My sister is coming into town today. She and her brand, spankin’ new husband, John Michael, are flying in to celebrate the 4th with all of us. Chris and I are picking her up at the airport tonight and then we’re all heading up to my parent’s house for the weekend. I’m so excited! I haven’t seen her since her wedding extravaganza in April.
Ginny and JM on their honeymoon in Maui.
My sister has always been one of those people who lives a crazy life. At least, compared to my homebody ways it is crazy. Take, for example, this picture…
This was one summer a couple years ago, just after she graduated from college. She and her friends decided to have their own Olympics. So, they all dressed up in elaborate costumes, each representing a different country. This picture was taken during Opening Ceremonies. Ginny is representing the North Pole and she’s carrying a sparkler as the Olympic torch. She ran it all the way through her apartment complex. For the rest of the weekend, they had various different events where they competed for medals.
Why all the huss and fuss?
No real reason at all actually. Just Ginny being bored and imaginative.
She’s always been like that. She’s the kind of person you want to be friends with. I love having her around.
After college (where she was, naturally, President of her sorority, Chi Omega), Ginny moved to Atlanta where she took a job working at a high profile public relations agency. She quickly climbed her way up the company ladder and within a few years, she was already a Senior Account Executive, working with international clients such as Starbucks, Dove, Unilever, and Microsoft. She was good at her job for the exact same reason she was good at the Olympics – she was creative and dedicated.
When she and JM started getting more and more serious, I was so happy to see that he was just as fun and adventurous as she was. They were always traveling somewhere, sending back crazy pictures of the two of them doing crazy things…
Horseback riding
Zip lining and hiking
Flying helicopters
They were living life and loving it, and it seemed to be even more fun when they were doing it together.
And then the recession hit and JM (who is a project manager for a general contractor) started to worry about his job. Construction wasn’t booming and his company was whispering about lay offs. In the middle of all the uncertainty, JM was offered a job building a hospital, which would be a guaranteed job for the next two or three years – just enough to get him through the rough patch of the recession. The only problem was that he would have to move from their life in Atlanta to the middle of nowhere Virginia. At this point, he and Ginny were talking about getting married and he asked her to come with him. She thought about it for 2.6 seconds and then she quit her job, said goodbye to her roommates (her BFF’s and sorority sisters from college), and together they moved to Virginia.
I worried about her leaving a life that she really loved for something completely different, but Ginny never seemed to miss a beat. She and JM both seemed to just dive right into their new lives. In a city as small as where they live, there were no PR jobs and so Ginny instead decided to do something completely different and she became a preschool teacher. She calls me every now and then and lets her entire class of 3 year olds sing me and Bean songs. It’s adorable. And while she has moments and days when her job drives her crazy, for the most part she doesn’t seem to look backwards at all.
She and JM embraced the changes around them, even when those changes weren’t what they expected.
They didn’t try to bring their old life to Virginia. Instead, they embraced the place where they were right then. And though sometimes, I felt like they might be jumping in a little too far…
They just kept forging ahead, learning new things about where they now were and growing as a couple as they experienced all of it together.
It wasn’t until I started talking to my sister about how hard our move had been that I realized how hard her move had been as well. Actually, her move had been much harder because they left people they loved and moved farther away and Chris and I at least had my parents here to help us get adjusted.
To me, Ginny and JM are the definition of blooming where you are planted. She showed me that it isn’t always perfect when you plant new roots, but that the trick is to keep moving forward. To keep digging deeper into the new soil where you are planted. And to wrap your roots around your partner so that the two of your grow together. Ginny has always been an in-the-moment person. Actually, we used to tease her and worry about her because of it. She was sort of an extreme present tense person, never wanting to look ahead but never looking behind either. And while she has gotten much better as she has gotten older about balancing her present happiness with future planning, she continues to show me how much life has to offer when you are present in your life.
Isn’t it great the things you can learn from your baby sister?
On Saturday, Chris, Bean, and I decided to pack up the car, throw Bean in a bathing suit, and get the heck outta dodge! And where do newly relocated Floridians go when they need to get away? The beach, of course!
Cocoa Beach, to be exact.
I grew up on the beach, but since moving to Connecticut my beach bummin’ days have been few and far between. Now that we are back in Florida though, I hope to make up for that. I love the beach. It’s such a relaxing, soothing, calming place to spend an afternoon. Listening to the waves, kicking back with a good book, catching a little nap in the warmth of the summer sunshine…
Wait a minute…
Wait just a darn minute here…
Something seems to have changed. Because on this trip to the beach, my relaxing book and warm summer nap were replaced instead by sand buckets, sticky watermelon, and a mysterious short little man with a belly who squealed in my ear every time a wave crashed on shore.
Ahh…yes. Gone are the days of getting cute to go to the beach. No more bikinis (at least not until I get rid of these stretch marks…). No more clean beach towels that are just used to dab the sweat on my brow occasionally. No more coming home with dry, clean bathing suits.
