Chesed

Last night David Lee and I had a date night out for the first time since June of last year.  It was so much fun to be able to talk.  You know, when you talk about a subject without being interrupted,
              “Mommy, why do they call it sand paper?” 
oh, and as I was saying,
              “Mommy, when is the world’s birthday?”
and being able to talk without 
              “Mommy, why is it disrespectful to blow gas in the bathtub?”
having to weigh your words to see if they are appropriate for four year old ears.  It was just so restful.  (Since when is a date restful instead of a rush?  Yikes.  Oh.  I remember.  Since sick kids for too long.  And since Mr. talkative kiddo.)  Emily kept both boys for us.  It was so wonderfully free to walk out to the car and have my door opened instead of trying to get squirmy coat-laden baby wiggled into the straps of his car seat while Adam gets buckled in on the other side.

I was determined to remember the camera.  Something so rare should be memorialized.  But of course, I forgot.  And how do you take a picture of yourselves anyway?  It’s no fun with no couples pictures.

Most times after a date, I come home completely energized for days.  This morning I got up with the blahs and then felt guilty about feeling blah to top it off.  It’s still winter.  Blah.  David Lee was heading to the shop again – blah – to work on a project (photos coming sometime soon since it’s a surprise for someone).  Forgive me for being obnoxious; but my husband is absolutely amazing with projects like this and I am ultra proud of him for doing this one. 

It’s still cold out.  Blah.  I don’t get SAD to the extent that I end up in bed; but I do get really, really low on energy and somewhat emotionally labile.  David Lee says I’m doing better this winter then ever.  Probably because for the first time since we are married I am living through winter not pregnant in a well-lit house.  Still, it’s late February and I’m feeling it.

I think one of my love languages is the one they forgot about in the book.  Quantity time.  And part of that has nothing to do with him going to the shop and everything to do with having a baby under a year old.  We thrive on doing stuff together … whether it’s both hanging out on the couch reading our own books (rare) or working on a home improvement project or working in the garden or talking.  Winter cold and a baby who has been sick more then not this winter don’t mix.  Which means I stay inside.  He goes outside.  Even when we worked together on his presentation, we had to do it separately since the boys rarely nap at the same time.  One person did childcare; the other worked on the powerpoint. 

So there I was, feeling old and sappy and not one bit in the mood for life.  I looked in the mirror and decided it’s easy to spot a getting worn out mom in an economical recession when the new hip look is tired instead of sparkly and the new hip fad is couponing instead of scrapbooking.

About that time the phone rang.  It was Emily.  “I just called to tell you that you could have passed for being 16 last night.  No one would ever guess you had two kids at home.  They probably thought you guys were on your first date!  You looked so young!” 

How I love her.

But I’m pretty sure the waitress didn’t think we were on our first date.  We used a restaurant.com certificate which meant our total had to be $45 to get $25 off our tab.  Fun.  That meant ordering whatever we wanted instead of trying to see which entree cost the least.  I had  New York Strip Steak; he had chicken parmesan.  To get our bill up, we both added house salads and drinks. 

She brought us four rolls and large house salads.  I wasn’t finished with mine when she brought our entrees and opted to keep it.  When our entrees were finished (meaning every last bite and they weren’t skimpy with the portions) we decided to splurge and split a piece of New York cheesecake to enjoy with our coffees.  Delectable. 

Just then the waitress returned to see if we were ready for our cheque.  I looked up just in time to see her eyes grow wide as she approached our table where not a bite of food remained.  “Can I get you guys anything else?” she asked hesitantly.  Oh, no.  We’re full to the brim.  I smiled sweetly and felt like adding, “Caution: Objects at table can sometimes consume more food then expected.”  But hey, I was hungry.

And now, can we please have summer?

My friend Anita just gave me the most wonderful gift. 

For years after she moved to Ireland we corresponded by snail mail.  Every Monday I could expect to get the long, six to eight page letter she’d written the week before.  Mine often didn’t get to her house til Tuesday because the mail was slower going that direction. 

Over time, we quit and resorted to emails and an occasional phone call.  Looking back, I’m still surprised how long we kept it up.
           

About two years ago I gave Anita her old letters.  Yesterday she gave me mine.  I was almost shivering when I untied the plastic grocery bag stacked full of pages and pages and pages of letters neatly folded together.  Did I really want to see them?  Would I be embarrassed beyond words?  WHAT had I ever found to write about that required four pages chock full on both sides every week?

I’ve only been through about six letters, but so far I’m roaring with laughter more then dying of embarrassment.  I forgot just what life was like back then.  I keep wishing for a college course again.  Something to stimulate my childcare inundated brain to clear the cobwebs.  I wish I had to study for something.  But I forgot how intense those years were.  Every day and half the night sometimes was filled to the brim with enormous amounts of facts to memorize, difficult concepts, long papers to write and deadlines.  Always deadlines.  Tests.  Papers.  More papers.  More tests. 


