Parents and grandparents

Doctor Phil talks about how important the presence of grandparents in a child's life is to development. Now, I don't watch a whole lot of Dr. Phil, but what if grandparent(s) are dead? I've never really asked him. But, I have been thinking a lot lately about my life and my dad and how much I wish he could have met my kids and seen my husband and me as parents (or even seen us get married, but that is another train of thought entirely).

I don't know why, but more than ever lately I miss my dad. He died January 12, 2003 - two days before his 56th birthday. I think that is a terribly young age to die and I am always sad when I realize how much longer life should have been for him and many others who died too young. I realize that he made his choices about smoking and failing to deal with his diabetes and that these things drastically shortened his life, but made him content while he was alive, so perhaps it is not my place to judge whether it was too short or long enough to enjoy. I do know that it was a terrible loss on his part to never have known my children, as I think they are wonderful and amazing.

I also think he chose to miss out on the best part of me - because I now know that I am a better person because I have had my children and I am the best person I can be because I know they are watching and will learn from me. I am imperfect and human but a good person and a good mother, and my father will never know that side of who I am. He has five grandchildren and only one of them ever met him, and will never remember him. My grandfather on my dad's side passed away when I was 5 or 6 and I barely remember him, so I know a 7 month old (my nephew) will never remember.

All of this brings up so much I have to think through - a lot about faith and what happens when you die if you are not a person of faith. I know that today we are supposed to be tolerant of those with different beliefs, and even those who believe in nothing, but I struggle with what to believe - will we meet again? I'll not know until I am gone either, but for some reason I wish that even though he wasn't a man of faith, I wish he was able to watch, able to see what we are and who we are and what his family is becoming. And I wish he were proud, wherever he was.

Sickies - bah!

I think that children getting colds before they are old enough to understand what is going on it just cruel. Its bad enough that the older two and myself are sick, but poor little baby monkey is just miserable, which in turn makes the rest of us more miserable due to lack of sleep. He can't breathe well and wakes himself and then cries and screams. I get him up, suck out his skull with that cruel aspirator and then have to calm him back down so he can nurse back to sleep. Half an hour later, we start again, rinse, lather, repeat through the night. It has been slightly helpful to have him sleep in the recliner, upright, but I cannot get comfortable there, and therefore I sleep poorly anyway.

At 5 a.m. I was talking to daddy monkey before he left for work for (gulp) twenty-four hours and we were discussing how it is so comfortable to take a nap in the recliner when you pass out there watching t.v. or whatever, but when you intentionally try to sleep there you sleep horribly. Its quite sad. Honestly, last night consisted of 6 or 7 batches of sleep, each 20-45 minutes long interrupted by little monkey coughing, waking, screaming...

And of course the older littles are sick as well and therefore not sleeping well either, so they're cranky and its just all around a rough day. With daddy coming home for lunch then being gone until tomorrow morning, this could be a really long day! However, I guess I am a bit spoiled because the kids are so healthy generally, and we're just not used to dealing with sick kiddos! I can't imagine how draining it would be to have a child who is seriously ill. I am thankful that God realizes that this is not something I can handle! I hope he stays firm in that thinking, as I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to be the parent of a seriously ill child. I'll say a little prayer the next time I start to get frustrated with today because honestly, things could easily be much worse!

Earth Day 2009

I'll admit I'm not a huge earth-day-touchy-feely kinda girl, but I had to take advantage of a few off the offers out there today. For example, Disney Stores were offering free reusable water bottles if people brought in three empty plastic bottles. Each of the kids got to "collect" three from the roadside (although I will admit, they "spotted them" from the car and I picked them up because I didn't want them getting run over or finding a spittoon or peepee bottle someone tossed out a window, and C-man didn't do a ton beyond looking cute and cooing). In any case, they took the bottles to the Disney at the outlet mall and got their free Mickey Mouse earth day bottles. Happy kiddos all around and a good promo for them, since of course I had to buy other things as well.

We also hit Walgreens for reusable tote (grocery) bags with purchase, and got a few things that gave us Rapid Reward coupons for our next purchase. I don't know if I'm obsessing over coupons or what, but the kids have taken to calling random pieces of paper found or shredded around the house coupons where they used to call them tickets. Perhaps my latest money-saving venture is influencing them after all!

