giving and getting thanks

It's so important to be thankful. I was reminded of this today when one of my students came to my office to get some feedback on a paper he is writing. As he was leaving, he let me know how thankful he is for having taken my class and how it has shaped his understandings about teaching. He also told me that he is acquainted with a couple of students I had several years ago in this same course and that I came highly recommended. There are a lot of times in my job where I feel inadequate. There are other times where I feel validated and excited about the work I am doing. Hearing a simple "thank you" from my students is just what I need to hear in order to flip that switch.

I am so thankful for students who invigorate my passion for teaching and for the subject that I teach, and who energize me with their thanks.

retroactive thanks

I haven't introduced the blogosphere to Zara yet, the newest addition to our family. Born on 9/27/11, Z is the happiest, chubbiest little baby I've ever seen. Grace, even in a foul mood, can make Z smile, and when she does, the foul mood breaks and Grace grins back and calls her "Smiley Cakes." Her laugh is hearty, as is her appetite. I get so much joy out of watching these two sisters together. I only pray that they always love each other so much, that they always make each other laugh, and that they always have each other's backs.

I am so over-the-moon thankful for our little Zara. I never thought our family was missing anything without her, but now that we have her, I can't imagine life any other way.

making a comeback

I need to get better about blogging more regularly, and I realize this in the moments with Grace and Zara that a snapshot never seems to do justice. In fact, some days, the only thing that would do justice to the simultaneous chaos & wonder would be if I could freeze time and somehow package our most precious moments to be re-opened at a later date when our blessings seem less prolific. But, until Apple comes up with an app for that, a blog will have to do. And I will have to re-dedicate myself to the cause.

I started out a little too ambitious and a little too literary. In the business of my life as a full-time mom and a full-time professor, the words come less easily and spare moments are spent attempting some feat of cleaning (or at least neatening) or, you know, showering. Most times, I feel like trying to cobble words together to form coherent sentences is a challenge, let alone words in sentences that I would feel confident enough about to make public on this blog.

One thing I've learned in the past 3 and a half years since I became a mom is that women today can have it all. I am proof of that. But that also means we have to do it all, and to do it all, we just have to make it simple. So today begins my renewed attempt at blogging, replete with a renewed focus on the things in my life that I am thankful for. I make no promises that my stories will evoke tears or that I will even come close to conveying the hilarity, insanity, wisdom, beauty, or frustration that I experience in my day-to-day life with my family, but I will do my best to detail something each day to give thanks for. And in this way, I hope to become a more thankful person...one that is more aware and conscious of the beauty that surrounds me. Wish me luck...

Grace's Story about her Picture

What Pepper, What Pepper
By Grace Concetta Hopkins
Once upon a time a hot air balloon floated by and what happened? An ice cream cone splashed on there! And then the ice cream cone went on a slide and got the ice skates all dirty. And then the ice skate said, “Did you get my bee dirty too?” And the ice cream said no. And the monster accidentally spilled all the food, even the bubble gum, in the car. And Fellow came to protect. And a boy flying with pixie dust and he was sad but now he’s happy because he got his ball back. And Ariel swam by close by to watch. Got everything dirty, the ice cream cone did. They threw their things in the garbage that were garbage and broken that the dad couldn’t fix. Then they got everything out of the trash can and their dad got the wrench and fixed it and after the car ride home the food was out the window and everything was dirty, even the Frisbees. And then they lived happily ever after. That’s it.

3-2-1 ... "See Ya!"

This summer we took a short trip to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania. We happened upon a ride called "Blast Off" that raises you into the air only to drop you over and over again. I was thankful that my pregnancy prohibited me from riding. I don't like heights and I especially don't like falling from them. Jeff decided he and Grace would ride and, I admit, I thought it was a terrible idea. In my mind, there was no way my little girl would not be in hysterics the first time the ride dropped her and she got the feeling of falling. Much to my surprise, I was wrong. She exited the ride laughing hysterically and asked to ride it again the next day. It was a moment where I had to hit refresh on what I thought I knew about my kid. It was the first time that I really felt her gaining independence from me and I found that both relieving and really disturbing!


