one year.

it's amazing how much can happen in one year. at times, it seems like it passed by at lightning speed. other times, the clock must have been moving backwards.

i was just thinking today about this very same weekend one year ago. jeff spent that saturday doing this. at that time, little did i know those would be our only christmas decorations last year. not because i was lazy or anything, but because the very next day life changed a little. more like a lot.

it was a sunday afternoon and jeff had a meeting or two or maybe three. who knows? what i do know is he was about a half hour later coming home than i had expected. when he walked in the door, i dissolved into a bucket of hot tears. nothing could console my emotional breakdown. all because he was a little late. he was extremely puzzled. but i was even more so.

about an hour after i calmed down, my mind did a little calculating and bam! it hit me like a ton of bricks.

crazy? no. pregnant? maybe!

that night i couldn't sleep. as i listened to jeff peacefully breathing beside me, my body was anything but that. with my mind racing in every possible direction, i needed to know right then. right then, so i could plan for this thing that had so not been planned. all the while being overwhelmed with feelings of worry, anticipation, concern, even excitement all jumbled together in a confusing mess.

at 4am, i couldn't wait any longer. i stumbled out of bed in my pajamas and drove to the good old 24-hour wal-mart. i was in and out in less that 5 minutes. with test in hand, i sped home anxious to resolve the million-dollar question. just as jeff quietly wandered into the bathroom rubbing the sleep from his eyes, i got my answer. 

and here he is.

what an amazing. amazing. year.

bikes and diapers. strange combination, right? this weekend i learned a valuable lesson about both.

first, we finally have a successful bike-riding boy at our house! this was a big occasion. 3 years ago we gave him a bike for his birthday. when he opened the present, he was not amused. he did not want a bike. he didn't ask for a bike. but his parents somehow thought that he should have a bike because that's what kids his age do. not this kid. bikes were lame and he didn't even want to get on it. so there it sat in the garage for a year. i pulled it out again after time had passed thinking he'd want to give it a try. i talked about how cool bikes were and how fun it would be to ride down to the park.

still, not amused.

so back to the garage it went for another year. in my mind, i was sure that we'd get the most terrible parents award because he'd grow up to be a non-bike-riding-thirty-year-old and blame us for never teaching him to ride. i told jeff i had only one goal for this year…to get that kid on a bike.

it happened this weekend. not because of us. but because he wanted to.

this leads me to diapers.

so while dallin was outside practicing on his bike, the pantless two-year-old came out to watch the fun. no pants. no pants! i cannot get him to wear pants! and here i am watching him walk up and down the sidewalk in just a diaper. now, way back when i was a mother of just one (and thought i knew everything), i would cringe at the thought of my baby running around outside without pants. i mean, i might as well just be cousin eddy standing there in my bath robe. you know what i'm saying?

as i stood there watching one boy ride a bike and one boy wearing only diaper, i came to a realization…sometimes the best word in a mother's vocabulary is simply, whatever.