The birds and plants all speak of the arrival of spring but the chill in the air tells me that it is not quite time.
The boys collected some dandelions, mini pinecones, and a fall leaf which made for a rather nice bouquet. Perhaps I should think of finding a table runner that is more suited for the coming season.
Today has been one of those days, you know, one of those days in which you actually write “shower” on your to do list so there is a greater chance that you will actually get to shower and if you do shower, you get that little spark of accomplishment that comes with crossing it off your list.
I am feeling down. I shouldn’t feel that way at all, instead I should feel rather euphoric. Yesterday I received the news that I passed not one, not two, but ALL THREE subsets of the WEST-B test I took three weeks ago. Not only did I pass the entire test but I did really, really well. I was shocked to hear that I passed all three portions and was completely blown away by my scores (I only missed two out of the sixty math questions! Of course my first thought upon hearing this was I wonder which ones I missed and what I did wrong). My lowest score, sadly enough in the writing portion, was 93%. Husband brought home some delicious double IPA, a large slice of red velvet cake, and a bouquet of flowers to celebrate my smashing of the test.
Yesterday I also received word that the university of my choosing has sent me the coveted Offer of Admissions letter and that they will work with me on placement for my student teaching so I can be close to home, perhaps even in the school both boys will be attending next year.
Everything is falling into place. And yet today I am morose. I have grouched around while still being productive. I have completed and printed out the stack of papers that we will take with us to Carter’s kindergarten registration this Saturday. I have planted the two primroses Carter and I picked out as a way to honor the memory of Dexter. I even took the time to do my workout program this morning.
And yes, I took a shower.
If I was forced to put my finger on it, I would say that I am a bit depressed by all the change that is happening. I don’t like change even if it is for the better. It stresses me. And lately there has been a lot of it.
College. Again.
Finding childcare and realizing that I will miss so many precious moments with my boys while I toil away learning to become a teacher.
Registering my youngest child for kindergarten.
Dexter’s death and the fact that we have, as Carter puts it, “zero dogs”.
Becoming a reader columnist for The News Tribune and actually having to produce good material on a deadline.
All these things are good, even Dexter’s death for he was old and in pain. And yet I do not feel good about it all. At least I don’t today.
Maybe tomorrow.
The leash is resting quietly in the basket by the front door, no longer with a purpose.
The place where dog dishes sat is empty, there is no one left to feed.
The dog door is closed.
This morning I scrambled an extra egg and cooked up two additional slices of bacon. I broke the bacon into pieces with my fingers, mixed it up with the egg, and asked Cody and Carter if they would like to help me feed Dexter a very special breakfast. They knew something was up. We don’t usually feed people food to our furry critters but today was different.
After we had eaten, Husband gallantly attempted to explain to the boys that this afternoon, the vet would be coming to our house. He talked to the boys about how Dexter hurts; about how he can no longer walk to the bus stop. He talked about how it hurts him to stand up and how sometimes he can’t even stand at all. He spoke of the love we have for Dexter and how we hate to see him in pain. Husband talked through his tears about the good life Dexter has had with our family and about how we will always love him.
Cody figured it out by the second sentence. He saw the sadness on our faces. His eyes overflowed, his lip quivered and he flung himself into Husband’s arms. Carter understood the words but not the finality of their meaning. He clung to the part about our good friends coming to visit us to take them on a special outing while the vet visited to give Dexter the medicine that would stop his pain – to make Dexter not be with us anymore.
They wrapped their little arms around Dexter’s furry neck. They gave him kisses and cried into his fur. Cody told Dexter that he would miss him. Carter said goodbye.
There was sobbing and there was such sadness around our breakfast table this morning.
This afternoon in our living room we lost a member of our family.
Now there are two dog collars on our bookshelf, the jingle of their tags has been silenced.
It is strange to be living in a house, a house that has always had a dog in it, without a dog.
It started several years ago. In the rainy season the skylight in our bathroom would leak, a little at first and then nothing. The following year, a little more and then nothing. Each year the leak would yell a little louder and stay around for a little longer. Every year we would think to ourselves we really need to get that fixed. But then the leak would stop and other projects would pop up to spend our monies on.
This year the little skylight declared that it was time. The leak that could be contained by a small Tupperware container on the floor for a day or two became one that needed a full size cooler sitting under it. During the weeks (yes that is an “s” on the end of the word “week”) of the cooler, using the bathroom was almost impossible.
