My "Baby" Brother

Like all of us, my brother Caleb started life out as a baby. He was just a bit bigger than most babies…like more than twice the size of any of mine. In fact, my kids didn’t reach “Uncle KK’s” birth weight until they were somewhere around 7 or 8 months. Because most people don’t start out life at 12 pounds.

 

Perhaps, though, a kid with seven older siblings needs a few extra pounds in order to survive. (Especially if the nearest sibling to one’s age is Abby…) But despite that, I don’t recall Caleb throwing his weight and size around very much. He didn’t need to since God graciously gave him a sense of humor. A great gift when one is the baby of the family with a readily-available captive audience of two parents and seven older siblings. Truly, Caleb can keep us all in stitches. And there is no place he would rather be than the center of attention.

 

My relationship with my baby brother was very different than the siblings closer to his age. I am fifteen years older than him, well advanced in the midst of teen angst by the time he made an appearance on earth. To be honest, I never gave a great deal of thought at how our relationship worked out until my mom mentioned it in the past year or so. To me, Caleb was simply the brother I got along with. It never occurred to me that a 7-year-old chatting up books with a 22-year-old was bizarre. My baby brother loved reading. So did I. I would discover a book he might enjoy, share it, and we’d sit around talking about it. That’s not strange – right?

 

Okay, so I guess it is a little strange. But Caleb is an amazing reader. My husband thinks I read fast, but I’ve got nothing on the speed Caleb can devour a book. Nor can I retain the way he does. I will never forget when he was about five or six and he knocked on my bedroom door with the Chronicles of Narnia’s The Last Battlein his hand. I must have read that book three or four times, but I didn’t have an answer to the question he asked. In fact, I couldn’t remember that scene. I had to find my copy and re-read it. And I still don’t think I came up with a very satisfactory answer. But I certainly came up with a reading companion.

Today that “little” guy who I once took to meet Brian Jacques for his birthday is 26 years old. TWENTY-SIX!!!!! A grown man - quite literally when one is somewhere above 6 foot 2 and more than 250 pounds of muscle. And I am very proud to say he is an officer the United States Marine Corp. Perhaps that’s a far cry from the cowboy he dreamed of being…and horses would have probably been easier to herd that Marine recruits…but he is very good at what he does. Caleb has maintained a sense of humor and a real love for his family despite some really hard things life has thrown at him. I am really grateful God blessed us with all twelve pounds of him twenty-six years ago. My life wouldn’t be the same without him.

Thinking Ahead...Remembering Behind, Part 3

One day, perhaps, my girls will look back at Easters of their past and curse their mother for dressing them in some plain, boring Easter dress that didn’t have a frill within ten miles of it. Emry might. She and I don’t think too much alike when it comes to clothes. She likes pink, and frilly, and shimmering. Simply because Ellyson will wear hand-me-downs, I’m of the mind that she will like not-pink, not-frilly- and not-shimmering. And yet that will still equal she didn’t like what Mom picked out. Because that is how it always works.

 

After Emry chose her fabric for this year’s dress (which Ellyson is too young to curse), I had to look back at pictures of all her Easters. It should come as no surprise that four out of six of her dresses have been pink. Perhaps I’m guilty of starting that trend since I did pick out pink the first time. Meanwhile, Ethan has gotten dressed in blue all but his first Easter.(And he chose blue this year.) And although Ellyson will also start out in pink, once she is old enough to choose I doubt that will continue. Emry, though, will probably get married in a pink dress if possible. One with lots of sparkles, a train a mile long, and shoes with heels several inches tall. Yep, I can see it now…

First Easter: 2016

 

 Emry Easter 2017

 

Ethan Easter 2017

 

Easter 2018

 

Easter 2019

 

Easter 2020

Thinking Ahead...Remembering Behind, Part 2

Since I’m a February baby, I have no memory whatsoever of my first Easter. I think my first Easter “dress” was a christening gown. My dad was still Catholic, so I had to be baptized.  But the gown was a family heirloom worn by a couple of generations, so crazy Catholicism aside, that’s a nice touch. The following Easter most of the pictures are of me hunting eggs in my pajamas, but there is one of me in a white and green plaid dress with my parents in front of our house in Newport, Rhode Island. I would say the stand out part of that picture, though, is my dad’s vest and my mom’s plaid jacket. So coming out of the 70s!

