Memorial Weekend Thanks

I am thankful for national holidays - especially those that create long weekends. I am thankful for the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for this country - for the freedom of both those who support and encourage them, and also for those who protest, spit, and scoff at them. I am thankful for the memories of loved ones who are no longer with me, and for the way they have shaped my life. I am thankful for fresh watermelon. I am thankful for rickety swing sets and time spent with family. I am thankful for shared secrets with an old friend - someone who even though I don't get to see enough, can still finish my sentences or guess my thoughts. I am thankful for Ski on a long drive home. (If you don't know what Ski is, you are certainly not from God's Country, and have no idea what you are missing.) I am thankful for today, all the days before it, and the days that are coming.

Sunday Thanks

I am thankful for long weekends. For wet footprints on sidewalks and mud squishing under my feet. I am thankful for a husband that I love, even though he can burp the alphabet, (and doesn't shy away from demonstrating that fact in the most inappropriate situations). I am thankful for the imagination of my son - he has recently decided that he is a cat. He only answers to 'here kitty, kitty', and meows in response to everything you ask him. He will crawl into your lap and lick your cheek in a 'kitty kiss' before he begins to purr. I am thankful that he hasn't decided to be a dog and drink out of the toilet. I am thankful for Sunday afternoon cookouts, impromptu corn hole matches, and friendly trash-talking. I am thankful that I am learning (repeatedly) to be a graceful loser. I am thankful for cakes with butter cream icing. I am thankful that I'm getting to relive the simplest joys of childhood - icy lemonade, earthworms, whistling through a blade of grass, and planting flowers (although I do not miss the childhood impatience. It's unfortunate for children that flowers do not grow in a matter of hours instead of weeks). I am thankful for today.

Singing in the Rain

Yesterday, we got to dance in the rain. We seem to be in a wee bit of a wet spell - of course everyone is complaining and whining, "I hate the rain! When will it be over? I'm so tired of it!" Blah, blah, blah. But me? I love the rain. Open the floodgates of heaven baby - let it pour! There has always been something slightly magical about rain for me. The way you can smell it, seconds before the first drop falls, and the way the slate gray clouds boil up and surround you before it all lets loose. I think it's wonderful. After the first distant grumble of thunder, Lil' C shouted, "Mommy! Mommy! What's dat noisey?" (I think that's the cutest thing by the way, and it's a recent new development. No matter how many times we correct him, he never says 'What's that noise?" Always, "What's that noisey?") We ran to the big window and watched the storm sweep over us. After the thunder ended and it was just the rain, we went outside. "Oh, Mommy! Es water on me! Es so cold!" We laughed and held out our hands, catching the raindrops in our palms. "I WUV 'da wain Mommy, I WUV it!" I sat on the front step and watched him squeal and giggle. He loved seeing his footprints on the dry part of the sidewalk, and would run out into the rain to make sure he feet were really wet, and then hop like a little frog up the walk. "Wook Mama - do'se are my toes! Wight dere! See?"

Sunday Thanks (On Monday- but hey, better late than never.)

I thought about what I would write in my Mother's Day edition of 'Sunday Thanks' as I drove home to God's Country yesterday morning. (This last minute, same-day down and back trip was one reason the post is late. The other is that my sometimes-I-wanna-strangle-him Baby Daddy snuck the laptop away to work with him, so it wasn't here when I got home.) The sun was shining in on my arms and I was sipping my non-fat vanilla latte as the Muffin sang along to the Doodlebops in the back seat. I had a fat two hour stint of driving ahead of me, so -- I remembered.

