The scent of a memory

Even over the smell of the food, I smelled him as he walked in the door. You don't think you will ever forget the smell of a man once they are gone forever, but sadly one day you do. Until it walks into a restaurant and gets in line behind you. I breathed deeply twice. I bit my lip to stop the tears, as I turned around to see who it was that smelled like that.

He was probably about 70 years old. Little bit shrunken, like older people get. Nice looking guy, glasses, old guy cap on his head. But that smell, he smelled just like my grandpa. I just smiled at him and turned back around. The baby cooed at him once, possibly waved, as it is his favorite thing to do. I am pretty sure he said something to Harrison, but I couldn't tell you what.

I wish I could have asked him what cologne he used. Wouldn't have mattered though, as I know it was a combination of things. His Cologne, Zest soap, Listerine, Certs breath mints. Grandpa; he smelled like grandpa.


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

Where are we going this week, he'd ask me. Where do you think silly, I'd say. Let me guess? How about Paulie's, you know Paul would love to see you? No grandpa, no Mexican food, Hamburger Hamlet. Oh how could I have not known that, he'd say, sighing.

Every other Tuesday night for two years, that was my dinner choice. Every time, we had the same conversation. Their hamburgers and fries were to die for, their shakes couldn't be beat; but best yet, they let you draw on the table. At five years old, there is nothing better than drawing on the table while on a date with your grandpa.

You know, Melissa Annie, he'd say; one day you are going to want to go to a real restaurant and then I will be the one wanting to draw on the table and we always have to come here.

Grandpa, even when I am eighty-ninety-two years old, I will always want to come here.

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

I was six, maybe seven the first time I got fresh with him. You better watch it girl, or I will snatch you bald headed. He growled a bit as he said it. I apologized instantly and he was fine after that.

What that exactly meant, I never knew. But he said it too all of the grandchildren when they got smart mouthed or said or did something rude. What I did know was I didn't want to know what it meant.

I heard someone else say that their grandfather used to say that. Not sure where I was, nor who said it, but it didn't bother me. I bet their grandfather didn't growl when he said it.

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

At ten, he taught me how to shift the gears in his car when he was driving. As I got better at it, he'd say every time I got into his car, you shifting or am I? Well that was a silly question to ask a ten year old. I always shifted. He'd tell me when and I got to where I could do it without even looking.

At twelve, he took me into a school parking lot on a Sunday and let me have my first attempt at driving. You tell your dad about this and I'll snatch you bald headed, he'd say.

Grandpa if I told dad about this, he'd make you stop. I want to drive, this is between you and me.

Not many twelve year old children can say they know how to drive a stick shift.

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

In the summer, when I was fourteen, I ran away from home. I tried to go to Mexico with some friends. We had parental issues, or so we thought in the moment. Everything would be better in Mexico. At the border, they made us call someone to come and get us and I called grandpa. He drove the two and a half hours to get us. Let us have it too, how dumb we were, how badly it could have ended, how disappointed he was in me. That last one hurt the most.

He told us all that you can't run away from small problems and you shouldn't run away from the big ones. Told us our secret was safe with him this time, but next time he'd not be so nice. I never forgot his disappointment that day.

**********

At sixteen, I made an off handed comment about the AC not working great in my bedroom. I came home the next day from school and he was installing a ceiling fan in my bedroom. My mom just shook her head at me and said, I wish I had someone who would drop everything for me like this.

*********

From him, I get my love of good red wine, fresh seafood and great salsa; the joy of storytelling, reading a good book, the love of movies and the ability to cut a person down with my words. That last one, he could have kept.

**********

He told me stories about flying in the Korean war. He told me about growing up with his brother Paul, how Paul never matured past the age of three, even though he lived to be twenty-seven. He told me about the mistakes he made in parenting when my dad and his siblings were kids. He told me about working as a radio guy back in the early sixties. Told me about his granddad, who took them (his daughter and grandchildren: my grandpa and his baby brother Paul who were six and one at the time) and escaped Poland right before it was invaded by the Germans. He told me how much I reminded him of his mom; my great-grandma Annie.