 

 

Fast forward a couple of years (age 4) to having a sister and the matching dresses begin! For some reason, I have a clear memory of these pastel striped dresses with bunny buttons on the bows in the corners of the collar. The dresses are long gone, but I still have at least one bow. Emry has worn it, and Ellyson probably will, too.

 

The next clear memory I have of Easter dresses are the ones below when I was 8, mine striped pink and Katey’s striped peach. You can’t tell in the pictures, but they were very 80ish with low waistlines on a slant. Thankfully, those dresses are long gone. (The couch is too!) Also note the corsages pinned to our dresses. Dad always bought his girls orchids to wear for corsages each Easter. 

 

Easter 1989 is probably one of my most memorable Easters. We had moved from Tennessee to New Hampshire the previous December and on Easter it snowed. I remember thinking how “wicked” that was (to use a New England turn of phrase), but also feeling devastated because I was afraid it would mean I couldn’t wear my favorite Easter dress of all times and best shoes ever because they were too spring-like.  But I did get to wear the white dress with tiny pink and yellow flowers and lots of lace, as well as the grey shoes with rhinestones. What more can one ask for in a fashion statement, right?

 

Apparently, though, fashion can be improved upon when one enters their teen years in the 90s. Not much more can be said of a jumper bordering on neon. Not to mention the fact that it doesn’t blend in at all with the pastel blue my sisters are wearing. I’m honestly not sure if I was trying to make some subtle teenage rebellious statement with this dress or not. I just know I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole today!

 

After that, I don’t remember any particular Easter dresses. None were quite that bright again. I know I started into more skirts and tops in my later teens and early twenties. One or two I had created more with the multitude of friends weddings I needed to attend than Easter itself. And now I can’t remember the last time I had a dress or skirt sewn for Easter – probably sometime before I was married. 

 

Remembering these dresses has been a fun walk down memory lane, but I will say there were a couple I didn’t show. Some pictures, especially of one’s awkward teen years, are better burned that shown. But at least I don’t have any lasting psychological damage done from having to wear an Easter hand-me-down. I have one sister who still brings up another sister’s “Mary-had-a-Little-Lamb” dress she had to wear one Easter. It’s something I don’t think she’ll ever get over.

Thinking Ahead...Remembering Behind, Part 1

I’m a planner. Just about anyone will tell you that. The fact that a guy I worked with in Minnesota once said, “Oh, Melissa will have the whole thing planned before the end of February,” when someone asked me in January if I could get my wedding planned by June 7 puts that blaringly into focus. You could say I’m a little OCD about planning.

 

Which is why I’ve been thinking about Easter. I tell myself I have to think about Easter now when not only is there Easter to think about by my nephew’s birthday the day before and Emry’s birthday and first dance competition the following Saturday. It’s a lot to prep for, so I have to plan now.

 

One of the best things about Easter is the new dress. I’m not really sure why that’s become a “thing” but almost any woman in America remembers getting at least one new dress for Easter. Usually something springish and pastel. Because even if you lived in New England and it snowed for Easter, one must come to church wearing a cotton pastel dress under your wool coat and hat. (Something I have done multiple times.) In the South even women who wear slacks or more casual wear to church on every other Sunday get decked out in heels, pastel dresses, and maybe even a hat for Easter. It’s tradition.

 

So, while having daughters has its own challenges, there is great joy to be had in new Easter dresses. Emry is now old enough to pick out her own, although I directed the style of dress. And Ellyson is still too young to complain about matching her older sister. And the whole prospect brought back two things: 1) memories of my old Easter dresses, and 2) Easters our little family has celebrated together.

So, over the next couple of weeks I thought I would walk down memory lane a bit. So, enjoy…and try not to laugh too much at styles better left behind.

A Laugh

Just in case you need a laugh today, I thought I would share a picture of Ethan at Hobby Lobby being, well…Ethan!

9 Months!!!

Our parenting journey started easy. When Emry was nine months, she didn’t move. Simply sat and played happily with whatever we put around her. When she finally decided (a week after she turned one) that crawling might be worth trying and then walking (at 18 months), she still didn’t get into anything that wasn’t hers. How easy was that!

