Circles of Understanding

I love moments where I see a connection happening between one of my parents and one of my children.  I'm so lucky to be sandwiched in between such great people.

My parents came down for a quick visit, so Timothy and I took them to the Hoover Dam (since, you know, that's kind of what you do in Boulder City).

Did you know that if you slowly dump water out of a water bottle over the dam that the water will fly up and hit you in the face?  It's true. We did it.

I also love moments when my parents teach me something... like that those weird giant stabber things sitting next to the grill when we moved in were actually rotisserie hooks, and that you can buy whole chickens in regular grocery stores and cook them on your own grill Costco Rotisserie Chicken style.   None of us had done it before, but it was a.m.a.z.i.n.g!  So juicy and flavorful!  

We let the kids have the chicken for dinner that night and we adults hopped into my dad's spiffy convertible to travel down to the strip for dinner and a show.

Brian and I had fun with my parents, and we came home happy and full to a quiet, clean house. I felt blessed for two reasons: first, that I have such wonderful parents that I enjoy spending time with, and second, that I have such wonderful kids who are happy and willing to let us go for an evening.  The kids had had fun... they made dinner, ate dessert, watched movies, and cleaned everything up.  McKenzie put all three boys to bed and then climbed into bed herself to read until she, too, fell fast asleep.

I remember those nights when I was a 12-year-old drifting to sleep in my bed after an evening of babysitting. I remember drifting back into consciousness - just a little - when my mother, back from her evening out, opened my bedroom door and tiptoed across the room...  I remember the smell of Party on her as she bent to kiss my cheek - fresh make-up, hairspray, fabric softener, a dab of perfume...  I remember the feeling of love I felt towards her in that half-conscious state, happy she had gone to have a good time, and happy she was back.

I never even thought to wonder about what she felt in those dark, quiet moments...

I'm so proud of McKenzie. I opened her bedroom door and tiptoed across the room.  I watched her sleep for a moment and marveled at the young woman she is becoming.  I noticed the smell of Party on her as I bent to kiss her cheek - sweat, dirty hair, mac 'n' cheese, rotisserie chicken...  I was so full of love and appreciation, happy to have gone to have a good time, and so very happy to be back.

The next morning, my parents drove away while Timothy and I stood in the driveway waving good bye.  I paid attention to the way my heart pulled for them to come back - just for a moment - while their car got smaller and smaller.  I noticed the happy feelings in my heart that lingered long after they had disappeared, and I noticed the gratitude I felt that they had taken the time to come.

This time I thought to wonder about what they felt.

Someday, when McKenzie stands with her child and waves goodbye to me, maybe I'll know.

Timothy and I walked back inside the house and threw our efforts into packing the family for our ski trip, and a few hours later we were ready to roll.  But thankfully, very thankfully, before we rolled out for the weekend I found that the children had stored the delicious leftover rotisserie chicken carcass from the night before safely in the microwave.

San Francisco

For McKenzie's twelfth birthday, Brian and I gave her A Trip To San Francisco with just the three of us because we felt like it would solidify her impression of us being the Most Awesome. An impression I would like to have strengthened as she preps herself to enter into this land of teenagers who are too cool, ya know?  We hired a young couple to come stay in our house and take care of the boys under simple instructions: As long as everyone is happy and alive when we get back, anything goes.

Brian had to see a few patients at his clinic on Saturday morning before our plane took off, so McKenzie and I tagged along.  I know Brian so well... I know what kind of a doctor he is, I know how he treats his patients, I know how much they love him.  But seeing it?  That was a pretty cool thing.  McKenzie and I waited in the waiting room for the most part and listened to the patients tell us how much they loved Dr. Alder.  Of course you do, I wanted to to say.  He's Brian.  But I didn't say that because that would have been awkward and presumptuous.  So I just nodded along and agreed that he's a pretty great guy.

Also, his name is on the side of a building.  I'm pretty sure that makes him some kind of famous.

Brian rushed through the patients that morning so we wouldn't miss our flight, but he needn't have.  Turns out our plane was (and so we were) delayed for s.e.v.e.r.a.l. hours (3) before we finally got the idea to ask if we could fly out on a different plane. Yes?  Hm. Wish we had done that earlier...

But no biggie. We entertained ourselves by walking around to look at the butterflies hanging from the ceiling.  

Or, I should say McKenzie and I walked around... Brian suddenly crashed with a fever and spent the three hours sleeping on a bench.  Terrible timing, really.

