Two.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl! Two years ago today, you lit up my life with your smile, your softness, your unquenchable smile. I’m forever grateful for the incredible and beautiful gift of you.

Motherhood and the Art of Celebration

“You have in store an outpouring of one of God’s greatest blessings on Earth–the joys of the gift of a child.”

My mother wrote that prediction in a book she gave me for my first Mother’s Day as a mother. I was blessed enough to be able to spend the holiday this year with both my mother and my children. And, as it so often happens, the day played out with Mama spending most of it serving me. Mothers are remarkable creatures, indeed. As you may have surmised from last week’s posts, that first Mother’s Day holiday for me came just a few days after Little Drummer Boy was born. I was still reeling from the sheer joy and wonder of actually being able to see and touch him. Mama was right. Being a mother to LDB, Squiggle and Baby Girl has been the most soul-changing, incredible, challenging, rewarding, frustrating, amazing, exhausting and joyful experience of my life. All at the same time. I’m sure most mothers would say the same thing. It’s the nature of the job. When Little Drummer Boy was born, I remember feeling so unprepared, but I sort of fell into the role led by my love for this incredible little human before me. And my mother helped.

Mama stayed with me for several weeks after Little Drummer Boy was born, as she did with each of my gifts. She was on-hand to offer support and to help with the requisite diaper-changing, bathing, answering of questions, sleeplessness and general cooking and cleaning. That practical service was much needed, of course, but she helped me in ways she probably never realized. And, it started long before Little Drummer Boy’s birth.

As a child, I remember my mother talking to me. I remember her reading books like Are You My Mother? and admonishing me to put my own book away at bedtime as I grew older. I remember her asking me every afternoon about what I did that day and listening to the answers. I remember her giving me time. I remember her baking cookies and decorating them. I remember her putting money in a small envelope in the cabinet for our vacation. I remember her planting violets and marigolds and looking at wallpaper and sewing patterns. I remember creamed tuna on toast with English peas. I don’t ever remember sharing a negative word about Mama with anyone else, not even during those teenage years. There was just something wrong about it, something of a betrayal of her endless effort on my behalf that kept me from falling into that all-too-common mindset of growing up. Perhaps it was because I grew up as an only child. As such, I spent a lot of time around grown-ups, mainly my mother and father. The enjoyment, conversation, togetherness and anticipation of family time was ingrained in me at a very young age. Somehow Mama instilled in me a love of spending time together.

In all these mundane and daily experiences, I remember Mama’s ability to elevate the commonplace to the level of celebration. I’m not sure that was really her conscious and well-conceived intention, but I’ve always felt that the art of celebration was–and is–her gift. I grew up and came of age knowing that paying attention to the joy of life’s daily experience was important to her. Knowing that celebration itself is important. Knowing that it can be a way of life, if you’re just willing to make it so. Beyond her cooking ability, her penchant for gardening, her prowess as a seamstress, and all the other womanly and motherly traits she possesses, that skill of celebration–that discipline–is the one that rises to the surface this Mother’s Day. It has colored a thousand other experiences for me. It is the chief lesson I have sought to incorporate into my own home. It is the mother I want to be.

Far from being a formula, as I think about those memories of childhood and the approach my mother took to homekeeping and mothering and celebration, some themes emerge–lessons I’ve noticed that characterize her way of living, her way of raising me and even her way of being a grandmother now. It’s these lessons my Mama taught me about being a mom, about keeping a home and living a life that I strive to put into practice, just as she did.

Effort is worth making.
It is. I grew up knowing that if something needed to be done, my Mama could do it. And, she would do it. She wouldn’t let anything get in her way. No setback, no empty jar of something or another, no shortage of fabric or icing or whatever requirement for the latest task would deter her from making a project be what we wanted it to be. At age 40 with my own mothering experiences, I now understand that in all actuality, Mama couldn’t do everything. But, there remains a common sense of ingenuity and creativity that was fueled by her insistence that something be special. It was her necessity. Something she wasn’t willing to give up. And she made it happen. Through her own demonstration, Mama taught me that common experiences are worth the extra effort. I don’t mean that things were always perfect or that our home was an issue of Martha Stewart Living. No, we lived a real life. But, Mama put equal effort into making both Beef Wellington and Cheesy Dogs seem special. It was a gift to the people around the table, whether they recognized it or not. Whether it meant staying up late until the turkey was done, chasing down red hots for snowman cookie eyes and buttons, or taking the seam out three times to be sure it would lie flat, I grew up knowing my mother would put in whatever effort was required. I want my babies to know that too.