I love these long handwritten letters with all the descriptive phrases and well-composed sentences.  I’m hopelessly old fashioned.  I can’t seem to fall in love with facebook.  I actually miss sitting at the table and handwriting stuff.  Hard to believe that when I first started college I had to write my papers at the table and then type them because I “couldn’t think on the computer.”  It just wouldn’t come.

I love finding phrases like “poverty of thought.”  It reminds me that at one point in my life, I actually spoke English instead of “preshoolerese.” 

I love remembering what my schedule was really like.  It makes me realize that even though this time of my life feels incredibly demanding, my life has mostly always been that way. 

I love reading about the huge emotional and intellectual issues of the time that now seem paltry.  It reminds me that the things I am wallowing around in now will someday look manageable.  There are answers, sometimes they are just long in coming.
                                                 
And best of all, I love the last sentence on the letter I just read.  “Such is life.  At least I’m not a housewife.”  Proof that you can learn to love almost anything.

I know it’s Valentine’s Day but for one minute I need to cheer about something completely non-romantic!  The new web page has launched!  Huge thanks to our neighbor, Nick, who, I think, knows more about computer programming and search optimization than I do about cooking, cleaning, reading stories, and wiping snotty noses even though I feel rather intimately related to all those things.  He did a beautiful job converting my mockups into the real thing.
And now I can happily return to cutting out red paper hearts and shaping meatballs into hearts for tonight.  And next week, PLEASE can our boys be well so that we can finally go out on a long, long overdue date. 

updated to add: If any of you visited the cabinetry text page and saw double writing on a paragraph will you please either comment or message me with the browser you are using?   We’d been having trouble and Nick spent hours working the bugs out of IE 6 now my mom says she sees it on her computer.  I’m wondering if anyone else is seeing it.

Almost 12 and I finally pried myself away long enough to get dressed.  Anyone else out there with sick children?

“Oh, S P R I N G,” she yelled loudly.  But the only response was the hollow echo of winter. 

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Do you ever feel as though someone put your brain in a frying pan full of hot oil?  Or like the connections in your brain are suddenly getting zapped by electrical currents too high for the wires?  And after awhile it feels as though everything is just “zing, zing, zing-ing” way too loudly.  That was my January.

It’s January.  No wait.  It’s February.  Oh, bother.  January.  That l – o – n – g month I always dread because it drags by so slowly.  This time I couldn’t wait.  I was going to scrapbook.  On high.  Oo la la.  I actually got as far as bringing the supplies down to the dining room.  And there they sit.  Somehow, January evaporated somewhere under the muddle of three large, time-consuming projects.

Project 1.  My children’s book which I guess is still technically a manuscript.  I am very, very, very, very, very, very excited about the fact that it is actually going to be published.  Even more exciting to me is the fact that the publisher asked if I would write more books for a series.  And even more exciting then that is the way that God is opening doors to the first story … all ready to be put into words.  Sometimes I almost get goosebumps.  David Lee says if I don’t stop pinching myself I will turn black and blue.

Project 2.  Complete renovation of the business website.  Huge improvement.  The fun part is done now though for the most part and it’s in the slaving away over the details part and I’ll be oh, so glad when it’s finished. 

Project 3.  Helping David Lee with his power point presentation for camp.  Probably the project I looked forward to least because I’d never done one.  Sometimes it feels as though camp is becoming this fifth person in our household.  I know it’s temporary, this sort of boot camp preparation for presentation thing; but I am selfishly weary of it all the way to the bone.  It gobbles up David Lee’s evenings like a cookie monster on steroids which means that for a little while the boys suffered from serious DDD (daddy deficit disorder) and I was nearly ready to call Dr. Hawkes to see if they prescribed Ritalin for that as well.  Not only did they get grumpier, Adam got much naughtier and started acting out for attention all day long.  Daddy time with the boys translates to mommy time without the boys and very quickly it wasn’t just the boys who were cranky. 

  (I thought too she’d grown up but it’s hard telling what will happen when the temperature goes above 60.  Adam was in shock.)

Thankfully, the bulk of it is done.  This weekend was the turning point because everyone was losing it.  Everyone except David Lee who is always calm.  No matter how many people pull at him for attention.  He spent the afternoon making up for lost time with the boys after yet another meeting (unrelated to camp) that took most of the morning and by evening we were one big happy family again.  Whoever said “if Mama ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy” way underestimated the power of a dad. 

 (Liam’s idea of story time: flip over daddy, flip over Adam, crawl around and repeat.  repeat.  repeat.)

I’m really excited about the presentation parts (she says naively, not thinking of all the driving with people in car seats).  The first one is Sunday and for some reason it feels as though things will fly a little more on auto pilot after that.  Aside from the fact that we’ll be doing presentations somewhere close to 50-75% of the Sundays in February and March.  Auto pilot at our house?  Maybe not.

