On Seeking Community

I am at my parents' house watching their dogs. I am getting ready to go to the library. Those of you who know me know that the library is close to being a house of worship for me. I have loved books and writing for a long time. It's something that brings me a lot of joy. There is something comforting in admitting to the librarian that I don't want to be without a book over a long weekend. Even more comforting? When she says she feels the same way.

My sophomore year English teacher, Mrs. Morrison, thought it was important that we learn the Latin and Greek roots for words. I mentioned in my last blog post that English can be a very limited language, but learning Greek and Latin cracks the language wide open.

For example, the word community comes from the Latin word "communis." It means "common, public, general." The root, comm, is the beginning of a lot of words that denote togetherness--think commune, community, committee.

I have been writing since before I was in high school. I had a great writing community in high school, but after I graduated I lost track with that group of people. I have never sought out a new community for plenty of reasons. Chief among them are fear and arrogance.

I'll start with fear. I am an outgoing person, there is no question. I am the one who greets new people, I am good at conversing with random people, I thrive on being in the middle of groups. It's what drives me.

The exception is that I don't like to walk into places where I know no one. It's a scary thing, to not know a single person in the room that I'm entering.

It seems crazy, I know. That's what's so lovely about me--I'm not always a foregone conclusion.

The other reason, arrogance, is a tougher one to overcome.

I was told in high school (and have been told by other people on several occasions) that I am an excellent writer. I'm not going to argue. I think I am a great writer and I don't mean that in a rude way. I think I've been given a great talent. I do my best to be a good steward of the talent. Blogging is a way I try to cultivate my talent. It's great because I don't have a lot of pretense when I blog. It ends up being close to a stream-of-consciousness. I rarely edit what I'm writing, I do my best to practice honesty and I have a lot of fun seeing how far my posts travel around the world.

I've been a lone wolf for far too long, though. I am still working on a novel (though not as much as I would like) and I will eventually need input and editing from other writers. I typically am snobbish when it comes to deciding whose input is important. It's a very short list and it's mostly the people I know from high school. The problem is that none of them has stayed frozen in high school mode. They have moved on and formed other communities.

It's up to me to do the same. So I am at my parents' house, but I am headed to the library soon. There is a poetry contest being sponsored by the Crystal Lake Public Library. They sponsor it every year--this is the first year that I will be participating.

I am terrified. I have to walk into a room full of strangers. I have debated skipping the kick-off all together, but there is a part of me that wants to size up the competition. (Thanks, arrogance! I see what you did there.) I am hoping that this can be a baby step toward finding and building a new community with writers. The point is that I have to be *with* them in order for that to happen.

I am not sure what my poem will be about. I'd like to think I have a good chance of winning, but then who knows how the judges will feel about what I write.

My fear is trying to convince me to stay here, with a puppy on my arm, listening to the Juno soundtrack. I am more comfortable here but nothing great ever started with, "so I was sitting at my computer one day...."

So I've got to do this. I've got to suck it up. I've got to take the next right action and then the one after that, until I've gotten to a place where I'm squirming a little bit. That's where you'll find me, in case you want to look.

Wish me luck.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

I struggled with how to write about this topic without referencing the source material. My Facebook feed has blown up over the past week about a movie that was released last Friday. It's based on a novel that was a bestseller. It depicts a relationship that is based on BDSM.

I don't want to type the title and I am hoping that my readers will know to what work of fiction I am referring. It was pointed out, in one of the numerous posts, that any press is good press. I don't want to contribute to the press because I don't think it deserves it.

So here's the thing. I know this work of fiction has had numerous posts, articles, reviews, etc., penned about it. I've not read it (though I did read an excerpt of it and really, I suffered through the paragraph that I read), though I've read part of a detailed analysis of it. My plan is really not to talk about the book, since that would be disingenuous.

Instead, I'm going to share some thoughts on love. I won't claim originality about them because mostly there's no originality when it comes to love. Volumes have been written about the subject over the past two thousand years. Men and women better than I have spent years talking and writing about it. I am going to share a little of my own thoughts, or really my thoughts on the thoughts that are out there.

This is one of the times I wish I was more fluent in other languages. I feel like the English language falls far short when it comes to discussing love. In Greek, French and Spanish (just to name a few), there are multiple words for love and each has a different connotation. In English, we use the word love but it covers all manner of love--romantic love, familial love, love between friends, love of our pets, etc. I feel like that's not fair to the word, to make it work so hard and wear so many hats.

