After the rain

 The morning of our friends' son's funeral was gray and rainy, the kind of perpetual, misty rain that lasts all day. The cool, damp air required rain jackets that muted the white and bright clothing that we were asked to wear. Because the funeral was for a small child who died in innocence, the Mass was a White Mass, a time for rejoicing, celebrating a new saint. I wore a light colored dress with a white cardigan; my husband wore his tan suit. Our daughters wore their school uniforms - they came from and returned to school after the Mass. My friend who had lost her little boy wore a long white dress and her girls wore their First Communion dresses; her other two boys wore white pants and shirts and little vests of the kind made for First Communions or late baptisms. 

And yet, despite the celebratory dress, it didn't really feel like a moment for celebrating. 

After the Mass we all drove sedately to the cemetery for one last goodbye. The cemetery was tucked out of the way on a tree lined plot coated with bluebonnets. Other graves were planted with roses already blooming and other budding plants, as well as assorted statuary and totems of loved ones. It seemed like a relatively new cemetery; more than one gravesite was freshly covered.  Both my husband and I were surprised they did not lower the tiny pine casket into the grave while everyone was present. All the mourners followed the parents in placing a hand or a flower on the casket and pausing for a brief prayer for the grieving family, asking for the new saint's intercession.

Then we all gathered for a reception at an historic home that now usually hosts wedding receptions. All eight of my friend's siblings and their families were in town, along with her husband's brothers and of course the grandparents, and lots of friends from the kids' school. The mood lifted a bit as a slide show played, and everyone ate. Cousins and classmates ran around. Mutual friends reconnected or met for the first time. The parents thanked everyone for coming.

After the Mass, the graveside service, and the reception, the family was going to go back home to sit with family, to change clothes, to clean up. Two days later the other kids went back to school. Time to return to the routine. Life continues. 

This is the prettiest time of year in Texas. The bluebonnets are coating the hills all along the highways, with splashes of prairie-fire (also known as Indian paintbrush) and pale pink evening primroses and occasionally sunshiny coreopsis contrasting with the blues. The redbuds just finished their purple blush, and now the fresh yellow green of new leaves are brightening the trees.  

The wildflowers announce renewal and new life and joys of beginning again, even when life is heavy. Next year the bluebonnets will return. Perhaps in remembrance we'll go back to the cemetery to say a prayer, or send bluebonnets to the family.  Today's gospel about Lazarus reminds us that Jesus wept because he loved his friends. Even if we believe in the resurrection, we, too, weep because we love our friends. And yet life goes on. I just finished reading Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" with my students - Icarus is drowning in a corner of the painting; war is waging as Auden stands in the museum, but the farmer keeps planting, travelers continue on their way, we go back to the work of surviving. 

Discomfort

 It occurs to me that perhaps I should title this post, "Beginning Again with Lent Pt 2."  I've taken a bit of a vacation from Lenten sacrifices. Last week was Spring Break, and amidst travel to New York and Boston and reuniting with family and friends, I have been very lax in practicing any sort of Lenten discipline, other than that travel is a discipline in itself in a way.

For instance, because of stormy weather over our final destination, home, on Thursday evening, the last leg of our travel, a flight from St. Louis to Austin, was cancelled. It was the last flight of the evening to that destination. We sat on the plane prepared to take off - in fact, we had taxied from the jet bridge - when the message came through that we had to wait. So we waited an hour on the plane before the flight was cancelled. Then, I had to wait in line to rebook a new flight. While I waited, I got on the phone to an agent and reserved a flight to San Antonio for the next evening, because all flights to Austin were full the next day. And I rented a car with the consideration that I could drive the 12 hours the next day and be home before this flight to San Antonio landed. Plus, I had the two girls with me, and the teenager is terrified by flying. With these reservations made, I stayed in line to see if I could get any vouchers. No vouchers were given because the cancellation was weather related, but the gate agent was able to book us on a flight that went first to Orlando and then to Austin that was leaving at 5:40 am - four hours later. 

