Sunday, May 09, 2010

around and about

1. A thousand years ago I started a blog because some of my friends from Brian's former band/ touring days had one. Almost none of them blog any longer (but they do read - hi guys!) and my blogging circle has widened considerably. Even so, the Band Family spent the weekend at the lake together.

Everyone (in town) but me. Because my mom has been sick this week, so our childcare options changed, and have you MET Silas? The idea of 1. Silas skipping his nap to 2. go to a lake house, where 3. nobody else has a toddler capable of scaling walls or escaping into oblivion while 4. surrounded by Liquid Death is NOT what I would call a relaxing day. So. The boys and I went to a birthday party in town (that was very fun, and held very few opportunities for my children to die) while Brian saw our old friends. When he called to make sure the children weren't eating the walls late in the afternoon, he said, "Five years ago the joke was that conversation always came back around to birth control. Now the conversation always comes back around to everybody's kids." Ha. I'm sorry I missed that. I'm glad everyone had such a good time this weekend. And as much as I would have enjoyed seeing everyone, having Silas alive and undrowned this morning was worth the sacrifice.

2. Here's something you don't know - Brian and I spent a few months this winter investigating and considering adoption. In the end, after much consideration, we decided it was the wrong time. Not the wrong thing for our family, necessarily, but not the right time to do it. This year on Mother's Day, I'm so much more aware of how holidays separate the haves from the have-nots, how recognizing a blessing in my life may necessarily mean pointing out a loss in someone else's. Maybe it was all of those months of thinking of orphans - but this Mother's Day I'm more aware of how many people I know miss their moms today, or never had one to miss. Or how many want to be mothers, and are not. I can't imagine there's anything I can say that makes that easier, but I did want to say, I am thinking of you guys today, too.

3. Speaking of mamas and babies (but around here we're ALWAYS speaking of mamas and babies) - last week I had to have some blood drawn. Needles mess with my head, so anytime someone is sucking life from my veins I'm always looking for someone to talk to as a distraction. The woman sitting across from me, also having her blood drawn, seemed nervous, too, and eager to chat. What I learned in about 25 seconds of conversation (you've got to love the South and our collective willingness to overshare) is that she has a seven-month-old baby boy, and her doctor suspects she is pregnant again. She, personally, finds this unfathomable, but even the idea of it stressed her out. "I have a BABY," she said. "I can't have ANOTHER." I tried to remember how unfathomable the idea of having children so close in age once was to me. But mostly, all I could think was how I'm more thankful every day that they are so close in age. It seemed CRAZY when Asher was still taking two naps a day to think of having another, but now, I wouldn't want it any other way. As we walked out of the room, I told her, "You know, they would be sixteen months apart. If you are pregnant, it won't be the worst thing."

4. But since it IS Mother's Day, I've paid more attention to little things with my children all day - Silas wanting to sit in my lap while he finished his juice, Asher leaning in and kissing my leg before going to Sunday School, the two of them holding hands (mandated, yes, but still cute) while walking through the parking lot. Asher saving all his questions for the backseat, where, in twenty minutes, we covered Batman and the nature of super heros, how boats are moved from one lake to another, where sippee cups are made, and what t-shirts are made of. Silas reminding his stuffed animal of the week (a Buzz Lightyear doll, though he has no idea who Buzz Lightyear is, so he just calls him Robot) - "Robot, I Paw-paw's buddy," and "Robot, I have a boo-boo on my knee." Love it love it.

Happy Sunday all.

3 comments:

Heather said...

Yup. Even in convo with non-band me, it usually ended up on Birth Control if Mary was anywhere around. Hee hee.

mary said...

It's true. There was a whole lot more talk of having babies than preventing it - maybe for the first time ever. We were suppose to have at least 5 kids out there under the age of 2 but then some last minute childcare came through and we only ended up with two 9 month olds. It was definitely weird to be hosting a small-ish cookout with our peer group that had the potential to involve 7 or more children.

Everyone told brian to tell you we missed seeing you and the boys. I hope he did :-) We had a great time seeing him though - glad it worked out for all the boys to be free on the same weekend. I've been saying this since August but we really need to make it to Montgomery more often -it's only 2.5 hours away.

Lisa said...

We had birthmoms on the brain this weekend. It was a nice Mother's Day.