Hello Sweetheart

L.J. and Cleo Hurst
with daughters Norma Jean and Sarah Catherine
Late summer 1944 in Union County, Tennessee

I have a notebook of letters that my grandparents wrote to one another when my grandfather served in WWII  in 1944 and 1945.  He joined the Army on June 21, 1944, was sent overseas in late November, went to the Belgian front on December 28, was wounded January 1, then spent three days trapped in a foxhole behind German lines before he was found.  He recuperated in hospitals in France and England before returning to the United States in June 1945.  On this November 11th, I am grateful that my grandparents' letters survived and have been entrusted to me.  It's a window into a time in their lives that they didn't talk much about.  

Wednesday Night

Forest Avenue

Hello Sweetheart:

How does this find u tonite? We are okay. Norma has played out and gone to sleep and "Cat" is still up playing.  I've been listening to the supper time frolic and thought I'd write to you before I went to bed as you are on my mind.

I kinda looked for a letter from you today but didn't get one, hope I get one tomorrow.  I'm sitting on the bed and Catherine's jumping up and down on it so much it's hard to write.

Well, honey I don't know anything to write you tonite. I thought when I started to write you I could write three or four pages but I think its all blown over so will just call it a nite and try to snooze a little.  I hope you get to snooze too.

So goodnite and sweet dreams.

Lots of Love

Bye now

your old lady

Monday Noon

Hello Honey,

How are you today?  For me, o.k.  Still blue and lonesome. Guess I'll always be that way if I'm not with you and the babies.  Honey, I'm sending my slippers and some extra things home.  Can't take them with me.  It sure looks bad.  Still don't know where I'll go or when but soon, I think.  They made us put on our heavy underwear.  Seems like we're going where it's cold and I have to wear overcoats.  It's pretty cold here but not that cold.

Honey I've had two letters already today, one this morning and one just a few minutes ago and boy was I glad to get them.  Sure helped me a lot.

Well Honey, I had to stop there but I will try to go on.  Will have to stop again soon I think but maybe I'll finish sometime today.  Honey, you asked how I like Fort Meade.  It's as good as any army camp I guess but I don't like any of them although they really are good to us here and Honey my watch is doing fine, not had to set it since I set it at home. They have eastern standard time here and its not a minute off.  I dropped it one day and thought I broke it but it didn't seem to hurt it at all.  I'm really proud of it but not half as proud of it as I am you because Honey anybody could be proud of you.  Well, I've got to go now.  Hope to hear from you soon.

Bye Honey

Love always, L.J.

over

Honey send pictures of you and Babies as often as you can.

I Blinked

It's true, I didn't cry on Owen's first day of Kindergarten.  What I did do was exhale - overcome by an enormous sense of relief as he was walked into a classroom that I knew was going to be a good fit for his then stormy and determined approach to life. Exhaled because the road to Kindergarten admission was a long one and included a notification that he was  "not a good fit for our program" from the school we planned for him to attend [so sure were we that our children would attend that school that our names are engraved on the big donor plaque that hangs outside their gymnasium].  Lo these many years later I am grateful [with a hint of grudge] that what we thought was our first school choice didn't work out, because while no school is perfect, I do believe that St. Bernard has been the perfect school for Owen.  I'll resist the urge to brag [in detail] about him, but he's done well at SBA in all the ways that I prayed that this child would do well in school. And I prayed for that. A lot.

And now, apparently, I've blinked and I find myself here - sending him off on his last first day at SBA.  The last first day. If this morning is any indication, this is the year that I'm going to say over and over and over again,"Good grief, how did we get here so fast?" Eighth grade. Eighth grade!! It's the top of the heap and the end of the line all at once. And I know [I.know.] that I will spend this school year weepy  [#cryinallthetime], emotionally fermenting in that heady blend of parental pride and nostalgia that watching your older child reach milestones seems to stir up. I wish I could think of a better way to say "it seems like only yesterday", but I can't. Seriously though, it does seem like only yesterday that we were walking a reluctant Owen into his first day of Kindergarten.  Where oh where does all the time go?

