He Is Wonderful

Two hours old

The Lord bless you and keep you, 

the Lord make His face shine upon you 

and be gracious unto you,

the Lord lift up His countenance upon you

and give you peace.

You Will Be Born in the Spring

Dear Baby Wonderful,

This morning I took my usual walk that circles the three blocks nearest the House on the Corner. You know that walk--it's the one that comes after I've spent half an hour on the exercise bike in the basement, when I go out to cool down and pretend everyone has suddenly been struck blind and can't see me in my workout clothes.

We had thought, as we do every day now, that yesterday might be the day we would get the call that would catapult us into the car and down the road toward where you'll make your appearance some time very soon. It wasn't your day, though, and as I walked this morning I saw earthworms that had migrated to the sidewalks after last night's showers, and rhubarb poking its wrinkled leaves through the rotting leaves of last year's crop. I saw a robin making a breakfast of one of those worms, and even though it was kind of gross, it made me smile.

And I was glad you hadn't been born yesterday, because until today I hadn't yet been struck with the wonder: You will be born in the spring.

You see, we're having kind of a crappy time on earth right now. Some day you'll read about it in history books; maybe your dad and mom will mention it when they tell you about your birth day. All over the world people are scared to touch each other, so we bump our elbows together or wave nervously across a room. The global economic system is scared, too, and is wiping out a lot of the resources us old people have worked to retire on. And in our country people are just so angry, so tired, so filled with rage at the political system.

I saw a wall plaque once, though, that said "Babies are God's opinion that the world should go on."

If you know me at all by now you know that the sentiments on most wall plaques make me roll my eyes. Today that sentiment made so much sense to me.

Even with everything that's going on, we have spring. We have rhubarb and robins and showers that lull us to sleep.

You, my Wonderful? You have even more than that. You have a mother who made me wish you would be born on the International Day of the Woman--she's so smart and strong, so persistent. You have a father who feels things so deeply and takes care of all of us, and who will protect you fiercely. And they're so, so funny, so compassionate. So kind. Don't ever forget how important that is.

You have a world out there waiting to go on, waiting for you.

And you will be born in the spring.

Much love,

G.

Dear Beatles: The Answer Is 'Yes.'

We interrupt the unremitting barrage of delighted baby-anticipating squeals to answer the question  articulated best by the Beatles in 1967:

Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm 64?

Well, Paul McCartney (who apparently first asked this question at the wise old age of SIXTEEN, holy cow), in the case of the handsome guy seen above, the answer to your question is an unreserved YES! Let me explain.

Sunday afternoons are sacred to me, in that I take a holy nap every single Sunday afternoon. Last Sunday after church and lunch I set the volume of a 1940s-era movie to "soothing," pulled a cozy afghan up to my chin, hit the recline button on my chair, and drifted off sleep. Two hours later I woke up to find Husband had put a note on the book still open in my lap.

"I'm at the office but I'll be back at 5:30. Be ready to go."

What?

Then at 5:15 he called--"Are you ready to go?" Well, no, not unless you count pajama pants and an old sweatshirt as ready to go. "Just put on some jeans."

By that point I was completely baffled. He knows I don't go out in public in jeans (see also: People of Walmart I Don't Want to Be) so we weren't going to the movies. We had seen an interesting house with a "For Sale" sign on it, even though we have no plans of moving from the House on the Corner--were we going to relive our first dates when we trolled open houses even before we knew we'd be sharing one?

Finally his pick-up pulled up at the back door and I got in. At the first corner we turned right, then right again, then after a few blocks right again, into Small Town's most beautiful park.

And then he parked at a picnic table and pulled the cooler out of the back. In it was a red-checked tablecloth, plates, silverware, bottled water,  and a full fried-chicken meal from the local grocery store.

"It was such a gorgeous day, we just had to be out in it, and I know this is your favorite," he told me. We sat there and ate the carbs-be-damned delicacies, in the most perfect weather, with the company we most prefer in the world. He knew, and remembered, that I hate plastic cutlery. He knew, and remembered, that I love the crispy fried chicken. He knew, and remembered, that I can't abide bugs so this is the best time of the year for me to enjoy a picnic.