I grew up on a diet of romantic comedies. I was a bit young for John Hughes' creations, though I've watched most of them. If there was a chick flick released between the years of 1988 and 2000, chances are I saw it. I really enjoyed some of them (Sabrina, Say Anything, Sixteen Candles, Jerry Maguire, Never Been Kissed), despised some (Titanic, Bridges of Madison County) and tolerated others (She's All That, Can't Hardly Wait).

Here's what I will say about how movies treat love. They usually don't do it well. Movies are usually short on character development and long on fantasy. I learned, from watching the movies, that teenage boys are really just misunderstood. Go for a nerd, for the quiet guy, he's gonna be the one who will "get" you, who will know how to woo and romance you.

The reality is that teenage boys are really not that evolved. Yes, there are some that are more sensitive or thoughtful, but by and large teenage boys still find fart jokes funny. Those are not the people to be trusted to make huge romantic gestures.

I'm not being hard on teenage boys, necessarily, I'm also being hard on teenage girls. For every girl that, like me, binges on these movies, we develop standards to which no one can measure. It's unfair to teenage girls and boys. It's really unfair to humans in general. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors in movies.

Let's face it, though, reality is not always a fantastic place to live. I'm not saying we shouldn't indulge in chick flicks or romantic comedies or movies in general. I think that there is a place in our lives for sitting in a movie theater and entering an alternate reality for two hours. Movies can change the way we look at ourselves, our situations, our lives. Movies are fun, are cheap stress relief, are (for me, at least) a vital part of who we are.

Literature is not always better in terms of how it treats love. It can create just as many false and unrealistic expectations. I have never been someone to read trashy romance novels. I actually detest most literature that can be classified as love stories or romance. I prefer action, classic literature and detective novels. I make exceptions sometimes, but usually I will choose a book about murder and mystery rather than one about love.

I'm not sure when I made the switch, from preferring "chick" literature and films to grittier and (more realistic) movies and books. In fairness, even my current choices are not based in reality. I am still finding escape in what I digest with my eyes, but now I prefer that my escapes be based in more reality, that they are grittier and dirtier, and that romance be a secondary plot line.

The things that I saw on the big screen and the things I read made it next to impossible for me to fall in love with a real, live, red-blooded human man. Really. There was no way that anything I found in real life was going to be like what I found on the page or screen. Who would want to date a human man who farts and belches over Lloyd Dobbler, for example, who stands outside my window and plays Peter Gabriel? I mean, come on! Given the choice, it would be Lloyd every time.

Yes, movie men make mistakes (forgive the alliteration). They mess up, they miss cues, they pick the wrong girl. The thing is, within a couple of hours, they come to their senses and make a huge romantic gesture. Obviously, I don't want to have to wait longer than two hours for a human man to come to his senses. I want the long speeches, the thoughtful cards, etc. I don't want to have to deal with someone who refuses to put his dishes in the dishwasher.

I mean, really.

This is why our language falls so short. These movies talk about love but they are really dealing with infatuation. There are more movies now about married love (Crazy. Stupid. Love., This is 40 come to mind), about how tough it is to make space for love when life is crazy. Mostly, though, movies are talking about infatuation. They are talking about the beginning of a relationship, when it's perfectly acceptable to stay up talking on the phone until 4 AM every night for a week. If I did that now, I would probably die from sleep deprivation. They are about wooing, when a couple is figuring each other out and hiding most of their more glaring character defects from one another.

Couples can't live in that phase, though. They just can't. It's unrealistic. You're eventually going to have to fart in front of your partner. You're going to have to eat messy food in front of them, have a runny nose, cough up brown stuff, wake up next to them and not have a chance to brush your teeth. That's going to happen, it just is.

Now. I am not saying that we all lower our standards to zero to accommodate the lunkhead real-life men out there. We should have standards, men and women alike. Men really are clods, to use a word my eighth-grade English teacher loved to use. That's really how they were made. Some actually are clued in to how to woo and romance but more often than not, they need to be coached on that. It's not that they don't care--it's that they didn't grow up on the same diet of movies we did. We need to have realistic (based in reality) expectations of the person for whom we are looking and the person with whom we want to spend our lives.

There is a huge disconnect and while I'm not blaming Hollywood, I'm saying Hollywood played a part. I played a part, too. Parents who let their kids watch these movies play a part. I'm not absolving anyone of their personal responsibility. I know Hollywood is vilified for what they put out, but that's not really fair to them.

