Dear Nephew too Young to Read:

Well Caleb, I thought you weren't going to make an appearance. You little trickster; I should have known the second we turned around to go home you would decide it was time to be born. Well we got you in the end. They played the little "Someone had a baby" music they play in the hospital lobby and we all jumped up and down and said "That's our baby!"

That wasn't a year ago was it? I couldn't have been a whole year younger when I babysat your brother while mom and grandma made a midnight run to the hospital. I wasn't a year younger when I sat in the lobby of a different hospital singing Ke$ha songs at 1am. (Thankfully it was just family at that point; family I'm convinced you were hiding from) Was it really a year ago that I sat with aunt Brittany on one side and uncle Matt on the other as we discussed at length Blue's Clues changing from Steve to Joe? I believe Matt had some things to say about drugs, I was more interested in the "Blue-ska-doo we can too" thing he did all wrong. Of course you have no idea who Steve is you little 21st century baby. We pulled chairs up to a table along the wall and tried to out Criss Angel each other. We all failed miserably; apparently we aren't magician material.

Could it really have been an entire year since we laughed at your great grandfather snoring on the hospital couch? He was waiting around to meet you before he had to drive back to Kentucky that night. No it definitely wasn't a year ago I got so tired that I hoped and hoped you were a girl. I saw the pictures and refused to go and meet you. Naturally, I went to meet you. I came back the next day and the next day. No I'm sure there hasn't been a whole year since your brother and I unwrapped you from your warm blanket because he really, really needed to make sure you had feet. He promptly tickled them.

Alas, it's been a year. I have one tiny sense of time, almost unnoticeable and sure to be forgotten at some point. It was my cell phone. You were taking so long my phone started dying and I had to pull a chair over to an outlet to plug it in. That night your cousin texted me to tell me he was hanging out with his friend Captain Morgan and something about... Blueberries? Your great aunt called to make sure he wasn't drunk. Nope, he was messing with us. That conversation. That's how I know it's truly been a year. The phone I was using (the blue and white Gravity from TMo that chimed obnoxiously, shut off if you held it wrong, didn't vibrate anymore, had cracks in the screen and had been beaten so badly the space bar didn't work) hadn't worked for months, but I upgraded just after Halloween.

There you have it. I guess it was a year ago which means, to my horror, you are exactly 1 year old today. Brat. Now you say words and stand up on your own and go about your little one year old life. Brat. So while you're playing with buttons and napping on people and learning things from your brother, (who isn't always a good source of information; I taught him that) remember AuntT loves you. And really wishes you would stop getting bigger. Happy Birthday Brat.

Child Abuse.

Child abuse is bad. Obvious right? Well after 3 years Casey Anthony has been found not guilty of murdering her 2 year old daughter. Even if it was an accident, you don't go partying, dump the body in the woods and get on with your life.

But if she had been convicted what really would have happened? She most likely would have been killed herself. Then what? The world would be short one Casey Anthony. I doubt anyone would miss her. She's just one seriously messed up person...

Now before you start running your mouth about me, I DO believe she's guilty. I do believe she should have been convicted, but I also believe that it wouldn't make one bit of difference to the 5 children that die everyday due to abuse and neglect. 6 million children are reported abused a year. They could be helped if people knew what to do.

I know everyone has a facebook account. Go and join this event, and invite your friends to do the same. Share just one status update about child abuse prevention. For five minutes of your time, you could save 5 children's lives. Every status counts.

If a child is being abused call 1-800-4-A-CHILD or go to ChildHelp.org

Pictures

I love taking pictures. My computer actually is FULL because I have so many pictures on it. I have pictures of all those people I reference as "the past". They were there for all my pictures and memories, they're in all my stories. Now I've never been the kind to burn all the pictures of people after stupid fights; that's dumb. Even if you don't want the pictures now, you will someday and burning/disfiguring them won't erase the memories. Also, burning pictures is bad for the earth, but that's another story. So I keep my pictures, but I never look at them. Ya know why? Because every time I do I see their freakin' faces and I don't care about the memories

anymore. All the memories are "Yeah, but I know what's coming." It's like they're poisoning all my photographs with their smiles. Their fake, fake smiles.