 

Then came Ethan. He crawled around nine months and walked just after he turned one. Prior to that he had an army crawl an enlisted guy at boot camp would envy. And he used it to get into just about everything. But if he pulled all my books off the bottom shelves, he stopped to look at them before moving to the next thing. If he dumped all his blocks onto the floor, he stopped for a while and enjoyed them before moving on. He made a mess, but he paused long enough that it wasn’t long before I had taught him to pick up most things himself. 

 

And now comes Ellyson. Who is crawling everywhere. And leaving a path of destruction in her wake. Ellyson is all over the place, from one end of our little place to the other. Wherever she goes, she pulls out whatever she finds, pauses to scatter them all over the place, and then moves on to find something else to strew about the floor. You walk through the house and find markers all over Emry’s floor, Hot Wheel cars scattered about Ethan’s, books off my bottom shelves, her toys all over the living room, the DVDs everywhere but the shelf, and Ellyson happily scattering about the water bottles in the kitchen. And she hasn’t yet learned to pick up any of it.

 

Today Ellyson is nine months old…and my house is a mess. But she’s happy. After a rough week, she’s finally settling into a six-hour sleep pattern each night. She has met a new friend: Emry’s pet fish Green Star which she sits on the floor, looks up at, points, and claims, “Fish!” I think she has about six teeth coming in, four on top and two on the bottom. And every day we wash her hair because she loves to clean her hands in it after she eats, so it’s almost always full of peanut butter, peaches, bananas (which she has suddenly decided she likes after all), carrots, and whatever else she has eaten that day. I guess it’s all good for her hair because it’s growing in nicely. 

 

But trying to get her pictures today…well, that was a challenge. And I don’t have one with the sticker actually on her.

 

Look! The sticker!

 

No, Sock Monkey, you cannot have my sticker.

 

And my personal favorite.

Ed...and Ethan

On the way back from Pittsburgh after my heart rate had settled down and the kids were asleep, I noticed a stash of pictures Ed had thrown into the consul as we quickly loaded the car. He told me his Uncle Bernie had given them to him when they went to Bernie’s house after the funeral. The first one I picked up was this one:

 

 

“Oh, my goodness,” I said, stunned. “It’s Ethan.”

 

“I know – right?” Ed laughed. “I had forgotten all about that stuffed tiger.”

 

Because not only is our son nearly the spitting image of Ed at the age of three, but Ethan also has a tiny stuffed tiger!

 

Since that time, I’ve been thinking I need to get a picture of Ethan in similar pose. 

 

Like father…like son!

Watchwords Part 2

Honestly, I had no idea how “sustainable” I am.

 

More than eight years ago, my sister Katey purchased maternity clothes when she was pregnant with my nephew Jay. Two years later, she would ship those same clothes to me to wear while I was pregnant with Emry. I added a few items to the pile and shipped them all back to Katey the next year when she got pregnant with Curtis. Not long after Curtis was born, she packed them all back up and shipped them to me to wear while pregnant with Ethan. After Ethan, they all got packed away for a while, but nearly three years later were pulled back out for Ellyson. A few items have been added along the way to replace the one so stretched out they simply looked ridiculous. But for the most part, the wardrobe has remained intact for eight years and five kids.

 

A couple of weeks ago I read an article on Meghan Markle. Pregnant with #2 (almost 2 years after her first), the article was all about her photo-op announcement and the dress she wore. A dress she had worn during her first pregnancy. And was now lauded for making it last and wearing it again…even the designer of said dress gushed at how sustainable that is!!!!! Wow!!!! Amazing!!!! #SavetheWorld!!!!

 

I immediately texted my sister to praise her for joining me in the saving the world through our sustainable maternity wardrobe. A whole wardrobe that probably cost less than Meghan Markle’s one dress….and had lasted four times as long. She, like me, had no idea we were being sustainable. We simply thought we were being frugal. I mean, maternity clothes aren’t cheap. Or stylish. Or anything except necessary for four or five months. But if only there were a contest for the most sustainable maternity wardrobes. We’d certainly be contenders, along with almost every other mother in my little, not-remotely-wealthy-just-trying-to-be-a-good-mom circle. And I all can say is:

Meghan Markle: eat your heart out.