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

The best compliment I ever got in my life was from him. I can't share it, it's too sentimental, but I never forgot it and I never will.

***********

He was a grouchy old guy, but he always had time for me. When email was new, he and I both had an email account. I used to get emails that had "Yippee, Squeee, Happy" as the subject. That was how much he loved email. It was a joyous event for him each time.

***********

He's a grouchy, pain in the ass curmudgeon and I'm never speaking to him again, I said to my dad on the phone. I was 18 years old and had just had the worst lunch date in my life with Grandpa. I'd told him that Logan and I were getting married and he spent the next half hour telling me how I shouldn't do that, I'd forever regret it; before I finally got up and left the restaurant.

I called him an old fool as I left and told him he was not welcome at my wedding. And Daddy, I mean it, he's not welcome. I was seething as I said this to my dad.

Oh you don't mean that, honey. You are angry, you have every right to be angry, but you have to see his side of view.

No, I can't. He's wrong about me and he's wrong about Logan. I am not mom, Logan is not you. We won't wake up and regret this one day. If I'm wrong and we do, then whatever.

I know that and you know that, but grandpa doesn't. Time will change things. Don't worry about it Melissa, he'll come around.

I am not rushing into this. I love this man, he is my soul mate.

I know. I support you in this and one day your grandfather will too. Just remember you are his first grandchild and the only granddaughter. (At the time this was true, although two years later, my Aunt and Uncle gave him is sixth grandchild, the second granddaughter.) To him, you are like his child. One that he did right by. One that he didn't make the mistakes with that he made with us.

Dad, you are my father, not him.

Dad just sighed and tried to calm me down. He swore it'd go away, that in a few days I'd forget it.

I never did though. The things he said and the things I said changed our relationship from that day forward. He didn't know me like I thought he did, if he'd say those things to me. I always loved him, but our relationship was never the same. I never really let him know me again.

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

Then came the call. July 2003. Grandpa's been in an accident, my brother said. In those words my heart stopped for an instant. He was coming home from Aunt K's and he got hit by a semi-truck. He's in the middle of nowhere Oregon. Dad is on his way up there now.

The semi didn't kill him. He got so lucky that day. A few broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and some bruising from the seat belt. But the scans they did of his abdomen looked off. They thought they saw something in his liver. The doc told him to go home and have his primary care physician do an MRI.

He put it off, going in. He never liked doctors. Didn't like enclosed spaces, since he'd been hidden in a trunk off and on for days as a child, when they escaped from Poland. Eventually my dad made him go see the doc. Mid-August maybe.

Stage four. Colon cancer. By the time they find colon cancer, it has generally spread to all of your organs. It was in his liver, his pancreas, his lungs. Nothing they could do except send him home with a script for pain meds and the number for hospice. Three to six months if you are lucky.

**********

October 20th was the last time I talked to him. He was doing okay, better than expected. He still got up and left the house every day. Still went to my uncles shop and gave everyone hell. Still went to his favorite restaurants and flirted with the waitresses.

We all had plans for Sunday brunch. We'd started doing it again every week, just like when I was a small kid, since his diagnosis.

Out of the blue, my phone rings. For a second I didn't realize it was him. The cancer had gotten into his stomach, so he had stomach acid that was damaging his vocal cords and his esophagus. His voice was changed, a strangers voice.

I am so proud of you, of the woman you've become, he said. I want you to always know that. To remember this forever, that I've always loved you. That I've been proud of you since the second you were born. I need you to know that I'm sorry for doubting your and Logan's love.

I know grandpa, I told him. it's okay. You don't have to do this now. I will see you in three days. We can talk then.

I was busy with Morgan in that moment. Trying to get her to stop climbing the walls, to take a nap, something. The day to day stuff with a 22 moth old child.

No Melissa he said, you never know how much time is left. I may be unable to talk by Sunday. I want you to know this now, just in case. I need you to know that I love you and I love Logan and I adore that spitfire of a girl you gave me as a great-grandchild.

