My Favorite Son

Then & Now

The Next Act

 It all seemed to him to have disappeared 
as if behind a curtain at a theater. 
There are such curtains that drop in life. 
God is moving on to the next act.

- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables 

Until You

Banana Handles

I've never been at a loss for blog material.  There's always plenty of fodder in my head, & in my life, to share on the blog, & that is certainly the case today.  There are several unfinished blogs neatly shelved in the "Drafts" section, with topics ranging from selecting rugs online, to illegitimacy rates among various ethnic groups & their sociological implications, to the Christmas music of Karen Carpenter, to the anger I feel when rape allegations are made, but no rape occurred.  Really, y'all, stop doing this.  There are actual victims of this heinous crime who sometimes struggle to come forward & name their accuser, & seeing stories of rape, like say, one run in Rolling Stone, blown apart by facts in no way helps actual rape victims muster the courage needed to seek justice, & to begin to heal.  If you have not been raped, do not claim you have been raped, even if it means you don't get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

Anyway, on this fine Monday morning the problem confronting me is not a lack of things I'd like to say, but rather, the time & sanity I need to say them in a clear, concise, grammatically correct way.  Okay, maybe not concise.  If you've ever been in the middle of reading a blog & thought, Please, Anna, get to the point!  Shut up already!  No one else cares this much about Edward Peeta any book!, well, today's your day, because numerous factors about which I shall further elaborate shortly dictate brevity.

Rather than coherent, structured thoughts arranged in paragraph form, we're going to go with stream-of-consciousness today.  I begin with Saturday.  Saturday, Trey turned thirty-six, & Henry hit the eighteen month mark.  I remain in a state of bewilderment over both milestones.  Better yet, let's back up to Friday night, when we ate cake & celebrated the big 3-6 at Trey's parents' house.

Cute, right?  Moving on.  Oh, but wait.  I cannot move past Saturday without offering the voters of Louisiana a virtual hug for finally, after nearly two decades of her leftist, pro-Obamacare, pro-choice voting, ousting Mary Landrieu from the Senate.  You made me proud, Louisiana!  ((( HUG ))))  (As a reward, the NCAA is giving us a shot at Notre Dame!)  Landrieu's Senate seat, or the Senate seat formerly known as Landrieu's, is in Republican hands for the first time in over one hundred years.  Here in the deep red south, you can now fire a gun in all directions & never hit a Democratic Senator.  I am speaking metaphorically of course; I am not suggesting actually attempting to shoot anyone.  Getting them out of D.C. is, I think, effective enough.

The four of us went to vote as a family, & I took the kids' picture with this huge tree in the foyer of the junior high where we vote (don't worry, Reagan & Henry did not vote, & neither did any of their deceased relatives):

So, not the best photo op.

After the civic experience, we went to Outback, where Henry sat in a booster seat for the first time.  He was not a fan.

(Briefly distracted from booster seat trauma by the low hanging light fixture)

Okay, moving on for real.  A week from Saturday, on the thirteenth, my dad & Reagan will celebrate their birthday.  Together, their years will number sixty-four, & this calls for a celebration.  Reagan's request was for a Frozen birthday party (which is somewhat ironic considering last year, we had to cancel her outdoor party because things were, well, frozen).  After much deep thought, & watching Reagan gleefully sit & devour her popcorn last time I took her to the movie, I decided to invite her friends over to watch Frozen & eat popcorn . . . until they get bored & begin to destroy my house, at which point I'll distract them with cake.

As an added bonus, the Halloween costumes we all spent way too much on will be brought out of drawers & closets &, like Jack Bauer, will live another day.  Reagan will entertain her guests as Princess Anna, which works out well as I suspect no fewer than six Queen Elsa's are on the guest list.  For added fun, younger siblings can take their turn having their picture made as Olaf in Henry's Halloween costume in which he likely won't be spending much time.

