Full house!

The girl in charge came home last night -- very happy-making!  Both the sunny girl and I ran out to hug her before she had really even gotten both feet out of the car, and for a little while there, no one could move because we were all caught in a hug scrum.  It was fabulous -- lovingly claustrophobic or claustrophobically loving, I'm not sure which.  Either way I'm glad she's home!

She drove all the way from Atlanta by herself, which makes some readers yawn ho-hum, and causes other readers to remind me that I drove to Florida  to visit the beloved roommate's family a time or two myself, when I was not much older than the girl in charge. To all of which I say, pipe down!

She did break up the trip by staying overnight with these hipsters, who broke their promise that they would not knock themselves out for her, by making tacos for dinner, and by wooing her with their total awesome-osity.  In the morning before my girl arrived, dudes went out and bought themselves a house.  The day after she left, they got on a plane for the Christmas holiday.  Yet still -- welcoming and loving and awesome to my girl.  The heart just explodes, y'all.

This photo was swiped from Maggie's Facebook.

By the way, Maggie is the MVP of the family, and Mr. Maggie knows it.  The girl in charge reports that he distributed all kinds of tips for the future about married life.  Maggie and Mr. Maggie got hitched in June.

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So,  hey!  Books for Advent!

DECEMBER 18:

I read Louisa May Alcott's novels over and over and over when I was younger -- I was drawn to them in the same way I was drawn to the Little House books.  And like Laura Ingall's Wilder's stories, each of Alcott's books has a Christmas or winter adventure.  Several Christmases (some joyously happy, some bittersweet) are lovingly described in Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys.  Polly and Fanny have very different ideas about how to celebrate the season in An Old-Fashioned Girl.  And in Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, Alcott shows Christmas through the eyes of a little girl, and of that same girl as a young woman.

But the Alcott Christmas story I love the most is the one described in Jack and Jill.  In this novel, the catalyst for the book's story arc is a sledding accident that occurs in the first chapter.  When Jack's mother takes in gravely injured Jill and her mother, she transforms their lives by turning Jill's sickroom into a Christmas-y wonderland.  As Alcott describes the decorations, the treats and gifts, and the friendship of the two young companions, a modern reader is swept right into the scene.  It's lovely!


DECEMBER 19:

People, look how beautiful this book is!  The text of We Three Kings, illustrated by Gennady Spirin, is taken from the well-known carol about the three magi.  But the images are so lush and detailed and gorgeous!  This is the kind of book that makes you want to stroke the pages -- the jewel-like colors are printed on yummy thick paper. It's a work of art.  The carol's old-fashioned language is hypnotic, and even young listeners who might not understand everything they hear will be drawn into the exquisite intricacies of the images.


DECEMBER 20:

Winter Holiday, by Arthur Ransome,  is the fourth book in the beloved Swallows and Amazons series. Readers who know that series already get how great this snowy adventure story is.  The Walker children (the Swallows) and their friends the Blacketts (the Amazons) team up with Dick and Dorothea (the D's) when the lake freezes: obviously they can now head out for the North Pole!  But when the D's disappear, will the Swallows and Amazons be able to find them? Fabulous capers ensue!

DECEMBER 21:

In A Night the Stars Danced for Joy, Tim Jonke's illustrations are so creamy and dream-like -- they are a lovely accompaniment to the story by Bob Hartman about a shepherd family that follows a glowing star.  I do love picture books and storybooks like this one.  Even when the text is simple or familiar, a beautiful image or intricate detail can draw us in and trigger our imaginations.  This book is out of print, but I found it at my local used book seller (shout out to C&W Used Books).  I bet you can get it at your local library, too.

Advent -- just in time!

After a long November of November-ness, I am so glad to tear off that page on my refrigerator calendar!  Thank you so much to anyone who thought a kind thought about me and my family as you wandered by this dormant blog during the past couple of months.  I can feel the cyber-love!

Today let's talk about books!

My Advent Calendar for Book Lovers keeps me thinking and browsing through stacks of storybooks all year long.  I have an affinity for older stories, mostly because they are the books I loved as a little girl, or were the books my kids loved when they were little themselves.  But the annual tradition I have created for myself here allows me to immerse myself in the children's section of Barnes & Noble, "doing research."  You will just have to imagine me, sitting in a wee little wooden chair, pouring over gorgeous storybooks with my knees tucked under my chin.

Heaven!

Let's see what we come up with this year!

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Well, so the girl in charge has been home for Thanksgiving (she flies back to Atlanta today -- sniff!) and while she has been here, she has been tucking into her old friends, the Little House books.  Since I spent my entire childhood carrying around one or another of these treasured companion books, when I see my girl doing the same thing -- well, it brings a little tear of joy to the eye.