And here's the thing. This latest movie, the one that some have called "soft-core porn for women," wouldn't have been made without women buying the book in bulk. Hollywood didn't make the movie in a vacuum. They would never have made the movie if they thought it wouldn't make money. That's just not how they operate. So yes, Hollywood produced and released a film about BDSM, but only because there was a demand for it.

I find that really unfortunate. I don't think it's an original love story--there are whole websites dedicated to this practice, honestly. The writing, in my opinion, is piss poor. It's drivel. There is no depth to the characters (something I can forgive in movies but absolutely not in a novel). The plot makes no sense. It's garbage! I'm actually kind of pissed off that so many women would be willing to read garbage. I am all for a novel about love and romance, don't get me wrong. I just can't subject myself to a poorly-written novel.

For example, I read Patricia Cornwell novels for a few years. I enjoyed her main character, Kay Scarpetta. I found her intelligent and human and thought she had great depth. I didn't care for all of the novels equally, but I enjoyed most of them. Then, shee released a novel called Blowfly. I read one page, put the book down and have never read another of her novels. I just didn't like how it was written. I am not going to subject myself to something that's not worth my time, even if it fits into a genre I enjoy.

I hate to judge a whole class of women. I am pretty evolved when it comes to women's issues. I think women need to be empowered. I think women should be paid equally. I think women should always have choices. I have a good number of close women friends, some of whom chose to read this book. I love those friends and all women in general. I am disappointed sometimes in what people choose as entertainment (I also loathed the Twilight series), but heck, we have all made poor decisions, right?

I know people will probably be offended in reading this. Please know that the beauty of living in the United States is that we are all allowed our opinions. If any of my readers chose to experience the book and the movie, congratulations! You have exercised your right to free speech and I will always applaud that.

There are, however, larger issues addressed in this particular novel that have a lot of women up in arms. I feel like that could fill a whole other blog post. I have learned more and more about human trafficking in recent years. I am sickened the more that I learn, because I hate thinking about the millions of women around the world who are not given choices. They are kidnapped and systematically raped and tortured to satiate the demands of men who devalue them.

This book doesn't talk about human trafficking, but I think it does touch the issue tangentially. From what I understand, the main female character is a virgin before connecting with the main male character. She engages in BDSM to please the male character, who, incidentally, stalks and dominates her. Again, all women should have choices about how they practice love with partners of their choice.

That being said, I think the book serves to desensitize rather than empower women. If millions of women are reading a book about another woman engaging in BDSM in an attempt to placate and ultimately heal/fix a man, I think it is dangerous. It can send the message that this is always the case. My husband/boyfriend is goading me to try this? Well, maybe engaging in this behavior will stop them from terrorizing/stalking/brutalizing me.

Yes, as educated women we can separate fiction from reality. We can read it and say, "hmmm, that was a good escape." For women who don't have good role models in their lives, though, this book can do nothing but further erode their idea of appropriate sexual relations. I think it's similar to the movie Pretty Woman. In the movie, Julia Roberts is a prostitute. We never find out why or how she became a prostitute, but we are lead to believe she chose the lifestyle (most women don't). Then, she decides to go home with Richard Gere. In a week, she woos Mr. Gere and ends up being rescued from the life by him. (This is of course after she is sexually assaulted by Jason Alexander.)

Maybe that plot line has happened in real life. Maybe most people can watch that movie and realize, "hey, that was a good way to escape life for a couple of hours, but it's not based in reality." The problem is that it desensitizes us to the bigger issue, that prostitution is not usually a choice, it's not at all glamorous and it's a billion dollar industry that is growing every year. It sends the wrong message to broken women who are looking for someone to love them.

Like I said, read the book, don't read the book. See the movie, don't see the movie. We live in a country where we are all, men and women alike, allowed to make choices like that. Enjoy that freedom. All I ask is that you spend some time researching how to help trafficked women. Have conversations with your daughters about real love, not love found in books or movies. Think about whether you'd be okay with your daughters reading this novel when they grow up. Think about whether your sons should read a book like this.

As for me, I'm currently nursing an infatuation for broad-shouldered Englishmen. I will be going to see Kingsmen, starring Colin Firth, later this week. I'm looking forward to hearing his beautiful voice recite lines, to seeing him kick some butt, and then coming home to my husband, who burps and farts and usually falls asleep on the couch. I'm a firm believer in having my head in the clouds and feet on the ground.

