Happy birthday, little monkey!

Dear Samuel,

Today is your birthday and I can't believe you're already 4! Maybe when you're older you'll remember this day, maybe not. For all the anticipation you showed this summer wondering when your big day would come, you were remarkably nonchalant. Is that how big boys are? I played the piano in Primary today and swore you blushed when the group sang to you.  After church we ate spaghetti for dinner (by your request) and celebrated with ice cream and a fire truck cake modeled after one you and Emma found together in a book.

I think this picture sums up your place in our family perfectly: Look how thrilled James is for you to blow out your candles! Look how happy he is! Everyone was so excited to help you have a great day. James, Emma and Elise hovered over frosting bowls to help with the cake. Your sisters wanted to wrap the presents. We called Kyle to come out his room before the candles burned low. He didn't come right away, not until half the cake had been served. Yet when Kyle did emerge he was so sad to have missed it that he set up candles in the crumbled cake and asked you to blow them out again.

On your blessing day, Samuel, your father spoke of all the peace you brought to our home from the very beginning. (Psst. We miss it some days. We'll take it back anytime!) He also blessed that you would bring us closer the more you taught us about love.

I truly believe this. I feel it in Emma's extreme patience with you (often greater than mine -- but you're teaching me!) I see it in the way you can cheer Kyle up after a rough day at school. I hear it when Elise creates a 10-minute narrative to relate a simple, but funny, sentence you said. I smile when James calls you his best friend brother.

Samuel, when you see yourself I hope you see how much you are loved. Making you happy makes us happy.

You were so excited about your monkey hat that you ran to the mirror. The abacus and Curious George books and shirt were hits, too. Thank you, Grandma Shirley and Grandpa Jim!

Minutes after you were born we gazed intently at each other. You had so much to tell me. Tonight I stopped you from running through the kitchen long enough for me to crouch down, look in your eyes and give you a birthday hug. Do you remember?

"I love you so much, Samuel," I said.

We all do, you little monkey.

Photo: Mom, 35; Samuel, day of birth; Kyle, 11; Emma, 9; Elise, 5; James, 3 -- just too much for him!

Love,
Mom

PDA #15: Samage control

No, that is not a typo. If you have 3-year-old tyrant named Samuel, you know exactly what I mean. (Good luck with that, by the way.)

Today was my fifth straight Sunday of playing music during sacrament meeting at church. One week the congregation was unusually hushed as the choir (for which I am accompanist) approached the end of its beautiful, spiritual offering. Right at the last line of music I heard my son cry. But this was no mere case of a mother singling out her child's voice in a crowd, oh, no. Everyone heard it. As the choir faded in volume, Samuel increased to full-blown screams. Embarrassed, I marched from the stand, brushed past Jeff in our pew, picked up Samuel and marched out of the chapel with my little banshee. The story is Samuel had hit his head on the bench in front and wouldn't let Jeff console him. I apologized to the choir director for ruining the effect she had tried so hard to create. "Oh, we all felt for you," she said.

Another week I was to do a piano solo. This time Samuel threw a HUGE fit before church. He screamed at home. He fought and kicked as I got him in the car. He refused to go inside the building. I finally got him inside, but only as far as some chairs in the hallway. I was rattled and frustrated, not in a performing state of mind at all. It was so bad that Jeff took Samuel home before the meeting even started.

Which brings us to today. Samuel again threw a tantrum about attending church. I couldn't leisurely reason with him because I had to be at the church in five minutes to do a final run-through with some singers -- surprise! I bribed Samuel with the only yummy morsels in the house: chocolate chips. Emma packed a baggie for him that I figured he'd consume by the time we arrived.

Phew! Crisis averted. Nope! I did the rehearsal then sat at the edge of the pew with my family. I looked over during the opening hymn and saw a brown smudge in Samuel's ear.  Yes, in. My vigorous attack on the ear with a tissue must have caught Jeff's attention, for he also looked over, registered shock and mouthed, "Uh. Ther. Side."

It's time to insert a little-known scientific fact: the opening of the outer ear traps just enough body heat to melt a chocolate chip into an impenetrable blockage.

That's why I once again fled the chapel. It took a while to get Samuel cleaned up, but he was too noisy to rejoin the congregation.  I held Samuel and hovered near the door so I'd know when it was my turn. I anticipated depositing Samuel with Jeff as I walked past the bench on my way to the piano. Instead, Jeff came out to the foyer and rescued me.  He once again provided the damage control that allowed me to perform. So thank you, Jeff. We're on a steep learning curve with this kid! It's not exactly the piano practicing I had in mind.

Grandparents in my garden

Photo 2: Page from Emma's scrapbook. Text: Mom's favorites: Grandpa Earl, her children and columbines.

Grandpa was so cute. When Mom said she'd like to take a picture in front of his flowerbeds, he went inside to change his shirt first.

June 1999. Midway, Utah. Kyle: 3; Emma: 11 months, Grandpa: 82.

When my columbines burst open this summer I was transported to my Grandpa Earl's front steps. A columbine is a rather unique looking flower, with star-shaped blooms atop long, trailing pointy petals. The flower beds flanking Grandpa's front door were full of 'em, presenting a vivid white, yellow and blue welcome mat. Even though I never asked him, I figured columbines must be my grandpa's absolute favorite flower, to have them in such profusion. It was like our shared contempt of cucumbers (among a teasing family that loves them) -- another funny little tidbit to bond the two of us together.

Today is Grandpa Earl's birthday. He would have been 95. There seems such a huge distance between that number and 88, the age when he died. I wish I could still visit him. I wish my children could play in his sandbox, then saunter inside to open his treat/cookie drawer and hear him call out, "What's a seven-letter word for keepsake?"* while he did the crossword. I miss him.

I miss my other three grandparents, too. All four are gone.

I was mulling my status as a "grandparent orphan" one day as I worked in my garden. The columbines, naturally, made me think of Grandpa Earl. Then, as I started weeding, I heard the words Uncle Willis spoke in a funeral tribute to his mother, my Grandma Orton. Sitting is not the proper posture for working, she had taught him as a young boy. When a task requires us to be close to the ground, we summon more strength by kneeling.

I began to think of all the other ways my garden brings my grandparents near:

The mingling scents of flowers remind me of how Grandpa Orton humored fussy Grandma, as shown the time I was 13, visiting from another state. They took me to the mall. Grandma flitted from perfume counter to perfume counter, each time waiting for Grandpa to sniff his approval. "Mmm," he said with the air of a practiced connoisseur. "That stinks pretty good."

I think of GranMarie, Grandpa Earl's wife, every time I brush past a tomato plant and release the aroma of her minestrone recipe. Come winter I make about a batch a week. I look at my apple tree and remember her pushing me high enough on the swing in her yard that I feared hitting fruit.

I have just one zucchini plant this season (one is enough!), but even with such a small quarry there's sure to be one squash that will escape notice -- you know, the kind you never, ever see forming until it's the size of a man's leg. And I'll laugh to remember the time my dad, brothers and I slipped such a specimen beneath the disproportionately puny leaves of Grandpa Earl's squash plant. He was too shocked to remark on the curious lack of stem/plant attachment.

I hunted for worms by flashlight in my grandparents' carrot rows, felt my grandmother's patience when I pretended to understand her grape vine pruning lesson, expectantly planted vegetable seeds with my grandparents, harvested alongside them. That all these memories can take form in my own garden today makes me very grateful indeed.

*memento