My Babies

Well, I haven't posted a blog entry in a while and I apologize for that. I guess life just gets busy sometimes. But as I was reading blogs last night, jumping from one to another, I came across this lady - http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/shannon/. I cried more than once reading her blog. She has a wonderful knack for writing, being funny yet poignant, and tugging at the heart strings just in the knick of time. So, the result of all this reading I did last night is that I am now sappy. My babies are growing up right before my eyes. No longer can I hold my sweet ones and marvel at the tinyness of their hands, because their hands are now almost as big as mine. It makes me want another baby...ALMOST. :) But my babies certainly are not babies anymore. Sure, they're still young and impressionable and I can still get hugs (no kisses for years now), but the time is flying. Chad is 8. In the amount of time it has taken for this to happen, he'll be 16. It seems only yesterday he was a baby. Can't time stand still for a while and let me enjoy them more? Sigh... Of course I went through all this last night in my head as well, and what happens this morning? The morning happened and life goes on and they still have to hurry hurry hurry to get ready for school. There is no time to stop and just snuggle them, not that they'd let me if I tried. I did make a feable attempt this morning to make ME feel better and I gave Chad a hug and told him I loved him (not that this is uncommon, but I, of course, was being sappy, not just mom), and he says, "I like you too, mom. I like you, but I don't love you. Love is icky." Sigh...I tried to convince him that he does indeed love me, but he wasn't having it, and then I decided to drop it as to not make a big deal of it and encourage the "I don't love you" to go on longer than it would otherwise. Because we all know that Chad loves to find a new way to push buttons. :) So, that's what's on my mind this morning. And to honor my 'babies', here is my new favorite picture of them.

Thursday

Yesterday had its fair share of mishaps for me. It was my sister, Angel's, birthday, so I wanted to be #1 sister and have her present and balloons on her desk when she got to work. I took the kids to school early so that I could be sure to get there before she did. I get to the store (family owned) and my key doesn't work. UGH I had forgotten that my dad had changed the lock and I don't have a new key yet. So I go home to get my cell phone to call my dad to see if he is coming through town by any chance. No answer. Oh well. I go back to the store and put her balloons and present in front of the door so she'll see it as she walks up. I sit in the middle of the parking lot and wait...to be sure nobody steals it. I wait for 25 minutes and she is nowhere to be seen. She is ALWAYS at work by now. I don't have my cell phone on me because it was dead when I had gone to the house earlier, so I have to go BACK home to call her. I call...no answer. 10 minutes later I call again and wish her a happy birthday. Yay! She got my gift (didn't get stolen while I was gone) and she suspects I'm watching her. I'm not. LOL So, after some frustration, mission #1, birthday surprise: accomplished, with alterations.

Now I have to take our new kitten to the vet. Charles suggests I take the carrier, but I don't because she's small and I can just carry her in my arms. On the way to the vet she is all over me, nuzzling my hair, sitting on my shoulder, my lap, my feet. Sweet and cute, but I fear the officer at the gate of the Army base will inform me that it's against the law to have a cat loose in the car while driving. He doesn't. We do the whole vet thing, get shots, and all that. As we're getting in the car after shots, I am conscious of not releasing Furball into the car until I have shut my door, for fear of her running out. When I release her she runs to the back. I drive to the commissary to get eggs and ham for Chad's class and I don't hear a peep from Furball the whole way. I figured she had run and hidden and was mad at me. When I get to the commissary I want to find her so that I can make sure she's ok before I run in. She's nowhere to be found. I look under the seats, open the cargo door...no kitty. I start to call the vet and ask if anyone had brought her in, fearing I was mistaken and I somehow had NOT closed my door before releasing her and she had circled around and jumped out. I decide not to call the vet, thinking they might admonish me for not having her in a carrier. Of course, my next thought was, "I just spent $60 on this stray cat and now she's gone. I'm not calling Charles. He told me to use the carrier." So...I drive back across post to the vet clinic to see if she's out there. I look for roadkill as I get closer. None. Whew! I get out and call for her. Keep in mind, I have called for her the ENTIRE drive back, just in case she was in the car. No kitty. I decide to do one more thorough check of the car before facing shame and walking in the vet clinic to see if they've seen her. Kitty!! She was hidden way up under the front part of the passenger seat. Damn cat! I left her and drove back to the commissary, no longer feeling guilty about leaving her in the car for 15 minutes while I shop. LOL I still don't hear or see her on the drive. I shop, no cat when I get back. I get home, no cat. I just left the door open and she finally crawled out and came to the porch to eat. Hmph! Mission #2, vet clinic: accomplished, with some panic.

My day was broken up with some extra yummy homemade chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting with Angel and her salesmen. Angel is a wonderful baker. So, I had cake THEN lunch with Charles. Mission #3, get fat: accomplished. :)

So I get the kids from school, we do homework, etc., then go to gymnastics at 6:00 PM. I had to call Chad's soccer coach and let him know that Chad wouldn't be at the 6:30 soccer game. We had to choose and Chad chose gymnastics, and since I pay out the wazoo for each session, I decided we'd go with gymnastics tonight. We got to gymnastics 10 minutes early...except we were actually 50 minutes LATE. Gymnastics was at 5:00. Gymnastics is ALWAYS at 5:00. I still am not convinced we EVER went at 5:00. I thought for sure it was 6:00. How could I have mistaken that?? So, now Chad is upset that he is missing soccer, doesn't get to do gymnastics, and now wants to go to his soccer game. Do we have his uniform, shinguards, or cleats? Of course not. We were going to gymnastics. It's 5:55. I can make it home and make this happen. Nevermind that we have to PASS the soccer fields on the way home. Sigh... We drive the 15-18 minutes home behind mister slowpoke, grab his uniform, call the coach BACK to tell him we will be there after all, and get to the soccer game at 6:35. So, Chad doesn't start, no big deal. He gets put in at some point, but he never got to play offense. Apparently this is a big deal to him because he came off the field after the game whimpering. Nothing I can do about it. I should mention that during the game I didn't take my camp chair because I was so rushed, so I was just standing behind some parents watching. I stood back about 3 feet so that I wouldn't be hovering over them. Halfway through the game one of our obnoxious parents (her younger boys that play with Carter had already hurt his feelings at the last game by calling him a baby and fat)...anyway, she walked up and stood RIGHT in front of me. I mean, as if I was invisible. I stood there, thinking she would realize and move. She didn't. So I moved over so I could see. No need to start a fight at the child's soccer game, right? But I had full intention of saying something if she did it again. She finally went to the other end of the field because the boys couldn't hear her screaming at them from where we were. Mission #4, gymnastics: failed, soccer was a poor substitute in Chad's mind