P.S., I could also spend a whole blog post decrying Nicholas Sparks or the recent new genre of movies made about love and tailor-made for Christians. I also can't stand any of that. I love my husband. We went to one marriage retreat. We will not be going back, like ever. We giggled through the whole thing and have never once practiced anything we learned that weekend. (We also strained our eyes because we rolled them so much at each other.) I hate cheese, be it Christian or secular. I don't like Kirk Cameron at all and don't want to seem him act poorly in a movie. So rest assured, I am an equal opportunity critic. That is all.

I am the Tortoise

I started this blog almost three years ago. One of my first entries was about my journey to bariatric surgery. At the time, I weighed close to 300 pounds, felt lethargic and miserable, my clothes were all ill-fitting and I didn't care for myself very much. (XXXL t-shirts were just a bit big on me. By comparison, I am now swimming in XXXL, XXL is blousy on my and XL is within reaching distance.)

I considered bariatric surgery because I was told, by the surgeon, that people who were as overweight as I was were not capable of losing the weight on their own. I am impatient by nature, so there's that piece of it, but I also respected this man's opinion. I was feeling very low and really didn't believe that I was going to be able to shed a significant amount of weight. I felt like I had tried to do everything I could and it wasn't seeming to make much of a difference.

I checked with my insurance company at the time and they would not cover the surgery at all. I was devastated and felt so defeated. I was positive I was going to spend the rest of my life weighing close to 300 pounds.

I am not sure what made me decide to set aside what this doctor had said and really start making changes. In any case, I have lost about 60 pounds (about half of what I'd like to lose) in the past two and a half years. I have shaved minutes off of my mile per hour pace. I have gotten stronger, started to be weaned off medication, have lost body fat and inches and gone down by about 3-4 sizes.

It has been an arduous journey. It has not looked the way I wanted it to look. I have had to work harder than I thought I would have to work. One of the reasons it is taking so long, in my opinion, is that I have refused to adopt any revolutionary eating guidelines.

I quit drinking Diet Coke about 8 months after I started the blog. Last year, I switched from a plan of eating dessert every night to a plan of eating dessert twice a week. I used to do an hour of cardio at least 5-6 times a week. Now I do cardio 2-3 times a week (for about the same amount of time) and do strength training (with a trainer) 2 times a week. I used to weigh myself every week. Now I weigh myself every six weeks, under the watchful eyes of my trainer. She also takes my measurements every six weeks.

It's not been a straight path of weight loss, either. I have lost 60 pounds but there were periods of time where I gained a pound or two. I stopped weighing myself every week because it was causing a lot of emotional and mental turmoil.

I have been approached by a number of people offering to sell me nutritional supplements. All of these people are well-intentioned. They want to see me be successful, to lose the weight, to get healthier. Owing to my continued financial distress, I've not had the capability to purchase any of them. This has been tough because I want to see more results more quickly.

This last Saturday a friend of mine and I went clothes shopping. It has been a while since I have gone shopping for myself. I picked a doozy of a day to visit my favorite store, My Best Friend's Closet, a consignment shop in Algonquin. They were having a huge sale and the place was packed. Typically, I like to visit the store in the evening when there are few people there. It gives me an opportunity to browse at my own pace, have plenty of room to look around and spares me the shame of having to ask strangers for their opinion on my outfits.

I went into the trip hoping that I would have dropped another pants size. I am currently an 18 (I was a 22+ at the advent of this blog). Dropping to size 16 would mean I could start shopping at "normal" clothing stores, not stores like Lane Bryant and Catherine's. This would have meant a huge boost in confidence for me.

Alas, the problem is that I carry a lot of my weight in my midsection. It's almost always been the case. I know that it's a dangerous place to carry the weight. As Leslie Sansone says, the fat around our midsection is called visceral fat. It causes the organs to have to work harder and is a stressor on the body in general.

I am starting to see some definition in my midsection, thanks to my trainer and a lot of hard work. I know that I am headed in the right direction. I know that it's not a race (thank God, cause honestly, I hate to lose).

I hate to complain about my lack of progress cause that's not really it. I know that forward progress, however incremental, is still progress. I think I get frustrated because I had hoped I would be further along at this point in time. I know that I am laying a foundation that will hopefully prevent me from gaining this weight back. I have no desire to take this journey on again. I am teaching my kids important lessons about persistence, eating healthy, moving our bodies in a healthful way and making good choices.

