1938-39

The day after Jesse and I did a "final" walkthrough of the burnt house (to get out anything in there that was deemed ruined, but that we still wanted to hang onto), he went back over while the demo guys started trashing everything left inside and beginning to tear out all the yucky fire stuff.

The garage is where the fire was--the only place flames actually destroyed. Everything in there was a total loss. 

Incredibly,  in the months before the fire, Jesse had taken a weird interest in keeping the garage organized and neat. Ever since we had moved in last summer, we had bins of stuff on the shelves in there and just recently, he had smartly decided to move these up into the crawlspace/attic above the garage since we rarely, if ever, needed the things inside. That way we could make room for boxes of diapers and paper products that we use regularly.

What was in those bins he moved? 

Our childhoods. Bins of sentimental things from before the internet existed.Photo albums, scrapbooks, art projects, random hilarious notes, our baby clothes, a newspaper from the day I was born; all the things we had decided during the course of our lives to NOT throw away and to keep with us.

Found in my frilly pink bible cover/carrier. Probably written when I was 8-9.

You would think a bunch of plastic bins filled with paper in the attic above the garage would have melted and burned just as fast as the boxes of diapers and toilet paper in the garage itself, not 6 feet below. Hot air rises, after all.

But somehow they didn't. 

The bins got pretty trashed and warped and straight up melted in some places, but the stuff inside was for the large part safe and we had taken those melted bins full of memories over to the rental house a few days before, content that the oldest of our things were safe.

When we left after our last sweep of the house I had a nagging fear and got a bit emotional knowing there were probably things inside that we had missed and would be thrown out. 

So when Jesse texted me on demo day and told me he had found a few more sentimental things while he was poking around, I figured it was a kid's drawing or a photo or two from high school.

What he actually found, that I didnt even realize was missing, was actually one of my most sentimentally treasured possessions I will ever own.

My grandmother's diary from 1938 and 1939. 

It must have tumbled out of one of the open corners of the melted bins and into the rubble when the insurance guys were moving it all down. I have no idea how Jesse spotted it with just a flashlight it since the diary is dark blue and the garage is totally blackened rubble and completely in the dark thanks to being boarded up. 

There are so many utterly magical things about this diary (which I was given when I was in college, 10 years after she had died).

Um she went to see the original King Kong in theaters. Is that the coolest thing you've ever heard?!?!

My grandmother was born Genoa Hall in 1924. Her two married names were Vincent and Parks. Vincent is my maiden name and Parks is the last name of my beloved (step)grandfather Fred whom she married after her husband, my dad's dad,  my Granddaddy Wallace, died--well before I was born.

She was my hero and my ultra favorite and I adored her more than any other person growing up. Noa is named after her for good reason.  Holding something in my hands that her sweet hands held so often almost 80 years ago is priceless to me. Reading her words is awe-inspiring and hilarious (note: 14 year old girls are loco no matter the era). 

Getting to know what she was like and what she did day-to-day decades before I knew her, when she was still a kid in a lot of ways turns my head with magic. Despite being barely a teenager, she was often in charge of the cooking for her whole family--she was the youngest of 13. "Kids" back then were legit capable, and had baller penmanship.

She grew up in Atlanta and diary overlaps SO many places that I spent time at while I was at Tech and even today. Ponce de Leon, The Fox, Kirkwood.  Her address in the front cover is the same street as the restaurant where Jesse and I had our first date.

I am kind of obsessed with the WW2 and surround era so reading ANY diary from that period would be fascinating to me, and the fact that it is my beloved grandmother's account is unreal. Granted, there's not a lot of political or world event commentary, but just seeing "Sears Roebuck" and "weenie roast" and mentions of "listening to 'Gangbusters' on the radio program" makes me just want to powder my nose, put on a pointy bra and travel right back to that time.

I LOVE that she doesn't scratch out the old names when she adds new ones. Gotta keep those options open!

If you look in the bottom right area, you see "Wallace," my grandfather's name written just once. Her longtime steady boyfriend during this time for Bobby Lynes, who competed with "Ed" and maybe "Ralph" in her heart, but she was friends with Ruth Vincent, who was Wallace's younger sister. It's so fascinating to see her swoon over all these boys on the pages, and then her actual future husband appears every now and then in the most ordinary scenes, "Ruth and I went for a ride. Wallace was there." I'm like, LOL, girl, that's your man!!! It makes me feel trés McFly at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

Granted, it does say KEEP OUT (please), but surely she didn't mean to keep it off the internet! So many boys' names!!! This is so mind-blowing because she was the most capable, grounded, sharp woman; to know that even she was a boy crazy teenage girl spins my head and makes me realize what I'm headed for raising two of these creatures. 