We had another "Blast off" moment today, this one a bit more momentous. As I type this, Grace is at pre-school...her first day. We've spent months preparing, reassuring Grace that it would be fun, that she'd make new friends, learn a lot, have great snacks and that, after 2 and a half hours, Mommy would be back to pick her up. Our morning played out as planned -- wake up, get dressed, do hair, have breakfast, brush teeth, take some pictures and out the door. The part that had my stomach doing flips was the goodbye once we got to school. Unbeknownst to Grace, I cried quietly in the front seat the whole way there. I composed myself before we went in, said hello to her teachers, hung up her backpack...and Grace was off playing in the "kitchen" (not suprising to anyone who knows Grace!). As parents started to trickle out, I knew it was time to make my move. My stomach was in a knot and I was holding back tears, but I somehow eeked out, "Grace, Mommy's going to go now." I braced myself for the response. Would she cry? Would she cling to me and beg me not to go? Would she make it impossible for me to leave? Or would she do exactly what she did: not even look up from shopping cart she was now pushing around and say, so simply, "See ya." I simultaneously let out a breath of relief ... and yet I felt as though I was punched in the stomach.

When I was eighteen years old and left my parents' house for my first day of college, my mom stood in front of the door in the kitchen and refused to let me out despite my pleas to her not to make me late for my first class, World Civilizations. As she held her arms pasted across the door shouting, "You can't leave! I won't let you go!" I was annoyed and amused, but I definitely felt ready to physically remove my mother from my path so that I could get on with my education ... and my life. My mom, she wasn't ready. I didn't get that at the time, but I sure do get it now.

I always understood my relationship to Grace in this way: I am her mother. This means that my primary jobs are to protect her, provide for her, and teach her things she needs to know so that she can become an independent, responsible, and caring individual. I guess I didn't realize that there would be so much for me to learn about her, about my own mother, and about myself. As she has helped me to define my role as "Mommy," I realize I've come to rely on her to need me so that I can fulfill that role. In the moment today where she said "see ya," she didn't need me, and in that moment, I felt a little lost. So today I also hit refresh on what it means to be a mom and, as difficult as it is, I see that being a mom sometimes means letting go.

grace makes snow on march 23rd so worth it!

Grace: Mom, come here I have to tell you something! Winter came back!

Me: Where did Spring go?

Grace: Winter fell on top of it.

Poetic, don't you think!?

Scrolling

Entering the 2nd trimester with "Thing 2" (a moniker used with the utmost affection), I don't sleep much these days. I wake up at 3:00 am and toss and turn until morning, trying unsucceedingly to light upon a thought that will give me some peace and lull me back to sleep. This morning, a memory occurred to me...sort of out of the blue. Don't brace yourself--it's not earth-shattering.

I was maybe 7 years old. It was a time in my life where I spent a lot of time with Nonnie. At any opportunity I had, I'd spend both weekend nights at her hourse. Anyway, it was a snapshot memory. I was watering her grass in the back yard. The sun was just going down, but it was still warm (Nonnie never watered her grass during the day; the water would just "burn off" in the sun). I meticulously covered ever square inch with the fine spray from the hose, glad to be doing it "all by myself." Angelo and Lillian were out in their yard, picking grapes or some such thing. Nonnie and the neighbors chat over the space that was their shared driveway.

I told you--nothing dramatic. But I had this thought that it was a lifetime ago. Another world that I was in at 7 years old, so remote and so different from the one I live in now. Where Alice, the upstairs tenant of Angelo and Lillian, could be single at 32 years old, have hair trailing down her back to her butt, walk to her job at the Super Duper every day...and be seen simply as a "nice lady" with no baggage, no story. Just a “nice lady.”

The thing that got me as I lay in bed this morning is that it wasn’t another world or a lifetime ago. It was a day. One day that was connected to today by all the other days in between. I hate to get too esoteric here, but it gave me a new way of thinking about my life, if even for a moment. It made me wonder when it happens that we stop seeing our days connected to all the other days? When do stories become separated by gulfs, with all that’s in between falling into hopeless irrelevancy? And what does that necessitate that we overlook?

Thoughts at 3:00 am rarely make a lot of sense…though they seem so wise at the time! I’m going to chew on this for a while…