Beginnings, Endings, and New Beginnings...

I'm just a little melancholy this week in thinking about the upcoming school year. I can't believe the summer is already gone but what I really can't believe is that my little girl is going to be a senior. We spent last night perusing colleges and scholarship websites and I could not help wonder where the time has gone. I'm very excited for her and seeing her make the choices that will become the foundation of her life but also a little sad for myself. My baby will be leaving me. I feel like I'm standing in the wake of the speedboat of her childhood wondering how it went by so fast. So many things come to mind when I think about her...

When they brought her to me the first time (It was my birthday, and I couldn't believe I could have such a wonderful gift) she was a few hours old and they pushed her in in the little bassinet and said "Hey Mommy, here is your daughter." I thought to myself "daughter! Wow, nobody has ever called me Mommy before!" It was an amazing feeling.

We were so inept though at the logistics of parenthood. We learned really fast the first rule of babyhood, NEVER think you won't need the diaper bag even if you are only going out for a minute. We took her to her first two week appt. and left it in the car...silly us...the doc wanted to examine her and took off the diaper and threw it away and we didn't have a spare. While we were debating about whether we should go out to the car and get the diaper bag or borrow a diaper from the docs office, she peed all over the table. That ended THAT discussion. I think the Dr. felt kind of sorry for us as he leaned into the other room and requested a diaper for us. A couple of minutes later she started crying because she was hungry and we didn't have the bottle, and then her bellybutton started bleeding and when the Dr. looked in her mouth discovered she had thrush...I'm sure he was shaking his head when we left the office wondering what this poor kid was in for with parents like us.
We learned pretty fast though. I loved being a mom and loved to give her a bath and dress her up in pretty little dresses then put her in the stroller and show her off to the other moms in the neighborhood. I remember even thinking one time "wow, this motherhood thing is pretty easy! Nothing to it!"
I laugh at myself now, of course...

Then there were the times she made me laugh...I was downstairs in the kitchen once and I heard something upstairs. She was about two I think and was supposed to be in bed. I went upstairs to investigate and found her in the bathroom filling the toilet with billows and billows of toilet paper! And then one time while drinking a glass of milk (sometime later)I thought it tasted funny and went to look at the milk and found a baby wipe in the carton! (a fresh one) No wonder the milk tasted like soap! Now who could have done that?!!
...And then once while driving down the highway in San Diego and listening to Tommy's favorite cassette tape with Lionel Ritchie singing "Brick House", We heard this little four year old voice in the back seat belting out "she's a BRICK--HOOOOWSSE!!" in a very gutteral Lionel Ritchie type voice...We almost had a wreck we couldn't stop laughing, and then there was the time (also driving) she gave us the entire commercial for "Safety can" from the back seat. (still chuckling over that).



And the times she scared me...When Tommy was on his first deployment, the day he left actually, I was resting in the afternoon in the EZ chair after a bad day (the washing machine chose that day to die, of course) and she wanders in with a Combat in her mouth, and while I was on the phone with poison control she comes back in the room with a broken glass Christmas ball in her mouth! And then while I was at work once I had the urge to call home and make sure everything was ok only to find out she had had a bad fall and hit her head. I didn't know how bad it was until later when I got home but when I saw the huge goose egg on her head I got really scared. And then once I caught her drinking Matt's Erythromiacin...don't know how she got the childproof cap off...

And then the times she made me proud...She excelled in school from the very first. The only one to write a complete sentence in Kindergarten during a test, she wrote "I love my Mommy". That still brings a lump. She was in the second grade spelling bee and I didn't go because I thought two year old Ally would be too hard to keep quiet...She won that spelling bee...and I am still kicking myself all these years later for not being there, restless baby or not.

The years just seemed to fly by...eighth grade, ninth grade, band, flag team, then flag captain, learning to drive, and dual highschool/college classes, and now a job...I swear I just blinked and here stands before me this almost grown woman with thoughts, and views, and personality all her own. And soon a life of her own too. I just hope the one thing she takes with her is the knowledge of how much she was loved, despite mistakes we may have made along the way. I hope now that as she begins the foundation for her own life we can add another dimension to our relationship, that of friend as well as daughter.

A Toast

I reached up and grabbed the bagels from their place on top of the fridge and on the way down reached in and grabbed my favorite cream cheese spread. I popped the bread into the toaster and tried to push the handle down, but both it and the bread just popped back up. On this particular model it has to be plugged in for the handle to stay down, so I reached over and grabbed the cord, thinking that would solve the problem. However, to my consternation, the cord was already plugged in. I pushed the lever up and down a couple of times, just to make sure it wasn't operator error. It wasn't. The toaster was dead. I stifled a sigh of irritation and just ate the bagel untoasted. As I munched, I remembered that I had an old toaster out in the storage shed. I wasn't sure it would still work, but decided, when I had a free moment I would see if I could find it.
I went out to the shed, and contemplated where I would be if I was a toaster. I rummaged among the seventeen years of junk I had piled up in there, and quickly located it.
I brought it in the house and began to clean it up and to reflect on how fast time speeds by. The memories related to this old toaster began to play in my mind as I applied a scrubber, some bleach and an old dishtowel to get it clean enough to toast bread in.
We had acquired the toaster on our wedding day, seventeen years ago this spring. We sat together in front of our families and friends and opened the gifts they brought us, he in his brand new sailor whites, and me in the dress made by my grandmother in 1959 for my aunt, and borrowed for this occasion.
It didn't stand out among the gifts, this toaster, but it seems to be one of the only things still with us all these years later, other than a hand sewn quilt, from my grandmother, and the silverware given by my uncle Ollie, and two unbroken wedding plates.
I remembered the sharp pang of excitement felt then at the newness and uncertainty of everything.
Part of the newness included moving to a military base eight hours away from my nearest family. I set up my new home with the pride of a brand new housewife, and set the toaster in a place of honor next to the sink under the window.
As I cleaned I looked for the crack that stretched all the way across the handle. Aah, there it was. One day not too long after getting married, we accidentally locked ourselves out of the house, and my new husband, climbing in the kitchen window to let us in, stepped on it and cracked it. I was upset, to say the least, that one of my new wedding gifts had now been damaged.
Then came the new baby and lots of midnight toast, along with dirty diapers, bottles, tiny little lacy dresses and much love for the little one that changed our lives.
The toaster served us toast for probably ten years before I retired it to the storage shed and replaced it with a sleeker, newer model. Since then I have been through at least two toasters. They had both been chrome and nickel respectively, with black trim and each time I thought they would last a lifetime, or at least more than a couple of years.
The old white toaster, I reflected, was kind of like my marriage. A little beat up, not as shiny as it used to be, even a little yellow with age, and little rusty in a few places, but when I plugged it in there was no doubt that it still worked.
Feeling foolishly sentimental, I pumped the handle up and down a few times. I felt ridiculous. Who gets teary over a toaster?
But I couldn't help thinking about how fast the time has gone by. That little baby goes to get her driver's permit tomorrow. Now days our conversations with her center around college and career choices and SATees.
Who wouldn't get a little worked up?