When I was still teaching, the hardest days to get out of bed and drive to school were the rainy ones. I wanted to curl back under the covers with my kids and simply nest.  This morning, I finally got my wish.

Kaleb woke up at 6:30 and spent a lovely 45 minutes cuddled up and sleeping next to me. Snuggling a sleeping baby is as good as being pregnant, I think (I love pregnancy). Kendell had already left for the day so it was just Kaleb and me, listening to the rain in the dark. At 7:30, Haley got up and sat in my bed while she finished her homework. Jake and Nathan joined us half an hour later. Warm, sleepy, peaceful, with the rain like a shelter above us: exactly what I wanted and needed this morning.

All of which has left me thinking about the nature of answered prayers. In the grand scheme of things, my two years of teaching were just a small moment of time. But every day, every day, I ached to be at home with my kids. I hated knowing that if someone got sick, my mom or my mother-in-law would have to take care of them instead of me. I hated missing assemblies. I hated not making their breakfast and sending them off to school with a kiss. Every day I mourned for what I had lost and every day I prayed that I could get it back: that I could be a stay-at-home mom again.

Those two years taught me a lot: the nature of my little grief, my own ability, my children's inherent flexibility. I learned that I took my previous stay-at-home opportunity for granted. I even griped a little bit about it.  Since I've been home, I've been learning all new lessons. One of the biggest is that you can't ever "get it back again."  This time around, it's not the same. My three oldest are growing up.  I'll never have a houseful of toddlers again. It's not a matter of better or worse, just different. But I'm also learning the payback of those years of being away: I don't take mornings like these for granted anymore. I savor every second, because I also know now that staying at home is a privilege that could easily be lost.

Deep thoughts for a rainy Friday, I suppose. Happiness takes many forms, and today it was a cold, cloudy Utah morning and my four little sweethearts all snuggled up next to me, pajamas and down and baby soap and warmth.

So, last week Kendell and I took our kids to California.  We did all the touristy things: Disneyland for three days, Venice Beach, Hollywood Boulevard.  My boys were sick with the stomach flu when we went to Hollywood Blvd, so it was just me, Haley, Kendell, and Kaleb.  Haley, being the curious and observant kid she is, was just amazed at the different variety of people she saw.  (Remember: she's grown up in Orem, Utah!) One man came up and asked us, when we were in McDonald's, if we'd buy him a Coke, and she was silenced by such need.  (She said later, "mom, that guy must have been more addicted to caffeine than you are!" but I didn't think it was a need for caffeine. Instead I thought a Coke might just symbolize normal to this homeless man, and he wanted it to feel like everyone else.)

We'd talked a bit about the stars on the sidewalk, but she didn't understand the concept until we were walking down the street.  She stopped by the Olsen twins, Julie Andrews, Brittney Spears, Snow White, Disneyland, and the Rugrats stars.  Kendell got his picture taken by Arnold Schwarzenegger's star.  They both kept asking me whose star I wanted to have my picture taken by. Hmmm...aside from the lovely Viggo (of Hidalgo fame), whose star I might want to lay down on and...well, you know---I couldn't think of any movie star who I really, really admired.  (Viggo meets my "admire" catagory because he's also a writer.)   I started off on a mini-rampage, wondering why there were no writers with stars.  Most of those people wouldn't be famous without good writers writing stories and songs that the general populace enjoys, you know? But all that was represented on the street were the golden people.  I was starting to get bugged.  But then I spotted it, a name I was excited to get my picture taken by:

Yay!  A writer, a writer, a writer!  Of course, no one I was with---not even my brother-in-law Jeff, who is a teacher---knew who Ray Bradbury is.  (Of Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Martian Chronicles fame.)  Of course, he was there because he also wrote screenplays.  Of course, I needed to remember I was in Hollywood, which, duh, IS about movies.  But I still want to visit the street that has stars for my favorite writers.  I'd fill up my memory card there!

See, I told you I'm a geek!

Haley and I have had this ongoing conversation, ever since Kaleb was born:  What Kaleb won't remember. He won't remember, for example, my first two years of teaching.  He won't remember when our kitchen was painted white, since we painted it purple this summer. He'll not ever know our old next-door neighbors, who moved in August. He'll never know anything but our new washer and dryer and will probably think a top-loading washer is a strange thing.  From her perspective---a decade older than her baby brother---it is easier to see how time passes and things change, and how what just seems like "life" is nearly always open to interpretation.

On Friday, we found out one other thing that Kaleb won't remember: My dad.