When I conveyed this news to the girls, the teen started weeping because she didn't want to get on two more planes. However, I was calculating the time and cost of sticking with the rental car - shuttle or uber to a hotel at 1:30 in the morning, buy a few hours of sleep for a couple hundred dollars, find a ride back to the airport to pick up the rental, pay a couple hundred for the one way rental car, food and gas on the road, spend twelve hours of driving plus stops, returning the car the next day ... I hugged her and promised her that driving was more dangerous. 

Then we laid our coats on the ground and curled up on the airport floor to close our eyes for a few hundred minutes in supine position.  We might have slept an hour or two; it's hard to tell. 

The rest of the trip went as smoothly as can be expected, although a little turbulence made my daughter declare she never wanted to fly again. Our flights were packed with dozens of small children and their weary parents going to Disney World and returning from it. Their exhaustion confirmed my old decision to swear off Disney vacations - although we have enjoyed taking the kids to other amusement parks. 

Despite adding 12 hours to our trip and a terrible night of sleep, oddly enough I didn't mind the disruption. These are a part of the adventure of travel. In fact, I was slightly envious of the couple ahead of me in the line for the gate agent, even though they were taking their sweet time rebooking. The guy was a musician who was going to miss his gig in Austin, so they asked where could they go on a direct flight the next day that had a direct flight back to their home in New York on Sunday. They had a free ride to a 3 day vacation. I think they ended up going to Colorado or Oregon. What a liberating feeling to just go. 

Had this disruption happened at the beginning of our trip, we might have been more upset. And I have to say, the fewer people on the itinerary, the easier it is to deal with the discomfort. My two youngest are pretty mellow, other than the fear of flight. Sleeping on the floor wasn't a huge problem for them - or the lack of bathing. In fact, I had to make the youngest take a shower when we finally arrived home. She was ready to go play with her friend down the street in the same clothes she had had on for 2 days.  No big deal when you are 8. 

So did I think about offering it up? I actually did.  Just over a week ago, some dear friends, Navy friends whom we reconnected with here, lost their three year old son. He died in the early hours of the morning from complications from a virus. Perhaps because he had Downs, his little body couldn't fight it off. Their grief, and our own sorrow at his death, has sat heavily with me all week. And perhaps that is what helped make our own travel discomforts seem minimal.  Although I cannot know what the pain of losing a child is like firsthand, I have imagined it many times, have felt the fear of potential loss during a sickness or after an accident. What mother doesn't feel a sword pierce her heart occasionally? And yet, how we have been spared. How often potentials have never actualized.  Our little traumas are small compare to what others have suffered. 

So pray for them. Their son surely does not need prayers. They will have a White Mass next week - a mass of celebration because his heart was pure, and if anyone is in Heaven, it is children who died too young in their innocence.  This thought is a consolation, but it doesn't take away the pain of losing years together.  

Beginning again with Lent

Sometimes I look forward to Lent as a time of much needed renewal, and I plan ahead for it.  Other years, especially when Lent arrives early, I am caught off-guard. This year was in between. I did some prep, like signing up for a women's reflection group at our parish and ordering the devotional workbook, but when Ash Wednesday arrived last week, I still felt like Lent snuck up on me. A week in still feels like the beginning. 

Part of my lack of preparation on Ash Wednesday was due to being out of town the week before. We went to the mountains of North Carolina to see the house my husband designed for our cousins (they had a vision; he drew it). When we booked the trip (made possible by super sale airline tix), we laughed about it being our Mardi Gras celebration, And it was a lot of fun, until I broke my wrist at the roller rink Saturday night. The story should be that I slid while trying to win roller derby or that my husband tried to do snap the whip and sent me flying, but in reality, a reckless teen took me out from behind. Ironically, I had been trying hard to be cautious because I remember my mom breaking her tailbone while roller skating when I was a kid, and I wanted to be able to sit comfortably on the plane ride home.

After a trip to the ER (the benefit of a small town hospital - no wait at the ER even on Saturday night!), we continued to enjoy the time with family - unplugged, playing cards, making music around the campfire, etc. With my arm splinted up and wrapped in a trash bag, I even got in the hot tub. I just couldn't take a hike to a waterfall or sleep well, which was too bad because they had great mattresses. 

