Double Digits.

Wowza. Five parties in four days, and the last three were doubles. Twins, then sisters, then sisters again. My house is unkempt, I should be cleaning it but I'll get to it...eventually. Tony's family dropped by Thursday evening for pizza and cake to mark Emily's tenth. It seemed like that night was the worst of the weird acrid weather we have been having, so humid too, which is almost unheard of in these parts. We were socked in by haze and smoke from distant fires all week long, it just let up so we could breathe a little fresh air yesterday. Relief.

Then Friday we took Emily and her friends to see WALL-E. Very cute, you know how much I love Pixar [Yeah, I know, who doesn't] so it was a treat for all of us. WALL-E's love interest was named EVE. WALL-E called her EEEEEVA. You can imagine the delight that was my girl Eva throughout the flick. She sat through it all, only one trip to the little girls room for us and I held her in my lap and we watched the whole show. The ten year old entourage was enthralled and entertained just fine as well, I was only a teeny bit worried that it might be too young for them, I had no need for that concern. Pixar didn't let us down.



After that it was off for more pizza and cake with Emily's girlfriends and just like that, one more birthday behind us. The other parties over the weekend were birthdays, baby baptisms and first communion. Mucha familia. Good food and lots of visiting.

I very much enjoy watching my son play sports with the big boys. I am not kidding, he kept up with them step for step, basket for basket. My kid is awesome. These are three of Carmen's boys, my nephews. When school starts they will be in 9th, 10th, and 12th grades. I love to see Wyatt up next to them because, well, they are so big now and he is so little. When I first met them, they were babies. Remembering them when they were Wyatt's age makes me think, wow, it won't be long before he is a big boy too. Carmen's fourth boy is the one measuring back to back with Em, they are only about six weeks apart in age. If you didn't know me and I told you that they were twins, you would believe me.



Wyatt and Sarah are on their second week of six weeks of swim lessons. It's probably overkill but I know by the end of it they will be fully swimming like little fishies. I signed them up for two sets of classes and then Tony signed them up for two weeks of private lessons in the middle of that so that is why they have such a long schedule. Just gettin' 'em ready for the pool that we eventually hope to have [insert brief daydream here].

Off to make a smoothie with all that fruit that is taking a turn for the not so fresh anymore, then clean my house and get more things that are not on my list done, or not. Happy week to you, make it good.

Hey June...

Slow down please, you are moving too fast.

We have been enjoying the summer so far, three weeks away now from the last day of school. These long days are pretty easy for me. The kids, mostly, keep themselves busy and entertained. We have been spending lots of time in the blow up pools, making paper airplanes, taking trips to the library and to swim lessons, setting up tents in the backyard, and eating outside on the weekends.

Some other fun things that I have observed in the throws of this summer:

My kids have made up a game called "dumpy shark." It basically involves putting your hands on top of your head, like if you were a shark, and chasing other people while you proclaim yourself a dumpy shark. If the dumpy shark touches you, you become a dumpy shark and you continue on until everyone is a dumpy shark. I just like saying dumpy shark.

Reese's Pieces are just as good as I remember.

Paper airplanes are cool, and serve to occupy the kids for hours [the first time you roll them out.]

I'm getting used to people asking me if Sarah and Wyatt are twins, he's on a bit of a growth spurt.

Using an empty toilet paper tube for a straw was not Wyatt's best idea.

I look forward to bedtime just to hear Wyatt say "I love you more than I love you."

Concerning the weeds in the garden, the kids aren't pulling their fair share.

In just under 8 weeks, I will have three children in school. What will that be like?

In just a few days, I will have a ten year-old child.

And another funny story about my son. Wyatt and Sarah were sitting in the tree. Wyatt is a wild child and can climb up or down anything, but Sarah is afraid to get down. Wyatt offered to show her how to get down by asking her, "Do ya want me ta show ya the easy way or the hard way?" Of course she answers the easy way and to that Wyatt responds, "the easy way is hard." Then he proceeds to show her the 'easy way.' That. Cracked. Us. Up.

Don't you love that? The easy way is hard. That is the secret to life right there and he nailed it. Too funny. Peace and love.

Grandma.

She has left us to be with him. It hasn’t yet been six months since Grandpa died, and now Grandma is gone from this world too. She passed away Sunday, on Fathers Day. God please Bless her. God Bless Bob and Stephanie. God Bless Jim.

I used to tell my friends that I had three Grandmothers. I was the luckiest girl in the world just for that, more blessed than I ever knew.

Her name was Florence. She lived in Michigan her whole life, had two sons, and worked for General Motors until she retired. She was 92.

I wish I had known her more, that we could have had more time together. It’s the curse of the modern world really, distance I mean, the many miles that separate families. It’s been one of my life’s greatest heartbreaks.

Tony is away on a business trip and I have stayed up the past couple of nights thinking of Grandma and sorting all of my old cards and letters. I have never talked to anyone about the cards and letters I save, except my Dad, who is also a die hard collector of pieces of mail, he tells me about cards and letters I sent him when I was a little girl. He can put his hands on them in just a few minutes. I have never had a system, just a big old box where everything goes.

