Is there still treasure?

“What sports did Grandpa Jim like?” my son asks. We are standing in the kitchen and he is pulling the scissors out from the drawer, cutting the plastic wrap off a frozen raspberry fruit bar.

“He liked all sports,” I say.  Sam hands me the wrapper and I place it in the can under the sink.  “But I think baseball was his favorite.  Baseball and basketball and football.” 

We have just snuck inside during Eva’s nap after spending an hour outside in the sticky humidity tossing basketballs into the net from different distances, the point values for each shot marked on the driveway with chalk.  Sam was upset when he couldn’t make the shots as easily as he had yesterday, and his voice was getting whinier and higher until finally (thank God!) he made a 5-point shot and declared himself the winner.

Later in the evening we lay in bed next to each other, Sam’s blanket pulled up to his chin while the ceiling fan throws a slight breeze down on us, and Sam asks me if pirates are real.

“They used to be,” I say.  “But pirates like you see on TV don’t exist anymore.”

“Is there still treasure?”

“Yes.”

“Where did the pirates go?  Are they all dead?”

“Yep.”

He stops and thinks for a while and we both stare up at the fan. 

“Some day when we’re all dead and not here, who will be here?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I tell him.  Lately he’s been almost paralyzed with fear of being alone so I tell him that we’ll all be together.  “You and Eva and me and TT and Auntie Ann and Zack and Sarah.”

“Will Grandpa Jim be there?” he asks.

“Yep.”

“And we’ll all be together.  Our whole family.  And I’ll get to see Grandpa Jim.  I wish I could see Grandpa Jim.”

“Me too, Sammy,” I say.  “Me too.”

And as my son rolls over to face the wall I think about the morning before last when Sam finally learned to catch, when he lit up with excitement and screamed “My first catch!  I made me first catch!” and he wanted to do it over and over and over again.  Or the way he wants to show me how long he can dribble the big plastic ball in the basement having suddenly mastered the rhythmic bouncing after days of practice. As I lay next to my son listening to the ceiling fan, my eyes fill with tears.  “Grandpa Jim” died over 8 years ago, and I cannot remember the last time I cried about him, but I rub Sam’s back and listen to his breathing while he sleeps, and I miss my father just as much as I did eight years ago.

This post was written for thenextfamily.com

Distraction

My cell shows that the Saturday night call lasted twenty-nine seconds. Twenty-nine seconds in which I said nothing but “Hello” and then Mom told me that she had driven herself to the ER and that she “almost called an ambulance and it was probably a mistake to drive myself but I was in so much intense pain and I threw up and I just wanted to get here and I’m calling to tell you to keep your phone on in case something happens.” She was panting as if she had just finished sprinting. And then she hung up. I didn’t get to say anything else. Just hello.

Read the rest here.

Simply Impossible

Sarah, Sam, Ann and Zack at the La Crosse Loggers game

It's simply impossible to describe how much fun we had with TT and Ann and "the cousins" last weekend (and I'm too exhausted to try). In our four days together we hiked Brady's Bluff, rode carnival rides and threw darts and "fished" and ate cheese curds at Catfish Days, heated up at a Loggers game, cooled down at the beach, made and decorated and ate a birthday cake for TT's special day, and managed to find time for playing in the pool, harvesting the garden, battling with water pistols and soaping up the slip n' slide. And Grandma babysat while the two mommies ran in the Catfish Days 5K/10K. I'm still not sure how we did so much. It was a perfect weekend, and I present a few photos with a link to many more.

Catfish Days Snowcone

TT and Sam relax after dinner

Sam LOVES the beach

Sam loves doing whatever Zack is doing


Auntie Annie shows us how it's done

Eva and TT hang out while the kids play in the pool

Eva gets her turn in the pool

Auntie Annie and Sam look for blackberries on the way down Brady's Bluff trail

Cousins on top of Brady's Bluff

Eva and her favorite aunt

TT's PERFECT birthday cake decorated by her grandchildren

MORE Photos Here.

More Evidence

More evidence that two is worth it...

Sam and Eva dance to Brothers & Sisters from Free to Be You and Me...

Why There Are Two

For those who warned me that I was crazy to have a second child, I present evidence that it's worth all the chaos...

We Should Get Another One

Grandpa Jim with Baby Sarah, Christmas 2003

This morning in the car:

"Mommy, why don't we have a grandpa?"

"You do. But Grandpa Jim is dead. Remember? He's up in heaven."

"Then we should get another one."

"Good idea. Where should we get one?"

"Maybe out there in that field. That farmer might know one."

I think my son is psychic. So often he brings up subjects that are on my mind without any leading from me. And since Dad went in to the hospital on June 14th and left the world as we knew it on July 4th, I think of him a lot during late June every year. I wish he could see these beautiful children that remind me so much of him.

How To Feel Grateful for Your Life

Follow a road that is a patchwork of holes and tar after a winter of freezing and thawing and freezing and thawing. Wind your way through corn fields dotted with deer and small towns like Redgranite and Wautoma where 4-way stops mark the local Ace hardware or the Stumble Inn or a giant statue of a cow eating ice cream. Arrive way too late to expect either of your children to settle as the three-year-old runs around finding all the usual toys and the baby looks at the living room as if for the first time. Unload the bouncy seat and the potty seat and the suitcase and a box filled with diapers and wipes and bubble mix and a bug-catching net and baby shampoo.

Awake to the sound of rain on the window and Grandma unloading the dishwasher.

“Mommy,” the 3-year-old will yell as you enter the living room, “We’re going on the rides today.  We’re going on the rides!”

Try to get some food into your children before you all depart for the amusement park.

“What would you like for breakfast?  Pancakes?”

“No.”

“French toast?”

