Silly God

Grace, if there's ever a time when you're praying for something to happen or for God to do something for you, pay close attention and He just might give you the tools to do it for yourself. Isn't that God "silly?!"

Watching Time Fly

Grace has taken to clock-watching lately, fascinated by the way a number changes every 60 seconds. This morning as she helped me prepare a scrambled egg for her breakfast (she hands me an egg, helps me pour the milk into the bowl, adds cheese and stirs), she noticed the zero on the clock in the time 8:30. "Mom, there's a zero! What do you think the zero will turn into?" I asked her what she thought. She replied: "I think a one. Let's watch!" I laughed, stood there holding her and patiently waited for it to become 8:31. She then asked, "What do you think the one will turn into?" and answered her own question, "Two." She said again, "Let's watch!" So we stood in front of the stove for several minutes simply watching time pass. That is, until I became a little disturbed by the idea that we were watching time pass before us.


Grace, at two years three months, measures time by changes of numbers on a clock. What she doesn't realize yet is that whether she's watching or not, time is going to fly. Today she is distracted by Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, her books, and her kitchen set. Before she knows it it will be lunch time, nap time, bedtime. Before she knows it today will be gone. It will be Christmas, springtime, her birthday, kindergarten. This is what I thought of as we watched the clock--that while she wants to see time move, I want it to stand still so I can make scrambled eggs with my little munchkin forever.

My brother's quote on his Facebook page is a line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off that says, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it." What wisdom! I so appreciate that Grace brought that to my attention today. It's so easy to become absorbed in ouselves--our happiness, our exhaustion, our responsibilities, our fun, our jobs, our feelings...our pride--that we forget that the world is happening. Now. The people we love are aging, changing, the happy moments are fleeting, and we have to be a part of it. Now. Because there is no guarantee of tomorrow. And even if there were, it would be gone before we know it. And once it's gone, we can never get it back.

8:32...8:33...8:34.....

My Terrific Two-Year-Old

Happy birthday Gracie! You are two years old today! Daddy said to me, "Can you believe our nut is two already? It was just yesterday that she was born!" But even moreso this year than last, I can't believe there was ever a time when I didn't know you.

We had a wonderful day! You woke up to pink balloons all over the kitchen table, presents, and a platter full of PINK cupcakes (to go with your favorite new book, Pinkalicious). We had cupcakes for breakfast (and french toast too) and then headed out for the zoo. You had a great time there looking at all of the animals, pushing the stroller yourself, and playing in the water in front of the otter habitat. We had Happy Meals for lunch and you gobbled up chicken nuggets and fries. After that, we went swimming with grandpa. At one point, you were on the steps in the pool and you pushed yourself up onto your arms so your legs were floating out behind you and you yelled, "I'm flying!" That cracked me right up! When we got back into the house and got dressed, it started to rain and I just couldn't resist--I took you back outside to dance in the rain. We spun in circles, ran around, danced, and tried to catch raindrops on our tongues and just when we were really getting crazy, the sun came out! So I pushed you around on your new tricycle while Daddy hit some golf balls. We went back in and you played with your new kitchen set for a while, "cooking" onions, tomatoes, and cauliflower with your oven mit on. We had pizza with grandma and grandpa (and a little broccoli just to keep it a little bit healthy!), sang happy birthday with candles in your cupcake, and headed out to Sprinkles to end the day with--what else?--ice cream! You were a busy little two-year-old today and I hope that it's just a sampling of the fun you will have every day of your terrific two's!

Happy birthday, my sweet little girl. You amaze me more and more every day. I promise to work really hard this year to make sure that you are amazed by your parents and the world too!

Silly Mommy

Grace: I saw a bluebird!

Mommy: You did?! What color was it?

Grace: YELLOOOW!!!

I guess silly questions deserve silly answers!

