Happy Birthday Anna!

'I feel that the real drama of life is never center stage, it's always in the wings. It's never with the spotlight on, it's usually something that you don't expect at all.'
- Fred Rogers

'something that you don't expect at all'... that's you Anna. What an unexpected addition you have been to my life. You taught our entire family just how important life is for the mere sake of life itself and for no other reason. No child, no young woman has ever been more loved than you. You are not often center stage but you are always at the center of this family's being. We are truly better for having you in our lives.

I love you Anna... Happy 14th Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

To my mother, who is 85 years young today and to my granddaughter, Sarah Grace who turns 12 today, I wish you both the most wonderful day.

I had hoped to find a photo of the two of them together on Sarah's first birthday that I dearly love somewhere in my collection of photographs, whether a print copy or a digital copy but alas, it has proven to be illusive.

I know I have it somewhere but it wasn't with the other photos from their joint birthday celebration here at my house from 11 years ago. I'm sure I did something with it or intended to do something with it and it's in the nether world of all those things in this house that I have had great plans for. :::sigh:::

I'm hoping to leave for mom's on Sunday and I know she has a copy there that I can scan. I will have to wait until I can get that done to post the picture.

I love you both and wish only the best for you today and always!

Happy Birthday mom and Sarah!

Fourteen!

I am posting this just a little bit early. Emily's birthday is tomorrow, the 23rd day of March, one day after mine! I adore Emily. She is one of my five favorite granddaughters!

Earlier today, I decided I wanted to do a scrap type page of a picture of Emily and I together from almost 8 years ago. That summer, each of my granddaughters who live in Bossier came over to spend a weekend with me. The memories and pictures from those weekends count among the best in my life. Each one of them came separately, which was and still is a big deal as they were all mama's girls and real homebodies. I tried to do special things with each of them while they were here and let them choose how we spent most of our time together. The pictures were a lot of fun, because I took them while posing with the girls trying to keep the camera still and focused while holding my arm out far enough away to get the shots. The girls took a few shots too.

As I looked through the photos from those weekends, I realized that the memories had started fading for me. It bothers me to feel like I'm losing those times and the older I get, the more I seem to need reminders of what took place at certain times. I'm glad I have those pictures! Those fading memories also gave me the tag line I used on this image.

I love you Emily. I am so glad to have the memories from this long ago weekend with you. There are so many more that I hold dear and I look forward to all those that will come in the future. You truly are a cherished member of my life.

(click on the image to see a larger version)

Happy Birthday to my sweet Emmy!

The Face Of Sixty-One

Today is my birthday. I'm sixty-one years old today. Sometimes I still feel just like I did when I was a young child, at play, eager and learning something new every day; sometimes I still feel like I did when I was a teenager, carefree and experiencing those first innocent tastes of what adulthood and a life of responsibility would bring; sometimes I'm still the young bride who believed she would forever be with the love of her life or the young mother, who learned quickly that there were lives far more important than her own; sometimes I still feel like that woman in early middle-age, struggling with growing children, a loss of love, trying to balance family and a demanding job and the unfairness of the world; sometimes I actually feel my own age, appreciative with thankfully only a few aches and pains and more thankfully only a handful of regrets; sometimes **gasp** I feel even older, bent and tired when I let the aches and pains and regrets get to me! The only thing that surprises me anymore is how quickly time seems to move and just how inhumane human beings can actually be towards one another. But those are topics for another day.

Today, I am posting a picture of me. Okay it's not really the face of sixty-one as it was taken almost three years ago... but I really haven't changed that much in less than three years and I don't have a more recent photo that was professionally taken. I will admit that it helps to know your way around Paint Shop Pro (or Photoshop if that is your graphic weapon of choice). A little gaussian blur blend layer works for most portraits. This photo was done by Olan Mills for our church directory so it needed only a slight blur. I used it with a scrap tutorial that came through one of my groups. I seldom, if ever, use photos of me to do these things with and decided that I would post this for my birthday when it came around.

So here I am, looking life square in the eyes!