We returned home on Monday and had a Mardi Gras party on Tuesday as a fundraiser for our daughter, who was raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Our son did almost all of the gumbo prep and dessert baking and decorating with purple, green, and gold balloons and streamers. We STILL have beads left from our stay in Mississippi. A friend brought king cake, and I bossed the kids around with my arm splinted. I don't recommend Mardi Gras parties on the actual Fat Tuesday because you are left with leftovers. All those delicious things begging to be eaten on the fast day maybe makes the sacrifice more penitential.

Fortunately, I was able to get in to see our primary doctor Tuesday about my wrist to get a referral to an orthopedic surgeon by Thursday and surgery scheduled for Monday.  Now that we are in the civilian sector for medical care, I have some strong thoughts about insurance/medical issues - and my lesson this time is to call all the involved parties and talk to a person, even if on hold for hours, to make sure all the necessary paperwork gets submitted. I may have traumatized my girls by uttering a primal scream in the car Friday afternoon - after hanging up the phone -  when I thought I was going to have to reschedule surgery because some paperwork was submitted with wrong codes (Was my strong reaction a symptom of perimenopause or low blood sugar from foregoing lunch that day?). Thankfully, someone stayed after hours to correct it and get everything submitted. Maybe she heard my quivering voice mail. Thank you, kind human being.

So I had the weekend to be grateful and to continue to endure the pain of bone on bone grating in my wrist. I did not open my Lenten devotional until Sunday afternoon, after the priest had given me a blessing after Mass on my husband's sweet request. In the prayer he reminded me to unite me suffering to the Cross.  

I am not always thoughtful about offering it up, although I remind my children of this practice. I had been intentional about not ruining our vacation with complaints about pain, although I did feel sort of nauseous the rest of the weekend. And the ache in my arm, which ranged from dull ache to stabbing pain depending on how I moved or how much ibuprofen was in my system, made me think with compassion on all those who suffer chronic pain and how tiring it must be, but I didn't think of offering my pain. Perhaps it seems too transactional - I forego complaining, so God takes away someone else's pain. I know that's not the theological explanation, but it seems that way. 

Now in the second week of Lent - with a plate in my wrist after surgery on Monday (I am typing with one hand) - I am more intentionally offering up the pain and inconvenience of being one handed as one of my Lenten practices, or at least acknowledging the pain as a reminder of the suffering of others. The priest's comment has me thinking of the nails that would have been driven through Christ's wrists. When I woke up to shooting pain in my arm on Monday night I again thought about crucifixion as a horrific way to die. If breaking my wrist was enough to make me pass out from a vagal response, how could I have endured the worse pain of being beaten, broken, and carrying a cross.  

Before my surgery on Sunday night I had trouble sleeping. This was a minor surgery, but I was kept awake by anxiety nightmares about surgeries gone wrong. I dreamed I drank something and aspirated while anesthetized - although I was completely alert in my dream. Even though risk is minimal, it exists, and it's a reminder of the finitude of life. In the morning I texted messages of love to all the kids and gave extra hugs to those here. I regretted I wasn't more sympathetic when our boys had their ACL surgeries. I probably didn't recognize their nervousness enough.

Soon enough, surely by the end of Lent, this pain will fade, unlike the chronic pain that others suffer.  We've also started our other ways to fast, pray, and give, For instance, we have substituted the divine mercy chaplet for the rosary at bedtime, and that prayer is another reminder to think of the suffering of others above my own. We aren't eating sweets or meat or drinking alcohol - which I haven't wanted since being hurt, so it's not much of a sacrifice. My daughter added drinking milk, which I'm not sure is a spiritual practice, but she doesn't like it, so it is some kind of discipline for her.  This year I'm not doing the cheap coffee thing - partly because we are stocked up on coffee right now. Nor am I really cutting back on media, because I have done that already from a lack of time.  Instead we are trying to buy less and live on what we have. I thought I'd do the buy nothing thing during Lent, but we have some birthdays coming up, and the youngest needs new cleats for soccer and an Easter dress, etc, so instead I'm just trying to buy nothing unnecessary - of course, I bought pillows for the new chairs on Ash Wednesday - so not doing so well on that.

