Before and After

This morning we went to see the doctor, to have my little ladies leg checked and the ex rays showed that her leg has healed! Hip, hip hooray! I don't know who was more happy to get this pretty pink cast off, her or me. The doctor and nurse were quite surprised that she didn't make a peep while they took it off. She just laid there with a big smile on her face. The doctor told me that this has never happened before. They prepared me for her to cry and fight the procedure because the noise from the tool to cut the cast off, usually scares children. The only thing she said over and over, while they were working on taking the cast off was, "I get to wear my pretty Dora panties now." When they had put the cast on, the doctor had told me it was best to put her back in diapers since she still had occasional accidents, as this would prevent it from running down inside the cast. She was not happy about this and I knew that the reason she was smiling so big, was because she knew she would get to wear her pretty Dora panties once the cast is off. Then when they took more ex rays to see if it had healed, she laid perfectly still, which the technician told me, rarely happens.

She actually did very well with having the cast on. After getting the pretty pink cast on her leg, she spent a day crying because she wanted it off and she wanted her Dora panties back on. She no longer thought it was so pretty and was pretty frustrated as she figured out how to get around. Which took all of one day and she has been walking on it and got around quite well these past few weeks. Towards the end, she was almost running! The thing is, I knew that she would, because she is not one to just sit still for very long. The toughest parts for her, were not wearing her panties and not getting to take baths. The toughest part for me, was having to carry her a lot when we went places and with the cast on her leg, she was not light to haul around.

Since it is snowing here and the roads are not very good, we are not going back to work today, so we are going to have a day of celebrating life without a cast. I think there is a nice big bubble bath in the near future for one very brave little lady and of course for one very jealous little man!

I'm grateful

For the most part, I am conscious of feeling grateful for all that I have and all the people in my life, but today, I woke up feeling especially grateful...for the people in my life. I feel grateful for all of you, that share your lives with me, by inviting me into your worlds, through your blogs and for taking the time to stop by here. Each of you have brightened my world, challenged me and given me insight into lives outside my own. Plus you make me smile and laugh just about every day. Thank you.

I am grateful for my family and friends…for the people I work with…for the young people that I come into contact with daily and all the little people that I get to care for. I am eternally grateful for my incredible children and my equally incredible grandchildren that never cease to amaze me.

Most of all, I am grateful for my husband, who’s love for me, is ever constant…he loves me where I’m at in each given moment…meaning, even when I am not performing at my best. If you knew all of my life…all that I have been through, then you would know what a priceless gift this is to me. I waited 43 years for him…actually, it took me that long to be ready for something so good to come into my life. (I am a slow learner.) My husband is an amazing man…he is gentle, hardworking, loyal, wise, kind, faithful, patient, unselfish, a man of good character. To top it off, I think he is really hot! I never imagined someone this good could be mine…that someone like him could want someone like me. But he did, and he still does and I hope I never take this for granted.

My husband does not shower me with gifts of flowers or jewelry, instead his daily gifts to me are his unending acceptance of me, his uttermost respect for me that shows in everything he does, and his amazing love for me, that transforms even the most mundane day into something beautiful. Words cannot describe the way he looks at me and the way it makes me feel. I catch him staring at me and I will ask him why he is looking at me like that and his most common response to me is, “It’s because I still can’t believe I get to be married to you.” He thinks I am the prize…that he won the lottery with me and honestly sometimes I don’t know how to handle all this adoration…because even on my worst days he still think I’m the prize. He thinks, he is the one that got the good end of the stick, but, I know better.

Tell me, who are you grateful for today?

Enough is enough

Since the holiday season is around the corner, with Thanksgiving just a few weeks away, and Christmas to follow a month later, I have been thinking about gift giving, greed, materialism and our abundance of “stuff”. I am thinking about all the people in need, in our world, and here we are with so much. I am battling this feeling inside of me, that is saying “enough is enough” and “what can we do to reach out to those in need?”

We are not rich by any means(at least not financially anyways) but we have done very well at accumulating “stuff”. Quite honestly, our income most likely falls in the government standard of being near poverty but in no way do we live in poverty. We eat very well and don’t go without. We live in a nice modest home. Granted it is nothing fancy and most of our furnishings were bought second hand, gifts, or things given to us. Although it would be nice to have “new” some day, it is a choice we have made, to live simple and within our means. If we do want or need something, we save for it, just as we saved for a year and a half to make the trip to Florida for my daughters wedding. I am deeply grateful for all that we have and thankful that we can both work to provide for our families needs. In many ways, I feel that we are rich and can not help but feel as though we can do more to give to those that have much less.

