The Second Step

I have not always been close to my dad.  Now, we talk on a regular basis. 

This picture warms my heart. 

Thank God for forgiveness.

My husband is from a small town and me, well..I’m not.  I’ve lived in a small town, two actually, but not for very long.  Believe me it is so different when you have lived in a small town your whole life.  In small towns everyone knows everyone as well as every-one’s business.  Which I’m not so convinced is a bad thing.  You have a lot of friends that you have had for a very long time and you know all of their family. 

I grew up with Target, The Galleria, and the Theatre.  Very different stuff. 

When Ryan and I go visit his friends and family back home it’s always a huge learning experience for me.  It was hard for me at first not to be judgemental, not in a bad way, but everyone and everything is so different.  I mean the language is different.  They talk about fishing, bottle feeding their heffers, and grass fires.  They have accents, that sometimes I can’t even understand.  But one thing is for sure, they are not out to impress anyone. 

Recently we met up with an old running buddy of Ryan’s, and he and his wife took us “riding around.”  This is probably one of the biggest hurdles I have had to overcome.  Because all you do is ride around.  It’s not that I’m too good for this experience, it’s just simply something I never did.  Where I was from you got in your car to go to the next destination period.

However, I have noticed something that I love about small towns.  I love the fact that folks (you like that?) just stop by.  Now THAT is something you certainly do not see in the suburbs.  We live our lives here, it seems, inside our fences.  What happened to that mentality of just visiting for the sake of visiting.  Why do I feel the need to ask to see my friends?  I know that we are all busy, but seriously I would love it if my friends felt comfortable enough to just stop by my house…because they were in the neighborhood.

On the flip side of that, if say someone did just come by, I don’t want to greet them with, “Sorry my house is a mess.”  That too is something that is peculiar to me.  Seriously, are houses supposed to be clean ALL the time?  If that is the case, I am doing this stay at home thing all wrong. 

So if any of you out there ever just want to just stop on by.  I have a pot of coffee always ready.  My house, guaranteed, will not be tidy.  But, you are welcome anytime.

A few summers ago my step-dad took me fishing.  I was giggling and asking a ton of questions, not really taking anything too serious.  I’m a city girl in the country and it all just seemed so out there to me.  He gave me a pole, baited my hook and we sat.  I got really bored, but I was enjoying being outside.  Thirty minutes later we went in.  The next day, same thing.  But this time, all I was really interested in was getting a tan.  While he was trying to get out of the sun, I wanted to soak in it.  We did not catch any fish that day either.  The next day he wanted to take me out a little earlier.  So, coffee in hand I stumbled onto the boat.  He drove the boat out into the middle of the wonderfully, beautiful brown lake and in went the poles.  But this time something happened…I caught a fish!  From then on I was hooked, pardon the pun.

Now, I look forward to my summers being filled with days of endless fishing.  We board the boat in the early am and find our familiar spot.  If the fish aren’t biting we head to another one.  I have since learned that there is not a whole lot of talking during this time, just fishing.

Good Times

So, life on the lake has taught me:

1. Ask only yes or no questions.

2. Bait your own hook.

3. Beer tastes good at 10 in the morning.

I sometimes give Luke the camera…not too bad.

I have noticed a big change in my parenting style lately. I simply don’t care! What I mean is, that I don’t care what others do, I don’t care what others think, I just don’t care. I was placing WAY too much importance on what others thought. I am not raising my kid to be perfect, I’m raising him because I love him. It seems that so much of my thinking was around his behavior. I placed way too much importance on my child’s reputation rather than his soul. I got so bogged down with books, Google this, blog that…I wasn’t relying on my own intuition. For the longest time I didn’t think I had any intuition. “Parenting does not come natural to me”, I would say. How wrong I was. It’s the most natural thing in the world. I was the one causing it to be unnatural.

I love being a mom, more now than ever!

My husband and I have been married for 7 wonderful years. He had two tattoos when I met him, and to be honest they weren’t really an “issue”. We really never talked about them. One is on his shoulder and the other massive one is one his back. So, I guess they were “hidden”. Nothing for me to think about or to worry about. About 3 years ago he mentioned that he wanted to get another one. I was shocked. I too had a tattoo and I associated it with an extremely rebellious time in my life. I’ve even considered having it removed.  And…I certainly did not want another one!  So why should he want one? We are married right? We are one. We should be thinking exactly the same way. Clearly. This is just a faze, it will pass. So…about 6 months later the tattoo question came up again, but this time with a little more seriousness and less sarcasm. I looked at him like he was crazy. We are parents, parents don’t do this sort of thing. We live in the suburbs…hello?! But this time my sweet husband was persistent.

But, once again the conversation lay dormant for awhile. Until, one day he came home and I thought something bad had happened, he had such a serous look in his eyes. He asked me to listen. Uh oh…so I did. His exact words to me were, “I want you to really consider me getting another tattoo.” I saw the look in his eye and realized that he had been thinking about this for a very long time. This was hard for him to bring up with me. He already knew how I felt. I was very quiet. This began a very long conversation. What are you going to get? Where? On the lower arms? Oh my! It’s funny how that affected me. What are people going to think? What is my dad going to think? Wow, this was hard. Did I mention that we live in good ole suburbia America? People don’t have those here. Should we move to the city? The dialogue continued for another 6 months and something happened, I began to really understand why. It’s very simple, he likes them. The more I talked with him about it, the more I really saw that this is how he is. He is not some guy who just thinks it’s cool to have a tat. It’s him, in a way, it’s his personality.

It’s funny how for 7 years I have wanted him to fit my mold of who a husband should be. Having a tattoo will not take away from him, but instead add to him. It will make him more of who he is. I’m excited now about the new tattoos, yes there is an s on the end of that.

Amazing how a heart can change.

My son is the absolutely slowest person on the planet. He is never in any hurry what so ever. I know that it is partially because of his age, but man, it takes us forever to get anywhere! It’s a good thing I stay at home with him, because we would be late for EVERYTHING.

I have never seen my son more excited than on his 4th birthday. He was so proud and so happy. It was like he had arrived at something. He began telling me that he liked certain foods now that he was four. “I can do it all by myself, because I’m four.” “I couldn’t do that when I was three right? But now I can because I’m four.” “I was three for a really long time huh mom?”

 Turning four was monumental. We began talking about his very first birthday party and who was all there. He was thrilled to look back at the pictures to find the very same people at his 4th birthday party! And that is when it hit me. He…is…four…  I began looking at all of the four years worth of pictures. I looked at so many pictures of him as a baby, and those first few years. All I could think about was how hurried I have become. It seems like I say hurry up so many times in one day. “Let’s hurry and get your teeth brushed,” “hurry up Luke we have to get dressed for school”. “Hurry up and eat your dinner.” “Get in you car seat, and hurry up or we will be late.” Even on days that we don’t go anywhere I find myself telling my now little boy to hurry.

Looking back on those pictures made me realize that I don’t want to be in a hurry. I can’t even begin to tell you where three went and I certainly don’t want to forget four. So even though he is slow going, now I can take more pictures with my mind of all the details I don’t want to forget.