Or, at least not my dad as he really is, funny and friendly and outgoing and kind. Quick to make a joke. Always wanting to talk. A reader and a lover of words, a gardener, a guy who loves trees and the desert and picking up bits of Native American history. Because, on Friday we found out that my dad has Alzheimer's.

We've suspected this for awhile. He's gone from his outgoing self to pulling away from everyone, from talker to silent watcher. I guess at least it's good to know what is wrong. But---but.  Like saying "but" matters.  Like crying "not fair" will take it away.  My family has already paid its Alzheimer's dues; my grandma suffered from it for nine long years. I already know the face of this disease, and it's a cruel one, a special sort of torment: you see this person you've loved your whole life standing in front of you; they look the same. Their voice sounds the same but when they speak, who they are has vanished. It's inexplicable to feel this, this missing of a person whose body is right before your eyes.

I know what is coming. But it doesn't feel like anything yet. Right now it feels like just a combination of sounds, the harsh Z tying the syllables together into something jarring and menacing, but far off. Saying it doesn't make it feel real. Even writing doesn't make it true. I've written "my dad has Alzheimer's" five times since I found out, and my mind knows what that means, but my heart has sealed itself against that sound. It's not letting it in. Yet---soon, as the disease progresses, it won't have a choice.

Kaleb's middle name, Don, is my dad's first name.  They share the same birthday. Even at the beginning of my pregnancy, I had a strong feeling that if the baby was a boy, I should name him after my dad. This naming, given right at the end of Dad's memory, has been a gift for him. He lights up in a way I've not seen with any of his grandkids when he sees this baby who bears his name. I love that they have this connection. I wish it could be strong enough to hold Dad's mind here with us. When I mourn, it will partly be that Kaleb won't remember who his grandpa was, really and truly. And that my dad won't get to know his namesake.

When I found out I was pregnant with Kaleb, I promised myself that once he was born, I'd not miss any picture opportunity.  I envisioned lovely, moody photographs, the kind with shadows and beautiful lighting and perfect facial expressions.  The sort that belong on the layouts of professional photographers or, say, a Cathy Zielske layout. So, for the past three and a half months, I've been doing crazy things like hanging a white tablecloth over the east window in Kaleb's room to make the right lighting and obsessing about skin tones and f-stops and the right ISO, not to mention fussing over poses and agonizing until I finally got a picture of him smiling.

For the most part, I've loved the pictures I've taken of Kaleb.  Not professional-photographer or famous-scrapbooker good, but still photos I love.  The other day, though, I realized something. A neighbor had asked to look at one of my scrapbooks, so I got out Nathan's baby book. I sort of looked over her shoulder as she flipped through the layouts, and as I glanced at them I realized that while I've got my lovely, thoughtful, perfectly-lit photographs, I don't have any every-day snapshots. You know the kind: the pictures of the baby lying on the bed, kicking his feet so they're just a little bit fuzzy, and he's looking at the ceiling fan as if it held the secret to life. The bed's unmade and if you look closely you can see that the white fabric in the left-hand corner is actually someone's underwear.

It hit me that I don't have any every-day photos of this sweet baby.  His favorite place in the world to be during his first three months was his vibrating bouncy seat---and the ONLY pictures I have of him in that seat, it's covered up with an attractive, solid-colored drop cloth. No pictures of him in his stroller. None of him hanging out in bed with Kendell (there's the underwear again!), or grooving in his johnny-jumper (his new favorite place) or sitting on my lap on the porch.

So I made a goal for myself, right then and there behind my neighbor's shoulder: I need to take even more photos.  My memory card can handle it. Those picture-perfect photos serve one purpose. They say something about Kaleb that I can't otherwise say, how I love his skin and face and chubby belly, and probably, I guess, something about myself, too. But I also need the rest of the story.  The everyday experiences, the things that make life well, homely. In my real life, there's a messy kitchen quite often, and the carpet doesn't get vacuumed enough, and sometimes I just don't make my bed. And right in the middle of that space is this sweet baby, becoming a part of our life.  I don't want to forget the way his foot jiggled in the vibrating seat or how happy he is just to hold a toy, or how frustrated he gets at not being able to reach the dangling flowers on the play gym. So my goal is to worry less about ISO and lighting and mood and to worry more, more often, about capturing reality.  Like here (Yep, that's my kitchen towel, and in other pictures I took that day you can see that there are five pair of shoes under the kitchen desk, and that I didn't close the door to the under-the-kitchen-sink cupboard, and that's just perfectly passable in my eyes!):