March 26, 1938  "I found out that Sue liked Bobby. Father in heaven, I pray that I will win." 

As a descendent of her + NOT BOBBY, I gotta thank the heavenly father for not answering that particular plea.

Whoops, mispelling your own future last name. Classic mistake!

"Dorothy said something about me. The old ______!! Shes an enemy of mine. She just doesn't like me. I think she's jealous"

"The funniest thing has happened- Dopey Barber asked me to go 'steady' with him with I didn't even like him"

Dorothy and Genoa were basically the T. Swift/Katy Perry "Bad Blood" of their time. And I feel for Dopey Barber and hope she let him down easy.

I know what it is to be a 14 year old girl. To imagine your husband and future life (and to get it blessedly wrong 99.9% of the time). To compare my experience of that part of my life to hers is unreal.

I wish I had a diary of hers from when she was raising my dad and my aunt (and when her 3rd baby died a few days after she had him). Heck, I wish I had anything that let me know her more. 

In some ways this diary is like reading her blog, and naturally I imagine and wonder if anyone farther down my genetic pipeline will ever read these words and marvel at being the someones in my life that arent even born (if you are one of these, reading in the future, I'm sorry I just bent your brain with that thought, and I hope you guys have weeded out the acne and paleness that my people suffer).

Getting these glimpses into her head in 1938, as I sit here with 25% of her DNA making me who I am in 2016, brings tears to my eyes. Somehow holding this little depression-era firecracker in my head alongside the knowledge that she is currently and has been with Jesus for over 20 years now, and all that happened in between is almost more than my heart has the capacity to have awe over.

Life is such a mind trip and I hope heaven includes infinity of these moments of knowing each other's experiences and hearts ever and ever deeper.

I am dizzy with gratitude that Jesse discovered my Mano's (her grandma name) diary. I would leave my iPhone or a giant pile of cash behind to the flames a hundred times over before I would willingly part with this treasure (cousins, if you're reading this, please to rob me to take it away from me. I grant you unlimited visitations and readings!).

P.S. Descendants: if you ever find anything I wrote at any point before 1999, you are honor bound BY MY DNA to destroy it and definitely not publish it on the Internet (or whatever media your ape overlords allow you). Grammy k8 was a very unstable tween.

Restoration: Hard

Let's just pretend I've had more blog posts than menstrual cycles in 2016, and jump right in.

I've written about what a transformative experience it was for me to learn how messed up I am, to not shy away from that or downplay it. (In my opinion, it's actually one of my best posts ever, even if I refused to capitalize letters back then).  Learning to identify the events from my childhood that hurt me, and to recognize the pain they caused and still cause has been the most eye-opening experience of my life.  

This isn't one of those, "oh my gosh I need to click through to read about what dramatic event Keight's referring to that messed her up" situations. Because SPOILER ALERT: nothing grabby or terrible happened in my childhood.  No one from the Lifetime Network is calling asking for my story rights. 

But you know what? I was a human kid raised by and around other humans, and that alone GUARANTEES that I experienced painful stuff. Stuff that my kid/tween/teen brain didn't know how to deal with in a healthy way, so I just coped or numbed or distracted or [ir]rationalized my way through it. These instincts that we have for when we're confronted with pain are great because they help us survive, to get through the pain and keep living. 

But as you may know, I am interested in more than surviving (cause, you know, like, it's the tagline to the blog, right? WHATEVER, YALL).

And wouldn't it be great if once we survived long enough to grow into our adult brains we just automatically started doing things in a healthy, rational way? I mean now that we have the vocabulary and reasoning enough to understand things a little better, shouldn't we have our junk together?

EFF TO THE NAW NAW. 

Because, surprise! While my sweet little kid brain was busy coping around a painful moment, it was also setting up habits and thought patterns and making some bizarre kid-conclusions about the world (hang around with Layla for a day if you wanna experience some hilarious and "WTF" 5 year old logic). And as the ever-popular factoid says: 90% of your personality and thought patterns are fully formed by first grade. It's kind of insane when you imagine your five or six year old self being at the wheel of the decisions and relationships that you are dealing with today.

Because 5 year old Keight? Well, she had an imaginary friend named Tennis. And he was a tiny, hairy, adult man who lived in her throat. I'm not sure I want the same brain that birthed Tennis the Throat-Dweller navigating me through the grown up world of emotions and conflict and life (however, I do want to hang out with that brain's owner, because she sounds like a trippy little riot).

Tennis is in there. And those bareback shortalls are the dope freshness.

