If you are interested, email me at tricia@alum.mit.edu with LIVE-LAUGH-LOVE in the subject line. Put your mailing address in the body of the message and sent it to me before midnight EST on Christmas Day.
I have to tell the story of the Giggle scrapbooking board in the magazine photo. You see my oldest making hilarious faces for the camera. He was three and we were staying in Germany with my husband on a business trip for two weeks. I was taking advantage of my husband being busy and took my son to Amsterdam that day (a day trip to another country on the train! Already you know things might not have gone as planned with a toddler). I had arranged to visit the Purses Museum and its original owners who were so gracious to take the glass off the cases and allow me to examine their collection of sweet bags in anticipation of a book I was working on. David played on the floor. At one point he got pretty annoyed with me that I was taking so long so to get attention - he dropped his drawers. Yup, that got our attention and they laughed mightily while I was horrified. After leaving I just had to meet and visit Martin Ex in his shop in the center of the city. After feeding David and putting a pile of toys on the floor in the shop, I drooled over the samplers. At one point I was talking to myself - 'gosh I want this'. David heard me and in a typical 3-year old response said 'Isn't it your birthday today mommmmy?'. That was all I needed and the first sampler I ever bought was packed up to ship overseas.
These pictures resulted from our train ride back. By then he was soooo tired, cranky and nasty that the conductor had taken pity on me and those on the train and ushered me into a small private car with him. I was desperate to keep him quiet and decided to use my new digital research camera with a screen on the back to let him make faces at the camera. It kept him busy for over an hour as we sped through the Dutch landscape. And of course it produced some of the funniest pictures we have of him.
As I write this blog I am smiling remembering that hectic day as a young mother - and crying a bit remembering some of the past. I am writing these blogs to busy my mind today to distract me as we wait a few more hours until the minute that the college of his dreams releases their decision. I am sick to my stomach right now. 6:58pm. Dreading it and what stress these colleges are putting on all these talented kids (Yesterday Harvard came out. David told me that someone brought a F**K Harvard cake to school and gave pieces away to all those rejected - some 60 kids with amazing accomplishments). They rejected one of our absolutely amazing robot kids who will definitely be CEO of a tech company some day. Their huge loss I told him last night. At 6 pm David's girlfriend gets an email from Brown telling her if her dream is fulfilled. 6:58pm is MIT. It is a hard week for everyone. You know yes or no and then a long wait if it is a no until the spring to see if you get accepted by anyone. All of these kids have done 'everything right' - studied hard, gotten A's, worked in the community, stayed clean/sober, and are well spoken great citizens. It is so hard to watch them take hit after hit when we all tell them if they work hard, they will do well. They will do well - but not where they wanted to be.
So sitting here and looking at the funny face guy is a great antidote to the stress of the moment. And a reminder to Live - Laugh - and Love.
Tricia
Yeah! I won this Christmas day and wanted to say thank you! It was so much fun - a nice, quiet minute in a busy time of year. Your generosity to us stitchers is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteThank you,
Lois