Worley's World: April 2012

Monday, April 9, 2012

The Boys of Summer

I had a lot of fun this year getting the boys’ Easter outfits. I imagined both of them sporting matching newsboy caps and lo and behold, I was able to find 2 that matched in their sizes at Children’s Place! The icing on the cake was that they were on sale for $5.00! I couldn’t get out my wallet fast enough. :-)

We started ooohing and aahhhing the moment we tried them on the boys that night (still feels weird to write and say “boys” :-) They were absolutely adorable! But with Trent being a tender 17 months old, I was worried he wouldn’t oblige us and wear the hat on Easter. So, we put the hat on him on Saturday to desensitize him to it before the big day.

I had one of the girls take him outside to play so he would be distracted and hopefully forget about the hat, and it worked! A little while later, I looked out the kitchen window and spotted him standing on our front path holding an old baseball. The effect of the hat and the baseball immediately brought to mind the baseball players of the 1920s. His pants were even pulled up a little, making it look like he had knickers on! My hands were soapy wet and I was in the middle of meal prep, so I told Courtney to grab the camera and get whatever shots she could of him. It was in the early evening and a little overcast, so the light was in our favor (always a bonus!). Courtney ended up having some good ideas for shots, and we ended up having quite a few very sweet pictures of our little guy.

and my favorite …

Friday, April 6, 2012

The Punch Bowl Fiasco

Despite the fact that her birthday is on April Fool’s Day, Rachel’s birthdays have been typical birthday celebrations around here. We can usually count on my Dad for a practical joke or two, but other than that, it’s the usual birthday merriment. OK, there was that one year that I had to make her birthday cake three times before I got it right, but it did turn out perfectly … eventually. This year was different. Well, for the most part, it was a typical, lovely birthday celebration. The food was good, the cake was tasty (Texas Sheet Cake – hard to mess that one up), the weather was gorgeous.

Then there were the gifts.

My parents take gift-giving very seriously. It is very important to them that they pick out gifts that will be the most meaningful to their grandchildren. I mean, they really labor over this – going the extra mile (often literally) to find just that perfect gift. For birthdays, they usually bring several gifts for the birthday child, and there is always one extra special gift, and it’s usually the biggest one. This year was no different (although they did get a very nice gift in a tiny box – a beautiful necklace). The biggest gift this year was also a very heavy gift. Courtney happened to be passing out the gifts, and she could barely lift this one off the entertainment center and hand it to Rachel.

It ended up being a beautiful antique punch bowl and punch cups. A strange gift for a 16-year-old? Not in this family. :-) Most of the gifts are age-appropriate, intended to be used, played with, enjoyed while their grandchildren are still children, which grandparents especially know is a fleeting time. But there is often a keepsake gift; one that is intended to be a treasure, an heirloom, that will be enjoyed in future years, being passed down for future generations. That’s what my parents had in mind when they spotted this punch bowl at an antique store. Not only is it a beautiful punch bowl, but is nearly identical (if not identical) to a punch bowl that my parents have and use on special occasions, complete with a removable pedestal, and 12 matching punch glasses.

So, they bought this punch bowl two years ago, with the intention of giving it to Rachel on her 16th birthday. And they’re explaining all this to Rachel as she opens the gift and carefully takes out a couple of individually-wrapped punch glass to admire. Again, the box is heavy, it’s contents are fragile, so Rachel decides to leave the rest of the items in the box. Not wanting Courtney to have to hoist the box back up onto the entertainment center, but knowing that’s the safest place for the box, I jumped up to help.

That’s when this happened:

Shock. Horror. It seemed to happen in slow motion, yet too fast for me to do anything about. I was absolutely certain -- I just knew -- the whole box would be nothing but bits of shattered glass. I’ll never forget that sound. The sound of all that antique glass. And my saintly mother saying, almost immediately, “Honey, it can be replaced. I’ve got extras of that same glass” (even when her kids are all grown up, she’s there trying to soften the blows :-) And then, when the impossible happened … out of all that, we lost only one punch glass?!! It was a combination of absolute disbelief, relief, elation, and … hilarity at the whole thing. To go from happy birthday celebrating, to the oohs and ahhhs over a very special gift, complete with a story of how they found it, to watching the whole thing come crashing down in a matter of about one minute. I just lost it. I think I laughed for about 3 minutes straight, with my rock solid husband taping and laughing the whole time (the video was edited to shorten that. :-) So, to recap, we went from this:

to this:

And believe it or not, Rachel said it was the absolute highlight of her birthday and she wanted as many people as possible to see her graceful mother in action. So, here it is! Happy Birthday, Rachel! May future generations enjoy many delicious glasses of punch from this punch bowl, while they laugh at the crazy story of how it became yours!

