A Stage, A Mother and A Story & #iPPP

I've been talking a lot about motherhood and stages lately (LTYM).  Last Friday night, I went to an event to raise money for a charity close to my heart.  And at that event, my friend got on stage and blew me and everyone in the room away.

I've written about the event before (here and here), it was a benefit for the nonprofit Charlotte's Wings, an organization that donates books to hospitals and hospices in Michigan.  The event started as a pretty small fundraiser on the patio of a bar.  It has grown to be THE event of the season for a lot of folks.  The ballroom of the fanciest hotel in town fills with 600 people decked out and ready to spend major money at the silent auction.  Since I don't have major money, my role is to get the dance floor going--a job I am more than happy to take on.

I'm sure nobody bidding at the silent auction tables looked at me strangely for posing like this for Tim to take the picture of my dress. 

The day before the fancy gala, I went dress shopping and found a dress that I felt was sophisticated yet let me move on the dance floor.

There was a step and repeat, which was awesome.
There was champagne and a line for the cash bar.
There was a great band.
There were so many fancy people and pretty dresses.
There were so many items to bid on like signed jerseys, birthday parties, massages and more.

And there was a stage, and there was a mother.

This whole evening existed because of one mother who lost her little girl to a rare disease.  The mother is my friend Jo.  Her daughter was Charlotte.  After Charlotte passed away, Jo and her husband donated books in her honor to a hospital.  Jo and her friend Jen then decided to start a nonprofit and give more books to more hospitals.  They are up to over 30,000 books.

I knew the story well, I 've been friends with Jo for years.  But last Friday night when Jo got on that stage to tell the story of Charlotte and the books that brought her family comfort in the final days of Charlotte's illness, there was something different.  Jo was more emotional than I'd seen her maybe ever.  She was still this strong, composed woman but there was something different.  She seemed more vulnerable than I'd ever seen her and yet braver at the same time.  She told the crowd of 600 well-dressed party goers how she wasn't sure if her daughter heard her reading to her, but it brought comfort to a mother being able to read to her child.

Tears and a standing ovation followed.
Then it was back to partying and dancing and lining up at the cash bar.  Back to the party, back to life.  But everything felt different.  There was more purpose to the auction bidding.  There was more appreciation for life and loved ones.  There was more admiration for one mother's strength and courage and grace.

Here's a video I made that was shown at the event.

Charlotte's Wings 2014 from Jumping With My Fingers Crossed on Vimeo.

To find out more about Charlotte's Wings, click here.

This post is part of the #iPPP link up. 

Now it's your turn to link up a post for the #iPPP.

Angela Amman (my LTYM co-producer and #iPPP co-hoster and amazing, wonderful friend) and I want to see your funny, heartfelt, favorite phone photos from the week!  Your post can be about anything, as long as it contains one picture from your phone.  Link up below and don't forget to visit some of the others!

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Family & #iPPP

Candy for breakfast? Check.  Bubbles inside? Check.  Hands up in the air, waving like we just don't care? Check and check.  Yo.  It was a holiday weekend and we did what we do...celebrate and act all crazy.

We also carried on traditions like Easter Bunny cake.  

Even though the dog ate an entire ear of our bunny before we could say Peter Cottontail, it worked out okay.

When I was little, my mother was was all about the Easter Bunny cakes, Labor Day picnics, candy for breakfast on special days and more.  Every year, it wasn't perfect, but it happened.  Until it didn't.  When my parents got divorced traditions stopped.  

In between a million moves, parents remarrying, my mother's anxiety and mental instability and addiction issues, and us just growing up, traditions stopped.  My brother and sister and I used to try to maintain some of the little things they did--making special foods at holidays or singing certain songs.  But it never really stuck.

Traditions, even silly one-eared bunny cakes, matter.  They are part of the story of the family.  They link generations.  

Peyton rolled his eyes when I asked him to get in the traditional Easter Bunny Cake picture this past weekend.  I promised not to post it anywhere on social media and he reluctantly agreed.  "Listen kid, I am going to make a bunny cake forever," I told him.  "You will be posing for this picture with your kids."  He rolled his eyes again. But I know. I know that if I stopped making this bunny cake or doing the things that make our family us, it would matter.  Because it's part of the story of the family, it links us.

