Wonderfulness

Let me get this straight.  I am not a crier.  Ask my family.  Ask my friends. Hubby is the designated crier in our family.  Commercials, movies, news reports, sermons, the sight of his grandchildren, a low balance on our Discover card, you name it - he cries.

Not me.

Nope, hard hearted Hannah this girl.  Years of callous built up on this heart and I can stare down a bully at 2 feet and win.

However.

Lately, I have found a bit of Crying Karma visiting my squishy heart these days.

Lately, I have been known to excuse myself rather than be caught up in the throes of a heavy duty cry.

Why is this?

Hormonal imbalance?  Overdose of real life? 

Who knows.  But I do know that it has knocked me on my keister.  Having no governor on my previous reigned in emotions has made me vulnerable to all sorts of breakdowns of late.

 Hear me clear: I am not sad.  I am not overwhelmed in a negative way necessarily but I am moved to a point lately that I cannot contain all the emotions welling up within me even with my iron will constitution still firmly in place.

 I blame it on grandchildren.
Yep.  That is the start of it and I'm pretty sure the undoing of this previously very controlled lady.

 And it's not just the grandchildren that is the root of all this emotion.  It's their blamed parents.
It is the progeny, the fruit of my loins that has me all in a dither.
It is the realization that these people, that formerly lived in my home 24/7, not to mention my womb for nine months, that has me over the top.

 You pray, you hope, you research, you read, you cajole, you threaten, you yell, you cry (well, some do), you cross your metaphorically speaking fingers and hope to the Dear Lord that  you did something right.

And then, and then, they have children.  They become these people that you love to visit.  These people that make you laugh, make you proud, make you glad that you gave birth to them.  These people are highly functioning, amazingly friendly, witty beyond belief, servants of God.  And it truly has nothing to do with me.

Your children have children.  You visit when it is acceptable for it is not about you.  Never has been.  You watch their family dynamic.  You quietly work around, tiptoeing, not really wanting to disturb the magic that you are observing.  You want to be a fly on the wall but in a helpful way.  You wish that your lackluster memory could contain all the images that you are soaking in:  Daddy comes home from work.  You know that he has worked long and hard and has to be bushed after not getting much sleep because of a newborns sleep habits.  You see his tired face come into the door and in the background you hear this high pitched little voice run toward her daddy enthusiastically,  'Daddy's home! Daddy's home!, arms reaching up. The previously weary employee magically alters into the super hero his little daughter thinks he is. He brightens, and when asked, 'Daddy, you play with me?' agrees to joining her little gathering of stuffed animals and proceeds to voice each little fuzzy buddy with a hilarity that makes me laugh out loud.  Magical stuff.  And this has been  repeated in each of the babymoons that I have participated in with my three producing (so far) children.

Hence the tears.

I am a peripheral observer in these homes.  Sure, I have a place in their hearts.  Sure, I have served my time as their priority, as it should be. My time with them as influence and advisor is over. And they are doing  quite well without my daily input, thank you very much. They have lives and circles of friends and futures in continuing generations.  When Maddox, the little angel I just spent time with, is a mere 20 years old, I shall, Lord Willing, be 80 years old.  Reality Check.  I am quite alright with the fact that I am mortal.  I am quite alright with the idea that my prime has passed and that I shall be peripheral in most things from henceforth.
But the overwhelming emotion I feel when I see, I feel, the amazing joy, in the result of the hopefulness many years ago, well, it gushes out into submissive sobbing at the goodness of our God and how He works.  He took a crazily dysfunctional girl, placed her in the life of just the right boy and what comes forth, can only be credited to our Lord.

I weep for the joy, I weep for the heartache that young people face while raising families, I weep for the pain of challenging situations that only make you stronger but painful to watch.  I weep for all the joys ahead of them; some of them with me in the picture, some of them not.  I weep for their futures, for the depth of the love that they will experience as they add years to their marriages and as they watch their own children please them in the way that they have over the top pleased me.

I weep in my humanity and in God's goodness...

To God be the Glory and He will dry my abundant tears in due time...

Dawn of a New Day

Whew.
Now that was some crazy three months.
In that time:
1.  Started working in retail part time. (After a 34 year hiatus.  Hmm.)
2.  Hubby retired.
3.  Hubby started new job with 180 degree shift from last job.
4.  Dealt with some health issues.  Resolved, btw.
5.  Welcomed grandgirl # 5 into the mix.
6. Celebrated 40 years together.
7. Prepared Christmas for our turn with all the spawn and their people.  And a dog.
8. Welcomed all 14 of us together in our square footage.
9. Made merry on many different levels with the giddiness of having all my babies under my roof.  A rare occurrence these days.
10.  Prepared meals, did dishes, washed clothes, made sure all the grandgirls were entertained and smiled the whole time in Mimi Delight.  (yes, I did, really...ask em.)
11.  Prepared for the weakest blizzard evah (yes, I am from northern Illlinois; we giggle at the weather that was labeled blizzard.)  Still, it had it's danger so we said good bye early to several of our people, making sure that they were safe instead of present.
12.  Celebrated the Big Two with Lil Lady two days after Christmas.
13.  Welcomed the new year with a precious 7 week old.
14.  Slowly bid them all goodbye and sighed a lot.