As I was directing my little people in cleaning up all their toys the other day, it dawned on me that with Christmas coming we need to do something about all these toys they already have….these perfectly good toys, that have nothing wrong with them and that they love to play with. But, you can only play with so many toys. They have enough or I should say too many toys already. Just thinking about them getting more toys sickens both of us. Not just because they already have enough but because of the message given to them in being given too many things. We don’t want them growing up with this attitude of “expecting” and always wanting something more.

We want to teach our little people about giving and not expecting “stuff” or always wanting something more or better…of having to have everything they see or want at the moment. We want them to be aware that we are very fortunate and that there are people out there, that are not so fortunate. With all of this in mind, we have decided to incorporate the idea of giving to those in need, into our Christmas celebration. We will be taking a portion of our Christmas gift fund and using it to give to those in need. I am just not sure where or how we should do that this year.

The thing is my little people’s “other” mommy, the one that gave birth to them, is very materialistic and goes overboard with gift giving, even though she can by no means afford it. Her mother and family are the same way. They go completely crazy for their birthday’s and Christmas. Let’s just say that they give so much that the kids don’t even want to open all of them. Because of this, we don’t always give them anything or if we do, it is something small. We have tried talking to them in the past about this, but they have refused to listen. We will once again talk to them and explain how we feel. We are going to ask them to join in our "giving to others" idea and ask them to contribute also.

When my older children were growing up, we played “secret Santa” to one family each year that we could. They each gave up one of the gifts they would normally get and then I would take them shopping with that money and they would each buy a gift for someone in that family. They looked forward to this every year, that we could do it. So this is one idea of something we could do. But, we would like to search out different options. D’Arcy from Abstraction recently wrote a great post about The Children of Shanti Bhavan and gives an opportunity for others to give. I am looking for something that my little people could possibly understand and get excited about. Please know that we are not trying to take the fun out of Christmas or be a scrooge, we just want to share some of the wealth that has been given to us.
Please share your idea's with me!

Some Halloween Fun

Since Friday was Halloween, I thought I would share a picture of my two little people in their costumes. If you can't tell, little lady is a pink pony and little man is a fireman. I work at a school, so they wore their costumes to school all day and handed out candy to all the students and staff. They loved doing this and since I am always trying to teach them to be "givers" and not just "takers", this was a good lesson for them in how happy it makes us when we give to others.

Although I am generally not big on Halloween for various reasons, one of them being, that it is usually quite cold here and hauling little ones in and out of the cold is not a good time, but this year, it was unusually nice here. Our little towns businesses open up their businesses for trick or treaters in the late afternoon, before it gets dark, so we walked around town with our little people. To say they loved dressing up is an understatement...as it would be to say they loved seeing all the children and adults that were dressed up. Before we went out, we practiced with them in saying "trick or treat", "happy Halloween" and most importantly, "thank you" to each place we went. I am happy to say that they did it wonderfully so...to the point that my little man actually tried to give out some of his own candy to some of the people handing out candy!

Every Friday evening is our movie and pizza night. I either make homemade pizza or a frozen one or on special times, we order out for one. We all get in our pj's early, make a big bed on the floor, and we all cuddle together while watching a movie. They get to stay up a little later then usual and usually get to have popcorn part way through the movie. Little man calls these nights "sleep over nights", even though we don't sleep there all night, and wants every night to be a "sleep over" night. So, this last Friday after coming home from trick or treating, we made homemade pizza and watched Tinkerbell, which is a very cute movie. I think at this point of Dora and Diego overload, watching any movie that doesn't have Dora or Diego in it, falls into the "cute" category for me.

The first picture, is a picture my daughter sent me of my grandson, who is about a year and half, dressed as a cowboy for Halloween and I just had to share it with you all. He is such a little honey and the joy of my life. He called me on Halloween morning and said "trick or treat" to me and can say "I love you grandma" which is like music to my ears. Even though I just seen him a few weeks ago, during the wedding time in Florida, it already feels like forever that I have gotten to just hug and kiss him.

I never thought in a million years, that I would be doing the Halloween things again, or having pizza movie night, but here I am, playing mommy to little ones. Last year, we attempted to celebrate Halloween, although the little people were pretty young, but their mother was involved with it, so it was a complete nightmare. So, this year, it was quite nice to do something that felt almost normal and it almost feels like old grandpa and I are catching on to this whole parenting thing were trying to do! Just remember, I said "almost"!

Last days of fall fun

Since the snow we got here on Sunday did not stay(thank God) and it's both mine and my husband's day off today, we got one last chance to do yard work and play in the piles of leaves. If you notice in the pictures, my little people, are only wearing sweatshirts today, instead of their winter jackets, since it reached about 50 degree's! We've been having to wear winter stuff once again and let me tell you, I had forgotten how much longer it takes to get out the door when you have to put on all this extra stuff. My little people love being outside and playing in the leaves is an added bonus. The little kid in me comes out and I cannot resist a big pile of leaves either. It's pretty hard to resist when you hear their giggles and squeals of delight as they play and try to cover me up with leaves.