Those things are no more.
Because of this.
See, I thought that I could stay clean and dry this time. I hadn’t really thought much about the alternative. But, see that sandy little Bean Bean up there? Well, sometimes he needs hugs. He needs a snuggle. And sometimes he needs those hugs and snuggles about two seconds after he has been rolling around in water and then immediately rolling around in sand. And when he decides that right now, in this sandy, wet condition, he needs a hug? Well, I’m gonna hug him.
And when I wrap my arms around his sandy little body, I’m gonna get sand all up my arms and all over my neck, where the sand monkey decided to bury his sandy little face.
But, then I look out from my beach chair where I sit, covered in sand, and I see this…
And even from 50 yards away on the beach, I can hear Bean squealing and babbling and pointing out everything he sees to Chris. And suddenly I don’t even notice the sand in my bathing suit.
It was Bean’s first trip to the beach. To say it was a big hit would be a huge understatement. Bean thought the beach was the greatest place in the entire world. When we first got there, we set up our little area. I brought a big sheet and two beach chairs for me and Chris. We had a big cooler with lunch and snacks and drinks. And, of course, we had sand toys – a bucket, a sand sifter, and a shovel. And we had a giant tug boat (thank you to my friend, Sarah, for giving Bean this enormous tug boat that he loves so stinkin’ much that I had to schlep it across the beach all day…). And a rubber walrus. And a rubber penguin.
Once we were all set up, we had a little lunch.
Well, not really. Chris and I had lunch. Bean spit out everything I gave him as he pointed to the water, crying, “Waaaaa! Waaaaa!” (which is Bean Speak for “water”). There was no way he was eating anything until he went out into the water. So, being the fun daddy that he is, Chris scooped him up and the two of them headed out to the water together.
When they got close enough that the water was actually hitting Bean’s feet, his squeal went up into octaves that only dogs could hear. He just kept pointing to the water and soundlessly squealing, “Waaaaa!!! Waaaaa!!”
They stopped walking for a minute and let the water come over their feet. As the water eroded away the the sand under their toes, Bean sank deeper and deeper into the warm, sandy muck. And as the water rushed, he dropped his voice all serious-like and deeply exclaimed, “Ohhhhh…” as if he had been wondering about sand erosion all his life.
After this little scientific experiment, they decided to do what boys do best. Dig. Chris brought out the sand sifter and the two of them sifted wet, gloopy sand together.
Without warning, Bean decided he had had enough sand sifting and he was ready for bigger things. Like body surfing. So, he headed out to sea all by himself.
Thankfully, Chris is faster than Bean (for now…) and he scooped him up and carried him out to the deeper part.
I have no pictures of them any further out in the water because any deeper than this and I started to yell out, “WATCH FOR SHARKS!! WATCH FOR SHARKS!! SHARKS!! SHARKS!!” and after scaring about every person within a 2 mile radius, I went back to my beach chair and decided to watch for sharks from a distance in silence.
(Note to future beach goers: Probably best to not yell out “SHARK!” or any phrase involving “SHARK!” when in the presence of tourists and families. Unless, of course, you actually see a shark. And then, by all means, yell all you want.)
Once back in the comfort of my beach chair, I opened the Tupperware container I packed of watermelon. Which from all the way out in the water, Bean managed to smell. Within minutes he was crawling all over me for “Mooooooeeee! Moooooee!” (That would be “more,” in Bean Speak).
With watermelon juice and salt water now covering 99.9% of his body surface, Bean decided it was once again time for a little sand rolling.
We spent the rest of the day rotating between walking in the water and digging in the sand.
Two things I have not done on a beach since I was five years old. And I have to say, it’s not a bad way to spend a day. Apparently, sand washes off and salt water won’t kill you. Who knew?
Turns out, a day at the beach – whether you are reading a book on a dry, clean towel or covered in sand and watermelon juice – is pretty darn relaxing after all.
It is relieving, refreshing, and remarkable to me that even when things are hard, even when things seem off and unfamiliar, even when I’m working through things in my marriage, it still doesn’t take much for me to pause and remember that I am so very, very blessed by having these two sand monkeys in my life.
22Jun
Last week my friend, Catherine, had a little baby girl. They named her Nora and she was beautiful. She didn’t come out all squished up like a lot of newborns. She was pretty and smooth and she looked like she’d been born a thousand times before. Like she was an old pro.
When I saw a picture of her, my ovaries instantly started chanting, “WE WANT A GIRL! WE WANT A GIRL!” And then Bean threw my keys in the toilet bowl (true story) and my ovaries paused for just a moment before chanting instead, “MAYBE WE CAN WAIT! MAYBE WE CAN WAIT!” And later that day as I paid bills and did our depressing banking, my ovaries paused one more time before chanting, “NEVERMIND, LET’S BUY A FISH! NEVERMIND, LET’S BUY A FISH!”
