Birthday Boy!

Well, our boy is two years old. This weekend was quite the birthday bash. On Friday afternoon, Nana and Grandpa Hendler arrived. They stayed through the weekend, and Myles became quite enamored with his "Pa." (In fact when we pulled out of the driveway this morning and said our good-byes, Myles cried a bit...we're hoping the growing bond will persuade Seth's folks to relocate to the south sooner than later.)

On Saturday, we packed the car and arrived at the Nature Center for the birthday party a little before 10am. At ten, our guests began to arrive and we had snacks, homemade ice cream cake, and a visit from a real groundhog. The WNC Nature Center rehabilitates wild animals that have been wounded. It re-releases them to the wild when possible, otherwise it provides a home for them for the rest of their lives. At the Nature Center, you can see all kinds of animals from hawks and otters to wolves and bears, and there's also a petting area to interact with the domestic animals. Myles had a blast running around, patting sheep, spotting animals (the cougar was the coolest), and interacting with friends. We are so grateful to have such a wonderful group of friends, and that Myles has his own set of friends who he's beginning to enjoy more and more.

After the party, my mom, my brother's family, my brother-in-law, and Seth's folks all came back to the house for pizza, presents, and playing. Myles scored some incredible gifts, like two Hess trucks that used to belong to Seth, a wooden train set with a copy of the little engine that could, an art easel, a book that spells out his name, a mini repair shop for his wooden car set, a Kleen Kanteen, a gently used plastic shopping cart complete with a stuffed lamb sitting in the front (like a baby would), a donation to the Heifer Project with a book, and a wooden mail box with post cards, velcro stamps, and a key to open and close it. Wow! The boys played, and we chatted. My brother-in-law Brian was in town to interview for two positions in TN, one in Newport and the other in Tri Cities area. We were so excited to have him at our house for the first time, and from what we heard from my sister this evening, his interview went well, so we have high hopes that a move to this region might follow for her family. We missed cousins Kaleb and Finn (and Aunt Brenna)! And we also missed my dad.

Mylestones: Myles has started washing dishes several times/day. We are hopeful that someday this might actually be helpful. For now, it's an opportunity for him to play in soapy water with the less breakable things that need washing. This activity usually requires a complete change of clothes, because the front of his outfit gets soaked. We're on the lookout for an apron for him. Myles also helps feed Juniper (whose name he has started saying, but you would never know it because his interpretation sounds nothing like "Juniper"), helps put her in her crate and take her out of her crate. More and more he wants to eat his meals at a "big boy" chair (i.e. not his high chair), and he often makes a mess. We've started using his yellow place mat with a small trough that catches whatever falls between his body and the table. He also insists on going up and down the stairs by himself, though I will grab his hand anyway, because the stairs are wooden! He enjoys brushing his own teeth (or sucking on the toothpaste may be a better description of it). Oh, and now that he's turned two, he has zero interest in the potty. He also has zero interest in diaper changes, which sometimes turn into a wrestling match. Every Wednesday we go to story time at the library, and we just introduced him to a Sesame street video rental last week, and he's digging it!

Well, I guess that's enough of an update for now. A few friends were kind enough to wish me a happy birthing anniversary on Saturday, and I did pause to remember that long long labor (28 hours) and birth. I read my account of it in my journal, which I'm grateful to have. My baby's growing up!

Let it be Said by our Children's Children...

6:20 am: Alarm goes off, out of bed and into the icy streets for a 4.5 mile run. Seth says if I can run in this weather, I can run in anything!

7:40am: Asheville City Schools are closed, Myles has no morning out program. Uh-oh, mama's under a deadline for work and needs to get this project done!

9:00am: Seth graciously agrees to go into work late so I can get some work done, heads to the library with Mr. "No, no" Myles. I churn out the words on how engaging the nuclear weapons danger can bring people of faith together across theological lines...unity, unity, unity.

11:00am: Seth returns and drops off Myles. I go to MSNBC for live coverage of the inauguration.

11:30am: Myles listens while I say the Lord's prayer with Rick Warren, we marvel at Aretha's hat.

12:00noon: Barack Hussein Obama officially becomes President of the United States of America while Yo-yo Ma and the gang play the most beautiful music (and the dance goes on...). I point out to Myles the violin, cello, clarinet, and piano.

