Ehh, so it snowed.

The Triangle area shut down this week as the sky dropped white, fluffy, cold stuff otherwise known as snow.

At the risk of sounding old and boring, I'm going to go ahead and say that the last time I enjoyed snow from somewhere other than in front of a window with a warm drink and sweats on was probably more than fifteen years ago. At the risk of sounding yet older and even more boring, snow's appeal--beyond being something pretty to look at--is utterly lost on me. It's cold, snowmen melt, and hot chocolate thrills me more than a hill and a sled any day.

Altogether now: Old and boring!

Thank goodness I now have a kid to save me from my old boringness!

(Or so I thought!)

So Wednesday I geared myself up to do what any good mother would do: Set aside my preferences to give my kid some fun.

As it turns out, he'll jump from the stairs into nothingness, run straight into ocean waves, laugh when Daddy body slams him on the couch, but when it comes to being cold -- he's not game. As the pictures show, we did get a few smiles, but his general expression reflected my sentiments exactly: What is this? Why does she have me out in it? Doesn't she know I'm cold?

We went outside three different times, and this was the basic progression each time:




Hmmm....



Fake smile



Okay, mittens help. I can get into this.

 

Oooh yeah, Mom's redneck sled: A laundry basket and a jump rope.
And another fake smile.

 

Yeah, yeah, this is fun!

 

Wahoo!

 And then, no lie, zero to sixty in about 2.5 seconds:



The first time



The second time

And the third

 

Bless his little southern heart.

 

All I can say is he gets it honest.

 

I did find one appeal to snow that I didn't know about before: The photo ops. We got some good ones:

 

 

 

 

Okay, snow, thanks. Now it's time for you to head on out. 

Key West Coral

She flipped the passenger seat sun visor down and clumsily applied Fire Engine Red lip liner and satchel (her word for lipstick) to her lips. I smiled from the driver's seat and thought to myself: The day she stops putting on lip satchel when we leave the house is the day I know she's really sick.

The occasion was Thursday evening, after my afternoon at home with her. The outing was one of a few things: K-Mart (or K-Market as she liked to call it), Wal-Mart (Wal-Market), Belks (to Mom, Belks was the mall, and the mall was Belks -- just like all sodas are Coke), or sometimes we skipped shopping altogether to get her nails done.

It's a memory I'll never forget.

***********
 
In the parking lot of the Serenity Nail Spa, I leaned over to wipe stray lip satchel from her teeth and straighten her liner with my fingernail before helping her inside. The music of foreign chatter enveloped us when I opened the door, the trademark sound of every nail spa in America, I imagine. The ladies paused briefly to look at us, me steadying mom under her arms and fumbling with the door.

She want nails done?

At my nod, they motioned us further in.

Mom picked OPI's Key West Coral, and the ladies helped me escort her to the pedicure throne. Mom didn't get pedicures before the brain tumor, so her almost childlike enjoyment of professional grooming couldn't solely be attributed to being couchbound for so long. Getting a pedicure was something new, and it was right up her alley.

She dipped her feet in the bubbling water and "ooo, ooo, ooo-ed" from the heat.

It too hot for her? The ladies asked me.

No, I assured them, she was just new at this. She ooo-ooo'ed at lots of things.

I can picture her right now, perched on that pedicure throne, listening curiously to her attendant's chatter, leaning towards me for a sip of Diet Coke whenever I presented the straw. The ladies painted her toes and then her fingers, and invariably we'd need a touch-up before walking out the door.

You such good daughter, the ladies would say as we were leaving. When you bring your mother back?

Again soon, I said.

Seeing Mom's painted fingers and toes made me believe for half a second she wasn't sick, the sight was so Anne pre-cancer. In fact, Mom used to tell a story about how Drew, as a baby, would cry when she didn't have polish on her fingernails. Polish to Mom was right up there with lip satchel and rouge.

When we got home and back to the couch, she pushed the blanket into a heap at one end, fearful of getting sheet marks (her term) on her nails were she to come in contact with it.

Turns out I wasn't the only one who loved seeing Mom's nails coated in Key West Coral. I think it also reminded her of herself pre-cancer, her hands and feet, she used to say, were the only things untouched by cancer and its treatments.

I'd call home for days after our Serenity trip to ask her how her nails were doing.

They look good, don't they, Mom?

Yes, she'd say. They look real good.

I hung up happy. Happy that she was happy.

I'm still happy thinking about it.

Key West Coral.

My Mama to a tee.



I sent this picture to Leslie while we were at the salon. I had lost track of it,
but she still had it. Sweet friend said she could never take it off her phone.

Better than Bieber

Taking a toddler to a retirement center is like taking Justin Bieber to an all-girls middle school (at least before he was arrested).

We know because we did it last weekend. (Well, the toddler part.)

