Why I love Katie

I wish I could write something that would equal the post that Katie wrote for my birthday - unfortunately, it was so kind and thoughtful (it brought tears to my eyes to see that she remembers more about my life than I do!) that what I write below won't even compare.

Several years ago, while flying on a plane, I saw the movie "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton", and, as silly as it may seem, you would be surprised to discover that it made me think seriously about love. What is love? How do you know that you love someone? I remember thinking about those questions very seriously and feeling dissatisfied with my own thoughts on why I love my wife. They seemed to center more on things that she does than characteristics of who she is. Do I merely love what my wife does for me, or do I love my wife?

Yesterday, I put my finger on it better than ever before: I love Katie because she wants to live in a small home. Katie sends interesting news articles to me from time to time (one of the things that she does that I love), and yesterday she sent this one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/garden/11tiny.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=small%20homes&st=cse&oref=slogin

While reading, fascinated as I considered the many benefits that would follow from reducing the size of one's home, I was shocked that Katie had sent the article to me and that she was (seemingly) a proponent. It occurred to me that she is frequently the wife of the guy in that article - her husband is always coming up with nutty ideas that he must see to completion. And she does it with such grace.

So why does desiring to live in a small home make me love Katie? It symbolizes several very important things about her:

1. She's a progressive thinker. She doesn't shy away from new ideas that break convention, especially if they seem to have merit.

2. She would rather focus her energy on more important elements of life. One of the arguments in favor of living in a small home is that it requires far less energy to maintain (measured in a variety of ways: time, cost, environmental resources, worry, etc.) - energy that would be better spent on other things. Katie has a knack and a vision for prioritizing those 'other things' and cutting out the fluff.

3. If I told her that I wanted to build a small home with my own hands, she would be supportive. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be difficult times along the way, but what kind of wife would let her husband run off and do that when his portfolio of home building experience consists of nothing more than working as a grunt on a home construction site for a month one summer? Sometimes, she's probably not dissimilar to Noah's wife.

Katie will testify that she and I are very different people. Yet, more and more I realize that we are actually quite alike - we share a similar vision of life and family. And by 'share a similar vision', I don't mean that we have a common notion of how we're going to live out the rest of our days...I mean we have a common underlying philosophy of how to approach life naturally, cutting away the excess and living in a way that brings us deep satisfaction and excitement. Our differences are really caught up in the fluff.

What I most love about Katie is how she validates my life and who I am. Somehow, she has wrapped herself into the webbing of my character and has figured me out on a fundamental level. Just read her blog post on April 8, 2008. Most importantly, understanding who I am, she promotes my strengths, rejoices in my good news, comforts me in hard times and encourages me to fulfill my dreams. But just to be clear: I don't love her BECAUSE she does those things...I love her because she IS the person who does those things. That is a defining characteristic of who she is and it's attribute to which I aspire.

So, happy birthday, Katie! Thank you for sharing life with me, growing up with me and bringing great happiness to our family.

Installment 2: Our trip to Boston

In August, Eric took the boys up to Boston for a week to visit his family. I joined them for three of the days they were there. What can I say about the trip? It was amazing, I'm so glad I went, I hope it's the beginning of new things for our family. How strange and wonderful to see all the ways in which we are who we are, independent of our environment or how we were raised. It makes me excited beyond words to meet the little person hanging out inside me right now. The pictures tell the story better than words....

Little E playing croquet....


Brigham with cousin Ambria....


Amazing vegetarian dinner with the whole family (those are root/ginger beers!)...


Eric and Rick...


Eric looking heartbreakingly handsome....


Me talking to Eric's Uncle Sandy...


Sleepy heads...


Eric and the boys on the steps of the barn behind the house in which his Mom grew up....


Newly minted Red Sox fans in front of the Mayflower...


Eric has a slideshow on his website with more pics (follow the link on the right). A trip to remember.

And before I sign off, I have to brag about how much my husband loves me. Usually I'm the one complaining that the house is too cold and arguing for open windows instead of A/C in the summer. When I'm pregnant, however, I morph into a polar bear. Truly. My very heat-tolerant grandmother came to visit last month and she sat on the front porch almost the entire time she was here because she said the house was too cold. And this:



is how I found Eric dressed for bed one night recently. Not staged, I promise! Anyway, I suspect that if the situation were reversed I would have complained my head off until he turned the A/C down simply to shut me up. Good thing I'm not married to me:).

Catching up...Installment 1: Katie's Kakes

You know how, when you stop doing something you know you should be doing, first you feel kind of bad, then you feel really bad, and then you just get defiant? That's how I've been with regard to so many things this past month- one of which is blogging. The problem is that I've got a huge backlog now of things I've been meaning to write about so I feel like I have to write a HUGE post, which, of course, only makes me procrastinate even more. So I've decided to catch up in installments (and they're in no particular order). Here's #1...