A few days after Reagan's Frozen party, I am having a party of my own.  The book club is convening at my house in less than two weeks, & there is much to be done, chief of which is to finish reading Pride and Prejudice, which will be the theme of my party (we've opted not to dress as characters, given that Jane Austen's characters didn't wear yoga pants or jeggings).

I am in the middle of my first Pride and Prejudice read, but it will not be my last.  It is highly frustrating that I have many tasks to attend to right now, because what I want to do is sit in the back of my closet & read this book.  Sometimes, when I'm making a pass through the house during the day, shuttling laundry or searching for the small toy or cup of milk Henry has stashed somewhere (he loves to stash), I glance longingly at the back of my closet & I say, soon, Darcy, soon.

I don't know why I am thirty-four years old & am just now reading Pride and Prejudice.  I blame a less than stellar experience with Northanger Abbey in college.  I did read Sense and Sensibility a few years ago with the book club, and it is good, but Pride and Prejudice is in another league entirely.  It is an absolute delight to read (& yes, this is another blog stuck in "Draft" purgatory: the many reasons Pride and Prejudice is awesome . . . or some other better title).

I feel I owe Ms. Austen a public apology; I've been hard on her at times in the past.  Forming an opinion on Austen without having read Pride and Prejudice is like reading "Hills Like White Elephants" & declaring Hemingway a loser who relied too heavily on symbolism without having cracked the pages of one of his novels.  It's like watching Ohio State beat Wisconsin & drooling & handing them a spot in the playoffs without at all considering that Wisconsin opened the season with a loss to a mediocre LSU team that could not score even one point against Arkansas.  As is the case so often in life, you need a complete picture before rendering a verdict.  As is the case so often in life, my sister's complete fanaticism over a book is totally justified.

If it hasn't already occurred to you, the upcoming Frozen party & the upcoming Pride and Prejudice party have one thing in common, & that is that both require the entrance of other people into my home, people who probably expect me & the kids to be wearing non-pajama clothing, & people who might reasonably expect my toilets to be somewhere in the neighborhood of sparkly.

I began preparation for the dual parties weeks ago.  The tree is up & decorated, the stockings have been hung, the mantle has been adorned with white, sparkly branch-like things that were leftover from my sister's wedding, &, most exciting to me, my Spode Christmas china is on display in my china cabinet.  Do you know how long I've waited to utter that sentence?  My Spode Christmas china is on display in my china cabinet.  

Do you see them?  There, above the china cabinet?  My birds!  Stalking World Market's website was a total success.  The birds came in the mail a few weeks ago, & now have a permanent home nesting above my china cabinet.  It's just as nature intended.   

So, now that the house is festively decorated, I've been (attempting) to get down to the business of cleaning - - like really cleaning, not like throwing-all-the-toys-back-in-the-big-basket cleaning.  It is a good & healthy thing to invite people into your home every now & then, at least for me, because if I did not, there are items that would become so affixed to my countertops that I don't know if the Lord's shout from Heaven when He descends could loose them.

It was during this process of deep cleaning that I discovered that most, if not all, of the door handles in our home are covered in a hard, crusty substance that I've determined is dried banana.  Henry can eat a banana like nobody's business.  If you know of a banana eating contest for toddlers, alert me.  I have not thrown out a banana in over a year.  When he sees one, his breathing accelerates.  He loves to waddle through the house, chest out, banana in hand.  It is during this daily jaunt that he has apparently opened every door in our home with his sticky, banana stained hands.

You know that scene in Jurassic Park where they finally make it to what they think is safety in the kitchen, & they're like, We're safe now, right?, & someone says, Yeah.  Unless they learn to open doors, & then the camera zooms in on this:

I thought about this scene a lot when Henry's height was finally such that he could reach the door handles in our house, because we too have lever handles, & they're very easy for a toddler (or a dinosaur, apparently) to open.  Henry lets himself in & out of room after room as he pleases now, leaving a crusty, dried, fruity mess in his wake.

