25 posts tagged “real life”

There is an empty lot for sale right across from the school my daughter attends.  The real estate agency in charge of the sale recently placed barricades and NO PARKING signed across the entrance because teachers and parents have been using it as a parking lot (and apparently that is not conductive to keeping in the kind of shape you might actually sell it in).

Today, as I was walking my daughter to school, I noticed that one of the boards had fallen off.  Not a small board, but an actually rather big, heavy board, and it had fallen into the middle of the sidewalk, blocking the path where the kids (mine included) need to walk each day to get to school.  Ahead of me, I saw two kids walking, not around, but over the board.  On it.  Kids will do that sort of thing.

As I get closer, I can see four nails sticking out of the board, two on each end. 

The farmer's daughter in my immediately noted that the mails were neither long enough nor thick enough to hold the weight of the board and -- hello, hazard waiting to happen! 

The mother in me immediately remembers the two kids walking over the fallen board and envisions all the others who might have thought of it.  and then I get visions of kids stepping on the nails, for -- this afternoon when they are racing home and not watching what they are doing, like they always are -- falling and taking a nail in the arm... leg... hand... eye. 

Hello lawsuit waiting to happen!

I borrowed my friend's cell phone to call the agent listed on the sign and got her voice mail.  Then I dutifully memorized the agency's phone number a well and called them as soon as I got home.  I also called the school, to let them know because I had seen kids walking on it and because the real estate agency could simply 'forget' to have someone look into it. 

My friend and I did try to move it ourselves, but it was somewhat on the heavy side and we both had kids in strollers and she had a baby in a sling on her chest, as well. 

Hopefully, someone from the agency will come and take care of it and also, hopefully, the school will address it with the kids. They don't need to getting hurt.

Or, one babe in particular.  *g*

We've been trying to teach Mickey (who, for those keep track, just turned 2) how to count.  This was the conversation this morning before the walk to school.

Me:  Mickey... one

Mickey:  two

Me:  three

Mickey:  free

Me:  four

Mickey:  why

We think that 'why' is how he's saying 'five' for right now, because he's said it that way before, but it's entirely possibly that by this time, he was fed up with counting and was just asking "why?"

Also, notice that he does not say 'one' or 'four' and jumps right to the next numbers in the sequence. 

(We're also attempting colors, but for now, the only color he accurately identifies is 'geen'.)

My father hates Christmas and has hated it ever since my grandfather passed away in 1997.  My father had always associated the season between Thanksgiving and New Years with his father on many levels and having him no longer there to share them with has made the whole season sour for him.  Already a 'surly' or 'prickly' man at the best of times, my father becomes down right unbearable and scrooge-like at Christmas time.  

While discussing it with him just two days before Christmas this year, I told him that he had the power to make Christmas whatever he wanted to make it, and that, instead of turning it into a sad or bitter occasion, he should take an example from the father he loved and make it a time of love.  Grandpa always made things fun for his grandchildren (my brother, sisters and myself) and that Dad could choose to do the  same for his his grandchildren, too.  

Or he could go on being a scrooge and making the holidays horrible for all of us.  

His choice, and I told him that he should choose love.

Flash forward by two days and I am sitting on the floor between my eight year old daughter and two year old son, helping to pass out presents and taking pictures.  

Brenna hands me one package, marked as 'To Debbie, From Santa.'  The 'Santa' in question is my mother and the package is medium-sized, soft and squishy.  I am hoping for socks, because new socks are one of the few unique joys in life that I call mine.  

Also, Mom always buys me socks, so I'm really looking forward to them.  It's the one present I have always been able to count on being under the tree.

When the packages are all passed out -- with the lion' share going to the kids, Steve and my mom -- I find myself sitting on the floor with … just that one present in front of me.  I open in, and the hoped-for socks turn out to be a pair of fleece jammies.  I don't often wear jammies because I don't like things on my legs when I sleep (they make my legs itch), and instead wear nightgowns or over-sized shirts.  

