. The Game .

“Your graciousness is what carries you. It isn’t how old you are, how young you are, how beautiful you are, or how short your skirt is. What it is, is what comes out of your heart. If you are gracious, you have won the game.” 

-Stevie Nicks

. This Lady .

I got a speeding ticket on an old back road with too many people in my car. Five days later, I was graced with another. I stepped up our old farmhouse stairs, sat down on mom's bed, and told her I had been pulled over again.

"I know," she said, her voice groggy with sleep. "I saw it."

Sure enough - you could see clear to the highway through her bedroom windows.

That's the thing about moms, you know? They know everything.

A week before school got out, I looked at a bright kid and asked him if he lied to his momma the same way he was lying to me. "Yea," he said, with that trademark grin. "But she doesn't know the difference."

Oh, how I wish I could've made him see in that moment. Instead, I just smiled back at him. He'll learn. Maybe not now, maybe not even in five years. But one Christmas, he'll be sitting by the tree with his wife, or with his daughter, and his momma will run her hand through his blonde hair, and she'll tell a riotous story about a night when he was in high school -- a night that he thought he had hidden from her so well. And then he'll know. She knew everything ... all along.

Moms know everything.

Every scratch.
Every ache.
Every boy, every late night ...
Every single story. 

Moms know.

And thank God.

xo, B.

. Witness .

When I was little, my dad wore a Texas A&M shirt. It was one of those plain grey ones with the maroon letters scrawled across the front - probably something given to him free at school. He would sit at his massive desk, studying - his blonde hair thinning. His mechanical pencils were black; the erasers were too small for my five-year-old penmanship. His desk chair was itchy and he was always - always - graphing things on graph paper.

I drew houses.

I wasted his small erasers.

And one day - years later - I stole his shirt. The collar was wearing thin, there was a hole on the bottom seam, but it was so, so soft. I don't know how he didn't miss it.

It went with me to college, and it is now neatly tucked away in my t-shirt drawer. It dawned on me the other day - that shirt? That grey, worn shirt has been around for nearly 25 years. Through Ohio. Through Missouri. Through breast cancer, boating in the summers, prom, divorce, the farm, and through those quiet nights at Peru, when the snow was falling and the only thing lighting up campus was the old streetlights down the sidewalks.

Maybe you think it's silly ... to love a t-shirt so much?

I don't.

xo, B.

. Adventures in Pregnancy: Part Seven .

The Huz and I have lived in this house for five years. In the past two weeks, we've hung Paris pictures (that mom bought for me in 2007), changed out the screen door hardware (gone is the icky gold), painted the bedrooms in the house, and completely - and I do mean completely - reorganized everything. I just can't help myself. I'm all, "We need to paint everything. TODAY."

I'm desperately trying to keep the clutter to a minimum, but I have no idea what we'll need and what we won't need. I put the stock of binkies we have through the dishwasher this afternoon and found myself questioning whether or not we really NEED 30.

Tonight, Aaron and I were out relaxing on our brand new patio furniture (another improvement from the last two weeks), and I asked if I should pack Baby T. socks for the trip home.

"And what, exactly, GOES in a diaper bag?" I asked, my eyes wide.

The boy shrugged his shoulders. "You should call your mom."

Yea. Because my mom gave birth for the last time thirty years ago, and by the way, it was at a hospital halfway across the world ... on Guam. It was probably so hot that I didn't even wear clothes. 

I tossed a blanket into the ginoooooormous Kate Spade diaper bag (that I've been DYING to use for months now), and called it good. That might just be the Thumann Parenting Philosophy in a nutshell.

[I should also let the masses know that, no, at 37 weeks, I am NOT packed for the hospital. I believe in living life on the edge.]

A couple of random notes:

• If you're buying a Chicco pack and play and you're pregnant, don't be afraid to ask for help in putting it together. Don't try to be all Miss-I-Can-Do-It-All-Myself. There was a brief moment of despair (directly after rolling the 100 pound bi-yatch over my big toe), when I looked up at The Huz with tears in my eyes and partially put together mobile in my hand. To his credit, he kept his "told you so" look toned down and started helping without another word. 
• I put together our Britax stroller easily (kuuuuudos to that company for making it simple). Getting the carseat off of the base? A whooooole different story. Why do they need to make this crap tricky? And then, after getting irritated with the whole mess, I took the dog outside. After coming back in, I tripped right on over that errant carseat base. Of course. 
• AT drank at lunch today, which is uncommon in our world. I'm thinking about buying a six-pack of Miller Lite and taking it to the hospital in my as-of-yet-unpacked bag. Is that wrong? 