In vain I attempt to be brief.  Sorry, Jane Austen's writing is replete with the phrase in vain, & I find myself inserting it in all sorts of places now.  I suspect that, in addition to my tendency to be longwinded, my subconscious would rather sit & fiddle on the MacBook & drink coffee than get up & continue the business of scraping dried banana off hard surfaces.  To those of you reading who've been invited to either of the upcoming parties in my home, or both parties, as the case may be, let me say now, in vain have I attempted to rid my door handles of dried banana.

In vain have I attempted to address all that is pressing on me this morning.  The house cleaning is obviously vexing me, yes, but I also have grades due this week, Reagan & I need to go to the dentist (like last summer), the dog needs her annual shots at the vet, I believe Henry needs a few eighteen-month shots, & there are zero presents, of the birthday or the Christmas variety, wrapped.

I do have some new rugs en route to the house, & we are well stocked with bananas, insulin, & coffee, & so Miss Zeigler & Mr. Zeigler & I shall eagerly await news of Mr. Zeigler's return, whereupon I am strongly considering bolting forthright with panicked declarations of all that I must procure at various locales in preparation for forthcoming gatherings.

AZ

Walk By Faith, Not By Pancreas

I wasn't planning to post anything this week, at least not until after Thursday.  I am under a deadline of the strictest sort, a book club deadline.  We meet Thursday evening to discuss When the Elephants Dance by Tess Uriza Holthe, & the reading has been slow going.  It's historical fiction set during . . . you guessed it, WWII.  However, it's a whole new WWII experience for me as this novel focuses on the conflict in the Philippines, specifically the struggles of the Filipino people during the years Douglas MacArthur was absent.  The novel's title is taken from this quote found in the opening pages:

Papa explains the war like this: "When the elephants dance, the chickens must be careful."  The great beasts, as they circle one another, shaking the trees and trumpeting loudly, are the Amerikanos and the Japanese as they fight.  And our Philippine islands?  We are the chickens.

How much do you love that?  Five stars to Ms. Holthe for her novel's title.  

So, I should be reading right now, instead of explaining to you that I should be reading.  

There is, however, something in my head that needs to be purged.  Last time we traveled to Jackson to visit Reagan's endocrinologist we had Henry's blood drawn.  There is a great children's hospital in Jackson & they received some money to fund diabetes research.  Specifically, they're interested in the presence of autoimmune antibodies in the blood of those under the age of forty-five who have a first degree relative with type 1 diabetes.  As you may've guessed, Henry, being under forty-five years of age & the brother of a type 1 diabetic, fits this profile.  So, they drew his blood & told us it would take about six weeks to process everything.  All of this happened about six weeks ago.

A positive result is not what we want; this would mean autoimmune antibodies are present.  If you didn't know, type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease because the body's own immune system attacks the cells that produce insulin, erroneously assuming (for whatever reason no one knows) that they are foreign invaders that must be destroyed.  Regardless of the test results, nothing is conclusive.  What I mean is if Henry tests positive for the autoimmune antibodies, his chances of developing diabetes now are higher, but the presence of antibodies alone does not mean with certainty that diabetes is imminent.  If he tests negative, obviously that would be wonderful, but a negative test doesn't mean he will never develop diabetes.

There's so much they don't understand about type 1 diabetes.  Genetics is involved, however, most newly diagnosed type 1s have no genetic history of diabetes.  A genetic predisposition toward diabetes is not enough to trigger the disease.  There are likely many folks walking around with a genetic predisposition to diabetes, but they will never develop the disease.  Something in the environment acts as a trigger . . . but no one knows exactly what.  It's possible there are multiple triggers, & what triggers it for one diabetic would not trigger it for another.  At present, they cannot prevent it in those with known predispositions, & they cannot cure it.

