Picking up the slack

It seems shallow to write about the loss of a cat, just one day after writing about how much the Jaski's are missing their father and husband. But I can't help but feel Maddie's absence as I set out the Christmas decorations this year.

As I unpacked the bin of ornaments for the living room, there was her small stocking with her name in glitter and hot glue. (Tacky, yes. But it seemed like a such cute idea back before I had kids.) Next came time to hang the long strings of beads. These were Maddie's favorite. Nothing inspired the emergence of her inner kitten like the chance to slide across the kitchen floor entangled in a string of beads.

Lucky for me, I barely had time to dwell on such sentimental thoughts before the apparently magical beads attracted two new volunteers who were more than eager to carry on Maddie's tradition.

Sydney was having so much fun I actually had to break open the box of Christmas tree ornaments (we won't be getting the tree for another week), to get her to part with the turquoise and red beads I was trying to weave through the fake evergreen boughs atop the kitchen cupboards.

AJ, of course, needed the beads for a more gruesome purpose. "Look Mom, I have a mummy hand!"

That's the way to make it a tradition of his own! I don't recall Maddie ever playing the mummy game. At least not with beads.