Sweet 16

Back in 1993, on October 26 at 4:15 in the morning, Kathryn Anne Mears was born. Today she is sixteen years old.

It has been so much fun watching Kayti grow into the amazing young lady she is today ... a confident, genuine, intelligent girl who loves movies, music, and reading. As one of her birthday presents, I cleaned her room and in the process I found two of her cute little wallets in the back of a drawer. In them, I found almost $100 in cash, a couple of gift cards and her library card. When she got home today, I showed her all that I found and she said "My library card! You found it!" May her priorities never change!

To celebrate her 16th birthday, we took 4 of her closest friends to Disney on Ice on Friday night and then had a party on Saturday for all the kids. It rained all day Saturday, so instead of taking everyone to the Pumpkin Patch, we bought little pumpkins to carve and ate Tina Book's amazing Sweet 16 cake with Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream Ice Cream. It was so good! (Thanks, Tina!)

Happy Birthday, Kayti. I love you & I am so proud of you!

Front Row: Kayla, Kayti, Olivia

Back Row: Siria, Cinderella, Matthew

A Lesson on Sharing

It is hard to teach your children to share when you aren't willing to offer bites of your long-coveted, finally here and completely frozen Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Halloween Pumpkins ... you know those don't you, the ones with LOTS of peanut butter in them? Oh. My. Goodness. There goes a day's worth of Weight Watchers points in 3 bites.

There are some things that are justifiably off limits when it comes to sharing, like germs for instance, or brand new tall sweat pants, or the last sip of the Chick-Fil-A Diet Dr. Pepper, or the new couch, or your new car.

Well, alas, Kayti wore my new sweats to school yesterday. The soda is long gone. And I have to keep tons of pillows all over the new denim couch to keep the dog off.

As for the new car, I taught my kids how to share, too. Andy's car, the one that he bought with his own money this past summer, is now in a heap up in a College Park salvage dump. Andy wasn't driving. He wasn't even in the car. He lent his little white Versa to his very good friend and well, accidents happen. To add cliché to cliché, we thank our lucky stars that no one was hurt. We will get Andy a new car as soon as possible (after we get through the GEICO nightmare that is now upon us). In the meantime, he will get rides from his girlfriend and life will go on. Frankly, despite what happened, I am very proud of my boy for being willing to share.

As for the Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins, well I'll quote my father ... "Do as I say, not as I do!"

Goodbye, Versa.

Homecoming 2009

Kayti looked so beautiful, even as a banana! Here's Kayti and her friends from Homecoming 2009:

Kayti and her friend, Olivia, dressed up for Twin Day.

Kayti and Matthew have been friends for a long time!

The Young Life Small Group: Kate (leader), Siria, Kayla, Kayti, Paige and Rachel (leader).

The whole group. No, Scott, I won't name 'em all!

Out of the mouths of Mears Kids

Andy: I'm considering double-majoring in Accounting and Philosophy.

What an amazing brain that my boy has ... he loves the black and white, right and wrong, yes or no of accounting and the all gray, maybe, what-if world of philosophy. No wonder Andy can do anything he puts his mind to! It sure will be fun watching the world open up to him and traveling along beside him as he explores the many opportunities that will come his way.

Willie: I'm not coming home for Fall Break. Oh really, why not? There's a Young Life Mens' Retreat at Rockbridge this weekend. Cool. Are you going to help with the retreat? No, Mom. I'm a man!

Willie is 19. My goodness. He is a man now. Not only that, but this young man is now also a JV basketball coach at a high school in Newport News! Willie has always been drawn to younger kids and it warms my heart so much to see him follow his passions. He will be an amazing coach. (Can a mom show up at a game to cheer on the coach?)

With Andy only a little over a month away from turning 21, I guess I need to come to terms with the fact that both of my boys are now men. While I miss the little guys running around in cowboy/ninja/army/pirate outfits, I am so very proud of the adults they have become.

Kayti: How nice it would be to win that much money. Yes, but the government gets a big part of it you know. They have to pay taxes on Lottery winnings? How much? About 30%. You're kidding? That's three times as much as God needs!

Ahhh, out of the mouths of babes! I never get tired of seeing the world through Kayti's eyes. Her brain moves faster than I thought humanly possible and her connections and segues simply fascinate me. One blip in daily life to the rest of us can bring to Kayti's mind a stream of music, lyrics, scripts, pictures and new ideas that will flow for hours. She makes me smile every day!

Medicine Mom

Years ago there was this TV show about moms. I don't remember the title of the show and it certainly didn't last beyond the first season, but what I do remember about it was the how the actresses talked directly to the camera now and then. One of those scenes came to mind this past week. The moms came out and wondered aloud if it was bad parenting to withhold Tylenol from their sick kids "because it took away the fever and just perked them right up."

This week Kayti has been home with a terrible sinus headache ... one that wouldn't even go away with Tylenol AND Motrin. It is very hard to be a mom and not be able to make the pain go away. I couldn't kiss it and take away the pressure that made Kayti feel like her face was going to explode. For two days Kayti felt awful and for two days I got to hang out with her ... when she wasn't napping, we watched movies and giggled despite the throbbing in her head. It was both awful and wonderful at the same time.

The pain finally eased on the third day. The virus ran its course. Or the storm front passed. Or the white blood cells kicked in. Whatever it was, my sweet girl felt better and before I knew it, she was off and hanging out with her friends again, just as she should be. It was both awful and wonderful at the same time.