Pop!

It’s one of my favorite things about spring. You wake up one morning to find the trees and shrubs simply exploded. It is almost as if, if you stayed up really late the night before, the world would sound like a giant popcorn popper as everything bursts to blossom.

Beautiful.

13 Months

Dear Zoë,

Spring has finally arrived – to stay – and we have spent every possible minute basking in the outdoors. Your winter coat has been carefully tucked away, never to be worn again (by you, anyway) and bare feet are the order of the day.

Slap! Slap! Slap!

Hearing that noise, padding around the house, simply makes me smile. Especially when you’re giggling. Which you do a lot lately. Now that you’re steadier on your feet, you’re really picking up speed and you rather enjoy being chased. “I’m gonna getchoo!” I’ll cry, and you tear away from me squealing. Slap! Slap! Slap!



You also continue to demonstrate how much you are your mother’s daughter. Are you tired of hearing that, yet? I couldn’t be more delighted, though, that you want to be outside as much as I do. You can almost reach the door knobs (or pulls, in the case of the back door) and the sight of you standing tiptoe reaching with all your might is enough to tell us it’s time to go outside. The other day I was getting you ready for another playdate with Eleanor (OK, it was actually a Momma playdate) – you had on your hat, your shoes, and your sunscreen. You were standing by the back door when I told you it was time to go. You didn’t understand that I was trying to lead you outside, just through the garage, and you started to cry. You were fighting me to get to the back door: “Outside, Momma! PLEASE!” It was both funny and, frankly, frustrating (we were late!).



This past week Gram and Granddad had to go visit GGMO and Granddaddy Bob, so you got a couple of real treats: you got to stay home all day and you got to spend it with your Dada and Uncle Dave. You gave your Uncle Dave a couple of excellent life lessons. In fact, your timing was impeccable. No sooner had Dada left for work, but you woke from your nap with a full load. And I’m not talking laundry. Uncle Dave hadn’t even gotten a diaper lesson, yet. That’s my girl!

I know your Dada loved having all that time to spend with you – time he very rarely gets because he works so hard. I’ll admit I was jealous hearing that you learned to enjoy being read to. As we were both putting you to bed one night, you grabbed a book and literally climbed into Dada’s lap. You wanted him to read to you and, when he started, you sat and listened. You didn’t squirm away, you didn’t try turning the pages. I was surprised to see you looking so attentive – and so grown up! Imagine my surprise to hear you’d been doing it all week.



I guess you can slow down after all.



Love,

Momma

Thinking . . .

Editor's note - I was going through all my draft posts today when I came across this one that I wrote over a year ago! I like it, though, so enjoy . . . KLL

This afternoon, I had the increasingly rare opportunity (which will probably be interruptted here in 5, 4, . . . ) to catch up on some of my favorite sites and check in with the Internet. Over at DadCentric they held a "Freaky Friday"--all of the Mrs. wrote in for their contributor husbands--last Friday. See? It's been a while. Anyway, I came across this post about the legitimacy of internet "friends". People with whom you communicate on a regular basis, with whom you share intimate details, but who you may have never met. She even comments that, often, we "get together" with these "friends" more often than our real-life buddies. It got me reminiscing about my life in cyber space.

Only those of you who have known me for a very long time (this may only include my parents, brothers, and Jeanne) know that I have been actively online since we'll say 1990. Back in those days, I didn't so much "surf the web". We weren't calling it that. No, I was into Prodigy. Anyone remember Prodigy? My family had recently gotten our first computer with its super-speedy modem. I wasted no time dialing in. Message boards, emails . . . it totally rocked! I "met" a ton of like-minded people who shared my kind of quirky interests and I conversed with them regularly. And, yes, I had some quirky interests. As in, I was a junior high student between 1989 and 1992 who preferred The Phantom of the Opera to New Kids on the Block. At any rate, I became pretty close with many of these people, some of whom I was able to meet in person (Elly Blue--if you're still out there, I'd love to hear what you're up to!). I can clearly remember kids at school, mostly the jerky boys, thinking I was such a dweeb for my online activities. "Yeah, sure they're you're friends." I guess that's why the post got me reflecting.

I find it interesting that I still often feel like that dorky kid with oversized glasses (it was the 90's!) and a major gap in my teeth (thanks to the orthodontist). I am a total dweeb who divulges her personal life to the masses on the internet. But, at the same time, it's almost like the world has caught up with me. It's no longer weird to converse mainly through email. I don't know anyone who isn't online, anymore, and that includes our grandparents. It's now even somewhat commonplace to have your own website!

So, what am I feeling? What did this post touch in me? Maybe a little vindicated (on several counts . . . although if we all stayed the same as we were in junior high, the world would be a pretty horrid place). Still a little embarrassingly geeky. But, maybe a bit like a defiant trailblazer. You know, like when your favorite unknown band makes it big, and you look down on all the "poser" fans because you "knew them & loved them when."

To all my IRL (in real life) and internet friends out there, including Katie & Steve - welcome! But, dudes - you totally shouldda been there in August 1992 when . . .