Met Monday

Over at Between Naps on the Porch (that's a link, by the way, my wonky format doesn't show it...)
anyway, over at Between Naps on the Porch a blog carnival is hosted every week called Metamorphosis Monday. I'm not transforming rooms, or even furniture, but I have been trying to do something with things I have laying around the house that aren't being used, but that I haven't been able to get rid of yet.
I did two projects this week that made me smile, so here they are.
The first was that I turned a picture into a tray. I really liked the picture, but it doesn't go with anything I have going on, so I wrapped it in some nice hankies and made it into a tray. I should have ironed the hankies, and I probably will get around to that someday.

Then I had a candelabra that had long since lost its glass candle holding thingies... and had a really old silk flower garland on it and had been in the rain.
All of a sudden I had an idea... and a new candelabra was born.

Liam: Book #3

When Liam was born, I had a little composition notebook, carefully titled Liam Arden Foisel: Book 1. In that book, I carefully charted when he ate and how much and all the other details of new motherhood. On my blog, I detailed every thing he did. When he almost rolled over, but didn't quite. I blogged every second as well.
Over the years I have kind of lost the momentum of charting everything he does. On facebook, I often write the funny things he says, but I wonder why I haven't blogged these moments in our lives together. They are much more meaningful to me than when he may or may not have almost rolled over. Because now he is a little person that I totally hang out with.
And yet, I don't blog them.
But I'm going to try and do a better job at it....because these are days I don't want to lose.
I had such a hard time when he turned five. Five seems so big. He is no longer my baby and in just a year we will be a third of a way done with our time together in our home. I was reminded of the day we brought him home from hospital, when el husbando sighed a deep sigh and said "I'm going to miss him"
I looked at him oddly and asked when.
"when he goes off to Cornell"
and I cried because he was already shipping him off across the country for college. "Standford is in-state!" I replied.
But we knew already, that day when he was laying nearby in a just-out-of-the-box pack n play, that this time we have is fleeting.
So this morning Liam spent making cards and books. He had watched his father last year make a pop-up card so that Liam could color and decorate it for me for Mother's Day. He apparently remembered how, as he made several today. The decorations are far better this year.
and then he offered me a coupon to buy his new book: The Liam:Heartspeed.
I got $1 off, you know.
and he allowed me to pay with a little plastic credit card the "seven five" that it cost.

Every night I sing to him. Our current favorites are Nottamun Town and Sweetheart tree, but we also sing Stay Awake, Barbara Allen, and the Rainbow Connection and a special song about just the two of us. We lay there nose-to-nose and I rub his belly, his legs and his back while I sing. We have a funny version of Sweetheart Tree that we belt out and then laugh about.
And when I say that I really have to go, he starts to rub my head and waits for me to respond "You stinker! You knew I would stay!"
We play a game asking one another questions and tickling. "Raise your hand if you like Medieval Times" "Raise your hand if you want me to stay five"
armpit tickling gets the best laughs.

I just want every second of my life to be that way. I don't want him to get too big to lay with me nose to nose belting out the sweetheart tree in that funny, awful way that we do.
So, in an effort to be able to bottle that up, I'm going to make more of an effort to blog it.
And fill up all my Liam books, for that time when he's all the way across the country learning how to be an electrical engineer.

Lessez les bons temps rouler!

Happy Mardi Gras!

We had a great time here on Fat Tuesday. Jambalaya and yummy bread pudding. I set the table the night before and literally threw a lot of my beads on. Those were from spending my birthday in New Orleans for Carnival a long time ago. Please ignore the mess on the sideboard in the background. The only thing I regret is that I could not, for the life of me, find my good Zydeco cds so we didn't have much dancing. We had a youtube zyedeco playlist playing, but it wasn't very good. I ached to belt out

Jambalaya Crawfish Pie, Me oh My Oh

Oh tonight I'm going to meet my cher-a-mi-o!

As an extra to this Tablescape Thursday post, I'm including a pic of Liam laden with beads!

For more fantastic tables go to Between Naps on the Porch at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

Play Ball.

God works in interesting ways.