Okay then. Well I love you too grandpa I said. I've been proud to be your granddaughter my entire life. And Grandpa, I'm sorry too. I was a young fool. Not about marrying Logan, but in thinking that your opinion didn't matter. In not listening and explaining and instead going all defensive.

I love you baby girl, was the last thing he said.

*******

The next day my uncle found him on the floor of his apartment, unconscious. He never again gained consciousness. The last nine days of his life were spent on a vent in the ICU at UCLA Medical Center. He passed away October 30, 2003.

********

I remember all of this and a million other things while eating my dinner. Who knew one smell could bring it all back? The sadness has passed in some ways. Five and a half years does that too you. You are supposed to lose your grandparents, it is the natural progression of life. Doesn't make it easy when it happens, but you know it is going to happen. He was my first. I've lost the other three since then. The sadness of the two I lost last year is too fresh. When I think of them, I only remember the end.

But with him, I remember the laughs. The dates. The movie marathons. The trip to Vegas in his RV, with my dad and brothers when I was five. Week trips to the Grand Canyon. Days spent looking at boats in the Marina, looking at animals at the zoo, exploring Grifith Park. The letters I have from my weeks spent at summer camp; letters full of jokes and stories about home. The man who taught me to tie a cherry string with my tongue at four years old. The curmudgeon who I respected and loved more than most people.

One smell and it all comes back. The smell of a memory.

Snippets

He crawls away from me, until he gets to the edge of the door which will lead him out of our kitchen and into the den. There he stops, turns around, looks at me and comes back to play with the Tupperware again. He hasn't found his baby wings yet. He hasn't realized that we are not one yet. I am still his person. At not yet eight months old, I am his world. He lights up when he sees me in the morning and cries when I walk out of the room without him.

This is the way it should be. Yes, he will get over his separation anxiety soon. Yes, he will one day leave the room I am in on purpose. But not yet. I will savor the time until then.

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

Logan: Iss, I think we need to eat at home this week. He reaches for another hot wing from the container in the middle of the table.

Bailey: Daddy, we are eating and we are at home.

Logan: Did you coach her to say that?

Me: Nope, she got that one on her own. Babe, I'm doing the best I can. Dinner is still dinner, as long as we all eat together.

Logan: Pause. I never thought of it that way. So, okay, dinner at home, no restaurants this week. But I don't care where the food comes from. One week, lets just try it for one week, okay?

Me: That sounds like a plan.

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

Morgan was as sick as a dog last week; food poisoning from some treat at the school. I've never seen her that sick in my life. Her long thin body, curled up on the bathroom floor in between retching. I sat with her, me and Harrison hanging with her on the floor until I finally decided to take her to Urgent care. I have been scared in my life; scared of many things. But nothing is scarier than watching your baby go as limp as a noodle from exhaustion and dehydration as you carry her too the car to take her to Urgent Care.

At 2am that next morning, she came into our room and said, mama I can't go to school today. I know bug, I do. But it's only 2am, I told her. Then I did something I rarely do, I pulled her into bed with us. She slept curled into me, nestled in between Logan and I for the rest of the night.

When I was in California, she slept with me two nights in a row. The two nights following my losing the baby. Those two nights, I felt guilty for, because she was there to comfort me. Now I know it works both ways. It's okay for her to be a comfort to me on occasion, just as it is for me to be that for her. That's what makes us family. Yes, she is seven years old, my first baby. But she is getting so big too. Big enough that we are starting to become friends in some way.

I want that, to be friends with my kids. Their mother first? Always. But friends too.

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

My Mom: So, Papa** and I are coming out mid-June. We're hoping to find a house to buy while we are there.

Me: Really? That soon?

Mom: Yeah. I've already started working on my book and he's pretty much finished with the practice. Jordan has a handle on it, he's been there for nearly two years. The practice runs itself these days. We're ready for the change. Ready for the new chapter in our lives.

Me: Mom, you know there is a house for sale down the block from us.

Mom: You'd want us to look at that? It wouldn't be too close?

Me: No, not at all. We'd love it.

Mom: Oh I'm so happy to hear that. Ok, well pull the phone number, so I can call on it, okay?

Me: I will call them for you.

