If these walls could talk

As we prepare to leave this house, the walls are talking to me, reminding me of all that has happened over the eight years that we have lived here. This is the house where O learned to ride a bike, swing a bat, and kick a goal. From here we went to Gymboree, Kindermusik, library story time, soccer, baseball, Tae Kwon Do, swimming lessons, Cub Scouts, choir, Chess Club, auditions, rehearsals, and plays. We spent our summers at the FOHA pool, VBS, Camp Invention, baseball games, Cub Scout Day Camp, and in backyard sprinklers. In this yard, we enjoyed toasting marshmallows on our firepit, slip & sliding, playing ghost in the graveyard, and planting watermelon seeds. It was here that we laughed so hard when Uncle Chris hit Baba with the waffle ball on Gumpa’s 60th birthday. And it was in this house that we cried together when Gumpa was diagnosed with cancer.

In this house, we all grew up. O celebrated eight birthdays here, with friends & family, magicians, water balloon fights, Blue, Thomas, the Rescue Heroes, and Star Wars. Here he had his last bottle, ate his first Oreo, and eventually learned to pack his own lunch. I don’t dare estimate the number of boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese I’ve cooked in this house! O lost his first tooth here, and he also grew old enough to know there was no Tooth Fairy. Or Santa. P & I became thirty-somethings. P went through the adult right-of-passage of losing a job, and after three months of “free agency” took the leap of faith that has now grown into an amazing career. I ran a creative business that I enjoyed at the time, only to later find my true calling working with preschoolers. We joined an amazing church, where we grew in our faith and learned the true meaning of the phrase “church family.”

In this house we celebrated nine Christmases, our 10th wedding anniversary, the birth of our niece, and the promise of our nephew. We dyed Easter eggs, Trick or Treated, and made Valentines. We hosted gatherings of PEOs, Butterflies, KDs, the McIntosh Clan, MOPS, playgroups, and many dear friends. We mourned the loss of beloved relatives, friends’ pregnancies, and a few marriages. In this house we have laughed, cried, eaten, drank, and played with some of the best friends we’ve ever had. And we have faith that those friendships, firmly planted here, will continue to bloom no matter where life takes us.

This has been our house, but SPandOLand is wherever we are together. And as I say goodbye to this house, I will look forward to hearing what the walls of our new house will have to say to me.

Something(s) Beautiful

Until I logged on this morning, I had no idea how long it had been since I’d blogged. Halloween? Wow... so much has happened since then that was certainly blog-worthy, but lately I struggle to be quippy and light when many days I cannot shake off the lead boots of life-as-it-is-now. And who wants to read downer blog posts? I don’t want to write them, so I can’t imagine anyone wants to read them!
But this morning’s after-run cool-down playlist offered a burst of inspiration. The Killers “Smile Like You Mean It” was my anthem through the holidays, reminding me to try to find the sweet in the overwhelming bitter-sweet. This morning as I listened to the song again, I thought that maybe I could reenter the blogosphere with some of those sweet things. So, here is my list of some of the many beautiful things I was blessed to encounter since Halloween…

• Fighting my way back after bronchitis to be a stronger, faster runner than I was before I got sick. The old me would have given up.
• An Indian Summer day’s hike in the Cleveland Metroparks with very good friends
• A visit with my dad’s sisters, who I don’t see nearly enough, and listening to the three siblings reminisce over a giant stack of old pictures
• Drinking champagne in a limo as we rode downtown to see Wicked for my dear friend Jill's 40th birthday
• The Christmas Eve services at church and being keenly aware of the love of that church family for my family
• Having Jill’s husband, who is a pilot, so calmly arrange for P to fly home the weekend of O’s school play, when I-90 was closed. I completely lost it, but Doug was the calm in my storm.
• Watching O in that play, so confident and comfortable, so happy on stage
• My friend Sue's Split-Pea Soup, which is deliciously seasoned with love
• My sister-in-law’s baby bump…. And my mom’s reaction to learning the gender of that bambino
• Being the respite & refuge for my brother-in-law, his wife, and my sweet niece while they mourned the loss of Erika’s grandmother the week after Christmas

But nothing topped the beauty of my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. My brother & I contacted as many friends & family as we could find, asking them to send anniversary greetings. It was a gift just to see the love pour in from near & far, past & present. But to be there with mom & dad on their anniversary while they opened the box-of-love that we had assembled, well, that was one of the most beautiful things ever.

