A couple of weeks ago a young boy was killed during a baseball game in our town.  He was 13 years old, he was wearing a helmet but the pitched ball somehow managed to hit just inside the helmet in an unprotected area.  He was flown to the Regional Medical Center but he didn’t wake up.  His mother had to make the unimaginable decision to turn off his life support and even more difficult, she donated his organs.  The pain the family suffered is a pain no family should ever suffer.  The community rallied around his family, fundraisers cropped up all over the place.  T-Shirts were sold, Bracelets, a barbecue was held, etc…

When the information about the first fundraiser was published I had a thought, but kept it to myself.  A good friend of mine did not.  Bless her.  She had reason to express the thought and to have the thought.  I’m not sure if I do or not, but just the same it niggles at the back of my head.  This friend of mine is an amazing person, she’s a very devout Christian, and gives of herself freely to anyone in need.  So it’s important to me that you understand her a bit before I tell you what thought we both had that only she dared to put in to words.  It didn’t come from an ugly place or an angry place it came from a place of honest curiosity.

The question is this: Who decides what tragedy is worthy of a community’s charity?

My friend’s 13 year old nephew died just before Christmas in 2010.  He died after a very brave, lifelong battle with severe Cerebral Palsy.  There was no fundraiser for him.  Not one.  Despite the fact the church was filled almost to capacity with people who loved this child and his mother, the local newspaper did not cover his death.  They didn’t cover the life he led surrounded by a family who loved him so much that they made sure he was NEVER with a stranger, not once in 13 years.  They didn’t talk about how his aunt and mother received their respite care licenses so they could care for him at home, themselves.  They didn’t talk about how his aunt cared for him all night and went to college during the day for her nursing degree all while raising four children of her own, four children who had no beef at all with often having plans rescheduled or holidays not celebrated because their cousin was sick.

That, I believe is the difference.  No one covered it.  Those of us who knew and loved this child and his family didn’t bring enough attention to the death of this Angel (to steal his mother’s words), his battle was lifelong it wasn’t sudden so it wasn’t news, but let me tell you it was unexpected for those that loved him no matter how many doctors had warned he wouldn’t make it to adulthood.  It’s always unexpected and tragic, ALWAYS.

This is the world we live in.  A world in which the lack of media coverage or the lack of enough attention from outside sources determines who receives support after tragedy and who doesn’t.

I have been wondering about this for almost 3 years, I just didn’t have a way to voice my question without I felt looking bad.  Now I’ve gotten to the point, I just don’t care.  So I’m going to say it here, in my little slice of the web, everyone needs help after a tragedy.  It doesn’t matter how much insurance they have, there will be costs they didn’t anticipate.  Just because the person affected comes from a family with means, doesn’t mean they don’t need support from the community they’ve spent their entire life in, and dammit they deserve it just as much as the family new to the community who had too many people living in too small a home and had a space heater start a fire.

When we had our fire not many reached out to us.  A woman from the church I’ve been a member of for my entire life did.  My mother-in-law’s company, a company of people I’ve never met, took up a collection.  A small group of hedgehog rescuers that I’d worked closely with for 7 years took up a collection and sent a gift card.  I am eternally grateful to each and every one of those people.  I am equally grateful to my neighbors across the street who gathered up as many articles of clothing as possible for my children who had nothing but the clothes on their backs.  I am grateful to my son’s school that had a pajama day and raised some money for the kids.  I am eternally grateful most of all to my family who made sure my children had clothing and toys and to my mother who has so much junk in her kitchen she was able to help me almost fill the kitchen in our rental house.  Yet still, I am bitter, Lord help me, no matter how hard I try I can’t move past that bitterness.  I am angry that the local newspaper made us look like animal hoarders without a second thought in a big, bold article on the front page of two day’s worth of papers.  I am angry that when they printed their “retraction” they put it on the back page of the same newspaper in a 200 word blurb.  I am angry that the only other time they ever contacted us was when they wanted to do a feature story on me and my business.  When I told them I wasn’t rebuilding my “business” (and if you raise animals you know why, and why the term “business” is so offensive) I never heard back.  I am angry that the people I’ve known my entire life never even bothered to make sure we were OK.  Never reached out a hand to pull us out of the abyss.

