Author: althea

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First Mother’s Day without my mom

mothersday.JPGMay 11: Days like today really make me address some of the sadness that I carry around now that Mom is gone.  It’s almost like I’ve found ways to store some of the hurts – nicely folded and put in printed hat boxes on a shelf in my heart.  Then a day like Mother’s Day comes along, and I need to open the boxes up and shake open the contents.  I felt really sad this morning that Mom couldn’t see her grandkids.  It’s a hurt I don’t think about all the time, but today it just felt newly sad and unfair and so so hard that my mom of all people doesn’t get to enjoy her grandchildren.  She would so love Andrew.  And she’s stroke Sylvie’s soft, firm cheeks, and her heart would be so happy.
So I’d just like to put out there again for the record that this all is just very unfair and not fun at all.

Growing up, Mom had us believe that Mother’s Day was about grandmothers.  When we were young, I don’t think we did much for our mom on Mother’s Day.  It was all a part of Mom not asking for acknowledgment for herself.  So I feel like she really, really deserved to get some payback for all her hard work in the upcoming years as she watched her kids flourish.

I think the things that make me the most sad about Mom not being her are

  • having her miss out on my kids – and on other potential grandkids in the future
  • having her miss Maretta’s wedding and watching her and Kyle start their life together
  • her not getting to finish raising Joe and (to a slightly lesser extent) Maretta

Yup.  Those are the points that are really hard for me to accept.  There are all sorts of reasons why I miss her and why I want her back for me, but those are the reasons that I want her back for her.

Bryan and I took the kids out to the cemetery today.  It was my first visit there since the burial.  Dad had been by earlier with some daisies.  On the way there, I told Andrew where we were going.

Me:  “We’re going to the cemetery where we buried Grandma in the ground after she died.  It’s a pretty place, and we wanted to go there to tell her we love her.”
Andrew: pause
Me: “How does that make you feel?”
Andrew: “A yiddle bit sad…  They buried grandma in the ground??  I miss my mommy.”

So we talked about it a little more…I mention that I miss my mom enough that I really think Andrew has a pretty good handle on what is going on.   And we went to the Windsor cemetery and stood near the bare earth on her grave site.  It is a nice place.  Mom talked about it in terms of being planted.  She’s planted in a nice place.  And we’re going to plant some trees for her.  I think a scarlet oak and a non-fruiting flowering crab apple.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.  We wish you were here.

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Happy Mother’s Day!

hugging.JPGMay 11: I just wanted to send a quick hello to all my mom friends out there.  Dad came over for lunch, and we toasted all the mothers who got us to where we are today.  Andrew and I made a yummy berry coffee cake for breakfast this morning, and I think we’re going to head over to Olbrich this afternoon.  I just uploaded a week’s worth of pictures (boy, are those kids cute!).  They can be found in the gallery.

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Poem recitation

Yesterday at breakfast, Andrew shocked me by reciting one of Shel Silverstein’s poems from start to finish. Then he did it again so I could video it…a small miracle! This is one cute kid:)

Joey Joey took a stone
And knocked
Down
The
Sun!
And Whoosh! It swizzled
Down so hard.
And bloomp! It bounced
In his backyard.
And glunk! It landed
On his toe!
And the world was dark,
And the corn wouldn’t grow!
And the wind wouldn’t blow!
And the cock wouldn’t crow!
And it always was Night,
Night,
Night.

All because
Of a stone
And Joe.

~Shel Silverstein

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Thinking of Mom

duchman.JPGMay 4:   While I was at Jack’s for the wildflower weekend, Sylvia and I stayed in the guest bedroom.  It felt nice but kind of heavy to be sleeping in one of the rooms that Mom had so meticulously decorated.  She spent many years helping Jack decorate his home, and almost every detail was shaped by her sense of style.  Between seeing her imprint on the walls around me, thinking back on all the wonderful family vacations we took together at Jacks, and being close to the beautiful Wisconsin River, my mind filtered through thoughts of Mom all weekend.  I think that if after she died, her spirit dissipated into a million million pieces that many of them might have found their way to the Lower Wisconsin River.  I can imagine her energy flitting over the water like the swallows or living on in the powerful down strokes of a bald eagle as it launches into the sky.
Bergum Bottoms was always one of Mom’s favorite places, and walking down the beautiful road – eating lunch next to the River with the little girl she never met on my lap – made me want to appreciate it for her.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that I now appreciate life more since losing Mom, but I would say that I’ve become innately aware of the impermanence of life.  That feeling you get on New Year’s Eve singing Auld Lang Syne has stuck with me.  I often find myself looking around at the place I am occupying, the people I am with, the feeling I have in my heart because of their company, and I hold onto it a little more because I know it’s a moment in time and that we really can’t count on having things repeat again and again just as we would wish.  I don’t think go around thinking that bad things will or might happen, I just try to make things count a bit more, pay a little more attention, and love a little harder.

