Words, Words, Words for Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving in the United States gets lost between the hullabaloo of Halloween and the chaos of Christmas. This makes me sad because an annual celebration of gratitude is good for the soul. The daily celebration of gratitude, however, is even better.

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” William Arthur Ward

I want to express my gratitude and thank you for reading Questioning. I am incredibly grateful that you take time to stop by and share the journey with me.

Make it a wonderful day full of expressions of gratitude for family, friends, food, and fun!

Gratitude Journal #22

Today, I am grateful for

--another birthday come and gone

--George's cheesecake, which makes Cheesecake Factory look like Sara Lee

--all my family and friends (both real life and online!)

--the special music at out church yesterday that felt like an unexpected birthday present

What are you grateful for today?

Words, Words, Words for My Birthday

Birthdays are complicated things. Both of these apply. Equally.

1. "No wise man ever wished to be younger." Jonathan Swift [Nor wise woman either.]

2. "Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened." Cora Harvey Armstrong [You said it, Cora.]

Words, Words, Words from Rita Emmett

"God created company so the house would get clean." Rita Emmett

Grady Update

Here is a recent picture of little Grady, my new nephew who was born 7.5 weeks too early. He now weighs 5lbs, 12oz, and he's gaining about a half-pound a week. Obviously, he's doing very well. So is my sister.

Thank you all for your prayers and good wishes!

Photo by Lisa Dumont

Weekly Giggle #6

I'm with you, Hubert. For more funny LOLDogs, go here. So many giggles this week!

Okay, I don' t know that the bloodhound above is named Hubert. I got the name from the HIGH-larious mockumentary Best in Show. See a clip of Hubert with his owner/handler Harlan Pepper (AKA Christopher Guest) here. It's almost as funny as Harlan talking about nuts. If you like that sort of thing. Sadly, I can't find the nut clip.

Then and Now

Then:

Now:


How did this happen? My baby is ten.

Then, he fit on my forearms comfortably, a happily swaddled burrito.

Now, he barely fits on my lap and can’t stand clothes that are too tight. Or long-sleeved shirts. Or blue jeans. What boy doesn’t like blue jeans?

Then, he got chubby on breast milk.

Now, he eats salmon and shrimp and ratatouille and steak and salad and hot dogs. But not spaghetti in tomato sauce, hamburgers, or macaroni and cheese.

Then, he cooed and squeaked and babbled.

Now, he argues like a lawyer or a classically trained Greek orator: he’s a precocious Odysseus for the twenty-first century. He also makes endless pew-pew-pew sounds while pretending to be a Jedi knight or fighting evil transformers.

Then, he lay in my arms and was what he was…a baby, all soft and helpless and sweet.

Now, he stomps his feet because we won’t let him watch The Dark Knight yet and we edit violent parts out of The Lord of the Rings and we keep tight parental controls on his computer.

Then, he lay around wanting the Booby Lady, a fresh diaper, and sleep, and he got all three whenever he wanted them.

Now, he wants to be a grown-up, married to a woman who works hard and makes a lot of money so he can sit around playing computer games and watching television all day long. “I want my allowance, but I don’t want to have to DO anything for it!” he said to George last weekend when forced to clean up the dog food he had spilt on the garage floor.

Oh, my baby. You’re going to learn that lesson the hard way, aren’t you?

Growing up hurts. I remember. We start out as little babies having our every need met the second we start fussing. Gradually, our demands stop eliciting instant response. We have to wait, learn patience, learn disappointment, and start doing for ourselves. We have to do things we don’t want to do and (hopefully) figure out how to make them less annoying. We wail, “It’s not fair!”

From where I sit now, what’s not fair is that mommies who carry babies in their wombs have to make the world “not fair” so our babies can grow up. We have to make them do chores, go to bed, slow down growing up. We have to make them eat breakfast, dress reasonably, get hair cuts, and do their homework.

But sometimes, I want to put him on a carousel and let him go round and round with joy on his face, riding a giant fiberglass eagle and feeling like he’s soaring above the rest of the world.

At least at ten, he still lets me have that chance.

Happy birthday, Nick. I love you.

Photo Acknowledgements: Nick on bike and on eagle by George Raihala. Newborn photo by hospital.