it's astounding...time is fleeting...

"Why do you keep taking pictures?" he quizzes.

"Because I want to remember this," I respond.

I want to remember how your hair, just like your brother's, remains suspiciously blonde.

How you're the only child I know who doesn't like macaroni and cheese and questions the purpose of butter as an ingredient.

How you talk my ear off whenever we're alone together in the car.

How you accept the fact I'll never understand NFL stats or all things Bakugan, as long as I accept the fact that we'll talk about these things over dinner no less than three nights a week.

How we share a love of questionably good music (ain't that Mr. Mister on the radio?).

How you dance when you think I'm not looking.

How you don't care if I join in when you notice I am.

How you relish carrying on conversations with me in dramatic, over-embellished accents.

How you come in to my bedroom and try to scare me every morning.

How you did scare me.

How I never fail to think "I love this boy," when I see you racing up the sidewalk from school.

How you love to play all sports despite humble beginnings from two athletically clueless parents.

How you'll still hug me and hold my hand and plant kisses on my face without making me beg.

How you feign tiredness just so you can say "I wuv you."

How your soul is old and your heart is soft.

How you willingly accepted me as your sidekick even though my super power - freezing time to keep you young - fails miserably at every attempt. Lucky for you thought, huh, considering your power seems to be making time fly.

How I hope it will be when the day comes when you must come to me, hold my hand, and ask me if I remember.

"So I can remember how we were when you suddenly turned 9," I respond.

Happy birthday, my heart.

join me, won't you, in weeping for our country's future

I was shelving books at the store earlier today when somewhere between fiction and mysteries, I stumbled upon a pride of college-age girls. They appeared disoriented and unfamiliar with their surroundings. I was keen to this feeling because it's similar to the one I get when my third grader pulls out his math homework and I see it's geometry (geometry?!).

If I'd sniffed the air, I'd have been struck by the heady perfume of, well, perfume. However, I was first struck by sadness.

"Oh my God, you guys, apparently they'll make a book out any TV show!" one of the girls exclaimed.

Her words, of course, rang true. The bookstore is ripe with titles based on or inspired by television programs, but I was curious which of these books might have caught the young woman's attention. When I glanced over, I saw her hoisting up a large, leatherbound edition of Gray's Anatomy.

Gray's Anatomy, a lovely scientific tome filled with names and parts, but alas, none of those names include 'Meredith' or 'McDreamy,' or them doing things with their parts in medical supply closets.

We're in good hands, world. We're in good hands...which is appropriate, since that part of the anatomy is outlined in amazing detail in the book the young woman was holding in hers.

(and now I'm off to watch the last two weeks of Grey's Anatomy that have been hanging around my DRV!)

small victories are better than none

I firmly believe in life's little victories, the things that happen to us from time to time that give us pause to celebrate. We all have them, tiny delights that make us want to high five a stranger or break out in a silly dance.

• Stepping on the scale to find the number's dropped three pounds this week despite inhaling peanut M&M's like an ant eater over the last four days.

• Waking up thinking the new day has started only to discover there's still four hours until the alarm goes off AND falling instantly back to sleep.

• That moment at the end of the day when the bra comes off.

• Finding a secret peanut M&M IN your bra when you take it off.

Those are just a few of my recent little victories, and believe me, given the past year or so of my life, I'm marking these occasions.

(believe this, too - that peanut M&M that falls out of your bra when you take it off? Melty deliciousness. Savor it. THAT'S the point!)

But the best thing that's happened to me lately? The thing that still has me smiling more than 24 hours later? A young man working at the grocery store referred to me as "Miss."

MISS!!

"Would you like a cart tonight, Miss?"

"Finding everything alright, Miss?"

"If you have any questions, Miss, don't hesitate to ask!"

"Are you having a good evening, Miss?"

"Paper or plastic, Miss?"

"Oh, please, Miss, I don't want you to stand out in this snow! Go ahead and get in your vehicle and I'll load these groceries in!"

"See you again soon, Miss!"

Excessive? Perhaps, but I'll be honest with you. I was so delighted by this moniker, I found myself purposely traversing aisles this young man was working in so he'd make further inquiries. It felt like I'd stepped into a Dickens novel. For one glorious hour, in what may have been the only hour of my life I've ever been referred to as such, I was a Miss. Not a Ma'am. Not nothing. A Miss! Cue the angels, sound the trumpets, give that boy a raise and a day off with pay, because I was a Miss! So delighted and charmed by this was I that I didn't even grumble when I got home and discovered this delightful young man loaded some heavier grocery items on top of not just my bananas but my eggs, too.

And why didn't I grumble? Because my two giant bags of peanut M&Ms were tucked safely and comfortably away together in their own bag. Oh, yes, thanks to this one simple act by this one kind person, I truly am one victorious Miss.

hot, happy and having a blast!

Those three words headline a profile of Reece Witherspoon in this month's edition of Glamour magazine, which I just got done reading and tossing across the room in a fit of boredom and overall apathy (which may just be a fancy way of saying 'boredom,' but eh, there you go), but I think I'm going to go ahead and also declare them to be my resolutions for the new year.

In 2011, I will be hot! I will be happy! And I will be having a blast!

I'm going to do all those things in exactly that order, too. Based on the fact I wake up most nights in a simmering, lukewarm pool of my own sweat, I can safely say I'm (possibly too old to be reading Glamour magazine) already a third of the way toward meeting my goals. Huzzah! Check mark in column one of my Trifecta of Awesome! That was a hell of a lot easier than the time I vowed to not let little things annoy me, and cut back on sweets.

Oh, January 1. That was a good day...

Seriously. It's January 2, and at approximately 12:37 p.m., CST, 36+ hours into a banner new year, I lost my mind at my children and my husband over two slices of leftover pizza and a few measly reheated chicken strips, then I scored a bowl of brownie batter and inhaled that. It's now 4:06 p.m., CST, no one is speaking to each other, and I have the shakes so bad it's a wonder I can type at all. It's hard getting that monkey off your back, friends.

It's also hard to get brownie batter stains off your shirt. Clearly you can see why being hot in 2011 is going to totally work for me. I'm either going to be (a) gorgeous or (b) get full-blown menopause. Oh, but hey! If option (a) works, maybe I'll end up pregnant instead! I know which one I'm rooting for...and which one(s) my husband fears!

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to accomplish the happy component of this plan, though I'll confess, the brownie batter went a small way toward helping it. Maybe some therapy would, too. And having a blast? What constitutes a blast? I'm almost afraid to find out.

It's possible I have my work cut out for me this year, so my final resolution for 2011? It's flossing my teeth every night before bed, but only because I've already been doing this religiously for the last four months and I want some small victory to enjoy at the close of this year when I've failed miserably at the Three H's.

Trust me. It's hard to look hot when you have questionable brown stains splattered across your bosoms, but as the great Howard Jones once said, "Things can only get better."

Wow wow wow oh, wow wow wow oh oh oh oh...

(FINAL final resolution for 2011 - do not say 'bosoms' again. At least not until March)

********************

I hope you all had lovely holidays. My husband's mother passed away Christmas morning, and this last week has been a blur of grief and all the other things that seem to go along with death. It's been a difficult time here, but I truly believe, thanks to my faith and my mother-in-law's very, very strong beliefs, that she chose Christmas day as her last here on Earth for a reason. We gathered as a family to celebrate her 80th birthday three days prior to her death, and it was clear then that she'd made peace with God's plan and was ready. I think that's given my husband, our boys, and his family some sense of joy during this sad time. It's never easy, but there is still joy to be had in what we have here. I hope you all have some of that joy, too.