Updates

Apparently I need to make a new resolution: To stop making resolutions I don't keep.

Or something.

August is my birthday month. I turned 36 this year. And then my fingers stop typing. It's a stumper for me. Two times 18. I'm in my late re-teens! Whoooohooo! In all seriousness, I have no consciousness of being that old. Like once I entered adulthood, my age self-concept entered suspended animation. Like somehow I could wake up 14 years from now (seriously, not that long considered I've already lived twice that long) and go, "Uh, no, sorry there's no way I'm 50 years old."

I wanted to have a fit when I turned 30, but as it turns out it was less than 2 months after I got married and Andrew surprised me with 30 roses at a small party for me at my sister Karen's house. Trauma averted.

This year I'm not even traumatized, just surprised, maybe?

Enough about me.

Annabella is 5. That is a show stopper. She's starting Kindergarten in less than 2 weeks. That is a heart stopper. Why so bunged up emotionally? Well, once upon a time, I sat in a small enclosed garden at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital, in a wheelchair. Next to me was my sister Tammie. It was our first visit together after Annabella was born and I was a crying, wretched wreck. One of the thoughts circling my brain endlessly was, "what if I never get to see her off for her first day of school?"

What if. A million miracles later: here she goes!

And she's 5, people! Five. So there's a lot of learning going on every day, about how to behave and such. Just learning how to be, in the world. There's a lot of head butting, because we are both stubborn. There's a lot of frustration, because we both want to get our own way.

In the day to day of "why can't you just eat a meal without being reminded 87 times to eat?" it is hard to keep perspective on what a delight and wonder it is that we are right here, right now, doing these things we do.

She's so amazingly normal (if still maintaining the same level of stubbornness and self possession that has kept her with us through, well, many hurdles, shall we say) that it is hard to even entertain who she is now and where she started out.

Once again, when she's 15 there will be no, "But mom, I can't learn Trigonometry, I had brain bleeds! I was a micro-preemie! I was born three and a half months too early! It's really all your fault!"

I'm not buying it. But I still do, honestly, try to appreciate it. From time to time.

Redding? Oh, danger boy? He's fantastic. Yeah, he's already passed up the milestones for 18 month olds now (he's just 16 months, but was 7 weeks early). Just now I watched him walk up the stairs. Walk. Not climb or crawl. Walk. And no, he can't reach the hand rail. Preemie, what? Adjusted age? Never even entered the picture. Crazy. I'm pretty sure he said "Nicholas" twice today, too.

Be sure to check out the pictures, too, for some amusement. For his actual age, he is in the 40th percentile for height, the 30th percentile for weight, and, oh yeah, the 90th percentile for head circumference. It's a wonder he can stand upright, right?

I'll be uploading a bunch of pictures to Flickr, and posting some here in the coming days.

Summer is drawing to a close, and I will not be sorry to say goodbye to the too hot, too humid Minnesota Summer. Fall is the most beautiful time of year here, anyway.

Hope you've made it successfully through the mire of updates here. Don't be a stranger. Drop me a line or leave me a comment from time to time, would ya? I don't like writing in a vacuum.