I'm not loving my Lent devotional so far, but I think I will enjoy the group at church. I have missed my ecumenical Thursday morning Bible study because I'm teaching on Thursdays. However, since I finished the Bible in a Year in February, I've started the Catechism in a Year. Already behind with that, but I am just listening to a few episodes now and then, rather than treating it as a daily obligation. I do need something good to read (I just finished a good YA novel about the 1989 overthrow of the Ceausescus, I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys. Definitely reads like a YA book, but it offers a good insight into life in the oppressive Communist regime in Romania.)

For giving, we've got our list of groups we give to financially, but I've also got snack bags for the people asking for money at the intersections. And we're talking about signing up for some family service project. Giving time is probably one of the harder disciplines.

If I grow in any way this Lent, may it be that I give up my urge to be in control and recognize my dependence, my need to of repair - I can't heal myself. I can't get through the day without help. I have to give up things I did with two hands like tying my shoes for a time. Fasting from things - meat and sweets and alcohol and shopping - is just a way of clearing the weeds for mediating time with Christ. May I use the freed time for that, for listening rather than telling and asking. Still hoping for clarity about what's next. Still learning to be grateful for our many gifts, still learning to be less self-centered, more aware of others' needs, still learning to love God and neighbor more wholly.

And here are some things I've been grateful for:

A trip to a farm to horseback ride with dear friends

   

A boy who had a birthday:

Swinging

Time in the mountains

breaking my left wrist and not my right

Young ladies lovely within

Aging

I started typing this almost two weeks ago - but it's still on my mind. 

Today, I am celebrating being a mother of 2 for half of my life - my second son is turning 25.  I have two 25 year olds for a month. My daughter told me that Rihanna, who performed the halftime show of the Superbowl the other night, is pregnant for the second time in a year - she can call me if she wants advice about having Irish twins!  When we were watching her performance (the only part of the event that I watched), I was critical of her dancing that seemed unenergetic - she seemed to just stroll around. The kids had said she had a baby who was 4 or 5 months old (internet says born in May 2022, so 8 or 9 months or so), so I thought that she was just struggling with post-partum weight, but low and behold, she is already several months pregnant! So now I feel guilty for being critical.

It is an interesting commentary on pregnancy in our culture that the announcers didn't say anything about this. Apparently, she had not announced she was pregnant before the show - but surely the broadcasters/producers/choreographers/whoever is in charge knew. I missed the introduction, so maybe they said something then, but the banter after the performance before the game started up again was inane and boring - 5 or 6 middle to old age guys in suits talking about how danceable her music is. Nothing about Rihanna being pregnant and having just had a baby in her mid thirties; she is almost a geriatric pregnancy, as they say when you pass 35. Or slightly kinder: Advanced maternal age. My daughter thought she was 36, but a quick internet search reveals she's only 34. 

Would it be more socially acceptable to talk about Rihanna having a baby or not to talk about it? Pregnancy used to be something to hide, and my daughter commented how you don't see pictures of pregnant movie stars very often. I think this is primarily to protect the privacy of their children (for instance, I saw an article about the dictator of North Korea that mentioned he had children but the age and even sex of the youngest is unconfirmable). But there is also a long history of not mentioning the ways that women are affected by their reproductive system. I had no understanding of how fertility cycles worked until I was preparing for marriage and learned about NFP. I thought I had a yeast infection the first time I had a fertile cycle in my teens.

Now I am entering that stage of life when my reproductive years are limited. I still have signs of fertility and fear getting pregnant, even though the chances of a 49 year old getting pregnant are about 1%. (I've looked it up. My cousin just had a baby at 47.) I don't have major symptoms of perimenopause other than I have trouble falling asleep and then wake up with night sweats, even though I am usually freezing when I lie down. My husband has mentioned shopping for a king sized bed because I'm like a unregulated space heater. And perhaps he would suggest that I'm moodier and more forgetful than usual. Perhaps I should say I'm seeing signs, but not suffering.