We went to Tim's parents' house for dinner on Easter evening.  I looked out on the deck and saw him talking to his three brothers.  They weren't talking about anything particularly special.  They were just hanging out on the deck on Easter evening because that's what they do.  That's their tradition, that's part of the story of their family.

What is the story of your family?  

What traditions do you all have?  

All the pictures in this post were taken with my iPhone.  And I post most of them to Instagram.  Come on over an play with me there.

Now link up for the #iPPP 

Angela Amman (my LTYM co-producer and #iPPP co-hoster) and I want to see your funny, yummy, heartfelt,  favorite phone photos from the week!  Your post can be about anything, as long as it contains one picture from your phone.  Link up below and don't forget to visit some of the others!

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Jumping Rope & #iPPP

When was the last time you jumped rope?  If it's been a while, I suggest you go now and do it, right now.

On a whim, last Thursday I bought a giant jump rope for the kids (for only $4) to play with on spring break.  Sure, some families go on a tropical vacation for the week and I buy a jump rope, I know.   No one was super excited at first.  But then, we started jumping and it was so ridiculously fun.  

Maybe I needed some silly fun that reminded me of being a kid myself.  Something that was fun, had rhythm and got my heart rate pumping.  Jumping rope is a little like dancing and I love it.

A million years ago, when I was in Mr. McKee's fourth grade class we did a lot of jumping rope.  Every day before school started we all had to jump to 100.  Physical activity was woven in throughout the day in his class.  It was quite possibly the best year I ever had in school.  My brain worked better when I was moving.

Thirty years later and I'm still that way.  Moving makes me happier, calmer and smarter.  That's why I run, and dance, and now jump rope.  If I don't move, I feel anxious.  I worry more and have trouble concentrating.  

Not sure if my kids are smarter because they are spending their spring break jumping rope, but I know they are having fun.  I ended up going out and buying the kids each their own jump rope.  We are hoping to be doing double dutch by the end of the week.

Check out our jump rope fun with our cousins that were visiting last weekend.

Here's another fun video.  The Pointer Sisters! I used to mimic their album cover poses in the mirror with my sister, I love those Pointer Sisters.  And this particular song was out when I was in Mr. McKee's class and it's about jumping, I mean I had to include it here.  Enjoy! 



And don't forget to head over to my YouTube channel for a new vlog every day for VEDA.

All the pictures and videos in this post were taken on my phone.  
Come play with me on Instagram.

Now Link Up for the #iPPP
Angela (my LTYM co-producer & iPPP co-host-er) and I want to see your funny, your yummy, your heartfelt, your favorite phone photos (or videos) of the week.  Of course, it doesn't have to be from an iPhone.  All you need is a blog post containing at least one photo from any phone camera.  Link up below and don't forget to visit some of the others!

Zumba Dreams & #iPPP

I love to dance.  My whole life I have wished that life was like a musical and everyone would break out into a dance routine. I used to sit by the fountain near Brown Hall on my college campus a million years ago picturing everyone dancing like it was West Side Story.  The English Majors vs. the Theater Majors, just like the Sharks vs. the Jets.  And when I say a million years ago, it was a looooong time ago.  Way before Glee, way before flash mobs.  But what a great time we live in huh?  

Dancing is everywhere.  And I love it.  Do you know what else I love? Zumba.

I tried it for the first time last Saturday and it was hysterical and awesome.  There were old ladies busting a move like Shakira, men whooping and doing mad Cha-Chas and confused looking middle-aged women not getting one step right, but laughing and having fun.  It was everything I love about weddings and clubs--throwing your hands up in the air like you just don't care, loud bass thumping, lots of laughing and hip shaking and good times--right there in a gym on a Saturday morning.

I have been known to put up a dance video now and then, well a lot.  I recently put up this video on Instagram.  One of the teachers at the gym that I go to saw it and suggested I try Zumba and then said maybe I should teach Zumba.  