Everyone has faced this problem I think. It's not a maturity issue or an "I hate you, go die!" issue, it's a "Wow I just really don't even want to see your face" issue. This is one of the ways our generation has it better. There used to be two choices, destroy the picture or don't destroy the picture. With this digital age, all our photos are online and backed up on discs, memory cards, phones and hard drives. The best thing I can come up with to do is make a copy and do this:

Remember that trip to Disney World? The one you went on with your choir full of your "best friends for life"? I remember the trip, but not the BFFL part. This reflects that.

Those times spent at the hotel's guitar shaped pool. Remember how we all went running to the piano pool and Mom tried to photograph us all running by?

Or how about the dumb things we did just walking around parks? Yeah we all stuck our heads in the stocks in the middle of magic kingdom on our way to our third time on the Haunted Mansion ride. And when the body dropped, you all screamed. Again. And when they spun you around and tilted you back you screamed. Again. You were amazed by the dancing ghosts. Again. And you all talked about the "Fred is dead, a big rock fell on his head" tombstone outside and referenced the annoying youtube kid. And laughed about whether or not a ghost would follow you all the way to Illinois, you just to your hotel.

There was that 13th birthday get together with just a few people. There was laser tag and that awesome guy that worked there helped shoot your friends because you had uneven teams. You still lost, but help from a much older, cute worker guy gave you guys enough to giggle over for the rest of the evening.

That Jonas Brothers concert the night before the first day of school? You opted for the 4 lawn seats so you could bring your friends with. There were several tears when Nick sang A Little Bit Longer.

You guys signed their tour bus. There was much talk of the "sacred" blue sharpie afterword.

How about when that old friend came back to town and you went to Wendy's with the old friend and the new one? There was sharing of old inside jokes and creating of new ones. Your mom just kept periodically taking pictures of everyone. It's a good thing everyone loved her because she takes a lot of random pictures of your friends.

Then you and said friends went to meet Ashley Greene.Your mom ordered those "Team Mike Newton" shirts Ashley loved so much. Yeah, you still have that shirt. Yeah it has Ashley's signature on it. Remember that old friend/enemy boy you've known since grade school that you saw in the line behind you? Good times.

And accidentally met Mitchel Musso, who was the sweetest guy and hugged all three of you separately and signed an insert on one of your CD's "Just in case" because you only had 2. Then after 5 minutes with you guys, still had the patience to wait while your mom changed cameras because hers wasn't working.

Yeah, okay. So I don't really go around copying pictures and putting colorful circles in place of peoples faces, but I thought it would make for interesting visuals. And it's a pretty good representation of what really happens. I laughed remembering the conversations we had all through Disney World, and my birthday party, and the concerts we went to and all the ridiculous stuff that happened at show choir rehearsals. The color blobs are perfect examples of my experience. That whole "It's not where you are it's who you're with" thing is a lie. 10 years from now there is a very real possibility you won't know who the heck you were with, but you'll remember Disney World. You'll remember the roller coasters that made you scream and performing on the dock in downtown Disney. You'll remember getting cake in your nose when someone smashed your face in it. Does it really matter who did the smashing? Does it really matter who took the video camera to show the video of the cake going up your nose to that guy you've been in love with forever? I'm honestly not even sure who took him the camera anymore, or who all was at the restaurant. (Yes, it happened at a restaurant.) The answer to all these questions is no.

Memory is a funny thing. It doesn't always stick around forever, but it can be triggered at anytime. So don't destroy the pictures. Don't completely close your mind to something that was once good. You could end up wiping out a lot more than a person's face. Just wait. And maybe, you'll be so absolutely annoyed at someone's face that you get angry every time you open your pictures. If that happens, cut their heads out; even if it's not permanent, it can help you see past who was a in a photo and see what was happening. That's what really counts.

