Thankful

So much to be thankful for, this Thanksgiving weekend!

• For good health and good weather, that enabled us to take our planned crazy Thankgiving road trip to Chicagoland and on to Indiana.
  
  
• For smooth traffic and open-road tolling, reducing the drive-time immensely -- we have plenty of past years' memories of waiting in long idling lines for our turn to throw coins into tollboth baskets.
  
  
• For Rose's help with the pie-baking on Thursday morning, as we step through our crazy routine -- there's that insanity bit again! -- of trying to bake two kinds of pies plus pack on the morning of Thanksgiving Day itself. The pecan pie (complete with caramel candy and rum) was about the best ever.
  
  
• For AuntieS and her labors of love in preparing her home for company, and preparing the rest of the feast, and sticking with it even through a lot of little "oopses" in the process. It was all delicious, and we'd never have guessed at the trials and tribulations!
  
  
• For AuntieS again and her thoughtful purchase of little Thanksgiving gift-lets for the girls. For Joy, she chose a non-traditional present of two little bundles of curly-ribbons from the gift-wrap aisle. Perfect, perfect, perfect! For Rose, a Barrel of Monkeys, with which she played as if it were a brand-new invention.
  
  
• For Joy's delight in tossing the curly ribbons back and forth in a "my-turn, your-turn" game with AuntieS's mother-in-law -- with whom Joy has never actually played before.
  
  
• For my amazing 101-year-old grandmother, whom we helped to move into assisted living quarters last Thanksgiving. Not that she felt quite ready for the move at age 100, mind you. Her new apartment is bright and comfortable, and she's among the least "assisted" of the residents there. She took us on a tour of the building, she played cards and dominoes with Rose, she and I compared reading lists, she took us out to dinner!
  
  
• For the family of Joy's playdate pal J-Cat, who loaned us a portable DVD player for the trip, making Baby Einstein possible at Great-Grandma's and in the car.
  
  
• For the swimming pool at the hotel, so the girls could work off some of their energy while JoyDad (who did ALL the driving) and Great-Grandma could take an afternoon break.
  
  
• For zero "acts of ow" between Joy and Rose for the entire trip cooped up in the car -- right up until a hair-pull when we had arrived back home in our own driveway and I wasn't getting Joy out of the car quickly enough to suit.
  
  
• For Joy's success in putting a few carefully-chosen ornaments onto our little artificial Christmas tree, and for Rose's delight in decorating the rest of it.
  
  
• For seventeen years of marriage between JoyMama and JoyDad, as of yesterday. Here's to the next seventeen!

Different is Good

I learned this morning that Joy has a suitor.

Her young playdate friend has announced his matrimonial intentions.

This short, dark & handsome lad seems attracted to their differences...

Namely, he's apparently got a thing for blonde!

Now, I know that Rose is no longer seeing the youngster she "married" in pre-school. I didn't wind up with the fellow who sought my hand when I was in first grade.

But hey, different is good. You never know, right?

P.S. This guy's parents are celebrating this weekend their ongoing successful overcoming of the blond/brunette divide. Happy anniversary, you two!

Wednesday Photo Blogging: Leap of Faith

In the comments to this post, Barbara/therextras asked if it was JoyMama jumping off the bridge in JoyMama's profile picture. Here's the picture:



I responded with a question of my own: "You don't think I'd marry a woman who would fling herself untethered off a bridge, do you???? Well??????"


There are a number of possible answers to the question:

1. It's not JoyMama, so therefore the answer is no, I wouldn't marry a woman who would fling herself untethered off a bridge.

2. Yes, it's JoyMama. I had no idea when we got married that she would do such a thing, and I'm shocked, SHOCKED that she would put herself at such great personal risk. It reflects badly on her as a person and sets a terrible example for Joy and Rose. For I would never do such a thing…

3. Yes, it's JoyMama. She made the leap before we were married when she was young and foolish. As part of our wedding vows, she swore off such desperate acts of thrill seeking, promising to be the sedate librarian from a small town in Kansas I always hoped to marry.

4. Yes, it's JoyMama. In fact, I was the photographer. Which means I stood by, nay, encouraged her to fling herself off the bridge to meet an uncertain fate. It reflects badly on me that I would allow her to put herself in such peril and not do anything to try to stop her.

What exactly is a leap of faith anyway? In common parlance it means believing in something despite, or in the absence of, any available evidence.

Marriage is quite the leap of faith, isn't it? We vetted each other by dating for a year and then spending a year as an engaged couple. But forever is an awful long time to commit oneself to another. In essence, we based a decision on how to order the rest of our lives on a small slice of time compared to how long we were planning on being together. Thankfully, neither of us got cold feet before our wedding day, and at least so far, almost 15 years in, our faith in each other and in the decision to combine our lives has been rewarded. I mean, look at those pictures of the girls in their pretty flower girl dresses -- it amazes me every day how richly blessed we are to have them.

I guess having kids entails a leap of faith as well. There's no crystal ball you can look into to see how they will turn out. Certainly, we wish Joy didn't have to contend with autism or epilepsy, or that our family didn't have to deal with the fallout from those conditions. But if I'd had a crystal ball to gaze into before Joy was born, it would have shown me that despite all of that, raising Joy would turn out to be a wonderful experience. I tell people all the time that despite the struggles and challenges of raising Joy, we ain't giving her back. In fact, because it is a such a challenge, I think the successes we have with Joy (like seeing her becoming more interactive with people, as she has lately) are that much more rewarding.

Oh yeah, the picture... That is indeed JoyMama taking the plunge. And I am the photographer. We had already been married for a while at the time. It's not quite the leap of faith it might have been... We were camping at Baxter State Park in Maine. On one of our first days there, we were hiking near our campsite and came upon the bridge in the photo. There was a group of people swimming in the river, and a number of them were also jumping off the bridge. And not perishing... There was deep spot on one side of the bridge which made jumping off relatively safe. It was quite a refreshing way to end a day of hiking up and down mountains.

And I, of course, took my own turns leaping....