move on

Today marks the one year anniversary of the date of my divorce. When I married thirty-one plus years ago, I never dreamed that my road would bring me here. It didn’t occur to me at that point in time that marriage and life could be anything but blissful, wonderful, and fairy-tale perfect. I’ve been down a long, rocky road. I’ve learned and grown a lot. I’ve survived some tough, painful experiences. Sometimes when I get down in the dumps about the waste of my youth, I’m sure that if I could just contact my young self, I’d issue a strong warning: “Run away fast! There’s nothing here but hurt!” But then I always come back to that happy place, that place in my heart where my girls live, and I know that if I was really confronted with the full knowledge of those thirty years and the possibility of warning myself, that no, I wouldn’t stop myself. I might raise my arm ready to shout at myself: “Go now! Before all the hurt begins!” But then I know I would quietly turn away from my young self and allow myself to move on through those thirty years because life without my babies wouldn’t be life at all. They're the best thing that ever happened to me. I’d live it all again and again just so I could have the privilege of loving, raising, and knowing my girls, my best friends, the joy of my life.

me and my girls--1993

tiny diaper

This isn't even mine to blog about, but shucks, I just can't help it. When I went to visit Shauntel last time, I took her a little diaper pail---you know the kind---with a foot pedal. Annabelle was intrigued with it and asked me what it was. I told her it was a bucket. She commenced to figure out how to operate that foot pedal, and pretty soon she had it down pat. She made herself busy picking up toys, and whatever else was nearby and convenient, and threw them in the bucket. Then she'd giggle madly, dump it out, and start all over again with a whole new set of things to throw in "grandma's bucket."

As time always does, it got away from me, and I reluctantly left and came on home to this quiet little abode with no little giggles, no pitter pat of tiny feet, and no newborn cries. Just a couple of days ago, I got an email from my daughter explaining to me Annabelle's continued use of the "bucket." Shauntel had just changed Lydia's diaper. Annabelle picked it up, ran off to her room, and came back empty handed. She stood in front of her mom and gleefully reported: "I put the tiny, stinky diaper in grandma's pocket."

Beautiful photo of Annabelle and Lydia from Shauntel's blog.

same legs, different baby

Now that Shauntel has had two babies, I think that we can pretty much verify that she creates beautiful babies. (You know, with a little help from Jess, of course.)

When Annabelle was born, I was just stunned at how much she resembled her mommy. It was like holding and loving and gazing on my sweet little baby Shauntel all over again. Annabelle has grown a lot in these past two years, and she certainly has her own wonderful personality and looks now. But wow, as a baby she was just Shauntel all over again.

Cue Lydia. It's hard to believe it, but once again, Shauntel has produced another carbon copy of herself. Once again, looking on Lydia is like looking at my baby Shauntel. Lydia is beautiful and lovely and perfect in every way, and I can hardly wait to see how she grows into her own little self, who she'll become, the lovely person that I know she'll be.

I miss those days, being a mommy. My babies were and are the joy of my life. How nice it is that the joy is now extending into grandchildren.

This is my baby Shauntel, roughly 29.5 years ago. Check out the skinny legs.

This is my baby's baby, Lydia. Same legs, different baby.

more stats

Only crazy people take classes during summer semester. I am a crazy person. I took nine credits, which is kind of like taking eighteen credits during a regular semester. I had American Literature, Early British Literature, and one writing class. Now, I love to read, and I love to write, but. . .well, like I said only a crazy person would knowingly submit themselves to this much work: I read 31 short stories, 37 poems, 1 selection from an autobiography, 2 plays, and 17 pieces of non-fiction/essays. I wrote 1 annotated bibliography, 3 critical analyses, a recommendation report, and 6 essay/short papers.

That's a total of:

886 pages read + 35 pages written in 8 weeks = 1 crazy person who was really happy to leave and go see this:

6,951,732,593

So I don't know if you know this, but there are 6,951,732,593 people in the world, you know, give or take one or two. And of those almost seven billion people in the world, these two are the most beautiful children in the world:

Objectively speaking, of course.