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conversing.
You press your fingers hard against your eyes. Pushing the tears back. Ten year old attempts at Holding It All In. Baby. Daughter. My sweet girl. You do not need to resist The Tears. The sadness. The thick feeling in your throat and the crumbly tearing at your heart. Feel it. Just feel it all. Remember when we talked about growing up? You listened. Quietly. Head nodding politely. Grimace, grin, crinkly face you make when my words splash into deep waters. Now you say to me, “Mommy – I think I’m having those things.” I lock my mommy eyes onto your daughter eyes with sympathy and love. “Those things. The…
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The walk down that infamous lane called Memory
Of course she’s been on my mind lately. Nineteen. Graduation from high school about to be in the rearview mirror. So much change about to be her world. Having nine years between child number one and child number the rest has always been a heart-wrenching way to raise a family. That age gap has allowed an obvious opportunity to watch time pass. And my, how the time has passed. Graduation is barely a week away. So maybe you’ll humor me a little as I share a handful of little Riley pictures. The little Former Rileys who make up the Now Riley. When she let me pick out her clothes and…
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today. three years ago.
Today we went on a field trip to Connemara, home of our poet friend Carl Sandburg. (Sherry – can you please tell me again about how I am sort of related to him?) And then we had Book Club this evening. It was an unusually full day of activity. I was pretty prepared for the day, surprising myself with my efficiency. Lunches packed the night before, mainly by London Eli. Quinoa Chicken Taco Soup prepped and slow cooking in the crock pot. (It’s a good recipe – check the Pinterest board. Maybe I’ll write about it one day soon.) Book Club book finished by all three of us. Tonight after…
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then. now. next.
Vividly, I remember it all. (Sort of.) But so clearly, so recently, it was true, that I often brace myself for the reality of it right now before I look around me and am reminded that time has escaped our clinging grasp and changed our present as it is wont to do. There was a time when our house was overrun by littles. A bevy of tinies we had. A stir. A commotion. An entrance – we made one everywhere we went. Five children under the age of six. That was our reality. Two toddlers six months apart. A newborn when those two were not even three. Diapers for a…
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Ages 8 to Adult
How do you know your children are growing up? When you introduce them to the game of Monopoly, that’s when.
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this is the age
One day last weekend was just so lovely. Loads of creativity purring through the house. London and I creating sewing kits. Berg drawing blue birds because he wanted to. Mosely and Piper pretending the cardboard boxes I should have been packing were canoes and they were going over a waterfall like a character in a book we love. I was working on several projects at once. Kevin was teaching himself a new song by the Decemberists on his guitar – which he can play by ear. (Which leaves me more than slightly envious.) After my attempts at making shampoo and conditioner, I was able to take a rare late day…
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a couple of seven-year-olds
It’s usually at night when I am most aware of it. Lying between London and Mosely in their single loft bed. Listening to them recount their days. Answering the same series of questions London asks every evening about the next day. “What’s for breakfast? What’s for lunch? What’s for dinner? What are we doing all day? How many hours until morning will be here?” It’s during this nightly ritual that I notice all the details I have been too busy to see all day. The way these two girls really know one another. The way Mosely’s two new front teeth are inching their way fully into her wide little smile.…
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the last one.
I do not want another baby in our house. Trust me when I say, the Keigleys are done giving birth to babies. I’m not even the type of woman who gets all googly-baby-eyes when she holds someone else’s newborn baby. I mean, I like holding your newborn baby. I like caressing their bitty baby cheeks and admiring their new baby ears. But holding your baby in no way makes me hanker to hold one of my own. I’m done with babies. We’ve had our years (and they have been sweet) but they are over. Nonetheless, something strikes me when I watch the babyness grow right out of my last little…
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Just Talking.
Piper Finn: Mom, I don’t want to grow up. Me: Why not? Piper Finn: Just because. I don’t want to. Me: Okay. Stay little as long as you would like. Piper Finn: Mom, I do want to grow up. Me: Oh. Well that was fast. I hope your other life resolutions last longer. Blank stare. Piper Finn: Mom, can you go now? Me: What? Why? Piper Finn: So I can grow up now.
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It’s Not So Mysterious
I have three brothers. We grew up on the same dairy farm in Virginia. We had the same parents all of our lives. But despite all that we are pretty different people. We grew up the same but we grew up different. And I used to think that was so mysterious. So hard to comprehend. I kept asking the question . . . How can four kids be raised in the same environment, in the same home, by the same parents, and still be so different from one another? It’s taken me a lot of years and six children of my own to find the answer. (Or maybe not to find…
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Sometimes Being A Parent Makes You Say Bizarre Things
Kevin said the silliest thing the other day. He was sitting at his desk (read: an old kitchen table set up in our bedroom) and looking through the doorway at Piper Finn and London. He sighed. And that’s when Crazy exited his mouth. “Man, Lacey. We need to have some more kids.” I am sure I gasped. Dropped something. And suffered a neck injury as my head spun off my shoulders. “Whuh?” Yes. That is the sound most closely resembling the noise I made. “WHY?” I asked incredulously. (Obviously incredulously. I mean – come on. More kids? We have six of them already.) “Just look at them. They’re growing up…
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before my very eyes.
I think I am watching my little Scout get older with every silly band she adds to the collection on her wrist.
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This Is A True Story
Sometimes I am convinced that my children are actually better people than me. Kinder than I am. More compassionate. Speedier in love and more perceptive. For example . . . It had been a long day. Long. And I was home trying to get the younger kids corralled after soccer practice. Riley was hanging out with friends. Kevin was working. I was trying to feed Wilder his last bottle before bed. Finn was dumping rubber stamps on the floor and spilling blue ink. Bergen was sitting on the red chest trying to remove his cleats. Mosely had already removed her cleats and wanted to put them away in the red…