Mom: You know it's funny, but so many people don't get to say that their grown daughter is one of their best friends.

Me: I know, that's just sad. God, I hope the girls and I are like that one day.

Mom: I know it will be like that for you.

**We call my step-dad, papa. Have since they got married when I was eight.

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

Kate: Are you guys sending the girls to summer day camp?

Me: I don't know. Maybe? We go back and forth on it. Morgan wants too, but Bailey doesn't at all.

Kate: Yeah, Aidan doesn't want to either. If we send him, you know he'll fight me every single morning. It's almost not worth the trouble.

Me: Yeah, I know. I want the time with them, the freedom to sleep in. Ha. But the reality is, I don't know that I want to entertain them, or listen to them fight all day every day for the next 10 weeks.

Kate: Well what if we share the kids? Take turns on certain days? Split them up on certain days and then have a day a week where we all do something together? Then we can both say, have a day a week free and the rest will work itself out.

Me: That is awesome. I'm in for sure. Can I have Friday off?

Kate: I knew you'd ask me that.

Me: At least I'm consistent.

Kate: Um huh. Consistent, pain in the ass maybe.

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

I wake up late/early one night to the bed shaking. He's sobbing, all 6'4" curled up around a pillow, with his hand shoved in his mouth to be quiet. I comfort him and calm him down and then ask why he is so upset. I wanted that baby. I wanted that baby so bad that it hurts. I wanted you to never have to go through this again. I couldn't fix it and I wanted too. You needed time to grieve, I had to be the one to not fall apart.

Well now it's your turn I tell him. Babe, we will have another baby, I tell him.

I can't even tell you how much I wanted to have another baby, he says. That baby, our baby.

We will. That one wasn't meant to be. But there will be another try, another chance. If not through us, we'll adopt. We'll find our baby. The one that is meant to be in this family.

There will be another baby. I know it. I feel it. Not yet, I need time. But sooner than one might think, I'd bet.

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

It's a crazy life, it keeps me on my toes, but it's my life and I wouldn't give it up for anything.

Six months

Harrison,

Six months, in the span of a life time isn't really that long. You'll know this one day. Today however, you have been here for six months. And that, my tiny friend, is a lifetime; your life time. It's funny, but the memories of my life, of our families life before you, don't seem quite real. I mean, I remember them (I may be crazy, but I'm not senile), but it seems unreal that I lived this long without you in my life. Six months and I can't imagine life without you.

You've done a lot in the last six months: you've learned to sit up, eat with a spoon, to roll around, to bat your eyes at me when you want something. You babble all day long. I fear that when you start talking, you will out talk your sisters, which is going to be a hard feat. You sing, which is one of the most beautiful sounds I've ever heard in my life.

I'll tell you a secret, you sleep. Don't tell anyone, because a sleeping infant is not something to brag about, but you have slept through the night since you were about six weeks old. I'd feel slightly bad about this, except your sister Bailey didn't sleep for the first, oh two years of her life. So I feel even. Like somehow you sleeping is a gift that the greater forces of the world gave me. Between you and me, I'm glad you love to sleep. I'm getting a bit old for the non-sleeping gig.

Last week during an unfortunate incident with sweet potatoes (dude, I'm sorry, truly), you cried and cried and cried. I realized something that day; it had been weeks since I'd heard you cry. Weeks, seriously. You are not a crier. You get fussy when you are tired or hungry, but you don't really cry. It broke my heart to listen to you that day. Even when you rolled under the dog yesterday and she stepped on your hand and you cried for a second, it hurt me. Although, dude, you did roll right under her. Note to you, when you are three and having a fit, it won't break my heart when you cry. But right now, it still does.

You are fascinated by music of any kind. You think the coolest thing in the world is the firetrucks that pass the house. You adore your sisters; you light up when they enter the world. You think the dog is awesome, you love it when she licks your face. You believe your daddy is the greatest toy in the entire world. But I am still your favorite.

