I left my 5-year-old in The Further South

On March 22, the husband and kids and I drove down south, well just further south, to Gamecock country to visit family for spring break. It was your typical late March type of thing: rain and someone's fever makes a splash on the front-end of your trip consequently creating a ripple effect through the rest of your trip. The husband and I talked for two hours (really just during commercial breaks) one of the first nights trying to figure out how to set the boat right and make room for all our loved ones on this short, little trip. (That's how much we care about them rowdy Carolinians.) :-)

Somehow, we managed to see only the most well-behaved of them, and also get them all together under the blessed red roof of a Pizza Hut. Why Pizza Hut? 'Cause that's how we do it when it rains on your birthday in The Further South, y'all. An old-fashioned red roof with fast pizza and no people. The place was ours!

This little introvert brought them all together....

There's six candles on that cake there, and despite the child's contagious glee about them and the sweet thing they're sitting on, I don't like them very much. Five was fine. Five felt like it was approaching the door to big kid land but still over here on this side of it, where I want her to stay, holding our hands and wanting to.

Although we celebrated two days before her actual birthday, it felt like we left Five there in that sticky, delicious mess of melted ice cream and butter-cream icing and pizza crust. Somewhere between scraping the cheese off her cheese pizza that she supposedly likes and finishing her second helping of pound cake, my Five decided to stay there, there at her pizza party under that red roof, which was under the rain, which was in The Further South in late March.

I think it was Six who walked out with us and watched us put the presents in the car. And Six came home with us to Nashville. Six means she's opened the door and walked through, doesn't it?

But I think this girl, if we wait long enough as she walks into big kid land with that shy exhilaration that is exactly who she is, I think, after she looks around and takes it in for a just a bit, she'll kick her hand back. And I think she'll really want us to grab it, too.  Kind of like when at her party surrounded by 25 loved ones, cousins and all, all there for her, she wanted to sit right next to me and scrape off her cheese like always. That's my best memory from spring break, from March and from her turning-six party. And that's one of the special things I love about her.

Happy Birthday to my sweet six-year-old!

Honey's worth waking up for

Y'all! Mama Bear's been taking a little nappity nap, and I think I overslept about a year too long. A year, people. I just don't even know about that, but what I do know is that this Mama Bear's been sleeping for too long. Too...long.

My audience, the small but faithful, have asked where I've been. Some of you kept asking, and some tried to entice me with compliments and fond memories of my written memories here. Some have tried more sly approaches by cloaking your beseeching with sweetness such as this doozie right here:

"All I want for Christmas is a new blog post." 

Uh-huh. One of you actually said that, out loud, to me. Abandoning all risk to yourself (not actually getting a Christmas gift), you tried to lure Mama Bear out of hibernation (writer's block) with honey, sweet little honey words. I say they're like honey to a sleeping bear, because I think you might have meant them, which was nice to hear, that a post about what we're up to or what the girls are saying these days is really all you wanted for Christmas from me, well, and maybe you're were also sending a message that you don't want another pair of pajama pants or tennis shoes. It could be either one, probably. (But seriously, are you fine in those categories, Dad, 'cause there's another holiday coming up in June, and being that you're sometimes hard to buy for and all....well...maybe this whole blogging-as-a-present-thing kind of works out for the both of us, anyway?)

So, you lured me out by saying this little way of connecting is worth more than anything else I can buy for you, Dad. I didn't deliver for Christmas, because, well everyone knows that bears sleep in the winter. But spring is in the air! A chance for new life, even for this ol' thing here called m'blog. It might take some time to get used to the activity again, for my eyes to adjust to the light after sleeping for a year, so to speak, but we'll start small, with a birthday wish for my dad who is 60 today.

Happy 60th Dad! We'll see you soon and take you out to Carrabba's or Rush's or wherever you want to go.  But, for now, please accept this as our little, homemade gift to say we love you, and thanks for loving us back. (click the link)

Watch "Happy birthday pop" on YouTube

Hug impressions.

Some people just aren't huggers. They either don't or they do the half-hug. Sometimes it's hard to know when you've reached the hugging point in a new relationship, and that's fair. That's when you see the half-hug stuff.

