The Souvenir

     Blue was my grandmother’s favorite color. It was the color of her nicest blouse, the one she only wore to church. The same one she was buried in. No one noticed the small pair of scissors in my hand as I timidly walked up to her casket. I glanced around and spied my mother in an intensely deep discussion with the minister about the propensity of youth to follow ideology instead of sound doctrine. My father sat in a large armchair with a full glass of water in his hand, the ice long melted, as he stared at a peculiarly drab painting of a rose on the wall across from him. My youngest sister had wedged herself beneath the coffee table and was fast asleep, her thumb in her mouth and her finger crooked over her nose. Three or four small clusters of women stood about the room, my grandmother’s friends from her sewing circle. She told me once she would outlive them all.

I glanced back at her coffin, a grayish box with dark blue satin fabric that offset her light blue blouse with small, white flowers. Her tiny lips were painted a soft pink, and she still wore her glasses, though little did she need them now. I stared at her chest, waiting to see it rise and fall, as if by some miracle the stale air in the room would somehow revive her, but she was still. I reached out and touched her hand, the same hand that had not a week ago pulled a wasp stinger from my arm. But what had once been soft and comforting, was now cold and stiff. I wish I hadn’t touched her.

The sounds in the room seemed distant as I reached over and pulled a slight bit of her blouse from her arm, and with an almost imperceptible snip a sliver fell into the casket. I picked up the scrap and rearranged her sleeve to make the hole of the fabric unnoticeable. Then surveying my own plain, gray dress, I bunched up the fabric around my elbow and cut off a small, triangular patch. I took the piece from my garment and gently tucked it in the small pocket on the front of her blouse, being careful not to leave anything in disarray.  I glanced up and my eyes met my father’s, and with a slight nod of his head, he turned his attention back to the rose. Heart pounding, I tucked the scissors and the small blue square with white flowers into my pocket. I looked at my grandmother one last time, reached for her hand, but thinking better of it, squeezed her arm, and said goodbye.

If you aren’t a stranger to this blog, you know that I am pretty much obsessed with classic literature and movie/tv adaptations of them. I’m pretty sure it is because I find this form of entertainment to be safe… The events and customs are different enough to be distanced from my reality, and dependable enough to not assault my senses with graphic violence or bedroom scenes. At times I walk a tightrope with war movies, but when I do, I spend a great deal of time covering my eyes. The world is messy, bloody, and evil enough and I have no desire to fill my mind with pretend versions of those things as well.

So I am always on the lookout for new shows or movies that fit into my very specific category. I was excited to see that Netflix had released their own take of Anne of Green Gables called “Anne with an E.” I’ll admit I’ve never read the books, though I did start the first one long ago. I enjoyed the old miniseries immensely, and so I was hoping this new iteration would be a show that I could introduce C to, after all it’s Anne of Green Gables!

And then I watched the first episode. It isn’t bad. It’s very beautiful to look at and the girl that plays Anne does a very good job. But they definitely took artistic liberty and there were some very dark flashback scenes that I’m pretty confident weren’t in the book. In one episode there were extensive conversations about ‘intimate relations’ as well that took me by surprise. It made me sad because after watching three episodes, I don’t think I want C watching it for a long, long time.

I’ve noticed this happen quite often when adaptations are made of classic novels. There are certain movies where you can absolutely tell where the author left off and the screenwriter took over. I’m always let down when this happens, because it’s possible to keep with the spirit of a novel and not impose modern agendas into the story. The classic novels are classics because the writers knew how to tell a story.

Sorry, that was my soapbox for the evening. I’ll probably continue watching the show, but I definitely won’t be introducing it to the kids!