Little things are important.
They are. My parents were both public school educators. Mama taught third grade. With those professions in Mississippi (or anywhere, really) I’m sure their budgets were on the meager side of adequate. But, I never wanted for anything. Anything. I’m sure there were things and experiences that I missed out on, but I never knew it. I never knew of a time when I didn’t have an abundance. I attribute that overflow to my mother’s ability to make little things important. I didn’t need big things. The small details were given greater significance because of Mama’s attention to them. And because we experienced them together, while giggling and talking and sharing. I came to appreciate the unfinished doll house at Christmas rather than the fully-outfitted one–because I had the fun of Mama helping me choose our own wallpaper for the tiny rooms, sewing the tiny curtains for the plastic windows and painting the front door before hanging the tiny wreath on it. I came to appreciate that we rarely had a meal without placemats–because they just changed creamed tuna on toast and cheesy dogs somehow. I came to appreciate the extra ruffle sewn on a pillow case or the seat cushion covered in coordinating fabric or the bow added to the standard lampshade. These were the little things that made a house a home, and a home our home. I hope I can give my babies that same abundance.

Memories matter.
They do. Mama kept things. Whether small trinket gifts from her third-grade students, the churn top that belonged to her grandmother, the last remaining (albeit chipped) cup and saucer from her wedding “everyday” tableware or some framed “artwork” I made in preschool, these artifacts adorned our home in some fashion or another. One thing I learned from my mom through her tendency toward not throwing “stuff” away is that things are things, but they also often hold the memories and impressions of experiences. They are tangible evidence of joy and struggle and the full gamut of the life we partake. The value of “things” doesn’t necessarily rest merely in their shape or the material of which they are constructed, but in the memories they hold of significant times and places and people. Through Mama’s celebration bent, I learned that traditions and keepsakes are how we bring experiences forward to the next ones. They are how we string experiences together. Telling stories, keeping reminders, and displaying the artifacts of our experiences can teach us the context from which we come and offer a framework for the places we’re going. I hope I can move those memories forward with my children.

Above all the lessons in the art of celebration imparted by my mother, perhaps the one most poignantly seen even today is that motherhood is serving. And, it’s a lifelong endeavor. Mama never fails to fold laundry while at my home or to read a book to a grandchild. She has taught me as much in my adult life as any other time that mothering is giving. Time, money, energy, effort, wisdom. Motherhood is giving–even when it hurts. Giving when it’s frustrating, when it’s painful. Giving. When it’s hard. And as I watch her example and strive to put that particular lesson into practice, I’m finding that motherhood has a unique ability to pull from a deep well of love-fueled resources. It finds the ability to give when it seems there is nothing to give.

For me, these are profound lessons for motherhood gleaned from my life’s best demonstration. And, oddly enough, they happen to be pretty good lessons for life beyond motherhood as well.

Thank you, Mama.

Oh Happy Day 050710: A Time Piece

Hello, Friday! It’s the day that marks the end of the work week and the beginning of the weekend (at least it does for me at about 5:30pm CST.) For the latest installment of my Oh Happy Day! Gratitude Project, I’ve been thinking about marking time.

Last weekend, I took three watches to the store to install new batteries. I kept forgetting the task for several weeks, and each day at work I’ve been completely lost without the wrist-bound vehicle for marking time. I found myself glancing to the upper right corner of Kermit (my trusty laptop, for the unindoctrinated) repeatedly throughout the days just to orient myself. It’s interesting how much we come to incorporate that simple task into our daily routine. There is something special about keeping time, about acknowledging its passage. It orients us. It gives us context. And, although it may appear to speed up or slow down depending on our activities, it’s very consistency puts our own context in parallel with the rest of the world’s.

So, I have three watches. Two of them have been without batteries for a while and lost to me because of my annoying tendency to procrastinate. (Evidence that time and I need to come to an understanding, I know. But, that’s another post.) When the third battery wound to a complete halt, it served as my motivation to act–a few weeks later of course. Sigh. One watch is a quirky Minnie Mouse version I purchased during my first summer living in Las Vegas, NV back in the day. Minnie is sporting her typical babydoll dress and flirtatious pose in silver on a plain black background. The glass of the face is faceted to provide just enough sparkle as the light hits both to make me smile and to hinder my ability to focus on Minnie’s big hand all at the same time. My second watch was a gift from my Mom and Dad for my 30th birthday. It’s a demure and very professional-looking black leather and silver Ann Klein version with no numbers and a slight pin-stripe face. The watch that broke the camel’s back (so to speak) is a lovely Swiss Army Victorinox stainless steel linked variety that the Queen gave me in celebration of my 10-year anniversary at the day job. We often choose carefully–and people choose carefully for us–the instruments for marking our time.

It’s been an eventful week in my relationship with time. You may have read in the essays about birthdays and anniversaries I’ve been celebrating. Topping my gratitude list, I’ve been thankful for the joy of keeping time, of marking events in celebration. I’m realizing that time is celebration-worthy. So often in our striving to mark it this way or that way, we think of time as our enemy, and the keeping of it as a cumberson task that reminds us of how little we’ve done or how little of it we have remaining. We hate waiting. We resist moving forward. We’re disgruntled with looking back. We’re intimidated by looking ahead. We are even dissatisfied with this moment. With every passing day I mark, I want to resist this notion.

