Notes from ShellyCentral

My sister's having a baby!

i have had some super good news for a while now. At first it was a secret and I couldn't share, and then when I had permission I wasn't sure how to effectively share how profoundly excited I am.

My sister Megan is going to have a baby.

I have not been around a baby on a regular basis since Hannah was a baby. I do have a nephew, named Matthew, but I don't see him or his mom (my step-sister Traci) very often at all. My half brother Jared and his wife Rachel are expecting a baby very soon, but they live in Nebraska and I imagine I won't see that niece/nephew much either.

So not only will it be the first time I've gotten to know a baby in a long time, it will be the first time I get to be a full on Auntie, with lots of baby sitting and throwing showers and maybe even in the hospital room. She is going to be a single mom and I am excited to step in and help out. I am also excited that I will get to go full on auntie before I am a grandma. It's something I've worried about. Just a little.

It's Megan's baby, of course, but it effects and changes our whole family. And that is what is so exciting. Of course the baby stuff kicks ass, but it's really the thought of this whole new person coming to join us and I wonder what they'll be like that's the best part. I'm so excited to meet this baby! And get to know it and take it places and watch it grow. Just like I did with Hannah but it'll be so much easier because it's not my baby. I'll just be the exciting auntie.

He will be Jack if he's a boy, and Jill if she's a girl (but we'll call her Jilly). I plan to try to help expose him or her to as many things as possible in this big amazing world. Of course I'll sneak in lots of travel and art and history bits. Megan will be a grade school teacher so I'm sure she will insist on lots of reading and proper grammar. This baby will rock.

So now you know. I finally got to share my most exciting news. Hooray for Megan and hooray for her new baby. It's scheduled to arrive December 15; ten days before xmas, 3 days (I think) before Megan's graduation from Emporia State, and 11 days after me, Hannah, Brian and Karen get back from Disney World. Poor Jack or Jill will be a christmas baby. But he or she will be so super loved I don't think he or she will mind.

Hurry up baby! 204 more days!!

The Girl

Slight change in plans

Hannah and I spent most of spring break at my mom’s house.

We were sitting around one day, talking. I think my mom was asking Hannah about the Grandpa Trip and Hannah surprised me by saying she was afraid of the Grandpa Trip and didn’t know if she wanted to go.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised. Here I am planning this big trip that seems like a big deal to me and I haven’t even thought of how it might seem to a not quite 17 year old who has hardly ever been away from home. And whose biggest city visited so far is Kansas City, MO.

She thinks she’ll be too homesick. It’s true she gets homesick after just a couple days (but she’s held up against it for a week of camp several times), and our trip was adding up to several weeks.

I let her know I didn’t expect her to do anything she didn’t want to, and that maybe we could cut things short and just see the places she’s really excited about. She said she didn’t know, she didn’t want to not go but she didn’t want to be there and be miserable.

Later, she told me she had thought it over and was really up for the whole thing, but I’m not so sure now. As selfish and travel hungry as I am, I don’t want Hannah’s first trip abroad to turn into a nightmare for her so she’ll never want to travel again. So I’ve been thinking about places we can leave out.

It’s not really hard to think of the first few places to cut. There are plenty of places I put on the list that Hannah really couldn’t care less about. The entire country of Wales for example. The Lake District and the home of Dorothy and William Wordsworth. That would bore her as much as it thrilled me. We can leave off New York, especially since I’ll be going next month. Hannah wasn’t really interested in anything except seeing ‘The Daily Show’ taping anyway.

After that there’s still things that we could leave out - Paris, Florence, even Venice. Or Hannah could leave from London to go back home and I could travel to Paris and Italy on my own. There are plenty of possibilities and plenty of time to adjust the plans and make up our minds. Hannah will get at least two more lovely trips before we go - this June to DC to see Joel, and Disneyworld right after Thanksgiving. Chances are we'll go back to Mexico before the Grandpa Trip as well. And she’ll be older. It’s a year and half till we’d go and that’s a lot of time for a teenager.

So. Old plan, out. New plan, being formed. But no worries - it’s kind of like getting to plan a whole new trip. Planning a trip is the next best thing to taking a trip.

From the paper archives

1984 . Me and Greg then.

(This from the same CORE class journal as the last archived paper entry.)

I'm incredibly tired.
The Beatles are singing.
What do I want from life?
(What a question)
I could say something stupid like "Happiness" - but what a breakthrough that is. Who doesn't want to be happy.
The 17th is coming up son. I'm really worried. A whole year since I've had my baby - and he'll be a year old. Geez. It's so strange to think of him growing up. What will he be like? What will he think. What will he think of me? Will he understand? Will he like me? Will he like the letter I wrote him? Should I write him another one for his birthday? Will his parents think about me on the 17th? Do they still like me?
Will Jd even remember?
Probably not.
Who cares.
He deals. Differently, but he deals.
It's so strange. It seems so long ago.
I can remember holding him in one arm, tears flowing, signing the adoption papers with the other. The loneliness of the bath room. God I cried so much in there! And the last night - the roast beef sandwich, the ice, the air conditioned coldness of the room. The desperateness of knowing those were my last - and only- times with him.
I can remember those 4 days so vividly.
I miss him.
I really love him.

I'm not sure I know much - if anything - about love, but I know that nothing else could feel that strong.

2006 . Me and Greg a few years ago