Big E has taken to wearing a spiderman suit as often as he can. It is one he got for Halloween two years ago and he is outgrowing it, but it has puffed up muscles and it makes him feel invincible. With this suit, he has the courage to climb trees, jump down small stair cases, climb beds, and various other things that weren’t meant to be climbed. When someone points out his muscles, he beams with pride as he sticks out his chest and curls up his arms. The world is large for Big E, and his heart is very gentle. If this spiderman suit makes him feel brave, I’m all for it. But I better get a bigger one before he outgrows it!

This weekend was the first time that we attempted to complete an entire AHG badge in one weekend. It was a lot of work for C, but she seemed enthusiastic about most of it and it was a great chance to spend some extra time with her. One of the things she did for her “My Style” badge was to make some paper dolls and create a clothing line for them. She chose to feature some evening wear, so she spent several hours today working on her doll clothes. She was very pleased with the end result and I was happy to see her working so diligently on it.

Tim has had a sneaking suspicion about Big E for awhile now that I have kept trying to explain away. He kept insisting that perhaps Big E is red/green color blind. For the most part I thought perhaps he was just mixing up his words, but last night he picked up a little jar of red paint and started asking about the ‘green’ paint he was holding.

This evening we did some of basic color tests with Big E that I found on this site. Now, I’m not a doctor and I’m not going to flat out diagnose him, but I do think that perhaps he might have some problem seeing certain colors. He has to get a physical this summer to be ready for kindergarten so I will discuss it with his doctor at that point.

Color blindness runs in my family, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he is. And it isn’t at all upsetting, I just need to be a bit more patient when I’m working with colors with him. If he isn’t seeing what I’m seeing, I’ll need to take that into account. 🙂 I’ll keep you posted as we learn more!

We are coming to the end of the year for C’s American Heritage Girls group, and we are a little behind on a few things. We were sick for the last meeting, so we decided that today we would play catch up and work on her current badge, My Style.

I also sat down with the kids this morning and told them that I thought we should spend part of our day doing something service oriented, so that C could work on some service hours for AHG. We threw out a few ideas, and together with the kids we landed on cleaning up the church parking lot. We got dressed in messy clothes and headed to the store for some gloves. The kids asked to take their Easter buckets to use as clean up tools and Big E found a small toy shovel to bring along. Naturally we picked up some snacks, and brought along some trash bags. We pulled into the empty parking lot and unloaded. The kids were excited about putting on their gloves and getting to work. Even Baby E grabbed his bucket and put on his gloves. Then we scoured the parking lot and surrounding area for any trash we could find. The kids got very excited for big ticket items like food bags or soda cans, but they did great getting the little stuff too.

We took a short break in the middle of our working to have a snack, and then they got back up and went back to work. We got through two thirds of the parking lot before we ran out of steam. I let them play on the playground for a few minutes before we ran home, grabbed some lunch and laid down for a nap.

When we woke up we headed to Walmart to pick up supplies for C’s My Style projects, got some Rita’s and headed back to the church to finish the job we had started. I thought it was important for the kids to follow through with what we had begun, because I want them to understand the importance of finishing a task. Thankfully there wasn’t too much left to do and we ended the evening with some more playing on the play ground. In total the kids worked two hours each on cleaning the parking lot and I was very pleased at how well they did. They even converted Baby E’s bucket to an interesting things bucket and filled it with oddities they found along the way, i.e.- a snake skin, a C-Clamp (Let me know if you are missing one), some mushrooms, and a golf ball.

When we got home I made dinner and C worked on her poster for her AHG project. She had fun decorating it and will get to show it to her troupe tomorrow afternoon. We were all pretty exhausted and rather dirty by bedtime, but I think we will all sleep well.

If you see the kids, don’t mention the parking lot. I don’t want them to think that service projects should come with recognition. I want them to do some of these activities so they can learn that life isn’t all about them, and that we should step up and help when we can, even if no one has asked.