Finally we were off!

We landed at the perfect time to stroll to our hotel through the sunset.  Poor Brian was about to die, so we stopped in at a CVS and bought some Tylenol.  He and McKenzie each had some because by this point, McKenzie had started to feel extra lethargic as well.  Terrible timing, really.

But she was happy to jump on the bed for a minute anyway.

McKenzie and I almost left Brian back in the hotel room to rest while we went in search of food, but at the last minute he decided he wanted to join us.  I was so impressed by his will to Be Present during this special vacation - even though he felt so awful.  During the dinner, McKenzie fell further into her own slump of sickness.  But, aside from feeling bad for the two of them, I had a delightful time.  The Caramel Pizza was the cutest little pizza place with delicious (to Brian and me) and disgusting (to McKenzie) wood fired pizza.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped in at Ghiradelli Square to get ourselves some chocolate.  Brian decided it would be best for him to walk back to the hotel instead of to stop in for chocolate, and after he left McKenzie and I had some great girl talks about being twelve and the situations she might find herself in.  We talked (a lot) about friends and (a little) about boys before Brian showed up again.  "It gets a little dark on the way back," he informed us in his feverish state.  "I didn't like the idea of you guys walking back alone."

Love him.

Hello to Brian and his double sized head!  

The next day Brian was feeling better and McKenzie was feeling worse. Darn.  So we took our our itinerary ideas and whittled them down into the things McKenzie most wanted to do.  Alcatraz topped the list (whew, because we had already spent a lot of money on those tickets!) so we spent most of the day slowly exploring The Rock.

It was fantastic.  I'd been a couple of times before, but taking McKenzie through it was the best.  She was so intrigued and such a sponge... at the end she even bought a book written by a woman who was a resident teenager on the island during one of the most famous escape attempts.  It was this that she wrote about and, as luck would have it, she was sitting in the bookstore signing copies.  We talked to her for a few minutes and had her sign Kenzie's book.

After the tour we sat and chilled for a while - talking (Brian and me), reading (Kenzie), and waiting for our name to be called for dinner.

The Fog Harbor Fish House had the most incredible crab sandwich I have ever eaten.  Which isn't actually saying much because I'd never actually eaten one before.

McKenzie had a few bites of her salad and was done.

But even so, it was such a beautiful setting and I was with such beautiful people and eating such a deliciously beautiful crab sandwich that all was well.

McKenzie reeeeeeeeeally enjoyed the bubbles in her soda.

After dinner we decided to hop on one of those double decker tour buses that I always make fun of.  It seemed like a good option that would allow Kenz to be able to sit, but still see the city.  So just like eager little tourists, we climbed up the stairs with our cameras in hand and found a spot on the top of the bus.

Turns out it was actually a terrible idea because it was freezing on top of the bus, and down inside the bus she felt nauseous and car sick.  So, darn.

But the bus did take us to this incredible spot where we could see the skyline and the bay bridge.  Beautiful.

And being on top of the bus was pretty cool as I got to see things from a vantage point that isn't all that common.

I hope McKenzie will have great memories of this vacation even though she was sick.  I think she'll remember Alcatraz, and I think she'll remember our crazy bus driver (who for some reason was obsessed with talking about nude people) who kept shouting "Happy Valentimmme's Day!" to everyone passing along on the street, and I think she'll remember the random 3D interactive adventure ride we did where our purpose was to shoot crazy people in cars (?), and I think she'll remember the hours of playing scum and nertz in our hotel room, and on the ferry to Alcatraz, and in airports, and I think she'll remember chocolate at Ghiradelli's, and that she does not care for wood fired pizza.

But I hope, most of all, that she remembers the happiness.  I hope she remembers the love.  I hope she remembers the beauty.

Twelve

My McKenzie.

I've embarrassed myself recently with how much I talk about this girl.  I can't help it though.  She's just so amazing.

So amazing.

The other night as Brian and I were getting ready for bed, the topic of McKenzie came floating into our conversations.  (Side note: Now that I know just how much parents talk to each other about their kids, I would be fascinated to be able to go back and listen to some of the conversations my own parents had about me throughout the years.  Wouldn't that be interesting?)

"I am so impressed with McKenzie lately," I said. "I don't even know how to put it into words, but... she's... she's... ..."

"She's a good kid," Brian helped.

