Dear Mema

I have too much STUFF!  I am simplifying!  I am throwing things away!  As I type this, I have FIVE bags of clothing waiting on the developmental disabilities organization to pick up.  I am cleaning out attics, closets, toy boxes, and all other  “storage” places.  Yesterday, I was sorting through old disk and found one with just my name on it.  I threw it into my computer to discover it was a back up disk Aaron must have made while he was fixing a computer for me.  In it, I found this.  I am posting it on here mainly to store and keep it.  There was nothing else on the disk I want to save. 

I wrote this at a time I was dealing with the passing of my grandparents.  They died within months of each other.  One died from a lengthy illness and the other was sudden.  In order to try and sort out my feelings and heal after their passing, I wrote this letter for to my grandmother, my mema.

“Dear Mema,

            I really don’t know how I am supposed to come to grips with your death to when I don’t understand what it means at all.  Sometimes I think Logan has a better understanding about what death means and he is only two.  Everyone expects an adult to understand the concept of death and accept it better than a child.  After all, we know what our faith teaches us.  We know the medical aspect of it.  Yet what it really means eludes me.  Logan just points at your picture and says that you have gone to heaven or you are asleep.  I guess that is the gift wrapped version of death, the nice pretty little picture that we paint in our minds to make us feel better.  How am I suppose to understand what losing you, my grandmother, really means?  How can I understand that I will never hug you again or see you run onto the porch as I pull up to visit you and Woodrow?  Forever?  Surely I will meet you again in heaven, but what do I do in the meantime? 

            I know that God has blessed me far beyond what I deserve.  I believe in his power and his love.  I know that God has a divine reason, a plan.  I wish he would fill me in on it.  I want answers and I’m sorry but I am angry.  Not at God, but at the plan.  Why can’t I see you again?  Why can’t I have one last conversation with you so that you can explain this to me?  What kind of plan takes an active, wonderful woman and causes her to suddenly fall into a state in which she cannot even do the littlest thing?  What kind of plan traps you in this state for six months before taking you away from us?  This is what I want to know.  I want answers.  I spent six months praying for God to take you and give you peace from the heartbreak and pain.  I’ve spent everyday since the day he answered that prayer begging him to give you back to me.”  

Christmas Vent

Christmas is MAGIC!  Come on, people!  I love Christmas!  I love the tree.  I love the lights. I love the music.  I love the old Christmas movies that come on our TV.  I love, love, LOVE it!  To me, Christmas is all about the children.  After all, we celebrate Christmas because of a special, small child.  I do my best to make the moment as magical for my own children as my parents made it for me. 

So, I cannot fathom the thinking of some parents.  This week, I actually heard a parent say, “I work hard for my money!  I am not letting Santa take the credit!” Really?!!  I work hard too but I am not selfish enough to take the wonder away from my children.   Let’s face it.  The harsh reality of the world we live in will rear its ugly head soon enough.  Why not let these little children enjoy the magic while they can? I am so lucky my parents made Christmas magical. 

One more vent.  Parents, You have had 364 days to prepare.   Why are you shopping 5 days before Christmas?  No amount of sales in the world can persuade me to fight the angry masses right now. 

That is my Christmas vent! 

Always Practical...

Just wanted to share:

Joey has been making it a habit lately of coming home and immediately pulling off everything he is wearing except his underwear.  We'll call it underwear casual.  The other day, I was trying to discourage this habit and the following conversation took place.

"Joey, leave your clothes on!"
"Why?  I like running around in my underwear!"
" We may have company come over!  Yes, that's it.  Company could come over tonight and they do not want to see you in just their underwear!"

Now, that was a complete lie.  No one was planning on coming over.  This was pure desperation talking.  I am the only girl in a house of four boys.  I am tired of seeing them in just their underwear!  I was totally unprepared for the rest of the conversation.

" Is it Grandma?"
"What?"
"Is Grandma coming over?"
"I don't know.  WHY?"
"Because if it is Grandma, she like to see me in my underwear!"

WOW!  Hold on there, Grandma!  I told this story to my mom who said," Wherever did he get that idea?!"  At the time, I had no clue.  But after a few days to think about it, I know the answer.  Anyone have any idea what that might be?  Let's see if you guess right!

RANDOM STUFF!