12:05pm: President Obama takes the oath of office. Oops, chief justice messes up the words. Oops, Obama trips over his words too. So the man does have nerves.

12:10pm: "We are bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions."

"Hope over fear; unity over discord."

"Mindful of the sacrifices of our ancestors..."

"The ways we use energy strenthen our adversaries and harm the environment."

"New era of responsibility...the work of Re-making America..."

"The price and promise of citizenship."

"The depth of winter when nothing but hope and virtue could survive..."

"to the Muslim world..."

"not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good."

"Imagination + common purpose; necessity + courage"

"some question the scale of our ambitions..."

"all who seek a future of peace and dignity...we are ready to lead once more!"

"...what you can build, not what you can destroy."

"We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

"Let it be said by our children's children..."

12:30pm: Praise Song for the Day: All about us is noise...each one of our ancestors on our tongues...We walk into that which we cannot yet see. Say it plain: many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of. Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day...What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national? ...In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun." Thank you, Elizabeth Alexander, who rode atop her parents shoulders at that famous march on Washington when she was the age of my son.

12:40pm: "God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way. Thy who hast by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever on the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts drunk with wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, true to our native land...We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration." Amen! Yes, I have met Rev. Joseph Lowery, stalwart of the Atlanta civil rights community and friend of WAND.

12:45pm: I hear a clatter in the kitchen. Could it be my toddler, who I have left to play unattended while I boo-hooed over the historic events of the day? Quickly, I rush out to the kitchen to find that he has "put away" the dirty silverware back into the drawer. I try to explain the nuances of dirty vs. clean and a fit ensues. It is then that I notice something brown and sticky on the floor. What could that be? The remains of a cereal bar? I call Juniper down to lick it up...she sniffs it once. I sniff it once. It all becomes clear. I haul Myles upstairs for a diaper change which involves a full change of clothes, a spray-down in the dog shower, an immediate load of laundry and, of course, the cleaning of the floor. How did poop manage to get on the bottom of his socks?

6:30pm: I shed a few tears while cooking and listening to NPR over the bittersweetness of this incredible day, but one I wish I could share with my dad. He wasn't a democrat, but he would have made some insightful observations and I daresay that something about Obama would have impressed him today. Wish I could have shared the day with my dad, but so grateful I did get to share it with my son. What will his children imagine about this day? What will I tell them? Maybe I will borrow a poet's words and say: "On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp...the mightiest word is love."

MLK weekend

We're coming off a great MLK weekend that was marked by a reunion of old friends. Appalachia Servie Project friends Ashley and Meg (and little Olivia) drove up from Atlanta and Charlotte. Michelle and Michael joined us as we all convereged at Paul and Amy's on Friday night and caught up on the joys of life and life past between sips of beer and false dirty diaper alarms (the ever menacing "ghost poop"). The kids threw baby basketballs through a plastic hoop and ravaged Hazel's toy collection. All three later sat quietly at a foldable table eating their spaghetti. It's good to know our friendships will live on through our kids. After dinner the boys headed over to Michael's for six cross-eyed hours of xbox and the women did some of their own catching up. We had the gang over for brunch on Sunday and went out for dinner at Marco's on Sunday night. Today we went to the MLK peace march and rally with Myles.

P.S. This is the first blog written by Seth in a loooong time...

The Week's Odds and Ends

New Church Start: An update on the exciting endeavor that's about to monopolize 2009...I'm very excited that we are now moving forward (almost full speed!) again with the new church start. The holidays made it difficult to do too much, so I'm glad to be moving into the new year. I am working with a woman named Sara, who's about to be ordained in the UCC, to co-lead a core group. Our next meeting is on Thursday, and we'll be discussing mission and vision. Once the mission and vision are fleshed out, we can begin fundraising and marketing. The core of what we are up to this first half of the year needs to be about bringing new people into the fold before our first worship service, which is slated for the end of May (may change, we'll see). We are first conducting community interviews of the small network we know in Black Mountain, and the people they recommend for us to talk with. I'm getting to know Black Mountain more, and it's such a beautiful town! We visited an Episcopal church there this morning, and I hope to soon set up some meetings with clergy in the area. It's a very exciting season, and there are some days when this endeavor gives me a tremendous amount of energy and gratitude. Other days, I wake up thinking, "what the heck am I about to do?" It's a huge undertaking, but one that I feel called to and equipped for. Now I just need your prayers!

