I just read a beautiful blog post on leaving the birth place.... http://www.anktangle.com/2012/04/dear-daniel-on-leaving-your-birthplace.html?showComment=1335798097098#c4948304106715130888
With our still very recent move to a new home, and then celebrating Liam's 6th Birthday yesterday this was a very touching post for me.
I have moved from my child's birth place on several occasions before... the first time was from Ft. Irwin, Calif. Our beautiful Sariah was our first baby born at home. There, we were supported by a couple of friends and we had her birth in our large laundry room on a double bed we borrowed from another dear friend Tandy (who missed our birth as she had gone 'home' to TX to be able to have her baby due the same day but born two weeks apart, with a MW at a Beautiful Birthing Center in Dallas http://birthcenter.net/).
Our sweet Hannah was born at our home at White Sands Missile Range, NM. My dear friend Tandy was able to come (from Maryland this time) and be with us for this birth. She was a wonderful help, along with the other friend and Midwives that we had to assist us during this birth on a bright Saturday morning as well.
I remember it being a bittersweet moment knowing that we have 'lived' with those memories of where our baby(s) was born, in the house with us that we'd reflect on as we went throughout our days.
Yesterday morning dad was talking to Liam. He asked him if he knew where he was born... he had to 'think' about his answer for just a moment and then said, "in the Kitchen!" and he sort of pointed his finger. Yes we agreed, but not 'this' kitchen, the kitchen in our old house... then dad asked him further, and he said in a tub! Yes, son, you were born in a pool of warm water, to the welcoming arms of your parents and your sisters who were so excited to see you and to know 'who' you were!
I watched your birth slide show again last night and tears ran down my face at the memories of that beautiful Spring Saturday morning, surrounded by family and friends. Their love and support for me in that moment were wonderful.
http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1989/46946/liam_birth.zip
(this is a large file, and it takes a bit to download. The slide show with accompanying music were put together by Kristin at http://www.whispersphotography.com/ it is about 8 minutes long. For the more squeemish, it isn't very graphic at all. What little you see, is under water, so very distorted, and a baby's head is covering most anything anyway in the pic's).
It's a bit hard, and like I said, bittersweet to move and leave the place that was so special to us. I somehow want to take just a bit of that place with us as a memory... of course, the beautiful pictures and of course YOU are wonderful reminders of that very special day! It's fun to remember, even if it brings tears to my eyes... they are mostly tears of joy at the memories. I LOVE you son and can not imagine what my life would be like without YOU in it!
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Scuba Diving: A Blessing... Who Knew?
Scuba Diving: A Blessing… Who Knew?
Last year when we decided we were taking Amanda over to school at BYU Hawaii, Bill signed us up for a Scuba diving course. It felt a little extravagant to me, but we all enjoyed the basic course and soon signed up for the advanced diving course.
When we went to Hawaii we took another open water advanced diving course, and though it was sort of the end of the season, and we were heading into bad weather conditions so we missed out on one of the dives we were supposed to get go on when we visited Kauaii after we dropped Amanda off. We did have a wonderful time diving and I was a bit spoiled, and really didn’t want to come back to Alabama and go cold water Quary diving…
Shortly after our return home we linked up with someone Bill knew from work that goes diving as a volunteer at the Space and Rocket Center. We started diving there on a semi regular basis, so that we would be like fish in an aquarium for various tour groups and for some of the groups of kids attending Space Camp. It’s fun, and we get to keep fresh on our diving skills.
We’ve been able to take Flat Stanley with us for a dive at the Space and Rocket Center, and for Halloween they had a day where he volunteer divers came dressed in costumes to dive. That was really fun…
Bill was able to take the scouts there one night for an intro to Scuba class, and then over Christmas Break we took the girls up there for an intro to diving class as well.
Well, today it became a blessing to the local members of the Church. The Church bought some property southeast of Huntsville, AL a few years ago to be used as a Camp site for Young women’s summer Camp and for Church Scout troops. The first few years there were lots of work days out at the Camp to get it ready , land cleared, cabins built etc. to have it ready for Young Women’s camp that first year. We went out one time and stayed as a family the next year in the cabins to help clean it up and get it ready another year. The Priesthood men and young men have taken lots of trips to work and clean the camp area.
Bill has gone Camping there with the scouts on several occasions, and last fall Liam even got to go with him on an overnight special camp out with the scouts. The girls have all gone to Young Women’s Camp up there over the years. I’m sure you are wondering how all of this relates to Scuba Diving…
Well, somehow over the course of the past year, the dock at the little lake at the camp had become dislodged and there was a need for someone to dive down underneath and figure out what the problem was and reattach it so that the dock would stay put.