Son, you light up my life. I can't imagine how you could be any more awesome than you are. One thing though? The backwards crawling thing you keep trying to do? I've told you a dozen times at least that crawling is not for tiny six month old babies. It's a house rule. Crawling is not to be attempted until eight months at least. You are too tiny to your mom and you would be good to remember the crawling rule. Because I'm about to start docking your future allowance if you keep breaking this rule. Don't laugh at me, I will do it, I will. Stop batting those big brown eyes at me, it's not going to work.

Ok, fine. Crawl. Whatever. Happy six months.

Love you, mama

Not the mother I thought I'd be....

Eight years ago, Logan and I decided to stop using birth control and see what happened. We had grand ideas about being parents. We'd been married two years, we were both on our second to last year of college, we owned a condo and we were ready. Ready to be parents. Ready to change our lives forever and make a family. Really if you think about it, or well, if we think about it, it was an excuse to have lots of unprotected sex. Lots.

More than that though, I always knew I wanted to be a mother. From a very young age, I knew I wanted kids. We argued about how many we'd have, but we both knew we wanted kids.

I'm not exactly sure we thought it would happen so soon; the getting pregnant part. They say a year at the very least when you've been on the pill for a while. "They" are morons, whoever they are. I was pregnant within a month.

We planned and organized as we got ready for our baby. Our baby girl who we were so thrilled to be pregnant with. We painted our second bedroom, bought little onesies and sockies, baby proofed our entire condo and went through a name book, name by name. We dreamed big dreams. For her and for us. For our family, the little family we were creating. Huge dreams about what she'd be like. I don't think this is so out there, I bet there are tons of first time mothers who dream about what their children will be like. We hope for the best and pray for the amazing. We envision perfect lives for them. Lives without fear, hatred, uncertainty or loss. Lives that are full of sunshine and flowers.

I had an idea about what kind of a mom I'd be. That, I'd be spontaneous, fun and never impatient. I didn't believe being a parent would be all sunshine and roses, but I had a bit of a skewed idea of motherhood. I wouldn't be big on bedtimes, schedules could be made up as we went along and I'd never force my kid to eat when they didn't want too. If the food of choice was hot dogs, I'd go with it. The things Logan and I would do with said child, danced in my head. We wanted to travel the world, take our baby with us. Travel the US, see everything and anything. Just get in the car and go. I had great plans for the way my child would be, as well.

Then I was handed this teeny baby. And she was teeny, having been born a month early. She was also nothing like what we'd imagined. Not at all. Don't get me wrong, she was ours and she was perfect in our eyes. Our beautiful baby girl. God we adored her from the second she came into the world.

She was also great birth control, for tons of other people. Morgan is the kid that makes people go, maybe we'll start with a fish. She was a screamer, from pretty much birth on. She had colic so bad that we literally had to massage her stomach after every time she ate. She wouldn't breast feed, so I gave up within a week. It was okay, because I was open to whatever, but also because I needed to be able to give her to other people to feed. She had to be held at all times, non-stop. But only a certain way, which changed often. She wanted her way, all the time, from a very young age. She was a good sleeper at night, I will give her that. She started sleeping though the night at six weeks. She wasn't a good napper. She was not an easy baby, nor an easy toddler. In fact, nothing about her was or is easy.

My grandiose plans went right out the window. Our ideas of traveling the world with her as a baby, were dashed by the second day of her life. Morgan, even now at, seven and a half years old, is a child that needs a strict schedule. Bedtimes are a must, meals need to be at the same times, changes from the schedule must be explained over and over, for it to go off okay. Even then, it doesn't always work out for her. She has trouble with transitions, change, deviations from the way she knows it to be. Or wants it to be. We talk about what will happen in her day tomorrow at dinner every night. Over the past few years it has shrunk to: this is the basic plan type of a thing. It used to include great detail: you will wake up, you will eat breakfast, you will get dressed; a full timeline of her day. It wasn't for us, it was for her. We did it because she needed it.

This is just how my daughter is. It's a part of her, a part of her that frustrates me to no end some days. I also love it about her. She has changed my views of the world. She has shaped the mother I became. If Bailey had been born first, or even Harrison; I'd be a different mother than I am today. I might be that mother that I thought I'd become. The care free mom.

