In or Out?

This is Isabelle at 9:49 pm last night. She is so soundly asleep that she neither heard my laughter nor woke from the flash.

Yes, she is actually standing on the floor.

I recall being so tired of the late night revelry and groggy mornings that my threats for getting out of bed were pretty intense. She, being the one who, recently, finds it impossible not to straddle the lines of authority, must have fallen asleep this way while waiting for me to find her and determine if she was actually out of bed or not.

Small Successes

1. I have accepted the uphill battle that a nine day trip to St. Louis can wage against the attempted, if never realized, level of sanity, order and general good will expected in our home. And therefore, every morning, I have successfully picked up yesterday's To-Do list and exclaimed, "well, at least we're saving paper because there is certainly no reason to write a new one!" without losing my peace.

2. I voluntarily offered my seat as the reigning "Guess Who" champion, having shut out the competition entirely after three fairly intense games, to go clean the toilet.
(It's amazing how difficult it can be at times to not guess the correct person.)

3. We have added an aspect of multicultural experience to the dinner table this week, by replacing our standard three Italian, two Mexican and one Wild Card meals with a Greek, a Swedish and an Asian entree. Best of all, this elevation of our cultural pallet was all prepared with the purchase of only five items from the store.

(Perhaps this is a greater testimony to my overstuffed cabinets than my thrifty culinary expertise.)

Rocks & Wood

I can remember sitting on the cold leather couch in my grandparents' basement, the feeling of the cool leather becoming hot and sticky under my knees. It was a place I normally avoided, but I can remember sitting there actively defying my discomfort, because my grandfather was sitting there too. He was going to show me what I, as a child, had come to believe to be one the greatest mysteries of the world; a glass jar containing a collection of rocks within which were a few pieces of petrified wood. I can remember how they felt so cool, just like all the other rocks. They were just as heavy as the rocks, and in fact, until he pointed them out I might not have known the difference. In unabashed childish confidence, I refused to believe that they were ever real wood, while secretly being delighted to be the subject of what I assumed must have been one of Grandpa's greatest tricks. To have somehow carved such delicate details into these rocks that they truly resembled little pieces of wood, and then to carry on as though they were once something else; I felt great pride in the thought that such efforts were being made to fool me.

But as my grandfather persisted, and his explanation continued with the greatest patience and love, I began to realize I was a fool in doubting my grandfather, not the wood. As I looked at my grandfather, he no longer seemed to be the same man, suddenly, in a way that only a child's mind can imagine, he was both human and magical, old enough to have watched this very piece of wood become rock and yet young enough to be holding me in his lap. I used to love looking at that jar of rocks, all the while thinking myself one of the luckiest girls to have a grandfather like mine.

Last week we said good bye to my grandfather. He had struggled for many years with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Communication had been difficult, if possible at all, over the last four years, yet I always felt he knew when I was there. Perhaps, for me, some of the magic from my childhood has always lingered with him.

Grandpa and Nana with Peter and Isabelle in 2005

Friday Photo Favorites

For Babies who sleep through the night.

Thank you Luci for a good night's rest!

(photo from January 2009,
none of us could help admiring our sweet sleeping girl)