“No.”

“Scrambled eggs?”

“No.  Can I have a popsicle?”

“No.”

“But I want it.”

“No.”

In the car on the way to the amusement park tell the three-year-old some of the rides might not be open in the rain.  Tell him that even if the rides are closed it will be fun to be with Grandma and we should have a good attitude.  At the park, place the baby in the umbrella stroller and wrap her in layers of pink blankets and an old beach towel from Grandma’s closet.  Leave her with Grandma and run with the three-year-old towards the circular ladybug ride.  Take a hundred pictures of him as he flies a bright blue airplane and bounces a red boat and steers a purple race car.  Ride the train that circles the park out along the shore and into the wind.  Sit next to him in a blue helicopter that he can send “up very very super high” by pulling the armrest towards you.

When you only eat two bites of pasta at dinner, don’t mention that you’re feeling a little nauseous.  And don’t notice that the baby doesn’t really seem interested in the chicken and veggie puree that Grandma is spooning into her mouth.

At bedtime listen to Grandma in the living room singing The Old Rugged Cross to the baby while you and the 3-year-old place treasure chests and swords and peg legs into the pages of his new pirate sticker book in the bedroom.  She will say “Do you have a tummy ache?” three times before the baby screams and you run to the living room to see what’s wrong.  Your mother will sit in the center of all of you balancing the baby on her leg with one hand and holding a handful of chicken sweet potato baby puke in the other.

“It’s all right, Baby,” she will say.  “It’s all right.”

As you get towels and sit on the floor and comfort your concerned three-year-old you will believe her.  Two days later when you are still at Grandma’s because you are exhausted and sick and your three-year-old wants to eat popsicles and chase dragonflies and have pirate swordfights, you will be grateful.

(Story originally appeared here.)

Sammy Shares His Favorite Adventure

It's been a while since we made the long drive to TT's house, but Sam didn't seem to mind sharing his favorite place and his favorite person with his little sister. Eva was even allowed to take her first trip to the place that has always been special for Sammy and TT, the Wildlife Sanctuary.

Company in the Cold

Three-year-olds do not let a little cold wet weather keep them from enjoying their grandmother's company picnic at Bay Beach, and a 7-month-old is happy as long as she's either A) bundled up sleeping or B) being held. It wasn't the best weather for sitting around socializing over cocktails, but Fay and the crew did a lot of work to create a great meal and a chance for the kids to meet everyone before Sammy ran off to ride every single ride at least once. His favorite rides? The bright blue train he rode with Kelly and Mommy and the helicopter he rode with Mommy that took him "very, very super high." His favorite food? Grandma tried to get him excited about the bratwurst but there's no beating cupcakes swirled with blue and green frosting and topped with plastic Elmo rings, one for each hand.

Missing Him

Running on the treadmill during a rainy day last week I was watching the highlights from the Chicago-Miami matchup, torn between my love of Dwayne Wade and my ambivalence towards LeBron James, when I started thinking about my father. I do every year at this time. If Dad were here he’d probably feel as I do about last night’s Dallas victory, happy for Nowitski but really never happy to see Mark Cuban’s team advance. My father was like that. He had a love-hate relationship with a lot of figures in sports, and over the seven years since he went in to the hospital for the last time, I’ve speculated about how he would have judged the sports figures of today. Brett Favre. Tiger Woods. Aaron Rodgers.

Dad went in to the hospital for the last time in June 2004, and the night they did the MRI on his brain, he and I celebrated the Pistons victory in the finals. We sat in his hospital room and watched the confetti fall and smiled despite knowing the diagnosis that would be coming the next day. I miss him (and Chauncy Billups) every year during the playoffs. But I also always look back on the time I had with my father and feel grateful. I see the sparkle of his eyes in Eva’s big blue eyes and I see his smile when Sam sings the ABC’s and looks at me waiting for the praise he knows is coming. Every single day I miss my father, but every single day I am so grateful for the time I had with him and the two children I have now that will carry his spirit into the future.

Photo by Tammy Hoeger of Capturing Moments

Still Working On It

"What's that, Mommy?" (Sam learns about moss.)

“Where is Grandpa Jim?”

We are in the car and we have just driven past a cemetery, the same cemetery we drive past twice a day, every single day, on our way back from town. We have never talked about this particular cemetery, and my father is not buried there. But somehow Sam has made the connection.

“In heaven.”

There. I said it. I wasn’t ever going to talk about heaven in such concrete terms. But any parent will tell you that there are lots of things that you swore you would not do before you actually had kids, and I have run out of ways to explain death to my 3-year-old.

“Where is heaven?” he asks.

“In the sky.” I cringe when I say it, but I can’t stop myself.

“Where? I don’t see it,” he says, looking up at the thick gray clouds that threaten rain.

“It’s invisible.”

“But where is it?”

“It’s hard to explain. I’ll have to get a book to help you understand it.”

“No, Mommy! Don’t buy a book.” He is three. He yells things like this at me frequently. He wants what he wants, how he wants it. And he always wants it right now.

“Okay,” I say.

The spring rains have left the fields to our west a muddy mess, and the wind is pulling the car on the road. I push the button to open the garage door and hope he will be distracted by the sight of his bike.

“But what is heaven?” he starts again. “I don’t know what heaven is!”

“It’s where people go when they die.”

“But where is it?!”

[sigh]

Last week I struggled with “What is February?” and “What does salty mean?” A few days later I explained my friend’s father’s multiple sclerosis and the fact that we were walking to raise money for a cure; Sam wanted to know what “cure” was. Cure is an easy concept compared to Death, and Sam now knows that we walked to “try to fix Kelly’s daddy.”

I’m still working on Death.

This story originally appeared here.

TT Visits