There is something very God-inspired about keeping time. The Bible’s account of Creation draws our attention to it with every action. “There was evening and there was morning, one day.” “There was evening and there was morning, a second day.” And so it goes. In the inception of time, the marking of it began. The commemoration of evening and morning. The capping off of one time period to usher in the next. The acknowledgement of time’s passage was ingrained from those very first moments.

Having just celebrated my first-born’s fifth birthday, the 2-year anniversary of EyeJunkie and a hundred other significant and more ordinary occurences evident in the passage of time, I find I’m grateful for the sheer joy of marking it. The joy of remembering, of remembering milestones. The joy of evaluating, of finding the value from seasons. The joy of even having time, of experiencing this life in sequence. The joy of celebrating time spent, invested. Together and apart. This marking defines a thousand starting points and perhaps just as many ending points and all the markers along the way. The counting down of hours and the counting up of years.

It’s true that this moment is all we have. We have memories, both bitter and sweet, of time passed. We have hopes and dreams of the time ahead of us. But, we are living THIS moment. If there is anything to be gained from the celebration of milestones, the marking of important events and significant (or even just regular) time periods, it is that this moment deserves an audience.

So, today, I’m sitting with attention. I’m moved by the action in front of me. I’m standing in an ovation. I’m offering applause. I’m so grateful to have put THIS moment on my calendar.

Oh Happy Day!

9th Day of Thanksgiving: The Tree Revisited

Whew! I’m thinking through Wednesday’s post to sum up this year’s EyeJunkie experiment in giving thanks, and I think I need to lighten up a bit for a few days. So…

What’s a 12 Days of Thanksgiving without a few lists? You know the ones. The “what I’m thankful for” lists. I have an expanded Tuesday Ten one I’m brainstorming for tomorrow, but I thought I’d share a few things from the Thanksgiving Tree we’re decorating this year. I’ll admit, we haven’t been quite as faithful with the everyday part of it I had planned, but that’s usually the way it works. It’s been a fun experiment that excited the boys, which made me excited, too. They don’t really understand the concept of giving thanks completely. But, they’re learning. (Aren’t we all?) And, this has been a fun way to help them. For a celebration-junkie like myself, hearing them shout “our Thanksgiving Tree” as they ran toward their breakfast poptarts was enough incentive to add the tradition to next year’s November as well. Enjoy the fruit of our thanksgiving “ornaments!”

Little Drummer Boy:
Our Thanksgiving bracelets [the little tags we put on the tree that they enjoyed wearing on their arms first]
“I got to see the lions and tigers”
Our food
The little pumpkin [the one holding the "Thanksgiving bracelets"--it's the little things, people]
Our new curtains [there's my good catch in training]
G-Mo, Paw-T and Aunt B

Squiggle Bug:
Our family of scarecrows [the ones sitting on our porch which we say goodbye to each morning]
The Thanksgiving Tree [that's my celebration-junkie in training]
Our trucks [all 6,377 of them]
Riding in a racecar buggy at the grocery store [thank you, Kroger]
“I got to see the giraffes”

Baby Girl:
[we added things about Baby Girl we were thankful for, and she shouted them out in her own special language]
She is curious [translation: Mommy hasn't had a heart attack (yet) while Baby Girl's in this stage]
Baby Girl’s toys
She loves spaghetti [and we have the Spray 'N Wash stock to prove it]
She’s almost grown up [apparently that will make her even more fun]
Her rash went away quickly [see item about emergency room]

Quiver:
Three gifts: LDB, Bug & Baby Girl
Good weather on our zoo trip
The work we have
God’s forgiveness
Mommy

Me:
Medicine [shortly after a weekend with our first two trips to the emergency room -- minor problems, but traumatic (for Mommy) nonetheless]
God’s word
No rain on a particularly long day out of town for a meeting
A fun zoo weekend together with G-Mo and Paw-T
Saturdays

Tues Twelve 110309: Fall on the Farm

This week’s Tuesday Ten Twelve list features things I love about Fall on “the farm”–one of my favorite places on earth. These scenes were captured on our recent sojourn for the Busy Bee Birthday Bonfire Bash, a family tradition.

1. Unswept cobwebs.

2. Wagon rides.

3. Yellow.

4. Brangus.

5. Red.

6. New heights.

7. Contemplation.

8. Aging vibrantly.

9. Overgrown paths.

10. First looks.

11. Shared gifts.

12. Beauty in unwatched places.

[This post is brought to you with special thanks to G-Mo and Paw-T, who gave us a Canon PowerShot SX20IS digital camera for the Montgomery adults' collective birthdays. Astounding life documentation on the way!]