Joel and I sat with Owen on Sunday night, trying to impart some parental wisdom about his upcoming 8th grade year (because that's what we're supposed to do) and I hope he heard some of what his dad was trying to tell him - that he should jump in with both feet and enjoy this year.  Friends, classes, experiences both new and familiar - all of it. Because what I know in my momma heart is that even though he's thirteen and technically already a young adult, this is truly his last year of childhood. Big changes are on his horizon and I know that when the time comes, he'll be ready for them.  I also know that I'll be hovering somewhere, smiling and crying and smiling some more because that's what this momma does. Eighth Grade. Good grief, how did we get here so fast.

Salad Bar

I'm sharing this story because of a conversation I had on Facebook last night.  The topic was Promposals (not gonna google how to spell that word because it's a ridiculous word that I shouldn't have to worry about spelling correctly) and how over the top the once simple tradition of asking someone to the prom has become.  Listen, I was an average high school kid with an average high school life (read completely insecure with everything about myself) who was just hoping as the spring season of my junior year rolled around that I would get to go to the prom.  I just wanted to go.  And guess what, I did.  And I'm pretty sure it was fun - the going.  The pictures show lots of smiling kids (babies, really - oy, we were so young).  The same was true for my senior prom.  I wanted someone to ask me so that I could go.  Someone asked.  I said yes.  We prommed (yes, I made up that word, but someone made up the word promposal - so, whatever).  And that was the prom.  Two nights out my high school career that did not suck.  At all.  It was fun.

Disclaimer: The fact that no date is pictured should not be taken as a sign that I did not have a date to either prom.  I did,  I just don't feel like I should share other people's prom photos without their express written permission and I've got about 10 minutes to hit publish here so I'm kind of working on a deadline.  

Prom 1988 and Prom 1989.

I look like the cast from Wicked.

So, prom - who really cares right?  Right.  But I shared the above because in the discussion of the ridiculousness of the promposal, I mentioned that Joel proposed to me [PROPOSED] over lunch at the Ruby Tuesday's salad bar.  I was wearing umbros and a t-shirt.  There are no pictures because nobody walked around with cameras in 1995 taking endless photographs of their shoes or their lunch or their engagements (why yes, I do photograph everything now but it's with my phone and not with a camera and I may or may not have a serious problem - I digress #6845photosonmyphone).  I couldn't even tell you the date he proposed.  I think it was in August (because he used the money he'd made clerking in Clarksville all summer to buy my ring) and I'm pretty sure it was on a Saturday.  He asked me to marry him.  I said yes.  We finished our lunch, walked around the mall feeling all engaged and special for a while then I went home and called everyone I knew (#landline).   It's our story.  And I love it.

A Tale of Two Seasons

I'm writing this today [now] before the universe realizes that my son's school soccer team is winning games and decides it needs to set things right in the world of parochial league athletics and smack a big ol' loss down on top of their heads. Brief back story - Owen spent the last two winters playing basketball for his school, and in those two seasons the teams he played on won a total of 2 games.  And no, I didn't leave off a zero. Two games - one in each season.  And it was more than just losing so many games, it was the fact that many of them were lost in a crushing and humiliating manner.   Crushing and humiliating. Both at once.  To add to the good times that were parochial league basketball, Joel coached one of those seasons. It's not much of an over-exaggeration when I tell you that parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and even friends and neighbors of players all crossed the court at the end of one game or another to give Joel and his co-coach feedback on their coaching abilities. If you want to see people's frustrated true colors, coach a team of kids through a losing season of basketball.*  And so it was that basketball provided us with an abundance of character building life lessons about losing - with grace.  Yes, losing with grace (I always forget that part). Also, lesson learned.

