A little over a month ago I was just beginning a job search for a very part time job. Since I am a stay at home Mom, it had to be something pretty specific to still being able to “stay at home” with my little girl Mariclaire.
So began my job search… which was literally just a quick glance at Craig’s List one night. Within a few minutes I was able to find a job posting that I thought would be a good fit for myself and for MC.
Wow. It has been a while! It is good to be back to the ‘ole blog.
So many “things” have happened since my last post! But instead of hashing through the number of teeth Mariclaire has sprouted since I have last posted or the two new words she has learned this weekend, I figured I would save that kind of information for Facebook status updates for the grandparents to “ooh and ahh” over and instead blog about a little something that is on my heart!
So here we go!
As my brother said, today the world lost a wonderful woman.
This is more of a personal post than anything, but as I am rushing around doing everything to get ready to leave for South Carolina in just a few minutes, I thought what better time than now to put down some of my favorite memories in writing. After all, that is all I have been thinking about all day.
I remember the day so clearly. The day that I gave my grandmother her name “Momo” and my grandfather his name “Poppy”. And it stuck like glue. I have had a Momo and a Poppy since I was about 4 or 5 years old. And my Momo was Momo to literally everyone! My friends knew her as Momo. Whenever she first met someone, she was quick to tell them to call her Momo. At such a young age, it seemed so matter of fact that she did that, but now thinking back on how she so defined herself by the name I gave her, it is so very sweet. My Momo.
She taught me how to swim in the swimming pool in her backyard. She rocked OUT to some Michael Jackson, and I have other cousins who would attest to that! She and I would make girls’ weekend trips to the beach and she would let me listen to her Christmas music tapes all 5 hours of the trip down there. And of course if it wasn’t Christmas music, she would tell me to put in the Michael Jackson. She was so cool.
She loved taking me shopping. I am her only granddaughter and because my Dad (her son) and my uncle (her other son) are twins, she loved telling me that she never had a daughter until I came along. And she loved treating me that way! We would have an early lunch at the Picadilly Cafe (one of her favorites) and then hit the malls shopping all day for back-to-school clothes. She made me feel like a mini-model. She would have me step out of the dressing room as I tried everything on. She said she wanted a fashion show 
I remember her telling me to try on a cute little leopard print 2-piece when I was about 10 years old. She loved it, but I remember telling her that my Dad would not approve! She just laughed!
I would spend the night at her house almost every weekend during the summer when I was younger. She would let me get out her make up bag and her foam rollers and brushes and she would sit on the couch and I would sit on the back of the couch behind her and give her a “makeover”. I would get so excited when her makeover was finished, and she would run to the bathroom with me to look in the mirror and tell me “Oooooh, how beautiful Harrison!”. Although, I’m sure an 8 year old doesn’t do hair and makeup all that well!
She loved dipping her fudge popsicles and her peanut butter crackers in her coffee. She loved to swim. She loved to listen to me and enjoyed our “girl talk” as much as I did. She was such a classy, southern lady and dressed to the nines all of the time. She loved all of her grandkids. No one held a candle to us, and she made us all feel so very special. She was at every dance recital, orchestra concert, and swim meet. She always had candy in her house for us, even though she was a diabetic. She hosted our big family for Christmas every year. She loved me and my family, and she even got to meet my sweet little girl. One of her six great-grandchildren.
My Momo. How I will miss her.
Tomorrow marks 100. Wow.
It is hard to believe that it has been two years already. But as “they” say, time flies when you are having fun, right?
I can’t put into a short blog post a complete download of what these 99 Sundays at OneLife have been like, but they have been nothing short of a miracle. Literally.
I have seen scared, broken, hurting people walk through those doors on a Sunday morning and within weeks, their lives have completely changed.
I remember a now very dear friend of mine coming to OneLife for the first time with her boyfriend. As she entered the building she hardly made eye contact with me as I tried to introduce myself and welcome her. All they wanted to do was find a seat in the auditorium and be left alone.
And who wouldn’t? If you have ever been hurt by the church, by “churchy” people, or have preconceived notions of the church being full of hypocritical, judgmental people, sure it can feel a little yucky walking through those doors.
But that is why I so love my church and, even more so, love what God has done through our church. Because we are not that church!
Without spitting out a bunch of yay-for-us stats, I thought I would give a few personal to-God-be-the-glories that I have seen and experienced over the past two years at OneLife.
