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Tuesday, June 25, 2024

The second girl to ever paint my toes

You are one of only two girls I've ever let paint my toes. The other is your fave cousin, probably when she was about the same age.  Which is no surprise, as you two are so alike, and I always have a hard time telling you no.

You are fierce.  And tender.  And may you always be.  

One moment, you rage, in a fit of anger and frustration.  The next, you curl up in a fetal and pout, or come to me and softly ask if we can snuggle.  The answer to that will forever be yes.

You have my heart.  And my blue eyes.

You are stu-... ("Siri, what is a synonym for stubborn?")  You are headstrong like your mother.  It is a trait that sometimes leads to battles and exasperation, but one I feel will serve you well as you go out into the world.  A world where so many people still treat and think of women as less than.

You're into princesses and Barbies.  I counted six Barbies last night just in the tub alone.  Probably thirty more are in the bin in the living room.... next to your four-story dollhouse.  I've become quite adept at dressing (and undressing) dolls, a quirk that might be considered somewhat disturbing if I didn't have a six-year-old.

You are a Swiftie through and through.  We took you to see a Taylor Swift impersonator (or imposter, as your brother kept calling her) last week for your birthday.  You danced with your mother and brother whilst Daddy -- one of only four men at the show, and one was the photographer -- sat and held your beloved Kitty and zippy, smiling.

You literally dance your way through life.  Moving gracefully, room to room, day to day, as if you are the star in a years-long musical that no one else knows about.  My dear Harper, may it ever be so. 

You love ketchup.  Any kind of dipping sauce, really.  You unashamedly stick your tongue into the McDonald's sweet and sour container to ensure you get your absolute maximum amount of sauce.  We don't even get food from there.  Your mother just orders a Coke and buys however many packets they will give her for twenty bucks.

You are all about some snacks!  Graham crackers, Hershey kisses, potato chips, cheese--in stick form, shredded, sliced, and grated.  Just last week you licked the top of the grated parmesan container.  One of my favorite snack stories is the time I asked what kind of chips you wanted from the pantry, and you said all three.  A minute later, I had invented the chipcuterie board.

You are sweet and thoughtful.  Anytime I get a cut, or a scrape, or a bruise, you come and kiss it.   A few weeks ago, when your friend had lost her helium balloon and was crying, you gave her yours.  And when the two of you aren't cat-and-dog fighting, you're even kind to your brother.  On occasion.

We play school, dolls, and art class.  We color, paint, and create sidewalk chalk masterpieces.  We play dress up.  Well, you do.  None of the princess dresses would fit me, thankfully.  And yes, we snuggle.  Your hugs and kisses are as plenteous as they are precious.

You used to say you wanted to marry me.  Then for a little while it was your brother.  Now it's some kid named Denver.  "I think I'm gonna marry Denver.  But I might have to make him," I believe were your exact words.

You have truly bloomed over the past year.  Your behavior.  Your maturity.  Your reading and vocabulary have come so far.  You lost your first two teeth.  You learned to swim.

You've been planning and talking about your birthday since February.  So excited to turn six, while I'm dreading fifty-two.  But I really shouldn't be.  Because, God willing, it's another year I get to see what amazing, mind-blowing things you and your brother learn and accomplish.  Another year of hugs, smooches, and snuggles, I hope!

Hope.  I have so many for you. 

I hope you know and believe you can be anything you want to be.  I hope you chase dreams, and I hope you catch them.  I hope you are always kind, curious, honest, compassionate, and fearless.  I hope you love, laugh, cry, and think for yourself.  I hope you live, rather than simply exist.

I hope you treat each person you meet as if they are important, until they prove to you otherwise.  I hope you find something you love.  I hope you have travels and adventures.  I hope you spend breezy, contented evenings under fading sunlight.  I hope you have enough.

And when you're twenty-six and I'm pushing seventy-two, I hope you might find a few precious bits of time to call, visit, or drop off the grandkids.  Whoa whoa whoa!  Grandkids?  I think you and Denver need to slow it down a little.  Just tell him you need some space.  About twenty years worth. 

Between now and then, and all along the way, I hope you're still dancing.  And as long as I or your mother have a breath in our lungs, I hope you know you always have a place to come home to.

Your birth story is one I will always tell.  Your mother texting, "You need to get here now."  Tearing through traffic, trying to get to the hospital on time.  Being so stressed I would be late.  Then walking in to complete calm.  No doctor.  No nurses.  Nobody.  Except for you and your mother, with your tiny head on her chest.   

I had missed it.

And yet, I wasn't upset like I had thought I would be.  In fact, I wasn't upset at all.  Every ounce of stress was gone.

It was a girl.  I was in love.  And I fall in love with you a little more each day.

Happy birthday, Harper.  "As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."

*heart hands*

Thursday, June 13, 2024

Just a shard off the aged cobblestone

"Sometimes you just have to do the best you can with what you've got."

I began to cringe before I even finished the sentence .  So clichéd.  So something my father would say.  