Mylestones: When I was in Atlanta last month, I attended a colleague's dinner party fund-raiser for a mission trip to Guatemala through her church. Having visited Guatemala for a week when I studied in Honduras back in 1998 (think Hurricane Mitch), I know what a beautiful country it is, the richness of the indigenous culture, and the host of challenges it has faced as the wealthiest control the nation's resources and run the government, and the disparity between the rich minority and poor majority grows. Long story short, each of us at the party received a gift, and mine was this hat for Myles. Myles has never really liked hats, but it was too cute to pass up. This week, I finally moved it from a dresser in my bedroom down to Myles' room. When he woke up, he saw it and said "hat!" I asked him if he wanted to wear it and in characteristic Mylespeak he said, "yeah!" So he wore it all morning, and we got some photos of it. I hope he'll wear it more this spring and summer when the sun starts beating down again.

The Year in Rust: I also included a photo of our new living room rug, which we bought with Christmas money given to us by Seth's folks (thank you Susan and David!). Like many things in our marriage (I don't mean this in a cynical way, but in a confessional one), it took a great deal of negotiation to find a rug we both dug. This is it! I can't believe how expensive these things are, but it's a huge relief to have a sturdy play space for Myles, and Juniper looks like quite the queen when she reclines on it. Today, I read a post on the Asheville mama list that the Keen display shoes were on sale at Mast General. Two years ago, I happed to be shopping during this wonderful time. Display shoes are ones that have been on display, so they are marked down and only come in size 7. I'm more of a 6.5, but the last pair of Keens I bought was one of the best choices in footwear I've ever made. They lasted two years and are still kickin! So despite it being a "lean" week, I marched myself right into Mast General and bought a sassy pair of rust colored Keens. Here's the thing about the shoes: they are flat, so excellent for walking. They are casual, but I could get away with wearing them with some dress pants. They are waterproof. The color is "rum raisin," which made me think of my dad (his favorite ice cream flavor in the wide world). A good pair of shoes to walk in through the coming year.

Mylestones

Soon, Myles will be two. On January 25th to be exact. We have arbitrarily set that mylestone as the paci-cut off date. On the one hand, it feels extreme to cut him off cold turkey from something that helps him calm down when he's upset, helps him fall asleep, and keeps him from putting all kinds of toys in his mouth. He loves his "paci" and it feels kind of mean spirited to plot and plan to take them away. (Btw, taking them away means cutting the tip of each one and calling them "broken") On the other hand, it just can't be good to have your kid sucking on plastic/silicone all the time. He wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night if it's fallen out of his mouth and he can't find it and cries for us. It is surely affecting his teeth and sometimes he tries to talk with it in and we can't understand him. He's going to be two, and it feels like now is the time to leave this habit behind. So today when he insisted on putting two in his mouth simultaneously, I thought, "you go, kid. Enjoy it while you can."

Other mylestones include a newfound love for clementine oranges (and when I say love, I mean eating four in a row and asking for "more!"); calling Seth and I "moppy" because it's just too much work to say mama and papi, the dreaded use of a word called "mine"; and lots of talking about babies, babies crying and "shh! baby."

We're hoping to get him into swim classes with Seth next month.

Honoring my Dad

I'll begin with the story of the bad haircut. Myles' hair, as beautiful as it is, grows with abandon. If he was a girl, it would be down to his waist. He adores his evening bath, and every morning without fail he wakes up with bed head. No matter how we try to tame that bed head, it pops up, defying all combs. So the longer his hair gets, the more unruly it gets, and the more irritated mama gets. Last week, I was fed up. As he sat in his highchair eating a snack, I decided, this is it! I'm cutting it here and now.

I got out the clippers and showed them to Myles. They freaked him out. Disappointed, I resorted to a comb and scissors. As I cut his hair, Myles began to cry and grab his head as if he were in severe pain. I told him I knew it didn't hurt, that it was okay, that the less he resisted the faster we'd be done with the whole thing. As I was furiously clipping it occurred to me that I was not doing a good job. It's hard to cut hair when your client is twisting and grabbing and screaming! Then, after I had chopped the sides and top, I realized Myles was the most hysterical I'd ever seen him. He began dry heaving. I was horrified. How could I torture my sweet little one? Even though I wasn't causing him physical pain (I did not cut him or even come close), it was clear that he was emotionally distraught.

