Big Sister, Little Sister

I don't even know where or how to start, so here goes...

I'm 36 weeks pregnant with a little girl to be named Ava Leigh. I'm excited, scared, and a whole bunch of things all at once. This pregnancy has seemed to go faster and go slower at the same time. Faster in the sense that things seems to happen quicker this time around, or perhaps my previous experience helps me understand what stage the pregnancy is at sooner than my first time around. Slower in the sense that I'm just so anxious, so impatient, so ready to begin adapting to having a baby and a preschooler. I'm anxious for you to be a big sister, for the "teaching" of having a baby around to begin, to hold Ava and to meet her. I'm so anxious for her to get out of the newborn stage, to start interacting, so that you have that experience of bonding with her. I'm anxious for all these things and she's not even born yet.

You are excited to be a big sister and you have really taken up the task to "help" me with dishes, with laundry, etc. That mainly consists of rinsing the dishes and putting them in the drainboard and helping load/unload the washer and dryer. You also spend time taking care of your baby dolls and I plan on sitting down with you really, really soon (we're getting so close to the due date, it's getting down to the wire) to really show you what I have to do with the baby and how much time it actually takes. I know that will be the toughest part for you, not having my full attention anymore. "Patience, patience, patience" is constantly coming out of my mouth.

I've also had anxiety and worry with this pregnancy. I've worried when I was pregnant with you; I"m a worrier, that's what I do. But this time around, I'm 30. Yeah, I know...growing old gracefully...but that doesn't matter when 30 becomes this magic number for a lot of doctors when dealing with fertility issues. After turning 30, I realized how much closer that puts me to the recommended age to have annual mammograms, to the recommendations of taking calcium supplements, and so on. The same goes for pregnancy, although the age worries seem focused on the mid-30s range and up from there. Also, this pregnancy, Ava had a choroid plexus cyst in the first ultrasound, but it disappeared by the second ultrasound. Of course, when you find out this type of cyst is in the brain and that it's blocked cerebral-spinal fluid, it sounds a lot worse than what it really is. Also at the second ultrasound (36 weeks, so last week), Ava was still in breech position with her head near my right ribs. This introduces the prospect of a C-section, of major surgery with a longer recovery time than normal childbirth. So, yeah...more worry this time around.


You started Headstart in February, right before your 4th birthday. This is the first year they've had a Headstart program here, so we didn't know about it at first. I would have loved for you to have gotten in earlier. You absolutely love school. You can't wait to go and are sad when you have to leave. Your first day, you had no trouble saying good-bye to me and your daddy; but you cried when we came back to pick you up because you didn't want to leave school. I'm so glad you like school so much and wish you could keep that enthusiasm, but I know that's not meant to be. That would be too easy. Ha!

Runaway Bunny

The Runaway Bunny. Basic Plot: little bunny tells his mama that he will run away and she tells him that she will always be there.

The lines that stuck out for me were: "If you become a bird and fly away from me," said his mother, " I will be a tree that you come home to."

I love that.

There is one line that bugs me, though: "If you become a sailboat and sail away from me," said his mother, "I will become the wind and blow you where I want you to go."

That just sounds controlling, like she's not going to allow the child to live his own life. It just rubs me the wrong way, I guess.

The image of the mama welcoming the bunny home is simple and beautiful.

Blueberry Girl

Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman















Ladies of light and ladies of darkness
and ladies of never-you-mind,
This is a prayer for a blueberry girl.
First, may you ladies be kind.












Keep her from spindles and sleeps at sixteen,
let her stay waking and wise.
Nightmares at three or bad husbands at thirty,
These will not trouble her eyes.















Dull days at forty, false friends at fifteen--
let her have brave days and truth,
Let her go places that we've never been,
trust and delight in her youth.

Ladies of grace and ladies of favor
and ladies of merciful night,
This is a prayer for a blueberry girl.
Grant her clearness of sight.

Words can be worrisome, people complex,
motives and manners unclear,
Grant her the wisdom to choose her path right,
free from unkindness and fear.

Let her tell stories and dance in the rain,
somersault, tumble, and run,
Her joys must be high as her sorrows are deep.
Let her grow like a weed in the sun.

