I designated this Sunday as "pack up my mom's stuff" day. Full of brazen optimism, I allotted the hours between farmhouse clean up (early morning) and young family Sunday dinner (evening) to sifting through all the stuff in the apartment, packing all essentials, and discarding all the rest.
It's a bitter cold day. But of course, this is normal. It's January in Wisconsin. With a mostly cloudless sky and a decent snow cover, things are rather lovely outside. If cold.
Oh, but isn't it always cold on this day? Wasn't it super cold on January 19, 1985 when my youngest little one was born?
It's her birthday today!
I haven't a good baby photo of her but perhaps you'll be interested to see her at more or less Snowdrop's age? She looks a bit like her older self, don't you think?
I'll celebrate this day with her next weekend. We often push our birthdays around for each other to accommodate the distance between Chicago where she lives and the farmette where I live. Still, I can't help but think a lot about her wonderfulness today. January 19th will always be, for me, her day.
Meanwhile, back at the farmhouse, Ed and I sit down to breakfast.
And then I drive to my mom's.
She is such a keeper of things that the task of sifting and sorting seems endless. She is a note taker and there are notes and notebooks and folders and pads everywhere. And pens. Dozens of pencils and pens. What do I pack? What books? Which of her hats, caps, many, many pairs of reading glasses?
At one point I call her to clarify something about a particular scarf that she would like and which I cannot find (so many scarves! my mom beats the French in her affection for scarves!). She explains, I search. By the way, you kept the (such and such) folder, didn't you? -- she asks. Gulp. I look through all the messes of papers I stacked in the "YES" pile. Not there. I tear apart the bins of papers I placed in the discard heap. Not there. Oh boy...
It's like that all day long. I make decisions, some aided by her specifications, some -- wild guesses on my part. And I do finish sorting everything, but the evening is fast approaching and I have packed nothing at all.
Sigh... Tomorrow's another day.
The young family comes just as I throw the breaded chicken on the large skillet and peel some ears of corn for my corn loving grandchildren.
Toward the end of the evening, Snowdrop wants a few pages of our current chapter book. The secret's out! The reading of it always brings out a bag of potato chips!
So ends our day -- kids, chips, book, corn, chicken. Papers, scarves. Cold, sunshine, and a birthday!
It's a bitter cold day. But of course, this is normal. It's January in Wisconsin. With a mostly cloudless sky and a decent snow cover, things are rather lovely outside. If cold.
Oh, but isn't it always cold on this day? Wasn't it super cold on January 19, 1985 when my youngest little one was born?
It's her birthday today!
I haven't a good baby photo of her but perhaps you'll be interested to see her at more or less Snowdrop's age? She looks a bit like her older self, don't you think?
I'll celebrate this day with her next weekend. We often push our birthdays around for each other to accommodate the distance between Chicago where she lives and the farmette where I live. Still, I can't help but think a lot about her wonderfulness today. January 19th will always be, for me, her day.
Meanwhile, back at the farmhouse, Ed and I sit down to breakfast.
And then I drive to my mom's.
She is such a keeper of things that the task of sifting and sorting seems endless. She is a note taker and there are notes and notebooks and folders and pads everywhere. And pens. Dozens of pencils and pens. What do I pack? What books? Which of her hats, caps, many, many pairs of reading glasses?
At one point I call her to clarify something about a particular scarf that she would like and which I cannot find (so many scarves! my mom beats the French in her affection for scarves!). She explains, I search. By the way, you kept the (such and such) folder, didn't you? -- she asks. Gulp. I look through all the messes of papers I stacked in the "YES" pile. Not there. I tear apart the bins of papers I placed in the discard heap. Not there. Oh boy...
It's like that all day long. I make decisions, some aided by her specifications, some -- wild guesses on my part. And I do finish sorting everything, but the evening is fast approaching and I have packed nothing at all.
Sigh... Tomorrow's another day.
The young family comes just as I throw the breaded chicken on the large skillet and peel some ears of corn for my corn loving grandchildren.
Toward the end of the evening, Snowdrop wants a few pages of our current chapter book. The secret's out! The reading of it always brings out a bag of potato chips!
So ends our day -- kids, chips, book, corn, chicken. Papers, scarves. Cold, sunshine, and a birthday!