I have said before that my favorite of the Little House Christmas stories is the tale of Mr. Edwards' encounter with Santa Claus, on a muddy street in Independence, Missouri (this story is a chapter in Little House on the Prairie).  I also do love the story of Laura's beloved doll Charlotte, found in Little House in the Big Woods.  But I was thinking about the fourth book in the series, On the Banks of Plum Creek, and it occurred to me that this book is just chock full of Christmas.

Wilder tells us that one early Christmas, the family exchanges no gifts, but Pa buys horses that they will need for plowing come spring.  And of course the book ends with Pa's arrival at home on Christmas, after being trapped in a snow bank during a four-day blizzard -- and eating their Christmas candy so he can survive.

But for most Little House lovers, the fabulous Christmas story in this book is the chapter called "Surprise."  Who can forget the church Christmas party, at which Laura sees her first actual Christmas tree?

Everyone stood up to sing and Laura stood up, but she could not sing. Not a sound would come out of her throat. In the whole world, there couldn't be a store so wonderful to look at as that tree. After the singing, Mr. Tower and Mr. Beadle began taking things off it, and reading out names. Mrs. Tower and Mrs. Beadle brought those things down past the benches, and gave them to the person whose name was on them. Everything on that tree was a Christmas present for somebody!
 
Mrs. Tower stood smiling, holding out the little fur cape and muff.  "For me?" Laura said. "For me?" Then everything else vanished while with both arms she hugged the soft furs to her. She hugged them tighter and tighter, trying to believe they were really hers, that silky-soft little brown cape and the muff.

  

"What do you say, Laura?" Ma asked, but the Reverend Alden said, "There is no need. The way her eyes are shining is enough."

Gets me every time.

Who needs med school?

Well, so once again while we were on our beach vacation, it came to pass that a member of my sister's family needed to have stitches removed.  It has become our family tradition!  So once again, Uncle Doctor soaked his medical instruments in vodka (you cannot be too careful, people), and prepared to remove the seven sutures that the cavalier cousin had acquired in some sort of college capers and/or shenanigans.

 

OK, so the other thing that is true is that the girl in charge is taking an EMT course this summer.  She hopes to be a doctor some day, but in the meantime, she is totally thrilled to own her own stethoscope and blood pressure cuff.

I know, right?!

 

So it made total sense to all of us that Uncle Doctor should give a lesson or two, and then the girl in charge should remove the sutures.  Because obviously.

Weird . . . no one asked the cavalier cousin how he felt about this plan . . . .

Well, so before the action started, Uncle Doctor whined a little bit about how the light wasn't very good, and quick as a cricket, multiple relatives pulled out multiple iPhones with multiple flashlight apps.

 

Uncle Doctor was much happier.  Then he showed the girl in charge how it's done.  She was riveted.

 

She wasn't the only one.

And then -- Uncle Doctor handed the scissors and the tweezers (from a cousin's glamour bag) over to the girl in charge, and she took out the rest of the stitches.

It was really cool!

Her hair was bugging her (and was making the cavalier cousin question the whole proceeding), so a cousin got drafted to hold her hair back -- STAT!  I'm sure there's medical terminology for this.  What is it?

Uncle Doctor was fabulous.  After collecting the cavalier cousin's insurance information and making him sign a liability waiver, he was totally chillaxed and calm, and was a great coach for the girl in charge, who was nervous and excited and nervous.  Her one terse comment:  "This is really fun."  Uncle Doctor grinned, and said, "It is, isn't it?"

Georgia on my mind . . . .

So the girl in charge is firmly ensconced in her new digs at Emory University, on the Oxford College campus -- and you have never seen a happier girl. 

We left a day early to get her there because the drive to Atlanta takes about twelve hours.  The girl and I loaded up our rented SUV (and the girl in charge just screeched in outrage -- did you hear her? -- because I did not load one item into that vehicle; not even my purse), and we headed out.  The husband stayed behind, because the tall boy and SHE moved into their college dorms at Catholic University on the same weekend that Emory opened its doors to the girl in charge.

tangent: And people, this all happened the same week that the tall boy got out of the hospital, SHE flew into town to help take care of him, the girl in charge and I flew around town running the off-to-school errands that we had planned to run before the tall boy's lung drama re-arranged our schedule, and I finished the final vexing negotiations with the car insurance people who so cheerfully informed me that my car (crunched back in June) was a "total loss; thank you for letting us serve you." As the husband said to a friend, "for a while there, we had it coming and going."  If only the it had been Xanax . . . .

We spent the night in a hotel in Covington, Georgia, which is a booming metropolis with a Walmart right across the street from our hotel.  The next morning we rolled up to the girl in charge's new home and unloaded a whole crapload of stuff the well-thought-out and totally necessary items the girl in charge had brought from home (as an example, see froggy wastebasket above).

