Daddy used to go and visit St. John's tennis team

before I went there and he always had something to say about Mary Carillo. Evidently, she had something radiant about her, even then. Now that Wimbledon is under way, when I see her, I hear his voice. Warning me about the team to come. Telling me who was who and what was what. That girl is going places, he said. He knew how to pick em. It is so cute to see her getting comfortable on the camera and being the broadcast tennis person that we go to. She never seems more comfortable than she is this year. Her posture is come into its own and her language is fluid and real. I just enjoy watching her give her seasoned opinions of the game. I know she's a great player. But, mostly, I remember dad holding her in front of me as the one to watch. He was right as rain!

Well, It is a new week and we have the summer fully in gear.

I have no babies now. I walked past the most adorable mother child couple at church and it was breathtaking and a little melancholic. For years we have seen this young couple floating through church. Up and down the corridors, inseparable. Their feet never touched the ground, so I couldn't reach them to make their acquaintance. Nobody wanted to, because they were glowing with love, the young couple. I love seeing love bloom, at church. They taught sunday school together and they did everything arm in arm or just steps away from eachother. Recently they dissappeared and it wasn't so obvious, because we go to a very large and very busy church where there are alot of other spectacles to admire other than the growing of new families.
Yesterday, I met them and I fell in love. Mommy and baby were standing 5 steps away from the proud papa, who now doesn't know what to do with his hands or feet. They are all on the ground now. The love baby's name is Eugene. I tried intently to get him to look away from momma, for just a second. Just a second look at me. It has been so long that I have not been the intense admiration of and infant's longing. I miss it, just look away for a second. No! He was mezmerized. He was intensely forming his lips to tell her how much he loved her in ooohs and ahhhs! I had so much to tell that momma. I couldn't say. I wanted to sit down with her and tell her not to miss one little ahhh. Because you blink and they are grown and sassy and love in another form. Your best game is played in the initial onset of the game of motherhood. All you see and all you do is care. That is like the short balls on the court and then you start your back court game and they get further and further from your gaze. Love is still intense, but you can never catch those ooooohs and aaaahhhs again. So don't look away too long. Try to balance your responsibilities without missing what you can never get back.

You might want to close your ears...

I feel a tennis grunt coming on! This was a week where a tennis grunt was appropot, to say the least. I missed most of Wimbledon, in the highlights, trying to find some order in my home with the children all at home. This was the cause that some of the reminiscing of my own childhood, made me find Jo Jo's cutesypie and then "bam", they were gone. Not family members, but a great part of our childhood. Farrah and Michael in one day. It is sad. We are walking around, doing tennis grunts, in our house. I truly hope that comfort and peace will be to the families. It was beautiful to watch a love story unfolding as Ryan and Farrah held on to the end. Death parted lovers and family and friends, as it always does. I am glad that you guys are all still well.
Cherished loved ones are loved ones still and it makes you count your blessings.

Christmas, definitely won't be the same this year:(

"I luv U APHABITS"

Amy's first love and lifelong love was Michael Jackson. This is really a piece of her! She was just born when we started singing everything he ever did. Grandma Monica would have parties and ask us to find something to sing and we would usually sing Doggone Right and then the Jackson 5 came along and STOP, the Love you save...
ABC. We all loved them, but Amy digested them. She was also the baby of the girls like Michael and felt much similarity of the songs. I haven't been able to listen to the Christmas Album since Ab. Don't CRY, Don't Cry, Don't Cry.
So get off his back, can't you see there are tears in his eyes...
We are going to consider Michael Jackson the greatest performer ever, because we grew up with him and he was like us and he was superb. I just discovered the websight recently and was trying to exercise the "the oldies" as my children call them. They are "Classics" to us! We will miss him.