Ladies of paradox, ladies of measure,
ladies of shadows that fall,
This is a prayer for a blueberry girl.
Words written clear on a wall.

Help her to help herself, help her to stand,
help her to lose and to find,
Teach her we're only as big as our dreams.
Show her that fortune is blind.

Truth is a thing she must find for herself,
precious and rare as a pearl.
Give her all these and a little bit more:
Gifts for blueberry girl.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day. It's odd to think of myself as a mother sometimes. I'm in this new realm I've never been in before. I think about all the moms I've known over the years. My mom, of course. Then the moms of my friends from my childhood. It's hard to think of myself as an equal to them, to celebrate this day as "one of them". I'm not one of them. It's hard for me to picture myself hosting sleepovers or throwing birthday parties or being the "class mom" or any of the ways I remember my friends' moms from my childhood experiences.

But for me, this day means more to me than my birthday or Christmas. It is the one day I make sure your dad knows needs to be acknowledged. He's not one for buying cards or flowers or presents; he says he "doesn't see the point" in that stuff. But he does make sure that I have some kind of acknowledgment of this day from you. I do the same for him on Father's Day, to make sure he has some card, some drawing, something special that is from you. I feel these two days are about our connections to you, our personal connections. To sound blunt, I really could care less if your dad even says "Happy Mother's Day" to me--the day isn't about that for me. It's about sharing something with you, no one else. It's about my love for you. It's about all the wishes, hopes, dreams, fears, worries that I have for you, about you. It's about the most powerful love I could ever feel and in no way can I even put it into words.

Turning 30

This is the eve of my thirtieth birthday. I'm not the type of person to lie about my age or be "forever 29". Age is just a number in a lot of ways. I don't think of myself as a specific age, but more of an age-range. I think I'm currently stuck thinking of myself as mid-20s. I'll hear things on the news about people who are my age or within a year either side of it, and I will have this delayed "connection" to them because of the age proximity. It's one of those, "Oh, he is/was my age. Wow. Weird." kinda things.

I will turn 30 gracefully, or at least without protesting or denying. I am 10 times your age at this point (or will be tomorrow).

Also, the day before my birthday is a special day. It was my grandfather's (my dad's dad) birthday. We always had co-birthday celebrations on that side of the family. The last one we had was my sweet 16th. It was a tough one. My brother Randy had been in a car accident the month before and was still recovering. Jaybo had been diagnosed with throat cancer and was undergoing radiation. So it was tough to really be in a festive mood, tough to be excited about the prospect of getting my driver's license (which I did in June after completing the driver's ed course...and failing one driving test for hitting a Cadillac while trying to parallel park...yeah, not a proud moment for me). But overall, it was an okay party. Family was mostly together and that was what was most important. My dad's aunt, his mom's sister (my great-aunt Bobbie), had gotten me 17 gifts (1 for each year plus one to grow on). Most were trinkets or random things, but it was the presentation and the idea behind it that made them all special. Dad's sister Susie gave me an opal ring. Anyway, by November of that year, Randy was well on the road to recovery and Jaybo was not.

In part because of that 16th birthday, I don't have as much enthusiasm about growing older or having birthdays, at least for myself. For you, I would do anything to make your birthday special. Usually, we just opt for cake, ice cream, and presents, but I make sure we have plenty of family around. I want you to feel loved, everyday not just on your birthday.

Why the Sad Posts?

So, I start this blog off with sad and horrible moments in time. Why? In part, to get them out of the way as soon as possible. They have been weighing on my mind since you were born, since before you were born. I remember how my mom would get when I had my fascination with the Kennedy era. She instantly could recall where she was when she found out Kennedy had been shot (in Mr. Tatum's class in eighth grade, only one grade lower than I was with the OKC bombing). She could recall Mr. Tatum having left the classroom and coming back and he was visibly upset and had gotten onto the class for acting up while he was gone. That's when he told them.