The other day I engaged in a conversation with an acquaintance that turned from elementary school news to supplements for perimenopausal women, and she filled my ears with the battery of pharmaceuticals she was taking - overwhelming! I feel like I need to do some extensive research. An recent article in the New York Times about "The Change" has widened the public conversation, also. I caught the end of an interview with the author on public radio the other night.  When the next generation of women, who were raised on the internet, go through this, it will be all over social media, but my generation is still whispering about it - or maybe I am just not in the right circles. 

The hypothesis to research is whether hormone replacement therapy has great enough benefits to justify the risks. I love being able to write "none" in the space for medications (although I admit, I take ibuprofen not irregularly), so I hesitate to take synthetic hormones after all these years of NFP.  On the other hand, heart disease runs in my family, and estrogen is supposed to protect against it.  I may look more into homeopathic supplements, although there's a part of me that is suspicious of any supplements - as well as lotions and creams.  For that matter, I am suspicious of the medical industry in general.

Not to mention the beauty industry - an article in the WSJ a few weeks ago was about how celebrities are choosing to age naturally. This is not the same naturally that I think of. They are still using creams and lotions and doing micro-needling and blading, and other procedures. They just aren't having surgery.

I am having surgery on Monday if the authorization from my insurance goes through. I broke my wrist roller skating last weekend, and it needs to be reset. I promise I didn't fall from clumsiness, although I was that - a big teen skating fast knocked me down.  Did my wrist break because I am middle aged or just because I fooshed? (fall on out stretched hand - I learned a new medical term!) Seeing as the little girl sitting on the bench next to me where I was catching my breath after vagelling also had a brace on her arm for a broken wrist, I think it would've broken if I were 29 or 19 or 9. That kid was skating hard!

More to come...

Art and Architecture

With another child reaching the second semester of her junior year in high school, talk in our house has turned yet again to college applications.  Like many people this age, this child has mixed feelings about what kind of school she wants to attend and what she wants to study. I have mixed feelings about where she should go as well, since this is our home body child who has travel anxiety. She doesn't like to fly. I could see her staying close to home -- but I'm not sure I want to call this area home for the next five years from now until she finishes college... 

We have some college visits predetermined for us by her participation in track. The past couple of weekends have been spent at indoor track meets, which are mostly at universities because they are the only ones with indoor tracks. It's possible she might get recruited to run track in college - she is running well, but has hit a plateau in improving.  I have all kinds of thoughts about what she should do to run faster, but she doesn't want to hear them.  She doesn't trust that I have some experience of being in her position - which is both true and not true. I don't know her inner resources, her motivation, her anxieties - although I can guess at them. But I do know what it is like to be a runner, to feel stuck, to both hate and love running, to feel performance anxiety, and to feel the exhilaration of winning as well as the intense frustration of not doing as well as you think you could, even if you won the race or came in a close second or third, which to most people is doing well - just not as well as you wanted to run. I know what it is like to have coaches watching your performance, to have your future partially determined by what those coaches decide you are worth to them. To have to decide to make the commitment to run in college begins early - improvement doesn't happen without pain and sacrifice.

My collegiate running career was all a long time ago, and yet it was so consuming, it formed indelible memories. I have hesitated to push her more because I know how obsessive the sport is, and she has to be willing to make sacrifices to continue to do well.  She has hit the point where hard work has to supplement natural talent to a greater extent. I always struggled with this question of whether the hard work is worth it, if you don't have the natural talent to be really great, only pretty good. It is a question any athlete or artist must ask at some point - am I good enough?  It's a perennial human question. 

