As of today, my parents — Mike and Gloria Dillingham — have been married for forty years!

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad.

Things haven't been easy for them — ever, really — but that's what makes their marriage, their life together, so beautiful. With all their considerable strength, they've held onto the things that matter most to them, no matter what storms they were forced to endure... and they still love each other as I remember when I was a kid.

I know lots of kids who grow up never seeing any tenderness or affection between their parents. (Obviously I know lots of kids who grow up without two parents.) Jed, Sarah and I grew up watching our parents kiss, hold hands and display their affection in so many ways. Not that they never argued, but the arguments always ended, eventually, with a return to affection and silliness. (Silliness has always been one of my Dad's specialties, a trait that I'm afraid I inherited.)

So again: Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! I'm sorry that none of us were able to be there with you in Missouri to celebrate.

It feels like everything has changed in the last month. It's thrown me off balance and I don't expect a return to normalcy until January.

The first big change is that Richie came to live with us much earlier than he was supposed to. Richie is Shannon's son, Lauren's half-brother, and he's 2 1/2 years older than she is. For most of his life he's been living with Shannon's mom, first here in CT, and for the last two years in North Carolina.

He's an extremely bright lad, but he's had very little discipline and, conversely, is afraid of nearly everything. He wakes up every night screaming and crying, and often sleepwalks while crying. An example of the fear: Dad and I took him (and Lauren) sledding on Sunday. Dad sat him in the sled and pulled him up the hill... but he wailed in terror the entire time… going UP the hill. (Going down it was no better, so that was the extent of our sledding.) The lack of discipline manifests itself as him tending to do whatever he wants, even when we're standing right there asking/telling him not to (hit the kitties, throw the ball at the window, jump on the couch, etc., etc., etc.)

We are making progress with him, and I'm very fond of him. His situation is just so different from Lauren's, and we weren't prepared for it. Literally — he wasn't supposed to move in until after we moved to RI. Shannon's grandmother died in November, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, so Shannon's mom (Brenda) had to come up here anyway... it just made sense for us to take Richie then instead of forcing them to make another trip in late December or early January.

Shortly after Richie came to live here, the week before Thanksgiving, my parents moved out of our house in Connecticut to a house in Missouri. My Dad has a new job out there working for a friend (starting in January), so he's giving up his business here (which had fallen on very hard times anyway). Dad flew back again the following Monday so he can finish up his last few contracts, and will be flying back to Missouri on January 2nd.

Of course, while he was gone we gave my parents' room to Richie so he wouldn't have to sleep on the floor in his Mom's room. So when Dad came back he had to pump up his king sized air mattress… to sleep in my office.

Back in January, while I was driving to Norwalk to pick up Shannon and bring her home, our laandlords told us we have to move. They didn't push it, which is good because the house we're moving into is still occupied by Ellyn and Gary (Ellyn is my Dad's sister), Katie and Tom (two of their three kids) and my grandparents (who officially moved in with them at the end of October). They're all moving to a new house in Bradford just a few miles from where they live now, but it took 6 months longer to finish the new house than was expected. Originally they were going to move in June or July, but I just helped them pack the first moving truck yesterday!

Now that they're moving, so are we. We'll be living in Westerly, RI, this weekend.

Of course I still have lots of work to do in the midst of all this chaos, and my poor, little, pea-sized brain does everything it can to find escape routes from all the chaos.

But wait, there's one more big change coming. A week after my Dad leaves, Mike — Shannon's husband, Lauren's sire — comes home. January 9th.

Please forgive me if you've expected something from me but I'm late with it. Or if I stood you up for coffee, like I did to Joe Cascio *twice* in one week.

Life is total chaos right now, but it should start to settle down in a couple of weeks.

Chaos.

Shannon started working last week at the Staples in New London.

Shannon's mom came up for the week with Shannon's son, Richie. For about half the week Richie was here with us, the other half he was with her mom. She also gave Shannon her manual-transmission Jeep. We're working on teaching Shannon to drive it. Shannon doesn't stall at every intersection, and she doesn't panic every time there's a car approaching on the right.

I have the flu.

The Blazer and Toyota are both on the road again. Knock knock.

Doris Sternberg, an old family friend and my mom's surrogate-mother for the last 20 years, died last night. She was quite old, and was loved by pretty much everybody. (I remember picking Aunt Doris up at her apartment every Wednesday night when I was a teenager in NH, to drive her to Bible class.) She'll be missed, terribly, but we know we'll see her again.

Lauren and Shannon have started to come to an understanding. Shannon's forcing it a little, but babies adapt very quickly. All Shannon really cares about right now is that Lauren start calling her "mommy" ASAP. Sigh.

She's even trying to compete with us for Lauren's attention, though I'm not sure she's aware of it. (And, it's a very one-sided competition.) Example: yesterday Lauren had some toy in her hand, and was holding it out to me. Every time I put out my hand so she could give it to me, she'd snatch it back and smile devilishly. Shannon saw it happen and immediately started asking, "Can I have it? Lauren, can I have it?" Lauren gave it to her, and Shannon showered her with praise and thank-you's. ::shrug::

Corinne is thinking about Shane even more than usual, these days, as we approach the anniversary. It all starts with the Super Bowl (which, in 2004, was when we started seeing a lot of him again). She went through a really bad patch last week when Richie was here and she was feeling overwhelmed, but she's better now.

I plan to start asking for donations for the PMC software auctions this month.

I'm sorry that updates have been so few and far between this year. I barely have time to live this life, never mind write about it.

Corinne went to Westerly this morning with Lauren (for class), just a minute or two before this snowstorm started. Oops. An hour later, and the ground is already covered. She's on her way home again.

Those who know my Mom will totally understand this entry's title. ;-)

Since hardly anyone from the East coast made it to their wedding, we put on a wedding receiption for Jed and Alycia this afternoon. Jed showed lots of slides. (Strangely, Eric didn't mock him all the way through it like he did me when I showed many of the same slides four months ago.) After the slide show, food. Lots and lots of food.

Corinne did most of the cooking (of course). I was frustrated when packing all the food into the Blazer because I was sure there was way too much. (There was more than we needed, but it wasn't "way too much" like has happened before.) The most popular item was, without any doubt, the seafood chowder-like soup. Others cooked also: Mandi, Mom, Dee... maybe Angi? Ellyn? I don't know. Corinne cooked a LOT. She and my Mom both did a lot of work in the planning and preparation for this party… and it really did go off beautifully.

(Brietta Harper will be happy to read...) Feeling inspired after the reception, I've finally uploaded a lot more photos from the trip out to BC in June for the wedding. About 140 more, in fact. I still have another 92 that need to be reviewed, cleaned up and tagged, but this made a huge dent in the pile.

Originally, I didn't upload them because I wanted to make a nice book of photos for their wedding present. We haven't had the money for that kind of thing, so the photos just sat on my drive. Better to share them, so there they are.

I took another big "roll" today. Hopefully I'll find motivation to upload them soon. Believe it or not, there are even pictures of Lauren in there! (No, really!!)

Update: Here they are.