Easter Sunday

Wearing Carrots

I have been trying to decide over a slow bowl of ice cream which photo I like best and I can't for anything choose just one, so I'm posting them all. I look at her face all day long and yet when I put her to bed, I miss it. I pace around the house for photos of her so I can see her even more, more strongly and surely, so I'll never forget. She's only the reason i get up every morning. she's sunshine and carrots and big curious eyes and she laughs so much now, especially at sam's silly faces, that it makes me breathless with happyhappyhappy. And this series is only breakfast. Thank goodness the camera runs out of batteries.

1903 Harrill

Okay so this is our house in the 'hood where we've lived since I was 8 months pregnant last summer 2008. It's a mess. The porch and facia board need painting. We need new windows and porch railings. The storm door got broken, ironically, in a storm. The bright pink azaleas have some kind of disease. Miss Mary who is 900 years old and lives next door saved the tires-mounted-on-hubcabs flower pots for me. I spray-painted them green and will soon smother them in sweet potato vine like I did last summer to hide their junkyard origins. Danny's dad planted a cypress. So far I've planted a forsythia, a camelia, a bunch of lilies, and mounds of pansies. Oh, there's also a rusting yellow fire hydrant in the yard. Inside though, it's beautiful. It's got 10 foot ceilings and beautiful tile bathrooms. Some of the floors are still old wood. The house is 103 years old and is only a dozen blocks from uptown Charlotte. We're renovating it one inch at a time. I guess I'm putting this photo here so later I can see how much it's changed.

Bad Guy King Bonks Head, Gets Kiss

Yesterday Sam excavated a grey t-shirt of Danny’s from the heap of laundry on the table and after a tussle, managed to get it on. Then he declared himself king. “Where is your crown?” I asked. “I are king!” barked Sam. He swung his arms around as if wielding a sword. “I are bad guy king!” he added with a snarl. “What is a bad guy king?” I asked. “I fight them!” said Sam, and roared. “Please would you go and fight the…(my mind scrambled for an alternative to “bad guys”)… monster!” Sam paused mid swing. Then, “Ya! I fight monster!” And with this he turned, leaped over his broken ukulele, and disappeared into the other room.

Growling and snarling ensued. He returned a few minutes later, face aglow. “Wow! I said. “Now would you please go and fight the...umm... dragon!” “Ya, I fight dragon.” He looked like Yoda in the long t-shirt as he leapt away. After some grunts and yelps… silence.

Sam appeared around the corner, his face crumpled up like a wad of paper. “I bonk my head!” he wailed. “Does bad guy king need a kiss?” “I need kiss!” he bawled. He staggered forward and I kissed his sweaty head. “Are you my bad guy king?” I asked. Sam nodded. “Can I take a picture of the bad guy king?” Sam kneeled on the floor and snarled, “I are bad guy king!”

green sundress

Weather

On March 2 we woke up to blankets of icy snow. Today, three weeks later, temperatures sauntered up nearly to 70 degrees.















Because i'm a writer, I feel all this pressure to write something really witty or spiritual or wise about this jarring juxtaposition of temperatures. BUT, Sahara is pulling on my slipper and making squawky noises. It's so hard to concentrate. My inner muse has been entombed in dirty laundry for two days. I've also been dying for a shower for the past 6 hours, if you must know, and now might be my last chance to make a run for it (err, the shower). I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT I SOUND LIKE THIS! Well, can't be helped. It is what it is. Therefore, in light of my muse-less state, I bring you the wit and wisdom of others:

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ~John Ruskin

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water. ~Carl Reiner

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while. ~Kin Hubbard

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? ~J.B. Priestley

It is best to read the weather forecast before praying for rain. ~Mark Twain

There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. ~Garrison Keillor

Papi and Abue Visit

Papi and Abue drove down from Chicago to visit us this month. Thank you! Papi planted a tree. I built shrines to the Plueddemann ancestors all over the house and lit candles. :-) Danny and I got to go on a date. (Wow, I had forgotten what those are. I swear the waiters at Olive Garden are 12 years old. Who knew that a normal restaurant could make me feel uber-frumpy?) Sam and Sahara don't know what to do with themselves now that the house is empty. I don't either. We're barely managing...

Baby in Red

(Ruby earrings for her birthstone, July)

Our Precious Desert Bloom, Sahara

Sahara & the Doberman

Now that the days are getting warmer, we spend more time outside. Our dogs are too big and heavy to romp around her, but I let them get acquainted through the gate. Sahara can spend 30 minutes at the gate absorbed in watching the dogs in the yard, yet the expression on her face is ambivalent. hmmmm.