I stopped immediately, apologized profusely and redirected him to the tub (taking a bath always makes things better). As we washed away his tears, I got the chance to study my handiwork. His hair looked horrible. I remember in the 80s my first little elementary school boyfriend had a spike on top with sorta long hair in the back. Not long enough to pass for a mullet, but longer than the tops and sides. That's what Myles looked like. I later joked with Seth (who kinda liked the cut) that I could throw in some texturizer and tell other mamas: "I took him to Ananda...you wouldn't BELIEVE what they charged me!" Thankfully, we traveled to grandma's for the weekend and in front of the television, with papi working hard at all sorts of distractions, my mom was able to shape it up a little. I don't think I'll ever take a pair of scissors to his hair again in 2009!

On Friday night we headed to my mom's to celebrate Christmas (again) by exchanging gifts with her and my brother's family. We wished my sister's family could have been there, but after coming out to TN so often this fall, it was impossible for them to make it. My dad's absense was palpable. As soon as we walked in the house, Myles ran in as if he was looking for my dad. On Saturday morning as I was doing dishes and looking at the photos of my dad on the countertop, I missed him with that indescribable ache. It starts to sink in (and takes some time to fully register) that he's gone for good from this life. My dad had such a presence about him. He was such a positive being to be in the room with. Always serving people, always with a smile on his face, in a good mood. To not be able to hug him again or hear his voice...it's a lot to accept. As a Christian I believe I will see him again. Still, it's a long time to wait.

To honor my dad and remember his presence, we began our Christmas together by lighting four candles that represented love, memory, grief, and hope. My mom got this from a book called the Empty Chair, which I highly recommend. It's written from a Christian perspective about how to cope with holidays/holy days/special days after the loss of a loved one. As she lit the candle for love, we each shared what we loved about my dad, and what he loved most. For memory we remembered stories about my dad, funny and poignant. She lit the grief candle and we talked about our grief. And when she lit the candle for hope we talked about the hope that we will be with my dad again in heaven, the hope that we will see bits and pieces of him in his grandchildren, that we will share with them the stories of his life. (As I write all this, I have a little one tugging on my arm. I should have waited until after bedtime. My writing is not what it could be. But that's my life these days.)

After our ritual, we ate a delicious meal and then opened gifts. The boys had a blast! Myles got the basic plan city road set, and it's now set up on our coffee table for daily enjoyment. My sister sent us all LiveStrong bracelets (I wear the one that was my dad's even though it's too big). Seth and I gifted everyone with a dvd of a conversation we taped with my dad a week before he died, and later that night we watched it with my mom. There was my dad (it felt like it was yesterday) talking about what life was like for him growing up, remembering the moment he met my mom and how they fell in love, offering advice about career and family. He was very thin when we shot the video, and sitting on a pillow because it hurt him to sit even on a couch without padding. That cancer was killing him was evident in his body, but his voice was the same old dad and his spirit was gracious and good humored.

We made it through Christmas. When 2009 came, I shed a few tears because as awful as some of the events of 2008 were, I don't want to put behind me the last year when I saw my dad alive. Leaping into 2009 is leaping into a year when my dad is not bodily present in my life and the life of my child. It feels like moving on. And while I know we have no choice, we cannot stay in the present, there's something that feels all wrong about ringing in a new year in which my dad is gone from this earth. There's a lot to look forward to, and I grieve so much what's being left behind. I'm reminded that only by the grace of God we go on.

My mom was such a blessing to each of us this weekend. She was honest about grief, and once again I recognized that she has lost so much, that her loss is so different from mine. But she also insisted that we have a beautiful meal, that we laugh with the boys, that we do the things my dad would have wanted us to do like telling stories, being together, eating ice cream cake...

Gently, without fanfare, we move into this next year. There will be birthdays, anniversaries, challenges and achievements. Hopefully, prayerfully, there will be a new church. Spring will come. The earth will re-create itself each morning as God wills the sun to rise again on a new day. Myles will grow and need another hair cut. Time passes. I remember in theological school I learned that in some traditional African religions, they believe that the ancestors continue to live among us so long as their names are spoken and they are remembered. There's a power in remembering. So I guess that's what I'm grateful for tonight. No new year's resolutions, except to put one foot in front of the other and keep stepping.