Mommy's Always OK

Grace has a funny little tendency lately to try to establish her independence from me. I suppose it's just what being almost-two is all about. But if I ask Grace to do something, the answer is typically, "NO" (unless it involves eating something delicious like cake with chocolate frosting). If I push the issue and say, "YES," she'll respond "NO NO NO." But if I switch it up on her and I start to say, "NO NO NO," she, of course, will respond "YES YES YES." She's figuring out how to do things her own way...and just for the sake of doing things her own way. I'm getting used to the rebellion and resistance, actually. I'm at the point where I can anticipate her NOs, and I know that if I ask her to hand me something she's holding onto, she'll throw it before she'll be willing to walk it over to me. I actually was starting to take it personally.

Until the playground. As we played on one of those climby-structures with the slides and ladders and bridges and poles attached, I missed a step and fell, scraping my leg on the step that I missed on the way down. It hurt. She must have seen the pain in my face because she became visibly upset. Not crying tears or anything, but her voice got really whiny and delicate: "Mommy fell doooown." She came over and kneeled next to me, looking alternatively at my leg that I was gripping in pain and into my eyes. I wanted to cry...not because I was hurt, but because for possibly the first time ever, in the subtle feeling of empathy seeping in through her voice and in her eyes, I could see that Gracie loved me...that it hurt her to know that I was hurt.

It's been about a week now since I took that spill and a 3" scrape down the front of my right shin often reminds Grace of our playground mishap. Whenever she sees it the whiny delicate voice comes back replete with the pained expression on her face and she says, "Mommy fell dooooown. Mommy got a boo-boo." But now she adds, "But it's okay." She got this last part from me. I tell her I'm okay, that it doesn't hurt, and that the boo-boo is healing. I told her tonight, "Don't ever worry about Mommy. I never want you to worry about Mommy. I'm always okay." I meant that, I think, more than I've ever meant anything I've ever said to her. I never, ever want Gracie to feel the burden of worrying about her Mommy.

I think as we grow up, it's one of the most painful and unavoidable responsibilities we have, to worry about our Mommies. Watching our mothers get older renders us powerless--we can't, after all, stop time. This is only complicated by the fact that Mommies are big girls who can take care of themselves, make their own decisions, and resent any (even subtle) shift from being the caretaker to the one who is being taken care of. This means that even though we worry about them, we have no real power to take care of them and protect them in the way that they spend their lives caring for and protecting us. This is why worrying about Mommy is always a burden.

Only moments after my little talk with Grace, my phone rang and it was my Mommy. She had bad news. My dad's cousin, Rosemary, died. A beautiful, vibrant woman, only 48 years old, with two college-aged children, she succombed to cancer earlier today. Truly, Rosemary's passing is a tragedy because she still had youth on her side (just one look at her would assuage any doubt about that), she was newly re-married, and much tragedy has befallen her immediate family within the past few years. But of course, the real tragedy isn't so much Rosemary's loss of life--she is, after all, joining her mother and brother in heaven--but Sarah and Scott's loss of their mom. When I think about the way they must have worried about their mom and prayed desperately for her to live, I am wrenched with pain. The pain makes my breath shallow, makes me want to tiptoe around life for a while until my own mortality and that of my mother isn't so near or so perceptible. The worry within me swells...the worry that I, as a daughter and as a mother, will never be disabused of. I'll always worry about my mother. And I'll always worry about my daughter worrying about me.

I try to work around Grace's current state of contrariness, manipulate it when I can. If I want a kiss I'll say, "Grace, don't give me a kiss. I don't want one," and I end up with a kiss, hug, and impassioned, "I LOVE YOU!" But really, I like inependent Gracie. Her sassy-ness makes me laugh and fills me with hope that she'll be just stubborn enough and have just enough will to be resilient through life's most difficult moments. As a mom, I know there will be times (hopefully very few and far between) when I see her brought to her knees by life. That's just what life does to us sometimes. I will pick her up the best I can and help her to regain her footing. I just don't want her brought to her knees anymore out of worry for me, for my safety, or my life.

I'm pretty sure I didn't know what love was before I had a daughter. I'm pretty sure this is it.