These meets have given us the opportunity to visit some college campuses, not perhaps ones she is interested in attending, but places that provide an example of what a college in an urban area might look like (University of Houston last weekend), or what a large university in a rural area is like (Texas Tech the weekend prior). During the meets at Texas Tech, I took advantage of the long wait between the time between check in and when she was actually going to run to check out the campus. Texas Tech is located in Lubbock, which is a four to six hour drive from the other big Texas cities - we drove from Ft. Worth after my aunt and uncle's celebration of life, which was a five hour trip and returned to Austin, which took six hours.  It's not a drive with much variation in the scenery - farm land and small towns - but it is a pleasant drive, restful to the eyes and the soul after driving in city traffic, the kind of drive you can get lost in your thoughts on, instead of feeling tense about traffic or road hazards. 

Despite its reputation for being in the middle of nowhere, the campus has appeal. There is a walkable residential/restaurant area just off campus, and the campus itself, although it is so sprawling to barely be walkable, has beautiful architecture and some campus art that is more attractive than a lot of the abstract, discordant art at some other campuses we have visited.  For instance, there is a statue of a man made of books reading a book - perfect for a space in front of a library! - appealing, funny, and a perhaps a commentary on the anxiety of influence - or the comforts of being part of a reading community. I want one! Another statue was of hands cupped as if to gather water for a thirst quenching sip, only instead of water in the hands, you see letters spilling over - language, knowledge! Surrounding these hands at the four compass points are pedestals made of stone books topped with symbols of knowledge - a keyhole, a nest with an egg, a canoe, and I forget the fourth... This arrangement is located in a tree-lined quadrangle of classroom buildings; benches surround the sculpture so students can gather to share ideas, lunch, or some shade.  Also around the campus - a mobile statue of birds flying, a cowboy representing their mascot, the Red Riders - maybe culturally questionable at this moment in political history? - and, my favorite, a sculpture outside the track of a female runner that when viewed at the right angle, looks like she is a flash - see the photo since I'm not describing it well.

There is also a small museum on campus, which houses a mix of art, natural history, and Texas Tech history - sports hall of fame, a timeline of campus, a display of student fashions over the last hundred years.  Next door to that is the Ranching Heritage Center, where you can see how ranch houses have evolved over the years. They have recreated a stick house, a sod house, a wooden house, a stone house, a house that looks like a fortress tower, a house that looks like a barn. You can spend a pleasant hour winding along the path and peeking into these reproductions and imagining what it might have been like to be a pioneer, to live in one of these small homes, to have everything you need in a small space - and they seem more spacious than the tiny homes people design on TV because they don't need a bunch of cabinetry to hide utensils and stuff or big comfy beds - just a corner for a ticking mattress! I thought about Laura Ingalls Wilder's Pa here - each new destination brought a different kind of house. 

I was grateful to find someplace to wander and inspire curiosity, although I don't mind watching races for a few hours either, which I still had time to do - this meet lasted ten or twelve hours.  In contrast, the meet this weekend at University of Houston wasn't as long, but the campus isn't as pretty and the architecture is unremarkable, as well as ununified, while the buildings at Texas Tech belong to the same family of architecture, like the buildings at older universities. It's an urban campus, still sprawling for an urban campus since it's Texas,  My daughter has no interest in either school, and in comparison, she is more interested in a campus like the schools we visited in the fall in Boston - Harvard and Boston College - and the campus where we stayed last summer in North Carolina - Elon. She likes campuses that are contained, as opposed to sprawling, and although she says she thinks she wants to go to a big school, I think she would be happier at a school that is medium to small, so that she feels connected both to the place and to the people. Maybe that's me putting my spin on it. And of course, our first choice is for her to attend a Catholic University, or at least a religiously affiliated school. 

And maybe if she doesn't go to a school close to home, I'll just go to school with her... I always love being on a campus...

 

From a textiles art exhibit at TTU

 

A favorite image from the museum

Student fashion through the ages

Texas mastodon

From the Ranching Heritage Center - the milk house. I wonder how cold it really kept milk in the Texas summer heat.

Everything you need in one room ranch house

A reproduction of a table for a larger ranch with many ranchhands

 

Woman/en running statue in front of the track building at TTU in the day and at night

An attractive doorway on a new building

My dream man

 

The egg of intellect? A statue for eggheads? 