On the other hand, you may know some hug-for-lifers. They hug you like they're trying to leave a mark. And they kind-of do; the impression lasts. They might even get famous among their peer circles for their great hugs. That's one's for you Dara Lynn.

Anyway, I think hugs of either style leave an impression. A well-timed hug can be the best medicine, too. As a friend, as a parent, as a spouse, you just have to know when to shut up and hug.

We're a hugging family. The morning's just not right until everyone has hugged everyone. We also do lots of family group hugs. I'm really not excited about sounding so cheesy, but it's true. And I suspect that hugs are starting to matter to our kids too.

For instance...

Once upon a normal Tuesday or Thursday a couple weeks ago, I went to Peyton's pre-school classroom to pick her up. She looked happy as usual to see me. We hugged hello. Duh. Everything was normal. I went to her hook on the wall to gather her things. The next thing I knew, she was hugging the back of me, burying her face into my jacket. Awww, she must have really missed me today. I got her stuff and turned around to find her upset and crying. Um...what just happened? She was fine two minutes ago. I knelt down and she informed me, through tears, that her friend, A, wouldn't hug her good-bye. She said A doesn't like hugs but that she really wanted to hug her since they're friends.

I said something like, "Well it's okay. That doesn't mean she's not your friend. Some people just don't like to hug--"

"But Mommy {cry face in full force now} that's the best part of luu-uh-uuuuuv." More tears.

Oh boy.

The mama bear inside me let go of a low growl...inside though, just inside. Didn't wanna go scaring the other children and all. But then mama bear put a lid on the growl and grabbed the sad baby bear and hugged her - I love you style.

Peyton has talked, a lot, before and after this event, about how this one particular four-year-old doesn't like hugs. Her hugging style, or lack thereof, has left an impression, you might say, and Peyton can't let it go. Maybe hugging is my child's love language. Maybe she'll be the type to leave a mark on her friends. I don't know. She's definitely taught me on a few occasions when to shut up and just hug her...

...love-for-life style.

Five Favorite Decemberings - Part 5 - The Beloved

Hellooooooo.
I'm gonna do it. I'm actually gonna fulfill my promise of Five Favorite Decemberings. You know you were wondering. :-}

My 5th favorite thing about December was not one thing really. Looking back through all the pictures, I see that one of my favorite things was all the time with loved ones, of course. What's Christmas in America without them? I'm so thankful for each of them. Here are a few of my favorite pictures of loved ones from December 2011.

I'm especially thankful for this fella this year...thankful because Christmas could have been a very different sort of thing had it not been for our miracle at Lexington Hospital in December 2010. After all, every little girl needs a hug from their Pops on Christmas morning. God's mercies are new EVERY morning. Love you Dad!

Seven cousins in the bed at Nannie and PaPa's house. It's a first Christmas for Baby Samuel!

On my side of the family, it was our first Christmas with Baby Deacon. I got two new nephews for Christmas!

Blake with his brother and sister on a 70-degree South Carolina day just before Christmas.

Blake's brother gave his three nieces and nephew these t-shirts.

Rarely do I catch Peyton and her 10-year-old cousin, William, playing together. This moment happened all by itself at the zoo, and I think it's special. Plus, a natural smile on a 10-year-old is worthy of our appreciation.

A rare shot of us two, at Riverbanks Botanical Garden in Columbia, S.C. 

Remembering Grandma. She passed a couple weeks before Thanksgiving last year. She collected coffee mugs and had probably around ninety by the time she died. Aunt Margaret brought the collection and let us all choose some to keep. This is Blake and my cousin Julie unwrapping them all. 

I love this picture! All grown up, my bro and me, with his little one at my uncle's on Christmas Eve.

Mom teased us for weeks (by text message!) about a gag gift she was buying us. Then she made us "perform" in front of 20 or so family members on Christmas Eve. The band shirts play music. Blake and Bryan were the lead guitars, Katie - drums, and me - keys. The kids are sporting new hand-made animal hats.

 

Stealing pictures of my momma, simply because she looked pretty and happy at that moment--and because she'd  never pose happily for a camera. Love you Mom!

