I told my friend this morning that my hair is acting like a rebellious child.  It will not lay down, or sit down.  It will not straighten out.  It will not grow in the way that it should.  It will not submit to my wishes and needs. 

There are numerous and telling parallels between my children and the way my hair-line is right now.

For instance, should I be dark, or light?  Since birthing Will, my hair has been asking me this.  Apparently, it has decided that dark is the new light, because it is coming in like mid-night.  Or darker. 

Unfortunate hair

Should I be straight or wavy?  That is another profound question it is asking.  I would prefer straight, but these things are beyond my control.

Should I have bangs or not?  Gross.  My bangs are coming in, but not only in front. They are wrapped entirely around my head!

I used to have an ego that was so sensitive to style and appearance.  But, I have hit new lows lately.

More unfortunate hair

Last night was when the bottom fell out.  I stood in front of the mirror in disgust and said to Pat:

“That’s it.  I am tired of looking like a Mennonite”.  All straight part and hair pulled back.   He actually agreed that my hair-line could use some professional help.  And this was proven by his insistence that I “Go!”.  Course, being Pat he reminded me: “Use the Amex so we can get 2% back on your highlights”.

I am hoping that my ego will be getting more than a 2% raise back.

On Wednesdays, I pack Will up and we go to school for an hour.  I rotate Wednesday mornings between Anna’s teacher and Josh’s.  Generally, there is one hour between “specials” (their art/music/PE classes) in which the teacher is glad for an extra set of hands.  And Will loves an new environment in which to chomp on his squeaky toys- it brings great variety to his otherwise dull teething life.

I am willing to do any tedious task for the kids’ teachers.  Actually, the more mindless the better.  Most days, I am tasked with reading sight words with the kindergarten kids, or photocopying or reviewing standardized test materials with second grade students.  Ms. M- Josh’s teacher- told me last week just how desperate teachers are for bits of extra help right now.  Federal budget cuts have affected schools greatly, and while I see no evidence in the halls or classrooms- as they appear neat and full as ever- I take her at her word: the recession has spared no one.  And those kids: very cute.  There is a booger or two mixed in every bunch, but on the whole they are a great little group.

Today was Ms. M’s birthday.  The kids all drew her cards and were asked to bring in one long-stemmed flower.  Being the over-achievers that we are, we brought her a full plant. 

 Within the hour, poor Ms. M’s desk looked like a botany study.  She is a well-loved woman, and very deserving!  It takes great patience and skill to corral the energy of eighteen 5 year-olds, much less teach them to fluently read letters and numbers.

This is the cafeteria where I come to eat sometimes.  Although truth be told, I have only sampled one item off of the menu in 3 years: and that was too much.  It was supposedly roast turkey, but was textured like marshmallows and so my taste-buds being the tiny snobs that they are, said “never again” and I willingly obeyed.

I also filled out and turned in this application to the front office: an audition form for a Talent Show coming up at school.  Anna has desired to sing a solo, and I am going with it.  She was questioning whether to sing about God.  She said: “Mom, not everyone wants to hear about God”. And I said “fair enough” and let her choose what she wants to sing about.  But I also told her to remember that God has created her voice to glorify Him with.

In the end she decided to go with Grace Flows Down by Chris Tomlin.  About God.  But not a theological treatise either.  She seems happy with her selection.  And I will be her accompanist, which I am trying to be happy about.  I love to play piano at home, but I am not a spot-light performer.

I love living in the south, because I walk in the school and strike up conversation with the wonderful ladies in the front office: “Anna has this sheet filled out for a solo.  But we are wondering how PC the school is about religion.  The form states that no song can be profane.  But, are we allowed to do worship music?” And Annette smiles and laughs and says: “What song?” And I say Grace Flows Down.  And she says: “I like that song.  We had about 10 girls sing Hannah Montana last year, so that will be something different”.