We met the roommate, who is adorable and sweet, and who is from a city in China near Shanghai -- so that's cool.  She kept apologizing for her "not very well English," but her English is certainly a lot weller than my Chinese.

She helped us carry the girl's stuff to their room, and they left to explore together, while I made the newly minted coed's bed.  I could get all sniffly and nostalgic about making my little girl's bed for her one last time, but who here really thinks I have made that girl's bed for her even once in the last ten years?  Oh, please.  The walls were only waiting for the necessary Harry Potter, Wicked, Doctor Who, Billy Elliot and Gashlycrumb Tinies posters to make it seem just like home.

The girl in charge and I made a swing through the college bookstore so I could collect the obligatory swag.  She was giddy with anticipation when she saw all the textbooks (we make 'em nerdy here in my house).  We both suspected that her godfather would be happy to see that this play is being taught in a political science class.

So the grand finale of Move-In Day at Emory is a "Coke Toast" as parents say goodbye to their freshmen.  Those of you who remember my love of all things Coca-Cola know how tickled I was by this custom, which stems from the fact that the vast bulk of Emory's endowment, as well as the land on which the main campus sits, comes from various corporate Coca-Cola donations.  I mean, don't even think about strolling across that campus with a Pepsi -- the girl in charge was given just the smallest bit of a fish-eye when she carried a twelve-pack of Dr. Pepper into her dorm.

After leaving my girl (sniff), I went to my dear friend Randy's house, to decompress with her and her husband Bart.  And let me just say that everyone should have a Randy and Bart to decompress with.  A delicious meal, a glass of wine, and a chance to relax and visit with these lovely people -- it was a perfect way to end a day spent saying good-bye to my beloved girl.

Things I Did This Summer Instead of Blogging -- in random order because I've lost track of my head

OK, so I had quite the event-filled summer with the family.  Much (though not all) of it was even fun.  Some lousy stuff happened, too -- and between the happy and the crappy, I was hoppin' all summer.  Hoppin' -- but not bloggin'.

And the whole summer really has gotten all jumbled up in my head, so I"ll just ramble.  Try to keep up.

1.  (Or maybe 4.)  The tall boy's freaking lung collapsed.  Again.  So once again he and I made the familiar jaunt to the Emergency Department of the good old Virginia Hospital Center, where once again he was admitted and scheduled for surgery.  This time the procedure (called a pleurodesis) was a little more dramatic, but all went well.

After five days of quality time with a chest tube and a morphine pump, the tall boy was released into his family's capable hands.  Facebook friends already know that the Tall Boy Care Team consisted of the girl in charge (very bossy, so perfect for ensuring that the grueling walks around the happy little cul-de-sac took place as ordered); the sunny girl (a total night owl, so she was a companion on those long and sleepless nights when he couldn't get comfortable, so they watched zombie movies until 4:00 in the morning); and HER (she was a little frantic with worry all the way up in Boston, so she came back for the fall semester of school a few days early, so she could lay eyes on the tall boy, and help us get him moved into his dorm room).

The tall boy's current status is: shockingly good!  He has begun the fall semester at Catholic University, and although he's still moving slowly and is not yet quite up for a game of Frisbee, he's better and stronger every day!

2. (Or is it 7?) I told you about the awesome family vacation in lovely Nag's Head, North Carolina, back in June -- and I introduced you to the fabulous small boys (so stinkin' cute!).

But as is our family tradition, we also had a little car drama while we were at the beach.  And can I just say that I am all for tradition (I even know the words to the song!), but this particular family tradition blows.  This car crunch didn't even look that tragic from the outside of the car.  It did suck though -- trust me! SHE and the tall boy had gone on a Sonic run (their good deed for the day) and were t-boned at an intersection.  A vision I wish was not in my head is the sight of an ambulance and a stretcher, with my tall boy's tall legs dangling off the end.  Dreadful.

The crappy news is that my beautiful car -- purchased to replace the P.O.S. minivan that was stolen on a previous beach trip, if you can stand the irony -- was totaled.  The good news is that the tall boy and his lovely girlfriend came away relatively unscathed.

3.  ( Or perhaps 2.)  The girl in charge turned eighteen, y'all. 

Look how pretty and grown-up she is!  Aack!  My heart can't take much more of this.

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OK, so a whole lot of other stuff happened this summer, but I've worn myself out re-living the traumatic shit.  So -- coming up in future posts: 

• The un-family reunion -- as fabulous as ever!
• The girl in charge goes to college!
• My sunny girl is a hipster.
• Moms' Week at the Beach should be a federally-enforced mandate:  

  "NO MOMS LEFT AT HOME!"