Nanny

You really couldn't have asked for a better grandmother than I had. She never spanked, she never yelled, and she always had a box of Hostess Twinkies or ho-hos hidden in the third drawer of the kitchen cabinet for my brother and I, (probably one contributing factor to both of our childhood chubbster phases). Days with Nanny were as good as it got. During the school year, we got off the bus at her house - the t.v. was already tuned to our favorite channel for afternoon cartoons and Nanny would be ready to hear about our days. Spending the night was always a huge event for my brother and I as well. The three of us would pile up in the bed, side-to-side like little sardines, and Nanny would tell us stories. And not that fake fairy-tale stuff either - it was the real deal. I swear, Nanny had more adventures than Huck Finn. She was a tom boy, and was always getting into some kind of mischief or another. Whether it was the time she provoked and then got mightily sprayed by a skunk, (she had to take a bath in a tub chock full of tomato juice), or the time she and her cousin Johnny were playing kick the can and she kicked it right into her little brother's head, causing an expensive trip to the doctor and a near fainting spell from her mother at the sight of all that blood. Nanny's escapades were the fodder of my childhood imagination. We always begged for 'one more story, PLEASE one more story Nanny!' She usually obliged. I think that was where I got my passion for writing (and hence blogging). Nanny could spin a tale and then draw it out until Ryan and I would squeal, "and THEN what happened? C'mon, tell us the rest! (Even though we had probably heard the story a thousand times.) We spent long summer afternoons at the 'Spring Holler', where Nanny made us tiny fairy boats out of pieces of egg carton complete with toothpick and construction paper flags. She would roll up her pants and have moss fights with us, and teach us how to skip rocks. Nanny was the one who taught me that you have to distract a crawdaddy by putting a hand in front of him to make him swim backwards, and then grab him just behind the front pinchers to avoid getting your finger snapped off. (I am still, to this day, a crawdaddy catching champion.) She knew the best rocks to look under for salamanders, and could show you where the water boiled up from underground so pure and sweet and cold, you would drink it and your teeth would hurt. Nanny is still a constant in my life -- and she still tells great stories. Only now, she has a new generation of rambunctious grandkids to entertain, and a new captive audience for her tales of daring, courage, cans, and skunks.

Mom

So I guess you could say I've known her since the beginning. It is evident to me now, more than ever, that the same blood that runs through her veins runs through mine. She is the new best friend that I always had but never appreciated. My Mom is my lifeboat, my sounding board, my wailing wall, and my anchor. The worst thing in the world is when we are having a tiff, and I can't call her to complain about it. I mentioned at church on Sunday that they say people who are really talented at something make it look easy. Mom made parenting look easy. I know now that there were times when we were teetering on the brink of complete disaster, but my brother and I were none the wiser. Mom could take a couple of throw pillows, a chair, and a blanket, and the next thing Ryan and I knew, we were in the Taj Mahal. The best day of my life was probably one of the most disastrous for her. We were hours from home when our van blew up in some tiny map-dot town in another state. Now I know that Mom was probably beside herself - here she was with two young kids, in a place she didn't know, with a completely wrecked transmission. We walked into town and found a general store, where Mom bought us some rubber band helicopters and a magic ball of string that unwrapped held a secret toy inside. We wandered down the streets, shooting our helicopters up in the air and laughing, until we found a church yard with lots of big shade trees. We sat down in the grass, and then we realized that they had already hidden Easter eggs in anticipation of that Sunday's holiday. So we had our own private egg hunt. Of course Mom made us put them all back when we were done, but we were still happy. Looking back on that day, I don't remember the stress of being stranded. I don't remember worrying. I don't even remember how we got home. I remember the smell of the grass in that church yard. I remember my brother and I laughing as we competed to see who could get their helicopter the highest. I remember my mother's smile. I remember pure, childish joy. Even during the toughest years, I bet we laughed more than some people do in a lifetime. Mom is one of those people who just when you think they are down, surprises you and jumps back up with the sheer strength of her determination. She could be stuck on a cliff, swinging by a hangnail, and I swear she could claw her way back to the top. The amount of strength in her both amazes and terrifies me. I am afraid that I won't be able to measure up. I can only hope that I have enough of her in me to be able to make my son's childhood as amazing as mine was.

* * * *

I am thankful for my Nanny, with her wild tales and her endless patience. For her summer strawberry pies and her steadfastly proving that there truly are good people left in the world. I am thankful for my Mom, who can take an average day and make it extraordinary. She loves me as I am, with all my little quirks and flaws, and she makes me believe that hope is never dead. That there is always something wonderful coming just around the corner.

I am thankful for my son, who makes being a Mommy fun and completely worthwhile. I can't wait to see the adventures we are all going to have together little man!