So then I proceed to fax in the lyrics to the song- another requirement.  And I call the lady in charge, who is mother to one of Anna’s friends.  And she says: “Honey, don’t even bother to send in the lyrics to Amazing Grace.  We all know them”. And I insist, because it’s protocol.  But she makes it so easy.  And while we chat we set up a play-date for the girls, and what could have been complicated and political is so low-key.  I do not take that for granted.  This acceptance of religious freedom is something I love about the south.

We are blessed, and I want my kids to know it.

I was so thrilled to find big bags of beads for $1 at the antique shop.  Each girl got her own bag, and when home chose colors.  Anna chose red, and Emma the blues.  I actually prefer Emma’s choice.  Emma was having much more fun spilling the beads all over the floor for our foraging baby to find, so I relocated them to a jar with a lid. 

Much better.

There were these funky little hardware pieces in a basket in the back.  25-cents each or whatever I wanted to pay, as the store-keeper informed me.

They are very cool for Josh’s room.  And in keeping with his vintage, thrifted look.

He has lots of books to store.  I like these wire baskets from Goodwill.

These are mostly non-fiction books, as I have found Josh to prefer learning about “real” people and places, to fiction.

Pat’s old dresser, we painted red.

Shower-curtain for the window.

Another favorite art-piece: Josh brought home from school last year.

A place for all those little pieces.

Original art, by Josh:).  He painted this in the weeks before Will’s arrival.  And it depicts him walking with his new brother.  I will keep this forever.  These canvas tablets are much cheaper than stretched canvases, and easy for kids to work with.

Art by my Dad’s uncle.  Most of my father’s relatives were painters.  So, we have boxes of art-work in our basement and all of my siblings and I have been able to choose through the years which pieces we would like to keep for our families.

Art by my uncle Ron (www.roncowle.com).  Pat bought me this painting a few years back.  It has always been one I admired.  My uncle and his wife are wildly talented.  Check out his sculpture-work… reminds me to pick up Sculpey at the craft store next time I am there.  (That is how my uncle taught his sons to scuplt).  My aunt sews and quilts and raises vegetables and flowers.  And she paints exquisitely too. 

Badminton Raquets I found at an antique store: $1 each.  Turned over they say Made in Japan.  That alone dates them to post-WWII, my Mom thinks.  Imagine a time when mass importing came from Japan and not China.  Kinda hard to believe!

The room is clean for a moment.  A blink of the eye.  

Actually, Josh is my cleanliest-minded child.  He thrives on order, and is task-minded.  His sisters believe in a philosophy of free-thinking with their rooms.  They can happily dwell in an environment of chaos, without feeling stress at all.  And they believe that the more little pieces scattered about for me to step on, the better.

I’m holding out hope that my boys will keep the house straight.  Who would have thought?

Kennesaw Mountain is one of our favorite spots in the world.  We find ourselves there many, many sunny weekends in the Spring and Fall.  Sometimes by ourselves, sometimes with friends.  Sometimes without children, many times with kids tagging along, running and alternately struggling up the hill.

We love this spot for its history.  The kids are intrigued with the thought of soldiers suited in wool uniforms, hauling in the 100-degree Georgia heat, cannons up a mountain.  So many lives were lost in such a tranquil area.  So many families disjointed in the course of battles fought at Kennesaw.  The battle at Kennesaw Mountain was one the THE defining fights in the struggle between the blue and the grey- between North and South.  Sherman moved to attack Confederate troops planted up and down and hidden within the wooded hills.  He was at a complete disavantage, and the Battle at Kennesaw was a horrible, bloody failure for the Union.

So, its fascinating to be standing where famous soliders stood and to imagine history happening.

Beautiful Views

The kids always like to take “nature bags” along on hikes. 

Nature Bag

 They fill Ziploc’s up with rocks and acorns and sticks.  Then, they find these bags to be quite heavy, and Pat and I wind up carrying not only babies, but large containers of rocks up the mountain too. 

Mom and Will- aka Kangaroo and Joey

The weather Saturday was the best we have known in months.  What has been near-constant rain and cold, became warmth and sunshine for a beautiful 48 hours.  We were so thankful to run the kids around, and to get some exercise ourselves- outside the confines of LA Fitness and tread-mills.

