It is 2:30 A.M. and once again I am forced through wakefulness to face that my mother dear is gone to Heaven. For many months my body has gotten used to light sleep listening for every call, the bell, a fall, the walker handles loosened and the wheels beginning to move. My house is so quiet even with three others sleeping soundly within it's walls. For the past two days I've heard crickets, birds, the air conditioning sounds replace other sounds that became so familiar. When will I sleep again? I remember this exchange from several days ago...
MeiLing: How long does it take to paint a house?
Me: I don't know baby, why do you ask?
MeiLing: Because Jesus must be still putting the paint on Nie Nie's house and then He will come for her.
Me: What color is the paint?
MeiLing: red
...And the tears flow again.

Spring Distractions

It is an evening where I should be doing many other things rather than blogging. I am distracted by the fast approaching summer and making vacation plans. I am distracted by this thing called facebook, but then again, so are 200 million other people; at least that's what I've read. So here is an illustrated example of what distracted us on Sunday afternoon from the gazillion things we should have been preparing for in a new week at work; not to mention the mound of laundry waiting to get done. Instead, we went to the zoo. This is one of our favorite places and now they've added an aquarium. It's not exactly the Monterey Bay Aquarium but it is worth the trip. From the smile on MeiLing's face the distraction was justified and just a really good idea.

Oh yeah, and we lost our first tooth. :)

Skipping with daddy

A Lovely Evening

Without going into gory details, evenings such as this have been rare in our household. Everyone in this house has been through so much in a year. Two weeks ago, I decided to make reservations for all of us to spend Valentine's Day evening together at a restaurant we all love. I knew that at any moment those reservations may need to be canceled but I was determined we would at least try. Mom has had a very good couple of days and she was excited for the evening to come. We all enjoyed each other's company very much and the evening went off without any hitches, emergencies, or crisis. When we got home Kelby presented all of "his girls" with gifts. Mom got red tulips and a lovely "mom" card. Meiling and I got stuffed animals, cards, and candy. Sorry to say, all daddy got was dinner and an evening with 3 of his favorite women ( he only has one other favorite woman and that would be his mother) :) He didn't seem to mind. It was a special evening celebrating the different kinds of love in this little family of ours.

Expectations

Mom tells the story of how she forced David, at four years old, to watch the J.F.K. funeral because it was a historical moment. There's a picture somewhere that I would have loved to include, but couldn't find, of Dave sitting on the couch as instructed and seemingly watching intently.
Knowing today to be a very historic day, I too "forced" my six year to watch the proceedings expecting intent focus and interest. We were able to get half way through the speech today when she suddenly said, "Can I go watch something else, I've heard him talk before".
I supposed my expectations were a little high for her but I wanted her to know and experience the significance of the moment. I wanted her to understand that now, more than ever before, her generation will be able to be more "color blind" than ever. That unlike my generation, she will see many color combinations in families and couples and never take a second look or think twice about whether it is unusual or odd. She can be more confident than ever that her family is acceptable, right, and divinely placed together. She knows more than ever now that no matter where you come from or the color of your skin, anything is possible. She did however announce that she could be President someday and I didn't have the heart or words to tell her that constitutionally that would be impossible. I'll leave it to some future history teacher to dash those dreams. Politics aside, it was a significant moment for all of us.
Dave says he doesn't remember watching the J.F.K. funeral and maybe MeiLing won't remember watching this particular inauguration, but we will preserve the memory as mom did over 40 years ago.