“Pick up your things… “

Pick up your shoes.
Pick up your toys.
Clean up your plate.
Take a bath.
Pick up your towel.
Put your bikes away.
Put your truck in your room.
Brush your teeth.
Put your pajamas on.
Pick up your truck again.
Does this go here?
Do your homework.

I feel like I’m a really horrible record half the time.

Then there are moments when one of them curls up into my lap, and reads a story to me… and for a moment? It’s completely peaceful.

“Momma you’re fabulous.”

Yes. Yes I am. And we sit there, and they read, and get ready for bed with no fuss and curl up under their blankets and say goodnight.

I almost can’t help myself from peeking in at their peaceful faces that hours before may of been yelling at the other, or mad that they had to pick up their legos.

The faces that seem so peaceful but I know whined and cried over getting ready for school.

Summer is around the corner, every morning lately is a headache. A battle to get them ready and out the door in time to their bus, but right now, that doesn’t matter.

Because they are asleep. And for this moment, their faces look serene.

Ice cream truck… oh how I love you…

This evening the kids and I were enjoying a leisurely evening with my parents.
There we are, relaxing after the lovely grilled meal my mother had prepared… roasted brocolli and califlower… chicken, bratwursts, leftover deli potato salad.

Soaked from the previous water squirter fight. Laughing and joking over normal commentary. The day feeling completely like it was the middle of June, between the grill being fired up, and wet from the water works. Cooled down from our first jump into the new pool, a brisk 64 degrees, and still being filled as we spoke.

And then I heard it.
That faint tinkling melody whistling down the road.
My eyes lit up, and my body prepared to pounce.

Mom was continuing with her story, and I was listening, listening for that sound that it was getting close… that I would need to run to the driveway…

Suddenly she heard it too…

Now if you knew the road that my parents lived on, you’d realize that this road doesn’t get such traffic. We don’t get to hear this melody on their road.  My neighborhood is more suited for it, and as I just moved here in October, I’ve not yet gotten to witness how much I’ll actually be able to hear the melody, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be a rare occurence.

And there it was… the white van in all it’s glory, playing it’s little tune, pictures of all the treasures it carried on the side. Bright labels and cartoons formed into sugary ice cream confections.

And I ran.

I hailed the truck like a crazy woman after the last container of Edy’s Moose Tracks Ice Cream on the shelf… and I ran.

The van stopped and I rushed to road to order my boys their first ice cream truck treat of the season.

And for that precious moment? I was a hero.

They sat licking and nibbling on their treats saying thank you about every 2 minutes.

I remember my own fond memories of when Mom would give my sister and I money to go buy off the ice cream truck. I’d always get the superman cups.

Something about that artifically colored blue, red and yellow ice cream… the little wooden spoon… and swirling it for a muddy purple concoction, it’s a fond memory from my childhood.

I hope someday, the memory of their mother flagging down the white trucks and buying them treats become as fond a memory for them as it has for me.  That they remember with the best of memories what it tasted like, and how for some reason getting it off the truck made it taste that much sweeter.

Summer is here, and I’m more excited now than ever.

Can’t wait for summer…

Lilacs from my mothers yard.

The smell of the lilacs as they start to bud and flower, the scent wafting over my parents’ yard like sweet perfume, used to tell me summer break is around the corner.

Today, I noticed them again. Bloomed against the back of my parents’ yard. Telling me that soon my own kids will be out of school. A mere few weeks left before summer break.

The days will be sunny, beautiful and full of cookouts and pool time fun. I can’t wait. While today is a gorgeous slightly breezy day, and I’ve even gotten some sun on my shoulders and along my nose, they are calling for rain again. They are calling for a drop in temperatures. It’ll cool down again they say.

I’m saying they are wrong. The storms are going to pass us, the moisture in the air already causing dew against my face, the muggy heat almost enough to be suffocating, and yet not a complaint to be had by me. It’s sunny, and it’s gorgeous out.  I’m in shorts and a tank top and completely happy.

And when the kids get home, I’m taking them to have a fun little water fight. Nothing like a water fight on a sunny hot day to lift ones spirits. That, and burgers on the grill.

Happy Mothers Day…

Happy Mothers Day

To my mother,
I never realized how much I’d become like you.
Or that when that time came, I’d be so grateful to have a mother like you.
Strong, determined, beautiful, and gracious.
I appreciate everything that you’ve taught me through the years,
and it’s taken a long time, but I’m finally paying attention to each of your lessons…

You are my inspiration.
Thank you.

10 years ago…

10 years.

10 years ago, I was fretfully trying to sleep at this time.

I’d just given birth to a beautiful baby boy.

I didn’t realize that his skin had an eerie blue tint.

I didn’t realize that his toes and fingers seemed perpetually cold.

I only realized that the day had finally come, and I had finally given birth. I was exhausted, the last 3 days had been demanding of my body. The constant contractions, the aches and lack of sleep had finally did me in. I should be sleeping. I should be so drained that sleep should of been so welcomed.

Instead I was lying awake and dozing off and on, never fully sinking into a blissful sleep.

The doctor had come in 2 hours earlier and explained there was something wrong with my sons heart.

He’d come and solemnly told me they had to run some tests.

He wouldn’t explain further. I wanted to slap him. I wanted answers, and he seemed to have none.

He looked so grief stricken that I panicked. My whole being went from needing sleep, to being wide awake.

I was told that they would be sending an ambulance to come retrieve my son, that he’d be sent to Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

I wouldn’t be going with him.

At 6am the next morning they wheeled him into my room in a box. It was meant to transport him, but it looked like a cage for a science experiment. It looked ominous and foreboding.

His little form was covered in wires, and I could only reach my hand into a small opening in the side and hold his hand for a moment before they whisked him away from me. I tossed and turned some more in my hospital cot.

I remember all those emotions as if it was yesterday, but it’s been 10 years.

The next day I had packed my hospital room up and prepared for discharge. The doctor came in and informed me that he’d already started the paperwork. My son was in Columbus, I was not. I wanted to go. Now. I needed to be with him. I was worried. I was scared. I didn’t know what to expect, I only had that doctors face in my mind and the grief emanating from him.

A quick trip to my apartment. A few clothes. The hat that had been on my sons head hours before. I clung to that hat the whole way to Columbus, my mother driving as we followed my grandparents. My own thoughts drowning me, and making it unable to think.

When we got there we were shown the way to the Nicu and there was my son, wearing nothing but a diaper and tubes. Tubes, wires, more tubes. 13 of them to be exact. Every one with it’s own particular purpose. A nurse cautioning me to not pick him up. All I wanted to do was hold him. I’d only been able to hold him for a very few precious moments.

A doctor coming in and calmly telling me he had Tetralogy of Fallot. He explained treatments. He didn’t have grief emanating from his body. He didn’t have the worrisome look on his face as if he was telling me my son would not make it.  It had a name. It had a cure. It meant surgery but my son was going to be alright.

It’s been a long road. He had a surgery at 4 months and 11 months. But my son is 10.

He is no longer bluish. He smiles. He laughs. He reads. He jokes with you and will tell you stories all day long, and it’s been 10 years.

Where has the time gone?

Happy Birthday Jon. ❤