Random Stuff

I figure it is time for me to get back on here.  This past month has been so stressful, I don’t think I can focus on one thing to write on.  I apologize in advance if this entry seems choppy.  Let’s see-

I have learned as a mom to NEVER say you will NEVER do something in regards to raising our children.  Did I mention I did my best parenting before I had children? J It is easy before you are put in a situation to judge others who are in the situation or make iron clad declarations on how you will handle the situation if it ever comes up.  When I was pregnant with Tyler, I remember declaring my baby would never sleep in the bed with me and I would never bribe him to get him to do something.  One week. One week was all it took to break both of those.  His colic was so bad sometimes the only way he could get any rest was laying in the bed with me and I remember promising to buy him a bike if he would just stop crying!!  This month I broke another parenting declaration.  I put Joey on ADHD medication.  I said I would NEVER do it.  I don’t want to change their personality.  I don’t want them to be a Zombie.  And on. And on. And on.....

Then I saw my little boy in a classroom setting.  He could not sit still.  He could not focus.  He was distracted by every little thing. He was all over the place. I had the opportunity to closely monitor him since I teach at the same school he attends.   My heart broke for him.   He literally could not help it.  I called my mom.  I cried.  I blamed myself.  Then I took him to a specialist.  In the end, I agreed to try the meds.  The change is AMAZING!  Joey is still Joey.  He is  my sweet little boy who loves to play tricks on me.  No zombie.  No personality change.  What I do notice is he can wait his turn now.  He can complete one task instead of trying to do three at once.  The other day, I happened to mention to another parent my child was on meds.  She looked shocked and said she could never do that to her child.  I just quietly smiled.  But inside I was saying “NEVER say NEVER!”

Happy Birthday to my sweet Grandma who celebrated her birthday yesterday (October 18^th) , My sissy who celebrated her birthday on the 10^th, and my mommy who will celebrated hers tomorrow(October 20^th).  October is a very busy birthday month in our family.  I also have several cousins who have October birthdays.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

My Mema went to heaven seven years ago today.  I think of her everyday.  I miss her so much!  She was such a firecracker!

This past week I mourned the loss of one of my oldest friends, Jacques.  I have known him since I was ten.  We lived in the same neighborhood, tormented the bus driver together,trick or treated together, doubled to our Jr. prom together.  I never knew Jacques when he wasn’t cracking a joke.  He was an extremely funny guy to be around.  One day, in high school, he came into class and handed me a gift.  I opened it to find the license plate off my car!  He was always joking.  It is extremely sad to me that he lost hope the way he did.  I will never know what he was thinking in those last moments but I do know I will try to remember him the way he lived.  Always a smile, Always a laugh.  Jacques, you will be missed.

To Love an Engineer............

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my wonderful husband!   Every day I can’t believe I am lucky enough to be married to him.   That being said, sometimes being married to someone with a computer engineering degree has its challenges.  Luckily, I have a wonderful friend who has been married to an engineer for many more years than I and is always willing to lend an ear and sympathize with my “special” challenges.  

First, you must know that the engineering brain tends to find the most complicated ways of doing the simplest task.  For example, the little clip on our oldest son’s window broke the other day.  I asked my husband to please fix it.  Our son likes to play up against that window and I was concerned the window would come open and he would fall from the second story. “Don’t worry”, I told him.  Just replace it with one on the downstairs window.  Saturday morning, I was getting ready to clean the house when I heard the most marvelous words from my husband. 

“Honey, I am going to fix the window.” 

Hurray!  I didn’t have to nag or anything!  I was feeling pretty good as I started to clean the upstairs.  I was about 30 minutes into cleaning when I heard my husband yelling for help from the first floor.  

Let me pause for a minute.  Remember how I said I was feeling pretty good.  You know the feeling.  When you are being productive on a breezy summer day and you actually feel things are getting accomplished.  I love that feeling.  

Okay…. Unpause.  I ran downstairs to see what was going on.  Picture the scene….  My husband is standing with one hand around the top pane of our window holding the top pane of glass which he has pushed out of the window frame.  The other hand is on the tape measure as he is trying to do some rough measurements on the window. 

I stared for a minute and then the conversation went like this.

“What on earth are you doing?!!!”

I am replacing the upstairs window with one from the downstairs!  Hold this window while I go and measure the one upstairs to see if it is going to fit.”

“ Why don’t you just switch the little clips on the top.  They unscrew, you know.”

(LONG PAUSE)

“Oh, that would be easier.”

SPEECHLESS!  For the first time in my life I was rendered Speechless!  

That is just one of the many examples of the challenges of loving an engineer. 