But now we are in soccer season, and because we're playing in the same parochial school league we find ourselves facing off against those same schools who beat us so resoundingly during the dark days of basketball (our sport season of discontent, if you will).  The biggest difference between soccer season and basketball season is that we are winning game[s].  Winning!!  The school we played yesterday (and beat by a score of 9-0)  is one that fields a notorious "no mercy" basketball team, so it was more than a little satisfying when Joel told me that towards the end of the game their coach was voicing his dissatisfaction in what he saw as an attempt by our team to run up the score, which Joel and his co-coach were most certainly trying  not to do (sincerely, they don't coach that way).  At the end of the game, as I watched the parents from the other school fold up their chairs and gather up their belongings, I so wanted to yell across the field at them "That was for basketball!" - but I didn't. Instead, I walked to my car and drove the short distance home feeling like a bit of parochial league prairie justice had just been served.  And for the record, I understand that it's not supposed to be about whether you win or lose, the focus is supposed to be on how you play the game, but if you play the game and you win, well that's waaay better than playing the game and losing. Trust me, I've spent enough time on both sides of the scoreboard to know.

_____________________________________________

*That air of bitterness you may be detecting is all mine by the way, not Joel's.  He's a lighter happier soul who moves more freely in the world , unfettered (as I am) with memories of the [perceived] wrongs that I have carefully catalogued ponder from time to time.  

Big Dreams

   

                            

My Babies

Christmas 2013

  I'm copying photos [again] from one hard drive to another and scrolling through the thousands of images I've snapped of the kids since our family went digital in December 2003.  What this means for Owen (who was born in 2001) is that his early adorable years are locked away in photo albums and archive boxes and perusing them requires pulling books off shelves and boxes out of basements.  Rest assured, his baby days are appropriately archived (and he is the only one of my two children with a finished baby book) but they are not [as] easily accessible as Sarah's.  Honestly, I'm giving both of them enough material / evidence to effectively argue that they are not their mother's favorite - a la "you have more pictures" versus "you have a finished baby book".  All's fair in love and siblings, right?

January 14, 2006

The Very First Gymnastics Class

Green Hills YMCA

     I can say  without reservation that the best part of having access to thousands upon thousands of digital images of my children's childhoods is that I can pull up photos month by month and watch them grow all over again, skipping over the messy tantrum-y parts (which I photographed too), and focusing on the many firsts and middles and lasts of their young lives.  Take those two photos hanging out up above this paragraph for example, both snapped eight years ago today at Sarah' very first gymnastics class at the Green Hills YMCA. She was 23 months old and, as I've written about before, she took to gymnastics like a duck to water.

That picture over there on the left is from Sarah's Kindergarten graduation.  It's a tradition at SBA for each graduating kindergartner to receive their diploma then stop at the microphone before returning to their seat and announce what it is they hope to be when they grow up.  This photo captures the moment when Sarah said  "When I grow up, I  want to be a gymnast." At just six and barely tall enough to reach the very short microphone,  it was cute - especially considering her brother had said he wanted to be a ninja at his graduation three years earlier (and yes, many other children said they wanted to be things like a doctor or a teacher or a banker - we grow free thinkers here at Team Vallejo).  In the intervening years, Owen has moved on from his dream of being a ninja, but Sarah spends hours upon hours every week working hard at being a gymnast.  She says she wants to compete in college someday then move to Paris and become a successful artist with an emphasis on successful because Paris is expensive and you can't live there with no money.  I tell her she can do anything she sets her mind to, including college gymnastics and moving to Paris and supporting herself, as long as she makes good grades in school. She's heard me say dozens of times "Who gets into the college of their choice?  Kids with good grades get into the college of their choice.  Go read a book." Do I think she's going to be a college gymnast or pack her bags and move to Paris?  Honestly, I have no idea. I also know that it really doesn't matter what I think because these are her dreams, not mine. What I do know is that I am blessed beyond measure every single day to be on this journey with her and her brother.  These kids of mine are pretty terrific.   And since today's writing turned out to be more about his sister than about him, Owen can add this to the pile of evidence labeled "I know my sister was my mom's favorite."  

Owen at 2.  Those long eye lashes still make me melt.

And this face, it's a marvel that he wasn't spoiled rotten.

Oh, wait. I think he was.  

First child and first grandchild on both sides of the family,

it's amazing he ever learned to do anything by himself.

 

Sarah with Georgia flags, Fall 2013.
Go Georgia Gym Dogs.

Digital photos make cute movies.

I love living in a world with cameras.