I am now officially a Kitchenaid devotee. My stand mixer ran for two days straight last week while make a wedding cake for my friend Cindy Lynn's reception. If you've ever made 6 batches of Italian meringue buttercream frosting in one day, you know what I mean. I was holding my own until it came to the assembling and decorating part- that's where things took a decidedly Dr. Suess-ish turn (picture a lopsided, asymmetrical, Cat-in-the-hat-style job). Luckily my friend Lindsay, who is much more aesthetically attuned than I am worked some magic with a bunch of fresh flowers and saved the day, as you can see, below.

Linds and me with the finished product...



As soon as I get them, I'll post the pictures of Cindy Lynn looking STUNNING in my wedding dress, which, I must say, is one of the few very, very, very nice things I own, right up there with my engagement ring and my drop-dead gorgeous dog. More on that in a minute...

An hour before the reception started, the clubhouse was filled with bustling, capable women on a mission: to make it a night that Cindy Lynn and Mahon would always remember as the perfect start to their lives together. For me, it was the partial fulfillment of a promise I made to myself a little over eight years ago. I can picture a similar scene in the hours leading up to my own wedding reception, the wonderful sisters in our ward working their fingers to the bone so that I could feel some of the happiness and significance of that day, even as my mortified family and friends looked on, baffled as to how exactly it had come to pass that the feminist/ROTC cadet/sorority girl they knew and loved was getting married at the tender age of nineteen. And I do admit, after all this time, that at nineteen, I was a little on the young side to be getting married. But I also still believe with all my heart what I did on that day: I had found the person I wanted to spend the rest of eternity with- there was no doubt in my mind, and there still isn't. What would have been the point of dragging our courtship on? We'd found each other and there was nothing left to do but get married and grow up together. Anyway, I promised myself that someday I'd pay forward at least a small part of the kindness that was shown to me. There aren't too many things I can do that would be useful in that sense, but I can bake a cake and I can certainly lend out my wedding dress and it felt so, so good to do both of those things for Cindy Lynn, who is truly one of the most amazing people I know. Check out her blog (follow the link to the right) and you'll see what I mean.

At the end of the night I gave the boys a five-minute warning and collapsed into a chair in front of the continuously playing slideshow of pictures of the bride and groom. The emotion of the night hit me all at once and I started crying at the picture of Mahon (a boy I had know all of two hours!) and his brothers digging up potatoes. Apparently they actually do that in Idaho- kind of cool. Anyway, at that point, I knew it was time to go home and go to bed. But the hope and happiness of the evening has stuck with me, and I can't stop thinking of how almost everything that's precious to me began on my wedding day, and how I never could have imagined back then the incredible, loving, weird, hilarious, imperfectly perfect family that is my life today.

Thank you

Misery = the stomach flu when you're 7 months pregnant and the baby won't stop squirming around.

Gratitude = a husband who ditches a half-day of school to pick up the kids and take them swimming all afternoon, feed them dinner, and mow the lawn, only to come down with the stomach flu himself, but drags himself to school the next day because he used up all his "sick time" taking care of you. Thanks sweetheart:).

L'Alpe is no match for him....

Just had to post this pic of Eric riding up L'Alpe d'Huez a few weeks ago while he was in France for a school conference. I watched the riders in the Tour ride up it this morning while I slogged away on my trainer. This baby has decided to live INSIDE my pelvis, so I've been temporarily sidelined from running:-(. I'm far too shaky on the bike under the best of circumstances, so I stick to the trainer, which, when you're watching the Tour de France on TV and can pretend that you're riding in the Alps instead of your bedroom, is not all that bad. Anyway, I was impressed to note that Eric had done it faster than the slowest Tour riders today. Of course, they'd already ridden over a hundred miles and two other mountains, but still. He looks so cute:). He thinks I tolerate his cycling because I know he would never give it up, but I really am so proud of what a good athlete he is. I'll always remember arriving at the start of a race we did together last fall and being ready to tell anyone who looked at me funny, "I'm with him!"

Another random note- while eating dinner the other day, little Eric asked if we were poor. I laughed and told him no, but Eric, ever the economist, launched into an explanation of relative wealth, explaining that if you compare us to the average Brazilian, who has a dirt floor, no car and plastic furniture, then we're very rich, but if you compare us to someone with tons of money, like.....like.....and as he struggled for a name the kids would recognize, Brigham cheerfully blurted, "Tom Selleck?" That made our night.

One more random note- I really don't know how much longer I can take being ostracized in my own home. Lately, whenever Eric or one of the boys approaches me, they start to speak and then pull the neck of their shirt up over their nose and back away in disgust. This is because for about an hour after every meal I can be found at the computer, the sink, or wherever I happen to be with cup full of regurgitated food close by. Yes. Regurgitated. My favorite reaction to this lovely pregnancy symptom (separate and distinct from vomiting) was from our friend Rod, a Radiology resident who said, without missing a beat, "yeah, that progesterone's a killer isn't it?" It certainly is. I long for the day when my stomach returns to its normal capacity. I've been told to eat six small meals a day. I refuse to do that. I'm pregnant. I get real hungry. I want a MEAL, not a wimpy little snack.