A Great One

Just as we did twelve years ago, we spent this past weekend in Toronto. Last time, we were newly married, P was recovering from the flu, and I was determined to make our Plan B honeymoon fun & memorable. We ate in out of the way cafes, saw Phantom, stayed in a ridiculously swanky hotel, and worshipped at the Temple of Lord Stanley. It could not have been a more perfect trip, even if we'd taken more time than the drive from Cincinnati to plan it.

There were, of course, notable differences from that first Toronto weekend on this trip. Instead of enjoying the city's night-life, we were changing hotel rooms at midnight because the nightclub 14 floors below us was so loud that we couldn't sleep. We spent a lot more time in gift shops, the hotel pool, and chasing pigeons this time. We didn't get to eat at the amazing Le Papillon, with its melt-in-your-mouth crepes, but we learned that even in Canada, you can order a foot-long sub at Subway. Who knew?

We ate dinner at Gretzky's on Saturday night, because it was near the hotel and they have the Holy Grail of children's menus, offering not only mac & cheese, but also cheese pizza and spaghetti. Woo hoo for choices!! As we devoured a plate of homemade perogi, we noticed a man making the rounds of the room. People were handing their cameras to waitresses to get pictures taken with him. He was obviously not Wayne Gretzky, but still, he was someone people were thrilled to meet.

Not one to miss out on an opportunity to meet someone thrilling, I asked the waiter. Turns out it was Walter Gretzky, the Great One's dad. And this is what Walter does before Maple Leafs home games... he strolls the dining room of his son's restaurant, signing autographs, taking pictures, chatting with the people, being the Proud Papa. So--when in Rome--we, too, had our audience with Walter, chatted awhile, got his autograph, took some pictures.

And the more I thought about it, the more perfectly this encounter fit for this weekend when I was reflecting heavily on the last twelve years. As I was thinking of all that Life we've lived (and are living right now), Walter's exuberance reminded me of some simple truths: Love Generously, Praise Loudly, Live Fully. Walter is so proud of his son not for his fame or his talent, but simply because he is his son. He lives that love by showing up at this place and being with others who love his son. With that insight, my focus turned to celebrating my family and remembering all the ways we love each other--not because of what we do or what we have, but because of who we are. And so Walter Gretzky reminded me to show up and bring the love more often. I think he, too, deserves the title of Great One.

Riding the Scrambler

Typically, I avoid using carnival rides as metaphors for life, what with the carnie at the controls and all… but this one fits. The Scrambler is a perennial favorite in our clan. Here we are—three generations preparing to ride it just this past June.

The Scrambler, in case you’re not a carnival regular, involves three arms with four cars each, all spinning around a central pole. As your car spins in one direction, the ride as a whole rotates in the opposite direction, all at increasing speed. It gives you the illusion that you will slam into the other cars, and you are smushed into the people in the car with you despite your best efforts to defy the forces. You are simultaneously giggling with glee and a little terrified. Plus the spinning makes you wish you hadn’t just eaten that Elephant Ear. But deep down you trust that you’re ok because you know that the steel beams will hold you, you’ve got buddies in your car, and they wouldn’t really make a ride that slammed you into the other riders, right?

So, here we are in life, spinning around in so many directions over the last week. We are being propelled at speeds we cannot control through tests and diagnoses and prognoses and real estate and jobs and homework and life. Most of the time all we can do is hold on, try not to throw up, and hope we don’t slam too hard into the other riders in our car. Sometimes we scream in terror, and sometimes we get to laugh through the fear, like when the Cancer Support Team Nurse jokes with dad that her specialty is constipation, and he dead-pans back, “No shit.” Oh yes, he did.

And eventually you find that you really CAN trust that in the end you’re going to be ok on this ride, because the steel of grace surrounds you. You feel it when you overhear your nine-year-old say to his grandfather on the phone, “I’m just so disappointed that you have cancer.” And you know that you have raised a child with the emotional intelligence to persevere.

Or you feel it when, on his way to a training class in Michigan, your husband’s route takes him past the hospital just after dad’s first Oncology appointment, and so he is there at precisely the moment you need him. And he is able to reschedule the training class and spend the next day at home with you, crying and talking and planning how you will navigate this new normal.

