Photo A Day: Home

With a topic like “Home,” you are probably expecting a photo related to my house. Perhaps my front door, or the entire front of my house. Perhaps a photo of my living room, or my kitchen. Perhaps even a photo of my kids in the playroom or my husband in the office. But to me, the word “home” is not the same as the word “house.” My house is a specific place; it’s where I live, where I sleep, where I spend most of my time. But home can be anywhere that my family is. So last night, this was home.

In typical home fashion, not everyone was happy at that given moment. Two-thirds of the family is happy (actually, three-quarters; you can’t see the expression on my face, but since you can see that I have a buttered herb roll, calamari, and a cocktail in front of me, it’s a pretty safe assumption), which seems about right for any average moment.

And you know what? It’s okay that not everyone is perfectly happy. Life is not perfect; my family is not perfect. Any family that claims to be perfect all the time is either lying or deluded. To be honest, a family that is always happy would be a little creepy. If there’s always happiness, there’s no dissension; if there’s no dissention, there are no opinions; if there are no opinions, there is no thought. And if there’s no thought, there’s no point.

So I’ll take my imperfect home exactly as it is. Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, we’re in it together: thinking together, forming opinions together, disagreeing together, being happy together. Most of the time, anyway. Because being together is what makes these people my home.

Home.

Photo A Day, Day 29: Contrast

To find a contrast in my life, I only have to look as far as my children. One boy and one girl; one brown-haired and one blonde; one carnivore and one near-vegetarian; one night owl and one early riser; one truck- and rocket-lover and one tutu- and crown-wearer; one fond of orange and one of pink; one who doesn’t nap and one who does; one who’s built like a tank and one like a delicate flower. 

Even where there isn’t an innate contrast, there is often a passing contrast: he’s cranky when she’s cheerful; he’s sleepy when she’s wide awake; he’s in the mood to play outside when she’d rather stay in; he wants a PB&J when she wants a grilled cheese; he wants to race around when she wants to snuggle. Fortunately, many of their contrasts are actually complementary. When we have spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, he eats her spaghetti and she eats his meatballs. When he finishes playing with the Legos, she’s ready to start. He wants to hear one bedtime story, she wants a different one. When she’s ready for bedtime, he’s happy to play for another half an hour. Just when my ears start to bleed from listening to his favorite song 27 times in a row, she demands her favorite 27 times in a row.

But even beyond just my children, my husband and I demonstrate some contrast. He’s an extrovert; I’m an introvert. He’s technically inclined; I am not. I am more comfortable with the written word; he’s more comfortable with the spoken word. He loves being in charge; I’d rather take orders. He prefers red wine; I lean towards white. I love ethnic food; he’s a meat and potatoes guy. He likes the Hilton; I’m happy with Motel 6. He is a human GPS; I can get lost in my own neighborhood.

The four of us together, however, are proof that contrasts can be complementary. Among the four of us, we’ve got blond hair, brown hair, red hair, and bald all covered. We’ve got tall, average, petite, and husky. We’ve got short sweater, long sweater, vest, and jacket. As long as we’re all together, someone will be happy with whatever’s on the menu; someone will know how to get where we’re going; someone will find a toy that makes them happy; someone will like whatever is on the radio; someone will have an interesting story to entertain guests with. And someone will look terrific in whatever family theme colors we’ve decided on.

I’m pretty okay with that contrast.

Photo A Day, Day 24: A Pop of Color

When I married my husband, our finished basement was beige. Off-white walls, beige couch, dull taupe rug, light brown furniture, even the single painting on the wall was black and white with a hint of beige. It had no color, no personality. It was just…beige.

But once small children entered (or, in his case, re-entered) our lives, so did color. The baby toys were vivid primary colors and bold, bright shapes. The toddler toys were slightly more subtle but still bright and vivid. The preschool toys are becoming a bit less of an assault on the eyes, but still solid, bold colors and patterns. And the toys are everywhere. So on every formerly dull, bland, beige surface, there can always be found a pop of color.

Today, I glanced at my beige couch, covered with a dull brown blanket, next to a boring black chair, with a single pair of plain white socks resting on it, and saw a single piece of bright red, glitter-coated tissue paper. A pop of color. And it made me smile. Because not only is it a cheerful color, it is also a reminder of the project that my son and I did together earlier in the day. It was a symbol of how my son can now read directions himself, how he can figure out how to put things together and how to make them work. It was a reminder that he loves to be creative, and that he loves for me to watch him and to help him in that creativity.

It reminded me how, in the sometimes dull beige of my life, my family is always a beautiful pop of color.

