Always Remember That

Last week we -- being Chris, the girls and I; Amy; and Chris's parents -- set out for Chicago and its suburbs to attend a reunion of Claudia's family, the Podgornys. Chris was born in Hammond, Indiana, just south of Chicago, and lived there until he was about seven. He described the region -- in fact, people call it "The Region" -- as the "Industrial Armpit of the Midwest." Both of his grandfathers and many other assorted family members worked for the steel mills (one worked in the Cook County jail and once turned the key on Capone). There was a great deal of nostalgia about this trip -- eating at White Castle, getting Green Rivers at Schoop's; driving past the spot on well-traveled Calumet Avenue where Chris, then three, fell out of the car and narrowly avoided being killed. We saw his and Amy's elementary school, and the Dairy Bee where they got ice cream, and the cute little house where they grew up. We stayed with Claudia's cousin, Kathy, ...

If, at the end of last summer's road trip, you put away the cables to the portable DVD player in a spot that you think that you'll remember before next summer's road trip...you will be wrong. If you tell your 6-year-old to pack six changes of clothes, she will pack 6 skirts and 6 shirts...none of which match. If you tell your 9-year-old to pack six changes of clothes, she will ask you why a million times, and then not do it. If you're excited about visiting Chicago, but dreading the 13-hour drive...you're only human. If you hope to have lots of good pictures and stories to tell upon your return...you're a blogger. Catch you next week.

Today I had Mallory try on the sundress I got her to wear at our upcoming family reunion. "It looks good," I said as she examined herself in the mirror. "It's kind of grown-up looking," she said. "It's sleeveless." Then she raised up her arms and examined her armpits. "I just hope I don't start puberty before the reunion, because that wouldn't be pretty."

Phoebe is six today -- six on the 6th, so it's her "golden birthday," and it's also the first birthday that falls on the same day of the week on which she was born. (Like me, she's a Wednesday child -- full of woe.) "Good-bye, Five, I'm sorry to leave you," she said last night before bed. I'm sorry to leave Five too. Five was a good year for Phoebe. She did big kid things -- started school, started Girl Scouts, learned to read, made a new best friend (MEGAN! -- always said like that, in caps with an exclamation point). But she was still little -- loves to snuggle, can't sit still for more than a minute, says "bekfrast" and "callerpitter," sings and dances for us without being self-conscious. And she's still full of giggles and jokes and still a clothes diva and loves dolls and Spongebob and, somehow, usually manages to get her own way by turning on the tears. I will miss Five. But as Phoebe also said last night, ...

Happy birthday and happy anniversary to my best friend. I love you!

Today is the 15th anniversary of my employment with the Company I work for. Tomorrow Chris will be 40. Monday is our 13th wedding anniversary. Phoebe will be 6 in two weeks. We are leaving for Chicago in 20 days. I'll see my parents, sister, niece and nephew in 33 days. Some of these things make me happy; some stress me out; some are bittersweet. I'll let you guess which ones are which.

My other grandfather wasn’t at all curmudgeonly and I don’t think I ever saw him get mad. My grandmother recently told me a story, though, about the maddest she’d ever seen him. One day Granddad came home from work and found me sitting on their front porch. I often walked there after school, and evidently on this day, their front door was locked. (Unusual – I grew up in a town where no one locked anything. I didn’t have a key until I went to college.) He opened the door and let me in, and I got a snack and my mom came to get me and we went home, and nothing was said about it. When my grandma came home, however, he let fly. “Don’t you ever lock that door and leave my granddaughter sitting on the porch, in the cold, again!” he said. He was mad . My grandma said she just couldn’t have felt worse about it. I got a little teary when she told this story. Granddad wasn’t a grouch, but he was never overtly affectionate, either, and to hear this demonstration of how much he cared – well, it...

