Leave the light on

The days are pouring out like water from a pitcher, passing through my hands so beautifully and so quickly.  There are little boys pulling open drawers in the kitchen, asking for toast and milk and apples picked from the orchard, and I want to be with them. 

I’ve spent so much time trying to get to this place of ordinary life:  now, I want to soak up as much of it as I can.  I’ve decided to take a blogging break, which seems scary and like exactly the right thing, all at once.  You’ve been my first readers and my best readers, my teachers and my cheerleaders, you are that support van I wrote about wishing for, always right on time.  How will I manage without you?

I’m going to leave up the archives and the blogroll, for anyone who happens to pass by and wonder about this time in our lives.   There’s so much here that is good: because of the comments, because of the community. 

I’m leaving the light on. 

xo

Things we love

The days are getting shorter and the air, especially at night, has a new chill to it, which is a long way of saying,  it feels like fall!

Things we’re loving at our house right now: French toast with real maple syryp, Richard Scarry books, Goosie cards, BOB books, garden tomatoes, the reprintable resources from DSFOC,  Melissa and Doug’s play food set, this pretend clock, this zucchini bread, and fresh eggs from this chicken (now all grown up!).

What do you love, at your house?

An amazing thing happened

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids and I just got back from a camping trip in Glacier National Park.  It was full of all the usual things:  campfires and scary stories and mosquitoes and starry skies and hiking, lots of hiking. 

Which to me, felt like a small miracle. 

Circles

Avery loves to draw circles.  Sometimes, we call them “O”s, sometimes it’s “zeros” but really, they’re all circles, and he’s very good at making them.  When he works, his face tightens with concentration as his little fingers grip the pencil.  His tongue peeks out, a wisp of golden hair falls in his eyes. 

Good things

Here are a few good things I’d love to share, that have come across my desk (does anyone even have a desk any more?  I don’t know why I typed that.  I don’t have a desk…I have a basket on top of my microwave, which holds all my important papers, and my computer.  I suppose I should have typed “desktop”!).

And now we are 6

This is what six-years-old looks like at our house. And if you’re wondering why there are 12 candles on the cake? 

Meet Pip,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello, my blog!

It’s very quiet around here, lately, and for that I’m so grateful.  We had another appointment with the cardiologist last Friday, and at that visit, Avery’s heart looked so good that we’ve been released from the weekly checks.  In fact, we don’t have to go back for 6 months!

I love playing hide-and-seek with all the boys,

but I especially love playing it with Avery. 

Update on Avery

Hello everyone,

This is Jennifer’s faraway friend Rebecca. I just had the pleasure of talking with Jennifer in Seattle. Avery’s surgery was a success. Jennifer was very calm and collected, and wants everyone to know that even in her most nervous of moments she felt lifted by our love and prayers. She mentioned twice that the surgeon was happy guy, so happy that she felt assured that things went well.  She is waiting to see Avery who is in the ICU right now, and plans to kiss every inch of his body that isn’t covered in tape, lines, and wiring.

In the best case scenario they will be headed back home in about four days, provided that the baby steps to wean him off everything goes as planned. If Avery needs more time the stay could be extended. Jennifer will be calling with a report tomorrow after the doctors have made their rounds. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers in the coming days as Avery recovers from surgery.

No More Tears

I’ve been thinking about the past, lately, reviewing things in my mind, reliving our early days, from that shocking phone call from the pediatric cardiologist with the words, “Good news!  You won’t be life-flighted to Seattle for emergency surgery!” (Tom’s reply:  My God, I didn’t even know that was an option) to the way the smell of the NICU used to seep into my clothes, my hair, my skin.  Especially, the babies.  They didn’t smell like milk, or diapers, or lotion, or even Tom, me.  They smelled like the hospital.

Apparently, low self-esteem is not an issue

Me:  Bennett, what are you doing?

Bennett:  Being handsome.

Me:  Oh!  Yes, of course.

Reading, Recycling and Green Works Wipes

We don’t have a way of recycling in my community, so I do what I can on my own:  empty egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, plastic milk jugs all end up in the craft bin.  Glass jars are washed and reused for jam, or storing seeds, or buttons.  And the large-size yogurt containers?  Those are my favorites for freezing homemade soup stock.  Which is how I’ve come to have a half-dozen or so, in a tidy bunch on a shelf in my freezer. 

Yes, no and maybe: about doctors

Here’s another comment I wanted to pull out for discussion–this one is from Ellen.