All of this is good. I know I look drastically better than I did almost three years ago. I haven't picked Diet Coke back up again. (The funny thing is that I'm remembering that I had a dream just the other night where I was drinking Diet Coke.) I haven't gone down a size but I've also not gone up a size. I've saved a lot of money by not getting involved in any of these nutritional supplements. I've changed how our family eats. This is the first year (starting last summer) where we have eaten more fresh veggies than frozen. Frozen veggies are not bad, but fresh is almost always better.

I know that I have a long way to go and I am working at making some small shifts in how I eat. I am using My Fitness Pal pretty regularly, but I've realized lately that I'm not counting absolutely every calorie that I'm eating. At the same time, I've seen drastic changes over what I am eating. About 5 months ago, I had banana bread for the first time in a couple of years. I started to enter this into My Fitness Pal and realized that the last time I ate it, I had eaten 10 slices! 10! This time, I only ate 2 slices. Again, progress.

A couple of days ago I had to run out to get even more saltines for my stomach-flu infested family. I ended up getting an iced coffee and two sausage McMuffins from McDs. Not great choices, I realize, but keep in mind that I used to regularly consume 4 sausage biscuits in one sitting. (Progress, people.) What's more, I resisted the temptation to buy donuts and/or other sweets (something I felt completely justified in purchasing because of the prolonged stress I've been under at home.

I am not a saint by any stretch. I am not making perfect choices every day. I know, therefore, that I shouldn't be expecting perfect results every time I get on the scale or look in the mirror. The shifts I'm making in my current eating plan will hopefully positively impact both the numbers on the scale and my overall health.

I just saw my doctor not too long ago (not the surgeon I had seen a few years ago but my general practitioner) and he also suggested the bariatric surgery. It was a bit disheartening but a conversation with my trainer encouraged me not to put too much stock in what he said. I know that I'm doing the right things and that slow and steady wins the race.

Just ask the tortoise.

The Epiphany in the Illness

I had an epiphany today. I do not use that word lightly. I mean to say I had an insight today that was beyond what I'm normally capable of understanding. It happened after I took Doug, my youngest, to the doctor. 

Let me set the scene. 

My entire family had the stomach flu over the past couple of weeks. We seem to get the stomach flu around the same time of year. (Thanks, Timehop, for helping me map that accurately.)

Bekah fell victim first and had it the worst. The morning she ended up in the ER, Doug got sick for the first time. After I left for the hospital, I tried to have Brian keep me updated about Doug. By Wednesday, it seemed like he was done with it. Thursday dawned and Brian started with the stomach flu. Doug must've been sick on Wednesday because I didn't send him to school on Thursday. Thursday night Jeremy started with the flu. 

I lost track of things from then because both Brian and Jeremy were sick and all I was doing was cleaning up vomit and taking care of all the things. 

Doug seemed fine by Saturday because I took him to my parents' house. Sunday morning, he threw up and had diarrhea. Monday he was fine. Tuesday he was mostly fine. Wednesday morning he woke up with vomit and diarrhea, then threw up yesterday afternoon. This morning, a morning I had anticipated for a long time, he woke up again with vomit and diarrhea. 

Sorry for the graphic description. I am just trying to establish that his illness was intermittent. It seemed to be different from the thing that afflicted the rest of the family. I was afraid his reflux was back. 

Today, I took him to the doctor. I had had enough. The laundry has been insurmountable. The smells have been obnoxious. I just couldn't take it. 

The doctor confirmed that he is fighting the same bug. She told me that it's been so prolonged because his diet has been keeping his intenstines irritated. We needed to restrict his food intake to let everything calm down. 

Now, this made sense to me. The juice (watered down) that Doug has been drinking, the chicken nuggets (Kirkland, baked in the oven), the peanut butter, etc., all of it was causing him to suffer longer. 

The problem is that I am 36. I have advanced reasoning abilities and some amount of logic. 

My 3-year-old lacks all of those skills. 

He told me, quite plaintively, "I still hungry. I want chicken nuggets." It was heartbreaking, because I couldn't give him what he wanted, things that aren't inherently bad, because they weren't good for him at the moment. I wasn't telling him he could never have these things. I was saying, "these things will hurt you if you have them now. I know you want them and I want to give them to you, but if I do that I will be causing you more pain and suffering."

There was the epiphany. 

See, I have been asking God for things quite plaintively for some time. Things that aren't inherently bad, like a new and better job for my husband (for example). 

