This mom's best friend

I lost a trusted friend this week. My not quite five year old eternal "puppy" Holly had an accidental fall. Being a dachshund she was predisposed to back problems. She herniated two discs and the neurological damage at best, offered a very bleak prognosis. Before I had Holly I wasn't a dog person at all. My puppy wormed her way into my heart. 

Her favorite thing in life was simple. She loved to snuggle on a lap. Anyone who had a lap, she helped herself to. What I loved so much about her was, all bets were off once I sat down. It was the running joke in our house when I sat down we all knew she was headed my way. She wanted me first. She loved me as I loved her, unconditionally. And she loved me best and I knew it.

The kids are so sad. Her friend Jack is lost without her.

My heart is broken. I hope not having her around gets easier with time. Its been four days and I miss her terribly.

Remembering

Nine years ago today the world was so much different. The big picture as well as my little snapshot.

It was such a beautiful day. I had a three month old infant. I had just dropped off both girls at school,  the four year old little girl in pre-school and the first grader. They both went to school now for the whole day  This is a very exciting milestone in a stay-at-home mom's life. This glorious day belonged to me. I was just getting used to this new routine. New baby, new schedule. (There's that schedule thing again..I'm telling you, schedule should have been my middle name.) I walked in the door of my growing house. We were undergoing renovations and if I close my eyes I can still see the "mess" I was in. (I'd give my right  t.. uhh, leg for that mess versus the mess I have now--little kids, little mess...etc.) The phone rang and it was my older sister. "Heya...how you doing?" I was standing in my very cute little den, Sis said "Something awful has happened. Very awful, turn the TV on. A plane just flew into the World Trade Center." And so beauty of the day disappeared.

Fast forward 9 years.

Today's weather is just like it was on that awful day. A  glorious and beautiful fall day. Our expanded house could use a lot moooooore stretching. The itty bitty TV that I turned on to watch the world change, is in the basement under a few inches of dust with the rest of the yard sale stuff. My sister still calls me when big things happen in the world, because she calls everybody. Me first though.  That little den is now a very dirty room which belongs to an eighth grader and a tenth grader (formerly the pre-school kid and first grader.) The infant is nine, he is full of all the piss and vinegar that a little boy is supposed to have. (That's how I justify his off the wall antics...What??? He's a boy!)  We have a bigger TV and a little more stuff then we did back then.

And life goes on. It just does whether we want it to or not. It's happy memories and those close to us that enables us to move forward with our chins up. On this day of reflection, I'm remembering how much I cherished my family and pulled them a little bit closer to me in the weeks and months following 9/11. I am blessed by God's grace to still have my nucleus intact. For that I am grateful on this beautiful and glorious day.

Chillaxin Jack

Stupid dog. Can't tell you how many times I find this numbskull sitting like this...As stupid as he is, he makes me laugh. Going on two years living with us. He's still as dumb as a stick.

He's got the kind of face that tends to grow on you.

He still goes to the bathroom in the house. #1 and #2. And I still let him live here. I don't even know why. I'm so not a dog person.

Schedules

Tuesday September 7, 2010

Summer's gone. Back into the school routine. Three kids, three schools. Three start times, three release times. Three sets of activities. One me. One brain.

When I didn't work  in the good old days I used to keep a calender for the kids activities and appointments. I wrote everything down to be prepared and know what I was dealing with before it happened. I was over organized. It was all on the calender. I needed to see it. There could be no surprises. And there weren't any. These days I write nothing down and and am living life dangerously, on the edge. I'm "winging it." I could never do this before, there could be no deviations from what was scheduled.

Now that I'm working I hardly ever use a calender. I write stuff on scraps of paper,  on the corner of my check book, a gum wrapper. Nothing ever makes it to a calender. The closest thing to an appointment calender is on my desk at work. And its under my keyboard. Sometimes I look at it. Mostly no.

(Okay, this where I stopped writing, I suppose I must have ventured off to get a brownie, and never came back.  As usual I have no idea where I was going with this.....And that's where Part II comes in. I clearly know where I'm going with it. Read on.)

Wednesday September 8, 2010

Getting used to the new school year comes with its challenges, but I'm managing. My new routine is getting up early to get as much cleaning and laundry done before I leave the house so when I come home at four pm with the kids, I just need to focus on dinner.  So I'm feeling pretty good about how things are going so far. Day three of school and we are working things out.

The last kiddie drop off before I go to work,  is the little boy. As he and I are getting into the car on this beautiful Wednesday morning,  I say to him "Don't let me forget to pick up Meg from her Grandpa tomorrow, her mom asked me if I could bring her to school. That's your job, dude...remember don't let me forget Meg." As I arrived at work,  Meg's mom texts  me "Everyone get to school alright today?" "SHIT! SHIT SHIT!" "SHIT SHIT"   Today was Wednesday. It was Wednesday that she wanted me to pick up Meg. Damn Labor Day screwed up my mental schedule. After making a few calls to make sure Meg's grandpa took her to school, I texted Meg's mom and said "All set. Kids delivered to school"  She texts me back "I can't thank you enough" to which I reply "Oh no you really don't have to thank me."