And you know it when, after she’s already graced you by keeping your son occupied all afternoon so that you can go to the Oncologist with your parents, your dear friend has made you soup. And since the food is there, you eat. And your other friends call you, and email you, and take you to lunch, and just know you well enough to know how to love you through this.

But you especially know it when, just when you start to feel a little sorry for yourself, your dad states plainly that he refuses to feel sorry for himself, and you again have the strength to hold on, even with the spinning and the fear and the forces pushing against you.

For those of you who are wondering how to help, I highly recommend the website Circus of Cancer. I learned about it when a dear friend loaned me the book The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan, which I also recommend. I just didn’t know when I read it that the information would come in so handy, so soon.

Back to School

As it does every year, summer came to a screeching halt this week. Yes, we packed it full of fun! Yes, we swam! We golfed! We camped! We ruined our dinner with ice cream! We acted! We rode the Scrambler! We played baseball! Heck, we even met Millard Fillmore!!! But wait! There's more fun to be had!!

We're not ready for summer to end!!!

But alas, despite our best efforts at all-out denial and a nearly total lack of preparation, school started this week. But fret not! Heading back to school was not all bad news..... O got the teacher he has been hoping for since Camp Invention '08!


And his Ghostbusters t-shirt was clean so he could wear it on the first day of school!



And we got to walk to school with his BFF Katie.

After I dried my back-to-school tears, I met friends for breakfast, read a good book, puttered, and generally enjoyed a nice relaxing day in my way-too-quiet house. Before I knew it, it was 3:30. And as I met O on his way home from school, it was all smiling faces, all "I love my teacher", and all "you'll-never-believe-how-great-this-is"...

And just like that we were back in the swing of things.

Fun o' Plenty in Week Two

June 11th--Because it was O's BFF Jeff who staged this shot, I'm pretty sure one clone trooper is telling the other clone trooper some kind of poop joke. Just a guess...

June 12th--These clowns were my lunchdates. Then O & I headed to the First Ladies' National Historic Site for a(nother) tour of the Saxton House. Happy Birthday to Mrs. McKinley!

June 13th--Where else can you get face-painted with a Village People fumanchu moustache and retrieve giant Pez from a paper-mache Barack Obama Pez dispenser?

Parade the Circle+festival+the Hursts=GREAT FUN!!

June 14th--O got to have tons of fun today, but all we got to do was paint the dining room.

June 15th--Who ya gonna call? Your buddy Alex, whose grandpa has a friend who owns THE Ghostbusters car. O and pals got to go on the ride of their lives!

June 16th--Checking out the swimming lake with Baba.

Verdict: squishy and stinky. Digging in the sand on the shore is tons-o-fun, though!

June 17th--Maggie's SpongeBob birthday fiesta!

Week One, Summer of Fun II

This year I want to better document our Summer of Fun II by taking a picture everyday that sums up where we found our fun. Here is week one...

June 4th--Nothing says summer like a big pile of dirty shoes by the door :) O had friends over today for a fun day of Legos, Star Wars & backyard ball.

June 5th--First dip in the FOHA pool. Very, very, very cold!!

June 6th--SandO at Niagra Falls

June 7th--Chatting with President Millard Fillmore in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, NY.

June 8th--Celebrating a great play. Go Giants!

June 9th--Watching Journey to the Center of the Earth. The 3D glasses didn't last long, but we enjoyed the show anyway!

June 10th--Hiking Chippewa Rail Trail

When did this happen?!?

Life's pace seems to be quickening. I blink and the school day is over. It seems like days have passed, but in reality it's been a month. Christmas was just yesterday, but all of a sudden it's June. Every year seems to move faster, and faster, and faster. It wreaks havoc with my to-do list, and when the passage of time suddenly catches up with me, it wreaks havoc with my heart.

Today was one of those times. I have no idea when it happened, but there is a fourth grader living in my house who ...

