Hannah's Molly

Molly ran a good contest against Hannah, in the baby-naming competition between Mitch and I. By sheer stubbornness, I won out (okay plus the fact that Molly Lea doesn't quite flow smoothly off the tongue) though I'm happy to admit that both Molly and Mallory tickled my fancy. If only I'd not been waiting 18 whole years to have a Hannah of my own... So we named her first dolly, Molly. Molly now lives the free life of a hedonist in the care of my friends, Meemer and Prairie. With this big Molly thread in our life, it was easy to begin to collect American Girl schtuff and over the years we amassed quite a collection. I've been blessed to witness the continued joy-bringing of Hannah's collection; the bittersweet gift of paying forward our fortune. Much to Hayden's surprise, I made it through an entire American Girl movie with nary a tear shed for what coulda been -- I was too busy soaking up the Joy of What Is: An American Girl movie with my son ♥

Blossom for Hannah, 2004

I'll say it right now, a tough ornament to write about, in fact, they're piling up now, the Hannah ornaments, waiting to be written about. A both joyful and sorrowful task, indeed.
Hannah especially loved the Powerpuff Girls. I was shocked at the cutesy violence (in the tooth fairy storyline, Buttercup knocks the teeth out of the mouths of known bad guys to collect booty from the tooth fairy -- and it works!) and just as distracted right away from it by their, well, cuteness. Cartoonnetwork.com was one of the kids' first regularly visited websites for games. The Powerpuff Snowboarding game used to be free & the three of us would take turns playing. That musta been closer to 2004. I kinda miss these girls, now that I think of it. I think I'll do a DVR search and reminisce...

Bart Simpson, 2004

I witnessed Bart's television debut, in Maggie's living room, Bakersfield, CA. Half my life ago. Our regular group viewing of FOX (the new network)'s Sunday night line up, ya remember, The Tracy Ullman Show and 21 Jumpstreet ♥ I've since been photographed with Matt Groening & crew while dressed as a valet, learned to say his name properly (rhymes with raining, thanks Jon), and given birth to a son who loves, loves, loves The Simpsons. Hayden giggles when Homer strangles his son, lucky to have lived a life without throttling; it makes my heiney tingle. every. time. I'm joyful at the difference in our perspectives; I know I've made his world better by shifting my own perspective, using consideration and striving to be mindful. Bart is the electrifying antithesis to Hayden's true life. He can have Bart-like excitement and adventure with me, instead of in spite of me. What more could I dare ask for?

I ♥ Secret Santa, 1996

This lil guy is why I LOVE having a Secret Santa exchange!
One simple little, hilarious, ornament has given me 12 years of giggles each time I spy these boots!
It was Hannah's first Christmas that year. I was working at East Dakota Educational Co-op, as secretary extraordinaire & Mitch was still working nights at Heartland Paper Company, in the warehouse. This was our 4th Xmas holiday together, he & I, our second as married folk, our first as parents. It was Christmas 1995 when we discovered we were pregnant (and again Christmas 1997). His brain tumor was still a big dark cosmic secret. We split our days to be fully present with our new daughter; she'd yet to have had a single moment without either of us by her side. It was near this time that she decided she didn't need a bottle of breastmilk while I was at work, I came home often enough for her to be patient & we were both happy for her to nurse to her heart's content all night long. My parents lived next door & Mitch was turning our garage into the coolest Clubhouse in town. Blissfully happy, Christmas 1996, blissfully happy ♥

Never undervalue Handmade!

Made by my supervising teacher, Lu McComb and her children, when I worked at Highland High School as an interpreter, 20some years ago.
Seeing him every year reminds me of the 19 year old Self I used to be.
Let today be a testament to her.
At such a crossroads in diana development.
So much newness to life. Burgeoning wisdom.
Tough & fragile.
Celebrate the choices she made, which led to more, new, different possible choices,
which all lead to right here, right now.
Thanks past-self! You done alright ♥

One Moon Ornament, Two

Remember when Christmas brought the
look of excitement this mouse is carrying?
I do!
Wait, it still does ♥
I love a hearty "Merry Christmas!"
merrily shared between strangers,
I love happy people, I love generosity,
I love the music, the singing, the pealing bells,
sharing the hope and joy and wonder,
the prayers of peace and brotherhood.
I love the returning light of the Sun,
I love to ponder the return of the Son.
And if I could,
I'd fly to the moon
and tell him all about it, too.