Lots of Kids!

The kids managed to complete the hike, with some stops for water and breath-catching.  And in return, earned a milk-shake on the way home.  We had some happy campers who were very motivated to earn their junk-food.

A and L- such good little buds

I collected moss on our walk- learning over Will who was sleeping- and came home with a bag-full. 

Gorgeous Moss

If potted and watered occasionally, moss will actually continue to “live” for quite some time.  Simply sprinkle every few days, and as it dries, it will retain its color.

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WOW.  Compare the quality of the last photo, with that of the first shots.  We took our tiny, cheap camera hiking, since we were near kids and rocks.  And I used the Canon with the 580 flash on the last shot.  What a difference!  Makes me glad that Pat invests in good camera equipment.

She lives suspended somewhere between what is fantasy and what is reality.

She thinks that I buy it all.  Her life and her stories.  Her great big stories.  She tells them to me so sincerely and because I am polite, she believes that I believe her.

“I am going to be a model”. 

“I was chosen to be Cosmo-girl”.

  “I am going to school on a full cheering scholarship”.

  “I am, am, am….” 

And yet she is not, she is not, she is not. 

She is not cheering.  She is chain-smoking through the daylight hours with sticky hair and smudgy mascara. 

She is not at school, because she sleeps most of the day and then is in sweats for the rest.

She is not getting any scholarships, because the stench of marijuana is way too strong to support any academic goals.

She is not modeling- or then she may be- because her desire to please and be beautiful and to mean something is so sadly pronounced. 

She is not Cosmo-girl.  She is Atlanta-girl.  She was once popular and “something”.  But now she is home and stuck and sad and normal.  And the life of uphill glamor she anticipated for her life, is not.  And will never be.  She has made so many poor choices that there is no turning back now or ever, I fear. 

But my heart responds to her.  I see her and I ache.  And I reach out and she reaches back.  But she also bites back, because that is what people do when they feel threatened and found out. 

And so it is that with the New Year I have found myself praying more and more:

“Lord, help me to help the girl who will never be Cosmo-girl”.

Pat is out taking photos tonight.  He and a good friend have a similar interest in photography, and have had a couple of opportunities now to “shoot” together.

Anna was funny over dinner this evening, asking me in a confused tone: “So Mama, Daddy is out taking photos of Mr. Scott?”  And I could picture the two men in mid-town posing and smiling, taking turns capturing one another.  These two southern boys in the middle of Virginia Highlands , blending right in.

  No dear Anna.  They are taking pictures with their own cameras of interesting things, not of one another…

Pat rarely gets “time off”.  Now that we have signed our inalienable rights away to liberty and personal space, there are few opportunities to be alone.  Or to experience “free time“.  So, we grab these moments when we can, cancel when we can’t, and enjoy dabbling in our hobbies as life permits.

For me, hobbies are anything related to friends, fabric or paints.  And sometimes cameras.

For Pat, a hobby involves lots of complicated buttons.  And preferably really expensive buttons that he tasks me with keeping the kids away from while he is at work.  And I think to myself that goodness!  That is such an unfair battle, because buttons to push and toddlers are a blissful marriage.  So, how do I win this war?  Pat, have you met our daughter, Emma?

These clicking, snapping contraptions with multiple lenses make him so happy.  Since we were married almost 9 years ago, Pat has replaced his camera 4 times- (which is actually better than his wedding-ring -replacement count, which is currently at 6.  He is not wearing a ring now, because he  tends toward combining wedding rings and kayaks, forgetting that wedding rings cannot swim).

But he takes some good shots, I think.  (All of these shot in Oakland Cemetery, Marietta).  He knows his complex buttons.  And he studies his manuals.  And he goes online and reads about apperture speeds and angles and shadows. And then he gets enthused and goes out and creates something beautiful.  

I see how much photography means to him.  And when I choose to not be selfish about his time away from me, I see that he is a man, yes.  One with a job and a family.  But he is also a person created to be creative in his own way.  He needs that time, as do I.  Time to support and feed the part of him that goes beyond work and responsibility.  The part of him that exists as really and truly as his “worker-bee” side.  He is good to give me time to do my things.

And I want to be better and better about giving him time and space, to do his thing.

Today I had the best fall of my life.  I am not quite sure how it started, but it definitely originated in the poor combination of lack of sleep and desire to jog.  In-between crossing the railroad tracks and climbing to higher ground, I stumbled.  And crashed full-on, sprawled out on the pavement.   My hands are all scuffed up and sore, and I have a long scratch on my hip-bone.  I saw an elderly man stopped at a stop-sign, wondering whether to assist me or not.  But he didn’t want to be awkward, and I put my funny face on, had a little laugh at myself.  And limped off.

Humble pie.  You taste awful.

This is on the heels of honest conversation and some apology about laughing at the misfortunes and clumsiness of others.  Bad move, Maryanne.  I do not believe in Karma, but if I did, this would be my moment to see it manifested.

Nothing tickles my funny bone like a good fall.  My Dad is faithful to ring the phone and page me whenever he takes a spill from a ladder.  My sister will instantly inform me when she has splattered and tumbled to the ground.

And I wonder: “What is wrong with me?”  “Where did this disease of malice come from?”  “What about when I am old and my bones cannot hold together and I am hobbling everywhere?”  “Will Pat sit in his wheel-chair and cackle at me?”  “Will this ever end, this enjoyment of the unfortunate?”

I am humbled. Humbled to the dust on the ground- literally.  I picked gravel out of my palms and am wearing an XXL Band-Aid across my hand.  And I cannot wash my hair, except to swish my arm around and hope for the best.

What goes around comes around, doesn’t it?  Karma I do not abide by, but sanctification I do.

I need to stop laughing right now.

Every day I get things done: cooking, cleaning, kissing, hugging, praying, listening. 

But my FAVORITE of all days are when I get to used my hands for something more than toil.  For something “just for fun”.  Yesterday I woke up not thinking the world was very fun at all.  Will had wrestled with a congested nose and teething until 1am.  And then tap, tap, tap….Josh was by my bed, with a sore ear.  And so it continued.  And thus my outlook was bleak, in the way it is when sleep-deprived.  It’s not real bleak, it’s just the pitiful outlook of one sleep-deprived.

And so, my Mom having stayed overnight pushed me out the door.  And Josh and I set out on a date together.  He loves these times, and I do too.  He tries to hold the door for me everywhere we go, and it touches me to see his respect and manliness developing. 

I was so refreshed to leave my germ-ridden habitat, to see other people, and to find some creative outlets for the Winter-Breaki-ing kids.

We picked up these adorable paper houses, and the girls painted them- to put in ther rooms.  I am actually thinking this may be the “big project” we work on for Anna’s birthday party in June.  Look how cute it is on her red desk.  Love it!

And Emma’s, on her table.  Did I mention I found a table for her room?  I talked the lady at the thrift store down, since the back leg wobbled.  Thankfully, we have a good relationship, and she smiled and was happy for me to get it out of the way.

Josh put together – with some Mimi-help- this model airplane.  It now sits on his red table.

And I….after all was quiet for the night, I pulled out my fabric scraps and these monogrammed buttons I found, and made the girls some posy flowers for their hair.

My Mom was sitting on the couch saying: “I cannot believe you are my daughter“.  Because I was raving about crafting and photography blogs and such.  And she was reading some vast historical biography, wondering how our genetics even remotely resembled one another’s.

So, it was not a bleak day in the end.  It was a happy one, and my 3 hours away did me an enormous amount of good.

DUDE

He is so interefered with.  So tormented.  So bothered.  So tugged on.  Kissed on.  Dressed up.  Dressed down.  Sat on.  Knocked down.  Rolled on.  Rolled over.  Hugged on.  Pulled on.  Pulled off of.  Picked on.  Picked up. 

He is so loved.

 Our sweet little man.

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep

(Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening- Robert Frost)

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Happy Snow-Fall from Atlanta, Georgia!!!