I joined a local moms group three years ago. It is a huge on-line group that has many branches (playgroups, strollercize, moms night out, book club, etc). Because I work full-time, I don't get to take advantage of a lot of the activities that are planned. We often kid that I'm just a Mom's Night Out member, or that I borrow a child for my once a year "Look! I have a son!" outing when they go apple picking.

When I first joined the first thing I really attended was a tea party to welcome the new babies in the group. Since I happened to have a large collection of tea things, I offered them to let the hostess borrow them. After the tea party, the hostess and I and another woman discovered we were pregnant all at the same time.

We were all so excited, but only one of us went on to deliver.

I learned that the other mom had problems similar to mine, with multiple losses. She reached out to me through email and I always felt a connection to her. Last year after loss number 5, she made dinner and brought it to us the day of my D&C. I was so touched by her kindess and a few days later we met for coffee and talked for several hours. She is one of the few in my group who understands me, and understands that missing-limb feeling when you suffer from secondary infertility and pregnancy loss. I always feel a little apart from our group, even though they are WONDERFUL women with whom I have developed close bonds. Most of them have two children or more. There are no empty chairs at their dinner tables. No extra seat in the car. No leftover ticket in the family pack.

I always feel less-than as a mother because I only have one. Like if I'm a good mom it is nothing special. I have no reason not to be because, afterall, I only have one to look after. One to make life special for. I feel like I have an overabundance of mom-ness.. and no one else to use it on (we'll leave out the fact that I'm Mama Kether at work to my grown up students... I do fulfill some of that momness there...)

But, anyway, it helps for me to make friends who have traveled this same lonely road.

But I didn't often find ways to connect in person with this mom. Until now...

God has seen fit to put our kids on the same Tball team. Her girl, my boy.

Our kids are so much alike and I'm really excited about this opportunity to deepen a friendship and to feel a little less alone mothering an only child.

I don't know where we will go with this journey toward parenting more children. I feel certain we will go back to our Reproductive Endocrinologist and try another stimulated cycle with an IUI. But I am no longer praying for God to bring another child to us. I just can't. I feel like I'm all prayed out. I've been praying for healthy pregnancies for six years now. It has been six years since that first shocking loss. I feel like my whole life has been consumed with praying for pregnancies to happen and then for them to be healthy... and well... we know where that has taken me. I don't think it is that my prayers have fallen on deaf ears, for I know He is listening. And it isn't necessarily that I think that He doesn't want me to have any more children (as many people have suggested with the losses and infertility). It might be that he has chosen me to be an only child parent. It might be that the answer is just not yet. But I do know I'm weary. I know He knows my heart, so I'm no longer praying for a miracle pregnancy. In fact, I don't know what to pray for at all. So, that's what I'm praying.

But I do feel it is a little like Liam and T-ball. He's not the most athletic kid. He cries when he gets slightly hurt. He doesn't like to work at succeeding at something. In fact, recently at my cousin's house he was hit with a wiffle ball and he held up one finger and yelled "That is why we should not play this game!"

On the way to Tball I told him that he might fall, he might get hit by a ball, other kids might bump into him....that he may be really good at Tball, or he might need to work at it, but the important part was learning to try and learning to practice and most of all learning to listen to the coach.

These are lessons we all need to learn aren't they? I may get hurt (and oh I have! physically taken a beating and mentally!) I may fall down (five lost pregnancies...) others may bump into me (or make comments that are inappropriate and often hurtful) But I need to try. I need to know---and Liam needs to know--- that I tried. And most of all I have to be patient and listen to my coach.

I'm so glad he's given me good teammates for this game. .

Keep Your Fork.

I've been sitting here with my hands hovering over the keyboard typing and deleting for quite awhile now.

Everything I try to write is trite. Has been said. Seems glib.