Meg's mom and I are tight, so she was understanding and thankfully she understood. I think it's time for me to start keeping a calender again. Now where is my pen?

Fast Foward

Ok, so a year has past and not a single blog. I read something about me blogging more often. Did I write that? Hmm, I must have. Anyways, my friend Kimmers http://me-anotherdayinthelifeofme.blogspot.com/2010/09/and-so-it-begins.html started her long over due blog tonight, so she prompted me to get my ass back here. . If she can do it so can I. So let's see Kimmers, who will persevere? You or me?

What changed, and when?

This morning as I was dropping my 14 year old off at school, I marveled at how most of those high school teens had a Dunkin Donuts coffee in their hand. I was thinking to myself "Who has the extra money to buy DD coffee anymore?" Lucky kids. I haven't had the spare money to buy a coffee in years! It made me remember something from about 10 years ago. Every morning around this same time, I used to go to DD to get my coffee. For my baby (the 14 year old) this was the norm, every restaurant was measured in Dunkin. We would go to "Gunkin Icecream, Gunkin King etc..." She knew I ordered medium*hot*coffee cream*two*sugars*please*and*thank*you.

Thinking about that made me a lil' bit melancholy today. I used to take the same route all the time (good thing nobody was stalking me, I'm a predictable person)and saw the same things. At the end of my block there was a middle aged man with motorcycle. He had the most beautiful lawn. There was the old Italian grandpa who had most beautifully colored dahlias. The two gentlemen used to chat every morning over a cup of coffee while sitting on the front stairs.

I remember thinking out loud one particular sunny day as I drove by. "All is right with the world." I remember very well I felt this deep down, I really felt it. I had a house, I was a stay at home mom with two beautiful baby girls, a mortgage, two new cars, we had everything we needed. I was blessed and felt it to my core.

On today's ride home I passed the corner where my two gentleman friends used to chat. I wondered to myself, "When did it all change?" I realized I haven't seen my friends at the end of the block, my metephoric gauge. The middle aged man has moved, and I haven't seen the old grandpa lately. The world no longer seems "right." Have I become more realistic and less idealistic? I know that the world around me has changed a great deal, but what has changed within me to not feel the "rightness?"

This week Ellen had a contestant from The Biggest Looser. This woman lost her husband, toddler & infant in the blink of an eye in a horrible car accident. This beautiful and radiant woman sat there smiling and explained to Ellen why she was happy. After the accident she made a decision to chose and embrace life. She allowed herself to live and be happy. Her peace comes from the feeling that she will see her loved ones in heaven. I envied her serenity and grace.

It just seems harder to obtain that feeling that "the world is right." Was it that I lived with blinders on back then? Was it really a simpler time 10 years ago? I hate to think that I am not grateful or that I take for granted all that I have. I have the same stuff as I did back then (ok, a little more...ok...alot more!) My family has grown in the past 10 years, the two baby girls are now teens and have an 8 year old brother. My husband, myself and our three children have been blessed with good health. I still have the same mortgage, two cars & a few more "things" than we had ten years ago.

For today, I wish I had the answers or a clever way to explain why the world no longer seems right to me.

Who knew?

Who knew that all the nurturing and kind things that I used to do for my kids would come back and bite me in the ass? When they were younger I used to do nice things for them, like making sure they had a napkin with their meals. I would see to it that those bothersome tags in their clothes were cut out. I got them the pj's they were most comfortable in..."Feeties for you? Ok, sure" "Oh? You like nightgowns? You got it." I made sure their booster seats in the car were elevated enough so they could see out the window instead of looking at the inside of the car door. Oh the list goes on. I did these things with love, I did. I wanted my kid to realize just how much I really loved them. By me performing these acts of love they would really feel it.

I never realized that by doing this they would come to expect me to perform these "acts of love" on demand. In a 24 hour span my 14 year old, the child I considered to be the most thoughtful and understanding of my brood rattled off a list of MUST HAVES for tomorrow. She needed her physical form to play field hockey in tomorrows game notarized (I don't know a notary.)Needed a new face mask to replace the one she lost LAST week (I paid $32.00 for that one and another $32.00 for today's replacement.) Needed help printing the report(s) she had all summer to do. "Geez, I didn't realize we had no printing paper." As usual Mom pulls thru for the child.

Come supper time she says to me "Why are you ordering pizza tonight? Yesterday you told me you were cooking sausage and potatoes on the grill." As I snorted "What more do you want of me?" I saw her take a breath so she could begin a sentence...I cut that child of mine off at the knees. "Say a word and I will rip out your tonsils." She said "I wasn't going to ask you for anything else. I just wanted to know if you were working tomorrow?" There is my sweet girl. Smart too. "No" I said "I'm not working tomorrow because it's you guys first day of school and I want to be there to see you all off." (Ya know one of those "acts of love" I was talking about) She couldn't quit while she was ahead, she had to have the last word by saying "Good, because I need my shin pads washed for my game after school."

I quit for the day. Done. Without washing the shin pads. I don't think I will wash them tomorrow either. I think I might just let her smell.