Saving while spending

I know that in "this economy" everyone is trying to save, but sometimes you just want to shop too. That's why there are great sites like Babysteals.com - a deal-a-day site that offers all kinds of kids and baby gear for really reduced prices. The often have drastically reduced prices on baby shoes and clothes and other cutesy items that are usually too expensive to buy "just in case" or for the gift closet for a surprise baby shower. (Today's deal was a dragonfly boppy pillow cover at 40% off normal retail - super cute!) I have bought a few things from here for my monkeys and always get great deals, good prices and QUICK delivery (unlike the monkeys themselves!)


Anyway, check it out, and I'll list a few others that I frequent as I think of them. Wantnot is already in my "I'm reading" list, but I know there are others - especially for babies!

Weekends are made for this

Although the kids have been in the pool for a while now (thank you warm-weathered Mississippi), today was a great day in the yard. We had gone to church and after we ate breakfast and did the weekly grocery shopping on base. K napped while we shopped so when we got home, it was SUNSHINE time and boy did they make the best of it.

There is something magical about an afternoon in the sun with a two and three year old, splashing in a pool while the little one practices his crawling and gets to know his "cage" a 50 spf play yard that allows him to enjoy being outside, without bugs or perhaps more importantly the elder monkeys getting to him. Now, some people might think its cruel, but he likes it and when or if he decides he doesn't want to be in there, we let him out, so it isn't a cruel undertaking in our minds. The product is no longer available in the states, but it is still on sale in Canada. We've had it since our first monkey, and haven't used it nearly as much as I would have hoped, but perhaps Mississippi is the place.

As the sun sets on this fabulous weekend, I am thankful for the time that our family has had together and the fun we've had. The children's museum yesterday and sunshine today.... it doesn't get much better than this.

TEA Party

Well, we did it! We attended the local T.E.A. Party today and I was impressed with the number of people who turned out. I'm sure bigger cities had more people, but this small area had a really fair amount of people. We got there early for the 6:00 start, and the kids were amped from the music and the energy of the crowd. We soon met up with another mother with two young children and they ran around for a bit. Once the speakers started though, the kids were too restless for us to stay and it wasn't fair to those around us to have them running wild. So we left about an hour and change after we got there, but had a good time while we were there and we even got interviewed on the local news station, although I didn't see us make the final cut tonight.

It was good to see so many Americans taking part in a demonstration of solidarity against what is going on in our country. It was interesting to me that the music played in the warm up to the party was mostly (all?) country and I can't help but wonder if that is due to the deepness of the south that we are in, a preference of the hosts, or simply the fact that so many country songs are patriotic and embrace American-ism. In any case, it was a nice experience, and although the kids may not understand what it was, and I got no pictures because we were busy chasing them around, we'll always be able to tell them that this is where it started, and they were there, if it does produce results.

Story time and grocery shopping

Why is it I allowed the monkeys to take the library books and read them around the house at their leisure, assuming they would not misplace them? I mean, at 2 1/2 and nearly four, that is kind of asking a lot I suppose, but we took five books and only returned four as our favorite ("Jen the Hen") has disappeared. H is really starting to 'get' sounding out words and can read it if he really thinks on it. Not that this stopped us from tromping home again from story time with four more books - including another book from that series "Tog the Dog."

Since it is National Library Week the preschool story time consisted of reading "The Librarian from the Black Lagoon" along with the accompanying puppet which mentioned knock-knock jokes and H was VERY excited to learn that there are entire BOOKS full of his favorite pastime. While I don't think he's quite ready for prime-time yet with his jokes, he really does love mixing his "why did the chicken" with his "knock-knocks."

Some how, the monkeys ended up even more wound up after story time than before, which I will never understand but by the time we hit the grocery store they were crashing HARD. So needless to say it was a quick flight through the shop and it wasn't my most economical trip either. I have been attempting to use A Full Cup to maximize my bargains, but today coupons were secondary to speed; and yet, no one is asleep.

T-ball should be FUN tonight - no naps and a day full of activity!

Survey says...

