My New Hobby

Titles have never been my forte.

I recently have taken up crocheting.  More accurately, I’ve become a machine.  If I’m awake and not at work or busy taking care of other responsibilities then I’m nestled in my favorite spot on the couch with yarn and a needle. 

My great-grandma taught me to crochet when I was very young.  I was always mesmerized by the quick, swift movements her hand would make and the way the needle seemed to be an extension of that hand.  In a perfect rhythm, her hands would move and out the other end would come this perfectly crafted pattern.  Right before my eyes (and while she carried on a conversation, played along with Jeopardy, drank tea, and ate a meal, mind you) the pattern would grow and within a couple hours time significant progress would be obvious.  I loved the way loops and pulls and hand motions would work together to create something with a shape and a purpose.

Gramma had a very distinct smell and there’s something about the way yarn holds a scent.  There are times when I still swear I can smell her in an afghan she has made even though she has been gone almost two years and most of the afghans she made are nearly as old as I am. 

For many years of my life, I did not fully appreciate handmade gifts.  Time and loss has changed me.  There’s something so comforting about falling asleep under an afghan made by Gramma or my great-aunt that is hard to even explain.  To know that the afghan began in their hands and as it progressed, spread across their lap.  That it spent time living their life with them.  Going visiting or waiting in a doctor’s office.  Watching their favorite TV shows and probably catching a drop or two of their spilled coffee or tea.

These are the things I think about when I’m crocheting.  The things Gramma has left behind for me.  The stories told over needles and yarn, the afghans, the slippers, the doll booties for Maddy, but most importantly, the life-long skills.   She passed on recipes and tips in the kitchen and crocheting, along with advice for dealing with family members, husbands, children, and life in general.

Hello, Again

It’s been a really long time.  I feel it’s necessary to bring you up to speed although it probably isn’t because those of you reading this, probably already are.  But to humor myself here goes:

I am 20 weeks pregnant!  I started feeling the baby move a couple of weeks ago and Jake can’t wait until he can also feel it.  We have our ultrasound on Monday and are anxious to find out the sex so we can start shopping and picking out names.  Jake doesn’t want to discuss names until we know what we are having, he says that way we only have to argue about one rather than two.  That’s one way to look at it I guess.

 

We are moving up north the end of the month and will be living in one of the small towns we grew up in.  This will be more strange for Jake as he has not lived there since graduating high school.  We have big plans for our future to be taking place up there and more of that will be coming soon.  We are very excited to be closer to our families and to Maddy’s dad.  We think it will make a lot of things easier for all of us.  She has K4 screening up there next week and will be starting in the fall.

I think that about does it for updates.  I’m really hoping to blog more so you can all look forward to that!

Warm & Fuzzy

I have 4+ hours of homework in front of me but right now I’d much rather reflect on the last couple of days. Yesterday was Madelyn’s first day of preschool. A bittersweet occasion to put it mildly. To be more accurate, I was a mess. First of all, my stress level has been very much elevated lately due to more of a credit load than I can handle in addition to an internship and an editorial position with our campus journal of the arts. And did I mention that our lease will be up at the end of the month and I am trying to also find us a place to live?

Anyway, when my stress level goes up, my emotions reach a level of complete ridiculousness. So here I am, taking my little girl to this first day of preschool and thinking about her life up until now. She was somewhat emotional all morning; excited to go to school but also more clingy than normal. Once we got to school she wanted me close to her at all times. I gave her a warning that I was going to have to leave shortly and she started crying so I decided to stay a while longer. So I sat through calendar time, and weather time, and music time, and when they were about to start art time, she looked at me and said, “You can go now.” In this tone that made it sound more like, “what are you still doing here?” No hug, no kiss, no need for me at all. So I left.

Yes, I cried as I pulled out of the parking lot, doesn’t everybody? With all that my little girl has done and been for me, it dawned on me that I might need her more than she needs me. At school, one of my professors asked how Madelyn was doing so I filled her in on preschool starting and it being the beginning of the end. We chatted for a while and my professor (who has met Madelyn a couple of times including a 3 hour meeting that she sat through very well-behaved) told me how good my daughter was and how mature and beautiful she was and how I should be so proud of her. Naturally, this made me feel pretty good and as I mentioned, I spent most of the day reflecting on her life and what it has meant to mine. So of course, I had a warm, fuzzy feeling all day and I even slept with her last night. And then we woke up.

