celebrations | Raising the Curtain

It’s been fairly hectic around Curtaindom for the past couple of months, but in a good way.

The family has survived the final exams apocalypse and the Creature aka my eldest son is starting to stir from the swamp of note paper filled with endless scrawl. The reason I know this is that the swamp of notes, textbooks and other assorted stationery has stopped spreading like the proverbial primordial ooze and now just sits forlornly in a pile like the blob. Except there’s no quiver, maybe a rustle or two, but certainly no quiver.

Just as Creature finished his final exam, my youngest son, started his own path towards the swamp by undertaking his end of year exams. They finish on Friday and …

I CAN’T WAIT!!!

Don’t get me wrong I think education is vitally important and I am totally supportive. But this year has been an exam marathon. I feel like I’ve been pregnant for 13 months! Lots of practice runs and then finally the real deal and well, now it’s almost over.

So it was with some glee and much relief that the family approached this weekend and my mother’s birthday celebrations. My mother, bless her, is now 80 something and has the most fantastic outlook on life. The past couple of years has not been easy healthwise and the changes become more obvious with every passing week. But through it all, she has maintained her peace, graciousness and giving heart. She has also maintained her relationship with my with boys, her grandsons.

: Matti (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Purely and simply, they love her and of course…. she, them. You can see it in the way they support her when she walks, when they drop in on her unannounced for some TLC that only grandmothers do and the highest compliment of all, they have made her their Facebook friend. How much more evidence of her being teenage royalty can you get than a Facebook link? My mum is just plain cool. There is no other way to describe her, well there is actually … I would also say she’s super nice.

This adoration from my boys makes my toes tingle, my mouth curl upwards at the sides and my heart beat a little faster. Observing my boys and my mother together and interacting is one of my greatest joys. Probably because this experience was denied me as all my grandparents had passed before I was born. How wonderful to have the opportunity to seek out wisdom without judgement, to hear stories from another time and country and to have someone sneak you parental contraband!

The enduring relationship is made even more poignant because when they were born my boys had a full complement of four grandparents and now there are only two.

So whilst there was no disco dancing and no rock music at this party, we had a great time and made some happy memories. At this stage, every birthday is a milestone birthday and every birthday is a true cause for celebration.