So, for the next 11 weeks I plan to eat like a normal person, not graze like some cow, and then proceed to upchuck a good ten percent of what I've eaten. Don't worry, my weight gain has not been affected in the least since I always eat whenever I'm hungry, it's just really, really gross. And a bit of a problem when we eat out or with friends. You should see the warning looks Eric shoots me as I reach for dessert. I should really go though, my cup is about to overflow, and not with love....

Well, there goes another one

Brigham had his first day of kindergarten on Wednesday. Interestingly, he was much less concerned about it than Eric. I think he started to get a little nervous, however (and so did I) when his teacher repeatedly called him Chandler when he walked in the room: "Welcome, Chandler!....Let's find your desk, Chandler!" I agonized over this all the way home- why, WHY didn't I correct her?! Because she's been teaching for almost thirty years and although she seems very, very nice, she instructed us on what brand of scissors to buy with such specificity that I confess I'm pretty intimidated by her! Apparently she figured things out when the real Chandler showed up. His parents probably have backbones.

Brigham had an accident and had to use the change of clothes I had sent in, but other than that, all seemed to go well. He told me that there were two "options" for lunch, and he chose a baked potato with cheese sauce, broccoli and chocolate milk. As his eyes were closing in sleep that night, I asked him what he was thinking about, and he said: "a potato". Eric, for his part, raves about the salads in the cafeteria- complete with cucumbers! Today they wore red for red day and Brigham made an apple puppet, which I'm dying to see when he brings it home on Monday.


I miss them. Don't get me wrong- our house is pretty darn clean right now. Everyone has clean clothes- folded and in their drawers, even. The dog has been bathed. But tomorrow is Saturday, and for the first time in my life as a mother, I'm looking forward to it not because my husband will be home, but because my kids will be home. I find myself FIERCELY guarding the precious moments we have to be together as a family. This is part pregnancy hormones, I'm certain, but also part not realizing what you have until you've lost it. All those unscheduled minutes in which I could have snuggled and done puzzles and sung songs. I've tried to console myself with thoughts of the daughter growing inside me right now. In a few months I'll have a new little friend to keep me company. But, strangely, that never works. Even though our two bodies are one, I don't know her yet. I look at my boys and try to think how one day she'll inspire the same overwhelming feelings of love and protectiveness that they do....but that day is still to come. So for now, the dog is getting LOTS of love and attention, and I'm learning how to be alone again.

Letting go

Today was little Eric's first day of first grade. He did go to Kindergarten last year, but it was private and half day- a world away from the large public elementary school both boys are going to this year. We went in Thursday to meet his teacher, who is, apparently, the most loved teacher in the whole school and, if that weren't enough, a man. Eric was delighted to discover the existence of male teachers.

Yesterday he asked me several times if he would have any time to play in the first grade- the first hint of reluctance he'd shown. He was worried because he hadn't seen any toys in the classroom. I told him honestly that I didn't know, but that I thought the work would be fun. Then on the way to school this morning he said that he'd woken up on the middle of the night and stayed awake for a long time thinking about school. And then he let me hold his hand in the hallway. It's like he read a book on how to break your Mom's heart. He was the only child in a class of 23 who was new to the school, and I had to resist the very strong urge to ask the belovedmaleteacher to keep a special eye out for him.

It's nearly impossibly to get Eric to keep his eyes open when you're using the flash. I took two pictures of him at his desk- eyes closed in both, but I was the only Mom in the room and I could feel him silently begging me not to embarrass him, so I desisted.


When I picked him up he looked shaken- he'd skinned his knee and been hit by a baseball on the playground, but he perked up in the car and I ended up with the impression that it was a pretty good first day. There was a puppet, some animal crackers and some old preschool friends.

The playground, however, seems incredibly dangerous. Eric described it as being made of cement with "thousands of kids running around". Add to that baseballs whizzing through the air at lightening speed and a deranged second grader who kept coming up and yelling inexplicably in Eric's face. I'm taking a lot of deep breaths and revisiting the story my Mom and aunt told me my first summer at camp. One of them, I can't remember which, had written home to my grandmother from the same camp, 30 years earlier, that they were learning how to swim through burning oil and stand up in the saddle during horseback riding. What they meant was, they were learning what to do INCASE they ever had to swim through burning oil (swim under water for as long as you can and splash wildly before coming up for a breath to disperse the flames), and they were standing up in the STIRRUPS while trotting. Nevertheless, my grandmother phoned the camp director in a panic- thoughts of her daughters swimming in a flaming river and balancing on one leg atop a galloping horse making her sick with worry. Perhaps someday I'll laugh and tell the story of the treacherous elementary school playground. But if that second grader touches one hair on my son's head, I will hunt him down, so help me.

While Eric was gone, Briggie (who's first day of Kindergarten is Wednesday) and I sullenly cleaned the house and made some cookies for an after school snack. This:



is what we got. As you can see, I left something out. Luckily, that didn't stop the boys from eating them. Or the dog. Or me:).