Here is a basic example from my life. When I was maybe 6 or 7, I was playing with a kitten at my cousins' house. This was the first kitten I remember ever meeting, and it was a pure wonder. As far as I was concerned, it was a stuffed animal come to life, and I treated it with my signature 6 year old gentleness (re: unintentional and clueless brutality). Well, duh, I grabbed it too hard and the cat scratched the mess out of me. I vividly remember the shock as I pulled my arm back and felt those bright red streaks of fire. I didn't even know something so sharp existed in the explored universe, much less did I expect to encounter it on this tiny fuzzball. 

Immediately in my head a switch was made from "cats are all adorable and sweet and exist to delight me" to "they are all scary and mean and will hurt me." Well, neither of those assumptions was actually true, but my kid brain swapped one for the other without skipping a beat.

When Jesse and I were newly married we found two kittens in the woods at a friend's house. We took them home so they wouldn't die, and I started looking for someone to give them to.  They were so cute, but I didn't get attached and kept saying, "we can't keep them because I HATE cats." Even when I would be cuddling them to bits, I would still assert "but I hate cats."  After a few days I was like, "huh, wait a second, what I am believing to be true and what is actually true aren't lining up." It was this strangely dramatic moment at age 24 to have the epiphany, "OMG I THINK I LIKE CATS!" 

It's not always as easy as "X  happened in my childhood and it was painful, and that is why I am still doing Y today."  It may never be so cut and dry, but that type of cause and effect is happening a ton during childhood as we learn the world and make conclusions about it. And the effects are going to keep playing out until our adult selves step in and change the pattern.

I had filed away "Cats = Bad" in my kid brain, and the case was closed. I wonder how many very lovely, sweet cats I ignored or ran away from through the years based on my faulty thinking.  And it even took my adult brain a few days of discomfort and full exposure therapy--having those little fluffy puffs clamber around all over me--before I even got the message of "WAIT A TICK! I think I DO like these things!"

I couldn't find a pic of me with a cat (for obvious reasons), but here is me in a cabbage patch kids swimsuit and my chumbo baby brother that HAS to be worth something.

It's a silly example, but it's helped me realize how powerful this stuff is, and how totally unhealthy and unfounded patterns can get passed down for generations if we don't intervene with new thinking.

But, if it was that tricky to realize I was operating on an incorrect assumption about freaking kittens because of one physically painful moment from childhood, how much harder and more painful is it to explore this stuff when the pain/lie/thought is about something closer to home, that played out over years in my heart? 

It's a buttload harder. And it feels like digging around with a red-hot poker in an infected sore. One that you had managed to contain to barely a throb when you had it all wrapped up. The vast majority of the time we choose the quiet and constant throb of lingering infection over the intense and temporarily more painful process of cleaning out the junk and truly healing.

I had no emotional investment in the feline race. The pain that one kitten caused me didn't have any attachment to my worth or identity. And yet it still took me 20 years to reevaluate the information and move forward under more correct thinking.

When I start coming up against and exploring events and patterns that tie in with my identity, my self-worth, body image; when it's issues like acceptance, intimacy, shame, fear, rejection, and abuse, my little kid brain tells me to run kicking and screaming away because it hurts and it's hard. To move past this stuff and process it in a healthy manner means letting myself truly feel the weight of what really happened, to look directly at what was lost and grieve it.

Choosing grief when it isn't absolutely required sounds insane. Grief is something we think of as forced upon us by the most dramatic circumstances of life. Circumstances that none of us wish for.  But if you get to a place like I did and you just feel stuck--in a dysfunctional marriage pattern, in unhealthy parenting, in crumbling or shallow relationships, in feeling like you're just passing through life, in your growth with Jesus; unprocessed pain could very well be why. It definitely was for me.

It's hard for me to look at the little girl in these pictures and know that she was the one that got hurt by the world and by people in it. But I would never tell her to suck it up or get over it. I would want her to be comforted and heard and healed. I have to remind myself that Jesus wants that and more for me: even the grouchy, wrinkly, not-as-cute-or-loveable 33 year old version of me today. I'm still her, and she needs someone to fight for her.

Consider this your once-every-5-years reminder from me: You're messed up and have been hurt, and dealing with it could really change your life for the better. But it will be hard and it will hurt. I'm not telling you what to do, but you should totally talk to someone with training about this stuff.

"Ugh, pain? Do I have to?" Yes, tiny Keight. You have to, for the new generation of tinies. Now eat your apple jack necklace and appreciate how exquisite 1988 is.

Another Hilarious Ebay Moment

I already had one hilarious encounter on eBay regarding athletic apparel, and today I had another. 

I was trying to find some Georgia Tech sweatpants to buy online because the university doesn't just give me like 4 free pairs per year any more (lame, right?), and all the pairs I had during my volleyball career as a player are starting to disintegrate from 15 years of use (they lasted longer than my muscle tone!).

So imagine my surprise when my search results included...myself, staring back at me along with two of my (badass all-american superstar) teammates. In the form of the media guide from our senior year.