We had an enormous amount of fun with Jo

It seemed a very short time that she was little. She looked at things in a very simple and childlike way, from early. I was Dad's disciple and Ju was Dad's entertainer, Jack was a very independent child and Joanne taught us the gift of imagination.
Bouncy, bouncy bally yippety, bippety bumptye. and Magilla Gorilla. I never looked at these things before. I was in kindergarten and somebody asked me what do you want to be when you grow up. I want to go to South Africa and fight with Stephen Beko against apartheid. AHHHH! I was never a child.
Jo brought us all a life that was about simplicity and fun. It was necessary, because the war, the Civil rights war that was fought had been lost. Discouragement was high.
I had forgotten and missed alot of the beauty of the simplicity of childhood. But the day that I got in trouble or almost got in trouble for eating the chocolate kiss, I was sitting with grandma and she showed me the most adorable picture of Amy and Jo and I started crying. Because that look of innocence never belonged to me. I was always fighting the fight.
We terrorized her, or I did. Labelled her as the liar for one lie. But that situation taught me about lies and the truth. What makes little children lie is often the price that big ones put on trust and truth. I lied, mostly because I was afraid. So did Jo about the gum. Who wouldn't have lied with 3 big girls looking down her throat for the gum? Do you have gum? What are you going to do to me? We were terrorists to poor Jo. That is what Dad was saying when He said poor Jo. What horrible big sisters she has. Still she is able to find peace and fun and imagination. Where is Magilla? Outside with Jo Jo. Where is imagination and fun?
I really didn't think about the little ones as people until we were banished to the attic. I was bannished to spend the rest of my Bodden days with the "little ones" Achhhhh! What could have been worse or better? They taught me everything that I know about childhood and imagination. They taught me that I don't have to be a tyrant to gain respect and I learned about forgiveness and reconciliation. If they could forgive me for my nasty, big sister antics, there truly was a God. That was one of the things that God was saving me from. Being a tyranical big sister.

The Little Rascals Welcomed JO! I think I talked about when everybody was born but Jo.

Why me?:{

We were all recuperating from Ms. Newsome, when Jo was born. Money was probably low, so we got into all kinds of mischief because when you have somebody so strict as Ms. Newsome smacking your hands all the time and then she is gone, you get into trouble. The angel was born out of love in September. She was a New years resolution, one year. We spent that whole New Years at Grandma Monica's house and I remember it was the most boring New Years of my life. When are they ever going to come and get us? We hadn't done that before. No more nannies. Karla Rampey started watching us and Lorraine, sometimes and we were enraptured by the little face of this creature who was born and we were allowed to touch her? Not like Jackie, born with an armed guard, you couldn't keep us off that baby. There was no nanny. We probably bounced her off the walls. Okay Ju, you stand over there and catch? No, don't touch the baby. Who said? Where's Ms. Newsome? Mom was in for it now. We gave her what for. No more love dates for the parents. Martin Luther King, Died, Malcom died and Dad started cussing. We were partly to blame. Maybe. We definitely participated in the transformation of our parents from lovers into inmates. We started the internal home movement. It is us against them. No more Ms. Newsome, no more rules and regulations. We were the rules. Black power, kid power, James Brown, "say it loud...I'm Black and I'm proud." We were the movement and music and a little touched and touchable baby running around with us to direct and influence. We took full advantage of the power of having authority, or I did. I remember the naked baby on the beach at Sag. couldn't keep a pamper on. Praying for Christie to be our cousin by Karla and Richard getting married. It happened, that meant there had to be a God in heaven, because best friends became best cousins. Love American style! More about JO later.

It's not unusual that she seemed to get lost in the events of the day. She was born into turbulence and had a very compliant spirit. You can see it on her face. Why am I here, she was always saying? Why is this place such a mess? We stayed up and we had our sister's meetings in the bathrooms upstairs when events happened. What happened? Don't tell the children. Everything was interpreted to the children through me. They thought it was good to whisper behind the children's back, but that just gave me the ability to interpret the gossip as I pleased to my crew JJJJ. Jo was different. Are you chewing gum? Jo. Are you telling the truth or lying? Who would tell the truth under such tyranny?

I saw a cloud in the sky that looked like Dad's thumb.

