Her Grandmother's Granddaughter

Mom,

How I wish you could have met her. She reminds me so much of you -- she has blue eyes like yours, and her laugh is infectious.  Her favorite color is pink.  You would have seen the irony in that.

She loves to sing.  We sing good morning to each other and we make up silly songs.  Sometimes we sing the Frozen soundtrack at the top of our lungs in the car.

She loves to cuddle with me.  In the evening, before bedtime, she curls up next to me on the couch. She talks a lot now. Sometimes she tells me about her day, or about what we are watching on TV.

We like to read books together.  She likes to point at the pictures and tell me what she sees. Sometimes she asks what the word is, and then she repeats it in the cutest little tentative voice.  It feels like she is learning 100 words a day.

When she wakes up too early, I take her in the big bed with me for a cuddle.  I am instantly transported back, 30-plus years and a couple hundred miles, to the big bed in the house in New Jersey.  I can still feel how much I was loved.  If nothing else, I hope to pass that on.

We miss you every day, but especially today.  Happy birthday.



(also posted at the OliRue baby blog)

Thankful November, 17-30

Since the last installment, we had a difficult two weeks.  It started, as usual, with work and the horrible schedule where my husband works early mornings and weekends.  Add to that the chaos of birthday/Thanksgiving/Hanukkah all at once, and on top of that, all three of us were sick at the same time.

Then I got the crazy call that a friend  and former coworker was dying.

All that has made it extraordinarily hard to find things to be thankful for, but I've been trying.  Ultimately, the hardest part was finding the time to write the words down.  So here goes:

17.  I am thankful for modern technology.  I said before that I never, ever want to live without a washer and dryer.  Add dishwasher to that list.  I am so thankful to not have to do those chores by hand.  And the computer and cell phone? I can't even think about how much easier they make my life.

18.  I am thankful for pie.

19.  I am thankful for the Trader Joe's jarred cranberry sauce.  It was a definite upgrade over the canned variety.

20.  I am thankful for my nephews and niece.  I am looking forward to seeing all of them before too long.  This year, I am extra thankful that my daughter is an age where she will get to have fun playing with her cousins.  Many of my fondest childhood holiday memories involve times spent with my cousins; I can only hope that her memories are even better.

21.  I am thankful for vacation days spent with my family.

22.  I am thankful for going back to work after vacation -- because so much time off with a toddler hardly qualifies as such.

23.  I am thankful for my daughter's school. They take such good care of her there.  She really likes going, even on those days when she really doesn't want me to drop her off.

24.  I am thankful for the many years that my mother woke me up at the crack of dawn to do Black Friday holiday shopping.  It was exhausting, and at the time, I was your typical grumpy, frustrated, teenager -- but now, I am glad to have the memories of being her trusty sidekick.

25.  I am even more thankful for the internet -- and thus, the fact that I never have to subject myself to the Black Friday hordes again.

26.  I am thankful that most of my holiday shopping is already finished.

27.  I am thankful for the birthdays that have passed, the experiences they've left behind, and the person that they've made me.

28.  I am thankful for the birthdays yet to come.

29.  I am thankful for my dad.  He is crotchety; he is peculiar; he is anti-social. He is weird and strange, and occasionally funny, too. In some ways, he is a horrible parent and grandparent -- he is non-communicative and not very present or involved.  But in the ways that are important, like being there when you need him and helping however he can, he still always manages to be a very good dad.

30.  I am thankful for my husband.  Each and every day, even when it takes all we have just to get through the chaos that is work and baby, I am always thankful that he's the person I chose to take this journey with.  Everything is so much easier when the partner by your side is also your friend.

Birthday Memories

On Facebook, one of my friends said that it was a family tradition to tell the story of your best birthday memory.  I, however, don't really have a best birthday memory of my own:  I mostly remember the bad birthdays, the ones involving sickness.  I also remember the canceled 16th birthday, when my mother was angry with me.  And I remember the funny ones, like when my dad bought me mousetraps.

I think my memory deficit is because, growing up, my birthdays were pretty much always the same -- family, Thanksgiving, gifts.  One year, there was the infamous Bert and Ernie cake.  Sometimes, when my birthday fell on Monday through Wednesday, there were cupcakes or munchkins in school.  And then there were the birthday parties, sometimes jointly with my sister, in places like Roy Rogers and Friendly's.  But I can't really distinguish any of them as the best -- they were all pretty much universally good.  I had a pretty good childhood.

As for adult birthdays, I have a particularly fond memory of my eighteenth birthday.  It was my first Florida State-Florida game.  I had a friend buy me tickets to the Nirvana concert (and a bottle of Jack Daniels to pregame with).  Other friends bought me my first lotto ticket, which won me $6.50.  And then there was the engagement ring, but that's a story for another day.

But ultimately, my favorite birthday memory is not from my birthday -- it's from my mother's birthday.  A few years before she died, I surprised her by showing up in Florida unannounced.  I had spent weeks laying the groundwork -- work was really busy and I'd be seeing her for Thanksgiving anyway --  and then worked out the secret details with my father and my grandparents. Nana and Pop took mom out for lunch and I walked into the restaurant.  I got to the table and my mom saw me and did a double take.  She was so extraordinarily happy.

I'll have that memory forever.