Even my maiden name is part of the item title!

I am pretty sure I already have one of the priceless vintage relics of sports memorabilia somewhere in the attic, but for just $25 now you can have one of your very own! 

I am not a fan of that action shot they chose for the cover--my pony is way limp and my dumps too much like a truck (truck, truck)--so here are some fonder snapshots of that time that I will now compare to what's in the mirror, and try not to downward spiral facefirst into some doughnuts.

Um, why the HELL would this chick ever put on sweats?!?! I should have been walking around pantsless (well I basically was, I guess).

Fun fact: Layla asked to see me do a volleyball jump the other day and I got about 3 inches off the ground and was sore the next day. #CrushingIt.

I could probably recreate this arm-look right now, but with a mid-flight fat flap in place of a tricep.

 A white girl with cornrows. Majestic. 

Naming Our 3rd Human

We are serious about names around here. Both of our big kids' names come with all sorts of built-in prayer over their identities and futures and declarations we have made about who we want them to be (I realize this might sound a little culty/commune loco--no worries. I used to be the same way until I married into this family, and was given my ration of Kool-Aid). 

We have written the stories of our processes of naming Judah David and Layla Embry, and seeing them grow up and grow into themselves, we know we made the right calls (and that God gave us these names for them) because they just SO ARE Judah and Layla (even to the folks who thought these names were straight bonkers or even ugly when they first heard them).

Now we have another baby to name! And with only 6 weeks to go, we might want to speed it up.

Third time is hard. You have to make sure the name fits with the existing kids (Judah, Layla and baby Gertrude just doesn't have the cohesion we're looking for), but maybe you've already used your super-faves on your existing children. Of course since I was expecting this babe to be a boy, we had several boy names that we LOVED all ready to go, so another adjustment to the GIRL announcement was jettisoning those gems and rustling up a girl name from scratch.

It did not ease my adjustment into the pink pool when Jesse suggested (hours after finding out the gender, when I was still dealing with my weird feelings) a few names that just repelled me--not because they are ugly in and of themselves, but just because they super duper weren't my taste for a child in our family. "Neena" and "Jael" were two that literally made me cry when he texted me. I was like, "IS IT POSSIBLE YOU WANT ME TO HATE THIS CHILD!?!?! AND ISNT JAEL SUPERMAN'S DAD!?!?!" 

He took a break from suggestions at that point.

Once I was back on planet earth emotionally and appropriately excited about this little lady, we set out with a wish list of what we would ideally find in a name. The parameters were:

1. A meaning we could feel good about

2. Unique (I'm already stressed that Layla is climbing the charts!)

3. Fitting in with our Judah/Laya theme (which I guess is a tad hippie/weird, but also classic, and having an "UH" sound at the end wouldnt hurt)

4. That indefinable X factor where it just feels like "yes, that is who this baby is."

I also looooooove unusual boy-names-as-girl-names. Not so much the ones that have already been done, but more making them up myself.  One of our closest friends is named Lukas, it has a great meaning, and I would ADORE that as a girl name, but with our last name, it could never happen. "Lukas Dukas," anyone? I also do not hate Gideon as a girl's name either. Judge if you will!

So i focused on the cool/unique side of things and Jesse went deep into the meanings (remember how went into the rabbinical notes from the Talmud for Layla's!). We both have full veto power at all times.

After I found a favorite that same day, we tossed it around for awhile. Jesse loved the meaning but we hadn't had that LOCK IT IN moment yet. Oh but it came.

So we are very excited to share with our daughter's name:

pronounced just like "Noah"

The first thing we noticed the day of the ultrasound was this kid's bicycle legs! It seriously looked like she was on a recumbent bike just pedaling her little heart out!  She has only amped up that activity since then. NEITHER of my first two moved like this. It got so hilariously crazy that I actually googled "fetal seizures" because sometimes it feels like she's quite literally having a fit in there.

the pic is blurry not because the ultrasound wand was moving, but because SHE was!

So imagine my surprise when I decided I really liked this pretty little name and went to see what it meant. It means "movement/motion" in hebrew! Um, okay that will do nicely. But I don't JUST want her to be about insane, frenetic motion--we're not looking to speak a little ADHD dervish into being (though that might be on the ticket anyway thanks to my DNA). And then Jesse found out that Noa also means "love/affection" in Japanese. Oh yes...

With typical Jesse speed and brilliance (and dashing good looks), he combined these two translations into a beautiful statement of what we want our daughter to be in her life: Love in Motion.

And obviously this name slides quite nicely into the triumvirate: Judah, Layla, and Noa.

