Mom Over Miami - By Annie Jones Page 0,38
school.”
“I did. But I didn’t want him to want it that much.”
11
Subject: Nacho Mama’s House column
Sam needn’t have worried about not getting invited to any birthday parties. Two invites have hit the mailbox already. Hit being the operative word! I’m shell-shocked—or maybe that’s sticker shock.
What happened to simple kid’s parties? These things look like Hollywood extravaganzas. I expect paparazzi and armed security.
Okay, it’s not that bad. But I can’t help wondering what will we do when it’s our turn to host Sam’s birthday? Renting out a water park and hiring a cement mixer to flood the water slide with nacho cheese springs to mind.
Better hit the warehouse club and start stocking up now!
At least we have a few months before we have to deal with all that. In the meantime other worries about Sam weigh on our hearts.
Dear readers, I try to keep things light and show you my world through love and laughter, but if I may break from that for a moment—
I’d like to ask those who are so inclined to remember Sam and his situation in your prayers. I know I’ve mentioned that Sam is our foster child and that we have no control over how long he stays with us. I’d have used a false name for him in the column but 1) Sadie submitted the first ones without my knowing it and 2) Y’all know who he is anyway. But to the kind ladies who asked for his full name to add in prayer, I hope you understand why I can’t divulge that. Just say Sam. God will know who you mean!
We certainly appreciate the thought, though, as we have come to love this child as our very own. Whenever the topic of long-range plans arises, it is always with the unspoken thought in our hearts: What if Sam isn’t still with us then? In his young life the child has lived in multiple homes and gone to more schools than most of us attend in a twelve-year educational career.
That’s too much turmoil for anyone, much less a young, shy boy.
He needs stability. He needs continuity. He needs to trust that there are people in this world on whom he can always depend.
We all do.
Please remember Sam in your prayers—we’re counting on you.
NOTE TO SELF: FINISH COLUMN BEFORE SENDING.
“Can I count on you then?” Everybody needed somebody who could always be counted on. And today Hannah needed everybody she needed to count on to come through for her. Starting with her aunt. “Aunt Phiz?”
“Yes, dear, go right on talking. I’m listening. I’ve done this so many times, I can do it blindfolded.”
“Blindfolded, huh?” She studied her aunt.
Wearing a blue-and-orange kimono, Phiz massaged her freckled fingers through a crop of brilliant red hair—a shade not normally found in nature, much less on a seventysomething-year-old woman.
Hannah plunked her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand, musing, “Beauty treatments done blindfolded. That explains so much, Aunt Phiz.”
“Oh, you.” She waved off the gentle teasing and padded barefoot through the kitchen clutching to her chest a grocery bag full of permanent wave curlers. “Run through your schedule for me again, dear.”
“Mmm.” She sat straight and shimmied her upper body then lifted her shoulders left then right, to try to release some of the tension that never seemed to entirely leave her body. When that didn’t work, she sighed, poked a spoonful of mushy cereal into Tessa’s mouth and said, “I have a morning meeting with the DIY sisters.”
“The D-A-F-F-Y sisters if you ask me.” Aunt Phiz fixed a towel around her neck with a big yellow plastic clip they usually used to keep potato chips fresh in an open bag. “Have they ever finished their takeover project?”
“It’s called a makeover, Aunt Phiz.” She watched her baby for a reaction to the new taste sensation.
The baby’s whole body tightened. She made a face.
Hannah braced herself. “And no, no progress to speak of yet. Every time we talk, they have one teeny more thing they want to add.”
Tessa swallowed. Her eyes grew wide. She stuck her feet out, toes pointed, and poked her arms out straight to ask for more.
Hannah thought she must have given birth to the single most adorable baby on the planet.
She fed her daughter another spoonful. “They must be nearly done by now. Why else would they want to meet with me?”
“Maybe they want you to approve them wallpapering over the stained-glass windows in the sanctuary.”
Tessa gobbled down the cereal and thumped