I'm sitting typing this and trying to put into words the emotions that were running through me yesterday while I was helping Mom clean up the wrapping paper and empty boxes.  I don't intend to sound selfish or childish or anything like that, and that is what makes it hard to say this.  I got one present, and it wasn't even one I necessarily will find joy in for more than 2 wearings (before I wash them and start making my legs itch, that would be).  

It's not really that fact that I only got present.  It's not even really the fact that it wasn't the socks I was hoping for (and largely expecting).  

It's the simply fact that the only present I got this year was from my mother and that there was nothing under the tree for me from my husband.  

Further, Christmas Day came and went without him saying thing about it.  No 'Merry Christmas' or even a Christmas card with an IOU taped to the inside.  

People, this is the same man who bought me a glass globe of the earth for our anniversary to symbolize him giving me the world.  He is not generally without resources, creativity or imagination.  
He could have done something and simply put, did not.

And for my part, most of the way through Christmas Day, my kept going back to that conversation I had with my father about making Christmas be about love and not 'just things' so I sucked it up and nothing even though there were times when I wanted to just crawl off somewhere and cry because the man I'd put months of energy and planning to finding the perfect gift for had not even gotten me a lousy Christmas card.  Because the kids were happy and we were getting ready to have my brother and his new fiancée over for Christmas dinner and it would not do to be glum on Christmas, right?

Right, so I don't say anything, until later that day, after dinner when Mom and I are doing dishes and she notices that I am not necessarily happy.  She asks what's wrong, so I tell and… get told that "he tried but couldn't find the gift he had wanted to get for me' so I should not be mad at him.  

(The gift in question… he had been trying to find me two movies I had asked for three weeks ago, which had been on sale at Walmart down home in VA at the time… and in stock aplenty.  He did not buy them there and no store up here in PA had them… so not buying able to find them anywhere, he gave and bought me… nothing.  And further compounded it by saying nothing or offering up an alternative and basically leaving me to feel like I had been forgotten or worse, an after thought.  But I am supposed to forgive that right?  Because he tried, or so mom says. )

Today, he's hunting with father in The Big Woods (it's flint lock season, yay!) and I'm at my parent's house with the kids, typing this when I should be cleaning the house before Mom gets home and still feeling pretty much like a selfish shit because getting gifts is not what the season should be about and I know it.  There are people in the world who are so much more worse off than I am who do not have the things and blessings that I have.  

This holiday season, I have been blessed with two healthy, happy children, my husband home safely from Afghanistan, and have been surrounded by family (my parents, brother and sisters, nieces and nephews).  

We are not homeless, jobless or poor, even though the economic crisis has pinched us, too.  

All in all, my family has a lot to be thankful for this year and I should be happy with that instead on dwelling on some … stuff… I did not get.   

My 20-month old has learned a new word.  "Yes."  (When he says it, it sounds a little like 'yesh')

This was our conversation a couple minutes ago.

Me:  Mickey, did you poopy?

Mickey:  Yesh!

Me: Would you like your butt checked?

Mickey:  NO!  *son continues playing*

Also on his list of new words are cheese, banana and thank you. 

Now, if you must excuse me, I have to go catch him and see if he was being honest when he said "yesh" or if he was just testing out a new word. 

1. I've had a bad headache all morning. can't get rid of it. Ugh.
2. My son likes eating pencil erasers. Is this normal?
3. Dragons! Dragons! Dragons! (click, you know you want to)

Greetings from the wilds!

Yes, I have been in the wilds.  Steve got home from Over There last Monday night and we took the kids and dog and drove up to Pennsylvania to visit with my parents and spend a few days camping.  

We camped at Lyman Run State Park, which was simply gorgeous and it was a shame that it had to end so soon.  Next time (yes, there will be a next time) we will have to state longer.  They have facilities for campers and tents.   There's fishing, hiking, boating, swimming.  They even had a place where you could rent boats, paddle boats, kayaks, etc to use.  I wanted to rent a paddle boat but the concessions state couldn't cash anything bigger than a $50 and didn't take credit card.  

…

Yes, there are places left in the world that don't take credit card.  Bless their hearts.   