Occasionally, my ovaries chant. They’ve done it before. They’ll do it again. My ovaries are chanters. They demand things from me from time to time – usually more babies. And when they’re being particular, they demand babies of the female variety. Usually this happens when I find that I have accidentally wandered into the girl section of Carter’s or Target and frilly dresses and underpants with ruffles have somehow managed to jump spontaneously into my cart. For some reason this triggers my ovaries. I can’t imagine why.
But, inevitably, one of two things happen to silence my chanting ovaries. Either Bean does something that makes me sigh and say, “No, Bean!” For example, yesterday I looked over to find Bean feeding Big Molly all of his blocks. Molly had eaten four wooden blocks by the time I got over there. Or like yesterday evening when Chris and I were sitting down to eat dinner and Bean poured Chris’ drink all over the table – including all over our food. Yeah, those are the times when you sigh, “redirect the child’s attention” (according to the books), and think to yourself, “There’s no way I could handle two of him.”
If that doesn’t silence the ovaries, then they chant until Bean does something so incredibly funny or sweet or cute. Like yesterday morning when he learned to blow kisses. Or when he fell out of his school bus toy and Chris picked him up, but Bean held his arms out and cried for me. Those times when your heart melts and you realize that being Bean’s mom is the best thing in the whole world. My ovaries stop chanting then because I think that there would just be no way I could ever love another baby as much as I love him. And they stop when I realize how much fun it is to be a mom to a baby boy. I love having a boy. He’s into everything, always on the go, rough, ready to play, loud. He just fills the house with his boyishness and makes everything seem bigger and better.
But then SOMEONE decides to be all selfish-like and have a little girl named Nora and suddenly my ovaries wake back up again, demanding children. Please, people. Could you stop having such beautiful little babies so that my ovaries could focus on the task we have at hand – raising a little boy who throws keys into the toilet and spills drinks on my food and cries for me when he falls down? Because that is a full-time job in my house and I just don’t think I can handle adding another being to my list of responsibilities.
And yet…what is that I hear?…so faint in the background?…
“we want a girl, we want a GIRL! WE WANT A GIRL! WE WANT A GIRL!”
10Jun
It is Thursday and I have many things to share. Many small, random, probably-no-one-cares-but-me things to share. So, let’s jump right into it…
- Thanks to everyone who came out last night for the LIVE video chat session with me and Chris. We answered questions about our marriage, our move, parenting, money, religion, and just about everything in between.
If you missed the conversation, you can check it out by watching the videos. We had some technical difficulties on our end and so the conversation is broken up into three different videos, with the majority of the chat session in the first video and then two shorter ones. And there is no ending. Sorry about that. Our internet here is pretty awful.
Video One
Video Two
Video Three
- Chris’ mom came to visit this past weekend for Bean’s birthday at Disney. She and her…I don’t know what to call Charles. They’ve been together for, like, a billion years so he’s more than just her boyfriend. Let’s call Charles the Man Partner. He’ll like that. Anyway, Jackie and her Man Partner, Charles, came to visit and it was so nice to see them again. They are the kinds of people who will go along with whatever you happen to be doing. Easy to entertain. Easy to talk to. I love that about them. Bean had a great time with his Grandmomma, too. She gives good snuggles and feeds him water from big boy straws (his favorite thing in the whole wide world).
- My real life BFF, Emily, sent me a gift for Bean’s birthday. Isn’t that the nicest thing ever? Everyone should have a BFF like Emily. She sent me a gift card to Bloomingdale’s. And ever since I got the card, I have been wracking my brain about what I should use it on. I need a new purse really badly. But I also would like another casual sundress to wear around the house. But I also want one of those long bohemian sundresses (though I think they’ll make me look like a dwarf). And then I also remembered that they have a great salon at Bloomingdale’s and I desperately need a good haircut. SO MANY OPTIONS! So, instead of spending the gift card, I am sitting at home on my couch, clutching it in my paw, afraid to move.
- It has become my personal mission in life to make Bean walk. It has become Bean’s personal mission in life to be the first crawling college student. So far, he is winning.
- I caught Bean this week chewing on Petunia (my iPhone). He was chewing on the speaker part. Now, my ringer doesn’t work so the only way I know if I missed any calls is to constantly check my phone. I am already a pretty bad cell phone user because I hardly ever have it with me, so this just complicates a bad situation even further. If you need me, I can be reached by carrier pigeon.
- I have bought three presents for Father’s Day for Chris already and given them each to him. I have no patience.
- I made taco meat in the crock pot yesterday by putting a pound of ground beef, a packet of taco seasoning, and a can of diced tomatoes in there and letting it sit all day. Smelled delicious. Tasted like cat food.
THESE ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES…
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