Little glimpses of sweetness

I got to see the little glimpses of maybe we are doing this parenting thing right this weekend.  As we were making the drive up the mountain this weekend, the scene in my car was this...the back was loaded to the max with clothes, sleeping bags, and stuff in general.  The middle row was Hubs, Thing 1, and Thing 2.  The front, was me and granny (aka my mom).  We start out riding and its going well, we hit up a drive thru for supper and begin the 4 hour drive. 

A pretty good ways into the drive, I had Granny play DJ, and put some of her Cd's in that she brought.  She put in Chris Young's new CD, which has the sweetest song called "The Flashlight".  What makes this song so sweet is that it talks about a son spending time with his dad working on cars, and the learning about life.  The chorus simply says  "He'll never know how much he taught me out in that garage And I guess the stuff that stuck was more about life than fixin' cars 'Cause 'til this day I still can't make 'em run right But I sure did learn a lot just holdin' the flashlight".  Thing 1 says that "The Flashlight" is me and my Daddy, and "The Dashboard" is me and my brother.  Now a little background on "The Dashboard"  It is a song about two brothers, one of which is a Marine getting ready to be shipped out.  He hands his brother the keys to an old truck and tells him that the heart and soul of the truck is the dashboard, and then says the truck is his if the Marine doesn't come back.  Through out the song, it is reminding you that the soul of the truck is the dashboard.  The end of the song is the tear jerker for me EVERY TIME.  The Marine comes home and his brother hands him the keys, and says he fixed everything but the dashboard.  From the first time I heard this song, I tearfully said it reminded me of my boys.  The more I listen to it, the more it does. 

As you very well may imagine, I was a little teary when I looked in my rear view mirror and saw Thing 1 resting his head on a sleeping Thing 2 and is singing to him.  It was a very proud mama moment.

The next little glimpse came after 2 days of fussing, bossing, and general brotherly behavior.  We are heading down the mountain and Thing 2 asked to sing a song.  Of course we let him.  His song, was so sweet, it once again made me cry.  Yes I am a teary mom, I have boys, get used to it.  Thing 2 then starts to sing how he loves his family, and they love him and his family won't give him away.  That hits ya, really hard, right in the heart.  My kid knows I am never actually gonna follow through with the threat to stick a sign on his brother and him that says "FREE TO GOOD HOME".  That is security right there.

The other little glimpses happen more randomly, and aren't as tear jerking.  They maybe a little 5 year old walking up the stairs rubbing his eyes and before he even says good morning, he says, I get to ride a horse today.  It was also the same little boy laying on the floor rubbing the cat, not having a car in the world.  There was a glimpse when a scrawny little 7 year old and 8 year old tried to hoist a not so scrawny 5 year old up on hay bales just so they could jump back and forth.  This plan didn't work so well. 

My kids are often the source of busyness, chaos, and confusion.  I can however say without hesitation that the brief glimpses that they give me every now and then, make it totally worth it.  Gosh, I love those boys.

That's how we roll...

It once again that time of year when my family makes a trek up the mountain to celebrate Thanksgiving together.  This is a weekend full of time together, relaxing, and of course food... lots and lots of food. 

My particular family began the trek later yesterday evening.  This year it was my family of four and my mama all riding together.  This was a plus because she makes the drive up atleast once a month.  She had the pleasure of navigating.  My GPS enjoyed the break.  It took us right at 4 hours to get here.  Everyone was asleep when we arrived so my crowd settled in pretty much as soon as we got here.  However they were up ready and raring to go early this morning. 

The day has been filled with adventures into town, target shooting, playing on hay bales, eating, and hunting, and of course watching football.

It is just a good ole fashioned familg hanging out.   What a great way to spend the weekend.

Pneumonia

Let me just say to begin with, I am a true believer in the power of modern medicine.  The good Lord above gives doctors, nursers, and such the ability to learn the millions of things that can be used to treat an illness, or injury.  However, I am also a very independent head strong mom.  I blame this on my mother (so does my husband).  I try to handle stuff on my own first, then we will go from there.