Also, if there are some small projects you think C and the boys could help with (1-2 hour max, cause that’s about the extent of their attention span) let me know! We definitely want to start incorporating more of these kinds of activities into our routine! 🙂

Big E had his end of the year ceremony for his preschool Mom’s Morning Out program this afternoon, so I ended up taking the day off so that I was sure not to miss it. Honestly, it was the first non sick day I have taken in about 8 months and it was definitely needed! I got all the kids where they needed to be this morning and then I ran a few errands. After that, I met up with C at her school and surprised her by joining her during her lunch period. I got to sit with her friends and talk and laugh. The very chatty little boy sitting across from me told me all about how he could see out his mom’s belly button before he was born, so he knew that she lived in Ocean City at the time. No one ever believes me when I tell them that, he said emphatically. Good luck, kid!

After lunch with C, I headed over to Big E’s MMO ceremony. The kids were adorable, performing a song, and heading outside to eat popsicles. After leaving there we got the other kids and eventually made it to the beach, where we met up with some cousins and stayed for nearly three hours! The weather was hot, but as the evening set in, it really got very pleasant out. Baby E fussed for awhile, but finally came around. This evening was also the weekly farmer’s market, and we ran into a lot of people that we know, so the kid got to play with even more friends.

Getting them to bed this evening was pretty quick work, as they were all pretty exhausted from their long day. And while I may not have gotten a lot of down time on my day off, I did get some great moments with my kids and the chance to hang out with some dear friends.

Today was pretty close to perfect. 🙂

He’s growing up!

As we sat at dinner this evening, I informed Baby E that he was not getting ice cream unless he ate all of his eggs. That little stinker picked up a whole handful of eggs, squished them in his hand, hid that hand on his lap and proceeded to tell me that he had eaten all of his eggs!!! He’s two! Where did he learn that move?? BTW- he didn’t get any ice cream.

I woke up this morning with a serious case of the dizzies. Every time I stood up the world definitely tilted to the right and it didn’t take long to start feeling queasy. Tim stayed near work last night, which might have been a blessing because it forced me to push through how I was feeling and get C on the bus and the boys to the sitter. Strangely I felt​ fine driving, but the moment I parked the van at work, it started in again. So most of the day I was in a dizzy funk, but thankfully I was able to get work done in spite of it.

When I picked the kids up this evening they begged for pizza, which I immediately agreed to because it meant I wouldn’t have to spend any dizzy time in the kitchen. As we were eating our pizza, C ran out of the room and returned with a note she had written to me at school today, an apology for our rough evening the other night. 

This girl makes my heart smile. I read her letter and held her close, reminding her how much she is loved, no matter her behavior. She smiled and nuzzled her head in my neck. Such a sweet girl.

My house is covered in sand. There is sand in the foyer, sand under the kitchen table, sand in the kids’ beds. There is sand everywhere.

And that is completely fine by me, because tonight memories were made. Tim has been working a lot this past week, so for the most part it is just me and the kids. As I contemplated what to do with them on the ride home from work this evening I looked up to see that the car was reading 104 degrees outside. Granted it had been sitting in the sun so it wasn’t actually that hot, but the reality is 95 degrees is pretty hot too! So I ran by the house before picking them up to grab their bathing suits.

They hurriedly changed and eagerly climbed into the van. When we got to the beach we ran into some friends, and the kids were off. They spent the next hour and a half running around, splashing in the water, making sand angels, swinging on the swings, playing pirates on the ship, and wearing themselves out. We didn’t get home until well after what should have been their bedtime. We ate a quick dinner and everyone was ready for sleep!

After what was an incredibly difficult evening last night, the children were on their best behavior tonight. We had dinner and went straight upstairs to get ready for bed. The kids are currently very interested in reading The Boxcar Children books, so we spent some time with one of those. I used to love those books as a kid, so it is fun to share them with my own children now!

I’d be remiss if I overlooked the wonderful gifts I received for Mother’s Day. Among some lovely pieces of art, C brought home this beautiful little bowl that she made in art class. 🙂

And Big E gave me this wonderful picture frame and photo!

I love you because you feed me.