Today was nowhere near as warm and fuzzy as yesterday. She woke up in a whiny mood. Always a bad indication. She remained whiny all morning. Late morning, we left to run errands with the pretense that if she stopped whining we would go to McDonald’s before school. She stopped whining. We went to McDonald’s. She ate very well and got to go in the play area but I made it quite clear we had very little time until school. She found a little girl to play with and together they had a great time. I gave her the 2-minute warning and then told her it was time to go. She said she would be right there. Now, here’s the setting. As far as play lands go, this one is on the very large side. It’s a huge room with tunnels running all over the ceiling and some slides coming down. There is one way up and it’s this weird ladder-climby thing. So anyway, she told me she was coming and then didn’t.

I went to the tunnel I suspected her to be in, stood under it, and did the infamous 3-count. “Madelyn, one…,” now normally this gets her right up and moving but being that she couldn’t see me nor I her, she thought she could get away with ignoring me. So she’s in this tunnel, over my head giggling. I tell her that if she doesn’t come down right now she is going to have to take a nap today (she doesn’t usually nap when she only has a half day of daycare/school). She moves toward the ladder-climby thing and even proceeds to climb down. When she is almost to the bottom where I am now standing, she laughs and climbs back up. Now I am furious. Other parents are watching and probably cracking up inside, some even smiled outright. The grandmother of the little girl Madelyn was playing with asked her to come down so that Madelyn would. This didn’t work, instead this girl stood next to me saying, “Madelyn Rose, you get down here right now!” and “I’m serious, Madelyn Rose!”

So with my shadow, I begin the count again and she climbs back down, I reach for her leg and she quickly escapes my grab and climbs back up. There are no words for what I am feeling now as I climb into the play area and grab my daughter’s leg and then carry her out of McDonald’s kicking and giggling. Why is our anger always funny to our kids?

I don’t say a word as I put her in her car seat, shut the door, and get into mine. I start the car, and begin the process of cooling down, beginning with unlocking my jaw. Now she decides it’s no longer funny and she’s going to be mad. “I know that I was naughty, so you don’t even have to tell me!” She continues then by telling me, “It doesn’t matter cuz I’m done with you and this family.”

What? I fire back with the fact that if she’s done with us we are off the hook for her birthday which is in 2 weeks. Now, she’s back-peddling but still angry of course because she’s her father’s daughter and she’s stubborn. So more and more attitude comes flying out of her mouth which I ignore.

When we get to school I put the car in park, turn it off, and turn around in my seat to tell her that she now has to take a nap today. That did it. Her and her enormous attitude crumbled in defeat. She begged and pleaded and promised. I didn’t say much as we walked into school, hung up her backpack and entered her room. But I did tell her teacher that Madelyn had to nap. Again she cried and said she was sorry. I got her calmed down, got her to tell me she loved me, and I left her there for 3 hours hating me. Again, I left the parking lot crying but warm and fuzzy definitely don’t describe what I felt while I was gone.

This story does have a happy ending though. When I picked her up, she came running to me and hugged me. She informed me that she did take a nap and her teacher confirmed. We left school, stopped at the grocery store (without whining!), and when we got home she helped Jake do some cleaning while I made dinner. We all ate dinner together, I watched them play some Wii, she rubbed lotion on my feet, and then we tucked her into bed and we were a happy family again. At least until the next time one of us pisses someone off.

Tomorrow

It’s Saturday. The day before Sunday of the “other” week. Meaning, tomorrow Maddy comes home. Day 6 (along with day 1) is always the hardest. So close and yet 24 hours away. The quietness of the house has grown old around about day 3, and although my husband is a pretty funny guy, the laughter is always shorter during the “other” week.

Don’t get me wrong, things are not perfect the weeks that we have her. She is a stubborn, sass-talking, way too smart for her own good, almost four-year-old. Meaning, she’s a challenge. I like to think of it as her having personality. She definitely keeps us on our toes and makes us be creative in our parenting. I wouldn’t have it any other way, well maybe less stubbornness and sass-talking.

To all you other moms, don’t think for one second that I think that I’m above you. I definitely have the occasional, do you think I could have 5 minutes to myself moment and at times have even considered changing my name from “mom” to something crazy like “Amanda” just so I could get a break from the Stewie Griffin style, “mom, mom, ma, mommy, mama, MOM, MOMMY, MA!”

But what I can say is these moments come a lot less often for me than I think they would if she was here all of the time and certainly less than I remember my mom experiencing them (sorry, Mom, but it’s true…we drove you crazy!). I try to live each moment with her with the mindset that half of her life she isn’t with me. And so we have an open door policy at our house. This means, there’s no point in closing the bedroom door, the bathroom door, or any door cuz she’ll bust it open and barge right in because, “I just wanna be with you, Mom.” So she’ll brush my hair while I’m using the toilet, she’ll help me pick out my clothes when I’m getting dressed, and she always tells me when my makeup doesn’t look quite right, because she’s front and center while I’m doing that as well.