And while I do love the big gesture, it's this--the remembering, the attention to detail, the thinking of me first, that made me fall in love with the accountant.

Yesterday this guy turned 64. The first line of the Beatles song was a little on-the-nose prophetic ("When I am older, losing my hair....) but the final verse rings especially true.

I could be handy, mending a fuse

When your lights have gone

You can knit a sweater by the fireside

Sunday mornings go for a ride.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds, 

Who could ask for more?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four?

I do, I will.

Who could ask for more?

A Rose By Any Other Name

Unrelated to today's post, but how cute is this?
It's the other grandmother's gift to a whale-themed nursery.

We know there is only one, we know it will be born sometime in the next four weeks (probably within the next three weeks), we know the nursery theme is nautical (Ahoy, Matey!), we know the sex is now determined (although not revealed), so there are really only two big issues remaining as we tap our toes waiting for Baby Wonderful to make an appearance:

1. What will this child be writing on insert-name-here forms, and

2. What will this child yell when he/she wants immediate and non-judgmental attention?

Let's take those issues one at a time.

The answer to the first one, the parents have told us, is down to two short lists, one for each gender, with a final decision to be made at game time. Oddly, the grandparents were not asked to weigh in on the issue, but maybe that's because (as with most issues) the female grandparent on the paternal side has DEFINITE OPINIONS.

My years working in the newspaper business, may it rest in peace, convinced me that naming a child should be regulated by law and that violations of this law should be felony offenses. Names should be names, not concepts or inventions. They should be phonetically pronounceable with common spellings used. No substitutions of "y" for any other vowel normally used, and vice versa. (I'm looking at you, Tyfanee and Jaesyn.) No use of names of current soap opera characters, lest the child find six others in his/her first-grade classroom all raising their hands when his/her name is called.

What names have been flitting around in my head as I imaging cooing lullabies?  For some reason, the girl names are all three-syllable throwbacks to a century ago. Josephine. Lydia. Meredith. Johanna. The boy names are tending toward the Great Depression years as well, but leaning more Biblical. Samuel. Henry. David. (I know Henry is not Biblical; just keeping you on your toes.)

But of course, we have no say in this matter, because Boy#1 and Lovely Girl#1 are brilliant and know that it is the worst thing ever to reveal a child's name before it is born. If you do this, everyone has an opinion, and that opinion will likely fly right in the face of the name you know is inextricably linked with your child's soul. After One was born, for example, my beloved Much Older Sister asked what he would have been named if he had been a girl.

"Faith Elizabeth," I told her happily, secure in the knowledge that this was a lovely, meaningful moniker.

"Huh," she remarked. "Good thing he was a boy."

Yes, I still love her and possibly have forgiven her but obviously I have not forgotten. This experience cemented my additional Definite Opinion that names should be kept private until the birth of the child. I mean, who is going to say out loud that a name choice is a mistake?

So in spite of my opinions, naming the child is not within my purview of responsibilities. But the second issue listed above? What will Baby Wonderful yell out for immediate attention that is more likely to result in a cookie than a carrot? One and LG have told Husband and me we're responsible for that decision.

When I was growing up it was a no-brainer to decide what the parents of a child's parents were to be called. They were Grandma and Grandpa. Oh, there were minor variations (in my childhood it was Grandma LastName and Grandma OtherLastName, but my own mother preferred Grandma FirstName and Grandma OtherFirstName). Today, though, among my personal circle of friends, which is lovely but not overly enormous, I know a Grandma FirstName, a Nana, a Grangie, a Nanny, a Granny, a Grammy, a Gigi, a...well, you get the idea.

I've tried them all out in my brain.

"Hey, Grandma FirstName!"

"Hey, Granny!"

"Hey, GrandmaQueenBee!"

We will probably end up being Grandma and Grandpa, although some of my more experienced grandmotherly friends tell me that the child usually decides in the end. "It was what he could pronounce when he started to talk and it just stuck," one said.