My Grandad John is an interesting mix of curmudgeonly (he tends to grunt rather than speak) and sentimental (he wore sunglasses to our weddings to hide his tears); I think he tended to be a softie when it came to his grandchildren. Nevertheless, all of us – my siblings and cousins – have our own story of The Time Grandad Yelled At Me. (My brother probably has more than one, actually, since, as the boy, he was required to work on the farm with Grandad and therefore was more often in his proximity.) My sisters’ stories have to do with vehicle mishaps, I believe – either getting stuck in the mud or locking keys within. For me, it was pajamas. One Christmas, when I was 10 or 11, my parents went on a trip and left us all with our grandparents. (I think I was in 6th grade, in fact, because I’d gotten my first Walkman for Christmas. My other grandparents took me and Jana to see Yentl , which I despised, and then shopping at the mall, and I bought my very first cassette tape. Not the Yentl ...

I told my mom what a good time I had with my little sister last weekend*. She said that it was one of her main goals as a parent, to raise me and my siblings to want to spend time together as adults. Mission accomplished! The first thing Mallory said tonight when I told her that she'd been invited to a friend's house for a sleepover tomorrow night was: "Is Phoebe invited too?" So I'm thinking my two girls are off to a good start as well. *Weekend before last, I guess. I hate how long it's been since I last blogged. Will try to do better.

Phoebe graduated from Kindergarten yesterday. I'm not totally convinced that such rituals are completely necessary, but it was very cute. They sang songs, and now I'm going to make Aimee cry by telling you about them. They sang the "Days of the Week" song to the tune of "The Addams Family": Days of the week (snap, snap) x 3 There's Sunday and there's Monday There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday There's Thursday and there's Friday and then there's Saturday Days of the week (snap, snap) x 3 They sang "Kindergarten" to the tune of "Love and Marriage": Kindergarten, Kindergarten Now we're almost through with Kindergarten Our teachers wish we could stay But now we're moving up to first grade! And because it's a Catholic school, they sang about Jesus, with a song that I find both corny and clever. See if you can guess the tune (hint: look at the first word of each line): Don't yo...

This weekend, my girls made time capsules and buried them in the backyard. (I actually did most of the digging.) We pinky-swore to dig them up again on Memorial Day weekend, 2020. I'm kind of hoping these pictures help us remember where we put them.

I have been so busy at work I haven't had time to blog. So yes, now you know that I usually blog on company time. Such has been my stress level that I just broke down and used my first 5 free minutes in days to order a new pair of sandals. Because sometimes a girl just has to do that.

The air in Atlanta must be restorative, because an unusual number of people addressed me as "young lady." Daytime soap operas were killed by the Farmville game on Facebook. Having to rely on wi-fi is a real pain. Hence, I obviously need an ipad. Telling my boss, "My kids think you're mean for making me go on this trip," will result in him letting me put their souvenirs on the corporate credit card. If you take all the written content produced between the beginning of time and the year 2003 -- that same volume of content is now being replicated every 48 hours. Caviar is pretty tasty. I needn't have worried about my clothes. There are eleventy-billion varieties of Coca-Cola, including the one in the photo which bears my middle name. Most of them taste pretty awful. Facebook and twitter are old news; email marketers -- which I suppose is what I am now -- would be wise to pay close attention to Quora and Tumblr. I'm not sure I want to ...

Mallory did one of those “Facts About My Mom” booklets for Mother’s Day. Among other things, she opined that “My mom’s personality is nice, quiet, and gentle.” Aww. Also: true! She also said “My mom’s hair is always perfectly in place.” Which: It’s nice she thinks so, but: false! I took myself shopping on Mother’s Day, because I’m going to Atlanta next week for a conference and I have nothing to wear. Once I got to the mall, however, I realized that I didn’t know, at all, what to get. I really have no sense of style; I don’t know how to put an outfit together. I don’t know how to distinguish between “business casual” and “your elderly grandma.” I also don’t know what looks good on me. Bright colors? Black? Grey? I know to avoid, say, sleeveless tops, but should I also avoid v-necks? I found some pants that are super-comfortable and I think they look nice, but yesterday I wore them to work and spent the whole day worrying that maybe they looked too much like pajama jeans . (Also: I’m ...