"What did you say, Daddy?" asked Luke, he being on the receiving end of my tiresome platitude.  

I am trying to remember the exact situation.  Almost certainly, it had to do with him wanting to construct some sort of sports equipment, apparatus, or field -- football, basketball, baseball, soccer, golf course -- in the yard.  And me not having the materials, knowledge, and/or wherewithal to create something that measured up to his specifications.

But that phrase, ugh!  That trite, hackneyed maxim sent my mind off on two tangents.

The first, and perhaps more obvious one, is how the older I get, the more like my parents I become.  Not referring to physical appearance, though that is also true, as little Harper pointed out Thursday when I tried on my new bifocals.  "Daddy, you look a little like PeePaw."

Perhaps it's not even becoming like my parents as much as it is becoming a stereotypical parent, in general.  If such a thing exists.  Or simply getting older.

Whatever it is, I'm sure it would make for an excellent Progressive turning-into-your-parents commercial.

I walk around the house constantly turning off lights in empty rooms and closing doors to outside, an energy-saving perpetual motion machine.

At the store, I'll put back a pack of chicken that is $6.42 and grab the one that is $6.13.

I'm all about leaving a sporting event a few minutes before the end in order to "beat the traffic."

I've hopped off the social media train.  I boarded in AOLville sometime in the 90's, passed over Mt. Saint MySpace, and continued on to Facebook Falls and Twitter Town.  But it is here that I hop off, on the lovely and humorous meme-mecca, Instagram Island.  It is in these lands where I and my clicks, likes, and pokes shall spend the rest of our days.

Like Moses on Mount Nebo, I can see the wares of Snapchat City, TikTok Trails, and Rio de Discord.  But, alas, I shall not be making the journey over.  Let's be honest, I probably couldn't figure out how most of it works anyway.  

Same thing with clothes.  When the world of fashion said hello to skinny jeans, it said goodbye to me.    I'm at the point of "I know what I like, and as long as there is a store in the world that still sells boot-cut jeans and short-sleeve men's Henleys, I'm riding it out 'til the end."

More examples: 

I enjoy gardening.  Going out to eat after 7 pm seems extreme.  I got excited last week when I got to use my new cordless hedge trimmer.  I actually use the phone app on my cell phone.  Heck, I still leave voicemails.  Yeah.  Let that sink in.

I sometimes shop in stores.  I'm on three prescription medications.  Soon I'll have to buy one of those seven-day pill boxes.  I bet Mom's got an extra one.  A common internal debate is, "Have I injured something or is this just how I walk now?"  Because to paraphrase REM, everything hurts... sometimes.

And we won’t even get into the dad jokes. (Remember the movie E.T.?  What was E.T. short for?  Because he had tiny legs.)

The second tangent my brain followed is how many clichés, while often making for terrible and boring writing, do tend to hold some value.  I know I'm not splitting the atom here.  But how often I use or hear a cliché and never give it another thought, when there is usually a bit of wisdom to consider.  IF you can get past the banality of the thing. 

After all, wasn't it Theodore Roosevelt who coined the phrase my phrase devolved from?  "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."  (Although when asked where it came from, the ol’ Trust Buster attributed it to "some guy named Bill, probably.")

But I digre....  er.... I circumlocute.

Still, they are words he believed in and one might very easily extrapolate, strove to live by.  And who among us wouldn't heed advice from he who spoke softly and carried a... well... you know.

Sigh.

Alright, I think I'm gonna call it a day.  

Get out while the gettin's good.

(And don't worry, I won't give up my day job.)

Wednesday, June 05, 2024

212 Hillside

There's a red Pinto in a gravel drive
And sittin' on the road is Daddy's stepside
Shined up all ready for a ride, a '64 turquoise green
Sold it to my uncle for a few hundred then
Today it'd be worth at least forty grand
That's still the prettiest truck I ever have seen

Grasshopper on the door I'm scared to come in
Go 'cross the street and play with my best friend
Marlon tells crazy stories about when he used to be grown
The two of us explore the neighborhood
Go a little past where Momma said I could
Somehow her love and Jesus always brought me safely home

It was nineteen seventy-seven
But now it feels like a quarter-acre of heaven
Was set down on earth at two-twelve Hillside Road
Mom and Dad were in their twenties
We never had much but we always had plenty
And I'm rooted there no matter where I go

Grandmother keeps me on Friday nights
Daddy goes and gets her 'cause she can't drive
Listen to the high school football game on the radio
The weather was cooler and the days were long
Life was still kind and Momma was still strong
Sometimes I swear I still catch a whiff of supper on the stove

Daddy has a friend who drives a motorbike
But I'm too little to go for a ride
Marlon says when he was big he had a motorcycle, too
Make a blanket fort in the living room
Alpha-Bits and Saturday morning cartoons
Back before you knew all the things you wish you never knew

It was nineteen seventy-seven
But now it feels like a perfect piece of heaven
Was set down on earth at two-twelve Hillside Road
Mom and Dad were in their twenties
We never had much but we always had plenty
I'll be anchored there no matter where I go