Um, I'm not going to lie and tell you that I haven't put together 100 Zumba routines in my kitchen since she said that. I mean I just kind of love the headline, in my head--Almost 40-year-old mother of 4 who has had a really shitty year quits eating her feelings and spreads her love of dance to the world and becomes a Zumba instructor.  Right?  I mean, that's a happy ending to a crap year isn't it?

Stay tuned to see if I make the cut at the Zumba tryout.

And don't forget to head over to my YouTube channel for a new vlog every day for VEDA.

All the pictures and videos in this post were taken on my phone.  
Come play with me on Instagram.

Now Link Up for the #iPPP
Greta, Angela (my LTYM co-producer & iPPP co-host-er) and I want to see your funny, your yummy, your heartfelt, your favorite phone photos (or videos) of the week.  Of course, it doesn't have to be from an iPhone.  All you need is a blog post containing at least one photo from any phone camera.  Link up below and don't forget to visit some of the others!

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Wade's World & #iPPP

For the past couple weeks, I've been feeling a little vulnerable.  Okay maybe more like a lot vulnerable and emotional.  

I feel a little over-informed, worried, anxious.  The world feels scary and evil and like it's possibly ending.  Pollution reports from the U.N., speculations and theories about why/how/where planes crash, devastating mudslides, teenagers climbing the new World Trade Center...it just all seems a little too much.  I want to turn off every TV and not go online ever again.  I want to hide, like a turtle in a shell.  Or run around like a frantic chicken screaming "the sky is falling."  

I need sunshine (or antidepressants).  I need a media break.  I need to think like a four-year-old.
  
Wade's world is pretty great.  He is all about the moment.  Sure he gets pissed if we are out of chocolate milk, but then Clifford comes on TV and he's happy again.  

The other day, a package arrived and just like a four-year-old should be, he was ecstatic about the box. He colored the box, he pretended the box was a car and then a pirate ship.  In Wade's world, it was THE BEST THING EVER.

He even showed how awesome the box was to his little friend Sadie.  The two of them played hide and seek for quite a while with the box.  One would count, the other would hide...in the box.  Over and over and over.  They had so much fun.

When it started snowing yesterday, my heart started racing and I was convinced that the extreme weather conditions that "will affect all human life" negatively were happening right then and there.  Like we were living in some freaky real-life version of Frozen, maybe we should build a bunker or go buy batteries.  My mind was going a mile a minute and then I heard Wade say "look I can catch snowflakes on my tongue Mommy!"  Even though we have lived in a frigid, snowy winter wonderland for months, he was still excited to see big fluffy snowflakes.  

Because to a four-year-old, snowflakes and boxes are all kinds of awesome.  Wade's world is about possibility and fun and what's that and look over there and wow and right now.

I took a deep breath, took a picture and then stood with my head to the sky, and my tongue out hoping to catch a snowflake.  Hoping to let go of some of my anxiety and remember the possibility and the fun and the what's that and the look over there and the wow and the magic of right now.


All the pictures in this post were taken on my phone.  Come play with me on Instagram.

Now Link Up for the #iPPP
Greta, Angela (my LTYM co-producer & iPPP co-host-er) and I want to see your funny, your yummy, your heartfelt, your favorite phone photos of the week.  Of course, it doesn't have to be from an iPhone.  All you need is a blog post containing at least one photo from any phone camera.  Link up below and don't forget to visit some of the others!

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The Great Thaw & #iPPP

I've written a lot about how much we've enjoyed our very snowy winter. It has been fun.  But something happened this week, something that changed well, everything.  We had two days where the sun came out, the temperature reached a balmy 47 degrees and the snow started to melt.  

It changed us.  We are officially over winter.  

Wade couldn't stop being amazed. "Grass! Mommy, loooooook I see grass!," he squealed.  "My shadow! Sidewalk! Moooommmmy! It's going to be spring!!!"

The rather ironic, some might say evil, thing is, that while I type this our area is under a winter storm warning.  But it's too late winter, we got a taste of spring and we can't go back.  

Our spring fever has been sprung.