Tomorrow is my granddaughter Emily's birthday. She will be 14. I'm going to their house in Bossier City for a combined birthday celebration and Easter dinner and to make Emily a chocolate pie (yes, from scratch, the one from my good old standby Betty Crocker cookbook) with meringue piled as high as we make it! My son John will be there too. My daughter and granddaughters in Florida will call. How I wish they could be there in person too. I hate the distance that separates us, but learned after moving away from my family and hometown years ago, that distance doesn't change how much you love one another only how often you get to see each other.

What advice do I have to offer after sixty-one years? Just to look life square in the eyes and to take each day as it comes. I really wish I was better at that!

Rockin' Robin

Happy Birthday Robin!

This picture of my sister Robin and her husband Bob was taken a couple of years ago at the rehearsal dinner the night before my niece Melanie's wedding.

Today, she is 52 years old!

Love ya sis!

now playing: Rockin' Robin by the Jackson 5

FIFTEEN!!!!!

My oldest granddaughter, Erin, has a birthday today. It is so hard to believe that 15 years have passed since she was born. I've been wanting to do a post on here, dedicated strictly to Erin first, then one on each of the other granddaughters in their birth order but time eludes me as does the ability to find the words and resources I want to use to define them to the world... well at least to the people who visit my little space on the Wx3.

So for now, it will just have to be enough to say

Happy Birthday Erin!!!

Erin,

I hope this day and this year are everything you could hope for. I pray for you every day, for your happiness, for your soul, for the choices you make, for the people you choose to be a part of your life and most of all for you to know how loved you are.

Sweet sixteen will be here before you know it!

Love,

Mimi

This also happens to my brother Jim's birthday as well. He is the oldest in our family and turned 65 today. It is so hard to believe that we are at THAT age when I so clearly remember us at Erin's current age!

A Busy Week

The past week was busy for me. Just catching up after being gone for three weeks was hectic enough. Laundry, cleaning, clearing away the mail that accumulated.

I also missed my son's 33rd birthday while I was gone. I finally got around to making a birthday dinner for him and his favorite yellow cake with chocolate icing on Wednesday night. We had half of it after dinner and I sent the rest of that home with him so I wouldn't be tempted to eat it myself. I took the other half of the cake with me to Dee's on Thursday night and it was pretty much devoured that evening.

Here's a few photos from my time with my kids last week.

John blowing out the candles on his cake... not very fancy, but it was good!

Dee on the phone, talking to her sister Jamie, my other daughter in Florida.

This is Emily, 13, (a good photo of her other than the finger, which would not clone out easily. I could have cropped it out but would lose part of her chin... oh well.)

This is Erin, 14, taken on the front porch swing. She was sitting with her friend Amy, who I cropped out of the photo. It was a nice shot of them both and I will send the original photo to be shared. They will start high school this year... sigh.

and of course, Sarah Grace, almost 11.
I can't believe she is moving to middle school this year... another sigh!

Happy Birthday Jamie

Jamie,

As hard as it is for you to say, “I’m 40!”, it is even more difficult to say that about your child. To know that forty years have passed since the day I gave birth to you and found a whole new reason for being astonishes me. How did we get here so quickly?

Forty years ago tonight, your dad drove me to Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, Indiana and to this day I remember everything about that trip. I remember distinctly screaming at him, telling him, “Stop!” and like an idiot the loving husband he was, he was actually going to stop the car! “No, don’t stop the car. Stop this from happening! Stop the pain!” He could do neither. We had set the course in motion months before and it wasn’t going to change now. That night I became a mother.

You were 3 pounds and 12 ½ ounces of pure beauty. You were so tiny, yet still perfect in every way. You had all ten toes and ten little fingers and the gorgeous eyes were there from the beginning. Why you were so small I will never know for sure. You were full term and perfectly formed - just small. There were no ultrasounds then, only external measurements which gave us no pause for concern. Your heartbeat was strong throughout the pregnancy and again, nothing in your development gave us an indication that you would not leave the hospital with me the day I went home. My heart broke the day I had to walk away from you and leave you in that place in the care of strangers. I left believing it would be at least a month or two before I would get to hold you in my arms. It took little more than two weeks for you to make the five pound mark required before your dad and I could bring you home.

