Out With the Trash

Calamity. After a long, beautiful, relaxing vacation in Panama for our 10-year anniversary, we unpacked our big backpack. I took out the dirty clothes, carefully separated in a kitchen garbage bag, put them on the table in the garage by the washing machine, and then got distracted by something. That is the last I saw of that bag, and trash day was yesterday.

I hope the landfill enjoys our swimming suits, underwear, favorite T-shirts, pants, and Sunday clothes. I'm now drowning my sorrows in online shopping (actually, filling online shopping carts, but never actually checking out).

This all reminds me of when we moved to Austin just after we got married, and Mom loaned me all of her parenting books, which I stuffed into a garbage bag and never saw again. Same thing happened with a bag full of puppets Mom sent with Jeremy to me from Utah. I still wonder if those books might have made us better parents (or worse??), or if the puppets could have made my children happier.

You'd think I'd have at least learned from my past garbage bag tragedies to stop putting important things in garbage bags. Sigh.

It's just stuff, right?

Isaac

This photo was taken at the end of my 32nd birthday. I was in a foul mood the whole day for no good reason at all. The kids and I went to IKEA, ate Swedish meatballs for lunch, and then I dumped the fighting kids in the childcare spot for an hour while I tried to have a moment of silence to myself to shop.

The retail therapy at IKEA didn't give me the fix I'd hoped for (does it ever?), so I came home even more grumpy. Rich came home late, and made me a gourmet meal of spaghetti and meatballs (how many meatballs can a girl eat on her birthday?). The kids wrapped presents from Wal-Mart, and I still was mad at the world and my 32-year-old self for being so immature.

That senseless bad mood diffused in this photographed moment, thanks to Isaac, who wrapped something random up that wasn't meant for me at all. Suddenly it was all just hilarious. And happy.

Isaac turned nine last week. He has hairy legs and now wears glasses (and thinks they're cool!). He cracks jokes that are actually funny and knows how to pray with all his heart. He reads Hardy Boys books voraciously and philosophizes about ethics, politics, and space. He is wise and thoughtful, and old enough to realize his mother has feelings, and he can do something to make her day. It's lovely to taste what it can be like to have a son who is also your friend, who just might take care of you into your old age.