P.S. See the punch bowl on the entertainment center in the background? It’s still there, 5 days later. I think everyone is scared to move it. I’m not touching it.

Happy Sweet Sixteen to Rachel!

Just a mere 4 days since we celebrated Rachel’s 16th birthday and I’m already composing her birthday post! This is the earliest I’ve ever been late! :-D I doubt I would be doing this if it was a typical Thursday, but this week is Spring Break, which means no schoolwork, no online classes, and no ballet lessons in the evening. So it’s been a little easier to carve out time for doing this.

Rachel’s Birth Story

For Rachel, I’m going to continue the tradition I started this year of writing out each birthday child’s birth story. My due date with Rachel was April 14th, 1996. When my brother-in-law found out my due date, he laughed and said “I hope the baby doesn’t come on April Fool’s Day!” My response was “I hope so! That will mean she’s 2 weeks early!” Of course, I didn’t actually believe she’d come early. In my naïve mind, all first babies were overdue. Plus, according to Mom I was overdue by 6 days, so I figured my own babies would be, too.

So, fast forward to the wee hours of April 1st. I woke up in the middle of the night with a contraction that didn’t go away when I walked around. Around 6:00 am, I excitedly woke Mick up and we got everything ready to go. After an examination at the doctor’s office, I was told to go back home. “The baby could come today, the baby could come in a week.” The ride back home was much more subdued and my contractions quieted down and eventually stopped. We had lunch, Mick updated his Final Four brackets, we took a nap. When I woke up in the early afternoon, the contractions were back, stronger and closer. Not wanting to be sent back home, we decided to wait until they were consistently 5 minutes apart. When that happened around 3:00, we headed back down, and this time drove straight to the hospital.

Things progressed quickly at that point. Once I was settled in and got comfortable, we decided to call Mom and Dad. That’s one of the moments we love to rehash on Rachel’s birthday each year. It went something like this:

Dad: “Hello.”

Me: “Hi, Dad! I’m at the hospital!”

Dad: “What?!! You ARE?!!” (sounds of Mom gasping in the background)

Me: “APRIL FOOLS!!”

Dad: “Hey!!! Awwwwwww!!!” (sounds of Mom deflating in the background)

Me: “Just kidding! I AM at the hospital!!”

Dad: “You are?!!!” (sounds of Mom fainting in the background)

So, they headed over to the hospital (breaking several speed limits, no doubt) and Kelly, Glenn and 8-week-old Luke came, as did Heather, Chuck and his friend from South Africa, Alvin. Jennifer and Steve were vacationing and Minda and Mario were living in Alabama at that time.

So, back in the labor and delivery room, there was lots of excitement. A few random details I remember:

From the heart rate, the nurses were all predicting a boy.
Initially, Rachel tried to enter this world face up, but was successfully turned by my doctor.

Finally, at 8:14 pm, after 45 minutes of pushing, we had our first baby: a girl! Beautiful, delicate 6 lbs. 7 oz. with a little bit of very dark hair and very dark eyes that rarely blinked!

Rachel’s 16th birthday

The birthday meals around here are a big deal. The kids all take great delight throughout the year in dreaming about and planning their birthday meals, oftentimes changing their minds several times before the actual day. Rachel’s decision was an easy one: Spaghetti. Her favorite food is Italian. So, we had spaghetti, homemade Italian bread, fruit slush, and chocolate milk – all her favorites! Grandma and Grandpa came and were seated on either side of the birthday girl, as is also our custom. The birthday cake was Texas Sheet Cake. After opening gifts, we were able to take advantage of the summer-like weather we’ve enjoyed this Spring and take a walk down to see our neighbor’s horses.

The most memorable part of Rachel’s birthday this year happened during the gift-opening. It was dramatic. It was hilarious. There was rollicking laughter and even tears. And best of all, there was a camcorder (steadily held by Mick and rolling the whole time) which captured the entire sequence of events. Afterwards, Rachel said it was the highlight of her 16th birthday … and I’m sure they’ll never let me forget it. :-D

It really deserves it’s own blog post, so I’ll finish this one up with pictures, first from Rachel’s birthday this year: