Mother's Day

One of my closest friends, Megann Kay McGee Shepard, died last week. She never got to be a mom. In fact, while trying to become a mom, she found out she had ovarian cancer.

In church on Sunday, the preacher, who tried for 11 years to have a child with his wife before adopting, talked about his impatience when listening to others talk about the tribulations of child-rearing. "I would have given my left arm to feed a child at 3am," he said.

So you won't hear me complaining about my daughter's returned passion for rising long before the sun. Or her recurrent tantrums related to car seats. Okay, well, my mom and dad and husband MIGHT have heard me complain, but that's their job. I thank God for the blessing of Meredith Jubilee Lareau. My friend Julie wrote about how, for her, mother's day is more about the blessing of child rearing than about anything spectacular she does. She remembers all the years she created mother's day presents that wreaked havoc on her home (signs that tore the paint off the wall, cakes that weren't edible, cookies packed with her dad's present of a shirt, thereby staining the shirt irreperably). Not surprisingly, this whole mother/child thing is symbiotic. Give and take. Win some, lose some.

Anyway, enough thoughts by a girl who is tired and sad and happy to be a mom.

Here's how we spent the weekend.


3 Generations of Squinty Eyed Smiles (it WAS very sunny)


Hanging out on the front porch with Papa.


Playground fun...throwing caution to the wind. She treats thresholds like rivers of lava but walks up to the firehouse pole as if it holds no threat for her.


Playground fun with T (and Robert, who earlier led a rousing game of follow the leader)


Playground fun with Daddy (fun of the more mellow sort).


Una Princesa Mexicana en la vestida que fue un regalo de Tia Sarai.


Missing Mrs. Clause (otherwise known as Marme Lareau) -- we'll see you soon!