Watching you grow was one of the greatest delights of my life. Your first tooth, your first steps, your first day of school are etched in my memory forever. Even as a child you had an amazing ability to get along with people. I admired that quality in you even then. You had such a close and loving relationship with Granny, that for the first time in my life, I truly missed not having grandparents that I could be close to. You were so close to Dee and John, even when you were all just being kids and arguing or whatever, you were obviously a big sister that they could depend on and look up to. You were a peacemaker as a child and still carry that trait in you today.

Seeing you as a woman, watching you handle some of the most difficult and heartbreaking circumstances a woman can face, makes me so proud of who you grew up to be. It’s not just the obvious challenges that you’ve faced that make me admire you. It is how you’ve adapted to every change in your life... always with grace, always with humor and with an acceptance of life as it comes. I am so proud of the person you are and I wouldn’t give up the forty years I’ve had as your mother for anything. I wish for you to enjoy every single moment of the rest of your life and to know how much I love you and respect you. I am thankful that Anna and Kayla have such a wonderful model in their lives.

I wish I could be physically present with you tonight but once again I have to be content with leaving you in the care of others. You will always be my baby Jamie.

I love you!

Mom
(now playing: In My Daughter's Eyes by Martina McBride)

through the years

there are so many more pictures I could put on here that would define the past 40 years much more completely; pictures from your younger years that remain in the drawer unscanned; pictures in your dance costumes and cheerleader's outfit; pictures with your friends and with your dad; your college graduation pictures; your wedding picture, which I painstakingly scanned in sections and put together and resized and it would just not post for some unknown reason (not to mention that I wasn't sure how you would feel about it being up here under the circumstances, but you were such a beautiful bride I was going to show off the portrait anyway); there are so many more of you and your girls, pictures with your nieces and some with granny and paps (but again, blogger is just being a real pain about the loading pictures today for some reason); anyway, here are a few that will show the world where you started (almost) and where you are today (almost).

Jamie - 3 months

Jamie - 18 months

Jamie - high school senior

Jamie - with Anna a week after her hip surgery

Jamie - with sister Dee at Christmas 2001
Dee made the dress for Kayla

Jamie - with Anna and Kayla
this was taken the day after Kayla's birth

Jamie - with brother John
summer 2006

Jamie - with Dee and Mom (me)
summer 2006

Zero to Sixty

A few weeks ago, I had a birthday. A big birthday. One with a zero on the end. One that carried an age that I didn't like to say was coming before it got here and don't really like admitting to now that the day has passed.

I'm quite amazed at how quickly I got here:

21,915 days
525,960 hours
31,557,600 minutes
1,893,456,000 seconds (yes, that's one billion!)

I didn't quite break the sound barrier did I?

Sure seems like it!

(Music is When I'm Sixty-four by the Beatles)

Birthday Cards and Memories

Every year in August, I look for birthday cards for my granddaughter Sarah Grace and my mother, who happen to share a common birth date. Dad’s birthday follows a few days behind.

This past year, as I looked through the cards for fathers, one caught my eye because of the pair of hands on the front of the card. One was the hand of a child the other the hand of an adult. The words on the card described the distant memories of an adult child remembering holding the hand of a father. I knew that I had to buy this card since so many of my memories about dad involves holding hands. How glad I am that I found that card in particular... it is the last birthday card I will give him. He died September 1, 2006, just a few days after his 86th birthday.

My first memory of Forrest Kauffman as my dad is from the Delaware County Fair the year he and mom were married. I took him by the hand and introduced him to my first grade teacher as my new father, my own father having died from cancer a few years before. I remember countless Friday nights, going to town with him and holding his hand as we crossed the streets of Muncie, generally ending up at the Martha Washington Ice Cream Shop and having a hot fudge sundae.

How many times over the years did I watch as one grandchild or another took dad by the hand to lead him wherever they wanted to go. Dad struggled, like so many men of his generation, with telling people he loved them but he always seemed to respond to the reach of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I watched in May of this past year as he took the hand of my mother and held it close to his side as he sat next to her in the nursing home, not wanting to let go, because he knew we would be leaving him behind. That picture is not only in my photo collection but permanently etched into my memory as well. By taking her hand, by responding to each of us who reached out our hands to him, Dad told us he loved us in his own way.

My very last memory of Dad is holding his hand as he passed on to a far better place. I have no doubt that he will be meeting each of us someday and that he will take us by the hand as we cross over to join him.