Super Lucy's take on spring fever--a poetic study of the senses.  I think it's perfect.  I love my little writer girl.

The first spring-ish day in Michigan after the snowiest, coldest winter in 133 years looks a bit...apocalyptic.  Debris hidden beneath a foot of snow is revealed.  The once fluffy snow becomes black melting slush.  Potholes (and the wreckage they caused) from months of salt and subzero temperatures take over the streets.  Sidewalks are cracked.  

Ice patches where kids played hockey become murky, muddy puddles/ponds.  

People walk outside of their homes looking confused, squinting in the sunlight and greeting neighbors happily for the first time in months.  

Everyone, adults and children, have a somewhat crazed look in their eyes.  Like animals that have been freed from their cages.  

Children ride scooters and bikes on patches of slush-free sidewalk and tell their parents they don't need coats ("Mooom, I'm hot," they say because 47 degrees really does feel sort of hot compared to minus 20.)  

You people in warmer climates might think I am exaggerating. But you people that live here, you know I speak the truth.

We played on the front porch for the first time in forever and it made me so happy.  I can't wait to live on my front porch again.

It may not sound like the prettiest transition with the debris, the murky puddles, the dirty snow...but it is beautiful.  It's beautiful because it means that trees with leaves, green grass, flowers and no need for coats and hats and gloves and boots and mittens and scarves is coming and we are ready.  

It's been fun winter, but we're over you.  Bring on the great thaw of 2014 (yeah, right after the projected eight inches of snow we are supposed to get tonight).

All the pictures in this post were taken on my phone.  Come play with me on Instagram.

Now Link Up for the #iPPP
Greta, Angela (my LTYM co-producer & iPPP co-host-er) and I want to see your funny, your yummy, your heartfelt, your favorite phone photos of the week.  Of course, it doesn't have to be from an iPhone.  All you need is a blog post containing at least one photo from any phone camera.  Link up below and don't forget to visit some of the others!

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The Same Team & #iPPP

"Good luck today," JT said and then gave Lucy a hug before we left for their basketball games last Sunday.

It's been a long, cold, snowy winter.  Even though we've been enjoying the outdoors as often as possible, there has been a lot of time cooped up inside.  Together.  Lots of togetherness in a not so big house.  Which means there has also been a lot of bickering, picking on each other, wrestling and shouting "get away from me" or "quit touching me."  And that's just Tim and me.  The kids have been pretty annoyed with each other too.  That's why JT wishing Lucy an unprompted good luck was pretty surprising.

I love being surprised by my kids' generosity and kindness to each other.  Because honestly, they can be pretty mean to each other.  Wade told me the other day he didn't want me to clip his finger nails so he could use them to scratch Peyton in a fight.  Um, my 4-year-old is strategizing what weapon works best in a brother fight?!  And he learned it from his big sister?!

They may beat the crap out of each other sometimes, but I truly believe they love each other.  I believe we are a tribe, a team, a family.  They  have each other's backs.  They support each other.  My belief is based on the way they comfort each other.   If one of them gets in trouble for fighting a little too hard or being a little too mean, it never fails the others think we are being too harsh and quickly come to the defense of their sibling.  My belief is based on on the "good lucks" they give each other before a big game. My belief is based on the laughter I hear when I check on them at storytime.

I'd love to tell you that Tim was reading sweet bedtime stories, but that's not the case.  He was cracking the kids up by changing Disney classics like Bambi,  and adding fart jokes and a lot of violence.  The kids were rolling with laughter, all of them, from the 4-year-old to the 12-year-old.

My belief that they really do dig each other is based on the fact that even after what seems like a never-ending winter and being trapped inside together for a million days, they/we still have a great time, most of the time.

This is my jam right now...because just like Lorde says "you know we're on each other's team."



All the pictures in this post were taken on my phone.  Come play with me on Instagram.

Now Link Up
Greta, Angela (my LTYM co-producer & iPPP co-host-er) and I want to see your funny, your yummy, your heartfelt, your favorite phone photos of the week.  Of course, it doesn't have to be from an iPhone.  All you need is a blog post containing at least one photo from any phone camera.  Link up below and don't forget to visit some of the others!