So I’m now sifting through 25+ years of [almost] every card or letter I have ever received. Yes Renee, Mom, Alicia, Jimmy, Sabrina, Sheri [Bear], Daddy, Aunt Teri, Aunt Deb, Pookie [just kidding, you already changed your name to Jerry by the time you started sending me letters] nearly every piece of correspondence you have ever put a stamp with my name on it is right on my dresser in it’s very own nice fairly neat pile right there along with all my letters and cards from Meme, Granny, and Grandma. Admittedly, I have become ruthless with paper the last few years. Most things now go into the recycling bin. Still, not all can be tossed out.

My assortment of collected correspondence basically falls into two categories. 1) ones that just have a quick: “Love, Someone who cared enough to send a card” and 2) those that have either a separate letter on note paper or a letter written inside the card itself. From Grandma, the pile is right up there with the biggest, and almost every time, hers were type 2. As I open each one, I whisper to myself, "talk to me Grandma." Some make me cry like a baby tear up, some make me laugh.


Grandma and Grandpa would always send a small gift for Christmas; she occasionally sent a Valentine and never forgot a birthday or special occasion. Two gifts stand out in my memory. The pink SWATCH watch that smelled like strawberries for my High School graduation, and the Bible she gave me for Emily in 1998 when she was born. I kept that watch for so many years, long after it stopped keeping time and stopped smelling like strawberries.

My Mother taught me well to write thank you cards, growing the correspondences year by year. Grandma would always tell me what was going on with Denise and Stephanie and how hard they worked, who was visiting, who was helping with her yard. She wrote of vacation dreams, leaves, birds, snow, and Grandpa’s golf game. If Jim had recently visited, she would mention how nice it was to have him there. She gave me encouragement and praise through college.

She never dated one single letter to me, though sometimes she would write the day of the week. Thank goodness for cancelled postage.

In 1997, she wrote this postscript, “I think of the good times we had with you when you were younger.”

Although the time we spent together was brief and I was little, there were elements of unforgettable woven through. My earliest memories of her are of watching her crochet. I remember the first time I ever saw a crochet hook was with her. She really intrigued me. She must have been in her late 50’s and as I watched her fingers work, I remember her telling me about this thing I had never heard of called arthritis; she flexed and bent her fingers to show it to me. She was my first crocheting mentor; I think she also taught me how to knit a little too. There were countless UNO games with her. She was so funny; she loved to play cards. I remember thinking how exciting it was because she made me feel like I was playing a grown up game! She liked jokes, I will never forget the one she told about the man and the parking space that didn’t belong to him, it involves clapping hands and I can still hear her clapping her hands and trying so hard not to laugh!


Some more things she wrote to me:

1983 -“Ben’s jacket came today. Tell Jim it fits real nice, we also got the cards.”

1985 -“Grandma is a very poor writer, but I write anyway.”

1985 -“So glad you are crocheting. The more things you learn to do, the more interesting life you will have.” I must have written her that Meme was showing me how to crochet.

1988 – “It seems like the sun is shining more since you wished us sunny skies. I get up early most of the time. We have been feeding the birds. I sit and have my coffee and watch them feed. Our house is more comfortable than our old house...I have made some of my curtains. I still have the bathroom and kitchen to do…"

1995 – "Renee will be the best little mother…I hope Jimmy does not fail in his job…Ben is getting so he can help me a little. Bob helps me a lot.”

I wish I had more memories, like I said, I wish I knew her more. We only lived in her town for about a year when I was in first grade, and then we had a sprinkling of visits from Grandma and Grandpa. It just wasn’t enough; it never is with so much distance. That goes ditto to almost everyone reading this right now.

My three Grandmothers are in Heaven. If you still have yours, kiss them, hug them, love them, and write down your memories. I had three of the best ones anybody ever had; I really thank God for giving me the time I had with them. Grandma’s passing, though I have not shared her presence for so many years, makes me feel so lonely, and makes the whole world seem like a much lonelier place to me.

Nine or ten years ago [I didn’t keep all the envelopes, I had to guess at some of the dates with clues like “your little baby girl is lovely”] she wrote: “Paw Paw went and hit golf balls today. He loses his balance and so do I. We walk together and get along better.”

Tonight they are walking together and getting along better. They were married for 75 years, it has to be, I just know it.

God Bless Tim Russert.

As the lump in my throat grows over hearing the news about Tim Russert, I find myself wanting to hug all the fathers I know. I'm heartbroken.

God Bless Tim Russert, I respected him and loved him and I am going to miss him.

It's Amazing Grace.

This is what five piano lessons sounds like on Emily.

And just for fun, this is what Eva can do!

You may tell a different story, but it doesn't hurt my ears...or my head! I took clarinet lessons at school in the 5th grade and can barely remember how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb. I'm loving this.

Campity Camp Camp.

