I don't talk too much about the kids, here, anymore, on account of their being whole adults---not just, like, "okay, legally they're adults," but more like "they have retirement accounts with a corporate match" kind of adults. It's weird. You have to remember that not only do I routinely picture the ones I baked myself as wee, puppylike children, but Chickadee and Sunny actually went to elementary school together. I met Sunny when she was EIGHT. All three of them should be small and slightly rumpled and gap-toothed. Instead, all three of them lead their own lives largely without my input...
I popped up long enough, last month, to tell you that I have So Many Wedding Planning Stories and also to tell you about Monkey graduating from college, and then I disappeared (again! I am nothing if not predictable in my slacker-ness!) because it turns out that the last month before a wedding is ABSOLUTE BONKERS INSANITY no matter how well you thought you planned. Those last four weeks, I kept saying "After this task, I'm done!" and I believed it, too, every single time. But I wasn't actually done until the wedding day itself, because there was always someone who needed me to verify...
I have about six million things I've been meaning to update y'all on---most of them wedding-related, because HOOBOY planning a wedding is not for the faint of heart or sober, and I happen to be both---but they will have to wait just a wee bit longer. (Those tidbits will be worth the wait, I think. If I had a nickel for every time someone said to me "ONLY YOU, MIR!"... well, I'd have a whole lot of nickels. Not enough to pay for the wedding, you understand, but a LOT.) Nope, today is not for that, because today I have finally gathered my thoughts (as much as they are ever gathered, anyway) on...
Would you believe that my first entry here on ye olde blog was written when my oldest was six years old, tiny and sassy and chirpy and endlessly chatty, and on Saturday that little bird of a girl graduated from college, tall and lovely and grown and measured and oh, lord (this is no time for humility, right?), loaded down with cords and medals and other symbols of how she rocked the last three and a half years like the utter boss she is? Would you believe that for years I prayed every day, multiple times a day, that she would just make it through one more day, please, God, I don't know if I...
If pressed, I am going to tell you that the best two days of my life were when my kids were born. (If pressed further---and/or if Otto is there---I will slot my wedding to him in a very close third place.) Bringing forth new life and the miracle of birth and oh hey ALSO having two human beings grow from screaming lumps into semi-functional adults is pretty nifty, not gonna lie. So let us assume that those are the "best" two days of my life, okay? THAT SAID, the last few weeks of my life contain two notable events which are giving my children a run for their money. Not only that, but my...
Perhaps you remember when Chickadee figured out what she wanted out of a college and then made it happen, and I was over the moon because not just YAY COLLEGE but also YAY LOOK AT YOU ADULTING and YAY YOU MADE IT and such. It was a time of MANY FEELS, many capital letters, and me randomly getting weepy and saying I AM JUST SO PROUD OF YOU to her at the most inopportune and (one assumes) embarrassing times. I'm sure she loved it. All of that was very exciting. It remains exciting, actually. If you think I don't periodically get teary and LOOK AT YOU GO all over again with her, you don't know...
2016 continues to be a never-ending dumpster fire and I'm not going to tell you what to do with yourself, but I have found baking more cookies to be very therapeutic. Our entire house is now filled with cookies. Crowded, yes, but on the other hand: Cookies! Plus, my eldest apparently has half a dozen pals from college coming to stay with us for a few days, and I suspect I can count on them to take care of my cookie problem. Anyhoo. Here is a good thing to do when you are feeling like everything is terrible: Get on a plane. Fly across the country. Sneak into the kitchen of your best friend on...
Y'all. We made it. Chickadee's at college. Now is the appropriate time for an AMEN and a HALLELUJAH and any other celebratory exclamation of your choosing. This was a long road and I would've happily changed MANY MANY parts of it, given the option, but in the end it led her right where she needed to be. Have I mentioned how proud I am of this kid? She astounds me every day. So yes, it is bittersweet. But everyone warned us we'd all be bawling and I said NUH UH and everyone did the whole "Just you wait" and guess what? It was great. I'm not going to tell you my eyes weren't a little glossy by...
Hey! How was your weekend? Didja do anything fun? Things were pretty uneventful 'round here. I mean, um, I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything good on TV, though my firstborn did graduate from high school. That was pretty much the most exciting thing ever for a million reasons, chief among them that I will do almost anything to see her looking as happy and proud of herself as she did on Saturday. It got even better on Sunday, when everything was over and we bid the relatives adieu and commenced spending the entire day lounging around in our pajamas. Not that the rest of it wasn't great, you...
