dear mom and dad,

Dear mom and dad,

Thank you for listening to Billy Joel and James Taylor when we were growing up. Whenever I listen to either it floods me with such warmth and peace that I cannot begin to describe. I think it’s sort of funny that we listened to that rather than children’s music, hymns and Raffi and all that, which is supposed to be developmentally helpful. But I think that good music helped me develop. I will listen to good, soulful music with my children as they grow up because I think that the good music we listened to as little kids gave me a good taste for music as an adult. You also instilled me with a love for classical (mom)—Pachelbel’s Canon, George Winston, and oldies (dad)—all we listened to in the station wagon. I still know most of the oldies that ever come on, though I don’t know their names.

Thank you for having me so soon after you had Hannah. I know that those years when I was just a little thing and Hannah was a kooky toddler and we had no money were probably very stressful at times. You have both said that you made a lot of mistakes, but I don’t really see that looking back. I’m more thankful for her than almost anything, and I’ve loved coming up right behind her. She was a good one to follow. Today she took me to Target to help me register for baby stuff, an event which would have completely unhinged me had I to do it alone, but that she made fun. She has become the best thing—sisterfriend—and it started such a long time ago when you corralled us to become playmates.

Thank you for not making me play sports. A lot of people I know had to play a sport growing up even if they didn’t like it. I understand that that was a way to keep a kid healthy, but I was not athletic or particularly competitive so you just let me sing. I think that’s what kept me healthy really. I felt so proud and beautiful when I sang with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Somehow we were always healthy too, probably because of running around the neighborhood enough to offset the homemade chocolate chip cookies and Breyer’s ice cream we had most nights after dinner.

Thank you for having one more kid, and dad, thanks that he was a boy. I know that at first I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about his presence, but it’s crazy how much I fell in love with my brother. He is the most kind, wonderful, sensitive, kindly disposed person and I love that he got your family’s height, mom. I loved when people thought we were twins in college because he had started swimming again and his hair went blonde. I’m so glad you had a boy, dad, because I think you did such a great job showing him how to be a man.

Thank you for never dieting, for buying one percent milk instead of skim, kielbasa, and hot dogs. Thank you for taking us to Disney World before and after Kyle was born, and then again when I was in college. Thank you for letting my hair grow like wild weeds. Thank you for working for Young Life, to teach us the value of relationships, Jesus and money. Thank you for having big dogs so we were never afraid. Thank you for making Hannah and me share a room. Thank you for letting us play outside until after dark in the summer. Thank you for teaching us how to dive (mom) and change a car tire (dad). Thank you for loving Mark and Josh, our dogs, our kids, born and unborn.

Mostly thank you for the tradition of opening stockings on your bed on Christmas morning, which now includes our husbands.

I love you.

Ginny

operating instructions.

I have this great friend Lauren who is a lot like me in many ways. She was one of my first Winston-Salem friends and her husband was Mark's roommate for a time and they flirted with all sorts of trouble and problems because they were bored and bachelors and living in a house in this dodgy back of town neighborhood with two other bored bachelors. It makes me laugh to think of how Lauren and I became friends, how we volunteered for Young Life for three years together, how we got married and became "couple friends"--which is a different thing entirely.

Lauren had a daughter a year ago now during a painful time for us because we were trying so desperately, so fruitlessly, for our own child. We went to meet Eva the day she was born and I thought it would just crush my spirit, but somehow it didn't. She was so precious, and I was wanting a boy anyway so there was that cushion. Turns out Eva is the sweetest little girl on the planet. I always think it's silly that people think one baby is so much more unique than another, but I'm sure that when Jack is born I'll think he is brilliantly different and unique, that he has the most distinguishable features and hair, that his gums form the most beautiful smile. Anyway, Mark and I fell for Eva hard, but Mark did more. He loves this little one-year-old as if she were his own niece. And she loves him back, just ogles at him and walks up to him and stares imploringly into his face until he picks her up.

When we found out I was pregnant Lauren called me elated to find out how I was feeling, emotionally and physically, and to tell me that she already had a gift. Everyone gives the sweetest little outfits and airplanes and bibs and things, but she said, "It's an Anne Lamott book."

Anne Lamott is a hilarious, irreverent, funky hippie throw-back who writes really odd memoir-type nonfiction including one of my most favorite resources on writing, Bird by Bird.

"It's called Operating Instructions. It's about her first year with her son Sam. It's really crude and spouts the F-word every ten sentences, but I know you'll love it because I LOVED it." She gave it to me last week when we met for pizza and salads at the Loop with Brad, Mark and Eva. I started reading it on my lunch break Wednesday sitting at Chick Fil-a drinking a large lemonade/iced tea and was crying in the first five pages. And then by the eighth page I was laughing so whole-heartedly my entire body was shaking and I've got these relentless sloppy allergies so I was snorting and running from the eyes and nose and I am certain several patrons were getting a huge kick out of the whole thing. I was also wearing a tight shirt, looking quite pregnant, so there's that.

The book has a lot to do, so far, with how this woman processes the reality of having a son as opposed to a daughter, so I've been thinking on that a great deal. I'm thankful, really thankful, for Mark and what a stable, solid, loving, FUN man he is and I know there are a lot of things that will fall to him, since Jack's a boy, and that I (God-willing) will not have to deal with. But now that Jack's going to be here in less than five months, it's reverberating in the front of my mind that I'm going to be a mom of a SON. I'm so excited, I want him to get here because I want to hold him and lay him on top of Sidney and watch Mark stare at him.

Kyle, my brother, says I'll be a good mom of a son because he and I have such a sweet friendship. That makes me feel a little more confident, and I'm starting to dream up this little kid in my head. I can't wait.