Bill was asked if he could dive and do this task today. So, off he went. Well, not quite that easy, he had to get a dive buddy to go with him, and had to ask to borrow oxygen tanks from the SpRocket. The water temp wasn’t too bad today, so that was good, but the visibility was horrible. They were able to figure out what the problem was, and then figure out how to fix the problem. I’m grateful that Bill was able to obtain the skills he needed to accomplish this task to help the Church out and make the camp better for all those who will be able to use it.
This is the first time he’s gone Scuba Diving since we moved into this new house. He is happy that he has plenty of room in his closet to hang his wet suit, and keep his dive bag. However when he came home today, he was saying he needed to build some sort of a drying rack to hang our scuba gear and his wet suit on to dry out after we go Scuba diving, but in the meantime… he’ll just use the back yard swing. J(until the birds stopped by... Oh well)
Friday, April 13, 2012
Hair today, gone tomorrow...
After a friend showed me how, I bought some clippers and started cutting Liam’s hair several years ago, and soon began cutting Bill’s hair as well. Things were going along fine, mostly. I didn’t always cut it exactly the way (I only really know one way to cut it – shaved, depending on how long a blade I use it is either shorter or a little bit longer, but not so much in the way of variations. That is usually not a problem and if anything the girls want me to cut dad’s hair as short as possible…) I don’t always fit it into our schedule as often as Bill would like, so I’m not as reliable in that way as when he would go to the barber on post, but we have certainly more than paid for our clippers over the years.
Liam would rather never get a haircut. He usually fusses and fights, cries and often has to be bribed, or even pinned down (on someone else’s lap), in order to cut his hair.
Sometime along the way, Amanda picked up the clippers and she would cut their hair instead. She does a really good job, and even cuts her sisters hair occasionally as well. NOT with the same clippers, but with scissors… (a friend of ours showed her some basics for cutting hair awhile back).
The other day, as I’ve been packing and unpacking at our new house, I ran across some hair (curls) of Liam’s from before we went in for his hip surgery two summers ago. I made sure to cut his hair really short before, so we wouldn’t have to deal with it while he was in the body cast for 6 weeks and wouldn’t be able to bathe…
Well, as Amanda was getting ready to leave for college in Hawaii last fall, we made sure to get Bill and Liam haircuts, as by then, Liam mostly liked Amanda to do it more than me. Not that he still didn’t fuss and fight, but he preferred Amanda…
As fall moved on into winter his hair had grown out quite a bit, and we kept telling him he NEEDED a hair cut. He informed me one time that, “This was not a hair cutting house, because Amanda wasn’t here” and that he would wait until December when she came home for Christmas break! Well, he stuck to that, and refused to get a haircut until Amanda came home. His hair would stick out all over the place and he hated to let me brush it or do anything with it!
Back story: when he went to preschool as a 3 yr old, there was a little boy in his class who came EVERY single day with a Mohawk! It was a source of conversation and the sisters would want to ‘play’ with his hair to try to make it into a Mohawk on occasion but he wouldn’t hear of it! He hated it and didn’t like anyone to ‘mess’ with his hair and if we did he was sure to remind us he did NOT want it into a Mohawk! Perhaps this is part of his reasoning behind not liking it brushed and ‘fixed’.
Anyway, Amanda cut his hair, literally, the DAY (night) she got home from Hawaii! So now we have moved on, winter into spring, and his hair had grown out and was beginning to look a bit unruly again… he would be teased by his sisters that he was starting to look like a girl. He HATED that! I would on occasion try to brush it with a wet brush, to have it not look so straggly and like he had bed head –which he did- when he went off to school. He would say he wasn’t getting it cut again, until Amanda came home. So, we’ve dealt with it, messy, sticking out hair and all…
However, about two weeks ago, he came up to me one day and said, “You know what? I’m going to get my hair cut on April 8th.” Well, this surprised me and I wondered at the reasoning behind it, and he went on to tell me that he wanted it cut on the 8th because that was Easter… I asked if he wanted to look handsome for Easter Sunday in his new suit, and he just grinned. (I had bought him a suit awhile back when it was on sale, and the shirt was a sort of aqua blue color, that is his favorite color – a story for another day – and I have saved it for Easter Sunday. Not that he hasn’t wanted to wear it all along, but I’ve told him that is for Easter, so perhaps he decided he really wanted to look nice when he finally got to wear the new suit, and needed to have his hair cut to go with it. I don’t know for sure, maybe I’m reading things into it, but it makes for a cute story.
candy consumed and the general craziness had finished and then we started to get ready for church, he came in, sat down on the stool in my bathroom and got his hair cut. He even picked out which cutting blade guide he wanted.
Now to dress him up again one day and get him to sit still for me to take pic’s of him in his Easter suit!
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