands full." "looks like dad does, too!"

'you've/he's got your/his hands full' is the #1 line said to vern. yes. we've been keeping a poll it happens that often. there's a joke going round that he should get a t-shirt that on the back reads, "yes! i do!" so i was happy to get a little credit during this public outing.

and then i saw us. owen and maddy seated in my lap, both sitting straight and proper and 13 months apart, but only a few inches and mere 6 pounds difference in size. maddy with her baby doll brody nestled at her side. vern pushing all 4 of us. caleb at pre-k, but usually walking to vern's side holding either his dad's hand or mine.

i'm going to miss this when the kids get older. being able to carry them. have people make note of the children, and my status as a mother, before really taking note of my missing lower limbs or oddly structured hands.

people's faces are so much softer when there's a baby in your lap. they look you in the eye. somehow having a kid or two (three) in tow has been the great equalizer. i'm not so different. i have kids.

i like this.

of course. it also quickly hit me that the she with hands full to whom they were referring was not me, but maddy.

and indeed maddy is busy tending to everyone - with her quiet insistence that the ped also check brody's heart and tummy. having already checked his blood pressure and eyes and ears during our time in the exam room herself. brody weighs a whopping 4 pounds. a water baby, we can't wait to see how much he weighs at 9 months with a full-fill.

i love this. and i know it is shooting by So Very Fast. we need to take a picture of our reflection before the kids outgrow us.

foggy mom statements

as caleb is chasing his sister with a foam cone "boom-boom-boom": "no shooting people! unless you're shooting them with love!"

?

i don't even know what that means, but he now has her cornered behind a chair booming "i just killed you with love!"

easters past pt 2

i find it crazy how something that has stirred in me for as many years could seem so wimbly when put to paper. screen. maybe over time i'll have better words to express how hollow easter has felt when i look back on it. maybe now that i've written with the words i have on hand now the feeling will pour out and allow for something new to enter.

either way, i've been racking my brain to think what on earth we did do as kids. i know we had baskets. we went to church. we had ham or kentucky fried chicken with grandpa. or whatever family we were able to visit/be visited upon that year from the hartfords. there are sweet pictures of us as itty-bitty mites with our loot. in our sunday best. not too many of the ham or kfc buckets, but still...


also in this brain rack i am trying to find the name for the whole 'plastic grids you cut to shape and stitch with yarn and needle into awesome 70's-80's art'. the varied household decor - kleenex box covers, toaster covers, ornaments, mobiles...


in our easter tub is packed the two baskets mom made in this medium for carl and me one year. the baskets formed of bunny faces with two opposing cottontails sporting extra long ears that met - united with pretty little yarn bows - forming the basket's handles. white bunnies with pink features, pink bows. i amuse myself with images of carl opening such a girlie easter basket past blast this year.


they serve as reminder for how much mom did. how easily kids forget. i can't help but wonder how ours will recall their easters past. if the fun we have now will only firm up into tradition that they will replicate with their families one day or. or life will happen to cloud out their early years like they did mine.

and so. bunny notes. just in case life happens. and then we lose all our pictures to fire, flood and a dropped external hard drive.

easters past

i list my last easter with mom as being spent in omaha. i think she meant it as some relaxing getaway, but it felt more like we were in hiding. and maybe we were. just the 3 of us. in omaha, at a hotel. with a pool that usually meant high-times, but that year carl was yet on crutches and not about to get wet. i was too old as a high school senior to find much joy in swimming by myself. with strange guys around. who might see me. i really can't think what we were doing there. if the stress i recall was because it was meant to be a good time and wasn't or ? - if we were hiding out and it's never easy to relax when you're running away. it's only as a side that i remember it was even easter. mom was so tired, frazzled, on-edge. she ran a red light through a major intersection.

my last easter with dad was my junior year in college. at a hotel in omaha. he had rooms there for our family of 4 plus aunt mary. grandpa horne had died the september before. we were there for the hotel's big easter sunday buffet. i remember saturday night watching... that movie with the action hero and shoot-out with the alligator tank. joking around with carl in his hotel robe. showing pictures to mom and mary of some college activities. habitat over spring break maybe?

dad wanted so badly for us to all just relax and enjoy one another's company. we all did try. trying can be tiring. and then came sunday morning and dad was making stern phone calls because his credit card was maxed out, and they had no way to pay for the rooms. carl and i went down to the big buffet by ourselves. surrounded by strange, smiling happy families. when we came back up to the room, dad was still at the little desk, on the phone. rubbing his forehead. that's how i left him, down to the parking lot and back to school.

those two seasons are fresh every year in my mind. my poor parents. all through toddlerdom and elementary and baskets and candy and... and all the kid remembers are the two weekends you wish she didn't.