Fulfilling the thirst for knowledge

While we were in Lubbock, they were going to the Father Daughter dance

Birthdays and blessings

 This week the kids have been home from school three days in a row because of an ice storm. All over the community, trees are down, and power is out. The kids won't go back to school again tomorrow because of power outages and road hazards, even though the rain is over and the temps are warming.  The ice did quite a bit of damage to trees and power lines.  I'm pretty sure some of my landscaping plants won't recover. Goodbye, lavender and rosemary! Goodbye, salvia and Sago palm! And good-bye to some rather large branches from our spreading live oak tree in the front yard.

Today was our first day to venture out after two cozy days in relaxing in our pajamas most of the day. At noon youngest and I went to Mass for the Feast of the Presentation - forgot to bring candles. Then we stopped at the grocery store and picked up a birthday present for her friend.

The days off of school were welcome opportunites to spend time together, and the second day happened to be our third son's 23rd birthday. His gifts were not exciting, but we had a delicious Italian dinner to celebrate. He is the one who spent the summer with the Benedictine nuns in the Pacific Northwest, and then decided not to go to Spain and teach English and live on peanuts. He's still looking for full time work, although he did have a seasonal part time gig. I love having him home because he likes to experiment in the kitchen and helps with errands. Yesterday he made bread and butter (by overwhipping whipping cream), and concocted a ragu sauce with roasted tomatoes and peppers that simmered all day into deliciousness. 

When I was looking through pictures for some baby photos for the yearly birthday social media post, I was reminded of how much I used to do with the kids - there were the fancy birthday cakes (for example, a cake shaped like a guinea pig for the 23 yr old's 7th birthday, when his present was his first guinea pig. Actually, we just bought him the cage; we made him save up for the purchase, which we told him was $100 to postpone buying the rodent. The party was taking him and 4 or 5 of his friends to the fun pet store that had all kinds of animals that customers were allowed to pet, like a large tortoise and a parakeet room, The kids think they had small monkeys, but I think this must be wrong. Probably sugar gliders? Although there was a pet shop in Norfolk that sold wolf hybrid puppies behind the counter...) We also did things to celebrate the liturgical year - All Saints day costumes, special dinners for the kids' patron saints days, crepes for Candlemas, throats blessed on the Feast of St. Blaise, which we always thought would be a cool name for a boy, but too cool for us. 

Of course, it is natural that as the kids have grown up, we set aside some of these traditions, although I am sad for our youngest that she didn't experience them, and the older kids seemed to have forgotten - I myself had forgotten many of the memories captured in these photos. A good reminder that I need to print some more photos from the last eight years! 

I have been grateful, though, for the days at home with my two girls who got to stay home from school and with the 23 yr old.  We made crepes today for Candlemas and enjoyed the left over eclair dessert that served as a birthday cake and made bracelets and Valentines and walked around the neighborhood to look at the ice damage and pretend for awhile that we live in a crystal palace. Tonight the ice is almost gone - melted away by warming temperatures, although the sun is still in hiding. 

We also read and loved Kate DiCamillo's Beatryce Prophecy, the story of a young girl in a long ago and far away place who is destined to unseat the king and cause great changes in the kingdom. With the help of a vision impaired monk, an orphan boy, a demon goat, and a mad runaway king, she makes her way to the palace to right wrongs and fulfill the prophecy. It was a fun book to read aloud while wrapped in blankets on the couch with tea and cocoa.  My reading has been spotty lately, mostly books for class, although I have to reread the Odyssey for a training at the community college where I am teaching one day a week in hopes of getting a humanities class next fall, although I'm still not sure if I should seek out some other career rather than continue adjunct teaching for little pay and irregular hours.  At any rate, all I seem to be able to finish are books for young people - this book, the March books about John Lewis, the book for book club West with Giraffes, a book about the cross country travel of a pair of giraffes destined for the San Diego Zoo and the young man who drives them, which is in the adult section but seemed appropriate and of interest to middle grade readers.

Time for bed now before the day is officially over. More time to catch up on life tomorrow.