On time & healing.

Brennan would have been 10 years old today.  A full decade has passed and I don't know if it's a tribute to my busy days or perhaps actual healing but I didn't think about it until Thursday afternoon, April 3rd, when I was staring at my calendar trying to sort out weekend plans.  Used to be I'd take April 4th, 5th, and 6th off because I couldn't stand to be around people who weren't rending their garments and wailing but I haven't for two or three (?) years now.  Vacation time is precious.  I'd stopped making The Saddest Cake even a couple years before that (more out of deference to my slowing metabolism & the scale but it counts, dammit).

Nor do I get agitated when people ask me how many children I have.  I say two and there's a little part of me that still waits for the adrenaline but my body has stopped reacting.

I am, however, having increasing difficulty remembering how old my two are.  I was in the middle of something at work a bit ago and exchanging pleasantries with someone on the phone when it came up.  I may or may not have mentioned fictional children two years younger than the actual ones residing in my  home.  Not ghost children, just a freak glitch in the time space continuum.  Someone should call Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

For the record, The Boy is finishing third grade and going into fourth.  FOURTH GRADE.  He'll be turning NINE years old next month, an astounding fact which I still feel compelled to fact check with him.  He plays outside unsupervised, googles rocket building, and cringes when I sing in the car.  Thirty seconds from now he'll be double digits and tomorrow morning he may just move out and go off to college.

We watch Cosmos together Sunday nights, he is obsessed with Minecraft, we finished Harry Potter and have moved on to Percy Jackson, and in addition to rocket building he's taken up cooking.  Today he made pancakes for breakfast and then a chocolate cake.  Yes, I know ladies, please restrain your daughters.

The Girl will be turning SIX this summer.  I still feel new to this special needs world but perversely I hardly ever think about her as having a disability.  She is funny, adorable, demanding, and woe to the poor soul that comes between her and -depending on the day- her Mickey, Sofia, or Doc McStuffins.

I think she's going to be effectively non-verbal and I suspect there will be many future soul crushing moments on the playground but she communicates just fine with me at home with ASL and her teachers rave about how fast she's picking up her speech app.  She acts out stories and tells me jokes and while not the norm, it works.  Her "where are your glasses?" routine, by the way, is hys-TER-ical.

We go on walks, have tea parties, and "go to the store" up and down the hallway and thru the kitchen on her tricycle, which she's somehow outgrown.  She's become obsessed with "pretty dresses" (I blame Princess Sofia) and rather particular about which ones are up to her standards. She insists on two books at bedtime, unless they are Sandra Boynton in which case she wants three.  When I come back from running she tries to clean me up with baby wipes.

Y'all are catching me on a good day.  The thing is I did give birth to three children and every now and then I wonder what Brennan thinks of the giggles and snuggles down here.  I hope he's in a good place.   I think we are.

Happy Birthday Baby!

My girl turned five. A

baby no more. Small hands in

mine, and laughter, love.

Raccoons & Grandparents

 You!  Yes You! Happy 

Birthday, Papa Fritz.  Sailing

 forward, unyielding.

Checking In.

I have been a terrible, horrible, no good blogger lately.  This month has just been jam packed with extra stuff, mostly fun, on top of my usual work/life balance issues, and y'all have taken the hit.  Not only am I neglecting this space, there are now well over 300 posts waiting in my reader - Sorry!

I don't see it improving in the near future though so am going to revert to a photo-a-day for a bit.  Maybe throw in an inane haiku to spice things up.  Oh yeah, nothing but parties around here!

This weekend we went to my SIL's family's lake house near Bridal Cave to celebrate the end of my youth.  And, as if to confirm, the entire group was yawning by 9:30pm.  Awesome.

But, there was fishing,
Beers at the dock, splashing kids,
And cake.  Always cake.

Happy Father's Day!
To mine, theirs, & dads-to-be
(I forgot your card).

The birthday present to end all birthday presents.

I was carded today!  And the super awesome nice lady who requested my ID was probably in her 20s.  That she'd probably also card our Gigi is irrelevant.  I still liked her.  It was the best 39th birthday present EVER - because I'm easy like that and apparently that vain. 
That is all. 

No, no just kidding.  Not about being carded.  Shocking and unnecessary as it was, that really happened... (Is she STILL talking about that?  Yes, yes I am.  I might casually mention this for weeks.  Poor Matt). ...No, I was just kidding about being done.  More odds & ends:

The internet is a strange place.  There's a post I wrote in February while my girl was in hospital with RSV that still gets more traffic, week after week, than anything else I've ever posted.  I've done that a couple times - saved a post under favorites instead of the home page and then kept clicking back, waiting.  Is someone out there wondering why I haven't written anything in four months?  If so, they're persistent.

Speaking of respiratory issues, I've had a dry hacking cough for two weeks now, it's getting worse instead of better, and it's starting to annoy the hell out of me.  According to Dr. Google I either have lung cancer or, um, a dry hacking cough.  Helpful, that. 

While at the store buying wine which super awesome nice lady thought I might be too young to buy (Still on that?  Clearly, YES!)... I succumbed to the s'mores display and stocked up.  The boy & I already had an agreement wherein if he napped he would be able to stay up for movies & a lightening bug sweep.  Except we're mid-lightening storm so we opted against standing in the wet grass.  We tried both the griddle and the microwave and while the boy was happy, they weren't quite as good as when I was 6 and they were cooked over an open fire.  We have got to take him camping.  Not sure about the girl yet - she's at the height of the toddler-wandering-off stage and walls are useful for the not-losing-her-in-the-forest plan.

And, in one more dizzying non-sequitur, but just because it's funny and I still don't have any other pictures to post, my sister and her new husband stopped by for a night a couple weeks ago on their way back to school from DC (where they'd been working/fellowship-ing/something).   Believe it or not they actually made it across the entire country without any tickets or major mechanical repairs, though I would have put good money down against it.

Yeh-Haw!  San Diego Hillbillies! 
[Photo by the groom?]

Happy Birthday to Meeeee

Jack Benny was right
This should be the year that lasts
Freezing time? Botox?!

Still no computer

No baby pix to remind

me of the decades.

And I signed up for

another race to outrun

the drip of time, sweat.

But I had eclairs

for breakfast, lunch with friend, and

shared dessert with kids.

It was a good day.

It will be a great year, as

will ALL my three-nines.

52557 Hours Ago

Five years, 364 days, and about 21 hours ago my son was born.  He was pretty cute at first.  To wit:

Then he did a lot of this:

We drank a lot of this:

Matt's ankle had been casted just a couple weeks earlier, because he tripped on a curb swatting at a bee while walking the dog, so he did a lot of this: 

Of all the things that have tested our marriage, that cast might be top on the list.  His "medical restrictions" with a new baby in the house were... ill timed.  It eventually came off, he was eventually able to fetch things for me from upstairs again, and all was right with the world.  [kidding...  kind of.]

Then 6 years went by in the blink of an eye.  Tonight my son was riding around on one of his sister's toys chatting, "I'll be 6 in first grade, then I'll be 7 in second grade, then I'll be 8 in third grade, then I'll be 9 in fourth grade, then I'll be 10....   Oh please, please, please stop talking child.  Mommy's not ready.  Happy Birthday Baby.

Happy Birthday Little Brother

Pete’s Day of Entry

Welcome to Middle Age. May

Your knees bend sine die.

Signs of Aging

When your mother in law leaves both People and Good Housekeeping at your house, and you find you recognize almost no one in the former, but you end up reading the article on wrinkle creams in the latter.