It all started November 16...Thing 2's 5th birthday.  He was having a daddy day, and woke up with a cough.  It was just a typical dry hacky cough.  As the day progressed the cough got worse and was pretty consistent.  So I bought a vaporizer and some heavier duty cough medicine and tried to ride out the night.  The next day he was wheezy and out of breath, so we made a trip to the doctor.  The doctor was first saying bronchitis.  Then he ordered a chest x-ray.  Then he said yep it is pneumonia and ordered a breathing treatment.  Within minutes of the breathing treatment  he was doing better.  So we go home with an inhaler, cough medicine and an antibiotic, because he had a double ear infection to boot.

So we quarantined the little fella, which is harder than it sounds considering the kids share a room.  And it began.  Not only was Thing 2 stuck in his room, Thing 1 was locked out of his room.  I was basically the only one that went into the sick ward (what their room became known as) and when I did, or when Thing 2 came out, we wore a mask.  He did great with his medicine, except for the antibiotic, he said it tasted yucky.  So after the better part of Thursday, all day Friday, 90% of Saturday in his room, the child had had enough.  He came out of his room and said I'm busting out. 

He took a good long shower.  Let's face it when a little boy is excited about a bath, you know he is wanting out.  Thankfully it was a warmer fall day here, so windows were opened, Lysol was sprayed and he was sent outside.  The child was thrilled. 

Thankfully after all of the playing outside and good bath, he was perked up completely.  He is still a little hacky, and if he gets too busy he starts coughing, but the cough sounds loads better.  So far I think he is kicking pneumonia's tail. 

However I will be the first to admit, I don't want to go through that again...EVER!!!

How to break your mom's heart

1. Start out itty bitty...pretty safe bet tears will fall.
2. Roll Over, sit on your own, speak, grow teeth, walk
3. Begin to have your own ideas, opinions, ways of expressing your self
4. Start asking to go places on your own, spend the night somewhere else
5. Start school
6. Come home talking about all your friends
7. Come home talking about girls/boys...not just friends
8. Ask to borrow the car
9. Ask to borrow the car for a date
10. Aske to borrow the car for a date to the prom
11. Come home with college applications
12. Come home to a college acceptance letter/letters
13. Graduate from college
14. Find a good job
15. Find that certain someone
16. Make mom a grandmom

All that leads to one simple phrase....growing up. No mom wants to admit that their babies aren't babies anymore.  No matter how hard we try, we can't make the kids stay little forever, and for the most part mom's look forward to the kids getting older, but at the same time, when that last one hits that milestone of starting school, then there are no more babies.  It makes your heart ache to know that once upon a time this little itty bitty chubby cheeked little helpless person looked up at you with this endearing love and trust, and then one day they look down at their own children and experience the same feelings.  For now I will squeeze the boys extra tight tonight when they are tucked into bed and enjoy them being little.

It's coming...no matter how hard I try to stop it

We will be hitting a big milestone in my house this week.  My sweet little baby boy...

 will be turning 5.  Has turned into a not so little boy that can not only dress himself, but can now write his own name, and spell it out loud, knows all of his ABC's can count to 20 (with a little help) and knows all of his colors and shapes.  And let's not forget can name who knows how many dinos.  It is amazing.  His personality has emerged in the last few months, so much so that it is right comical.  He is caring, kind, hot tempered, stubborn, loving, generous (to most people, brothers are an exception) person.  I can't wait to see what he becomes when he gets older.  But for now I will enjoy the day to day things with him, and cherish the time that he is still small enough to curl up in my lap, and still want to snuggle up and read a book, or get out and pump gas in my car (of his own choosing and only at one particular gas station).

 





This mama

While pondering on things earlier today I realized I have let myself get lost in my family.  Who they are, and how they do has defined me for almost 8 years.  While I can almost say without hesitation that this won't change there are some things I am going to work on for me.

1.) Write a book.  I have actually started 3, and dang it I will finish at least one.
2.) Take a cake decorating class.  I figure, I love to bake, I will never well probably never own my own bakery, I might as well be able to decorate the cakes I make for those close to me look good.


These are the two main things that I want to do just for me.  Of course there is a laundry list of things I would love to do, that well let's face it, most likely will never happen.  But these two things, will happen somehow some way before I am to old to remember what I wanted to do and why.