Here they are:
Nine months post pregnancy sure has gone by a lot faster than nine months of being pregnant! It’s been such a fun, exhausting ride.
For anyone that has been around our little girl for five minutes, you know that she is always smiling and always energetic. She is a little ball of happy.
She refuses to sit. She literally will not sit down unless you pull her legs out from underneath her and make her sit down. It now makes sense why her first word has been not “Mama” or “Dada”… it is “up”. She wants to be “up” all of the time!
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What a week or, should I say, past couple of months. Things have been anything but “normal” for my myself, my family, friends, church…
Sometimes it is easy to look at circumstances that are “out of the ordinary” or “tough” as a black cloud hanging over our heads. Actually it is impossible not to think of it that way sometimes.
One of these black clouds has hung very low and heavy on us this week.
This time last week we were returning from our first beach vacation as a family of three. We watched as our little girl Mariclaire experienced so many “firsts”. First time putting her toes in the sand, or even seeing sand for that matter. First time seeing the ocean. First time “swimming” in water besides a bathtub or the grandparents’ kitchen sink. There were so many “firsts” I could not name them all, but it was so amazing to see how our little girl was really enjoying taking it all in.
Then it happened. We got our first taste of “I am too cool for you” as parents. And it only took eight months!
Rodney and I have already learned that Mariclaire finds other people so much more interesting and fun that she does us. But I think it may have hurt some feelings (a.k.a. mine and Rodney’s feelings) when we realized that the pool at the resort where stayed was no fun to Mariclaire unless there were other kids around.
Rodney and I could be splashing around, making absolute fools of ourselves, but nothing made that girl smile more than the 10 year old girl who kept swimming around Mariclaire playing peek-a-boo with her. We found it quite annoying. Mariclaire found it hilarious.
Of course we loved seeing her so happy, but just to be honest, it still had us a little jealous that we weren’t cool enough to make her giggle and squeal the same way!
I was so hopeful that one day I would be the proud owner of a Magic Bullet blender. I watched that blender as it was marketed for years.
It was literally the most popular item I have ever seen marketed on a basic cable channel. And it was amazing to see how two people could talk about a blender. For four hours straight. That blender really looked like it could work some magic… on TV.
I would watch as the cheesy, overly excited salesmen convinced me that I could basically blend up a five course meal in 15 minutes. And I fell for it hard.
One of the very first things that Rodney and I registered for when we were engaged was that dang Magic Bullet. And we got it, used it once, and then donated it to KARM (Knox Area Rescue Ministries) who then sold it to some poor soul who should not have paid a THING for it.
So after all of those years of hoping I would someday own a life changing Magic Bullet, there is my disclaimer. Do not buy the Magic Bullet.
I graduated from high school and went immediately into the college scene excited to meet new people.
Above all, I was excited about the thought of experiencing sorority “rush” (recruitment) and all that would entail. I immediately found my sorority home and got involved.
Then I had really “made” it. By my Junior year I had worked my way up the “ladder” and was nominated as sorority President. I was so excited about this role! Ecstatic actually. I felt such pride for my sorority and my chapter. I was thrilled for every new member that joined.
I will always remember my first experience with recruitment. When our brand new members ran across the field toward my chapter, which meant they accepted their membership bid from my sorority on Bid Day. And seeing how excited these women were to be joining our sorority, I cried like a baby out of pure joy! It was literally like we were welcoming these ladies to our family. And after all of the work we had done during rush week to make these girls feel loved and feel that they would fit in with us, it was so rewarding to see how excited they were to be a part of us!
I can’t believe that celebrating Mother’s Day actually has something to do with me this year! It seems so strange, in a way, that this time last year there were just the two of us and now there are three. And now she is a permanent part of my life!
One of the things Rodney and I used to say to each other when our little girl was first born was “Can you believe she belongs to us? I mean, we don’t give her back to anyone at the end of the night! She is ours!“
With all of that being said, we did a lot of babysitting before Mariclaire came along, so we were really used to being able to give the kids back to their parents when they came home. But not anymore! And I would not have it any other way.
With Mother’s Day literally right around the corner, I thought I would share a few things with you tonight that as a new Mom, have really opened my eyes. And also I would like to share a tradition that we already cherish as a family that I just love.