Finishing the Hat

This weekend was an especially busy one. My husband left for a retreat at the crack of dawn on Friday morning and got home late Saturday night. We hosted the family for Easter dinner on Sunday, plus I was teaching the pre-school Sunday school class. I had a whole list of things to get done on Friday and Saturday: take both kids to gymnastics, shop for groceries, bake Easter dessert, clean the house for company, buy treats for the Easter baskets, dye Easter eggs, set the table, put together the family’s Easter baskets, plan my Sunday school lesson and find craft supplies for it, find a pair of white shoes that fit, cook the carrots for Easter dinner, sew pink ribbon and a flower onto my Easter hat, and amidst all that, keep the kids fed and bathed. Whew! There were a few things I was tempted to drop off the list, and one of the things that almost didn’t get done was to finish trimming my hat. Would it really matter all that much if my hat had a black ribbon instead of a pink one? Or if it didn’t have a flower to match my daughter’s hat? Was it really worth the time and effort to get all our outfits so coordinated or our hats to be matching?

At the end of the day, it turned out that it was. Not only did the whole family look lovely and festive,
but the three girls in our matching dresses and hats were absolutely the hit of coffee hour after church.

Three pretty girls in three pretty hats is not a sight you see every day, and we attracted our share of attention and compliments. And the boys in their handsome matching suits got nearly as much attention. It felt really nice, not just because it’s nice to get compliments, but because it really made us feel like a family. We worked together to make our outfits work together. We both complemented and complimented each other. It was really fun to make such a public announcement that we are a family. We go together, we live together, we work together.

Yup, it was definitely worth finishing the hat.

It Was 20 Years Ago Today

Tomorrow is my 20th college reunion. I can’t quite figure out how that happened, because I’m pretty certain that it’s only been about 6 months since I graduated from college. But then I think about everything that’s happened in those “6 months”, and I guess maybe it really has been 20 years.

When I graduated from college in May 1990, I had a job lined up, a tiny hatchback with 80,000 miles on it, and not much else. I knew that the job wasn’t something I wanted to do forever, but it was a job in my field with a paycheck I could live on (barely), so I figured it was a place to start. I soon found an apartment and a roommate and started out on my “grownup” life. After 6 months, my boss announced that she was moving to Iowa and taking my job with her – although I was welcome to come with her. I declined and began job-hunting again. But at least this time I was already employed within a network, so I was able to find a new job within just a few weeks – a job I ended up staying with for nearly 8 years.

During those 8 years, I lost my roommate and found an apartment of my own. I got involved in church and theater and vocal groups and handbell choirs. I went on a tour of England. I grew out my hair. And I got sick of living and working in the city.

So I took a deep breath, moved to a different apartment, got a different job, and found a different theater group. I bought a new car. I won a couple of theater awards. I colored my hair. And then I cut it again. And then I grew it out again. I performed in a professional musical in Boston and I joined a cabaret troupe. I eventually moved again, this time with another roommate. And then, everything changed.

I decided that I really wanted to be married, and that it wasn’t going to happen unless I did something about it. So I took another deep breath and signed up on an internet dating site. I met a couple of really nice guys, and a couple of whackos. My ego took a few blows and got a few boosts. And then one day I saw the profile of a guy who mentioned both church and theater, and I dropped him a little note. Little did I know that that one little note would change both of our lives.

To make a long story short, we met, we fell in love, we got married, and we had a baby. One short sentence that summarizes three of the most amazingly wonderful years of my life. I suspect that many of my friends from college have a similar story on a very different timeline. In some ways, I wish I could have skipped some of the boring parts of my history and jumped into the last few years sooner. But it was those intervening years that made both me and Herb the people we were when we met, and the people we are now. So I don’t regret a moment of those intervening years. They brought me to the happiness I have now, and that happiness is worth every moment of waiting over the years.

I just hope that all my classmates I run into tomorrow aren’t too jealous of me!

Three Is a Magic Number

When I got home from picking Herb up at the airport yesterday afternoon, one of the first things we did when we got out of the car was have a family group hug with Ryan in the middle. I had one arm wrapped around Herb and one around Ryan, Herb had one around Ryan and one around me, and Ryan was flailing at both of us and getting a big kiss on each chubby cheek from us both. It was the best feeling ever!

And then late this morning, Herb took a short nap and just before his alarm was set to go off, I snuck in the room with Ryan and let him pat Daddy’s face to wake him up. Naturally the three of us ended up in a big clinch in the middle of the bed, wrestling and giggling. Best group hug ever!

There’s just something amazing about the family all snuggling together. Physical contact is truly an emotionally bonding experience, and when all three of us are in such close contact, I just feel like my heart will burst with happiness over how precious a family I’ve been blessed with.

It reminds me of the line from Schoolhouse Rock: “Man and a woman had a little baby – there were three in the family, that’s a magic number.” One point is just a point, two points are a line, but three points – that gets you a whole plane! Three points make a stable tricycle, a solid stool, a useful tabletop. Three is a special number throughout the Bible: the three gifts of the Magi, the three sons of Noah, Daniel’s thrice-daily prayers, the three parts of the Godhead, the three days between Christ’s death and resurrection. There’s a special significance to three, a sense of completion and perfection.

Our true family already includes more than three, and our family may not even be complete yet. But the three that are in our household right now? Are absolute perfection.