Twenty-six years and twenty-four hours ago, on a day almost as cold as this one, my second son made his grand debut into our lives. We didn't know the gender of our first two kids in advance--and I was wanting another boy in the worst way--so when the doctor announced "It's a boy!" his dad and I were absolutely delighted.
Yesterday, as I remembered that cold Friday morning in January 1984, I didn't have any deep thoughts or eloquent statements to commit to my blog. I texted him to wish him happy birthday, and to tell him I loved him very much--the same thing I told him when the nurse put him in my arms for the first time. Later, we chatted on the phone for a while and he told me about his plans for snowboarding today, and about a truck he was interested in buying, and when he might be coming home to visit. Simple stuff.
But in the early hours this morning I woke up, and as I lay there in the dark listening to the wind I thought about myself twenty-six years ago, and what I would tell that girl now if I could, and if I thought she would listen. I might try to warn her, Back To The Future style, about some dates and events she needed to be aware of....like, "go ahead and give him those roller blades for his 14th birthday, but do NOT let him go to the skate park the next week because he's going to break his his arm in a couple of places and you don't have health insurance." A tip like that would have saved me a bundle, believe me.
More than that, what I really think I would tell her is less tangible, and more important. I'd tell her to pay attention, to live in the moment, to take her time with her kids because while it's ridiculously trite, it is so true --they DO grow up too fast. I'd tell her to chronicle their lives a little better than those quick entries she made in their baby books--because she WON'T always remember which one said or did the amazing things they said and did. I'd tell her to wake them up every single morning by telling them how brilliant, how special, how loved and adored they were. I'd tell her to never utter the phrase "Hurry UP!"to them--because Life hurries up enough as it is and she doesn't need to rush through all of it. And I'd tell her that some winter morning when she's 50--an age she can't even wrap her 24-year-old brain around because it's so remote as to be unbelievable--she'll wake up in the dark and wish she hadn't been so impatient to get here.
And I'd definitely warn her about the roller blades.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
Uncharted territory
So far this year, I've made 8 smoothies, 3 different kinds of soup (all mushy), sweet tea and blackeyed peas; cajoled my petulant patient, e-mailed a new friend in England, checked my Facebook page about a hundred times and put the dogs outside at least that many times too; retrieved keys, gloves, errant dogs in the front yard and lunch for my hard-working spouse, who's taking down the Christmas lights outside; entertained drop-in guests, fiddled with my camera, accepted offers of meals to be brought to us in the coming days, drunk a whole pot of coffee and given the fish eye to my dirty kitchen. I've talked to 3/5ths of my kids, both my parents and one of my best friends on the telephone, and have been serenaded by my 5 year old great-nephew, who accompanied himself with great gusto on our piano.
All this and I'm still in my pjs and robe. If it's true that what you do on the first day of the new year, you do all year long, then I am looking at 364 remaining days of unkempt exhaustion. According to my mother-in-law, our 92-year-old aunt Lucie Mae had deep-cleaned her entire house by noon today. I can't even bring myself to sweep the dog hair up from the living room floor, where it is assembling itself into a beagle/lab/rat terrier carpet. And that Christmas tree in the front room that's been hemmorhaging needles for the past week? Forget about it. I just won't go in there for a while.
Arguably, I should probably be making some spanking-new resolutions for this new year. It's traditional, like black-eyed peas. And usually, I do--the old stand-bys of 'lose 30 pounds', 'start running again', 'no more cursing'...but if history repeats itself (and usually, it does) then in about 2 weeks I'll have forgotten all the promises I made to 2010 and fall right back into my 50 year old ways. I can't yet bear the knowledge of my eventual failure.
Too, I am worried for my patient--who, on his 4th post-op day is cranky, bored with my delicious smoothies and frustrated by pain and his inability to talk--because he is starting to see that this recovery period is going to take longer than he (OK, we) thought it would. I'm worried that school starts in 2 1/2 weeks and he hasn't registered for classes yet...but am worried too that he won't be ready to start back to school on the 19th, that he won't feel like living alone in his apartment at school, and most of all, worried that he may decide he doesn't feel or look like going back to class when it starts and thus will miss out on a whole semester of college. I'm worried about his physical state AND his mental state. I'm afraid I won't be able to keep him occupied, well-fed and content for 5 1/2 more weeks. I'm just worried....and it's not really my nature.
I could tell him what to do...but I can't even tell myself what to do. I can't even decide what to call this new year. Is it more hip to call it twenty-ten? Is it too time-consuming to say two thousand ten?
So on the first afternoon of a new decade, I find myself in unfamiliar waters, in uncharted territory, in untested times...in a yet-as-unnamed YEAR, for crying out loud. And thankful for the safe familiarity of my pjs and robe.
All this and I'm still in my pjs and robe. If it's true that what you do on the first day of the new year, you do all year long, then I am looking at 364 remaining days of unkempt exhaustion. According to my mother-in-law, our 92-year-old aunt Lucie Mae had deep-cleaned her entire house by noon today. I can't even bring myself to sweep the dog hair up from the living room floor, where it is assembling itself into a beagle/lab/rat terrier carpet. And that Christmas tree in the front room that's been hemmorhaging needles for the past week? Forget about it. I just won't go in there for a while.
Arguably, I should probably be making some spanking-new resolutions for this new year. It's traditional, like black-eyed peas. And usually, I do--the old stand-bys of 'lose 30 pounds', 'start running again', 'no more cursing'...but if history repeats itself (and usually, it does) then in about 2 weeks I'll have forgotten all the promises I made to 2010 and fall right back into my 50 year old ways. I can't yet bear the knowledge of my eventual failure.
Too, I am worried for my patient--who, on his 4th post-op day is cranky, bored with my delicious smoothies and frustrated by pain and his inability to talk--because he is starting to see that this recovery period is going to take longer than he (OK, we) thought it would. I'm worried that school starts in 2 1/2 weeks and he hasn't registered for classes yet...but am worried too that he won't be ready to start back to school on the 19th, that he won't feel like living alone in his apartment at school, and most of all, worried that he may decide he doesn't feel or look like going back to class when it starts and thus will miss out on a whole semester of college. I'm worried about his physical state AND his mental state. I'm afraid I won't be able to keep him occupied, well-fed and content for 5 1/2 more weeks. I'm just worried....and it's not really my nature.
I could tell him what to do...but I can't even tell myself what to do. I can't even decide what to call this new year. Is it more hip to call it twenty-ten? Is it too time-consuming to say two thousand ten?
So on the first afternoon of a new decade, I find myself in unfamiliar waters, in uncharted territory, in untested times...in a yet-as-unnamed YEAR, for crying out loud. And thankful for the safe familiarity of my pjs and robe.
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