Our bathroom is small. There is a tiny shower, a toilet, and a countertop with one very outdated sink. The cooler took up about one eighth of the floor space – the eighth directly in front of the toilet. When the cooler was in place the bathroom door could not close nor could the shower door open. It was inconvenient to say the least.
It was the bowing of the ceiling drywall that forced us into action. Well, that and the daily dance of the cooler. Every time I used the loo, I feared the roof would collapse. In the end nothing that dramatic happened. We have a new skylight and our contractor just applied the second coat of mud on the new drywall. He will be putting in crown molding and has talked us into some inexpensive cherry cabinet faces to replace our old nasty 1980 ones. I am quite excited.
And here is where I decide that since my classes have not started yet, now would be the perfect time to fully remodel the bathroom. I figure I may as well do it, come April I won’t even have time to finger-paint much less paint an entire room. I have pulled out all my painting supplies, brought in from the garage my two gallon bucket of Kilz2 Latex Primer so it can warm up, and have located my trusty TSP Substitute. Tonight after the boys’ swim class we are off to Home Depot to find the perfect paint. I am thinking something in the pale slate gray family for the walls and an off white cream for the ceiling and trim.
Carter told me he thought orange paint with pink feathers glued to the ceiling would be nice. Cody likes Carter’s pink feather idea but thought that pink paint on the walls would better compliment the feathers.
I am not sure what we will decide but I am pretty sure it will not involved pink. Or feathers.
Hip hip hooray – today is the day!
My very first of ten columns runs in the newspaper today.
As I mentioned before, I decided not to included my blog address in my byline. I like my little blogging world and I am enjoying the anonymity of it. There are less then a dozen people in my life who know of my blog’s existence. I have given this a lot of thought and while I would love to see my happy band of readers increase, I want to feel comfortable writing whatever I choose; right now I do.
I have been vague about where we live on purpose and I have tried to keep our last name off this blog. I have messed up a couple times and had to fix some posts after they were published so those of you who are stalkers already know who I am and where I live. And seriously you are either really crappy at stalking because I have not seen you or you are really good at stalking because I have not seen you. Either way, knock it off.
So, if I ask nicely, can I trust that you will keep my secret? If you click on the link, read my column, and become inspired to leave a comment on the newspaper’s site, will you refrain from calling me Shoes or mentioning my blog? Yes? Excellent!
So here you go. Those of you who get the actual black and white newspaper bust out your silly putty, press it down on my headshot and have hours of fun distorting my face. I apologize that the online articles are not accompanied by the writers’ headshots but I don’t think silly putty is good for computer monitors anyway.
For those of you lacking the Silly Putty option.
The only thing the editor changed was my title, Moving Between Worlds, which I personally think is better than what they came up with.
I hope you enjoy it! Here you go.
This weekend we went on our yearly trip to the ocean. It was the first time we witnessed the power of an ocean storm (from the warmth and safely of our cabin). There were predictions of waves thirty feet tall. It snowed and hailed. There were very heavy winds. By the morning light, the world was calm and it allowed for us to have one perfect day on the beach.
I have shaken the sand from our clothes and boots. The laundry is going and the coffee is on. Tomorrow life gets back to normal, the end of midwinter break, and the boys go back to school.
The water flows in. The water flows out. The ocean remains, constant. It is a comfort to my soul.
For Christmas Husband and I got the boys a small circus tent from IKEA. The circus tent is really very small and Cody and Carter are really much too big but it was on super sale. After going into and out of the tent a couple times on Christmas day, the boys lost interest in it and we ended up shoving it into their playroom. There is sits taking up a lot of space and looking as glum as a forgotten mini circus tent can possibly look. Over the weekend, however, all that changed.
A good friend of ours who has twins the same age as Cody came to visit. An hour or two before they were to arrive I stood looking at the cramped playroom and trying to imagine the space that three six year olds and one four year old would require. The playroom is small and with that behemoth of a mini circus tent there was not much floor space. I tided up some and then Husband drug the circus tent into the boys’ bedroom and crammed it into the book nook.
That night as the boys were getting ready for bed, Carter announced that he would sleep in the circus tent. From there on out it has been a seemingly never-ending downward spiral of sleep interrupted nights.
Night one: Carter filled the tent with stuffed animals making its very tight quarters even tighter. Husband and I did not think it would last more than a couple minutes. When we went to check on the boys a few hours later we discovered a crashed out Carter, knees tucked up, blanket tossed aside. We draped a couple blankets over him and tiptoed out, oohing and aahing over how cute he was. He was not so cute at 12:30 am when he repeatedly called out momma, Momma, MOMMA until I came stumbling to his rescue. He was cold and wanted to get in his bed.
