Open Up And Say, "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Please."

Dear Laney,

You went to the dentist this morning for your check-up. I don't want to sound like an old-timer or anything, but MAN, things have changed since I was little. I remember a scary old man scraping around on my teeth with a metal hook. What I DON'T remember is a flat-screen TV mounted on the ceiling so I could watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while I wore cushioned earphones. I also don't remember a nice lady in a pirate outfit "counting" my teeth and giving me tokens I could redeem for toys in a prize machine.

If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now: the 70's stunk, and I want a do-over.

Love,
Mom

P.S. You have no cavities, you sat still for an x-ray, and your permanent teeth look perfect.

Playover in Denver

Hey y'all - 

Well, we did it. Fifteen days, four flights, four states, one road trip, one party, one wedding, eight playgrounds, three houses, one hotel, and a million cuss words mumbled as I installed your car seats in one of five cars. 

And you know what? Y'all were awesome. I could not ask for better traveling companions of any age. 

On our last day in Fayetteville, we did some shopping and some idiot* decided it would be fun to buy Laney her own microphone. I have never actually thrown gasoline on a fire, but now I understand the concept. Peg entertained Laney for hours by using it to introduce her... "Ladies and gentlemen! For one night only! Miss! Laney! Burbach!" Laney would jump in the room and we'd cheer and then she'd instruct Peg, "Do it 'gain."

Here, Laney takes over for Southwest Airlines Ground Crew:

Ladies and gentlemen! Fasten your seat belts!

I shouldn't be so surprised that you were so good on this trip; you've been traveling non-stop since you were born, seems like. Not counting the states we just drove or flew through, here are the states Laney's visited (and spent at least one night) - 

Considering she's just three, I'd say we're on a roll. By the end of elementary school, we could have this country knocked out.

Love,

Mom

* Me. I'm the idiot.

Mom's Big Day

Hey y'all - 

Yesterday was my birthday. 36 feels the same as 35 blah blah blah. But because it was MY birthday and I'm a big-time grown up, it was all about ME and what I wanted to do, and didn't at all take into account what anyone else might enjoy, 'cause it's MY day. Mine, mine, mine. 

Now, on to all the pictures of us at Chuck E Cheese's:

Air Hockey

Dance Party game. We both got a failing score. Genetics are an awful thing sometimes - sorry.

"...And here's another thing about this car..."

Laney gets the wheel. Dad gets the gas pedal. The car goes into the wall.

The super motion voyage machine

Voyage buddies

Picking our prize - making every ticket count.

Kidding aside, I had a great time. I didn't embarrass myself on the free throw machine, and I got a great score in skee-ball and we all had pizza and played every driving game in the place, even when Laney wasn't tall enough to see the screen.

We won 42 tickets, which was just barely enough to score the hot pink striped pencil eraser that Laney had her eye on. Does she own a pencil? No.

Completely unrelated to my enjoyment of the afternoon:

Genius. Just genius.

Happy birthday to me!

Love,

Mom

Museum Project

Hey y'all -

Like I was saying, we went to the museum yesterday.

It was surprisingly cold here in Arkansas, so Laney decided she wanted to wear Peg Peg's sweater, which was both practical and fashion-forward since oversized earth tones are totally on trend this season. I'm making that up. Unless it's true.

I enjoyed parking Hagen in his stroller next to works of art, and then adding "avec Hagen" to the ends of their titles. For example, this is a lighting installation piece from the Luminist exhibit that I like to call, "Sloan (Red) 1968 avec Hagen."

Your dad calls this, "nerd humor."

Then, I entertained myself by taking pictures of the most interesting figures inside larger paintings. Like hidden portraits.

That last one comes from a much larger painting that should be titled, "Mother Of A Talkative Three Year-Old," but isn't.

This is exactly what I look like on the living room floor - horizontal and glassy-eyed - by the time Laney finishes recounting the plot of Strawberry Shortcake in Sleeping Beauty. Only this lady's wearing much nicer shoes. 

Laney's favorite piece in the museum? The stairs.

Fine art's in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

Love,

Mom

UH-OH

Dear Hagen,

Sometime during our stay in Georgia, you learned the word, "uh-oh." Everything was uh-oh. And just a few hours after you learned to say "uh-oh," Laney started answering, "Uh-oh is right, Hagen." You're a regular comedy duo.

By our second or third day in Alabama, Granny Jack said, "I'm about tired of that 'uh-oh.'" You would pull all the cookbooks off her shelf, sit in the middle of the pile, and then say, "Uh-oh!" We tried to explain that "uh-oh" only applies to accidents, not on-purposes.

Today, we put you in a stroller and pushed you through the Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. You didn't have on socks, and chubby baby toes are like catnip to old women, so grandma-types all the way through the museum kept walking up and pinching your feet. Peg said she was going to put your socks back on in self-defense.

