Friday Happiness

Today is the day I thought yesterday would be. The sort of day we were thinking of back when it snowed in March.

It is going to be beautiful. Sunny, warm, filled with friends, for little ones and grown ups.

Finally, the first girls' lacrosse game.

Definitely, some laying on a blanket in the park time.

Later, the first sleepover with newly-arrived-home Nana and Pop.

At last, the first neighborhood backyard soiree.

Life is good.

Enjoy your weekend. Hope to see you Saturday! Thanks for reading.
tt

Expectations

Sometimes it's hard for me to reconcile things as they are with things as they were.

There is something about traditions and rituals from your childhood that seem so important, simply because they got there first. They stick with you as being what should be, rather than just, simply, what was.

So, I approach most holidays with a basketful of expectations. I realize now, though, that those expectations are wholly mine, and not my girls'. That they are-we are-smack dab in the middle of creating their own set of memories and traditions. That the vague sense of disappointment I carry with me, for example, over not having an elaborate Easter celebration, is about me, not them.

And that what all of us need is a little less baggage, and whole lot more joy.

So. Here are a few small, sparkly moments that happened yesterday, even without a ginormous hollow chocolate bunny, a fancy new dress, or a petting zoo.

::Anna's eyes as wide and blue as the sky, when she found jelly beans waiting for her in the morning.

::The sight of Tim and Anna painting blown-out eggs.

::The sun shining brightly, and even though there was a chill wind, planting some seeds.

::A nap.

::Happy girls coming home, happy to be home.

::Genuine appreciation of the table I had set: "oh, look, this is so pretty!"


::The girls staging an egg hunt for each other, over and over, with seven hard boiled eggs.

::Sincere thank yous.

::Looking at their faces. Yesterday, and always, always, always.

My cup runneth over.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Thursday, quietly.

I've been feeling very quiet here for a couple of days. Been looking all around blogland, though, and am really awed by the creativeness, talent, and - this is a strange troika, perhaps - honesty, that I find there.

I really do want to be honest, and those who know me well are probably tired of me spewing my honesty out onto the carpet of our conversations, like a baby after too much breast milk. But the truth of it is, the blogworld allows us to only present a snapshot of our lives, and chosen ones, at that.

It is all the truth, but it is perhaps not the whole picture. I've shown you the flowers and the stove and the smiling children. The cat, but not the litterbox. (Actually, our cat goes outside, twelve months of the year, but you get my point.)

I've a really good picture of our laundry, but I've held back.

Anyway, I think what this here has given me, is a way to isolate the things in my world that make me pause and wonder, think about, and most of all, appreciate.

When I was little, I remember telling my dad about some obscure useless thing which escapes me now, but which elicited the most glowing compliment I have ever had in my life. He said: "You are just like me: you notice everything."

To this day I think that is all I yearn to do: notice everything.

I'll be back, and most likely not so quietly.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

ps: that there in the picture is Callie running home, as quickly as she ran out. Pure bliss.

Friday Happiness :: Supabah* edition

This weekend will run the gamut from:

Aforementioned Friday night:: sleepover party for ten-year-old birthday girl and her friends.

Saturday morning:: pancake breakfast and subsequent collapsing into stupor after party ends.

Saturday afternoon:: nursery school torture sugar winterfest.

Saturday night::loving it up, whilst one post-winterfest three-year-old sleeps it off.

Sunday afternoon:: art opening for a local photographer and friend.

And then...

I need to mention, that one of the reasons I have married a man completely a-typical, sports-fan wise, is that (Oh. Hi Bri! Hi, Dad! Are you listening? Well, um...) I was raised amongst a breed of man (five of them) who could actually make an entire afternoon out of watching.golf. That's right.

I'm not even talking about the endless playing of golf, throwing of baseballs, bouncing of basketballs, running of miles, rehashing ad infinitum of every.stroke of every.hole of an entire round of golf. Sometimes two rounds.

I'm just talking about the watching. The eyes still fixated on the t.v. screen but empty glass raised toward sister watching. The food. The socks. The smells.

Not a lot of sister-love being paid when there's a game to be watched. I'm obviously scarred for life.

So, now. The husband who couldn't.care.less. The husband, manly in every other way, who has to hmm and haw when the subject of "the game" gets brought up.

Except for the Super Bowl. And for one Sunday of the year, just like every other (apparently!) bitter year of my young life, I am a sports widow.

All of a sudden, I've got a beer-drinking, nacho-eating, glossy-eyed sports fan on my hands.

And you know what?

I'm right there to fill his glass.

But for the rest of us, we can watch this*. And then go knit, or something.

Enjoy your weekend. Thanks for reading.
tt

Friday Happiness :: Birthday Edition

Tomorrow is my birthday. My forty-second.

I was going to write a witty (I wish!) post about what I want for my birthday. I still might, so you're not out of the woods, yet.

But in looking around for a picture, I found this one, and so I'm going to bore you with a story, instead.

Here I am, at the bar at Buffet de la Gare, the most perfect example of a French bistro that can be found in these parts, without having to take a plane(or a train, for that matter.) I am here to celebrate my birthday, with girlfriends, earlier this month.

But I have to tell you, that the first time I came here still holds such resonance in my heart, that I can not return without being steeped in love and family and memory.

I was turning thirty. I had a newborn baby, my first. I had moved back to the suburbs from the city, was learning how to be a mother, re-learning how to be a daughter who now needed a grandmother for her own daughter, and was re-folding my self into the family I had inevitably pushed away from. When I write those words, I am envisioning the movement a swimmer makes, when they push off the wall after a dizzying flip turn, to shoot themselves back in the direction from which they just came.

My brother Glenn and his wife had arranged a party to celebrate. Me. They arranged it all, as they have so many things for me, since they met and fell in love when I was all of five years old. If I ever needed somewhere to look for an example of what love is, other than my own parents, I have never needed to look far.

That birthday at Buffet de la Gare was memorable for so many reasons. It was the first time I had ever left my baby with a sitter. It was a glamorous night with red wine, and cassoulet, and creme brulee, and a dark brown silk nightgown wrapped up in tissue paper. I felt, for perhaps the first time, like a grown-up. Someone who would be brought out to such a place for their birthday. Someone who would be given a negligee. Someone who needed a sitter.

But I mostly remember this: in the car on the way to the restaurant, my brother asked me what I had thought my life would be like at thirty. And if I was happy now that I was there.

And my answer? I had always hoped that by thirty I would be married, and have a house, and have a baby. So...yes! Was.I.ever.happy.

Well...

If you've been paying attention here, you may know that my answer was not the end of my story. But it wasn't not the truth, either. Maybe what I know now, twelve years later, is that the question my brother asked, can't be answered easily, completely, or immediately. That there is a sliding scale that has to take into account what you know you want, know you need, and what you are capable of being, before you can spit out a final rating on what's what.

So, there I sat in that restaurant again, last week. They've done some renovations and the new owners are back. It looks lovely.

I didn't need a sitter this time; I had my husband at home, drawing cartoons and shepherding six girls through their bedtime routines. My newborn was doing seventh grade math, and my third newborn was asleep in a big-girl bed. I was with friends the likes of which I never had when I was an isolated new mother, living in the back-of-beyond, and trying to figure it all out. I wasn't that thirty year old anymore, but I didn't feel all that much older, either.

So, what do I have to say now, on the eve of my forty second birthday?

Ask me again, Glenn. Ask me again.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt