My Sock Drawer Turned On Me...

There's just some moments in life, odd ones where my brain plays tricks on me, where I'm reminded in odd little ways about how my life has changed...what age has brought to my life.

I've had a lot of sock deaths lately. Been thru a few maddening weeks where every time I put a sock pair on, I have a hole on the balls of me feet of at least one of the pair. Most fought a valiant death, some just gave up the ghost like sissys. Either way, I found myself not filling my sock drawer to the brim about 6 weeks ago - it was pathetically empty on its best day. So I did one of those evil nasty shopping trips. You know the kind...where you spend like double the money you intend to, and quadruple the amount you want to, and you still probably should have bought more. Yeah...I stocked up on socks and basic tshirts and the like. My drawer was mostly full...tolerable at least so that I'm still driven to do laundry by the demands of a certain toddler to wash the cupcake underwear vs needing a pair of black socks that look decent for going to Mandarin Class.

This week I was in laundry hell. Dunno why, but every day I had to do laundry. And ironing. And more laundry. Last night, I came up the stairs and groaned -the cat had found the clean laundry bucket I had forgot about. So everything was packed down with cat weight. Yeah, great. So grumbling under my breath, I tossed all the rumpled clothes into the appropriate drawers.

Tossed about 3 pairs of my socks in the drawer. Kicked it shut with my foot in a gray sock, and paused. Then I opened the drawer again and peered inside. Eyeballed it from about 3 angles. There they all were, all my little toe warmers in various weights and textures and colors. Well, then it hit me. Blah. Boring. Uninspiring.

What had happened to my lime green with gray polka dot socks? Where were the black and gray polka dots cashmere socks? Where were the lime, gray and purple stripes? And the turquiose and gray? And the purple ones? The ones with the little paint splattery looking blobs? Oh, and the ones with the vine going up the side? All gone. In the landfill.

And in their place? An assortment of gray, brown, black, light gray, ivory, and beige....adult socks. Boring. Grown up. Responsible socks. Socks that worry about the fees paid into their 401k and worry about making sure to get the low sodium products.

I'm middle aged apparently.

What Easter Means to Me...

I don't have the traditional view of Easter...yeah, not shocking from the person whose very nature doesn't allow her to blindly follow anything but an awesome pair of shoes or a wickedly tight line of argument...

Easter was the first holiday that H was here. She had not been home long, but it was the first time we got to girl her up and take her out and celebrate something. We introduced her to P's extended family that first Easter. Last Easter was with my family, and this Easter was with my Dad and step-mom...so now we also have memories with everyone that are totally different situations. So I always have about 9.5 minutes of thoughtful reflection. I remember being the overwhelmed new mama, I remember her in her first cutsy-little purple, white and green floral dress with a little lavender sweater over it and black mary janes over her white tights. All the things that family-with-kids family photo memories are made of that I finally had as mine.

And I can still see in my eye the photo that came up on the camera screen when my husband took the photo of her in my lap....the first time I really really saw the vacant eyes staring back at me...we'd thought "she's come so far" the 7 weeks she had been home. She had...I don't deny that. But it showed me how far she still had to go in graphic detail. In the trenches of being a new mom, I had never stopped and just looked at her with the distance that a photo gave me. She looked like a doll - a perfectly formed, vacant doll. Still coping with what had happened to her to a great extent.

And I remember we tried to get her to smile...which we had seen her do often. But she wouldn't for the picture that day. Her way of keeping me in my place.

And this year, I saw her hunt down 15 eggs high and low with no issues. I saw her wanting to share her candy with me. I saw her say Thank You to the Easter Bunny...I saw her sit like a big girl in a big kid chair for 1.5 hours. I saw her charm the grandparents she took the longest to get used to. I saw her try 3 new foods. I saw her giggle and scream at the Easter Bunny, and worry about the ladybug climbing the window. I saw her see another Chinese adoptee and say "mama - she like me. Same." I heard her ask "why" questions thruout brunch. I felt her lean in and give me an unsolicited kiss. I saw the light in her eyes. I saw the spunk. I saw the intelligence. I saw the bonds.

She's come so far. And now, I know, she'll keep going.