"Well, yes... but it's more than that," I said, still searching.  "She's... an Amazing... Person."

Brian was silent for a couple of seconds, and then started nodding his head in agreement as the weight of that subtle change of words sunk into his heart.

She is.  She is an amazing person.  You know how when you hold an unlit firework in your hands and you can't believe that something so small can create such a big and powerful explosion?  That's how I feel about McKenzie.  She is packed with so much potential that I believe she really could do anything.  (Except maybe map her way through jungles and deserts, or towns and cities, or home from her piano lessons that are less than a mile away. She has a terrible sense of direction.)

She turned 12, you know.  Twelve years old.  It's a big age for us because this is the age that she steps from the children's organization of our church into the youth organization... this transition provides for me a measure of tangible evidence that she is, indeed, growing up and entering into the wonderful and confusing world of adolescence. For so many years she has been traveling along Child Road, learning along the way the whos and whats of life: who God is, what she is doing here, what kindness feels like, who she is, what sharing is, and caring is, and honesty, and faith, humility, service, punctuality, trust, love...

She has traveled well and has learned much.

But now she finds herself at a bend in her road, standing beneath an old road sign with one wooden stake pointing the direction from which she came and the other pointing the direction to which she faces. One marked CHILD, one marked YOUTH.  Along this new road she will find that her lessons are much more focused on the whys and hows of life: how to be faithful, why one must have charity, how to be compassionate, why she should strive for honesty and humility, how to deal with disappointments, why one should be hopeful and grateful and prayerful...

She will travel this one well, I'm sure, and will learn much.

She has a lot of helpers to lovingly guide her along.

The night before her birthday, she and Grandma snuggled up on the couch and Grandma told her all about the memories she had of McKenzie's first few hours and days and weeks and months of life.  It was a truly beautiful moment.

Brian and I, on the other hand, decided to go the fun route, and decorated the outside of her door once she was asleep.

The next morning (on the special day of February 4th) she came down to a table full of love... actually, she came down to two tables full of love. The one pictured above with love in the form of gifts and decorations, and the one in the dining room with love in the form of a delicious breakfast and seven happy people, pumped and prepped and ready to celebrate her life.

Once she was off to school, I set to work making her delicious mint ice cream and Oreo cake which took me a few hours what with the shopping and the crushing Oreos into fine crumbs and all.  But soon it was finished and ready to be put into the freezer.

Somehow this happened.  The entire blasted thing toppled from my hands and landed face first onto the mat in front of the freezer.  I almost cried - but then I remembered that it was just a cake and that I had nothing better to do than to spend a few hours re-buying all of the ingredients and making it all over again (ahem).  I took this picture to show my mother-in-law (who was feeling quite sick on the couch but was reading to Timothy anyway), and when she saw it she shrugged her shoulders and said, "Just put it all back in the pan. I won't tell anyone, you won't tell anyone, so no big deal," and when she saw the horrified look on my face added, "well, that's what I would do anyway, but if you'd like to make it all over again, you go right ahead."

Actually, I didn't want to make it all over again...

Everyone said the cake was delicious, and I would like to point out, completely unrelated, that no one got sick in the week after McKenzie's birthday.

The evening was lovely.

In the last few slivers of sunlight, Grandpa gave the boys a few basketball pointers,

and McKenzie closed them out reading.

We had a delicious birthday dinner of home grilled steak, baked potatoes and corn (McKenzie knows how to pick them), and then we sat down around the breakfast table to open presents.  We sat, and sat and sat, waiting for McKenzie who was behaving far too much like a teenager for my own liking:

Feet up in the air, talking on the phone.  Thankfully it was to her Aunt Michelle and Uncle Jake and not to her boyfriend (to be clear, she doesn't have a boyfriend), but still... feet up in the air?!

After talking to Michelle and Jake, she got another phone call from Uncle Brian.  So we waited some more.

Eventually she joined us and the unwrapping was a success.  She's getting good these days.

Brian and I gave her a trip to San Francisco, just the three of us.  One of her favorite gifts ifIdosaysomyself.

Following the presents, we all hopped into the van and drove to the gym where we watched her play a great game of basketball.

Some of our party was bored, but they were all good sports.

The following day we finished off her celebrations by inviting twelve girls over for pizza, minute to win it games, and cake.

It was nuts.

With the dining room full of girls (and Timothy), the boys were shoved to another area to eat their pizza.

Happy twelfth, beautiful!