So pretty early on we knew this was our A #1 choice. But the kicker of THIS IS HER NAME didnt happen until Jesse made a really cool family connection about a month ago. One day he said, "Hey, wasnt your grandmother's name "Genoa?" And I almost started crying! My beloved grandmother, my dad's mom, (known as Mano to me) who died when I was 11, had "Noa" built right there into her name!

looks like i inherited my gift of blinking in photos from her.

And boy was Mano love in motion. She was a sassy, classy, always-on-the-go broad whose love I felt like no one else's (that look on my face above is how I ALWAYS remember feeling around her).

My most powerful memory of her is spending the night at her house when she was dying from cancer, beautiful in her headscarf, and she heard me say something about a painful plantar's wart on my foot (geez, 11-year old Keight, have some perspective about ailments and complaints!). I will never forget her kneeling at my feet to soak my hurting foot in a epsom salt bath. If that wasnt love in motion, I'm not sure what is.

Such a poignant, Christlike moment that used to make me cry with regret after she had died, thinking I had mistreated my grandmother when she was sick, but that I now know was just one instance--in a lifetime full of them--of Mano putting her heart for others into action by serving and loving them. That is a legacy I will rejoice to see carried out in my own child.

And so we had our lockdown moment. Our baby is Noa.

We are still tinkering with middle names, the frontrunner being one that Judah of all people made up out of the blue. 

We know this is an unusual name for most people (though a friend in our small group has a sweet niece named Noa who goes to our church too, so ours won't be the very first that our church people have heard this name!) And we are already chuckling through the fun awkward silences after we tell people the name and they just so don't get it (we had this a LOT with Judah, and are much less likely to break down about it now), and the people who think that because the baby isnt born yet, the name could still be changed or that we are open to suggestions. LOL big time.

She will probably have a lifetime ahead of her saying "Without the H" and hearing the word "NO" and thinking someone is calling her. Luckily, if this gets too annoying she can just remember she is "love in motion" and not "fist in motion." 

in which i'm a geek and a hypocrite.

by now you might know that i have some literary passions that are not readily apparent by looking at me. aka, i read super nerdy stuff and i love it. 

my parents always, ALWAYS gave me money if it was to be used for buying a book. this engendered in me from a very young age a love for reading (and for shopping!). my dad started out his career as an english teacher and is very hoity-toity about his vocabulary and the library that helped to bestow it upon him.

so imagine his indignation (SO RIGHTEOUS!) when i would almost unfailingly return to him at the barnes & noble register with a STAR WARS book in hand for him to buy me. full credit to him, he never said no. though he did--OFTEN-- say, "i swear, i have no idea where you got this part of your personality from." neither he nor my mom have ever been in any way interested in the sci-fi or fantasy epics that drew me in.

aside: i'll just save you some time here and connect the dots, yes, i DO in fact think this is because they arent my real parents and that i was delivered to them on a flying motorcycle by an english groundskeeper when i was but a very wee lass.

it started with STAR WARS: i saw the first films (the ONLY films a far as i am concerned...ep I-III can suck on a fat helping of MY righteous indignation) after much prodding from my cousin (i had initially accepted the parental brainwash that monsters and spaceships werent worth my time or the paper/film they were printed on) and fell head over heels in love. seriously, i was a good twelve years old and still pretty confident i could harness the force.

after those three movies came out, a bunch of writers got permission from George Lucas to take those characters and write all sorts of spinoff adventures. i have read about 150 of these books. there you go. secret shame/pride.

that's just a fraction...

STAR WARS was my gateway drug that first let me be okay with being a nerd, or at least letting that have a heavy slice of my library shelf space. since then i have become a passionate fan of Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire (which you might know by a different name), Wheel of Time and other such series with dragons and warlocks capering about on their front covers. 

so that's how i'm a geek. loud and proud. but here's the hypocrite part:

like any fanboy nerd, i get a little nervous when one of "my" books or series' gets picked up to be made into a movie/show. i worry that they wont cast the right people, that they'll take liberties with the plot, and that people will start to believe the movie/TV version as the "real" thing rather than the ACTUAL REAL THING.

what makes me the most confounded and upset (righteously) is when someone declares themselves "a HUGE game of thrones fan," and then i ask, which book is your favorite and they say "oh i havent read any of the books, i just love the show." 

NERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!! (seriously, by BP is going up just reading that sentence).

why, OH WHY!?!?! if you love the show/movie so much would you not want to go back and find every scrap of extra goodness involving these characters and these stories as you could?!? you know TV/movies cut out so much by necessity, so the books are just a wealth of BONUS experiences with these adventures you claim to love! READ, PEOPLE!!!

so there's me, sitting on the couch watching any harry potter movie or the game of thrones series and enjoying it, but --boy, oh boy you'd better believe-- calling out every, "that's not how it really happened" or "she would NEVER act that way in real life (meaning in the book)," and mourning for all the ignorants who are eating up these errors and inconsistencies as actual canon.

and now let me throw you a curveball. what is my favorite movie of all time? 

why, it's Sense and Sensibility. a lovely period drama (slash comedy) based on the classic novel by jane austen. my parents made me come along with them to see it in theaters when i was 13 and i understood maybe 40% of what was said and going on at the time but still managed to sob happy tears (and pretend not to because NEVER in front of my parents!) at the conclusion. (bonus: it's all english actors so imagine the entire hogwarts faculty transported to the 18th century! PS snape is HOT).

and oh, hey, guess what book i've never even considered reading? uh, yeah. my high horse just bucked me right out of the saddle!

so i get super high-horsey if you like Game of Thrones on HBO but havent read each book 5 times and dont also hit the fan message boards like me, but yeah, my favorite all time movie is based on a classic staple from english literature that i have never glanced twice at or considered actually reading myself.

pause for the full effect of my insanity and hypocrisy. 

but good news! before you can tackle me with your own dose of righteous indignation (deserved), let me tell you that i finally bought the book on friday and finished it within 48 hours (with a break in the middle because i just had to go back and watch the movie). it was wonderful. rich and deep and subtle and hilarious and so freaking moving and re-convicting that the Col. Brandons and Edwards will almost always make you happier than Willoughby's (every teenage girl need to be forced to watch and read this like 85 times before they are turned loose into the world of dating).

so i have successfully closed that one huge gap in my literary history and can climb back upon my high horse. lesson (re)learned: the book is almost always better than the movie. and even when it isnt (bc SEEING marianne and elinor IN the settings of gentrified england), you will learn SO much more about the characters you already love and their internal dialogues. 

do yall get nerd rage about anything? do you have a cherished book that you HATE the movie version of? do you want to unfriend me because i know that lightsabers are powered by corusca gems from the heart of the gas giant Yavin? or do you just have another nerd series that i must read?

baptismiversaday staycation 2k13: "gettin' DINKy wid it"

ohhhhhh mama, i am SO PUMPED for the next 5 days.

first, you'll be happy to hear that i heroically wrested control of this website back from the hostiles that overthrew it yesterday. jesse was punished brutally for fomenting rebellion--i normally love a good foment, but just not that kind. his punishment: me stepping on his bare foot and pivoting (thus twisting his surprisingly NOT gross, but still rather hobbit-like foot hairs). this is probably the only thing on planet earth that enrages my husband who has the temper of a filing cabinet (i dont know...? it's the end of the week and my metaphors are weak). 

seriously though, thanks to yall sweetums-poos who wrote mad-meaningful bday wishes. i dont like to advertise my bday too much. not because i am humble or dont want any attention, but because i dont want BS attention (like from 400 facebook friends who ignore me all year and then blow up my wall as if either of us really cares). i like to play hard to get and see who really loves me enough to know my birthday without a robotic reminder or to go beyond a 2 second wall blast. (yup, i sure do realize how psychotic and shallow this is of me. whatever. keepin' it real). anyway, the stuff i got from my bloggy internet family was my favorite gift! (huge props to jesse for knowing my secret, needy love language and setting things up for me to get some). 

ok so. 

my parents have a condo they own at the beach. ever since i was in 8th grade they have had one there, though they downsized when my brother and i graduated--to a one bedroom (we can take a hint!). well, they just sold the condo in hopes of retiring out west in a few years. so they are taking one last hurrah trip to the condo this week and offered to take judah with them. they said they could only take 2 kids at a time and  that Guinness, the ancient black dachshund, counts as one. sorry, layla.  so close!

luckily we have two sets of bananaramic grandparents, and the dukes offered to take layla during the same window.

so that means that on this, the biggest week of the year for me holiday-wise, i am kid-free for over 4 whole days!!!! 

hark those heralds, amiright?!?!

so when we got this childcare bounty all set up jesse and i took to the streets (of the internet) to find a sweet getaway. 

the last time we were kid free for this long, i annihilated jesse's brains (while pregnant) out with a MASSIVE surprise trip to mexico that he was utterly ignorant of until an hour before our flight. BLAM to the OH OH. 

so we looked. and looked and looked. but there was just nowhere calling to us louder than the sound of "YALL ARE POOR!" coming from our heartbrains. and rather than pulling a classic keight-move and forcing something just because (and paying the price next fiscal year), we decided to just be easy like sunday morning (which WILL be easy thanks to jesse also taking off a sunday at church: i havent seen jesse dukes before 9:30 am on a sunday in YEARS!!) and stay home kidless! .