My life is a circus

The boys are making a Circus in their bedroom. I’m not allowed inside until “showtime.” All I know is, it involves juggling (Carter), Avery in his lion suit, Bennett selling popcorn in brown paper bags (a nickel a piece), and Bailey jumping through the hula hoop.

Wish us luck!!!

I did it again!

I changed my blog theme…I know, I know. A person could get dizzy with all the blog-theme changes I’ve been doing here, lately. Which is weird, for me. I’m not a person who rearranges furniture, or who switches the pictures around. And I realize I’m in the minority here: most of you pick a theme and a look for your blog and stick with it.

So, what’s up?

I think it’s because this is the 1,000th day of low-hanging clouds and gray freezing rain and the dust bunnies in our house have been around so long, they all have names. I think it’s because changing my blog is a way to feel like I’m doing creative work, even if I’m really not. And I think I keep hoping a little change, maybe here, maybe there, will bring inspiration.

I’m gonna try and stick with this theme, for a while. It’s the very first one I began with, many moons ago. And the photo is one Conny Wenk sent me: I don’t know if I told you this story, but it’s why I love it so well–Conny was on a trip to Italy with Juliana, reading my book. She noticed the irony: in Holland (metaphor) and in Italy (real life) reading Road Map to Holland. She took a photo and shared it with me.

Tom and I had dreamed of going to Italy together–that was before twins, before preemies, before Down syndrome. And for a while, I thought that dream had ended. But Conny tells me the people in Italy are lovely, and have no trouble seeing past Down syndrome, to the heart of a child. So, I’m dreaming again….

And that’s what this header image does for me. It reminds me to keep dreaming.

Mamas making a difference

Recently, I had the opportunity to read Laura Shumaker’s book,  A Regular Guy:  Growing Up with Autism. a memoir about life with her autistic son, Matthew.  It’s an honest and open look at the struggle to obtain a diagnosis (which is something I’d never experienced–I’d always thought the black-and-white pronouncement of trisomy-21 was exceptionally harsh; now I’m beginning to see it as a mixed blessing) and especially, the decision to place Matthew, as an adolescent and later, young adult, in an out-of-state residential facility/school.  It’s a story many parents are reluctant to tell–about how they came to the point in their parenting where they felt out-of-home care was the best option.

Another mama I’ll point you to is  Ellen of the blog, To the Max. In this post, Ellen answers the question, “What I wish I’d known” about life with her son Max, who had a stroke at birth.  She got me thinking about how I might answer that question for myself, and my answer surprised me with its simplicity:  I wish I’d known we were all going to be okay. 

And of course, we are.

(Also?  I’d tell myself the Legos will never, ever be completely picked up, so forget about it already.)

I’m wondering, for myself and especially for all the new moms and dads out there, what do you wish you’d known, right from the start?

Not my best parenting moment

It was some time late at night, or early in the morning (who can tell which is which) when I heard the sound of Bennett near me, in the dark, sniffling back tears.

“What’s wrong, honey?” I asked, scooping him in my arms, pulling him into bed with me, trying to fully wake from my dream (Emily Perl Kingsley was on Oprah, I kid you not, these are the things I dream of).

“I’m so sad,” Bennett said.

“Why?”

“Really? Because some day, my brothers will die before me.”

“Oh, sweetie. You don’t know that! You might be the one who goes first.”

More tears, louder sobbing, of course I’ve made everything worse. Jolted completely awake, I try to fix it, backpeddling, when Tom rolls over from his own dreams and says, “No. No one’s going to die. Daddy says No. Go to sleep.”

And? We did.

Note to self: next time, sing a lullaby.

It’s like living inside a snow globe

The snow keeps falling and falling and the boys are full of wonder, and questions: Why are they called flakes? How long will it stay? Where does it come from?

I try to explain storm clouds gathering over the ocean, so far away, and even more impossible, moisture in the air, carried by the wind…it’s all beyond them, and me too really, but I keep trying until finally, I say, “Magic. It’s like magic, isn’t it?”

Because it is. It’s exactly what it feels like: the brightness shining in their eyes, their rosy cheeks, all 3 of them so perfectly full of life, and the snow, now glowing in the winter twilight. The yard is criss-crossed with sled tracks and little-boy boot prints, and the sound of their laughter is a path that leads me home.

Up, down, all around

When everything is so exciting you can’t sit still.
When life is so full you think you might burst.
When your greatest dreams come true, multiplied.
When it’s Christmas, and you’re 4.

Lots to share

Free books here.

More free books here.

An opportunity for kindness here.