So while she’s always under foot, much like the damn dog. I relish having a shadow every other week, because it’s so lonely without one the other weeks. Not to mention, I never know what to wear, my hair is always a mess, and I have horrible makeup lines.

The sun'll come out

Tomorrow

Bet your bottom dollar

That tomorrow

There'll be sun!

Just thinkin' about

Tomorrow

Clears away the cobwebs,

And the sorrow

'Til there's none!
-From the musical Annie

Jon & Kate + 8 = ignorance < Truth

I turned on my computer this morning and as is the case almost every morning, I was disgusted by the “news” headlines on my homepage (good old yahoo!). My husband and I often comment on the fact that somebody somewhere gets to decide what is newsworthy enough to earn a spot on yahoo.com. I’d kind of like to meet this person; to find out where their priorities are. The more I think about this though, the more it becomes clear; their top priority is the same as that of most Americans…money. Celebrity gossip sells way more than current world events. This is not the fault of the person at yahoo deciding which headlines to post; Americans are to blame.

Come on, America, what’s happened to us? We all know what Obama’s doing as far as health care because this would directly affect each of us. We are also aware of the bailouts for major corporations, why is this? Because we hear large sums of money being mentioned, and as true Americans, this always catches our attention. But what about what’s going on overseas? Guess what? We are still at war. How many Americans could say when our troops will be coming home? How many could answer the question of how many casualties have occurred? How many people even know how long we’ve been at war?

I have several theories as to why we as Americans are so ignorant to the state of our nation. First, our government likes it this way and so they keep us in the dark. Everything is censored; we only know what they want us to know. We the people do have power (contrary to popular American belief) and the less we know, the less we will be inclined to use this power. Second, ignorance is bliss. Celebrity issues (Jon and Kate’s failing marriage, Michael Jackson’s death, Brett Favre’s latest drama) are not real to us. They do not directly affect our day-to-day lives and therefore, none of us are going to lose any sleep over them. Would this be the case if we truly understood our government and the war? If we truly knew what direction our country was headed in and what that means to our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. If we took this war personal and thought about all of our people over there dying for a reason most of us don’t understand and/or agree with. Would we be able to sleep at night then? I have more ideas as to why we do what we do but does it really matter? The point is we do it.

How many people actually go out of their way during election times (whether presidential, or those at the state or city level) to understand the candidates? Sure, we catch the commercials that interrupt our favorite sitcom, reality TV show, or sporting event but do any of us take initiative beyond that? Then we use the greatest power our nation allows us and go to the polls and vote uninformed (if we even exercise this power).


Our country needs us. Each and every one of us. No matter which side of the fence we are on (if we’ve even picked a side). We need to educate ourselves (our government sure as hell isn’t going to do this for us. We need to exercise the powers our democracy allows us, and we need to reclaim the pride our country was founded on. I have personally challenged myself to live this pledge and I challenge you to do the same. Do what you’re comfortable doing, vote, write a letter…start small but do something.

*Once again, I was inspired by a blog written by a friend of mine and so I need to give him proper credit. Please check it out! www.bensonjwright@blogspot.com. As a soldier sacrificing his life to fight for those of us so comfortable with our ignorance, he sees things a little differently than most.

I can still hear you

I literally found a treasure yesterday. Well, I didn’t find it, it was given to me but it is a treasure. It is a rather large 3-ring binder stuffed with both hand-written and typed (on a type-writer) pages filled with poems, stories, recollections, and notes of my great-grandmother’s.

Gramma passed away last summer and very shortly before she did she asked me to do something with her writing. I finally got my hands on it yesterday and am very hard at work already.

There are stories of her experiences in a one room schoolhouse in Wisconsin’s northwoods. There are short narratives written about relatives and ancestors; as much of their lives as she could gather and compile. There are lists of names of students who attended her school, the first people to settle the small (very , very, small) town she lived in her whole life, birthdays of all of her decedents, as well as the heights of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren at different times throughout their lives (these were recorded on the doorway which we entered her house through and then she wrote them all down.

There is even a composition book of her mother’s dated Dec 29, 1904. I have to do some more research to figure out which of these entries are original works and which she copied down (such as the Battle Hymn of the Republic), but it contains several poems and stories and I do know that she enjoyed writing as well.