In memory of Rosemary Marasco Giavanucci.

small bites

My dad had a mantra. It was mostly a meal-time mantra, but it was repeated any and every time I ate anything in his presence: "Maria," he would say with the gravity that only Papa can muster, "Take little bites, and chew your food well." As a child I heeded his wisdom, careful to take only small nibbles, but as an adolescent that changed. I'd look at him contemptuously and shove a fist-size-whatever-I-was-eating into my mouth as an act of defiance. As an adult, my dad STILL repeats his mantra, especially if I'm over-zealously devouring a Viola's steak and cheese sub or a slice of LaHacienda pizza. Now I just roll my eyes and go about my feasting.

Essentially, my dad was terrified of one thing--me choking, having my air passages cut off by a hunk of food, watching me gasp for air with my mouth gaping open as panic sets in, and him being faced with the dire responsiblity of saving my life with the Heimlich maneuver that would send the partially chewed wad sailing across the room and leave me panting to re-oxygenate. The details make it sound like I've been through this before, huh?

I had a moment not too long ago where I understood my father. These moments are far and few between so I figure I may as well commemorate it here. As Grace happily chomped french fries at Tom Wahls with me and Grandma she bit off a little more than she could chew--literally--and began to choke. Simple words cannot describe my terror. I reacted quickly and removed the enormous piece of french fry from the back of her mouth, breathed a giant sigh of relief, and then said sternly (complete with finger-wag): "Gracie! You take little bites and you chew your food well!"

What can I say, she loves her fries. I can certainly understand the feeling of such engrossment, captivation, and excitement that we simply overdo it. We think: If a little bit is good, more MUST BE better. It's this instinct that renders me immobile on the couch when I open good book that I just can't put down, a glass of wine at dinner turning into a bottle, a 2-mile jog on an injured hip becoming a 4-mile run if I feel unburdened by pain. It all feels right at the time, but I always regret it later--rushing through a book that could have brought me days of enjoyment, a hangover, even more hip pain.

I think Grace is learning about moderation too. The other night, in a fit of tears, she launched herself out of her crib. A kid who won't even climb down off of a child-size chair on her own hurled herself onto the floor from about 4 feet off the ground. When I try to get her to re-create her kamikaze maneuvers under my close supervision (hey-I'm curious!), she simply shakes her head and says, "Fall down. Boo-boo." Her tenacity scared her. It certainly frightened the heck out of me and Jeff...but it scared her too. We're looking into getting her a big-girl bed this weekend--a transition that I, for one, am not quite ready for. But her safety is at stake and we need to make sure that her acrobatics don't end her up in a body-cast.

My brother Michael always likes to say, "Go big or go home." If you're going to do something, do it, do it all the way, do it right, and do it well. Grace has a little GBGH spirit in her that I admire--with french fries and death-defying crib escapes. The GBGH mentality doesn't mesh well with my dad's little-bites philosophies, but I hope she can find a happy medium.

Go big or Go home, but on your way, take little bites, okay?

stupid human-ness

I realize I'm a little (ok, a lot) behind on "The Great Church Search," but I will get back to it. There are more pressing things to blog about today.

Namely, I had a bad day at work. It was a really bad day. It was one of those days that I don't even want to talk about, one where I was reminded that I'm a mere human, replete with imperfections. These kinds of days are no good, but--as it turns out--life is full of them. So instead of sowing seeds of misery, I attempt to cope the best way I know how, by talking to God on the long ride home, a glass of wine, a big hug from Jeff, and memories of words of wisdom passed on to me in others of life's trying situations.

In particular, there was a poem that was once published--of all places--in the Ann Landers column back when I was in 9th grade or so. God knows why I was reading Ann Landers, but I happened across it and it became nothing short of my mantra in high school...words that carried me through many a adolescent storm. I printed the poem on pretty paper and hung it on the closet door of my bedroom and one simple phrase, "Accept your defeats with your head up and eyes ahead, with the grace of a woman not the grief of a child," was one that inspired me with hope on the worst of days. Today was no different.

So here's the poem in-full. I can only hope that it will bring you the same peace that it brings me today.

After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn
that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't always mean security.
And you begin to learn
that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child
and you learn
to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is
too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down
in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone
to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure
you really are strong
you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn
with every goodbye, you learn...

-Veronica Shofstall