Overall, I think it was a good day - definitely more "yes" than "no" day. The kids are excited about story time at the library tomorrow and ended the day with a nice dinner out, Logan's Roadhouse runs a deal on Mondays and Tuesdays with $2.99 kids meals and 2 adult meals for $13.99, so we can all eat supper for $20 + tax/tip/adult beverages for steaks and so on (albeit small portions, but still, we left full). The kids were well behaved and ate like normal human beings rather than aliens or dogs or vacuum cleaners and it was pleasant. We were able to have conversations with them and eat good food that I didn't have to prepare... bonus all around!

Tomorrow, little big man starts T-ball. Daddy is coaching his team and he is very excited to be able to begin playing. Its so weird to think that my little monkey is old enough for organized sports when he can't even tie his own shoes (do they even make tie shoes for kids any more?). I have to figure out a snack that fits in with the good-for-you but not homemade theme. Why do they do that anyway? We want you to bring healthy snacks, but you can't make them cause you might put pot in their brownies or something? Really? I'm thinking more of burying spinach or cooked carrots in them.

Ugh - sometimes I wish this were still the 50's and everything was homemade and it wasn't weird that a mother preferred not to send packaged crap with their kids to an event. I wish it were the norm that mom's (or even dad's) cooked real food and equally as important taught their children to cook real food, where nothing comes from boxes or packages, rather raw ingredients (as much as is possible - I don't think we have to go all pilgrim and mill our own wheat or anything) that generally resemble that which was their original form. No, I'm not June Cleaver but I do appreciate a nice meal, from scratch with real food, no cans or boxes. Mostly I want to be able to control what KIND of junk my kids eat.

Oh for the good old days!

Starting each day with YES

I don't know if all kids wake up this way, but our kids wake up and begin the day with the words "I WANT" nearly every day. Most mornings this annoys me, particularly if I have yet to enjoy my morning cup(s) of coffee. There are also things that I have been loathe to allow my 2 1/2 and nearly 4 year olds to begin because I fear them - these things include unrestricted access to painting, play-doh, stickers and other creative items which might easily result in chaos and destruction.

However, a new day dawns and this morning when the princess asked to paint in her new Dora Easter paint book (thanks auntie Shan!), I decided to say YES. And you know what? She's a pretty good little painter, although she did manage to mix everything to make purple, and paint from there forward with nothing but purple. (How do yellow, orange and green make purple? Who knew?).

Of course, once the lazy bear bigger brother woke and saw what said 2 1/2 year old princess was doing, he wanted in on the action. So, my worst fear begins and they are BOTH painting (water colors, but STILL!) and when all was said and done (for now) they did a fabulous job and there is no paint anywhere other than their pages and a little on hands and faces and a tad bit on their table.

So I publicly vow to try to begin more days with YES and less days with "not right now" or "no." It doesn't seem to have reduced the volume of noise in the home, but it hasn't made it louder or messier by much, so we'll keep plugging!

And so life begins again at Easter

Well, as the hour is late and the littlest monkey is very restlessly sleeping next to Daddy on one side and a body pillow on the other, this may become a disjointed ramble interrupted fairly often by said monkey. I have been inspired by the blogs of others to begin tracking my own rebirth as a mother, wife and Catholic so that as I have found in others, perhaps others may find in me some kind of inspiration to continue the chain...

A few ideas I have globbed onto recently, include a gem from a less ordinary source - Kathy Ireland on the Huckabee show on Fox said that she prioritizes her life by the acronym J-O-Y - Jesus, Others, Yourself. For some reason this struck me as particularly profound, in that these three bring your joy, and are therefore apropos in seeking fulfillment in these three, in that order, another trinity of affirmation and another means to evaluate what you do in a day.

I also read somewhere, and have added to my favorite quotations, this statement:
"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. We have to learn to live happily in the present moment, to touch the peace and joy that are available now." Thich Nhat Hanh
I do wish that I could more often see life this way. But, when you have arrived late (10 minutes prior to Mass) to an overcrowded church and are in a classroom, trying to focus on Mass, and corralling two toddlers and soothing a screaming infant in shoes that are uncomfortable and a dress that makes nursing said infant nigh on impossible without completely stripping to a degree unacceptable for time and place, and the wee one is not interested in bottles or toys... frustration replaces nobility and peace is disturbed and Mass becomes another chore that I am performing with little greatness or nobility and I find it difficult to touch any peace or joy. However, next week we try again with a clean slate and, I hope, a better outcome.