• is nearly up to my shoulder in height
• routinely remembers things better than I do
• says "please" and "thank you" when ordering in a restaurant (without prompting)
• gets my jokes without explanation now and only occasionally rolls his eyes at me
• pays attention through an entire baseball game, gets base hits more often than strike outs and makes awesome plays at first
• can use a jump drive to save his webpage project from school so he can independently work on it at home, too... as if I'd be any help with that, anyways...
• cries on the last day of school because he doesn't want it to end

These are the days I want to freeze in time. To put the cork in the bottle to save for later. It is the sweetness of life in balance with the bitter of knowing that time is fleeting. I know that soon I will have blinked again and there will be a teenager living in my house. But for now, I am so thankful for the awareness of The Here. The Now. The Today.

And today meant that O became a fourth grader. We celebrated the end of third grade with good friends and big smiles. With limbo and cheese puffs and Hawaiian nametags. With fond remembrances and sad goodbyes. With bunny ears, big hugs, and deep, deep gratitude.

Signs of Summer

Memorial Day Weekend is the official start of summer around here. We managed to pack in lots of our favorite people, places and events this weekend, and I'm going to save several thousand words by using pictures to tell the story....

First baseball game of 2009

Here's O with Orbit at the FCC outing to the Aeros game on Friday night.

P enjoying the game and the company!

First Buehler's $1.00 cone/cup of 2009... but certainly not the last!

First cookout of 2009!
We had friends over after going to see Night at the Museum II,
which got 30 thumbs up from our crowd of 15.


Marching in the Memorial Day parade

Spectating at the Memorial Day parade. Did I mention I love parades?

Celebrating Gumpa's birthday with Blizzards at DQ.

Hooray for SUMMER!

A boy and his money....

...are soon buying LEGOS!

What better way to celebrate Presidents' Day than to spend some of your hard-earned Presidents on your very favorite toy in the whole, wide world.

Of course, the only thing better than a new Lego set is a good friend to help assemble all 1000+ pieces of the new Lego set.

Legos: $100. Happy, busy boys: Priceless

Holiday Highlights

Oh, I had high hopes of blogging a lot over break, but alas we were just too busy having FUN. This was a great break for all of us, with the following highlights...

• Uncle Chris & Aunt Patty surprising us on Christmas Day
• Christmas eve candlelight service at FCC
• Reading Christmas cards from lots of folks we wish we saw more often! If you're wondering, we haven't sent any yet. I'm thinking about Valentines this year...
• Rollerskating with friends and O learning to skate without holding onto the wall
• Peppermint ice cream & Magic Shell sundaes and Christmas cookies
• Weekend trip to Cincinnati to see the whole McCoy clan, especially the adorable Miss Sophie (no offense to the rest of you, but she is just so stinkin' cute!!!)
  

• Getting a Wii for Christmas and playing it A LOT
• P having two four-day weekends in a row--unprecedented!
• Going to see The Tale of Despereaux and eating movie popcorn for dinner
• Playdates, playdates & more playdates
• Going to the Cavs game on Christmas night with Baba & Gumpa. The view from P's work seats is pretty awesome, or so I hear... I spent a relaxing evening alone at home while the boys and my folks cheered the night away with LeBron & co. This was the ultimate win-win situation!!
• Watching O watch Star Wars III for the first time--pure joy!
• Uh, duh.... presents!!!
• Helping Gumpa put together his & Baba's Christmas present (a grill) and bringing home a really awesome box to play with
• P's delicious chocolate cake... mmm.... which we had for breakfast one morning!
• Finding my grandparents' "Parents' Album" from my parents' wedding (and some other awesome old family photos) in a box that I'd neglected for too long
• Ringing in a new year. I love the anticipation of what the new year will hold, the clean slate, the possibilities...

From SPandO to all our friends... our best wishes for a fabulous 2009!

Agent Double-O Heaven

Last weekend, O rocked the part of Agent Double-O Heaven (get it?) in the annual church Christmas pageant. This year "Operation Baby King" was pre-recorded, so no lines to memorize. Yeah :) O was still a little nervous because his role required him to be the only character on the stage for the first few minutes of the show. But come showtime, he was fearless and brilliant! Yes, I'm biased; but as mine is the only review you'll ever read, you'll just have to trust me. Here he is as his mission assignment self-destructs.... And hanging out pre-show with his on-stage partner "Gabe," a jazzy horn-playing secret agent angel (are you sensing the theme?)...