It's all about the drumstick baby! *That's a chicken leg now, not a tool used to play a percussion instrument*

Who, in their right mind, would sacrifice a Wednesday evening to brave the madness of a local Kentucky Fried Chicken on the day that a coupon hits the Internet promising a free meal? Who would wait in a line that stretched from the cash registers to the doors, and then snaked around the sidewalk into the parking lot? Who would find themselves surrounded by crying children, angry customers ("I SAY-ud I wunted MASHED 'taters, NOT 'tater wedges! I thank I also axed fer an ex-tre bis-kit too, if you'da been payin' attenshun..."), and frazzled restaurant employees? Who, you ask? ME. Because seriously, who can resist free anything? One of my gal pals at work forwarded me the "Oprah" KFC coupon today, (printable only today now my lovelies, so don't go trying to get a copy), and as I thought it might be hazardous to subject my family to another night of Hamburger Helper, I jumped on that coupon like it was solid gold. So there we were with the other 984 schmucks that had the same idea at the same time, all standing around eyeballing each other and waiting for our crappy pieces of chicken. The Muffin delighted in searching for Colonel Sanders - "Hey Daddy, wook! Der' dat Ker-mal Sandals. Wook Daddy, he wight dere! Oh wow, dere's anudder Ker-mal Sandals. Daddy, dere lots of Ker-mal Sandals ev-rywhere here!" Lucky for us, we brought in his backpack and toys, so he and BD staged a small scale demolition derby with little monster trucks driving up napkin holder ramps and jumping over lines of plastic sporks. We finally got our chicken (I thought it was tough and quite unimpressive) and took our leave, squeezing around the 673 new crazies standing in line with coupons in hand. I still have a slight headache from all the trauma. *Sigh*

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I didn't get to post my normal 'Sunday Thanks' this week because we spent the weekend in God's Country, and I was just too lazy to update by the time we made it back home. We did have a lovely relaxing weekend with lots of hang-around-the-house family time, which I adore. The highlight for the Muffin was our trek to a local Amish greenhouse - "Mommy, dese fwo-wers are beeee-u-ti-fuwl!!" He was also delighted that along with Nana, Nanny and Pa also came with us. It still just jerks on my heart strings to see how much he idolizes my grandparents. Pa hangs the moon of course, and he can play for hours with the ever-patient Nanny. The only reason I got to look at anything in the greenhouse myself is because my Nanny, bless her heart, spent our time there crouched down on an old wooden pallet digging for rocks and counting potato bugs with the Muffin. The rest of the weekend was relaxing and slow, spending time at Nanny's chasing one-eyed farm cats and playing with the special box of toys that has been passed from my mother and uncle to my brother and me, and now is shared by our two sons. It was certainly hard to head home and gear up for another week. But here we are eh? And the week is almost over again. *Happy claps*

Smart Move - God bless our resident White House Genius!

White House Declines to Release Photos of New York City Flyover
Tuesday, May 05, 2009

WASHINGTON — The White House is refusing to release the controversial photos of Air Force One flying over the Manhattan skyline last week that triggered panic among New Yorkers and an internal review in the Obama administration.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that there was no need to release them.
"I've watched CNN," he said, noting the considerable coverage from amateur footage. "I didn't notice a lack of archival material from that flight."
He added that he didn't know where to locate the photos taken from inside the plane.
Last week, the Obama administration sent an Air Force One backup plane to fly over lower Manhattan to capture the presidential plane with the Statue of Liberty in the background. The public was not notified in advance that there was no cause for alarm.
Some New Yorkers were reminded of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, sparking chaos as employees evacuated office buildings and emergency call centers were inundated.
President Obama immediately denounced the photo-op, which cost $328,835, calling it "a mistake."
White House Military Office Director Louis Caldera accepted responsibility and apologized for allowing the exercise.
Gibbs said he anticipates the internal review will be completed this week.

Mistake? Yeah, I'll say. I just love $328,835 mistakes, don't you?

Hit Me with Your Best Shot! (Go ahead, just try me.)

I just finished half an hour of 'kick-your-butt' cardio boxing. Thank you BabyDaddy for surprising me with the new Gold's Gym Wii game I've been wanting!!! (Oh, whoa -- hold up. Are you trying to tell me something? Huh? Are you? Do you think I'm fat?! Are you hinting that I NEED to do some cardio boxing?! Do you feel like sleeping on the couch for the next half-decade?!!! Oh, wait. I did ask for it for Mother's Day. Well, never mind then. Thanks!) I love it, love it, love it. I enjoy Wii Fit, but you really can only hula hoop for so long. So I'm feelin' all jacked up, (not on Mountain Dew mind you), you know, hitting myself in the chest and such, so I thought I would watch a fitting movie -- The Wrestler. I'm trying to work my way through all the Oscar mentions from last year, and someone told me that this was actually good. Brutal, but still pretty good. So we'll see. I'll let you know if it's worth the $1 at Red Box.