11 PM

Zzzzzzzzzzz :-)

What Happened to the Mailman

Yesterday I refused to put Sam in diapers and Sam refused to wear his Thomas the Tank Engine underpants. So... taa-daa! Naked butt.
After awhile the door bell rang. Ding-dong. Sam took off at a gallop for the front door while I yelled out to remind him about his lack of pants. When I got there a moment later, Sam and the mailman were standing face-to-face. (Technically, face-to-knee, but they were looking at each other.) Due to a freak March snow, the mailman was bundled in his snow jacket, gloves and scarf. Sam was wearing his t-shirt and cheerfully flaunting his stuff.
The mailman started to chuckle. Actually, he may have been chuckling at me as I had neglected to take a shower although it was 2 p.m; I looked like a clown. Sahara was on my hip bonking the doorframe with a measuring cup.
Sam continued to loiter around my legs in the chilly, breezy doorway as I signed some certified mail. When I closed the door, I realized that Sam had turned blue from the waist down. This discomfort notwithstanding, he still refused to wear his Thomas the Tank Engine underpants.

Quiet time

Sam has outgrown naps. This is a total bummer because I’ve always liked the guarantee of free time each afternoon. But there we are, such tiny luxuries fall away like matchbox cars from the hole in the pillow case where I keep them.

For a few afternoons I let him romp around. But then it occurred to me—it takes me awhile to catch on—that of course he could have an hour of quiet time. So after I put Sahara in her crib, I put him in our big bed with a stack of milk and a cup of books. What more could a little boy want? (I see the typo and I refuse to change it. Ha.) For days this has been our new and already cherished routine. But today, Sahara wouldn’t nap either! So I bunched up the pillows and plunked her next to Sam. In a very solemn voice I asked Sam to take care of her. Then I poured wooden blocks into her lap, and left.

A few minutes later, I peeked in.

Sam was reading his books to her. His little voice rose and fell the way a leaf scoots and skips in the air on a windy day. He made monkey hoots and crashing sounds, but most of the time his voice took on an informational, teachy tone. Sometimes he tilted the book towards her so she could see what he was explaining. He also paused to pile the blocks back in front of her. She grasped one in her chubby fist and pounded it zealously into the pillow.

If only I were a painter, I would have sketched the scene. The cavernous room rose around the bed with its soft chaos of mounded pillows and mussed sheets. In the middle sat two little hobbits sharing their provisions of storybooks and blocks, keeping each other company. Sun streamed in through the slats of the bamboo blinds and fell across the bed, transforming their bodies into brilliant compositions of light and shadow. Halos roiling with dust motes glittered above their heads. Light seeped through the thin membranes of their ears until it seemed as if they wore luminous earmuffs.

I stared and stared and stared, speechless at the exquisite sweetness of these two astonishing creatures who have come to live in my home.

Stop it, Sun

So this morning on the way to preschool Sam began protesting loudly from the back seat, "Stop it, sun! Stop it, sun!" I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw him wincing and writhing away from the window. His arm rose up as if a large bird with talons were attacking his head. In a few seconds, I turned a corner and the sun moved around to the back window. Sam straitened out in his seat and sighed, "Thank you, sun."

Sick Day

sammy and danny spent most of today in our bed being lethargic and sleepy together. They have low fevers and runny noses. They stare together at the new fish tank in our bedroom where a couple dozen baby convict fish glide over a zen-like landscape of smooth pebbles. When I hear rumply snores, I know they are dozing off. Sometimes they wake up and ruffle through their books---The Brothers Karamazov and Mr. Bear's Vacation. Then they nod off again because these books are obviously boring. It is very sweet but I hope they feel better tomorrow because I miss them.

Skin

Soft as butter. Sweet as raspberries. Warm as cookies cooling on a rack.

Gifts of the Magi

Everything was normal with Steve Whitby. Well, except that his right finger and thumb twitched. And was that a tremor in his right arm? Sort of, yes. And maybe, maybe his right foot dragged a little big. Not a big deal, really.

The tremor, twitches and dragging got a bit worse, so Steve mentioned them to his doctor who referred him to a neurologist. The neurologist assessed the situation and said, “We’re looking at a brain tumor or Wilson’s Disease, both fatal. And oh, there’s this itty-bitty chance of Parkinson's Disease, but honestly, you’re way too young.”