And you know what? That's fine with me. It doesn't matter what name goes on Baby Wonderful's birth certificate, or what his grandparents are called. I'm ready to answer.

"Is that you, little Popcorn Worlde Peace Angst? Gramimimimi's here!"

Ending an Era With Gratitude

Tree of Life afghan, knit with HoneyBee yarn for Baby Wonderful

I've always been noticeably behind my peers in life stages, if you judge those stages by nursery rhymes 

"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes (insert name here) with a baby carriage!"

With the notable exception of Jimmy Caraway (true name), who slipped an enormous and elaborate valentine into my desk in third grade and had me counting the years until I could marry him, I was always behind the romantic curve. For as long as I could remember marriage and a family were the only things I truly yearned for in life but I didn't date in high school, or in college, or during my first professional job. By the time I'd finished my Peace Corps years unattached I was convinced that I had been the left-over button when God was matching up the buttons and buttonholes of humanity. I was still single with no prospects at age 28.

"Fine!" I finally told the Creator, half acceptance and half defiance. "I'll be the best single person ever. I'll travel, and I'll be the crazy aunt, and I'll take all the classes at the Free University." 

Within weeks of this surrender I met Husband, and directly in my ear heard God laughing. 

Once the nursery rhyme wheels creaked into motion, the love to marriage to baby carriage sequence was fast and joyful. And it turned out I had been right all along: Marriage and family were what my heart knew I needed. Boy#4 was born when Boy#1 was five years old. 

It was during those first sleep-deprived days of motherhood that my own wise mother gave me the best parenting advice I would ever hear. 

"Don't wish away any stage," she told me. "Ever stage has its own delights--you can miss a lot of sweet moments if you're only waiting for them to sleep through the night or walk or whatever you're waiting for."

I have thought of that hundreds, thousands of times over the past 34 years. While I was deliriously tired, I learned to cherish the middle-of-the-night stillness of a nursing baby. I consciously reminded myself that a toddler throwing a tantrum would in a few hours be hugging me straight into his neck. Even when our own Boys followed their parents' example and did not marry young, I consciously appreciated the opportunities that can come to young adults who do not have mortgages.

And while I've been waiting longingly for grandchildren, I've been loving so, so much this stage when the Boys are grown up and finding their Lovely Girls. The Christmas mornings that are unhurried and unscheduled. The solicitude of adult offspring for their parents, and their willingness (nay, eagerness) to drive and navigate. The never carrying luggage because my sons watch out for my wonky shoulder. The late nights listening to them playing board games that are way beyond my comprehension. 

I have not wished this era away, in spite of my delight in looking forward to the next stage of our family's history. 

As I prepare to enter the world of being GrandmaQueenBee, I'm grateful we've had a few years when we've had Lovely Girls in our lives but not yet Babies Wonderful. Even as I knit myself into a carpal-tunneled frenzy of baby blankets and booties, I'm remembering those years with joy and gratitude.

I have loved this stage, and I will love the next one.

The Big News You've Been Waiting For

Or maybe it's just the Big News I have been waiting to share with you?

Yes! The lineage of the House on the Corner will be expanding by one generation in the next few weeks--Boy#1 and Lovely Girl#1 are in the final stages of preparation for Grandbaby#1. And in a month or so, that means I'll be GrandmaQueenBee.

I have been waiting for this moment more or less (mostly less) patiently ever since my Much Older Sister began having grandchildren and rhapsodizing about the indescribable wonder of this stage of life. The baby hugs! The tiny sweaters! The handing them back to the parents when they begin to cry!

And because I have always wanted every wonderful thing MOS has had, that means I have been tapping my toe impatiently as I waited to catch up with her for FOURTEEN YEARS, never mind that my own children didn't start marrying until five years or so ago. I'm embarrassed to say that as soon as Boy#1 let us know he and his freshman orientation leader were more than casual friends, I loudly proclaimed my readiness for grandchildren. And I'm even more embarrassed to say that I did that more than once. Or twice, or several times. Finally Boy#2 pulled me aside. "Mom," he told me, "you've got to cool it on the grandkids thing. You're freaking One out."

