Center of Attention

Wow, I can't believe it's been a week since we got back from vacation. We all had to hit the ground running (in Terence's words) so I've barely had time to think about the trip, let alone blog about it. End of October is a busy time. Then again, so is November. Of course, December is a jam-packed, stressful minefield.

Wait, is there a month of the year that is slow and plodding?

(Maybe not with kids in school. Once upon a time, January seemed to dra-a-a-ag.)

Anyway, I enjoyed my trip back to the land of Southern food, families, and traditions much more than I thought I would. After all, our last trip to Mississippi, more than four years ago, was a never-ending nightmare for me. Terence was a lifesaver this time though. During the last four years of marriage I've gotten better at honestly communicating when I need help, and we sat down and discussed ahead of time what exactly made the last trip so unbearable for me and what we could do to try to ameliorate that this time. So this vacation, Terence helped tremendously with the kids, as well as making sure we got to do stuff that wasn't strictly visiting relatives. (I keep my sanity much better when I am not cooped up indoors all day with people I barely know.)

We stayed in Arcola first, with Terence's grandma. Arcola is a tiny, crumbling farm town. The 2009 population was 480 people. Yep, less than 500 men, women and children inhabiting this little place. In the 2000 census, there were more like 550 people, but only 27 of them were white. And only one, yes one, person claimed to be mixed race. So you can imagine that our family stuck out. You should have seen the attention I got the first day when I took K for a walk in his stroller. Nearly everybody waved--this is the South, after all-- but EVERYBODY stared. I couldn't decide if it was my skin color that caused the stares, or the fact that I was clearly a stranger. (Trust me, I didn't see a single other white woman my whole time there, let alone one out walking the streets.) On Saturday morning I walked with all the kids to the teensy town park, where a large group of people (almost all adult men and a few children) were having some kind of a get together under the trees. As I walked through the gates with my brood and called hello, every single head turned and jaws literally dropped. (I did get "hello" back from most of the group-- like I said, this is the South.) But as I turned my back on them to walk to the playground equipment, I clearly heard some guy say, "Ohhh, I know who she is." And then some general murmuring. Kind of different for the girl who's used to blending in with the crowd.

Terence's grandma was thrilled to have us stay with her. She was wonderfully patient with the kids, and I know it can't be easy. She's 89 now, and the constant noise and action must have been trying to the nerves at times. Still, she managed to cook these massive and time-intensive meals (the cause of the aforementioned digestive desperation on my part). Everything was fried, dolloped with brown sugar or honey, swimming in butter, or all three together. Cornbread was served several times a day, the kind that is dripping with butter before you even put butter on it. Heavenly tasting food, I must admit, but kind of a shock to the system. At least this time though I ate enough to please Grandma, quite a feat, actually!!

After a few days at Terence's grandma's house, we left to stay with his mother, who lives in Yazoo City. I enjoyed our time there quite a bit. Grandma loved spoiling her grandkids and it was so nice to have just a tad more space. (Best of all, she had a collection of video game systems that kept the kids quite entertained!) In Yazoo we got to visit more of the family-- Terence's dad, aunts and uncles and cousins galore. The kids did pretty well this time around with all the relative visiting. It helped that they were older and we could send them outside to play. (What a concept!) We also took Terence's mom to her ward on Sunday. She hasn't been able to go since she moved back to Mississippi-- without a car, it was impossible to get to church when the chapel's an hour away. Church was very enjoyable-- one of my favorite things about our church is that I can go to services on the other side of the country and feel so at home. I even met two other women in the congregation from Arizona-- what are the chances?

Well, I have more to share but time has run out-- it's nearly time for church here. (I typed this in between breakfast, hair-washing sessions, and a visit from our home teachers. Sunday mornings are crazy like that!) Hope everyone is having a good weekend!!