God's sense of logic and reasoning is probably like mine compared to my 3-year-olds. Far advanced and beyond my understanding. I heard him today, saying, "Sue, I know you want these things. I know they seem like good things. If I give them to you now, they will hurt you. I have to wait until the time is right to give them to you." (I don't know that the things would hurt me per Se, but I hope I'm conveying the gist; that the right gifts at the wrong time would not benefit me correctly.)

If I were anyone else, I would say that the message was well-received in a mature manner. I would say, "oh, yes, Lord, now I get it. I'm totally fine with waiting because I see you've got a whole thing going."

The truth is I had a 3-year-old-sized tantrum. I vented to my husband that I didn't understand why we kept having to deal with this stuff, with this illness, with these difficulties. (As an aside, I was also frustrated because in the course of the chaotic morning I left my Costco card at home and had to take more time to get home and I hadn't eaten all morning.)

I am grateful for the insight, though. It doesn't make me happier to wait necessarily, but it is something I would had missed had it not been for crappy circumstances (literally). 

My hope is that Doug's illness clears up in the next day or so. I postponed Bekah's birthday party to shield her guests from this thing. I am hoping that once it's done with Doug, it's done for good. Then I can say goodbye to it for the next 345 or so days. Until then...

On Bekah's 6th Birthday

I have been a mom for 7 1/2 years. It has been messy, fun, heart-breaking, silly and rewarding. After Jeremy, I was pretty sure I only wanted to have boys. My paternal grandma had 5 and though my dad and his uncles were no walk in the park, I thought overall boys would be easier. 

As an aside, kids are hard, period. There is not a gender that is easier. There are ages that are not as complicated and there are aspects of both genders that can be difficult to manage. 

I found out that I was pregnant with Bekah just months before Brian found out about his cancer, before Jeremy had his surgery, before the bottom fell out of the economy. We had planned for her, but these curve balls made it all seem overwhelming. 

She decided (really God, but given Bekah's personality it seems like she had a say in it) to enter the world early. She came an hour after the Super Bowl ended (the Steelers won that year) and way before I was ready. 

So much didn't go the way I expected with her. The labor was very different. She didn't take to nursing in the same way Jeremy did. The things that worked to soothe Jeremy didn work on Bekah. Within weeks of Bekah's birth, I was caring both for a newborn and for my husband, who was recovering from kidney surgery. 

What I've learned from Bekah is that things can be beautiful even if they are not what you planned. From the beginning, she has been my shadow. She has always been my girl. 

One of my most enduring memories of Bekah happened when she was just a few weeks old. A friend had come over to deliver dinner. She offered to hold Bekah so that I could eat in peace. She walked around with Bekah in her arms. Every time she walked in front of where I was sitting, Bekah's eyes would follow me until I was out of her sight. Bekah was exhausted--she was one to fight sleep. When I finished, my friend handed her over. No sooner was Bekah in my arms than she was asleep. 

The only person who loves Bekah more than Brian and I is Jeremy. For Jeremy, she is his whole universe. This past week, when Bekah was in the hospital, he was a lost puppy without her. He was worried all day Monday and kept asking his 1-on-1 aide about her. Then he got sick and she couldn't sleep by herself in her room. She kept ending up in our bed with him, regularly reporting to me if he got sick. 

The big surprise was Doug, though. He sometimes seems like he isn't aware of what's going on. After Bekah got home, he climbed on top of her and gave her kiss after kiss after kiss. 

She makes friends wherever she goes. She is kind, loving and smart. She is also feisty, can throw an epic tantrum and is infuriating sometimes. I don't pretend that she is perfect or without faults. I don't pretend that being her mom isn't equal parts exhilerating and infuriating. 

The thing is, she is a doll. She loves to perform but is shy in front of strangers. She smiles big, with her whole body, but she screams like a banshee when she is upset. She is silly but observant--"Mommy, Skye likes Captain Turbot's brother but he's a human and she's a dog. That's so silly."

We call her the recorder of deeds. If you have made a promise to her, she will never forget. If you have done something wrong, the memory won't fade. She is absolutely amazing at calming her brother down. She loves animals and all things girly, but she also doesn't mind digging in the dirt. 

In short, she perfectly embodies the words Brian uttered when he first met her-"she's gorgeous."

Bekah, I am so happy you've been with us for 6 years. Our lives are so much richer with you here. Thank you for your silliness, for your strength of spirit and for the love you show to so many. I hope you continue to grow and become the woman I know you can be. 

To the rest of you, look out. Bekah is on her way.