I do love a good beer.

xo, B.

. How To Make Your Husband Swear .

Order nine photos of the Paris Color Project from The Paris Print Shop (aka: Obvious State).

Buy nine pretty, white frames.

Ask him sweetly to hang them. Because you're pregnant. And you can bat your blue eyes with the best of them.

Tell him you want them three by three and that, since you're so anal, they have to be straight.

AT says he didn't sign an agreement saying I could use his image. But he does have a nice rear. So ...

He'll hang them, too. Because he's a nice guy like that. Even if his thumb was sliced open while changing out the screen door your dog broke last week while trying to chase down some errant, unafraid-of-death-by-dog squirrel.

Tell him about all of the wonderful DIY blogs you've read, and how he's doing it wrong, and how he definitely needs to trace the frames onto paper first, then tape up the paper, and maybe he should put toothpaste on the hanger hook thingie to transfer onto the wall for reference.

Tell him that his laser leveler isn't straight.

Fall asleep on the couch during the middle of the process. 

xoxo, The Girl With The New Gallery Wall

. Expectation .

Aaron and I were on our way to our hospital tour last weekend, and I leaned my chair back and put my feet up on the dash - which is how I normally ride in the car.

"Our kid is going to be so cool," he said. I hope I always remember what his face looked like - his half smirk and his blinking behind his Ray Bans.

"Well, with a mom like me ..." I said, smiling and looking back out the window.

"I really hope ..." He trailed off and I turned to look at him. He was looking back at me. "I really hope he just cares about people. You know?"

Ahhh, how I know. 

We both work with teenagers. We see both the bad and the very, very good. Our child doesn't have to be perfect, but if he cares about others - if he wants to help others and if he lives humbly ... then we'll have done our job.

I hope he's the kid that sits with the not-so-popular kid to work in a group. I hope he's the kid that picks up the trash in the hallway, instead of walking past it like the others. I hope he's the kid that laughs, laughs, laughs - the kid that's easy going and happy. I hope he's the kid that is respectfully stands his ground when he knows he's right. And I hope he's the kid that always says yes - yes to adventure, yes to new things, yes to everything.

We'll see.

xoxo, B.

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. Lately .

It's been a crazy-hectic week around here. AT and I have been battening down the hatches ... we survived the last week of school and are now sitting on the couch, enjoying the evening, taking deep, calm, relaxing breaths. We made it.

I also took it upon myself to fix up our hallway a bit. AT, the poor man, walked in after work one evening (which is how it ALWAYS goes) to find me COVERED in spray adhesive and The Great Gatsby plastered on our walls. The huz, in all of his infinite wisdom, didn't even bat an eyelash. He just started tearing pages out and helping -- no questions. I really like that about him.

A couple of things to note about this super quick project.

• I used the cheap spray adhesive at Wal-Mart. It was $3, but it was the only kind there safe for pregnant women to use. I think it was 3M. 
• I sprayed the back of the pages, and then I sprayed the wall. There are three walls in my hallway and there is still about a half a can of spray adhesive left. 
• If you have carpet, lay down a drop cloth. If you have hardwoods, lay down a drop cloth and wear socks. Stuff was stuck to my feet that I don't even want to talk about. 
• The first three hours with this was ah-ma-zing. The pages are beautiful, old, weathered, and it's one of my favorite books. It was so cool to highlight specific pages at eye level. 
• AFTER the first three hours ... well. I wake up in the middle of the night, walk through the hallway and pages stick to my feet. AT tacks pages up every night when he comes home, because I've completely given up. It's annoying the bejeezus out of me, but I'm leaving it up because I'm too stubborn to give up.

If you can figure out how to keep the pages on the wall in a way that they don't fall off? You let me know.

We're at T minus three weeks until Baby T. arrives. Tonight, when I got home, I went ape-shit-crazy on our kitchen cupboards. Biznass got real and the back of our SUV is full. Tomorrow, I take on the bedroom. Nesting. It's like cocaine to Type A people like me who already enjoy organizing. It's the best thing ever. 

Peace out!

Bec
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