Last week, I lost my beloved Nana. Though I know that she lived 92 beautiful years, and that she has entered triumphantly into eternity, the hole in my heart is seeping with sadness.
I opened my pantry this morning to make coffee and there were two cans of Suisse Mocha that I keep for her visits. She used to tell me that we should always leave something behind when we visit, so that we will come again.
I will keep that Suisse Mocha. But she will not be coming again.
One of the first things I usually do when I get home from work is call her. She didn't like to stay on the phone long, but I'd call none-the-less. My first instinct when I got home from work on Monday, the day she left us, was to call her to cry over the news.
I will no longer be able to call and say, "Nana, when I'm making the peanut butter fudge, how much sweetened condensed milk do I use?"
I spent a day before leaving for the services just scanning old photos and laughing and crying. Three was a picture from the 1970s with her in profile, two balloons shoved in her shirt to augment what she thought God forgot to give her. Ever so much funnier when you know what a true lady she was.
As I was looking at those pictures, I thought that no matter what was going on in the picture, no matter what she wore (bathrobe, evening gown, costumes from when she was a dancer) her head always held a regal tilt and her eyes a twinkle. She never seemed to be caught at a bad angle or in mid sentence as I usually am. She was as beautiful at 92 as she was at 19. And let me tell you, I'm talking BEAUTY.
When I got to her house, the same house that has been my primary vacation spot for 37 years, I thought of all the times as a kid that we would pull into that neighborhood. I thought of how excited I was as a kid, my heart racing, my stomach all in knots as I saw the white wall because I was about to see my Nana and Popop.
And then from my backseat, my son yelled "I see it! I see the white wall!"
When we went into the house it was the same. The same house that has greeted me all those many years. The same smell, the same pantry, the same linens on the bed, the same breakfast table where I blew out the candles on my second birthday.
She always laid a silk rose on the pillow for us when we arrived, and folded the toilet paper into a careful points, so that we knew that we were treasured guests.
But this time, there were no appetizers (or as she called them hor-de-overs) waiting for us as we arrived.
I thought of all my visits to the house, and how I had gradually graduated from guest room to guest room. When I was very young just a year to over two we lived there and the nursery was my room, and would be my guest room until I graduated to the "twin bedroom" to share with my brother on our visits. Usually those visits were during hot Arizona summers when outside smells like hot concrete and juniper bushes while the crickets chirp a very loud song. Eventually, when I got married, we got stay in the "back bedroom," which was always reserved for grownups. Each of these rooms has not changed in my entire life. And I like that consistency.
My mom sat tying a bible verse onto forks for the service. A tribute to something that my Nana read a while ago and loved. It was called, Keep Your Fork. I understand that they buried her with a fork. I will be framing mine for my dining room. You can read the story here http://www.made2smile.com/funpages/fork/fork.htm .
While the service was very hard for me, when we stood by her graveside I looked out at the little pond with ducks and across to the McDonalds, both things my Popop hand in mind when he chose the site... thinking we could enjoy both when we visited him. I looked at her beautiful casket and felt like it held a time machine inside that could transport me to those years of my childhood that she touched with her loving hands. While I cried, I held Liam, who gently stroked my head. I know that her death was beautiful, and that she had a whole week of both of her daughters singing hymns and old songs from their childhood to her. They, and my father and uncle, escorted her all the way to the kingdom, gently loving her until the end. For that I am eternally grateful.

The celebration of life had us crying and laughing, but what I loved most was seeing my Nana's 9 great grandchildren together for the first time. I couldn't help but think that in her younger years (all the way up until her mid-seventies to 80) she would have been out there on that play yard with them. I could see her on the monkey bars, and my mind flashed to a picture of her that I have from my childhood where she is standing on the top of our jungle gym with her arms spread wide in triumph while my Popop looked on and laughed.
She used to be able to tuck her legs behind her neck.. so limber was she from being a professional dancer. I don't think I was able to do that too much beyond 12.
I could go on and on, but nothing I write will be able to bring life what I have lost. Trust me, though. If you had known her, she would have been your Nana, too. Even her pool man called her Nana.
I know, though, that she has kept her fork, because the best for her is truly yet to come.
Only she's there now, and able to dig in.
Before we left the house, I returned the bedrooms to how they have been for my 37 years and carefully placed that red rose on the pillows.
I did forget to fold the toilet paper into points.

I feel heavy with loss. It has been just two years since the double loss of my mother in law and grandmother just 40 something days apart. I am truly weary and my heart aches.

Oh, and our IUI failed, but we will soon be digging into our checkbook to try again. I asked my mom to tell Nana to go up to heaven and fling me down a baby. I conceived Liam two weeks after Popop passed away. I'm hoping that she's up there rallying for me, and putting in an order.
Only time will tell on that point.

Until then, may I remind you to Keep Your Fork.