I blinked and she's 16

Sixteen years ago today, I became a parent.

Me.

The one who thought I didn't want children when I got married, and then thought I wanted five when I moved away from family to Richmond and met someone with a large family.

The one who'd never spent time around a newborn. The one family I regularly babysat for when I was a teenager always had their kids in bed before they went out at night. I was the youngest in my family so no little siblings to practice on. I didn't have nieces or nephews and Kayla was the first grandchild. I was the first of my close friends to have a baby. And Pierce is an only child.

We'd only been living in Richmond for a year. We had no family in town and just a small circle of friends from our new church (none with children.)

And along came Kayla...and somehow we survived and seemingly succeeded.

Pierce & I worked full-time, she went to a daycare center for 3 years then stayed with a neighbor for a year then hung out with my mother-in-law while going to preschool and then starting grade school. She was a girl scout, played soccer and still does well in school. Kayla is a traveler, an animal lover, a musician, and a baker. She's smart, independent, creative and tolerant.

And I can't wait to see what the next 16 years have in store for our little girl who will be graduating high school before we know it.

Friday Feast Nights Haywood-style

When Pierce & I were a young couple, Friday night's meant going to a local bar to share a pitcher of beer and chicken wings. Simple. Enjoyable. And something we could look forward to all week.

Well now we enjoy "happy hour Fridays" Haywood-style complete with cold beer (for the adult males), bar-type food usually, and family time.

First Colin usually hangs with friends after school. Kayla comes home and unwinds from her day, checks on her animals, and touches base with friends. Then my brother Skip joins us, typically for a round of hoops or wiffle ball to start the evening off right. On his way home from work, Pierce blasts his "Friday happy song" while I start preparing for our feast (tonight we're grilling Bubba Burgers and Colin will make smoothies later in the evening.)

And then we gather around the TV for Wheel of Fortune at 7pm (I am practicing for when I get called to go on the show) followed by hours of American Idol which we DVR'ed from Wednesday & Thursday. Someone always knows what happened, either intentionally (Kayla) or accidentally. It's hard to avoid the hype between news websites, Facebook and friends.

The night ends by me complaining my entire body hurts from eating too much AND sitting around too long! But boy do I look forward to Friday feast nights all day Friday!!!

♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ And my house it's not much to talk about
But it's filled with love
That's grown in southern ground

And a little bit of chicken fried
Cold beer on a Friday night
A pair of jeans that fit just right
And the radio up ♪ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫

May is "our" month, in case you didn't know...

May 1990 - Pierce & I met working together at Key Program in Pittsfield MA.
May 1991 - Pierce & I started "going out."
May 1992 - Pierce & I got engaged.
May 1993 - Pierce & I got married.
May 1994 - Pierce & I moved to Richmond VA.
May 1995 - Pierce & I welcomed our first child.
May 1996 - Pierce, Kayla & I moved into our first house.
May 1997 - We all took a break to enjoy our accomplishments!

Despite the annual life changes we experienced early in our marriage, or perhaps because of the stresses we experienced together...we'll be celebrating 18 years later this month as well as our daughter's sweet 16.

May also marks Mothers Day and Memorial Day (one of my personal favorites.) And lots of baseball tournaments so no worries, Colin is definitely not left out of the festivities!

I was born to live the simple life...

Happiness is...

• sitting in a comfy chair on a simple, open dock on a lake
  


• warm sunshine & refreshing breeze
  


• relaxing sound of calm waves against the dock & shore line
  


• having everything we need and little more to keep track of
  


• kids successfully fishing
  


• family hiking & letterboxing together & alone
  


• good read enjoyed from start to finish
  


• being 90% unplugged (100% would have been even better)
  


• half a tank of gas round-trip
  

Sweeping out the garage...

So far, that has been the highlight of my day, and by highlight I don't mean sarcastic at all. Yes, I am home on involuntary house arrest while the van is being repaired...and I HATE being stuck at home. I love being home, but there's just something about knowing I can't leave which makes the situation completely intolerable.

So I decided to tidy up the garage.

I emptied the ice chest from this weekend's neighborhood event. While I was at it, I also emptied the ice chest from this weekend's baseball tournament. OK, I also emptied the ice chest from the day trip to DC...yeah, we have a few ice chests and are pretty lazy about emptying them, but fortunately they all only held drinks and bags of ice (well...water now.)

I put all of the errant baseballs, footballs, ping pong balls and basketballs in their respective corners and stacked up all of the goodies we're collecting for our upcoming yard sale.