Sunday afternoon the weather was in the glorious sixties.  On a whim we took the boys to the park.  Liam had his first real swing ride.  His giggle was just darling.  Adam and I chased each other up and down the slides and he got to ride his bike around the huge parking lot. 

This morning the world woke up like this:

                                           ****************************

January was also the month for the boys to suddenly grow up.  I must have blinked and the next thing I knew Liam was walking behind toys (as long as it’s on the carpet to slow the toy down).  Adam, the very same four year old who begged me to do everything in the evenings and yelled every night, “Mommy, don’t get water in my eyes,” switched in one night to a very big boy who can bathe himself, wash his own hair, and get his pj’s on solo.  I shake my head to clear the cobwebs and wonder how it happened. 

                                                     **************************

You know, next month, I think I’d like to get hired by those Liberty tax prep people.  I want the job where you just stand out by the road with the statue of Liberty costume and wave at everyone who goes past.  I think I’d really excel in that role.

Is it our family’s destiny this winter to be ill?  I spend the better part of the day on the couch curled into a fetal position with severe abdominal cramping and a low grade fever.  Every time I got up I grew horribly dizzy and nauseous.  My first thought was food poisoning even though it seems a little long since our company supper Monday night.  Nothing seemed to help.  Not even Mom’s gold standard of three advil and a hot bath.  By three I was wondering what appendicitis feels like. 

Thank God I am now walking around at only a 20 degree angle instead of 90.  And aside from a residual ache on my right side and being sick on my stomach from a piece of toast, I feel a lot more normal. 

I can’t wait for Adam’s nightly, “please help us feel better in the morning” prayer tonight. 

Oh, where is my brainy business husband when I need him.  We’ve been talking about re-financing our mortgage since interest rates are dropping.  Today David Lee called and managed to get it set up before leaving for New Dominion Camp for an interview.  We need to get the paperwork back today if we want to lock in the very, very nice rate. 

The loan officer calls and talks to me as though I knew what I’m doing and frankly, putting Adam on the phone wouldn’t be much more stupid.  I am drowning in terms and conditions, scanning things I hope are the “homeowners insurance declaration page” and squinting at the screen as though that would help with all the terminology.  Apparently they don’t have cell-phone service because I tried to interrupt the very important meeting and couldn’t get through. 

If only there were iced tea in the frig.       Sigh.          At least both boys are sleeping.  Yes.  At the same time.  For once in the last three months.  Thank you, God.

I have a second publisher looking at my children’s book about building a house and while we’re in the very beginning stages and he hasn’t made the slightest hint of a promise, he’s at least taking a longer look at it and corresponding back and forth.  I have hope.  Perhaps in vain.  I was working on it again this morning, getting some files he needed, when I had a major brainstorm idea for another book on having a new sibling.  Why do I torture myself like this??????????????????????

Adam wanted to email Liam so I got him set up at the computer where he typed with concentration. 

fhgj figiufjugijufiugirhdfhusdkdhfwu

hghjdhvdfhjdfhdf ffghdhduetrhdsgbdchcxshgzsdxbfhsghhsajdsf

fhgjhdgkdhxjkvdxjsddkhfurtdfjkjsdgsjdfhfvggxcgsgdfg fyghdhfsdhafwyerjhfghjfgnfgjgkjhyoiu

tjhrfhjcgbcvfdhfjvfnmbvfbvnbhgh vbhfhgfjhnfjhfbjhffdnjvfnjgf

ptrfkjgjkkvchgiyooptigbhjbhfhdyfvddnhrhtjhgfurpfjbfbgfdetdwqchyfbfvkhhiohpuohgkgthfghjdfhhghjd

fdjhrjhfijurhufjfjkgnjkgbnnfjkdnhbghgjtpivnbfbbchbdhbnddhhdhnjdnhjhvxcdhbdgsfxbnfnvc

gfmupgjkoiewqdemnfdjfkjhhjsdjkkjfhjfbhjdcgvdhhxzhjxfdgfjfvmnasxzqweplmhfvclopyvd

cdsadfgfdsxcvbjhytewqazcxzfdhhjfdbhdfcxyudfhfgdfhhdfbhhbjnjccxjhdxchfdsdgwt3wgebfbvc1298

jrfjfjhndfhuhvcvchjcfjngvkjcjfjerndvszhfhjj

Since I always get in trouble when I try to interpret what he wrote, I moved Liam’s high chair over to the computer and had him wait for it to come in and read it himself.  Here is the oral version the best I can remember. 

I love you. 

I am your brother and you are my brother and we don’t have a sister yet. 

I like playing with you and taking care of you and reading to you.  I love you.

Remember when I showed you the pictures in that book and we had hot chocolate? 

I love you.  Good bye.

                                 Chloe