<img src=”http://mamamash.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/ippp-polaroid-125-x-125.jpg” alt=”GFunkified” style=”border:none;” />

Link up with your blog posts featuring any phone photos every week! Your post can be about anything, as long as it contains at least one picture from your phone. Link will be open until 11:59pm central Friday night.

These Days & #iPPP

Professor Plum, in the conservatory with a revolver.  I haven't thought about Professor Plum in a million years.  The other day at my in-laws' house my mother-in-law asked if I wanted to have one of Tim's old games, Clue.  We took it home, dusted off the cover and started playing with the family.  I think it's strange to play a game where the whole theme is murder.  I mean that's kind of weird isn't it?  But I loved this game when I was younger.  As we we tried to guess if it was indeed Professor Plum or Miss Scarlet, I was kind of overwhelmed with memories of being a kid.

I loved being a kid.   I vividly remember sitting in my bed with the pink canopy asking "why do we even have to grow up anyway?"  I remember winters full of sledding and snow forts and cross-country skiing with my brother, sister, mom and dad.  I remember family picnics and softball games in the summer.  I remember road trips in the station wagon and winning the right to stretch out in the "back-back" or the floor  (Which I say a big what the hell? to now, because who wants to lay on the car floor, how weird!) Sitting in the backseat (or laying on the floor) listening to my mom and dad sing old camp songs, not just sing, harmonize.  Staying up late on Friday nights to watch Dukes of Hazard, Dallas and if I was super lucky Falcon's Crest (I know, go ahead and say a big what the hell? to why my parents were letting me watch those shows!).  

Staying outside all day playing with Beth, Amy, Jessica, Steve and maybe Jason if he was around and Richie, but he was kind of know-it-all.  There were family walks--even our mean old cat, Furry Socks, followed us.  Talent shows in the front yard, Christmas plays that always ended in family dance parties to Michael Jackson or Chaka Kahn songs.  When the tax refund check came in the mail we got to go to Mr. Steak and celebrate.  My little brother and I couldn't wait for my dad to get home every night from work and when his little tan Festiva pulled in the driveway we'd run out to greet him with hugs. Playing Green Glob, Ghosts and Graveyards, Hide and Seek, Rook, Clue and Hearts for hours and hours.  

I never wanted to grow up.  Until a few years later when all I wanted to do was grow up already, geez.

About four years, maybe five.  That is the length of my magical childhood memories.  My particular childhood/family ended because of a divorce and all kinds of weird dysfunction and sadness.  BUT it would have been changed no matter what because all kids grow up.  We all grow up.  

So, I watched my kids play a good old-fahsioned game of who murdered who with what and heard the classic Natalie Merchant song in my head.  You know, "Theeeeese arrrrre days, you'll remember..." 

Peyton is trying to make sure no one sees who he thinks the murderer is.

We made Lucy wear gloves because she was still in the post-Norovirus contagious time-period when we played.

I hope my kids look back with all kinds of warmth and joy when they think of their childhood, these days.  Even if we totally screw up their teen years, I feel pretty good that they have a solid foundation of good times and now Clue to hold onto.

We found this little note when we opened the Clue box.  Apparently, Tim was a fan of the L.A. Raiders 30 years ago.  And he thought his brother Bob was a cheater.

Awww, remember this song about remembering from good ol' Natalie Merchant (this song also brings a lot of college memories back too!):



All the pictures in this post were taken on my phone.  Come play with me on Instagram.

Now Link Up
Greta, Angela (my LTYM co-producer & iPPP co-host-er) and I want to see your funny, your yummy, your heartfelt, your favorite phone photos of the week.  Of course, it doesn't have to be from an iPhone.  All you need is a blog post containing at least one photo from any phone camera.  Link up below and don't forget to visit some of the others!

<img src=”http://mamamash.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/ippp-polaroid-125-x-125.jpg” alt=”GFunkified” style=”border:none;” />

Link up with your blog posts featuring any phone photos every week! Your post can be about anything, as long as it contains at least one picture from your phone. Link will be open until 11:59pm central Friday night.