You "uh-oh"ed your way through Early 20th Century Paintings, and an Exhibit on women's portraits. It was an interesting anthropological experiment - You would uh-oh, and ten times out of ten, the complete stranger nearest you would uh-oh back.

The paintings were great, but the performance art was better.

Love,
Mom

The One About Life. And Death.

Dear Laney & Hagen,

A little over three years ago, I started this blog. This is my one thousandth post.

Not too long ago, Grandma Sue gave me a copy of a memoir called WILD by Cheryl Strayed. She described it as the story of a woman who had hit bottom and had decided to re-discover herself by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Because it's not polite to roll your eyes when you're given a gift, I said "thanks," and took it. See, southerners as a general rule aren't big on introspection. I'm sure it's unhealthy, but as a general rule, we don't set out to discover ourselves or probe our innermost feelings.* Our psychiatry offices are entered through a back door located off a dark alley. So the last thing I wanted to do was read a book about a navel-gazing woman who had a bad time and decided to take a long walk uphill.

But... because it takes 45 minutes to get to our house and your dad was driving, I got the book out and started to read it on the way home. The first chapters were about the abrupt death of the writer's mother to cancer. They were written with such heart and clarity and told a story of such profound loss that by the time I got to our exit off the interstate, I had gone into what Oprah would call my "ugly cry." I was seriously sobbing over the death of a woman I had never met, as told through the eyes of her daughter.

See, I had wrapped my head around the idea that one day my mother will pass away. And I will be inconsolable, and I will take to my bed, and my world will never be the same, but it will be part of the natural order of things. I understood death as a daughter, but I had never before thought about it as a mother.

I think I was crying all the way down Petty Creek Road because I realized that there will come a day when I won't be there for you. When I won't be able to make everything all better. And that idea was so devastating that I went into a sort of panic: What can I do RIGHT NOW so that when I'm gone, my children will know how much I loved them?!? And then my next thought - I swear - was:  I KNOW!! I should write them both a letter!!!

...and that's when I realized: I've written a thousand of them.

Every post on this blog has been a love letter to you both.

I hope you like them.

Love,
Mom

* I realize that as the author of a thousand-post blog, this is the height of hypocrisy. Let's move on.

Chris & Danae's Wedding

Hey y'all-

Here's the thing about the Morgan side of our family - we can put together a hell of an event. Led by Aunt Robyn, you can go from zero to Southern Living in three days with a minimal budget. But at the same time, you should expect a call to tell you you've been promoted to the head of the music committee. And you're now the florist. And also the photographer. But I wouldn't dare complain, because Robyn put MY wedding together, saving me oodles of dollars, so the least I could do was pay it forward. Also, when Robyn tells you you can do something, you start to believe it. So I googled Martha Stewart "How to make a bouquet" videos and looked at "Wedding Photography Tips" websites and tried to make the best of it.

I left Montgomery with a new aunt, 800+ pictures on my computer, and the ability to make a boutonniere. And how many people can say that at the end of their vacations?

Love,

Mom

Family Dinner

Hey y'all -

The big reason we swung through Alabama this past weekend was to attend the wedding of my Uncle Chris to his fiancee, Danae.

The wedding was set for Sunday, so on Saturday night, Robyn hosted a welcome dinner for all the everyone at her house.

Peg Peg and Robyn, dancing in the kitchen

Laney. admiring the show

Bed wrestlin'

Hanging out by the cooler with the bride

Walking practice

We all had enchiladas and played outside. Peg asked Laney for a check-up, reporting a pain in her ear. Laney said, "I'm going to need to see your foot. Take off your shoe." It seems Laney's been studying Chinese acupressure in her off time. We tried to do the hokey pokey, but just like my mother can't remember the words to any song ever, she also can't seem to distinguish between her right and left and her arm and her leg. But Tex saved the day with his enthusiasm:

That's...what...it's...all...about!

We all had a great time, but enough about the dinner: on to the wedding!

Love,
Mom

That's How They Get You

Dear Laney,

We got to Alabama on Wednesday, and one of our first orders of business was to go to Granny Jack's church so you could meet the people she works with in the kitchen.

Frazer United Methodist Church is enormous, and features its own coffee shop, gift store, indoor submarine-themed playground and petting zoo. I am only making up one of those things.

We happened to stop by the indoor, submarine-themed playground at the same time as one of the preschool classes was having recess. You jumped right in and held hands with the other girls so you could walk, dance and slide together.

When recess time was over, the teacher announced that all of "Miss Janice's friends" should line up to go back to class. You got right in line with the other kids, ready to shuffle on down the hallway without so much as a wave goodbye to your mama. Watch out: that's how those Methodists get you... they dangle a submarine slide in front of you, and the next thing you know, you're signed up for a casserole committee. I'm almost positive that's what happened to Granny Jack.

Love,

Mom