Ryan had a work meeting close to my grandparents' retirement home in Virginia, so we seized the opportunity. Last time we were there, Will was not yet walking, and we missed seeing them over Thanksgiving, so a little trip to Springfield was in order.

We had dinner with them in their dining room on Friday and Saturday nights, and we could barely eat from all the attention. (And I thought I was popular in Target!)

I particularly recall Edna, who came up to our table on Saturday night and said with much gusto:
"I didn't tell you this last night, but that boy is a living baby doll. Just a living baby doll."
I'm pretty sure the whole dining hall heard her.

And so many sweet people stopped to smile, wave, and play patty cake. I think the last time I exchanged that many smiles, hellos, and thank yous in one place was on my wedding day.

But not all of the attention was good. For example, the woman who came up to me while we were waiting to be seated in the dining room:

"Ma'am, I just have to tell you this. You may not want to hear it, but I have to say it. The way your husband is holding onto that boy by the hood of his sweatshirt is not good. The lady sitting next to me while we were watching you agrees with me. You are doing damage to his neck, and I can already see it. You may not want to hear this from me, but there, I said it."

I thanked her for telling me. I wanted to say something about the damage that would be done to the dining room if Ryan let go of my boy's hood, but I knew that wasn't the point. I love that woman for her care and concern.

I have more to say about the visit with Grandma and Grandpa that I'll save for another post. In a nutshell, their sweetness and kindness is unsurpassed. Grandma sent me home with a completed Grandparents' Journal, filled with pictures and notes in her own handwriting. Priceless. Ashley had the idea, and Grandma made one for all four of her grandchildren. And she also sent me home with pieces from her silver collection and with Grandpa's mother's rolling pin. Stuff like that fills me up. It just fills me up like nothing else.

But more on all of that in another post.

When we were driving to our hotel room on Friday night after dinner, Ryan commented that he felt like Justin Bieber at that place. But then we decided, no, the folks at that retirement center would have rather seen Will than seen Justin. In fact, Justin could probably go there for some anonymity if he needed it. Will's toddling, on the other hand, gave him away the moment we walked in the door.

He's not Justin Bieber. But to them, I think he was better.

On the way back from dinner

Where grocery shopping is fun

Last week, Will went to the vet, rode in an ambulance, and bought his own groceries all in the same day.

That's right. We went to Marbles Kids Museum.

The place was so cool, I'm now contemplating buying a season pass.

Isn't it funny how much fun kids have pretending to do the mundane tasks we adults have grown to hate? I guess when grocery shopping and taking your animal to the vet (or much worse, riding in an ambulance!) become necessities versus play, they lose their appeal. At Marbles, thankfully, these things are play, and they are so much fun.

Thank you, Mimi, for going with us! We love, love, love you!

Just hanging out in the ambulance with spoons he carried over
from the kitchen. That boy and his spatulas and spoons!

 

Thursdays

Thursdays. To most, another day of the week. One day removed from Friday.

To me, a day of the week with the ripest memories.

For a couple of years before Mom passed, I spent every Thursday with her. Dad took time away from the house to golf or run errands, and I, with my flexible IBM job, set up my virtual office (a laptop and a cell phone) in their dining room. At this point, Mom was immobile on her own and required someone in the house with her around the clock.

I almost always got there around noon, and they'd be eating breakfast. Dad joked that the Hardison household operated on West Coast time.

"Hey Marmalade!" I'd bend down to kiss the top of her bald, scarred head.

"Hey Gertrude" (or Judy or Chicken or Alice or whatever funny name she was in the mood to use for me that day), she'd respond in a whisper.

I can't remember exactly when Mom got so quiet, but in the final years of her gradual decline, the sound of her voice matched the size of the world she was living in: small. First, she quit driving, then she quit walking, and eventually she pretty much quit talking.

Let me correct that: She didn't quit any of these things voluntarily. Her willing mind was suspended only by her damaged faculties. Damaged from prior brain surgeries and radiation. Cancer "treatments" that left behind a wake of destruction. But treatments we are grateful for, nonetheless.

By the time our Thursday ritual began, she was not only housebound, but mostly couchbound, too, getting up from her beloved throne (as she called it) only to eat at the table or use the bathroom.

A bowl of cereal was equivalent to brushing her teeth, such a morning essential it was. She'd be eating cereal when I walked in, my southpaw mama clumsily using her right hand to feed herself because her left hand bore the most complete brunt of the tumor's (and the treatments') wake. I'd wipe her mouth and take over. It was always funny to me that although her lap was full of cereal debris (her word), and her mouth and hands were sticky from milk, she'd see groid (her word for crumb or dirt) on the table in front of her and wipe it clean insistently with a napkin. Meticulous she was.

