Starting With The Spoon.

Dave told me that I needed to come clean to all of you about some of my quirky little things.  I believe his wording was, “People think you are normal.  I beg to differ.  Start with the spoon.”

When we were registering for our wedding, I chose our flatware by how it felt in my hand.  The look wasn’t important and the pattern name escapes me.  Names apparently aren’t important to my brain, but a fork that I am going to eat with every single day of my life needs to feel right in your hand.   Right?  {This is where you nod and agree with me.}

So, the spoon…

He makes fun of me because I have an unnatural love for eating with the sugar spoon as opposed to a regular spoon.  We rarely use the spoon for spooning sugar.  Unless you count ice cream as sugar, which I do not.  I say he’s just jealous because he probably wants to use it but he can’t because I claim it every single time.  It is far superior to regular old spoons.  And if I could for the life of me remember our everyday flatware pattern, I’d probably buy 11 more sugar spoons and throw away our teaspoons. 

To further convey the power of the sugar spoon’s awesomeness...  When Emily of Jelly Toast was over at my house I did, in fact, use the spoon for sugar.  Mostly, to prove to her that I am fancy enough to be her friend, “oh look, we have a spoon only for sugar,” and she was mesmerized by it’s coolness. 

Maybe mesmerized isn’t the correct feeling, but she did say it was cool. 

So, take that, Dave. 

Further confessions for this fine Friday afternoon are as follows:

I wear purple dish gloves to do the dishes.  You can blame Meme for this one.  For as far back as I can remember, she has used a yellow pair of dish gloves to do the dishes, so in high school, I started doing that too.  I also have a pink pair just for cleaning the bathroom.   

I have favorite pens, they are Bic.  Plain old stick pens.  No matter the color, so long as it isn’t red.  {If you are following along, that leaves only blue or black.}  Sharpies are also awesome writing utensils.  Additionally, the cap must be firmly affixed on the end or I will avoid using it if at all possible.  You will also rarely find a clicky pen or a cap-less pen in our house because I throw them away.  Clicky pens and the people who are pen clickers are my nemesis.

I have more straws and napkins in the house than are probably necessary.  Ikea is by far, my favorite place to buy them because they consistently have fabulous napkins for so cheap that I don’t even feel bad throwing ten new ones in my cart.  Once, when my best friend was in town, I off-handedly mentioned that I probably had 25 different napkin patterns to use at a given time.  She swore I was exaggerating my napkin affinity, until I went and showed them to her.

I’m weird.  You can pretend it’s endearing. 

Now it’s your turn, tell me something weird about you.

PS. I spent nearly forty-five minutes figuring out the flatware pattern. 

PPS. Oh look, Dave, the sugar spoons are on sale.  You probably knew the pattern all along…

Meme.

 

She asked me if I was going to write about the party.  I don’t know that she really gets what I do, but she always hears from my aunts or my mom when I write about her. 

Which reminds me, ahem, snitches get stiches.

“You wrote out the beef stew recipe?  I hear you’re telling people about my drawings…”

I’m going to be honest, she didn’t want the party, that Meme of ours.  “You’re not coming back for that, are you?” she asked my Aunt Linda in disbelief that anyone would fly across the country to celebrate her ninety years.  Her sister flew in from Phoenix.  Her nephew flew in from Washington.  Chicago.  San Francisco.  Lansing.  Down the street and across the country, they were here simply because of her.  It made her anxious and she must have said at least a dozen times that she didn’t get what the big fuss was about her birthday.

“No speeches,” she made us promise. 

Five minutes with our family and strangers realize what a boisterous group of individuals she’s responsible for creating.  Some might use the word loud, but we’d like to think we’re entertaining.  But, Meme?  She is the one sitting back listening, laughing so hard she has tears in her eyes, dismissing us with a disgusted, “oh!” and a wave of her hand when we’re rambunctious and reminding us not to swear in front of her siblings.  Something she has to do repeatedly. 

She is quiet, unpretentious, honest, and intensely private.  Attention and spotlight are not her thing. 

She is content to be the one doing the celebrating, not the one being celebrated.  She’s been doing this my entire life and I have to imagine, for years before me.  My sister Lyndsey and I were talking, it’s something she has always done so unobtrusively that we were absolutely dumbfounded that we have never even noticed until now.  “Oh, that Morgan, can you believe it?  She made a basket at the last second and WON the game for her team,” she’ll casually mention, beaming with pride.  “Your mom, I don’t know how she does it.  She’s the hardest worker and has the biggest heart I’ve ever seen.” Then, later she’ll drop into conversation “No matter where we go, Judy runs into a student who remembers her.  She was so good to those kids, you can tell they really respected her.”  She’ll mention what a great cook Linda is, how gorgeous Sue’s garden is, how business savvy Anita is, and that Jim can make her laugh more than anyone.  Without even realizing it all these years, everyone else’s talents have been sung to me from every conversation with Meme.

