Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

I don't exactly know where to begin. Sometimes I feel compelled to state the obvious.  Bear with me.  I am a little slow, and "the obvious" is not always so obvious to me. I live with three children.  All of them are very comfortable leaning on, nuzzling into, and generally treating my body like a beanbag chair.  Most children are like that.  My daughters think nothing of climbing into my bed and burrowing into my flesh as though I were a favorite cushion.  There is great security in that kind of physical intimacy.  Children know this.  We are all born knowing this, but at some point we forget.  We grow up.  We become independent.  We stop snuggling close to our mamas and friends. (At least most of us do.)  Not too long ago my eldest daughter told me, "Mom, I just cannot even imagine you being a kid.  You are just SO boring and grown up."  I tried not to take offense.  I am her mother, after all,...

  Of course I am not speaking of your favorite colorful chocolate candies.  The M&M club was founded many years ago when two young best friends marveled at the luck they had when their moms (who had been pregnant together) named both of them names beginning with the letter "M".  Miriam, my mother, tells me that her first memory of her best friend Myrt (who was actually named Merilyn) involved games of peek-a-boo played through the bars of their individual cribs in the First Baptist Church nursery about sixty years ago. The two grew up together, Merilyn was graciously granted the childhood nickname of "Myrt," and my mother made certain that this nickname followed her to college and beyond.  At some point, in between numerous practical jokes and untold volumes of silliness that caused my mother to laugh so hard that the tears ran down her leg, these two friends made a vow that the M&M Club would endure throughout the next generation.  They promised to...