Morbidly Speaking

Tomorrow we visit out attorneys to have our wills drawn up. (What does this mean anyway, drawn up?) We have selected guardians for the girls and picked executors and decided where our ashes will be spread someday. That was depressing.

The attorneys said that we shouldn’t make wills very personal. It should all be straightforward. Money and assets. This makes me sad because I kind of envisioned wills like yearbook bequeathals. Something like this: “And to Jenni in Jersey I leave my Pyrex collection and a stick of butter to grease herself out of the booth. Ten Jen Ten. I’m turning into the letter C! Never forget BBQ 2007! Twinz Rule!” In other words, an arcane and annoying-to-read private joke filled with references only understand by two.

And I also envisioned the reading of my will. A bunch of people sitting in the attorney’s office. They all listen patiently and quietly, dabbing the corners of their eyes with cloth handkerchiefs, blinking back tears by looking to the sky, while the executor of my will reads out who gets my pictures and my dishes and my books etc. Inevitably, someone will raise a fist to the air in a Why-God-Why? moment and let out a wail.

Apparently this only happens in movies, though I like my version better.

We may not be getting personal in the will but we did get all technical about our ashes, creating quite a little journey for the girls some day! Ugh, morbid again.

Back to the present: One of the pluses of staying at home with children is having the ability to catch each and every milestone. Ostensibly I will be here when the babies take their first tentative steps, when they utter their first slurry two-letter words and when they discover they can fling applesauce across the room. So what happens today? Nicole comes home from work, changes her clothes and then settles on the floor next to Maddie, who is having the time of her life on her play mat. Maddie sees Nicole, smiles and three seconds later, Maddie rolls over. It was as if she was saying “Ta Da! Look what I can do, Mommy! And I saved it just for you!” This is also the child whose first smile was at the ceiling fan. Is this a sign of things to come?

I realize my role as parent is to impart wisdom/teach lessons to the girls. But they are already teaching me a thing or two. I have to say I am really learning to live more in the moment, because you never know when your next moment is going to come when there are two babies running around (in a sense). This is hard for me though. I am such a pleasure delayer and always have been. For example, why eat a bag of Gummi Bears when you can wait to eat said Gummi Bears and look forward to eating said Gummi Bears for a long time? I am also a pleasure combiner. Why just eat Gummi Bears? Why not eat Gummi Bears while watching an episode of 24 and flipping through a magazine? I like to put off things that I look forward to AND combine them with other pleasurable things. If you know this about me you will really understand what makes me tick.

But now, there is no way to plan for pleasure. I feel like it is my right to eat one ice cream bar a night. And I do, one a night since the girls were born. I look forward to it and enjoy it the most after the girls are in bed and I am sitting on the couch in my pajamas and glasses watching some ridiculous show. But most nights this is not possible. Now I eat that ice cream whenever I can. Without the TV on. And not sitting on the couch. This may seem petty but it is huge for me. Letting go of plans, relinquishing power and letting the chips fall where they may. It’s a whole new me.

It’s the same thing with reading. I used to have to have everything just so to enjoy reading a book. Now I read a page here and a page there. I’ll hold a book in one hand and read two pages while rocking the stroller with the other hand. I read while blow drying my hair. While the girls nap on my shoulder. Whenever and wherever I can. Last night in the wee small hours of the morning I finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns. What a great book. I thought it was weird that I read the part of the book that takes place on 9/11 on 9/11. Another morbid thought.

Anyone have any good book recommendations? I already read Water for Elephants, Memory Keeper's Daughter and Glass Castle, which seem to be the books making the rounds on book lists these days. On my night stand I have Away (Bloom), Still Summer (Mitchard) and The Tenderness of Wolves (Penney). On my to-buy list is Stephen Pinker’s new book on how language is a window into human nature. What else should I read? You know, in ALL my free time? (I like to have stacks ready to read). Middlesex? Is that any good? The Road, by Cormac McCarthy?

Pictured above is Maddie, showing Nicole privately what she can do. Pictured below that are Maddie and Avery. Notice Maddie is already torturing her sister by putting her finger in her ear.