to your mother

THOUGHTS ABOUT BEING A MOTHER AND LOVING A MOTHER...FROM A MOTHER OF TWO.







Friday, May 27, 2016

Five on Friday

I have a lot of pictures on my cell phone (perhaps 40?) which bogs down my memory (my phone has no internet access and the typewriter part slides out...that's right I said typewriter). I often have to delete a picture in order to take a picture. You see, usually when I take a picture with my phone it is impromptu...I'm not expecting a picture-taking moment. Life just happens and I don't have my camera (yes, I still have one of those...sensing a living-in-a-technology-cave theme?) I keep these pictures on my phone so I can relive the feeling of "awwwwwww, I remember how happy the kids were on the last day of school last year" and " awwwwwwww, I remember when I didn't know how to spell diareha and kept texting Emily about diarhhiea and misspelled it a different way each time and it made me laugh so hard that it was a joyous moment in my life kind of like that Chewbacca mom video but I live in a techno cave so I never thought to take a video of it and becoming famous. Wait a minute, where was I? Oh.

During my 3:00 a.m. thoughts a few nights ago I thought "Hey, I can post those pics on my blog, write about the memories and then whenever I want to relive those memories I can look on the blog. I'll post five at a time so it's not overwhelming. Hey, I'll post five each Friday. Wait. Did I tell Dad I was coming up tomorrow? Doesn't matter, if I did he will probably forget anyway. Wait. Have I shaved my legs recently? If I teach preschool I'm going to have to shave my legs more often, those kids are always rubbing on my leg when I do a read-aloud. Did Mike ever change our address on Dollar Shave Club?" Racing thoughts. Yes. Yes they are.


 This card was from Don. In typical Don fashion, he sent it to me at the perfect time. The sparkling smiley face - the simple lowercase hello - sunny and happy - just what I needed that day. After a few weeks the kids coveted the card, picked off all the jewels and hid them away in their rooms. We have since moved and two years after receiving this card I found one of those jewels on the living room carpet. Joy.



This is Halloween circa 2014. Julie was a mermaid among a sea of Elsa-s and Anna-s. I was so proud. Her originality brought me a smile. Joseph looked though the costumes in his closet and decided to be a race car driver. Yeah! Simple enough just put that suit and goggles on and walk out the door. No. Not that simple. In true Joseph-the-thinker fashion, he needed a car that would be around him so he could actually look like he was driving. Angry Mama arrived because loving Mama felt overwhelmed. Loving Mama took a deep breath for perspective and angry Mama took the backseat. I covered a box with red paper and Joseph proceeded to decorate and design the rest. I helped a little with the hood but the rest he did on his own. He even cut out a hole for the gas tank and taped a bag to the inside so he would use the candy he collected as fuel. People got a chuckle out of filling his gas tank.


 Mike took this selfie in 2014. He texted it to me with a message about how much he loves me. Mike does not take selfies. The pictures he traditionally sends me are cars he wants to buy or a picture of self-rising flour and bleached flour in order to ask which I want while he is grocery shopping (neither sweetheart, but I am soooooooooooooo grateful you are doing the grocery shopping. Sooooooooooo. Grateful.) Two reasons this warms my heart. 1. Mike looks genuinely happy.  2. This handsome dude DIGS ME.


 Joe had lost his second tooth. The two windows in his smile made me smile. Still does.


I looooove the look on Joe's face in this picture. MaMa, otherwise known as Dad's brother Myron's wife Maxine, gave the kids stickers to decorate their jack-o-lanterns in fall of 2014. She said she liked them because then you didn't have the mess and hassle of carving. Well, we did the sticker ones but the kids didn't realize this was to replace carving and they screamed, yelled and threw one hell of a fit were very disappointed. We went back out and bought two more pumpkins to carve. At the time I thought I could hear Maxine laughing all the way from St. Mary's County...She raised 3 boys and a girl, you know...she KNOWS about kid-sized disappointment.

More cell phone memories to come next Friday...

5 comments:

  1. I love your writing, I love your perspective, I miss you. Janna

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  2. Finally catching up. Love love love. Gotta get down to see everyone. Life has been quite occupied but that shouldn't be an excuse. Namaste.

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