Many times, she'd be staring at the newspaper while she ate her cereal, and the normalcy of that sight always brought a smile to my face when I walked in the house. She hadn't been able to concentrate long enough to read in quite some time, but the newspaper was another morning essential, regardless.

When she'd consumed every last morsel of cereal (again, her word), I'd pour CranApple juice in her cup, wheel her to her cranberry-colored throne, and awkwardly, but surely, help her move from her wheelchair to the couch.

I once asked her if she went stir crazy being on that couch so much. She said no, she loved her house, particularly the den. She loved lying on her throne and looking at her collections from over the years, each thing reminding her of something wonderful from the past (so many of her things came from our summer trips to Florida). After that conversation, I quit worrying about her going stir crazy.

Once I got her on the couch, I usually had to dial into a phone call for work, so I'd turn on TV Land, hope for Lucy or Gunsmoke, kiss her head again, and tell her I'd be back soon to check on her.

"Tell those people you've got better things to do," she'd joke. And then add, "Okay, Chicken, love you. Don't be gone long."

After a phone call or two, I'd invariably walk back in the den and find her sleeping. She slept better during the daytime than at night, often telling me that she didn't fall asleep until 4am the night (morning) before. Earlier on in her housebound days, I knew the reason for that. She was too busy getting sucked into the infomercials on TV at night. Several times, I found little pieces of paper on her nightstand with scraggly 1-800 numbers written on them. And at least a couple of times, she completed the task. The doorbell would ring, and to Dad's surprise, it was a package for Anne Hardison: First, the Belly Burner. Then Cindy Crawford's Meaningful Beauty makeup. You can take the girl out of shopping, but you can't take shopping out of the girl.

When she woke up from her nap, we'd eat a snack together on the couch, usually trail mix or Chips Ahoy cookies with white chocolate chunks (her favorite).

On some Thursdays, after I finished work and before Dad got home from golf, I'd change her out of her gown, throw a bandana on her head, and take her out. It might be the only time she'd get out that week.

But those outings deserve a post all their own. I'll write about those soon.

Oh, Thursdays. Such good, good days.

Some days, I'd just crawl in bed with her.

What time can't steal

I'm not done writing about Mom. The year anniversary came and went, and I'm not done.

It may seem weird, but the thing that bothered me the most when she was dying was the fear of forgetting her once she was gone.

Leave it to me to always be worried about tomorrow.

Even driving to Mom and Dad's house during mom's bedside vigil one night, I remember crying on the phone to my dear friend Leslie about how afraid I was of forgetting her. I knew she was going to die soon, and what crushed me the most were the years ahead, the perceivable long life I still had to live. What would my thoughts of her be like when I was, Lord willing, 80? Would the passage of time dull my recall down to just a few facts? That is, after all, what time does, doesn't it? Slowly but surely makes sharp things fuzzy. Blurs present reality, with its sights, smells, feelings, and thoughts, into a collection of faint memories, minus the sights, the smells, the feelings and thoughts.

But--

Not if I write.

Time can't steal what's written down.

I have more stories to record about Mom: Our Thursdays together, her vocabulary, her run-in with my third-grade teacher, our shared compassion for brain tumor patient and high school friend Daniel O'Neal, her visits to Camp Thomsen, her incomparable humor.

I realize now why the year anniversary of her passing was so hard, and this is it. Each passing day takes me further away from when I last saw her. As the years pile on, so I'm afraid will the forgetfulness.

But, like Leslie assured me on the phone that night, I pray the Holy Spirit will bring things to mind even when time threatens to do the opposite.

And let's be honest: Anne Hardison is pretty unforgettable.

I gave it a go here on the blog last year, and Lord willing, I'm going to continue.

Here's to writing things down.

Mom and Me. Hilton Head. 2000

Be smarter

Round two of baby proofing the house has commenced.

I had one of those mommy heart attacks the other day.

Judge me not when I tell this story.

We have strategically turned our upstairs hallway into the equivalent of a padded room, a virtual safe house for Will. All doors are closed, the stairway is blocked, the outlets are plugged up, there's plexi-glass in front of the stair railing, and I've even removed the white rubber tips from the door stoppers. I'm so confident in this area's ability to safely contain my child, that I've left him playing out there by himself while I shower for months now.

You can probably see where this is going.

The other day, when I stepped out of the shower, I heard a mother's most dreaded sound. Not screaming. Silence. I heard silence. 

I opened my bedroom door and stepped out into the empty hallway. I yelled for Ryan. Surely he had come home unexpectedly while I was in the shower and had taken Will downstairs, or even outside.

No reply.

Panic. Panic, Panic, Panic.

I was just about to look over the bannister at the dreaded bottom of the stairs when I heard a tap-tap from inside the guest bedroom. I opened the door, and lo and behold: Will. Smiling, playing with a set of car keys.

The rest of the story is history, everyone's heard it before, but here's my take-away:

Babies are smart.