Hearing her remember this event so vividly just struck me. And now I have mine own vivid memories of "Where were you when..." moments. You will have yours, yet I wish you didn't have to. It will be a moment of awakening to realize just how big the world is and how little we are in comparison. It will be a moment of uncertainty and fear at the thought that you will have to make your way into this world, a world were things of that magnitude and devastation can happen. I wish I could spare you that, but you need those in order to grow up. I wish I could tell you the world is a good place all the time, but it's not. I will tell you there is an amazing amount of good, even in the bad times. Look always for the positive. Look for ways to do something, anything to help. Big or small, acknowledged or anonymously, just do it.

I want you to know exactly where I was and how old I was at those times. I want you to have that same feeling I had, the same "Wow...that must have been important" thought running through your head. But I also want you to understand how I felt, what the atmosphere was like, what really was going on.

September 11, 2001

The day that changed my generation forever. Let's start with the obvious personal question...where was I and where was your father?

It was a Tuesday morning. Your father and I lived in an apartment in Velma. He was working in the oil fields. I don't recall for sure how he heard, perhaps over a radio station, a CB radio or cell phone, or someone coming onto location to tell them. I was at the apartment, having slept in because I didn't have any classes that day. That semester of college I was only taking a MWF schedule, with no classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays. I had been awake for a while and had just turned on the TV and saw the aftermath of the first plane. I watched in horror as the second plane hit the towers, knowing instantly that it deliberate. Two plane could not possible hit on accident. Knowing at that moment, hundreds and possible thousands of people had just died. I stayed glued to the television. Watching those towers fall to the ground and the dust clouds that filled the city is indescribable. I knew absolutely no one in New York City, but felt such despair for them, such heartache.

When things seemed as bad as they could be, they just got worse. Another plane hit the Pentagon and yet another crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. More lives lost. Mass confusion and the forced landing of all aircrafts immediately. There were absolutely no planes in the air for three days. The sky was silent, a eerie calm.

Then the local news mentioned gas prices going up. Well, I had class the next day, so I went out to put gas in the car. There were ridiculously long lines at both gas stations in Velma and the price of gas doubled. One store ran out of gas, so I gave up and came home. Later, many stores across the country got in trouble for price gouging. It's a mob mentality and fear-mongering. People automatically and instinctively go into survival mode, looking out for themselves. There was this air of uncertainty, of what will tomorrow bring, of will there be more attacks. Will we be at war?


As fate would have it, my World Lit class was schedule to read excerpts from the Koran that week. I was lucky enough to have a professor that not only understood the history of the Koran and Islam, but had personal experience in the Middle East. She had once lived in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Her then-husband, while he was British, he had a darker complexion, one that made many people mistake him for being Middle Eastern. Any time they traveled, he was always pulled aside for Customs questioning. Even though they booked their flight together and paid for the tickets together, shared the same last name, and ordered seats right next to each other, she was never pulled aside for questioning. All of this was well before the first attempt on the World Trade Center in 1992. So, that point to a glaring problem with security right there. If he had been what they suspected, he could have gotten away with anything simply by having her carry the necessary supplies on board with her.

But, getting back to the World Lit Class. We spent that Wednesday, the day after, talking in a kind of stunned state. That day definitely colored our conversations about the Koran and religion and politics. For days afterward, there was no air traffic because they had halted all air travel. That left many people stranded in airports, scrambling for rental cars, trains, buses, anyway to get back home. The airline industry suffered greatly after this and airport security was increased to extreme measures. I remember the first day they allowed planes to fly again was Convocation at Cameron. For my scholarship, I was required to attend and during the middle of the keynote speaker's address, a plane flew overhead. The speaker stopped, everyone basically held their breath as the plane passed overhead, and then the speaker went on to say something about how things are moving on or something to that effect. That moment, and many others afterward, were tense and full of fear of the unknown, fear of the what-ifs, and fear the terrorists wanted us to feel.

Then came the patriotism, the pride, the war effort in Afghanistan then onto Iraq and it became a political debacle. Weapons of mass destruction? Sadaam Hussein's regime being toppled, him being captured and executed, how to withdraw troops. Why did we go into Iraq in the first place and what did Iraq have to do with the September 11th attack or Bin Laden? So many questions without any answers.