As Reagan's brother, Henry's chances of developing type 1 diabetes are only slightly higher than those of any random one-year-old.  I don't like numbers much at all, & I quickly grow weary thinking about all these numbers.  The odds of this, the odds of that . . . it'll drive you mad.  There is a chance Henry will develop diabetes.  There is a chance you will develop diabetes.  There is a chance I will develop diabetes.  There is a chance my dog will develop diabetes.  There is a chance Henry will live to be ninety & never develop diabetes.  There is a chance this week will pass without an NFL scandal erupting.  There is a chance overrated Notre Dame will win a national football title this year (okay, okay, I kid).  Chance, chance, chance.  Before she was diagnosed in January, I worried about Reagan.  I worried about a thousand different things that didn't, & likely never will, happen.  You know what I never once worried about?  Diabetes.

I pray Henry tests negative for these antibodies, & I ask you to say the same prayer.  A negative test result would be wonderful, however, it would in no way erase my worry over his future health.  I think that might be the hardest challenge of any mother, to put her worry where her faith is & truly trust the God she claims to love, the God who says, "Do not worry . . . look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?"

Read Matthew 6:25-34.  The phrase "Do not worry" is repeated three times.  Do not worry.  Do not worry.  Do not worry.  It's a commandment.  Those who worry are admonished as you of little faith.  I don't want to be seen as a woman of little faith, a mother of little faith.  I don't want my kids to grow up watching a mother who frets constantly, & I certainly don't want that image juxtaposed with my claims to love & trust the Almighty.  I want to be brimming with faith.  I want it to be so evident that I trust the Lord that others, particularly my children, are inspired to do the same.

This week's theme song is Living by Faith.

I care not today what the morrow may bring, 
if shadow or sunshine or rain,
The Lord I know ruleth o'er everything, 
and all of my worries are vain.

Though tempests may blow and the storm clouds arise,
Obscuring the brightness of life,
I'm never alarmed at the overcast skies,
The Master looks on at the strife.

I know that He safely will carry me through,
No matter what evils betide;
Why should I then care though the tempest may blow,
If Jesus walks close to my side.

Our Lord will return to this earth one sweet day,
Our troubles will then all be o'er;
the Master so gently will lead us away,
beyond that blessed Heavenly shore.

Living by faith in Jesus above, 

Trusting, confiding, in His great love;

From all harm safe in His sheltering arm,

I'm living by faith and feel no alarm.

In semi-related news, recently the china cabinet of my dreams was delivered to our home.  It sits in our dining area & I walk by it approximately two-hundred times a day.  It's of medium height, but in a home with twelve foot ceilings, I've decided it needs something hung above it, & this is what I am 98.5% sure I am going to purchase to fill this decor void in our home:

It's a set of prints from World Market.  I love the distressed, vintage-y frames, & I love the birds.  Once they're on the wall, when I pass by the china cabinet, instead of thinking, "What am I going to do with that space?," I'll hear three little carefree birds whispering, Do not worry, Anna . . . look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?  So if, in a week or so, Trey is standing on a ladder, hammer & nails in hand, whining about my perpetual decorating endeavors, I will tell him to hush because it's a spiritual matter.  

Thank you in advance for your prayers.  Antibodies or no, book club deadline met or not, like MacArthur, I shall return.  

AZ 

A Recipe for Cake

I think I've slept enough now to fill you in on Henry's birthday party, at least what I remember of it.

Where to begin?  I suppose I'll start with last Friday, which was Henry's birthday.  Friday went swimmingly, which, in hindsight, should've been a clue that things would take a turn for the worse come party day.  Henry spent his morning lounging in his new anywhere chair.  The chair is upholstered in Pottery Barn Kids madras plaid, & it matches the quilt, monogrammed pillow, & curtain panels in Henry's room.  He's thrilled with all the coordination.

In this pic I believe he was throwing his sippy cup at me:

This is Reagan with her anywhere chair, which she received on her first birthday.

The kids & I had a nice day at home Friday.  Henry took a long nap that morning, which meant I took a long shower & was able to put on clothes & dry my hair with only minimal interruption from Reagan, who asked me questions every five minutes about when exactly she was going to get to eat cake & open Henry's birthday gifts. 