In January 2003, at the age of 30, Steve was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinsons. Of the one million Parkinsons sufferers in the United States, only a few thousand develop the disease under the age of 50. Steve is one of these.

I explained to God that this was completely out of line. His omnipotence was looking indistinguishable from impotence. Top of my list of grievances was that Steve is a gifted song writer and guitarist. Would there come a day when he couldn’t play his guitar? His tremors could sabotage so much, too much.

Later that year, our small group stuffed fund-raising envelopes for the Parkinson Association of the Carolinas. It felt like we were doing something, a little bitty something.

Four months after his diagnosis, Steve met Tami, our other friend. They fell in love--really, really deep love. Gooey love. Happy love. Love that made them both smile way too big and for way too long. When Tami eventually vowed, “In sickness and in health,” her eyes were wide open to the possibility that a husband in a wheelchair might be in her future, but that was okay. Souls are not wheelchair-able, not Steve’s soul anyway.

Steve’s right side got a bit worse and the doctor ramped him up to stronger meds. The 10-year trajectory for the progression of his disease was reached in about 3 years. By 33, Steve was on the strongest medication available at that time to Parkinsons sufferers.

Next time we stuffed envelopes, baby Sam came and gurgled on his blanket with us.

Today, at age 36, Steve can no longer tie his shoes in the mornings. Well, he can, but his fingers enjoy the dexterity of boxing mitts. Steve’s mornings go something like this: the alarm goes off at 6 a.m. and his eyes open, but his body is, as he says, “creaky.” He reaches for his water and pills. Slowly his muscles wake up. By 6:30, he can sit up, shuffle around, get dressed. Buttons are a hassle. Writing or typing are almost impossible until Mirapex courses fully through his body. And like I said, finding the dexterity to tie his shoes is about as easy as me finding the dexterity to be a contortionist. This is why his favorite pair of shoes are Sketcher Palms. They’re light-weight, lace-free, and even trendy. Their elastic bands let him slide his stiff feet inside.

Despite all of this, Steve is not one to talk about his situation. Even Tami barely ever catches him taking his cocktail of three different meds THIRTEEN times a day. He’s that sneaky and he never complains. But a few weeks before Christmas 2008, it slipped out that Sketcher had stopped making Palms. He’d tried other shoes, but nothing worked quite like Sketcher Palms. We looked down at this worn shoes. He’d been wearing the same pair almost every day for over a year.

In the days that followed, we kicked into gear. High gear. Every shoe store in the Charlotte area and every shoe outlet online was harassed by our searching voices and nimble fingers. Simon called his friend in NY who had a cousin in London to check stores there. Perhaps best of all, Laurie started bidding on a pair that showed up on E-bay only to discover that Steve was also in the bidding. She outbid him. She was a woman on a mission.

Two weeks before Christmas, Steve’s doctor looked at his scuffed up Sketcher Palms and said, “Dude, ditch the shoes. They're just socks with rubber on the bottom.” (my paraphrase)

A week later we had a Christmas feast and white elephant gift exchange. That night, every size and color of box and bag appeared under the Hopkins’ tree. Steve asked Tami what two gifts she’d wrapped for them. Tami, thinking fast, said she’d rather not tell. She’d found such great gifts and wanted him to be surprised. Steve shoveled into the broccoli casserole, oblivious.

After we were sufficiently stuffed, we tottered into the living room. “We're all going to take a gift and open it on the count of three,” said Dennis, one of Steve’s best friends. “After that, the white elephant part begins.” Laurie handed out the gifts. We shook our boxes and feigned puzzled looks on our faces.

One…

Two…

Three…!!!!

Paper ripped, bows bounced, ribbons zig-zagged in the air, and tissue bloomed in crinkly clouds before settling knee-deep on the floor. In a matter of seconds, all 16 of us were holding aloft one Sketcher Palm, size 10.

Tami started to cry.

Steve started to cry.

Then they both smiled their smiles that are way too big and last for way too long.

I wonder what the Magi were thinking when they brought the baby Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh. We may not be as wise as them, and we certainly don't come with the gear---turbans, star-gazing skills, and camels. But this Christmas, in our own way, we brought the baby Jesus shoes—Sketcher Palms, size 10, to be exact. Steve gets to wear them for now, while Jesus lives inside his heart, his unwheelchair-able heart.

A) Ventilation B) Flexibility