Good Old Red Sox...

...stinkin' their hardest.

( Aiden gave up in frustration in the second inning and went to bed. I, however, stayed up til what I pessimistically thought would be the bitter end...but it turned out sweet after all! Unbelievable...)

Little bits of news from our corner of the woild

* Brad's been doing training in different departments of the Sheriff's office. For instance, for a day or two, he got to work with people who serve warrants... and one of the things they do is evict people. Sounds interesting, eh? Not fun, I imagine, but at least interesting. One time, they were standing out on the lawn with a pile of stuff that had just been brought out of the evicted house, and this lady stopped and asked, "Ya'll having a yardsale?" ( And I thought I was queen of the yardsales. ) I thought this anecdote was classic and highly amusing.

*Aiden is aaaaaalmost crawling. He is soooo close. I think he may have actually sort of crawled, but I don't know if "sort of" counts. Every day I think, this is it, and we have several minutes on video of him lying on his belly, contemplating the phone or whatever we've placed in front of him to tempt him forwards, and me gasping in the background. I want him to crawl so bad but I know as soon as he does, it's the end of the world as I know it.

* It's October and the Red Sox are at it again. I stayed up way too late last night watching them... Sigh. Hope springs infernal.

*Went to Stone Mountain a couple weekends ago with Nate and Penny. Good times! The last time I'd been there was in 1999 with the Bibleschool. Cahrazy. Can't believe that's almost ten years ago. This time, I got to ride up instead of climb up - my first time in a cable car. We got some pictures which shall... hopefully...eventually make their way onto the world-wide-interweb. My favorite part: the carillon. We serendipitously arrived as the lady was playing the...um...organ...bells...instrument...thingy. ( I mean - is it correct to say she was playing the carillon? Or is that the structure itself?) It was so beautiful and peaceful to walk down by the lake amid the sights of fall and the sound of the bells. I love bells. I used to try to be outside on campus at St. A's at the top of an hour if I could manage it, just so I could hear the bells ringing.

Baby Chewbacca

Aiden has taken to gurgling and burbling - sometimes with the front of his tongue and sometimes in the back of his mouth. Grampa came up for dinner and was making warbling gurgles at him and Aiden was giving them right back to him. "Sounds like a Wookie family reunion," murmured Brad.

Citius, Altius, Fortius

Aiden likes to screech. Sometimes - when he's happy. His new nickname is "Nazgul boy." We've recently developed a saying that reflects this penchant for noise making. You know how the Olympics have their little motto of "citius, altius, fortius" for "faster, higher, stronger"? Well, I'm not sure what the Latin equivalent would be but this is Aiden's motto: " Louder, shriller, screechier."

Hearing News

October 3rd came and went, and I did not feel any sort of urge or need to write. So I didn't. However, I enjoyed other people's remembrances of Andrew. And I made a comment on some blogs and thought I might turn it into my own little post. I feel like writing now. So I will.

Whenever I hear other people's memories and stories of Andrew, in some strange way, it's like hearing news of him again. Even if some of the things they say are things I already knew about. When Liane mentioned the little voice that whispers, " That's enough now. No one wants to hear this stuff again", I knew what she was talking about. I think everyone deals with that at one time or other, regarding the loss of someone who was so dear that the loss has become a defining part of ones' life. You don't want people to sigh, be tired of it, treat as trite something that is so painfully precious. But, at the same time, I am also certain that anyone who ever knew Andrew will want to hear news of him. Remembering these things among each other is how we do that.

Brad and I were talking recently and he mentioned an interesting phenomenon about dates. For instance, he might hear about something in the news with a date attached to it, like the war in Iraq starting in 2003. Or maybe he thinks, when did this book come out? Oh, 2002. Or, when did I work there? 2004? When did I fly there? 2001? When was this movie made? 2005? He was saying that whenever he hears a recent date, within the past seven or eight years or so, he always automatically thinks, "Was Andrew alive then?" It's not a big deal. Not that it makes anything good or bad. I guess it's just a mental habit, this Andrew timeline. But it amazed me to hear him say that because I do exactly the same thing when I hear dates. It's like everything gets sorted into two piles - before October 3rd, 2004 and after that day. I guess it's my frame of reference for this decade, and perhaps for the rest of my life.

I have my own odd little kitchen memory too. I can't remember whether it was the day before he died or about six weeks before, but he was at our apartment for a family gathering, and he had a paper cup he was using. Instead of writing his own name on it to distinguish it from the crowd, he wrote a weird joke name. I just went and looked at it in my cupboard. I keep it with the candles and the mugs I don't use, and I have a little note in it saying, "Please don't throw this cup away." I was just showing it to Brad and we cannot remember how the joke was started or really what it was about. I just keep the cup with his writing on it.

Nothing earthshattering. Just wanted to write.

"The Irony" or " The Best Laid Seat Covers..."

I got a marvelous gift from Penny at my baby shower, about a year ago. It's a grocery cart seat cover so that Aiden can sit in the front part of the cart when I shop, and be protected from all the nasty germs/bacteria/viruses that generally inhabit those things. My germaphobic heart rejoiced to receive such a gift. It covers pretty much every surface of the front of the cart and it's beautiful. I just recently started using it because he can now sit up by himself ( Hurray!) which is great because I was getting pretty tired of putting his carseat in the back of the cart, and thereby having very little room in the cart to put groceries.

So yesterday I went to Sam's Club to pick up a couple items and I used the cart cover...except the carts at Sam's are just like everything else at that esteemed establishment - sized for Jabba the Hutt. So the cover didn't exactly fit. But, no matter. I'm flexible. I can deal with these little discrepancies. I put Aiden in the cart, did my shopping, paid, and left. As I walked out into the parking lot and looked around to make sure we weren't walking into the path of any oncoming vehicles, my attention was distracted from Aiden for a few seconds. When I looked down at him, I could not believe my eyes. He was leaning over, almost prone in the seat, SUCKING on the exposed part of the side of the cart, not covered by the too-small seat cover. AAAAUGH! I was horrified and amused at the same time.

Figures.

Aiden, 1. Control Freak Mother Claire, 0.