we are staycationing. this is a term that is simultaneously so pleasing and yet obviously super lame, and i plan to use it wantonly over the next few days. yes. rather than packing up my suitcase, trying to remember all the small bottles of potion i need to hold my 31 year old acne at bay while not in my home territory and basically paying money to feel such stress, we are instead just taking a getaway to a simpler time: a time of D.I.N.K. (double income no kids) and newlywedship. 

the best part is, even though we arent as firm or svelte as we were back then, we are SMARTER. hardened  (in our souls if not our glutes) by battle (if not by squats), and ready to ACCEPT THE BLESSING of childless living. now, when we get a single child-free day due to amazing grandparents we will look at each other and go "WHAT IN THE EFF HELL DID WE USED TO FIGHT ABOUT!?!?! THIS IS THE EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD!!!!" so this special time is going to feel DINK+ since we know how precious that time is/was/should be.

because as actual DINKs, oh, we fought. we fought and fought and fought despite the fact that we only had one rectum's worth of wipe-responsibilities each. despite the fact that no one was drawing on the walls or dumping out 5 lbs of dry quinoa on the pantry floor. despite the fact that we were hot and (relatively) rich and bored and oh we  just FOUGHTSOMUCH. 

the immature part of me wants to just declare: married couples without kids: you are forbidden from fighting or complaining ever. your lives are so easy. youre basically living at sex camp.  majoring in sleep and minoring in freetime. be in love. the end.

but my higher-mammal brain does acknowledge (after a mental getaway at sex camp!) that you can only be where you are. that you sweet DINKs arent trying to waste the precious resource of young married life, you are just adorably stupid and you cant see its full worth (and wont until you've looked into the eye of the meconium hurricaine).

i can only appreciate quiet times with jesse now because i've moved into a place where they are so rare (that place is called 1200 square feet and two toddlers...or sometimes just "purgatory"). and i know it works both ways. i bet i could real quick make my current "crazy" life feel super easy by having triplets, or introducing a colony of wild badgers into the kitchen (either/or). 

so, whatever, DINK couples, do your thing. fight for HOURS and then sleep it off the next day because YOU CAN!  no sassy 2 year old mermaid ninja is going to come in at 2 am demanding you put her in a vintage sailor dress that she dug up from god knows where in the dead of night.  fight it out, learn to love each other right so that the ninjette and her parkour-enthusiast brother, far from driving you apart, will have a solid family foundation and model for marriage when they come tromping into your lives and your hearts eventually.

meanwhile, jesse and i will be secretly coveting your toned triceps and carefree dinner plans, not getting riled up by things that would have made us [re: me] nuclear 5 years ago, and only smiling maliciously a little bit when we think about how awesomely your asses are going to be kicked by those kids you "cant wait to have." 

but here is one thing i REFUSE to give grace to (very chrsitlike): DINK couples who don't DIY! for the sweet sweet love of Bob Vila, improve your home NOW!!! i get rage-gassy just thinking of the 3 years we spent loafing around our mediocre-to-nauseating house without using our hands and brains and the internet to make it OURS (not to mention that we could have become a saltier "young house love" first!) . we turned on our productivity right when judah was born and, naturally, have been impeded by our little love nuggets and could have gotten so flipping much done if we had been motivated back in the days when "i'm bored" was a nonfiction thought.

so yeah, the next 5 days are going to be amazing. hotels are exotic and fun and new, and it's nice to not have to clean them and all. but, oh man, just getting to do whatever you want in your very own house without any babytoothed productivity leeches getting in the way!?!?! that's downright naughty, naughty good. 

bout to get our three-way on with this big girl. (that's not inappropriate...i thought about it).

CSB 2k13

the beach.

it was our 9th (!) year in a row going with our campus minister from georgia tech's family, the harpers,  to cape san blas in florida. these jokers are our 3rd family and we love them oh so much. and this beach is the undiscovered gem of the planet. 

it was slightly difficult this year due to rains that would be useful only in an ark-floating scenario pouring down on about half of the days we were there, but we still had no work, lots of naughty foods (swiss cake rolls! whole milk! sugar bubbles!), amazing restaurant excursions, and our best people all there so we couldn't (and didnt!) complain.

i got a little emotional about grayson (the 16 year old baby harper) this year. we first got invited to go on the trip with the harpers in 2005 (back when we were just boyfriend/girlfriend. jesse slept in the living room and i slept with tiny grayson) because rick wanted someone to be able to keep gray-gray occupied and not drowned or annoying. for the record, even an 8 year old gray wasnt annoying. i LOVED hanging out with him (he named jesse "lady hair." such was his genius) and he was my little buddy. he still is, even if he WAY isnt little anymore, but the weird flip flop that has taken place in who takes care of whom at the beach is a little tear-jerking.

i think this is the only pic i have of the beach year 1 (it might be year 2 though). look at the teeny everyones!