I am not that mother. I am not the mother I thought I'd be. I am a better mother than I would have been. I know this to be true. I have the rest of my life to travel the world, to see the sites, to live moment to moment. I may not be the mother that I wanted to be. However, I am the mother they need me to be. A mother with rules, who enforces bedtimes, a mother who makes them read half an hour out loud a night, one who makes them eat vegetables and brush their teeth. I don't make up elaborate art projects, nor do I cook from scratch. But I've found people who will do that stuff with them. I am not as patient as I thought I'd be....but I'm more patient than my mom was with us, so that's an improvement.

I can be spontaneous; the fun mom, who can let rules go for a night. I can run around and play at the park with them, pretending to be a fairy princess; build complex mazes out of pillows on my floor, to avoid the hot lava monster. I can let them go wild in a candy store every now and again. But the next day, I become mom again. Their mom. Morgan, Bailey and Harrison's mom.

I may not be the mom I thought I'd be, but I'd not give up the mom I am to them in a heart beat. It's the thing I'm most proud of in this world.

10 years ago today

It doesn't seem like 10 years could have gone by since Logan and I said, I do. Don't get me wrong, some days it seems like it's been a million years, but mostly it's gone by pretty fast. Three kids does that to you. You can't blink, because you'll miss it all.

My husband is not the man I married 10 years ago. I am not the woman I was back then. We have changed, grown, become different people. (Which hopefully happens when you marry at 19 years old.) We're lucky in the sense that the people we grew into, grew in the same direction and still get along. At least most days.

Yesterday was not one of those days. Yesterday was hard people. Just plain hard. But see, no one ever said marriage was easy. It isn't; it's a constantly challenging thing. Totally worth it, but not easy. As my mom says, if you don't have the horrible days, you'd never really appreciate the good ones. I've never aired my dirty laundry on this blog, not where it concerns my husband. I don't intend to start now, but lets just say, yesterday wasn't fun. It doesn't really matter today, because it was yesterday and now it's over.

However, yesterday we didn't act like people who have been married 10 years. We didn't act like people who love each other. Hell, we didn't even act like adults. (As Morgan says, we weren't acting our age or IQ. She loves to say this too the dog, although I'm not sure dogs care one bit.) I am not proud of it, but I'm not upset about it either. Life moves on, love is bigger than irritation and frustration. I have never been good at staying angry. It's too much dam work.

This morning, I woke up, turned over and was happy to see him. Him, the beautiful man I married. The man who was such a butt munch yesterday. Every morning, I look at him and I love him. No matter how pissed I might be, when he looks at me, I know I will always forgive him. Eventually. Because I love him. I love him more than everything in this world. I know that no matter what happens, he is here for me, and I for him. I'd move the moon for him if he asked.

10 years people. 10 years. I was going to be all sweet and sappy today, but I'm just not in the mood. Mostly because I am too freaking tired to form two thoughts that make sense. Instead I give you this:

Me: Babe, we've been married for ten freaking years. Don't you think it's about time you started actually hanging up your wet towels?

Logan: Iss, we've been married for ten years. Don't YOU think it's about time you gave up on me hanging up my towels?

And that my friends is what ten years of marriage looks like.

Cupcakes anyone?

Yesterday when I went to pick up Bailey at pre-school I somehow found myself committed to making cupcakes for their Valentines Day party. Back in the day, I used to go and buy cupcakes for my kids school stuff. I even bought the good ones from Sprinkles Cupcakes. Have you ever had sprinkles cupcakes? They are too die for. If you ever have the chance, please try one. But back in those days I had a pay check...man I miss the pay check days....anyhow, I'd go and buy the lovely expensive cupcakes, no problem. Everyone was happy and the world went along just fine. Time has changed though and today I make cupcakes. (Because honestly, there isn't a Sprinkles Cupcakes around here.) I made 62 cupcakes to be exact. No mix, by hand. With a recipe from Martha Stewart, the Sprinkles Strawberry Cupcakes recipe.