It's like deja vu all over again. Except this year, we had picked a different campsite. We had this enormous boulder in our campsite, the size of a small house. Apparently it's a very famous boulder because we had frequent visitors. Parents even brought their small children by to climb it [some wearing helmets] and to tell them stories about when they were kids and they climbed it. Basically, we had our own tourists. Emily was not very happy at first about sharing "the rock." She would hide and send Wyatt as her messenger to ask them to leave as they were infringing on our campsite. It didn't matter that I asked her not to engage in boulder wars because the other kids pretty much owned the rock. They probably have been visiting it and climbing it for most of their lives.

Another major difference from last year, about twenty degrees. We slept under the stars in 30 something [or lower maybe] degree temperatures. Brrrrrr. Last year, I only needed a sweatshirt at night and the early morning, this time we wore our heaviest winter coats!

Friday night, we watched Horton Hears a Who at the outdoor amphitheater, which was predictable, since we already own the cartoon version and the book. It had some really funny moments though. As a family, we have not gone to the theater together since last year's camping trip. It was fun to wrap up in blankets and to have hot cocoa and popcorn outdoors.

Tony wants me to find another place for us to camp this summer so I have to do some research, somewhere new, maybe with fewer boulders. Oh, and definitely warmer, I don't know, we will see. Off to do more laundry...

Great Mystery Solved.

Finally, I have solved the case of the mysterious gifted print.

Years ago, maybe 10 or 15, my Mother ordered a framed print of a Mother and child. After Sarah was born she would tell me that it reminded her of me and Sarah. She had it in her spare bedroom until the day she gave it to me. This is what it looks like.
I had it on a wall in my bedroom for about a year before I saw the hand [upper left corner.] At first I thought it was creepy, I thought it was a male hand. When I showed it to my Mother, she said she had never noticed the hand.

Anyway, after that I had a strong suspicion that the picture was incomplete and it turns out I was right. If anyone [unlike myself] out there knows art, you are probably saying to yourself "hello genius, everybody knows that." Hey, I picked music classes over famous works of art classes in college.

I didn't know the name of the artist or even the title of the piece until very recently. My mystery kept nagging at me and I finally found the clues that led me to the truth. It's Gustav Klimt's The Three Ages of Woman and it's probably a hundred years old.

You can see the full piece here if you scroll down to the second to the last one. It's kind of startling for me to see the whole piece because I have been looking at the partial piece for years and because, well, wholly it is a tad creepy. It makes me want to cry sad and happy tears at the same time. I still think it's beautiful.

After doing a little research on good old Gustav, I have determined that he was a little too freaky for mainstream consumption. I'm not saying that I am mainstream, I'm just not a super-freak, or an art collector for that matter. Some of the tamer ones I think are simply incredible, full of phallic references though they may be. I can handle it.

Other than my own cropped lady, this one is my favorite, The Kiss:


And this one I like too, Garden with Sunflowers:
What gets to me are mostly the bright colors I think, and the mosaic style pulls me in too. The mystery of the hand is now removed from my unsolved mysteries file.

Piano Piñata.

Hello June. Wyatt's year-and-a-half of preschool was full of awesome art, this is one of my favorites. It was on the bulletin board when we went to open house in April and now it's all mine. He is one awesome little monster dude.

I was a wreck last week, I am so soggy when it comes to endings. I cried when we said goodbye to Wyatt's sweet and wonderful preschool teacher, I wanted to cry all day on Friday when the girls went to their last day of school. We have one more T-ball game this week, I think I will let that one go easy, no tears for T-ball. I'll save them for something else.

Oooooh, I have discovered a few extra hours exist in the early morning. The kids are sleeping later because we have no where to be! It's 7:30 a.m. and I am still alone! I have already showered and washed my hair! To appreciate my joy, just remember that I am usually surrounded, loved up, and often overwrought by five other people...so a few hours to myself is so freaking awesome and very very sweet. *big exhale*

Look at this. We now own a piano. It's old, and ugly but it's a piano, the keys are nice and it works. It's in my living room and I am OK with that. In 15 years I'll be probably be blogging about how I finally got rid of that hideous thing we bought from an old lady for a few hundred bucks back in '08. For now, I'll just be thankful that they are interested in music and get over the aesthetics of it all. It's not a giant one, it's hanging out in the corner of the room, not so bad really. It's funny, Eva has her words mixed up, she calls it the piñata. I'm not correcting her, it's too darn cute.

My kids are not behaving, in general. They have moments of pure angelic selfless wonder but overall, generally they are being bad. So, unfortunately, we have decided that this is not the year to dig a pool. Something had to give. The stuff finally hit the fan, Saturday in the backyard. Tony was adding a sprinkler and they were all out there digging when the mudslinging, literally and otherwise, got way out of control and we just finally let them push us over the edge. It wasn't just that one episode, it was however, the catalyst to quite a heavy discussion. This summer we need to focus on them, and the contents of their little growing characters. We are going to concentrate on safety, responsibility, and respect for people and property. That should do it. Any ideas?

It's too bad. They are such good diggers, they'll save us a fortune when we are ready.


This way we can plan the pool better anyway, more planning is better.

So anyway, let's get going, let's go summer, let's have some fun!!! [While trying to behave ourselves...well, mostly.]
And now, I'm off to make Jello.