She has no clue why anyone would find her remarkable when her children are so much more so, in her eyes.  She conveniently forgets the fact that she brought them up that way.  When someone mentions how hard it must have been raising six children after my grandpa died at forty-seven, she’ll staunchly say that she had no choice but to pick herself up and put one foot in front of the other.  Because that is what you do.   She has taught us by example to be kind to ourselves and even when you feel like you have little, there is always room to help someone else.  

The very moment that someone marvels that she got on a bus with her girlfriends after high school and went and lived in Los Angeles for a year, she just waves you off.  Not even your protests that women from small towns in Ohio just didn’t do things like that back then, will dissuade her that it isn’t a big deal.  She has been the vault for hundreds of secrets we’ve all whispered to her about babies on the way, impending moves, new jobs, or engagements.  She sees nothing interesting that at ninety years old, the Rolling Stones are still a favorite to listen to or that she rode her bike 5 or 6 miles everyday until she was in her seventies.  She’s so passionate about Ohio State basketball that she catches every game.  And she’ll deny it all the livelong day, but we all know she swears at the TV when they’re not doing well.

Yes, she seems just like every old lady out there, doesn’t she?

And I am.  Going to tell you about the party, I mean.  Just as soon as I can convince my uncle to let me share his {infinitely better than mine because he actually knows what he’s doing} photos with you.  The party was fantastic, but not half as fantastic as the reason behind the party.

Don’t you let Meme tell you otherwise.

All The Things of Almost Three.

  

Oh, they warn you of the terrible twos. 

Whispered tales of epic meltdowns and power struggles and refusals to eat anything that isn’t crunchy/orange/that one up there, NO, not that one, THAT one/insert the texture or color of your choice here, but please, leave room for corrections because it will change again in five minutes.  This is the escalating battle of wills they promise you, along with the assurance that it will eventually pass.  There is talk of getting out of bed twelve times to ask for another drink or another snuggle, the screaming screeching wailing banshee call of two year olds everywhere, which may or may not be coupled with the ever popular, throwing themselves on the ground in a spectacular fashion. 

There is a secret code of bonus points for doing this in front of strangers who silently stare, clicking their tongues at the obvious unruliness and your deficient parenting knowledge. 

You will wonder how it is humanly possible for one miniature person to make that spectacular mess in the three minutes it took for you to bring the laundry up from the basement.  Then, you will contemplate tearing your hair out as they flat out refuse to clean any of it up.  There is also, of course, the extra twenty minutes you should have buffered into leaving the house because they will get themselves dressed, thankyouverymuch.

Or, maybe they won’t get dressed at all… you just never know, really. 

There is usually a piece missing in this terrible twos speech. 

The part where, even in your maddening state of chaos as a parent of an almost three year old, you will be dumbfounded daily.  You will stand there mouth agape as they spell their name, or count something one-by-one, or stand on one foot.  It’s as if you can see their brain working.  And they look at you, as if to say, oh this?  What’s the big deal? I’ve been doing this for simply ages. 

You will develop an uncanny knack to hide your stifled laughter when she responds to your ‘we use good table manners’ lecture with an eye roll and fluttering eyelids while sighing loudly.  OK. Fine.  This looking away, eye roll, eyelid flutter is supposed to mean you can’t see her.  But clearly, you not only see her, but also a glimpse of what age twelve holds for you and you start to realize that maybe two isn’t so terrible. 

She will walk everywhere with determination, loud footsteps and cherub little arm swinging decidedly, laden with her plastic jewels or her brother’s Spiderman gloves.  This one does not go quietly, no ma’am.  She will sing Do You Want to Build a Snowman, through the door keyhole at her brother, complete with pause for him to say go away, Anna.  She will echo her laughter running through the house.  She will offer no apologies for being a gorgeous pirate princess one moment, and the superhero bad guy the next.  It is undoubtedly, up to YOU to keep up.

Let’s color!  Let’s stomp in the snow!  Let’s read this book!  Let’s read this book again!  She will play bas-et-ball, while building a Lego castle, having a picnic, a tea party, no… a dance party!  You wanna have a dance party?

Now, who-body wants to play with me?  Who-body?!

You skip a second and she’s cupping your face sweetly with her chubby, sometimes sticky, hands to tell you something of utmost importance.   Dis purple is WON-da-FUL, my fingers are boo-ti-ful!  Lavender manicures and matching pedicures from her Aunt Lisey are chattered about for weeks.   Or she’s throwing her arms around your neck for a tight hug and assurances that you are her best gir-wl in da universe.  You watch her slightly reluctantly share something with her brother.  Thank yous are remembered and sometimes table manners too. 

And in those moments?  You will turn to your spouse and say, “we seriously make the most magnificent human beings on the planet,” and mean it.

Sláinte.

Make sure you’ve got a bit of green today or you’ll get a pinch!