Besides finding the most difficult way to fix the simplest problems, there is another challenge to the engineering brain.  Engineers have to research EVERYTHING!  This can range from the best way to get rid of ants to ordering pizzas.  Honestly, we were ordering pizzas after Logan’s birthday party this past weekend and it took Aaron a good thirty minutes to place the order.  First, he had to research the size of the pizzas verses the cost difference.  Then, there was the number of slices per each size pizzas, The ratio of toppings,  and the ….wait for it…….Cost per square inch.  He must have researched three different companies before coming to a decision on the order.  I think you get the picture. 

I tell you all this to tell you about the party.  Logan informed me this year he wanted a science birthday party.  What?!!!  How do you even begin to do that?  Thank goodness for the internet.  I googled it and before long had a plan.  It actually turned out really well.  We played a game making towers out of toothpicks and marshmallows.  We made slime.  We mined for rocks.   We made a geyser using coke and menthos.  I even made a volcano cake that really smoked thanks to the dry ice my wonderful husband went to five or six stores trying to find.  I asked Aaron to handle the geyser experiment.  It was the last thing we did before cake.  The kids really loved it.  I went inside to start the dry ice smoking in the center of the cake. 

Looking back, this could be where things went wrong.  You see, my engineer noticed I did not need to use all the dry ice.  He took a piece of the ice and put it in a one liter coke bottle.  After the lid was placed on it, the pressure built up until it exploded. Then he took it a step forward.  I was over getting bottles for our neighbors too-cute-for-words grandson I had volunteered to watch that night when I heard a bomb goes off.  It was a loud blast like you hear in WWII movies.   Well, I went flying into the backyard only to discover my hubby decided to make a dry ice bomb with a two liter bottle .  He blew up a table!!!  It wasn’t even OUR table!!!  It was one we BORROWED from Donna Huntley!  Needless to say, we purchased her a brand new table to replace the destroyed one.  Which brings me to my final point…….Sometimes life with an engineer can be a little costly!  I love you, Aaron!

Thursday

Today, I went for what I thought was going to be an introductory meeting with a surgeon. I recently discovered that when you have a 43 pound baby (I could be exaggerating) you can sometimes get a hernia. I know I have had it for 4 years now.  Recently, it has become VERY painful.  After a doctor’s visit and a referral to a surgeon we arrive at the events of the day.  I have done research on the procedure.  I knew they are done as an outpatient surgery in most cases.  So I fully expected to schedule a surgery today.  I expected to get it done in a few weeks.  Imagine my surprise when the surgeon said Thursday. Oh, and you won’t be able to go back to work for 1-2 weeks.   He said a few things about being worried my intestines could rupture and before I knew it I was told to be at the hospital at 5am Thursday morning.  What?!!! I am a planner!!! One day is not enough time to prepare!!!!  I need at least two weeks!!!  

I informed my boss who told me not to worry about anything and to focus on healing. We’ve told Joey he can’t jump on Mommy, climb on Mommy or pull on mommy.  I left an emergency list of people to call if the kids need something at school.  I have done all the laundry in the house, including the sheets on the beds. We’ve told Joey he can’t jump on Mommy, climb on Mommy, or pull on mommy. School uniforms are washed, ironed, and ready for the next week.  Bathrooms are clean.  Floors are mopped. We’ve told Joey he can’t jump on Mommy, climb on Mommy, or pull on mommy. I plan on grocery shopping tomorrow.  Aaron has assured me he will be home for the rest of this week and he is capable of getting what needs to be done completed.  I know that.  I also know I will be out of commission for a while and I want to make this a little easier on him.  

Tonight, I have a variety of feelings about Thursday.  The doctor so kindly told me how painful the recovery is going to be so I am not looking forward to that.  I am nervous and a little scared.  

However, I am mostly overwhelmed.  As soon as I mentioned to my neighbor surgery was set for Thursday, she promptly asked for bus times and directions to the boys schools so she can get all the boys where they need to be on Thursday morning-   BEFORE I even asked!  Friends have offered to bring meals, entertain the kids, and keep me company during the day.  I am truly amazed. (I don’t know why.  My friends are AMAZING people.)  I am dreading the procedure and recovery, but I am looking forward to seeing Steph on Friday night.  I can’t wait to catch up!  I am not a person to sit still.  Those close to me know this.  So a week of not being able to do anything is going to be a challenge. Now, if I can just keep Joey from jumping on Mommy, climbing on Mommy, pulling on mommy……………………………..