Gramma was also an amazing storyteller; everything from fairy-tales to things she made up. I have been working on typing these from my memory as best as I can so that we have a record of them and can pass them on to our children. This project has been extremely difficult because as hard as I try, I cannot tell them exactly the same as she did and in this, something is lost. Included in the binder was a list of her stories and one of them written. It looks as though she had started the same project that I have. I was disappointed when I turned the page and realized it was only one of them but one is better than none and at least I have a list to work off of.

Probably my favorite thing that I found though, was what seems to be the workings of some poetry on the back of a football program from my dad and uncle’s senior year of high school. On the one side, was what seemed to be the first draft of a poem she wrote for my grandpa which I recognized. The other side though was obviously a very rough draft, with several cross-outs and write-overs and was clearly not finished. Please forgive me for doing this to you, Gramma; I truly understand the pain of having your work exposed before it is finished, but here it is:

So I’m giving you these tokens of the days
And when you look upon them you will know
That I’ll always love you and you’ll know this to be true…

Of course I don’t know that she wrote this for me but being that I just received this binder which I so truly treasure, it sure pertains.

I’m more excited about this collection of papers than I have been in a long, long time. It is so amazing to see her handwriting again and to hear her voice when I read her words. At the same time, it makes me miss her so much. I’ve also wanted to call her up several times to ask her about some of the things I am finding. I sure wish she would’ve shown me this stuff a while ago so we could’ve gone over it together! Oh well, maybe she wanted me to have to dig, to research, to make phone calls to relatives I’ve never met the way she always did when she needed a question answered. Maybe she wanted me to realize where I came from. Whatever her intentions, I know she wanted to be remembered. Of course those of us who were fortunate enough to have her as a regular component of our lives will never forget but I am incredibly thankful that she left us this treasure, this book of her to make it easier to remember her voice, her attitude, her outlook, and to help us in sharing her with those who came too late or haven’t come at all yet.

What's in a name?

My name has changed 3 times in my 25 years of life. Yes, that’s a lot in a short time, I’m well aware. As expected, each of these times has had a huge impact on my life.

Obviously, as most of us are, I was born with a name. As a small child, I was very proud of this name despite the fact that it followed all phonetic rules and yet people still managed to pronounce it wrong. I was a daddy’s girl when I was very young and with him being an athlete and active member of the community, he gave me a lot to be proud of.

As I got older though, life found a way of opening for me closet doors full of skeletons. In addition to this, my father and I had several falling outs and my view of him changed drastically. It was around this time that my name changed for the first time. Although I didn’t feel the need to hold onto the name I was given at birth, I felt nothing but terror about taking the name given to me at my first wedding. Of course it wasn’t the name I was afraid of but everything about the idea of marrying him. Don’t get me wrong, of course there were feelings between us at one time but by the time we were married, those feelings were all but fizzled. Taking his name represented the last step in giving up the life I had worked toward.

As the story goes, nine months later I was filing for divorce. It was during this time that my dad came back to me or me to him; I’m not quite sure. Either way, we more than reconciled. Both of my parents were truly my rocks during the lowest time in my life. I grew closer to my siblings, came to terms with the skeletons I had discovered a couple years earlier and decided that the mistakes of others did not define me.

It was two years before he gave me the divorce and equally as long that his name haunted me. Every time I had to say my name out loud or write it, I was reminded of the mistakes I had made. If you don’t think you write/say your name a lot in 2 years, try taking the name of the person you loathe the most. I guarantee you will become a lot more aware.

By the time the big D-day finally came, I left the courthouse and immediately stopped at the DMV for a new driver’s license. I think I was more proud of it than the first time I went to the DMV for a license.

My daughter though, shares her father, my ex-husband’s name. At first I had a problem with this. As time has passed (and as the saying goes, ‘time heals all wounds’), I have realized that she is my proudest accomplishment and I couldn’t have her without him, so if this means she shares his name, so be it. Everything that was good in that relationship is in her, as well as traits both of us possessed but were too selfish to bring into the relationship.

Not too long ago, I made a decision to give up my birth name yet again. I couldn’t help but reflect how my feelings about it had come around full circle. This time though, it was very bittersweet. I had absolutely no reserves about taking his name, but I had finally learned what my family was all about and exactly which pieces of me each member had given me.

And now here I am. Again, I have a name that I can say without cringing (or wanting to vomit) and I look forward to making it my own. I am already elated to be sharing it with the family I have acquired but also can’t wait to share it with our children. To expand upon what the name already means and give it everything that I have to offer.