But I am no Martha Stewart. I can bake, in fact I am a better baker than a cook. But still, it's not something I do often. Unless the slice and bake cookies count, which I doubt they do. These cupcakes are not so easy either. They are very detailed. The frosting is the killer. It has real strawberries in it.

So the girls and I made cupcakes. Loads and loads of cupcakes. There was flour split, eggs dropped and milk somehow missed the bowl about four times. My girls, they love to cook. They get that from their grandmother, because it sure as hell isn't from me. But they got my absolute inability to use less than every dish in the house while cooking. Also the clean as you go gene, they are missing that one too. Then we made frosting, a gazillion tons of frosting. But the frosting doesn't really go on the cupcakes easily. Then the red hearts fell off. Then we re-put them on, basically squishing them into the frosting.

After we were done, my BFF Kate had the kids make Valentines at her house, which is great since I am not crafty. The ones in the box would have been more than fine, if I was doing them. In fact I send them to Kate's house often, specifically so they can do that crap at her house. (I'm not kidding. I've banned scissors from my house until Bailey stops cutting up full pieces of paper into shreds and leaving it all over the floor.) While they were gone I sampled a cupcake or two (have to make sure they are not poison) and cleaned frosting off of every surface in my entire freaking kitchen. Also, I'm pretty darn sure that Harrison is not allergic to milk or strawberries, because I'm sure he got a taste of frosting, since he was rolling around the kitchen floor. What can you do? He's a third kid. He's lucky we didn't hand him a BBQ rib the second he was born.

Later that night when Logan came home, he and Bailey had the funniest conversation. I am still laughing my ass off at it. The girls were sitting at the table doing "worksheets". I put that in parentheses because it's not real worksheets. Well it is, but not from the school. My kids go to a choice school. Basically they don't believe worksheets need to be sent home as homework, which I fully agree with. When Morgan gets homework, it's more hands on, more creative and not mind numbing. However, my kid is um special. I mean that in the best way, really I do. But people, she makes up her own worksheets. For her and for Bailey. Different ones each week. Bailey loves it most days. So anyway they were sitting at the able doing worksheets and I was doing yet another load of dishes when Logan walked in. She said all of this to him, without ever looking up from her sheet.

Logan: Babe, what's for dinner?

Bailey: Daddy, I think you should buy a new question.

Logan: (laughing) Oh yeah, what question should I have asked?

Bailey: You should say, honey, where am I taking you for dinner.

Logan: Thanks little girl. (Yes we call her little girl. Morgan will answer to big girl and the baby looks up if you say, the boy. They all have numerous nicknames.) Ok, honey, where am I taking you for dinner.

Me: Good question. I'm not sure, but somewhere with wine sounds like a plan.

Bailey: Daddy, that will be two dollars please.

Logan: What, why?

Bailey: Because you bought my question. Now pay up.

Logan: Please.

Bailey: And thank you.

Me: Babe, the girls an extortionist, but you'd better pay her. Because she's right, you needed to change that question.


Later my BFF Emmy called me and after I'd explained my entire day to her, she said, you know you can buy that mix from Williams-Sonoma right? And you can, you can buy the mix for Sprinkles Cupcakes at Williams-Sonoma. However, as I so nicely told her, that would have been helpful six hours earlier.

By the way, today is not Friday. I didn't know that until I was completely done. So I have 64, no 58, um 54 cupcakes sitting in my fridge. burp.

When I'm old, I hope I remeber....

The way my husband holds Morgan's hands in his, walking across the parking lot, with each finger intertwined.

The way Bailey climbed in between my mom and I on the couch tonight, took one of each of our hands and made it where all three of us were holding hands.

My mom touching my belly, telling her grandson bedtime stories; kissing him and telling him goodnight.

Morgan climbing up into Bailey's bed at night, saying, I think I'll just sleep with sissy, so she's not scared.

My girls, giggling and whispering for twenty minutes, before they finally fall asleep.

My friends calling my mom a cheat at Pictonary, telling her that no one can be that good.

My husband, telling me that if this baby is a girl, he wouldn't really mind. And if it's not, we should have one more.

The smell of home made food; the love of family; and the laughter of friends, I hope I always remember it all.