Speed Bump

We made new memories last Saturday. Somehow we found a day when everyone could get together to make Christmas cookies. We were three generations in a place that has been my family's home for at least that long, and all was right in the world. Mom was having a good day and was energized with all of her family at home. KU won a big basketball game earlier in the day making everyone, especially my Dad, happy. The girls made cookies while the boys played basketball on an especially warm December afternoon. Our cookies weren't Pinterest-worthy, but they were delicious. Mom was much more interested in taking care of her newest granddaughter, 5 month-old Hartley Paige, than in helping decorate cookies. She lights up and is her happiest when around the baby. Hartley has this effect on all of us. Any hint of sadness gets snuffed out with her around. Baby smells, baby sounds, a touch of her soft skin, those big eyes smiling up at you - that's all a person needs to fill their

I pull myself out of my warm bed and shuffle in the dark towards the kitchen to make a pot of coffee - a must before braving the frigid morning air to walk the puppy. Dim lights from a holiday wreath blink from the living room wall and I realize I forgot to turn the lights off the night before. The batteries that power the string of lights in the wreath are from last year, replacing them is on my to-do list. I decide I like the softer, muted effect on the lights and I’m not going to replace the batteries just yet. It’s December. That crazy time of year when my kids run on candy canes and sugar cookies, and each day they wake with the hope that an overnight snowfall will cancel school. They are 9 and 7 this year, old enough to know Santa isn’t real, but still wanting to believe. My son differentiates what he calls the “mall Santas” from the real thing - proving to me, and to himself, that he still believes. The season is filled with the promise of magic and the innocence of believing.