Raggedy Ann & Andy, a tribute

I think it was the funeral visit, when we were staying at Gramma Baby's house in Pacoima, CA (the home of Ritchie Valens), when I spotted a Raggedy Ann & Andy garbage can. It was an old-fashioned vintage can, heavy & metal, probably painted with lead-based paint, in the USA. It'd been Mitch's ♥ when he was little and stayed often with his Gran, his room was Raggedy decor.
In place of the immediate feelings of having been robbed of knowing Mitch long enough for him to share that information with me directly, came an easy opportunity for me to bring that Little Boy Mitch into our lives in a real way.
Each experience with Ann & Andy reminded us that our family once contained someone who found joy in their presence. As if the characters were silent witnesses to experiences we can only imagine, experiences of that child who-once-was and who should-never-be-forgot. Never underestimate the value of sharing your childhood memories; it is through those memories - the conversations about them, the connections to them - that keep one truly alive long after the body is gone ♥

One Moon Ornament

It's Baby Hayden in a Santamoon ornament - 1999 ♥ Of course it's one of my favorites! Lookit how round and red-headed he is ♥ At the very moment this was captured, we were participating in our local LLL World Walk for Breastfeeding-- both kids were still nursing; Hayden was just days away from completing his first year (which means Hannah was days from finishing 3) and not yet walking; Mitch was back to work, in his created-for-him position in *computers,* after radiation and before chemotherapy - a moment of stasis in our lives, though we now knew the tumor had moved up front and the lobotomy humor had just begun; we'd moved into the big white duplex on Dakota Avenue; I was free-lance interpreting and the kids got to hang out with my friend Sandra and her Madeline almost every day ♥

I was so cute in 1977

My mom, Dee, made this for her grandmother's Christmas Tree. That'd be Gramma Bunnie's (Helen Jaques) mother, Great-Gramma Emma Ellis (nee Peterson), who lived as long as I knew her, in her white house on the corner in Canton, SD. It was this little girl who sat, curled up, under the buffet when the drunk antics of Uncle Lydell disturbed the peace of our Sunday afternoon at Gramma Emma's. This little girl learned, too, that death brings a deep complexity of emotion turmoil, when Uncle Lydell's drunk antics were ended, once and for all, by an exploding hay bailer. Every single birthday, this little girl got a birthday card from her great-grandmother containing one taped-in quarter and one-to-several sticks of Wrigley's gum du jour. Every year, it was addressed to a different variation of Diana Lambert in her shaky, old-fashioned, granny hand. Coffee reminds me of her; her house radiated warmth and coffee (and busom, I gotta say it, the woman was like 75% busom to me). Always the big enamel pot on the warming stove in the dining room. She'd dash to the kitchen to make a fresh batch when my dad arrived. If it was a baking day, she'd put aside some coffee to cool, to later mix with powdered sugar to frost a spice cake. A spice cake not from a box. Nor a recipe, for that matter. And this little girl would be invited to help. Not an imposition, a guest. Sometimes, in the summer we'd sneak to the kitchen and she'd give me an ice cream cone from her giant freezer that had a room of it's own. Aaaahh it was this little girl who forever linked baking in a kitchen (and busoms) to the most profound gift of love possible. Her scents hearken thoughts of acceptance and attention. When I make Spice Cake, I think of them, that woman and that little girl, the magic of a simple cake... yeah, and the busoms too. Thanks Emma ♥

The Warner Bros. Cartoon Posse

Hayden really enjoyed hanging these up ♥ Happiness bubbled right out of his every orifice while he manipulated these into this year's tree display. They're his on the tree every year ornaments. Magical, touchable, dare-I-say taste-able? holiday decor.
They surely came from Gramma Mimi, our Warner Bros. connection. They must've arrived early in our holidays together, I don't remember a South Dakota Christmas without them. They're definitely young family ornaments with memories attached: I remember both kids gnawing at them during several seasons. They've held up well ♥
[insert conversation about the missing foghorn-foghorn ornament and my newest quest to find him/one... updates soon]

The Mission, 1993

It's funny that I should buy this ornament to commemorate my first Xmas with Mitch, as just a few years later, Mitch spent Xmas inside the actual San Fernando Mission. At least his ashes did. Do. He's still there, in the cupboard in the mausoleum. There's a plaque that says "Son, Husband, Father" above

Mitch L. Jenner
June 15, 1968 - December 3, 2000

There's a doohickey attached there, too, for tokens to be left, like flowers; or, if you're like my kids, water balloons and dum-dum suckers.