Thank you Facebook

But I like YOU mom

Random, non-sensical mom moment.

John and I have a double date tomorrow night with our best "couple" friends. The plan is to have my nephew babysit, he's pretty much a hero in Luke's eyes and so far we've yet to have any issues when he watches our kids. After school today I was telling Luke that Jake was going to come over tomorrow night and this ensued:

Luke: But Mawm, I want you and dad. I don't want you to go out.

Me: But Luke, you have so much fun with Jacob. I'll be home for dinner and then we'll have bathtime and get ready for bed. You like when he comes over to play.

Luke: But Mawm. I like YOU. I want you and dad to put me to bed.

Me: waxes euphoric on the need for mom and dad to have time away from home with our friends. Pretty much think he heard the lady from Peanuts. What wah wah wah.

Luke: Today in school we didn't go to the gym Mawm. And I didn't eat my snack. I need a drink Mawm. Where's my Matchbox car? Are we going to pick up dad? What's for dinner tonight? Can we have Panera Bread soup?

Game over.

Dear Dad,

A copy of this picture hangs in my office.

Ellie has been going around out of the blue telling people, "I have Papa's eyes." Luke asked if we could have Villa's bread with dinner tonight. Mom talks about you to the kids on Fridays, guess it's sinking in.

Your CBMU 202 coin lives on a little shelf in our kitchen. The kids call it "Papa's coin", they like to look at it at least once a week and give it a kiss. Did you know that Tom held it in his hand as he walked me down the aisle? See how tight his hand is? It felt as if we stood in the vestibule crying together for 5 minutes before we took that walk. I was strong and prepared to walk tall until I saw him and the tears and the coin in the palm of his hand.

Thanks for showing us how to be honorable people and to pursue our dreams through hard work and perseverance. You lived with integrity. You were first-rate. You clearly made it seem as though you were honored to be our father and her husband. Life with you included an air of positivity and pushing your limits to better yourself, ignoring the negativity of others and not letting "them" drag you down. Failure for you meant a time of growth. Thank you for instilling us with these values and the example of the give and take of a good marriage. Mom certainly gets the gold star medal of valor for being your wife and supporting all of your public roles. The two of you were dynamic.

And He will raise you up on eagles' wings

Bear you on the breath of dawn

Make you to shine like the sun

And hold you in the palm of His hand.

Trying to keep the faith with gutters full of rain

These past few weeks have really rocked my boat. My church has been through a horrific scandal, my kids have been non-stop sick (nebulizers, recurrent ear infections, strep throat, stomach flu), John ended up with an infection, and then received a promotion at work (something positive!). The church thing has stung and left me angry. I keep talking about it at home and wanting to know what others think and asking my mom what her friends think. I mean I realize this is sadly only one of many scandals and while I have known that there were wrongdoings in the Catholic church all along when it slaps you across the face it shakes your foundation. I couldn't sleep the other night and I came to the conclusion that that's just it, my foundation has indeed been shaken. In the last eight years I lost my father, my future father-in-law, and my grandmother.

Now a truck is parked in my mother's driveway and it's not my father's.

I will never spend a holiday crammed into my grandmother's house with all of my cousins again.

A priest I knew did horrible things to kids my age, and our Bishop knew this was happening yet did nothing to stop it. I know I can't categorize every priest into this category, there are good ones out there, doing honorable things but I feel as if my faith was stolen. My father was President of the Parish Council when I was little and I remember spending many evenings after school at the rectory with him. He would tend to whatever council business he had to do and I would watch reruns of MASH in one of the priests bedrooms (no the priest wasn't in the room with me), or watch the housekeeper as she prepared dinner. I was free to roam about, sometimes hiding on the plush carpeted stairs or hypothesizing if the giant red velvet chairs that were roped off were there for some future Papal visit.

I grew up in this church, I was baptized and married here.

I wore my mother's First Communion gown for my First Communion.

My grandmother helped to put her kids through Catholic school by making and selling her spaghetti sauce to Sam's Diner on Dix Avenue as well as to local affluent doctors. My son goes to that very same school today.

I know what you're thinking: Amy, you're 34 years old, people die and priests are flawed humans like the rest of us. Move on with your life. I know this. I know it's time to make new traditions, to find our own way as the Stevens family. The constants of my life are evolving as is my role in all of it.

My dad always said, "keep the faith." The one thing I have realized through all of this is that while the institution of the Catholic church may be corrupt, the community of people that I grew up with is the foundation that grounds me.

David Gray: Gutters Full of Rain

A gutter full of rain
An empty picture frame
A house out at the edges of the city
Never noticing the war
Til it's right there at your door
And suddenly your hands are bloody

Let it go now
Let it all slip away
And we'll start it all over again
Me like a million others before
Trying to make sense of the rain

Were these twenty years a dream
Was it ever as it seemed
Get to wonder if it really existed
Cause the thief who stole my life
Has taken too my faith
I can see now how the world gets
Twisted

In spite of all the shame
Sometimes I hear your name
I think of us when we were younger
Then I'm shutting out the noise
And I'm trying to hear the voice
That used to tell me love was
Stronger

Ellie "Harry Potter" Grace

I mean really, life can't get any better than this.

She woke up from her nap on Sunday and when I went in to get her I found him in her crib.

All because two people fell in love

Oh Brad Paisley you've undone me again.
A baby's born in the middle of the night in the local delivery room;They grab his feet, smack him till he cries, he goes home the next afternoon. Before you know it he's off to school, and then he graduates in May; Goes out and gets a Ph.D. and then cures all sorts of things. Wins the Nobel Prize and saves a million different lives; The world's a better place for all he's done.

It's funny when you think about the reason he's alive
Is all because two people fell in love.

Right now at a picnic shelter down by Canyon Creek You'll find potato salad, hot dogs and baked beans. The whole Wilson family's lined up filling their paper plates, And they drove or've flown in here from fifteen different states

Stanley Wilson says that sixty years ago he knew
That Miss Emma Tucker was the one. Now five generations get together every June, All because two people fell in love.

Yeah, there ain't nothing not affected When two hearts get connected All that is, will be, or ever was. Every single choice we make, Every breath we get to take, Is all because two people fell in love.

I'm glad your dad could not resist Your mother's charms, and you exist;
All because two people fell in love.

You know, to me it's all so clear:
Every one of us is here
All because two people fell in love.

Hair of the dog

Apparently I can't stay away. I was going through the archives and these two just melted my heart. Blessed.

And I cut my hair super short again. It's easy, and as freaked out about how I feel all "facey" with no hair to hide behind, I also just simply love it.