Be smarter:

Try it now, buddy.

Thank you, Lord, for your mercy and for the daily near misses I never even see.

Dear Will, your vocabulary is sweet. So are you.

Dear Will,

Last time I wrote you a letter, I was thinking about you turning one. My, how time flies. Since then, you turned the big 1 and are rounding the corner to 25, so it feels to your mama. You're still happy, loud, curious, and funny, and I've got a few more things I'll add to that list.

You're very vocal, just not in English yet. The English words you do know are three: Uh oh, cookie, and Graham Cracker. Way to go, son. Graham cracker's a hard one. Your word choices reveal a lot about me. I may be the only one who understands you, but when you ask for a cookie, I cannot resist. It's cute, and I want one, too. Let's keep adding more, okay? Choc-o-late. Choc-o-late. Chocolate.

In year two, milestones are measured by the number of your naps and the orientation of your car seat. We're down to one nap, which you and I seem to like a whole lot better than trying to get your spirited little self to sleep when the rest of the world isn't... twice in a day. That just never worked well. Your car seat still faces backwards, which is so boring, but it's bigger and roomier now, and you can feed yourself goldfish from your cup holder, which again is a score for both of us.

Spatulas are still your favorite things on earth, and I can't do one productive thing in the kitchen without you wanting to see it. I don't get much cooking done, and the kitchen is often a mess because of it, but the feel of your little hands on my legs to be picked up is worth both of those losses to me.

You love being outside, which has kind of made me despise the winter months around here on your behalf. I didn't think you minded the cold one bit until we took you to the property in 30-something degree weather one day last week. About fifteen minutes in, you cried in pain, holding up both hands and shaking both feet. I was ready to go at the five-minute mark, so I'm proud of you for making it to fifteen. Nobody said you had to like the cold. We've been passing the cold morning hours these days at the indoor playgrounds in the mall and Chick-fil-a. I can certainly think of worse.

You're a very good eater; we just struggle with vegetables sometimes. Again, that probably says something about me, not you, so don't worry about it. We're working on it. Butter and garlic salt can make even broccoli taste like a potato chip. (You know this at 16 months. Just call me mother of the year -- again.)

The nursery workers still use the word busy to describe you (with a happy but tired sigh) when we pick you up from Lambs on Tuesdays and from church service on Sundays. I interpret your busyness to mean you're going to be brilliant later. I really mean that. But no pressure. I love you regardless of your brains. I just love you. Regardless.

You still laugh spontaneously, and that is a gift I wish more of us had. You laugh, I laugh, you laugh -- the only difference from 11 months is that now your gummy smile has cute little pearly whites across the front. I grit my teeth at the cuteness every time: My snookie, my chicken, my darlin'.

Daddy and I pray with you before meals and before bed and sometimes in the car just because we need to. We thank the Lord for your warm bed, and your good food, and your great friends, and even better than those things, we thank the Lord for Jesus. Daddy and I pray that you will cherish Him above all as soon as your little heart can. "'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus" isn't just our song, it's your mom and dad's testimony, and we pray it's yours one day, too.

We love you, and we love you, and we love you. You bring us such joy. Keep carrying on, little chicken!

Love,
Mom


Have a look at yourself, almost 16 months old:

 

At the playground in the mall

1 going on 25. Wouldn't even look at the camera.

 

 

And a close-up of the shoes in case you couldn't see
them well enough in the previous picture. Have you ever
seen such?
We have your buddy Easton Little to thank for these kicks.

And this is the price I pay for folding laundry while you're
 awake these days

Before someone calls Social Services on me, you crawled right
in while I was loading the dryer. I took a pic and told you
Never Again.



Birthdaying

I'm late posting this, but Ryan's birthday bon fire got rained out last month. To make up for it, we had the family over for burgers (because Ryan's idea of the perfect evening is one where he does the hosting and the cooking -- gotta love that about him!).

First we celebrated just the three of us with cake and presents:

Cake cred to Whole Foods!

 

You'd have thought it was Will's birthday

And then a few nights later we had the family over:

It was my goal for the night to get a good picture of Will and Graham wearing their matching Christmas t-shirts:

Graham's looking

Now Will's looking

Now Graham's looking at something else

Then Will wants to touch the camera

And then he steals Graham's phone

And tries mightily to get away (look at that face!)

Now no one has the phone. (But Will's looking for it.)

Then Graham needs to stretch

 

While Will contemplates eating the pillow (Good job, though, Graham)

So we give Will a spatula. (But it doesn't buy us any looks.)

Until this. Finally. Sort of.

Oddly enough, you know what the best pic of all was?

The one where neither was looking!
Cute cousin love.

Okay, or maybe best pic is a tie between that one and this one:

Grandpa love

 

Whatever the case, Happy (belated) Birthday, Ryan! From your family of crazies.