Ahem.

Last weekend Husband and I crossed state lines to (me) oooh and aaaah at the adorable baby paraphernalia LG's friends lovingly provided at a shower, and (Husband) hang out with One and reassure him on the daddy-ing gig.

It's not as if they needed much advice, though. So far our children are making good parenting choices. They didn't spread the news of the impending blessed event too early, making the pregnancy seem shorter for everyone else. In fact, Baby Wonderful was almost halfway to delivery date (17 weeks) when they told the prospective grandparents, and even closer (21 weeks) when the embargo on sharing the news was lifted. They also have decided to be surprised on the baby's sex, a decision I wholeheartedly endorse. Not only is it fun to speculate (I'm guessing girl; the parents are guessing boy), it also avoids the necessity of a gender reveal party, which is second only to preschool graduation mortarboards in my list of Newfangled Things That I Do Not Like.

After the shower Husband and I helped stow the piles of diapers and pound nails for some nursery decor. We marveled at the kinds of gadgets now available to make life easier for the caretakers of tiny ones who can't blow their own noses, and agreed that while those gadgets may be marvelous the thought of physically sucking the blockage out of those tiny nostrils seems pretty gross. We talked about watching YouTube videos on swaddling techniques, something that apparently had fallen into disuse between the first Christmas until after our Boys were born but has come roaring back in the past few years.

And as I cheated and read the baby's books before I put them on the shelf, it struck me that the next time I see the room in today's beauty shot there will be a tiny child in that crib. Oh, the places he'll go and the things that she'll do.

I can't wait.

As I Was Saying....

It has been, by my calculations, one month and two days since I have shown up in this space. I have had no fewer than six persons ask me if I was giving up blogging forever and I have hung my head in shame, because that had not been my intention AT ALL.

I love this space. I love sharing the big things and the big-big things of my life with the internet, but I also love sharing the smaller things that are sometimes bigger than the big things because they are the umami that can be missed among life's sweet and salty. (My wonderful English teacher, Mrs. Lukens, would be horrified at that sentence, but I hope you understand what I'm saying.)

So why would I lead off this post with a photo of an airport luggage cart piled with a duct-taped Rubbermaid tote alongside my stuffed carry-on bag?

That photo, dear ones, is a parable.

I spent last week in Colorado with three of my oldest friends. We have been running around together (yes, that's what we call it) since middle school, which was (she said, horrified) more than half a century ago.  This is a group that didn't see each other much for a couple of decades in the middle of that span--life, you know--but we always kept in touch. And at the end of that intensive stretch of pregnancies and careers, the most far-flung of the group insisted we physically meet.

It was So. Much. Fun.

We talked and talked and talked and then ate and then talked some more. We know each other so well that every conversation was rich and deep, except when it was silly and shallow. We left vowing to meet again every year, and mostly we have done that.

Our last get-away, though was almost two years ago. Somehow time passed and in spite of our determination to prioritize our friendship there was just a lot standing in the way. Job changes. Moves. Aging parent issues. Life.

But the most amazing thing about getting together with old friends is that when you do get together, it feels as if you haven't been away at all. The hours of conversation start with "As I was just saying..." from the moment you step off the plane.

This time the conversations may have been richer, deeper than ever. We're aging, and people usually don't talk much about that when they're going through the process, but we did.

No topic was off limits. We discussed cremation vs. burial, and our fears about today's political realities, and an astounding number of words was expended on the new realities of the post-menopausal female body that NO ONE HAD TOLD US ABOUT.

Then when I bought an item at an antique store that was too big to get into my carry-on, one of my friends (who lives just outside Anchorage) informed me that duct-taped Rubbermaid tubs are also known as "Alaskan luggage," and that she flies with them all the time. It was so helpful to know that, and I wouldn't have known it without her experience.

So the explanation of this parable is this: I may have been absent from this space for a while but there are so many things happening in my life. Good things! Wonderful things! And some that aren't so great (errant facial hair, ladies, amiright?) but might make you realize you're not alone in this struggle. So I plan to be around, and I hope you'll come back, too.

As I was saying....