Well friends, that concludes this girl's Five Favorite Decemberings. I know it took awhile, but favorite memories are worth waiting for. Thanks for reading and following my posts, patiently! haha!

Love,
Rebecca

Five Favorite Decemberings - Part 4 - The Cake

Okay, it's past the middle of January, so I'm gonna get these out real quick - parts four and five of my favorite Decemberings. And you know why I want to blog so much about December? Well, it just has so many things that are worth remembering, all squished into one little month. Now that I've had a little distance from the happenings, and I'm almost done hibernating (recovering) from all the squishyness (busyness), I can close my eyes and let my mind's eye see what I enjoyed the most. This might seem non-special or trivial at first glance, but one of the things I personally enjoyed the most was making this thing...

It's name alone is great. It is called the Layered Peppermint Cheesecake with White Chocolate Frosting (Southern Living, December). I like cooking and trying new dinner or vegetarian recipes--you know, challenging myself in the kitchen--but more than that, I really enjoy baking. I always see these fancy, divine things in magazines that I want to make--for the art of it--and never have the time or opportunity. In my phase of life, easy wins, especially when it comes to...well...everything. I hardly get a chance to start all the projects in my head, much less finish any. So, normally, I would just pass right by this little "art project" saying yeah right.

But this time, I made it happen. It took nearly all day, and I really didn't have the time. I had to get up early before church that Sunday to get the cheesecake layers made, and cooked, and out of the oven, and into the freezer to harden all day before I could even have a chance at making and assembling the rest of it after church.  Oh, and it had to be ready before a Christmas get-together with the Williams clan at 5:00 p.m. that night. Yes it did.

I know I didn't have to do it, and the great part was that I wasn't doing it to impress anyone. For reals. I did it, racing against the clock, because I just wanted to (for once!) make the fancy, divine thing from the magazine - for fun. And it was fun, even though or even because it was challenging, and I didn't really have the time. But I set out to start and finish something artful (to me anyway) in one day, and that's why it goes down as one of my favorite things about December. And you know what the best part is...?

um...hello...

Five Favorite Decemberings - Part 3 - The Decorator

Hi folks! I'm back to finish sharing my five favorite things about December ("Decemberings"), a little belated, but it is only January 7th, right? We had quite a bit of commotion over Christmas break, but it was all good commotion.

Part 3 - The Decorator

One of my favorite things about December was seeing what Peyton would decorate next. Over the course of the the second half of this year, she has shown an interest in decorating. She will decorate her dresser (picture from September above), her nightstand, lamps, her toy kitchen, anything with hooks or surfaces really. Even the floor. She just makes designs out of things, like these "jewelry people" from this summer's design portfolio...

Truth be told, she and I have even had a few spats over how long a certain display should stay displayed on her nightstand or bookcase. The "rainbow" display--which consisted of pictures in books, unicorns, and anything else in the house that resembled a rainbow arranged just so--really outstayed its welcome on her nightstand this Fall. The propped up books were wilting.(Wish I had a picture!)

Anyway, as you might imagine, preparing for Christmas really drew out the Candace Olsen in her. She was most excited about doing gingerbread houses...

...and probably getting to decorate hers and Harper's own tree. We had two this year--theirs and ours. This was mine and Blake's oh-so-sly trick to not have to share our tree with them. It didn't really work though. I kept finding strands of costume jewelry on the branches of our "grown-up" tree, or found Peyton moving ornaments back and forth between the two trees. She waved off all our reminders to stick to decorating her own tree.

And she doesn't just exercise this gift at home. She feels completely comfortable decorating other people's houses too. Here she chose to brighten up the banister at Uncle Tom and Aunt Jan's house on Christmas Eve by using recycling gift wrapping ribbon left on the floor after the all the great-grandchildren thrashed through their gifts. She already knows the decorating basics - use whatever you have on-hand in a new way. :-)

Well friends and family, this would be the point in the story where I get to the point. I have a favorite decoration Peyton created this year, that I don't want to forget. It's just so random, and it's one of those things that make you wonder how the mind of a child tries to sort out all the stuff they hear. She took colored craft pom-poms (which she uses daily to decorate any number of things) and did this to my very special made-of-olive-bark-by-a-Palestinian-Christian nativity scene....