And then I swept the floor.

Colin keeps the garage door open while playing outside sometimes, and sometimes it's really windy when he does that, so I must have swept out an entire tree of leaves and petals. Plus dirt from cleats and snow boots.

And with that, I prepared the garage for another season of toting ice chests, playing ping-pong (because the table is almost cleared off once again), and tracking in dirt. And I feel like I actually accomplished something.

A year ago, we decided to close our business. The business which consumed our every minute. I am thankful now for the opportunity to savor moments like this...when I find sweeping the garage floor therapeutic as opposed to a distraction.

It would be easier to look for Sonic than a real hedgehog!

In case you haven't heard (which would mean you either live under a rock, aren't my Facebook friend, or have blocked my posts), we're in the process of finding a hedgehog for Kayla for her 16th birthday (yeah...the age of surprise birthday parties and gifts is apparently behind us.) So let me tell you what I've learned.

1. Searching for "hedgehog" on craigslists gets you lots of video games, a trimmer, and one hedgehog home (which we're planning to buy...which will prove to be the easiest part of this entire process.)


2. You can't just go to the pet store and pick one up the morning of said birthday. According to the local pet stores "yes, we do sell hedgehogs but we only get them occasionally, we never know when we're going to get them, and we already have a waiting list."


3. From what we've learned, we should be trying to get a hedgehog from a licensed breeder. Yes, licensed. By the USDA. As in the federal government. So in a bass ackward way, we the taxpayers are paying government employees to oversee the hedgehog industry.


4. To me, buying from a licensed breeder is much like buying a race horse; the selling point is that they track lineage to insure there's no inbreeding. I wonder who the "Secretariat" of hedgehogs is, because I really want one of her offspring! But, I also know that they handle the hedgehogs from birth and tend to provide happier hedgehogs, and isn't that what this is all about?!?!


5. Hedgehogs are not cheap. Our budget went from X to 2X and now 2X+T+M where T=time and M=mileage.


6. But it's not just about finding a breeder. We need to find a breeder who actually has a litter or one on the way, because apparently this isn't a year-round business. And, again, there are waiting lists. Plus you to have wait for them to be weened from their mothers (anywhere from 8-10 weeks.)


7. So off to hedgehogbreederalliance.org I go to find a local breeder. Silly me, I thought local would be Richmond. Turns out THERE ARE NO HEDGEHOG BREEDERS IN RICHMOND!!! As a matter of fact, there are only FOUR REGISTERED BREEDERS IN VIRGINIA. Good Lord this is not going to be an easy process.


8. So now we're in the process of finding a breeder within reasonable driving distance (and reasonable has begun to include parts of North Carolina) who has a litter which will be available sometime between now and the end of May because we want hedgie to be adjusted to it's new home before Kayla heads to Florida for her one week of summer vacation.

This is proving to be NEAR IMPOSSIBLE but I'm not about to give up at this point! What started out as a pro-active exercise assuring that we had Kayla's gift in time for her birthday has turned into a full-time job learning more than I ever wanted to know about the breeding habits of hedgies, creating a page of notes about various breeders & hedgehog availability, and accepting the fact that her birthday gift is likely going to be late.

But I've also learned that hedgehogs are adorable! I'm in love already, and haven't even found one yet. They are teeny tiny (especially when they're born) and I just know he/she is going to bring a lot of love into our house.

How one night changed everything

In September of 2000 I was working full time, had a 9-month-old baby, and my daughter had just started kindergarten at Echo Lake Elementary School. A flyer came home from school about Girl Scout Recruitment Night. I remember walking into the school cafeteria that night and thinking "I'm going to be a part of this." The part of the Girl Scout Promise "to serve God and my country" resonated with me.

Looking back, it is amazing to see just how much my life is still impacted by my involvement as an adult Girl Scout volunteer. I haven't been directly involved in Girl Scouts in a few years now but people still associate me with the organization and scouting in general (cub, girl & boy) because of the connections I made as a leader and service unit director.

It is amazing how the relationships formed through Girl Scouts are intertwined with my life. I have worked with fellow leaders in the "outside" world, socialize with them, volunteer with other organizations, etc. People call on me for scouting advice or contacts. Sitting in the stands at Tucker football games, I am surrounded by fellow Girl Scout leaders. I am comforted with the prospect of going to Holman Middle School next year knowing I am familiar with so many Springfield Park families because of my involvement in Girl Scouts.

Unbeknownst to me when I registered my daughter for Girl Scouts so many years ago, I was planting roots that would become MY community.