will on heaven

here goes...."when you die your body turns to ashes which go up to heaven and there you turn into lots of little people but also yourself. It's kind of another world with lots of little people in it. you can be with all your dead dogs and family there. then you meet God. He has a little bit of hair and a face that you cannot see like a ghost, but not like a ghost. He is like Martin Luther King because he changed heaven and made it great. It is nice. Everything is beautiful. People who believe get to go there. In H E double hockey sticks people like the devil are there...like the man who killed Martin Luther King. If you believe in the bad place, you go there."

"All the skeletons in the cemetery get together underground. They dig a deep hole and play cards down there and bet at who will win at pool. That's what they do in my dreams anyway."

Will's zoo pics

I gave Will our old camera to take photos at the zoo on Sunday. It was amazing what was there. More than the fact that the photos were good, they were meaningful. They were a visual example of what moved him during the day. He only took about 12 photos, so it was obvious that he loved the mother/child interaction. The meerkat pictures were all of them cuddling and we watched them for a while. They only cuddled near the end of our visit. The goriila photos were all shots of the mother and child nursing. The photo of the elephant skull was taken just after we talked about the teeth and what we could learn from them (mommy science stuff). I take that to mean that he liked our lesson and wanted to capture it. Could be that it just looked cool, but I am sticking with my first instinct. It's so difficult to watch your little ones turn into young men. All that sweet innocence fades so quickly without a chance to get it back. Even though he wipes my kisses away in public now, his photos showed me that he knows how strong our bond is and he relishes it-- a very happy discovery at a time when my motherhood role is changing. It's difficult to not be needed so much and physically painful to see your babies grow up in the blink of an eye. Everyone tells you it goes by fast, we just don't believe it until it happens.

harumpf!

blue meanie bird

people can be mean and thoughtless. just an observation.

I do not like confrontation so I will restrain myself and vent on my blog. so there. you are mean.you made me cry. not Christlike. washing my hands of it.

Jesus and the bunny

Happy Easter! Despite the lack of family around to celebrate and have a big meal together, we had a fun family day. The easter bunny left tons of eggs hidden around our yard. Everyone was up at 7 am for the hunt. He left the baskets in a silly place outside and chomped on all the carrots we left out. We had a lovely lunch in the sun and trekked off to the zoo. It was a glorious day and we giggled a bunch together. Mostly Marc and I giggled as we distracted the boys from things we didn't want to discuss (rhino boy parts, rednecks...)

At bedtime I read the Story of Easter to the boys. They were super serious about it. Really taking in each page. as we closed the book and looked at one another, Wills says "so what's the deal with the bunny? What does he have to do with Jesus?" Then Ben said "yeah. what does the bunny have to do with Jesus? Is it just a Spring thing or were bunnies involved?" ummmmm "love you. Have sweet dreams..."

*another really funny thing that we snorted about for a while. The brand new fancy Decatur sign has a "p" missing. It reads "decatur, a community of homes, schools,... laces of worship." Ben was really giggling about the possibility of a bunch of people singing the praises of laces. We came up with a lot of fun lyrics. (think Josh Grobin--"you lace me up...)

she's crafty

So, I am not longer a treadmill virgin. I went to the gym with my gal pals Whit and Carolyn to run and chat and to see if I wanted to join. I had so much fun! Who knew? I loved LOVED the man who was doing all the crazy arm moves while running. How could you not move like that with "boogie fever" blaring? As I was taking the tour (meaning me saying "I want to join, please don't show me around") I ran into my sweet friends, DeDe and Anna and they asked me how Kate was doing. That's when I handed the man my credit card. I am so looking forward to working out now with a slew of fun people by my side to giggle with. Seriously no one else was snickering when Rock me Amadeus came on. I'm so going to get kicked out.

DeDe and Anna have the coolest art studio in decatur called 2 Crafty Chicks. It's a great place for birthday parties, girl's night out and kid art classes. Go to their web site and check them out if you have not already http://www.twocraftychicks.com/ We have some pretty phenomenal pieces in our home from the lessons that go on there.

*oh and I was crafty today. I made a decoupaged wooden box (so cute!) for my friend Kristin and her sweet new baby. I am wayyyyyy behind on baby gifts.

there's no place like home

Waking up to find a tornado ripped through Atlanta was surreal. It tore right through downtown, hitting cabbagetown where our friend Gabrielle lives. She was who we first thought of when we saw how bad Cabbagetown was. We didn't have to look further than the AJC to find out. Caption said that everything was sucked out of her bedroom. So glad she is ok.

Another place came to mind...Oakland Cemetery. I wrote a lot of papers in graduate school about this place. I walked there frequently with my children as toddlers. Ben took his famous "different kind of hero tree" photo there. Sadly, it did not fare too well. Ben and I are going to go down when you can get through to it and see if his tree made it.

for marc

love you. hope you are dancing

just ordered a rug

do you hate it or love it?

sometimes you just need to see Mongolian herders in balloon hats. I know I do.

like the corners of my mind

Ben just went to a memory study at Emory. It was amazing what he recalled and how specific moments were remembered. However, I found he remembered more unhappy things than happy things. Bill's joy in the mundane blog really resonates now. Ben won't remember the fun days when we sat in the sun eating strawberries, reading stories and giggling but he will never forget burning his hand when he was two and he touched something hot. He remembers all the hurt feelings and scary things but doesn't remember feeding ducks on a nice day after a walk through the park. I try to ask "what was the best thing that happened today?" every night at dinner hoping that makes it stick, but I think this may be futile.
so here are some of my early memories that are good:
*the smell of my grandpa and sitting with him in front of a warm register on a cold day
*playing yatzee with my grandma
*my grandma teaching me to sew
*making sukiyaki in the afternoon with my dad
*burying my plastic dishes behind my old house with lala when i had to move
*playing "my father owns a grocery store" with my grandma
*playing in the button box
*my mom scaring me by jumping out of my closet with face cream on (it was a good scare)
*my grandfather teaching me how to draw
*my aunt letting me put stickers all over her cookbook
*my grandmother playing cards with me
*my dad helping me with my dollhouse, science fair project
*my dad, our school's only room dad, bringing coke as a drink. the kids loved him
*my dad singing "Country Roads" with me as we drove through West Virginia
*my Mrs Beasley doll

I asked Will what the best part of his day was today and he said "Mrs Wise opened the window so we could hear the beautiful sound of the rain." Hope he remembers that.