As always, the FCC kids brought down the house. Our Christian Ed Director did an amazing job casting the show, putting each kid in a role that complemented their personality. This is a talented group that really enjoys performing, and as they have gotten older they have started to take it pretty seriously. It's been fun to watch them all move up the cast ladder from year to year. O has progressed from donkey to angel to wise camel to leading role! Next up is a play about Joseph that the kids have written themselves, which I'm sure will be another hit.

I love a parade--the Christmas version

We have a tradition that spans back a few years of participating in the Parade of Lights with our buddies who own a local tractor & yard equipment sales business. It is one of the highlights of our fall, and we all look forward to it with great anticipation. It is the start of the Christmas season for us. A mile marker to our fall turning to winter. A great, fun, bonding time with these beautiful friends we have here. And it's just plain fun.

But this year, I have a sinus/ear infection of historic proportions, and I know there's no way I can march in our new-this-year Power Equipment Drill Team. I am severely bummed. P is driving the tractor this year, O is a sign-barer, and I really, really, really want to march and chant and twirl with my chainsaw. What more could a parade-loving girl ask for?? But alas, I am drawn to the couch by a force more powerful than my love of parades. Eventually, my sweet husband gives me a little nudge, reminding me that this is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world, and maybe I could just come watch...

So I arrange to meet up with the Hursts to do just that, and it is so beautiful... standing with great friends, watching people who I love have an absolute ball, strolling around the square with their tractors and chainsaws and leaf blowers and snow blowers, dancing and marching and singing. It was pure JOY!!

In the process, I learned that it is difficult to take pictures of a fast-moving parade in the dark, but Jill helped me out, and we got a few decent shots. Next year, we're planning to add a Scooter Gang to the line-up, and I am so there!

I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this absence!

Well, way back at the beginning of the presidential campaign, I promised O that we'd go hear his candidate, Barack Obama, before election day. AND TODAY WAS OUR DAY! Here's the story...

I got an email Saturday evening that Sen. Obama would be appearing this morning in Canton. Inside. In a theater. With real seats. Yeah! So, we flew down to Canton right that minute to pick up tickets, just making it to the campaign office before they closed at 8pm. We were literally running down the sidewalk in downtown Canton to make it in time--P sick with a sinus infection, O dressed as Harry Potter because we'd just picked him up from a Halloween party, and me on an amazing adrenaline high! I'm sure we scared all the nice campaign volunteers, but oh well.... we got our tickets! On the way down we'd called the Hursts from our Obamamobile to see if they'd like to come with us for the event, and of course they were in. I figure this kind of history lesson is better than anything the boys would have learned at school today, right?

So this morning O got to come to school with me for awhile because Jeff had to go in to take a science test. O read stories at circle time and helped me help the kids scoop out our class pumpkin. Fun! Then we picked up Jill and went to pick up Jeff from school. Oh, did I mention this was when it started snowing?!?

The doors opened for the event at 10:30 am, which was about an hour before we got in the very long, cold line to wait to get in the building. Things moved much faster than when we went to see Hillary, though, and within 40 minutes or so we were through security. Then we followed the flow of the crowd to our very-far-from-the-stage seats. But at least there were seats!!

There were a few warm-up speakers, most notably John Boccieri (trying to be the first Democrat to represent the 16th district since 1948). Followed by some chanting & a "wave" that took awhile to get going, but ended strong. Yeah for us! Then after a long, dramatic, fifteen minute pause, out came the next president of the United States...

It was a great speech, and longer than I had anticipated. The media was billing it as his "closing arguments" on the campaign, and it lived up to the billing. He covered pretty much everything, in his smooth, elegant style, punctuated by long rounds of applause. It was one of those experiences that's hard to encapsulate, which is not good for a blogger! Suffice it to say that it was all I'd hoped to hear, all I'd hoped O would hear, and what I think we need to hear as a country. Yes, We Can!!

We stuck around awhile afterwards to bask in the glow and check out the press corps. We got interviewed for NewsRadio AM 1480, but I'm sure you all heard that fine piece of journalism already, right?

We also met a very nice Secret Service agent who gave the boys some pins that he produced out of thin air. Seriously, neither Jill nor I could figure out where he got them from! Anyways, it was a long, politically charged day, and an amazing experience for the boys. They will never forget the day their super-cool moms let them skip school to go see history in action.... and that's because we'll never let them forget!!