Twenty Four at Heart shared a recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies recently and so this morning we made a batch of them. I encourage you to go check out this recipe of hers and give them a try as they are delicious. I used to bake a lot when my five children were growing up but have gotten away from that since neither my husband or I are big sweet eaters. Give us a bowl of chips with salsa or guacamole and we will have it gone in minutes. I do make good guacamole, if I must say so myself.

I'm off to get more work done around here before my two little people wake up from their naps. Hope you are having a great day!

My time is not my own

I wasn’t going to even post tonight because I don’t want to sound negative or like I am complaining about my life. I am grateful for all that I have and I do feel blessed with so much. It’s just that I am so tired that my bones hurt. I feel like crying but I'm too tired to even do that. My little people are now in bed for the night and instead of writing one of the posts I have been wanting to write, I write this post to let you all know that I am thinking of all of you and if I haven’t stopped by your blog or commented lately, it’s not because I haven’t wanted to.

Since I last posted about life’s latest interruptions, I have been engulfed in those interruptions and new interruptions that seem to overtake my time. And of course there is always work away from home and the never ending work at home. Other than getting to read a few blogs and leaving a comment here and there, I hardly have had time to catch my breathe, let alone do something I enjoy, like writing on this blog. My time is not my own and to be honest, some days this is harder than others.

Right now, the raising of my two little people, weighs heavily upon me. Sometimes my worry for them is so overwhelming, that I can’t even put it into words. My husband’s job takes him away for most of their awake hours so most of the responsibility of their care falls upon me. Three year olds are wonderful little people but mine has pushed me to my limits with his mood swings and misbehaviors. Of course my two year old little lady can not help that she is more irritable with her leg being in a cast or that she is a mama‘s girl…still, I have my limits. I am overwhelmed right now with the constant care giving and I just need to catch my breathe.

Even though I should be working out or doing some work around the house, I don’t have it in me to do another thing. Instead, I am off to drink a glass of wine or two with my husband and to veg out in front of the TV. I need to lose myself, to not think about anything, and pray that tomorrow or soon, this heaviness will be gone.

Interruptions to keep my life interesting

In the post I wrote while on “vacation”, I shared that my little lady had hurt her ankle by slipping on a book in the kitchen. It was by no means a big fall, it was a little slip. She has fallen outside in the winter much harder then this, so we were surprised that this was causing her to not walk. We were told that it was just a sprain but she would still not walk on it, which meant we had to carry her everywhere we went. In the back of my mother mind, I had this feeling that there was something more wrong, but I was told by everyone around me that I was just overreacting and being over protective.

When we got home last week, I made an appointment to have it looked at by our doctor here. When they read the x-rays here, they did not see anything, but they said they were sending the x-rays to be looked at by a specialist in a larger town, since I persisted that she would be walking if something wasn’t wrong. I was sent home with the advice to be encouraging her to walk. Friday afternoon I was called by the doctor to be told that her lower leg was indeed fractured and that we were to keep her off of it until she could see a pediatric orthopedic doctor on Tuesday of this week.

So yesterday, my little lady got a bright pink cast put on her entire leg! This will take some getting used to for her, as she learns how to maneuver around. Most important to her is that she now has a very pretty pink leg. This means we had to put her back into diapers which she is not too fond of. Because of all this, I have had to miss more work, which does affect us financially, but on the bright side, my work has been very supportive and understanding as always. Tomorrow, will be my first day back and taking little lady will pose some challenges, but I am always up for a good challenge!

It is cold and rainy here today, with talk of the rain possibly turning into snow tonight. Although this thrills my little man, this is not music to my ears. I don’t mind the snow, I just don’t like driving in it. We had planned on doing some raking today since it’s my husbands day off, but that will have to wait until a better day. Since the weather is keeping us indoors today, I was doing some painting with my little people this morning and we decided it was a good day to make cookies. I ran downstairs to get some butter from the freezer, to find that our sewer had backed up. What a mess! Thank God, my husband is home to take care of things like this.

Now that our painting is done, the cookies are made and my little people are playing in their rooms(Because I’m mean like that…I make them play in their rooms by themselves, at least once a day.), I get this time for myself, which I have come to love.

My question to myself and all of you today is, what would we do if our lives didn’t have these constant interruptions? Thank God, by my age I have learned to deal with these interruptions without getting bent out of shape. I remember a time in my younger years, that these little interruptions seemed way bigger than what they are…little bumps in the road that keep my life interesting, to say the least. So, although I could live without the little lady having a broken leg, or the sewer being backed up, or even the snow falling in October, I will take these things with a grain of salt and a sense of humor that can laugh when life isn't so pretty and say "thank God, it could be worse!"