And I have more to write!  But it will have to wait, because as Bennett has been saying of every house but ours, “Someone is in the holiday spirit!”  Time for me to get into the holiday spirit, too.

I’ll leave you with this, what I’ve been pondering lately:  white lights, or colored?

We’re off! In more ways than one!

When the kids were little, we used to make and wear turkey hats, gobbling around the house in an event that’s come to be known as “The Running of the Turkeys.”  Now that the kids are getting older, no one seems as interested in this part of the holiday, except the grown-ups.  Which means it’ll be me and Tom running around in Turkey Hats.  Is that what good parents do, or are we just big turkeys?

While I’m thinking that through, I’ll share with you these, my Thanksgiving answers:

1)  Absolutely

2)  Both

3)  It was like that when we found it.

4) Family, frends, and you!

 And the questions?

1)  Is it okay to eat pie for breakfast?

2)  White meat or dark meat?

3)  Who broke the wishbone?

4)  What am I most thankful for?

Oh, help me.

I did it again.

I turned the laundry blue.

Laundry is a theme in my life, you know this already if you’ve read Road Map (all the diapers!) or ParentDish (the clothes line! meet me at the clothes line!).  It’s a theme of struggle, really, because for all the hundreds, maybe thousands of loads of wash that I’ve done, I’m still not very good at it.

Kathleen Norris is one of my favorite writers, and one of my favorite books of hers isn’t really even a book at all, but a slim little chapbook called The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work,”and is the text of the 1998 Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality. 

She writes, “Laundry, liturgy and women’s work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down.”  She makes a connection between the daily rituals of the human condition, things like eating and bathing and even doing laundry, and prayer.  She explains that in tending to the quotidian, we are also tending to spiritual matters, if we allow it to be so.

But!

What kind of prayer is it if all the whites turn light blue?  What kind of mindfulness am I bringing to my daily routine when the socks have all gone azure?  And why, why can’t I get this figured out?

Which is the reason, when Mom Central announced a blog tour for a new product from Clorox, I asked to be a part of it.  I wanted to get this laundry problem under control.  I wanted whites that were white and colors that were bright, and I figured maybe I needed some new tools to make it happen.

I got my free bottle of Clorox 2X Ultra Stain Fighting Formula and I tossed a capful in the load I’d turned blue.  I closed the lid, set the machine to the wash cycle, and crossed my fingers.  It didn’t seem like a lot to ask, but in the past, when I’d tried to de-blue my blues (and it’s happened more than once), I’d always failed.

When the wash cycle stopped, I hesitated.  Did I really want to see those ruined clothes, staring back at me? Did I really want to look at failure, yet another time?

I forced myself to forge ahead.  In the bottom of the machine, the clothes were waiting for me.  The socks, Avery’s Buzz Lightyear underwear, the little shirt with the frogs on it.  But this time, everything was white!

I’m tempted to call it a miracle, though I know, it’s just laundry.  So I’ll say this:  it feels like a second chance, which is good enough for me.

I have 4 coupons for a free bottle of Clorox 2X Ultra to share, so you can see for yourself.  Let’s try this:  leave your worst laundry incident in the comments (Please?  It’s true, misery loves company) and the top disasters take the prizes.

UPDATED TO ADD:  Thank you, thank you!  You don’t know how much these stories of disaster have warmed my heart…and now, the winners!  Stephanie, of the I-bleached-the-guest-towels-of-my-hostess-by-mistake deserves a special prize all to herself.  And since she doesn’t need Clorox, let me send you a book!  Email me and I’ll give you some choices. 

And, in no particular order, here are the Clorox winners:  Nik’s Mom of Maternal Instincts…Flying By the Seat of My Pants, for “Cold Blood/Hot Sh*t”, which isn’t really a story but an excellent, unforgettable tip; Tricia of Unringing the Bell, for the dead mouse in the machine (yike!) and because she has a new baby at home which means lots of laundry!; Pam and Rhett of Rhett’s Journey, because a WHOLE box of crayons in the washer plus a cat in the dryer is really difficult to top (that Rhett does things BIG!); and Mom24 at 4EverMom, because she’s a laundry queen, and even royalty gets a crayon in their dryer once in a while.

Winners, please send your mailing address to me at jennifergrafgroneberg (at) yahoo.com.  Thanks for the stories, everyone!

Free stuff

Today is a link-y kind of a day:  I have a copy of a wonderful book to share over at 5 Minutes for Special Needs, and I’m giving away free advice (oh joy!) at AlphaMom.

Bailey and his long-lost brother…