"To my ex-bestfriends, don't know how we grew apart. To my favorite bands and singalongs in my car, to the face I see in my memory, Where are you now?" Where Are You Now -Honor Society

p.s. Just for the heck of it. I know you're wondering :P Not my best look.

Perspective.

Sometimes things or people in our lives turn out not to be who we thought they were, or in my case, exactly who we thought they were. Sometimes they're friends, sometimes family, sometimes they are just people connected to people you want nothing to do with. I know many of them; a few family members, tons of "friends", a best friend even. The worst thing about these people is once you finally make them go away, you can't trust them not to come back.

I can't even begin to count how many friend requests, text messages and phone calls I've gotten from old friends trying to get back into my life. I see them as insects; no matter what obstacle you put in their way, the always find some way to force

themselves back into your house. In some people this isn't a bad thing. Some people you just need space from, other times one or both of you need to learn or get something, but some people need to be tossed out on the curb with the trash Sunday night and hauled off to a landfill. It's hard to tell them apart, but I'm learning. Some times the only way to know is to give someone multiple opportunities to prove them self in one direction or the other.

There are a lot of people I've left sitting on the curb, but the thing about people is, they aren't like garbage cans. If you leave them sitting somewh

ere, they get up and walk away when you aren't looking. Then, when you least expect it, they show up on your porch or the other end of a telephone line.

Some people I'm not sure about. Time helps you gain perspective, which I hope I've done. I've recently made some decisions about several people. There's only one way to know if they're right, and if they aren't, Oh well. I'll take my chances. Some people are too important for the curb.

These feelings I can't take no more, this emptiness in the bottom drawer, it's getting harder to pretend, and I'm not coming back around again. -Avril Lavinge, Remember When

Children.

Sometimes, when I see Jason Castro, I am reminded of how my mom always said he looked like a girl. I always argued with her until one night, I was in the car headed back from the beach watching one of his American Idol videos. I never thought he looked like a girl.

It was late and the sun was setting. The small girl next to me was up way past her bed time and nodding off in her car seat. Then I see her watching my iPod screen, mesmerized. The unbiased child looks at me with wide eyes, puts her sticky little finger on my iPod and says "Who's she?"

My mom and I haven't revisited the subject since. I don't like to argue cases I can't win...

Memory Lane

For a long time I have lived in a town that I am less than crazy about, on a street I don't really like, in a house surrounded by people I'm not huge fan of. I have been disconnecting from some people, most people in my area actually, and I couldn't be happier about that, but this town gets to me.

During the process of getting rid of people, I did things like change my phone number. The new number did eventually get to some people, but that hasn't been a problem yet. When the shock of "The Schooling Incident" had worn off, I realized that it wasn't just my school friends that were the problem. I began reevaluating my relationships with friends and family and taking care not to enter into any harmful situations again. I have made some small sacrifices, but when I think about it, they didn't matter that much after all.

Now, (thanks to facebook) I have been reconnecting with old friends, I even go places with them. Just last night I was planning a reunion party with a couple friends, who will bring their friends, and we will all meet people and listen to 90's boy bands, probably make fools of ourselves and film it. That's just how we have fun.

At the beginning of the summer, my mom and I revisited an idea we had gone over so many times: returning to the small town in the middle of nowhere we call home. Suddenly it wasn't an idea anymore, it was a full blown plan. We were driving around looking for places to live and buying newspapers. We began cleaning out our house and packing things. I talked to friends that live there, friends from kindergarten, from 3rd grade, people who actually want to see me.

Although I know there will the same kind of people there, I will continue to apply my new ways of thinking and evaluating. And I'll be doing from home this time, in a town I love, possibly on a street I grew up on, in a house surrounded by friends.

"Memory Lane, we're here again, back to the days and I'll remember you always, so much has changed, now it feels like yesterday I went away" -Memory Lane McFly

Irony.