Through all of this there was no dinner planned. I went through Little Caesar's in an effort to cheer Chad up (nevermind the fact that I had driven all over town and back to get him to soccer). For myself, I thought I would treat myself to WifeSaver since it had been in the back of my mind for a while and was near Little Caesar's. Ick! My chicken was NOT good. I can't pinpoint what the problem was, but it seemed cooked funny ( I know that's real specific, huh) and the skin was super thick...in a weird way. Very disappointing. Mission #5, dinner: failed in my opinion. Chad was happy though. Carter didn't care one way or the other. He's so easy.

After going through the drive thrus I managed to miss Survivor and then the SNL special wasn't even that good. :( LOL I tried to soothe myself with Oreos and milk, but that, too, was a disappointment. So I went to bed and now it's a brand new day! :) :) Maybe we'll go to the preseason ice hockey game tonight. That's always fun.

Family

I have always been a big family person. I love being around family, immediate and extended. I have a very strong pull to my ancestors and roots. I want my kids to feel this belonging to a 'family' also. Last weekend my Uncle Richard died. I had not seen him since my grandmother's funeral in 2000 and that saddens me. But I have a wealth of happy childhood memories spent at his house and at family reunions in WV. I needed to take the trip to WV to be there for his funeral and pay my respects to a man that had spent his entire life in the coal mines and mountains of WV.

West Virginia is a special place. There are many places I haven't been, but I feel it's safe to say that there is no place on Earth like WV. Almost Heaven indeed. The mountains are beautiful. The crisp air is refreshing. It's just a different time and place in Iaeger, WV. A simpler time. People still sit and visit on their front porches. The outpouring of love for my uncle was unbelievable. I have never seen so many flowers and gifts sent for a funeral. This is not only a testament to how loved he was, and he truly was, but also to the sense of community felt in this small town. People take care of each other there. It was inspiring.

It was also good to see all my cousins, Richard's sons, and their families. Of course, it wasn't a happy reunion, as their dear father had just passed and they were grieving. But seeing people in person provides a much closer connection than just seeing them in pictures. I was glad to make that reconnection with them, no matter how brief. As silly as it may sound, since we played together as kids and we're family, but I was glad to know that they recognized me and I them... for the most part. Sorry Gary. :) And my aunts and uncles, I was so glad to see them. I enjoy sitting around talking with them. It's like I'm a kid again and we're sitting in Granny's living room just visiting...adults talking, kids listening. My kids need to learn that art. :P I was glad my kids got to meet these aunts and uncles, as they have been such a special part of my life. I remember being afraid/intimidated by my Uncle Jack when I was a shy, timid little girl and he was a big man, with a deep, gruff voice. And true to form, the first thing he said to my boys upon seeing them was, "What are you doing here?! Who told you you could come in here?" LOL When they answered, "My mom," he quickly informed them, "Your mom doesn't run this place." LOL Of course, my boys were mostly unfazed and after a quick glance at me to search for safety, they started wrestling around with him. I was glad. Because, while I was scared as a little girl, I soon realized that Jack was someone to listen to and learn from. He is an amiable man of great character, someone I want my boys to know. Someone I want them to learn from, not just wisdom of the world, but also that they are a part of a bigger picture. They are a part of a family, a family of great men that they should aspire to be like. All of my uncles are men of great character...Doug, Jack, Richard, and Larry. I never met my Uncle Bob, but I'm sure he was a great man, too. My kids will only ever get to meet 3 of these men, but I hope that they will remember them and learn from them and aspire to be like them. Another 'uncle' that we got to spend time with these last 2 days was my Aunt's boyfriend Skip. Skip spent a lot of time with the boys and I'm glad he did. He is another wonderful example to the boys of how to be a good man. Good sturdy role models in a young man's life are priceless. Don't get me wrong, Charles is a superb father and role model for the boys. But the more examples of good strong men a boy can be around, the better. I am so glad we got to spend time with my mom's sisters as well. My Aunt Nancy and Aunt Betty are wonderful mothers and grandmothers and pour love onto my children anytime they're around them. A child can never be loved by too many people. A child can never have too much family. It is good for a person's soul to know that they have roots.

Me and Jack

Learning about Buckeyes

Aunts and Uncles...Family

I am glad they got to experience WV, even in the limited time we had there, as that is where we're from. Even though I have never lived in WV, it is 'where we're from'. It is a beautiful state, but more than that, it's where family is. Even though a lot of our family no longer live in WV, when we convene there it is just home. I hope to go back for our next true reunion, when I can visit more and the kids can play and meet their cousins.

Almost Heaven...West Virginia

Coaling Tower at Auville Yard, named after my great grandfather


For now, I say to Richard's wife, kids, and grandkids, I love you. My prayers are with you. I don't pretend to know you're grief, but you are in my thoughts and prayers as you go through this period of loss.