It made me think that Dad would've been proud of how we treated Ben, this Father's day. I felt like he was saying its about time you started treating your husband well. Do you have to wait 412 months to start catering to him? If it wasn't Dad, it was definitely God reminding me of my vows to love, honor and obey?:) Its fun these days being a couple. No real babies in arms. We can clear a room in a second just by kissing eachother. I think I'll keep him!
Years ago, Father's day was running from pillar to post honoring the fathers here and there and I think it took us all these three years to realize that the real Papa now in our lives is him. He's got a wrestling match on, with the 2 older girls being women and one of the boys being eye to eye with him. It would be too much, if Enoch had the personality of the girls. He is a gentle soul, for the most part. Fathering and mothering is feeling like building a community now. Individuals living together with separate interests and activities and lives, under the authority of a gracious man of God.

Father's Day was a restaurant theme.

Father's day, the little fellows and I made the house a restaurant and made Dad and the big girls sit outside for a while and "wait to be seated". Ezra was the Matre D and he escorted the patrons to their seat in the living room while mom gave him tips on what to say on the side. Ethan was the waiter and took the orders and helped with the service.
Enoch was away with a friend. This was good because he is a perfectionist and the boys would never have gotten away with some of the normal childhood fun they had while serving our customers.
For appetizers we served a fruit platter and donuts that were left over from Sunday School.
Dill and parsley flavored salad and green pepper stuffed with ricotta, rice, okra and broccoli.
Eggplant and spaghetti with a side order of corn and chicken were the main entres and everybody enjoyed it alot. Brownie, icecream floats were for dessert, when we came home from church. Our dad enjoyed his day and we were glad and had fun serving him.

The City of Charlotte is breathtaking

We drive into the city every Sunday to go to church. It is alot smaller than NY of course and seems to be ever under construction. But, when we make our way around the bend and the skyline comes into view there is a new and ambitious glow in my heart that is so different from the feeling of the NY state of mind. The race is not like a rat-race as much as NY, if you understand what I am saying. The ladies down here take time to be ladies, before they come out and the gentlemen take time to be gentleman, still there is a very city speed. The rules are the rules and they are not to be messed with.
I guess, Police are beautiful anywhere you go. They are always the cream of the crop, in a sense, but they seem to enjoy the work they do, in Charlotte. They don't have as much threat of violence as in NY and that seems to affect their personality. I told you the joke about Ben's beautiful licence photo. We were going to church and Ev said speed up, daddy so that you can show the man your new licence. Well, now the joke is that he's gotten too used to speeding up and we have to take his foot off the pedal, or they are going to deport us all back to NY. LOL
I have never been to Europe, but there is a park in Charlotte that we go to that reminds me of the Madeline book and I can just see Ms. Clavell with her girls walking through there. I started a story about it on Ethan's blog last summer, but I haven't made the time to go back out there.
I love the things that we are learning here and the speed of life, but I do go into withdrawals when I see so much of the sky, here,so much. I must plan a trip to NY so that I can take a subway ride to get my bearings.Ethan's blog

I spent the whole day yesterday at work remembering the subway.

It is pitiful to be so homesick. My knee is feeling a little better so, I will probably be out on the courts tomorrow. One lap around my building at work, was all I could do, yesterday. A precious storm came, out of no where and watered my lawn, unexpectedly, but also made ponds in some very strange places. The rice patties, which were gardens across the street from our complex, were almost fully dry when those rains came to fill them again. I haven't done a garden, but I should have. Time and tide wait for no man. The gardens around here are all in full bloom. Some people have an acre or so of just flowers. I don't know what kind. Some have, just corn, some a variety of fruit and vegetables, they are already full grown. I do have green grass:), thanks to God's consideration for my cityfied self. That is better than last year. I can't even keep my fuschia alive, it is a shame.
The community pool is so super for the children, I haven't darkened it and I doubt that I will, with my weight where it is these days. But, my laundry and the darkness of my babies helps me to know that they are having a good time. I say put the towels outside in the sun to dry when you come in. NO NO. Piles of wet towels in the laundry room are no fun to come home to from work. The sun could have done the job and now I have to. Oh well, it is part of the fun of parenting.
The way that we wait for summer to do stuff is so different down here. They know it is too hot to do anything in the summer, so Spring is the chore doing season. We still haven't gotten used to that. This heat keeps catching us off guard and we are incapacitated by the stuffiness. Thank God for central Air conditioning. We have a great block and neighborhood of families. Transplants from all over the country. The children have friends at church and at school and in the neighborhood. This is really a great place to raise a family.