Night two: Carter once again wanted to sleep in the circus tent. We talked about how he was not to wake me. If he wanted to move to his bed he could do so on his own. I gave him a comforter to keep him warm and tucked him in. Once again Husband and I peeked in on the boys to find an angelic Carter snoring away, perhaps dreaming happy cotton candy circus dreams. In the wee hours of the morning I heard the cry – momma, Momma, MOMMA. This time the comforter had fallen off one of his legs and he was just too tired to reach over and fix it. I think I said something along the lines that he could either wake up enough to fix it himself or sleep with one cold leg before I huffed back to my bed.
Night three: The third night of the mini circus tent sleeping fiasco, Cody expressed interest in sleeping in it. At this point I was so over the entire circus tent but Cody had not had a chance to sleep in the tent and I do try to keep things fair. After making sure Cody could reach his water bottle, could see his clock, and could reach his white noise machine from the comfy confines of the stripped fabric awning he was ready to go to sleep. His pajama covered footie feet were poking out the opening when Husband and I went to check on him that night. He made it until about one in the morning. This time I was woken up by a very apologetic Cody who was whispering momma, momma, momma inches away from my face. He wanted to move to his bed and had already moved his pillow, blanket, and stuffed Kissy Shrimp but since we had moved his bedside table next to the tent, he did not know where to put his water bottle. Sigh. I helped him solve the problem and tucked him back in. As I was leaving his room he whispered, Momma, I am sorry I woke you up.
Tonight is night number four. Cody was unimpressed with the accommodations of the mini circus tent and wants only to sleep in his bed. Carter, however…
Why can’t I just say no? Because if I was a kid I would want to sleep in that cozy mini circus tent. You are only a kid once and a mini circus tent is a rather magical space to sleep. I will give it another night or two.
The other day I walked into our kitchen only to be confronted by a large rat. After a quick double take to make sure it was of the stuffed animal variety I immediately got the UB40 song Rat in Mi Kitchen stuck in my head where it has lodged itself in my brain and stayed for the better part of two weeks. I am hoping that by writing this post, it will be purged from my head. Sorry if it ends up in yours.
Oh, and since I am talking about random things I find in my house that I can only assume happen because I have children, yesterday I found cupcake crumbs on the bathroom rug. It did not even cause me to raise an eyebrow. I am not sure how all that ties into the rat in the kitchen but there you go.
Today marks one year. Most of the big firsts are over: the first Father’s Day, the first birthday, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas. I am glad those are over and I must say that with time it has gotten easier. I still think about and miss him everyday but I do not cry as much or as randomly as before. This is good. I know that it is because of the depth of my love for him that the pain will never truly go away, and this is good too.
As I move forward with my life and as I start to form a new and exciting future by going back to college to become a teacher, I think how nice it would be if he were here to see my accomplishments. He would be proud, of this I am certain.
He would also be tickled to see my name and picture in the paper as a reader columnist for The News Tribune (my first column runs on the 25th). I tried very hard to write my first piece about my dad, as a tribute to him if you will, but the words were vapor in my mind and I could not turn them into a solid to save my soul. I don’t think I can share such a raw and personal topic with such a large and faceless audience. I don’t know them yet, like I know you, and do not feel comfortable sharing my dad with them. I still have that draft of a post I promised you from my summer trip to South Dakota to visit his childhood haunts that I can not bring myself to finish. Every time I open it and start to read the words, my eyes tear up and it hurts to breath. I am not ready to write that story. Perhaps in time.
So there it is. One year. It went fast but in slow motion. I have not cried today until now. There is something about writing, about seeing the words as they lurch from my head to my hands, something about that little blinking line waiting so patiently for me to collect my thoughts and go on, that frees me and allow me to cry.
I survived the test.
To celebrate my survival, Husband took the boys and I to the Andy Warhol, Flowers, art exhibit. I have wanted to see it for a while now, but being too frugal to actually spend the money to go, we stalked our local library for free museum passes. Today was the last day of the exhibit. Yesterday while I was rocking the test (or at least I hope I did), Husband and the boys drove to a library far from our house to obtain the free passes.
I like flowers but after seeing Warhol’s flowers, I have to say that Georgia O’Keeffe has cornered the market on flowers in my heart.
It was a fun day, nonetheless, and I did managed to capture some cute photos of Carter on the light rail train that make my heart melt.
When did he become such a little man of a boy? The baby chub of his cheeks is all but gone…
Shoes On The Wrong Feet 