Friday evening we all went to dinner at The Warehouse.  

Mother/son selfie fail:

A little sibling time during dessert.  And by sibling time, I mean Reagan leaving her chair to confiscate the new toy Henry's Grandmama brought him:

When Friday ended, quite literally, all the birthday loveliness vanished.  Around midnight, Henry started coughing.  It wasn't just any cough, either.  He was wheezy, & frankly sounded like he'd been smoking a pack a day for several years.  From approximately one o'clock until three o'clock Saturday morning, Henry & I wrestled in bed as I attempted to prop us both up in a position that would allow us to get some sleep, while also aiding in the cessation of Henry's cough.  I failed miserably; he continued to cough, & neither of us slept much at all.  At three o'clock, Trey got in the recliner with him, & I hooked up the nebulizer because I was worried about Henry's breathing.  The thing you want to be doing at three in the morning the day you're having lots of people over for a birthday party is digging in your bathroom drawers to find all the parts to the nebulizer.  Oh & also, somewhere in the middle of all this our dog, Sophie, who is not the spring chicken she once was, urinated in the middle of the kitchen floor, so I cleaned that up.  The only thing better than hooking up the nebulizer for your infant at three in the morning is sopping up a puddle of dog urine.        

Just as I was shutting down the nebulizer & about to flee to the bed for a few hours of sleep, I heard Reagan stirring.  By the time I'd aided her in her middle of the night bathroom quest, it was almost four in the morning.  I slept for about two hours before rising to prepare for a trip to the pediatrician's office, where we learned Henry had the croup.  I'd heard of the croup, but didn't understand that what it is, exactly, is this horrendous animal sounding cough.  Henry was prescribed some medicine, & thankfully no longer sounds like a future Marlboro Man.  

I returned home with Henry around nine Saturday morning, drank a little more coffee, or maybe a lot more coffee, & headed back to town to pick up his cake, some balloons, & other needed party items.  It's all a blur.  Miraculously, I made it home having forgotten nothing.

The cake:  

And the smash cake:

I found this plaid '1' candle because everything's better with a little plaid:

Ready to party.  Actually, Henry & I both needed a long, long nap . . . but sometimes you dig deep & push through because it would be weird to invite people over & then miss the whole shindig because you're curled up in the bed with the birthday boy.  

Reagan was less than thrilled with the carrots & cucumber I set out for her.  I wanted her number nice & low when I jacked her full of insulin in preparation for the cake & ice cream, which, in technical diabetic language, are known as a heaping ton of carbs.

Henry in his new ride.  Please note his sweater vest with a flourish of argyle & coordinating plaid shorts:

Henry didn't do much cake smashing.  He was so, so tired.

This is the box in which Henry's smash cake was enclosed.  If it's any indication of how tired I was, someone else pointed out to me that my last name is misspelled; I had not noticed.  I'd normally spot something like this a mile away.    

Saturday night after the kids were asleep I could have, & probably should have, gone to sleep myself.  However, I had yet to watch that week's episode of 24.  

I don't need to spell out what happened next . . . 

2 hours of sleep

1 sick birthday boy

1 incontinent dog

1 hour of Jack Bauer

1 cup of decaf

It all adds up to a huge helping of Henry's birthday cake.  I enjoyed it immensely, & it has not shown up on the scale (yet).

Sunday offered no respite.  After church & lunch, I shuttled the kids home, changed their clothes, & had about twenty minutes to drink some coffee before handing Henry off to my mom so I could take Reagan to a birthday party for her friend Wendi.