Back in September, Joe wrote a post on his blog that has really stuck with me:

Given any moment, I have a set of conditions under which my brain operates. I assume that there is something beneath my feet, holding me up. I assume that there will continue to be oxygen in the air for me to
breathe after this breath. I assume the Earth isn’t going to spontaneously combust. I assume that I have a father, a mother, two sisters, and a brother. When I take time to stop and think about these conditions under which I am continually operating, I realize that they aren’t all true. I rediscover the flaw in the code of my brain and it feels like an entirely new wound.

For me, the conditions under which I operate feel a little less certain than they did years ago.

I assume that the next time I see you, dear reader, we will have as nice a time together as we did last time.  But you never know.  So I’ve been responding to the unknowable-ness of our future by hanging on to the relationships that I treasure just a bit more tightly.

Sometimes I think it’s nice to get out of my normal routine for even a couple days.  It seems to allow my brain to do some meandering along less traveled paths.

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New opportunities for art

May 4: April 30 was Bryan’s mom’s birthday, and to celebrate, we decided to pull up the art easel that they had gotten Andrew for Christmas.  Andrew saw the box at Christmas time, but he’d forgotten all about it, so a few days ago, Michael put it together for him.  Andrew has really been enjoying having open access to drawing supplies.  The video below and some photos in the gallery show him having a fun time.

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Walking amidst the wildflowers

wildflowerweekend.JPGMay 4: What a lovely weekend!  On Friday, Sylvia and I drove out to Jack’s house to attend his annual wildflower weekend.  Sylvia “sang” well over half of the two-hour drive both there and back.  Urgh.  But for the rest of the weekend, she was just delightful to be around.  Jack’s house is on the Wisconsin River; I think it’s just about my favorite place in the world.  Around 20 people attended the weekend this year…mostly friends of Jack’s whom I’ve known since I was small.  Sylvia was a big hit with everyone, and she really enjoyed meeting Jack for the first time.
Photos from our spring weekend are in the gallery.

On Saturday, we took a nice long hike across Jack’s land, down through Bergum Bottoms, up a big, big hill, across a lovely, windy meadow, and back down.  Aside from chasing Andrew around, I haven’t been particularly active over the last five months, but the 11 mile hike was good.  Sylvia was in my front carrier, and she dozed most of the day.  We all stopped for a few breaks while I nursed her, and she made sure to keep the party going by getting fussy and demanding that we (or at least I) resume walking promptly after her meal was over.  It felt great to be introducing her to so much fresh air and such a lovely place at the tender age of two months:)  And I enjoyed the challenge of scrambling over trees and clambering up and down muddy hills with a wee one.  A little challenge is a good thing:)

We had lots of yummy meals, good music, and great company.  Most everyone else camped, which was pretty much winter camping since the temperature got down to below freezing last night!  I figured that it was a bit too early for Sylvia to camp in freezing weather, so we were sung in the house.

There were lots of fantastic birds to be seen at the feeders in front of the house.  At one point, two indigo buntings and two goldfinches perched on a tube feeder.  Someone mentioned that it looked like the Michigan flag!  There were oriole sightings, rose breasted grosbeaks, and lots of other sweet little birdies to watch.

I hadn’t been on the wildflower walk since 2005 – when I was pregnant with Andrew – and it was great to get to see everyone and hike the trails again.  I’m already looking forward to our annual family summer trip in August!

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Who’s awake now?

May 2, 3:45 am: Sylvia is spending her first night in her crib tonight.  It’s (I believe) the first time since she was born that I’ve gotten out of bed at night.  That’s one of my favorite bits about having her sleep right next to me.  I barely have to come-to at night to feed her.  But the last week or so, my right hand has been numb every morning, so I figured that my body had had enough of sleeping funny (my arm off to the side over her head) and she should try out her new room.
I’ve gotten out of bed a couple times to nurse, and she went right back to sleep this last time.  But I didn’t.  For the first time since she was born, I tossed and turned and couldn’t sleep.  And my hand is still numb even without her in bed!   So I decided to get up to hang out on the computer for a bit and listen to the thunder storm before heading back to bed.  Bon Soir!

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My favorite blogs

April 29: I really enjoy following a variety of blogs, and it occurred to me that some of my readers might like to hear about a nifty tool that allows you to check on the status of your favorite blogs without having to visit each one.  “Wouldn’t it be cool,” you might think, “if there was one website I could go to and see if there was anything new to read on my email, favorite blogs, favorite news sources, etc.?”  The good news is that there is just such a tool and the even better news it that it’s ultra easy to use and the one I use is very pretty to look at.

iGoogle allows you to create a your own customizable homepage (it takes about 30 seconds to set up).
You can have all sorts of content on the home page.  Mine for example (see the image below) shows new emails I’ve received and the top three stories of all the websites I regularly view.  So I can see at a glance if any of my siblings or Julie or Karen have written a new post.  I also have a spot where I can see if I’ve had any new comments on my website (because I just love reading my comments!).  To add new content to my Google homepage, I can either click on the RSS icon in my web browser’s address bar (it’s the orange and white icon) on the right-hand side or type in the URL of the blog.

While I’m sharing info about cool things you can do with this tool, I should mention that Google news alerts allows you to create custom queries for news.  So I can set up a Google news search for “Dotzour” to see where Bryan’s dad was last quoted.  Or I can create a search for articles about land conservation that are printed in Wisconsin.  The results of these searches can be shown on my Google homepage as well.  Very handy!  And potentially makes me feel much more on top of things than I really am!  Just remember that whenever you see the RSS feed icon in the address bar that you can add it to your Google homepage (or other RSS feed aggregator).

I’ll also just say that I love Google’s calendar…it’s what I use to keep myself organized…and Google Documents which allows you to create and share Word, Excel, and PowerPoint-type documents.  The best part is that you can access them from anywhere – a real help when I was working on things from home, work, and the coffee shop!

OK, I’ve been meaning to write a post about the joys of my Google homepage for quite some time.  It’s too fun a tool not to share!  Plus, you can make it pretty with all kinds of fun themes.  I love that kind of thing!

Enjoy!

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Morning activities

April 29: Andrew is counting to 20 in his room instead of napping.  Sylvia is sleeping with intermediate wake-ups.  She’s very mad when she wakes up, but then pop in the paci, and back to dreamland she goes.  Andrew has been wearing big-boy undies for the last several weeks, but he came out of his room a bit ago with a “poopy diaper”  a.k.a. poopy underpants.  While I was washing out his undies, he sat on the toilet and dropped his dad’s dice into the water.  (Bryan, if you’re reading this, sorry!  I pulled them out and washed them off with soap.)  Trying not to lose my cool, I got the little guy re-clothed and back into his room for continued quiet time.  Which since it is not particularly quiet nor restful for Andrew I may re-name “Mommy-needs-a-break-time.”
Michael came over this morning.  He’s back from visiting Joe in Maine with Terry and hasn’t yet started the job hunt.  I rented a van, and we moved our queen-sized guest bed to his house.  Then he brought over Rocky’s pizza for lunch.  Michael stayed home with the kids while I picked up an dropped off the truck.  It was one of the first times I’ve left Sylvie.  They did fine:)
Before he left, Michael helped me set up an art easel that Granny and Grandad got Andrew last Christmas.  I’d been waiting until we moved the rooms around to pull it up.  When Andrew gets up from his “mommy needs a break” time, he’ll have a fun surprise!
Thanks Uncle Bubba, for all your help today!

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New bedrooms!

cutekids.jpgApril 28: We were productive over the weekend!  While Bryan mulched and dug weeds and planted Sylvia’s new magnolia tree, I played musical rooms with our bedrooms.  Sylvia sleeps in bed with us, and her dresser has been in the guest room.  We change her diaper and clothes either in our bedroom or in Andrew’s room or in our room.
I’ve been planning to move Andrew to the guest bedroom and make Andrew’s room back into a nursery for Sylvie.  So in the last couple weeks, I acquired some safari-print sheets for Andrew’s bed, a cool new clock for his wall, and a zebra rug for the floor.  Then on Saturday, I moved Sylvia’s stuff from the guest room to our room.  I moved the queen bed out to the sunroom, and transferred Andrew’s bed to his new room.  I swapped the dressers in the tow rooms, and  I pulled the puff rocker from the sunroom into Andrew’s room.   Bryan helped me pull the crib up from the basement, and we got that all set up in Sylvia’s room.  Then I had fun hanging pictures on the walls and organizing book shelves.  I got to hang the beautiful silk canopy above Sylvia’s crib (don’t worry, I’ll take it down when she gets old enough to grab it) and put pretty touches around the room for her.
Andrew leapt wildly about his new room, rolling around on his rug and cheering.  So I don’t think I have to be worried about him liking it.  Pictures of the new rooms (and of other cute kid antics) are in the gallery.

We also go the kid a new mattress for his bed.  The bed frame is one that I used, and we got the mattress quite used back in the ’80s, so his new sheets are covering a much firmer, cushier bed.

Syliva’s room has two sound machines…one I bought specially for her and the Sleep Sheep that my mom had used for a long time.  It seems like having both of them going simultaneously helps my very sound-sensitive daughter find her way to dreamland.  We put her down in her crib last night, and she slept there until around 1am.  It was the first time we’ve slept in separate rooms ever.  I flipped between feeling luxuriant and missing her dreadfully.  Bryan brought her into bed when she woke, so in the morning, I had my little one snuggled up against me.  What a sweetheart (as Andrew says!).

Now each kid has his/her own space, and it feels really nice and settled. Wow.  We have a full house!

PS.  Any ideas about how to move a queen sized bed across town?  I’m going to take it over to Michael’s house, but I’m not sure how to do it other than renting a truck!