and here is gray on the exact same beach last week:

mindjob and my heart is inside-out!!!!

and just to move out of emotional nostalgia with some old treasure:

oh dear. no, THIS was year one. i know because jesse doesnt have a ring on and we were married all but 2 of these trips. and i dont think i have even an engagement ring on either (and there is NO WAY i would have done this--sun-in--to my hair if my wedding was two months away) so we must have been just dating therefore YEAR ONE, 2005. meaningless mystery solved.  sorry about my hair, guys.

ok here's a billion pics from this year's vacay.

 look what the tide washed in.

i assure you, you are NOT ready for this jelly.

 up at sunrise...gonna need some coffee.

 oh man. the beach is the BEST wearer-out of kids. four hour naps every day! i'll have a to-go order of ocean, please.

 just a couple of dudes super secure in their sexuality.

 she is not amused by how long it's taking bruncle (brother-uncle) donovan to put another flower in her hair

judah was welcomed into the horrifying male world of chafing on this trip so we had to improvise a speedo for him (or just let him go naked a bunch...which we also did).

 the big boys play bocce. is carrying kryptonite in your pocket cheating?

 so layla loves sand and its many topographical variations. any hillock she could lay on or hole she could snuggle in was a happy place for her. seriously she would maintain these positions for minutes at a time.

custom built for her

also being buried is a thrill

 probably my fave pic of her ever?

 there's my cheesing lady. 

 bruncle grayson obliges with a full body bury. (and twerks it out in the process)

 doing some sit ups while buried

 never miss an opportunity to stomp him

multitasking: kite flying and sand burial

cold foam. what a rush.

those are bocce balls. like 10 lbs each. go ahead and be impressed.

it's a gulf coast turtleneck

legs much?

beach robot

she's serious about hydration

 adonis in the clouds

 i was SHOCKED when i heard them playing happily and creatively together. they were cooking crabs here, obviously.

 really excited about soft shell crab for dinner. she loved it because she's so cool.

 we got some hand me down raw oysters from a neighboring table. we usually go for baked, but were up for a slimy mollusk adventure. #hardcore.

 lucky oyster.

lots of smooching

 the matriarch and patriarch of CSB

 they refused a smooch because of too cool.

my menfolk

 we're also too mature for silly smooches now.

i mean it's not year 3 (in 2007) anymore:

24 and 10 and BFF

PSYCH OUR BOND WILL NEVER END! (even if muscle tone does)

 rice is serious too

layla holding court in the parking lot

 jack the toad. judah had a bucket that he told me he and daddy had "captured a pet" in. i assumed it would be a crab and was prepared to pretend be surprised when he brought it over to me. i stuck my face in the bucket and saw this beast and about lost my mind. 

 ok thats adorable, if blurry.

 two more toads. (NOT JACK! HE WOULD NEVER) judah swung into nature theorist here, "dey are bruders. he's giving him a piggy back ride!" oh my.

 dude can swim like a fish. 

classic jump-through-the-donut-float game.

 a hilarious game of "i'm garrett and youre judah now"

 treasonous skies (yeah we got dumped on right after this)

 jesse was legitimately upset about abandoning his castle in-progress but them skies were threatening!

it's possible that we're related

and this chick is JUST as awesome on a coast as she is mainland.

 spooky blue eyes mesmerized by the tides.

hey you know what will test your faith in your child's swimming skills? the SEA! with a crazy riptide and judah's need for vengeance against every wave, i was tightly wound watching him do this for hours a day.

saying goodbye

so help me if that toad taught him to smoke.

gimme 5

"guh to ya mama!"

next are a bunch of pics with a dratted foggy lens. we always do family pics the last night on the beach but the weather was looking ROUGH so we just did them on the boardwalk in case we needed to bolt. we'll see if that was the right choice:

couldnt you just?

EEK! this guy is gonna be a great catch for some chick...if she can get past layla

hilarious traditional pic of the "big boys" holding their swinging baby brother. its fun now because grayson is the tallest of them all at 6'2. but that wont stop us! (that hideous shirt might, though)

2007 versus 2013. hahahaha puberty can surprise us all, sometimes.

they love their mumsy

whoops. the 2013 version is updside down. in the rain panic we forgot that oldest is supposed to go on top.

sprinkles ensued as we tried valiantly for a fam pic

way more accurate

 obligatory macho man pic

2007 version

 layla cant help but be drawn into the vortex of testosterone.

and then we got annihilated. (i had a tiny umbrella to keep the camera safe)

 please note jesse bolting ahead and leaving his children behind in the deluge. let's file that under "we trust the bruncles" and not "abandonment"

haha. soaked (ok, ill say it. garretts belly pose is weird.)

the end. see ya in year 10, CSB!