We will all be reaching back!

A Birthday Party And A Meltdown

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter Jamie had a party for her daughter's birthday. My youngest granddaughter, Kayla, turned 5 on the 3rd of January and this was the first opportunity, between Christmas break at school and all the holiday activity, to plan a party and get out invitations to all the children. Kayla chose to have a party at the local bowling alley and it was a hoot. So if the party was so great and the kids had so much fun then what caused a meltdown and who melted?

The explanation will follow - the meltdown happened to me!

I have to start by explaining for those who don't know my family, that Kayla's older sister, Anna, was born with multiple devastating disabilities. I'll leave the very involved explanations of the possible / probable cause of Anna's condition for a later post. Being as she is now 12 years old, it is something I've discussed so many times that I don't often feel a need to do so anymore. Anna is who she is and we love her tremendously. I do want to say here that Anna and Kayla are two of five beautiful granddaughters that I have, all of whom are of course extraordinary in their own right! I will also leave discussion of daughter Dee's girls, Erin, Emily and Sarah Grace for a later time. Suffice to say, you are in for a treat there as well!

I probably also need to explain that I have been at Jamie's home in Florida, since the 22nd of December. My original plans were to be here for Christmas and to stay to help with a surgery Anna was to have in what we thought would be early January. It was a fine and wonderful plan but the surgery didn't get scheduled until the 25th which means I'm staying just a tad bit longer than expected. Add to that the fact that I brought with me a cat, Mr. Woody K. Nibs (another story for a future post), and my dog Ginger. Thanks to my son, John, Ginger is safely back home in Louisiana, staying with him until I return. It makes life here with Jamie and her two girls, their dog Winston and a gaggle host uhhmm, well just a lot of great nurses who help make caring for Anna a little easier... thanks again John!

Meantime, back to the bowling party and the meltdown.

If you've never watched a group of young children, most of whom are barely 5 years old, bowl, it is hilarious. They are so serious and in the case of my granddaughter Kayla, quite expressive in their reaction, as seen in the photo coming off the alley pumping her fist in the air.


I watched, I laughed, I helped. I helped with the food and the cake followed by the opening of presents which was accompanied by lots of squeals and giggles, corralling of kids and assuring them that their gift would be opened next!

When all the festivity was over and done, Kayla passed out bowling bucks and the party kids headed for the arcade. Several adults helped clean the mess and I started breathing a sigh of relief when I looked over and saw Anna sitting in her wheelchair, looking very uncomfortable. Anna's spine is deformed and her chair is supposed to be adjusted for comfort but it seems right now to be one of the most uncomfortable places she can sit. I decided to take her out and just sit with her on my lap for a while. I wanted to be close to her and wanted her to be more a part of what was going on.

Almost from the moment I had her out of her chair and on my lap in an extremely unyielding, uncomfortable bowling alley chair, the water began forming behind my eyes. I seldom cry for Anna these days, not because her situation is less sad or any easier to deal with, but simply that I've come to terms with it. I came to terms with it very early on, as did her entire family. She has been fully accepted and completely loved from day one of learning about her condition. I think I might have been fine at this point, if my daughter hadn't come up and realized that I had tears in my eyes and openly asked me what was wrong. I think I could have kept it to a minimum but that didn't happen... the dam burst open and the contents of the salty seas of Mimi (that's what my granddaughters call me) were unleashed. I don't think I was truly sobbing but everyone was aware that I was crying and I wished I could stop and yet I couldn't. I am not ashamed of the tears, but would hope that everyone who saw me crying would understand that I don't regard Anna as needing to be cried over or pitied. I can't tell you an exact reason why I 'lost' it, other than maybe just wanting her to be able to experience what the other children were doing or just one time be able to get up out of that damn chair, to walk, to run, to sit up on her own, to speak, to bowl with the other kids, to hear her tell her mother that she loves her, and very selfishly I will add here that I wish she could tell me that she loves me too.

You know, now that I think about it, I think she was telling me she loved me and maybe that is why I was crying... maybe it was the way she snuggled against my chest, maybe it was the warmth of her body next to mine, maybe it was the smiles and her soft sighs that were all saying how much she loves me and maybe, just maybe, that's why I melted.

I love you too Anna!