Thus, this is what Monday looked like:

Before I leave you, I'll update my summer stats.  Despite Saturday evening's cake, I am still down five pounds (sometimes six!).  I have read The Fault in Our Stars, which I rant about here, if you missed it.  I have a date with myself later today to see the movie (it's a gift to Trey really, giving him a chance to spend some one on one time with his kids on this Father's Day weekend).  I am meandering through a reread of A Farewell to Arms, which is just delicious, as always.  I find a new favorite line every time I reread it.  Edie's continuing saga still sits at 9,100 words because I know better than to go near it when I'm as tired as I've been the past week; I can be a bit vicious & characters end up saying & doing things that they'd otherwise never consider.  I am thoroughly enjoying Michael Buble's To Be Loved album.  He sings a duet with Reese Witherspoon that is wonderful (it's No. 5 on the album).  Plus, no matter what song is playing, this picture below pops up on my iPhone, so there's really not a bad song on the album.

  

Both Diet Coke & cable remain on the banned list in our home.  To my knowledge, Trey has yet to drink any Diet Coke since giving it up cold turkey over a month ago.  I had a momentary cable crisis Tuesday night when I learned Eric Cantor lost his primary; I was craving a little Fox News, but I just reminded myself that even if we had cable, it's not like I'd be able to sit down with my decaf & watch.    

Is anyone else a little giddy about Cantor's loss . . . (is it politically incorrect to say Adios, Senor Cantor?  Even if the remaining dolts in DC don't want to admit it, we all know why he lost.  Amnesty's not cool, y'all.  Not cool.  I am looking at you, Paul Ryan!).  You go, Dave Brat!  Rock on with your PhD & your $150,000 campaign.  

This fall promises to be muy interesante.  Between mid-term elections & college football, if we're still a household without cable, a plateful of birthday cake is unlikely to placate me.  

AZ

Henry's Year in Review

Today is Henry's first birthday.

This is the four of us circa a year ago; I think this was taken four days before he was born.  In terms of my weight loss goals, I currently weigh approximately forty-five pounds less than I do in this photo, & as a bonus, I can paint my toenails without making loud, loud noises.   

I am tempted to regale you with the story of Henry's birth, but I won't.  Granted, it is a short story since Henry entered the world hastily, but that story is here, for those who'd like to read it.

I will now bombard you with pictures.

Henry was born at 2:32 in the morning on June 6, 2013.  My plan was to space my kids two & a half years apart.  My original due date with Henry was June 13, 2013.  Do you know what happened on June 13, 2013, aside from Henry turning one week old?  Reagan hit the two & a half mark.  That's what I call family planning.   

And the countdown to one year . . . 

I ran into a bit of a dilemma with month eleven (in addition to the scrapes & bruises on his face for much of month eleven).  There is only one '1' in the number puzzle that has, until now, served me so well this year.  These pictures were taken during his eleventh month, & I know this for a fact because they are stored in my iPhone after the ten month photos were taken.  

This is Reagan at one year:

I know, I know.  My kids are cute.

Beyond birthday news, I've lost four-ish pounds.  Depending on what time of day I weigh, it is sometimes accurate to say I've lost five pounds.  I may have to revise after tomorrow's birthday shindig, however.  I have read The Fault in Our Stars; I'll hold my tongue, for now.  I don't want to sully this post about Henry's first year with what I have to say (please know that I am about to explode).  And in this tribute to Bridget Jones's Diary, I'll also add that the sequel now sits at 9,100 words.  

As long as I am knee deep in my accomplishments, on Wednesday of this week I downloaded a lot of Michael Buble's music to my iTunes, & I am now officially following him on Twitter.  Yes, I am on Twitter.  I was surprised to learn that I've actually been on Twitter since March of 2009, according to Twitter.  My handle (I think that's the correct term, handle) is @ajzeigler.  I have yet to tweet anything . . . but give me another five years, & I may have something to say.  I guess I stay away because if anyone tweets anything newsworthy, well, it's in the news, & also because Twitter's severe word restrictions make me recoil.  I mean I didn't start writing this blog because I thrive on word restrictions.   

  

I shall return with all you ever wanted to know about Henry's first birthday party.

Happy Birthday, Henry.  I love you.

AZ