...no biggie, maybe a little cute, right? But then she said this: "When you believe in God, it changes the colors of the floor."

Now, I'm not sure what the original ingredients were that jumbled together to create that line, but I still think about it and wonder. Maybe I'll ask her again what that means. Anyway, I knew this wasn't a decoration to argue over. I left it like that until she needed the pom poms for something else, which I knew would only be a matter of a couple days.

So the making of our very own miniature interior decorator is one of my favorite things about December. Next year, I will have to remember that Peyton and Christmas decorating are like toddlers and glass ornaments--you can't keep them apart.

Five Favorite Decemberings - Part 2 - The Crush

Yooooo-hoo...look who's here again. I'm even surprising myself. Here we are, Part 2 of my Five Favorite "Decemberings". By the way, has anyone noticed that this is my first blog "series"? I don't really like making those kind of promises, considering my slack posting record this year. A five-part promise ain't no laughing thing. I suggest we all be extra quiet so as not to wake the slacker blogger who lives here. Also, don't point or move too fast either--you might scare away the writing blogger who's visiting. :)


 Here's Part 1 in case you missed it.

Top Five - Part 2 - The Crush

Four nights ago, the girls' school had their christmas program. This is a little something where each class gets up on stage and sings a little song or two. The older kids are the only ones who actually move their mouths, though. The rest of them just stand staring at the room full of expectant parental faces. They're stage-bit.

It looks sort of like this:

See that baby face on the right, she plays an attention-loving, social butterfly in real life.

As I said, the show was Thursday night, and I think the teachers were drilling that into the children's head. For a whole week, Peyton told us that her school Christmas program was Thursday night, it's Thursday night Mom, and I'm gonna sing for you Thursday night. In fact, on the way to the program, Blake asked her what her class was going to sing, and she said, "'Frosty the Snowman' and Thursday Night - I mean 'Silent Night'."

 And boy did she impress me, because she just smiled away and sung most of the words. Maybe this is what it looks like when someone comes out of their shell, oh and can also sing every verse of 'Frosty the Snowman'. If I ever learn all the verses to that song, I too will smile like that.

But back at the cottage and before the show, I was getting Harper dressed and something else happened. We didn't have brown, the assigned color for her class, so I chose an ivory sweater dress that has silvery glitter in the material. Despite my personal dislike of the dress, both girls have loved it, or the silvery stuff in it anyway. They just love it. Glitter is so important to girls, isn't it?

I slid the dress down over her head, and she smoothed it out with her hands, looking it over approvingly, and said this little ol' thing...

"Ben likes this dress."

If she would have been facing me, she would have seen my eye balls
bulge. Ben likes this dress? 

Ben is a boy in her class. I know him. We know his mom and dad. He's a cute little rascal with an everlasting bed head and an adorable raspy voice, and up until this point I thought he was harmless. He's usually the first kid to see me coming down the hall and almost always acts as the class announcer, saying flatly, "Harper, you're mom's here."

And even though I already knew who he was, Harper once introduced me to him, saying, "There's Ben. He's my friend." Now, I'm questioning the word "friend," right? haha!

Harper arrived at class before Ben Thursday night, but I found out from his mother afterward that when Ben walked in, Harper did indeed say, "Hey Ben, do you like my dress?" I think he just shrugged and mumbled something. Typical. Glitter just doesn't have the same effect on males.

Well I've heard that things start earlier with girls these days, but I thought we had a few years. Now my eyes are peeled and my ears perked. Mama Bear's on her hind haunches. Kindergarten is coming up next year for one of my beauties, after all. Two to six year old males: Beware.

Later we were telling the story to a friend who knows Ben's family as well. He texted Ben's dad saying he heard Harper might have a little crush on the lady's man of the Older Twos class. Ben's dad writes back, "Well, you have to train them up in the way they should go." Heh.

My. Oh. My. Maybe I should have said, Dads of two to six year old males: Beware.

My dear little Harper, if you ever read this as a teenager, just be assured that you will understand our amusement when you have a two-year-old of your own. So don't judge.

Friends and family, now you know why that little "glitterful" episode on Thursday night will go down as one of my top five favorite Decemberings.

Love to you,
Rebecca