This was Major's (my Dobie puppy, as some of you recall) first trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa and his first time going someplace outside the city.  I was somewhat apprehensive about it, but he's done really well.  It turns out, the country life on the farm agrees with him.  I've taken him 'up back' for walks at least 3 times a day before we went camping ('up back' means up through the hay fields on the hill behind my parents' house) and then there was all the wilderness for hi to explore while we went camping.  

He will, I think, come home a changed doggie.  

This was also Mickey's first camping trip.  He got to sleep in a tent, go fishing on the boat (Dad and Steve say 'never again' because he doesn't hold still and wants to jump in the water.  Hehehe.  Oops!) , stay up late, and take showers instead of baths.  With luke warm water instead of really warm.  

Mom and I took the kids and all the dogs (their poodles and my Dobie) to the 'beach'  to swim with the fish and the frogs.  Literally.  We weren't in the water for five seconds and we found a tadpole.  Which was very cool.  

Mickey was not sure about it, at first, but then he hooked up with a couple little girls and got over being afraid of the water so he could play with them.  My son… such a player at such a young age.  Hehehe.  

Saturday night we made S'mores and told tall tales around the camp fire until bed time.  Or rather, Brenna made every s'mores while Mom and I washed dinner dishes, Dad kept the poodles out of the way and Steve chased Mickey around.  

The next time we go, we're going to remember to bring actual money as opposed to the plastic kind, so I can rent a paddle boat.  

Anyway…

Today is Monday and I'm doing laundry so we can have clean clothes.  Tomorrow we'll be packing up to head home home (as opposed to 'the farm home').  We have a week left all the way around.  Brenna has a week left of summer vacation and Steve has a week left before he has to hope a plane back Over There.  

I'm uploading pictures from this weekend to my Photobucket account.  

The will be here once they all get finished loading.  It's slow going because Mom's Net is not as fast as mine.  

So... I've been taking these with my cell phone to send to Steve to Afghanistan.   Thought I'd share them here, too!

I was feeling pretty blue last night but I do feel better this morning. 

For one thing, my candidate is awesome, isn't he?

Secondly, my bathroom scale is also awesome.  This morning it told me that I've lost 10 pounds since February.  Which leaves me with 25 more to go to make my 'little goal.'  Go me! 

Well, it's 6am and I have been up since 4, thanks to my dear sweet little boy who woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep.   First, I tried letting him cry it out (after the usual diaper-check, milk cuppy, random-everything-else check) and then I tried taking him into the bed with me.  Why I did this, I don't know because it has never  worked (and I really mean NEVER, because even when I was breast feeding him bringing to bed with me was never an option he enjoyed).  He snuggles for about twenty minutes and then wants to play.  

THEN I got up and decided that if he wanted to play, we could go out to the living room and he could play and maybe I'd pick up the house a little bit more in preparation for Easter.  No deal there, either. Once we got to the living room, all he wanted was for me to hold him.  So I held him in the rocking chair for… most to two hours, singing a made-up lull-a-bye to the tune of "Oh Holy Night."

Oh go to sleep
My little angel baby
Dreams wait for you
In the dark of the night

Let me tell you that I am a terrible singer at best, but after the 20th rendition, he did fall asleep.  

The thing is, my little man has been sleeping through the night since Thanksgiving, but recently (say, in the last two months), he's been waking up between 2 and 4 am, crying and not wanting to go back to sleep, no matter how tired I can see he still is.  He stays up like this for one and half to two hours and then eventually goes back to sleep, though he's effectively interrupted mine.  

This happens at least three or four nights out of the week and I haven't really established a pattern for why or what might be causing it.   He just wakes up crying a fighting sleep.  I know he's tired because he's rubbing his eyes and pulling his hair, which have always been his tell-tales.  I can tell this is as frustrating for him as it is for me, maybe more so because his limited vocabulary doesn't really allow him to tell me exactly what's wrong.  I'm left to guess and I sometimes think that by going through the whole laundry list of things it could possibly be, I might actually be making it harder on him.  

I just wish that, whatever it is, it works itself out soon.