Today was the first day in many weeks that I have breathed deeply once again.
I was off work, cleaned like a maniac, put away all the final vestiges of Christmas, downloaded all the new photos from My New Camera (anniversary gift from Hubby!), folded bedding from all the visitors and put away for the next visits, and cooked my Hubby a nice hot dinner, just for the two of us.

I realized early today that my life has taken quite a different direction and I kinda like it.
I like that I am working again.
I like that I have a new, different type of family, 'a work family'.  Haven't had that in a while.
I like that Hubby works nearby now and comes home for lunch and is home for supper on time.
I like that my work schedule allows me  time in my sewing room.
I like that my kids are producing like rabbits.
I like that I have reached the stage of life where I care so little for the buggery things of life and embrace the important things with gusto.
I like that my hair is getting long.  Weird.
I like that if I don't get to walk, write and sew, I get twitchy.  I like that my people recognize that about me.
I like that I am bound by very little and that little is of little burden.

I like this stage of life.....
Ahh.

Introducing: Cletus the Fetus

Do you know this character? Some of you know him as Baby Girl's Hubby. He has been mentioned in this blog before as The Hairy Beast.

Some know him as Landon.

In this particular shot, he is known as Guido, my gardener.

Don't let the wearing of his wife's garden hat fool you; he is no sissy.

This very morning, he took on my forsythia, a yellow beast of a plant, that had gone half dead after a miserable showing this spring.

Of course, I had to serve him breakfast under the pergola, overlooking the garden arrangement that he designed and put in for me years ago.

I let him practice some of his landscaping techniques on me, even the first garden path, back in the day of high school when he owned his own landscaping business.

This young man has accomplished much in his twenty three years on this sod.

Leader in his class. Academically excelling in a Top Ten University. Breaking the mold for interning there; working with a leader ecological/environmentalist in NYC. Mission trip to Africa. Prized son and grandson and nephew and brother. Strong warrior for His Lord.

A Renaissance Man of the grandest kind.

And Baby Girl selected him to be her Life Partner in this world.

But despite all these accolades and accomplishments, he is about to embark on the most wonderful, amazing, spectacular, challenging event of his life.....

He is my newest grandchild's Daddy.

This past weekend, he and Baby Girl flew down the highway from CollegeLand, to tell us, most joyfully, that they are indeed, expecting their first child in December.

And Grammy is very, very, very, very, very, very, very happy.......

(Ed. Note:  I wrote this post on April 18th, the day after we were told; Baby Girl had asked us to not announce it on the internet till they heard his heartbeat....Today was that day.....And Grammy is very, very, very, very, very, very, happy.......)

Of Course, We Need a Grocery Cart Cover!

If Vivien needs a Grocery Cart Cover, then I think Grammy and Poppy should do something about it.
I can research it on the Internet.
I found a pattern. Jan Andrea at http://crafts/sleepingbaby.net/cart_cover.html.
But it needed interpreting. Not that Jan was complex, it's just that my mind seldom goes to it's technical side. That's where Poppy comes in. He immediately drafted a paper pattern following Jan's suggestions and then handed it over to me. Okay. It looks a little ghost like and even cutting it out, I still didn't know what I was supposed to do with it. I figured it would eventually hit me.

Eureka! The brain cells cooperated and the necessary sewing was figured out and a trip to the local grocery store for a fitting and off to Cincinnati it went! I read all the instructions and agreed with Jan that a little tote bag of my own design would be nice to transport it. And provide a little extra seating padding on the cart seat for The Viviers. We are ALL about her comfort....

And you can see why!

Here she is at a restaurant with Mama and Daddy, happy as a clam and cute as a bug.

Here's to sewing for grandchildren!!!

Loving Vivie

One of the most remarkable things to have happened in my life is something that I had no active part in. The birth of my wonderful first grandchild, a precious little girl named Vivien Claire, has set my life on a tangent of adoration, devotion and dedication, that I didn't think possible. Vivien lives three hours away, so a daily, even a weekly cuddling, is out of the question, but on those monthly visits, cares melt away, all agendas are put on hold and my world revolves around getting to know this sweet little girl who promises to be a grand companion to me.

The first year is one of such hyper growth and progress, that each visit reveals more and more about the person that Vivie is becoming. The stages move rapidly whether or not Grammy and Poppy are there. But one thing remains static in the past months; Vivien is well aware of who I am whenever I see her. Last month's brief visit at Aunt Carly and Uncle Devon's, proved once again that the magical connection between grandchild and grandparent is real and enduring. Entering into the more skeptical months, I approached her cautiously and slowly. And then it happened. The connection via the eyes. The gazing into the soul of each other, sending out the mysterious threads of belonging to our brains and voila! The circuit is complete and her tiny little baby brain searches all her memories and there I was! Grammy! Vivien recognizes that she knows me, knows that I love her, understand her and will die for her if need be. She knows that I am to be trusted and somewhere within, knows that we belong to each other. All this is transmitted from the gaze into each other's eyes. Supernatural, spiritual, and beyond anything I've ever experienced. You know that that will happen with children that you have birthed. That is expected. But to have the link via her mother is something rare and fine.

I may have many wonderful grandchildren to come, but this experience with Vivien Claire has altered my life and encouraged me on to my elder years...Thank you Vivie......