Phoebe: My mom burned her mouth really bad on a baked potato, so last night all she had for dinner was ice cream . Phoebe's friend: Wow, I wish I were your mom. Phoebe: No...you really don't. Because sometimes, she has to clean up really gross stuff in the bathroom. Happy Mother's Day!

We saw a Little Person in Walgreen's the other day, which meant I spent a few bad moments, while looking for the children's ibuprofen, hoping my children weren't staring too baldly and that they wouldn't say anything too loudly. Fortunately they were polite; it was only last night that Phoebe remembered, and said: "Hey Mommy, I saw an Orf the other day, and she looked like a grandma Orf!" Later, she said, "How come that lady was so short?" "God makes people in all shapes and sizes," I said. "Small, tall, skinny, fat..." "And triangle too!" she said. ------------------------ Phoebe challenged me to a staring contest. "I'm staring...I'm staring...I'm staring...oops, you blunk!" she said. ------------------------ "How do you spell thur?" she asked, crayon in hand. "Thur?" I said. "What's a thur?" "You know, thur," she said. "Like...thur...

Over 50 tornadoes swept through North Carolina on Saturday afternoon. Several houses in a neighborhood not four miles from our house were destroyed. People are not being allowed back in to check on their pets. We didn't even lose a shingle or a tree branch. I don't know why. In a mobile home park outside Raleigh, a 3-month-old baby was swept from his uncle's arms when the tornado hit; the baby was found, unhurt, under a pile of rubble about 30 minutes later. Three other children in the same park did not survive. I don't know why. "Do you feel lucky?" a reporter asked a man whose house remained standing when others around it had fallen. "No, I'm not lucky ," the man replied. "I'm blessed ." I prefer to think of it as luck, honestly. At the end of the storm, I still had my house and my husband and my two children (one in a pretty dress mugging for the camera, one in mismatched clothes refusing to smile) -- but if tha...

The latest from my crochet hook. This first bunny was for Amy's birthday: And this one is for my niece Isabel's birthday. (I'm assuming Isabel doesn't read my blog. If she does, sorry for spoiling the surprise. And either way, sorry it's going to be a few days late.) And, that's what I've been up to.

Last night Phoebe asked me to help find her doll Amanda. “Which one is Amanda?” I asked, because there are twenty million baby dolls in my household and I can’t keep track of which one is Amanda and which one is Chelsea and which one is Megan and which one is Jaquinta. Phoebe sighed. “Mommy. You should know this by now. Amanda is the one whose favorite color is purple. She likes me to sing to her, and she likes baby food, and her name is Amanda .” Needless to say, this information was not very helpful in locating Amanda. -------------------------------- Mallory has been taking her times tables tests; for months she was stuck on her 3’s. Last month she finally passed her 4’s and 5’s. Last Friday she passed 6’s; this Monday, 7’s; Wednesday, 8’s; yesterday she knocked out 9, 10, and 11 in one fell swoop. Go Mallory! --------------------------------- I was just named Employee of the Month for, as my nominator put it, remaining ever-pleasant while focusing on creating a high qu...

I was in the Girl Scout store today picking up some badges and I happened across a book which purportedly teaches Brownies all about "Storytelling." It was cool -- there were activities on writing and putting on plays and recording tales from the past and so forth. But then I flipped to a section about "Girls' Favorite Books," in which a girl named Madison enthused about the Harry Potter books. To paraphrase loosely, Madison says that she likes to imagine ways to help out her favorite characters or to advise them so that some of their situations come out differently. For example, in Book Six, the home of Madison's favorite character, Ginny Weasley, is destroyed by the evil Death Eaters. Madison thinks that if Ginny had asked for help from her friends, this tragedy wouldn't have happened. Wait, what? That didn't happen in Book Six. It happened -- nonsensically -- in the sixth movie , and even then I'm not sure how Madison's advice -- if the...