So please, if someone you know suffers a trauma, reach out.  Yell it from the rooftops.  Offer any help that you can, get involved, because believe me they WILL need it, no matter what their circumstances are.  Please understand I don’t mean to lessen the loss suffered by the family of the boy during the baseball game.  Theirs is a loss no one should ever have to face, but many face it day after day, so please reach out to every single one of those people.

Tags: Charity, Fundraisers, Loss of Children, Tragedy, trauma

Oh how I miss these days!!

Today is the last day of school and it’s a half day.  For my oldest that’s awesome.  He’s so ready for a break.  Me?  I’m not so sure.  First of all, half days irk me because I could totally sleep in on these days rather than drive his ungrateful butt to school after the morning all out war routine just to come home and try to recover from the trauma that mornings with my hyperactive, unable to fall asleep before 10 PM no matter what time we send him to bed, son and then realize if I don’t take a shower I won’t get one because it’s almost time to trek back to the school to retrieve “my precious”.  Today though?  I realize that’s the last of those treks I’ll be making for the next 3 months and ohmygosh I am SO not ready to face the Summer with this person who looks like my son for the most part but seems to actually more closely resemble Freddy Kruger on his best days.

At some point in the past few months my very sweet, always worried about hurting someone else’s feelings, very bright, very loving, eleven year old woke up a full blown almost teenager.  I am NOT loving this.  I swear all of the sudden he woke up one day and decided to be a complete adolescent male.  It’s not just his attitude which I’ll get to, but his principal actually pointed out to me the other day just how tall he’s gotten this year.  How did I not notice this?  In my defense when we moved I had to buy him new pants because we stupidly packed all of the clothes in to the front of the U-Haul and he couldn’t go naked for the week we were waiting for the house we rented to be ready, apparently I missed the part where I had to buy three size longer pants?  Also?  My son has gone from a wholesome, clean cut, kiddo to a “I’m not showering this week because it will wash off my hard won man funk and render my Axe deodorant unnecessary and the “ladies love my Axe” and toothbrushes are for sissy’s and why yes my hair is greasy and longer than yours so shut up about it already and do NOT equate me to “The Bieb” because I WILL rip your head off if you do and my dragon breath is getting close to the point where I can actually spit fire so I’m not just making idle threats ball of raging hormones”.  The most baffling part of this transition?  The girls are calling.  I mean A LOT of them, and you all know how much I love the girls he associates with.  Apparently spitting fire and smelling like dirty socks and being able to wring the grease from your WAY too long hair is (picture Paris Hilton here) “HOT”.

His seemingly instant entrance to adolescence is of course complicated by the fact he has Tourettes and ADHD and now we have full blown rages.  He’s never had those before.  I’ve dealt with them before in another boy I love deeply, younger and just as angry for other reasons, but not in MY son.  We knew this was coming.  He’s almost twelve and we’re not stupid.  Also?  His neurologist warned us and we have seen his friends make this transition from sweet, lovely, boy child in to fire breathing dragon over the past few months right along with him and they don’t have the complications of “a diagnosis”.  The problem is, I am not ready.  I don’t know how to deal with this which is SO stupid because I’ve totally been here with the rages.  It’s just when the hatred was directed at me previously it wasn’t coming from a child I carried for 9 months and nurtured, dammit.  Does he not realize what I went through to bring him in to this world?  *Insert my deep down in my belly sigh here*.

When his neurologist warned us just shy of a year ago that puberty and Tourettes is a BAD mix, I actually asked him flat out “how do we know what’s Tourettes and what’s just being an adolescent boy?”.  I knew I was screwed when he kind of got this sly smile on his face, sighed, and said “good luck” as he sent us on our way out of his office as fast as he could without actually having to answer that question.  Now I get it.  He could have warned me a little more clearly.  He could have said “in just shy of a year’s time your son is going to hate everyone that resides in your house”.  I mean, seriously?  He has how many years of medical school under his belt?  He could have given me a concise timeline so I’d be prepared when this started at the beginning of May.  Instead I was blindsided and not in the good way.

So now my challenge becomes, what to do with him this Summer?  He’s not fond of most Summer sports and there’s no hockey to skate his aggression out with.  They take the ice down at the end of April which I’m certain now is solely to torture me.  Swimming just isn’t exhausting enough I don’t think.  Pawning him off on friends and relatives won’t work because then I have to explain to them that I am actually still in the running for the “Mother of the Year Award” despite what they just experienced.

Also?  He gets angry SO fast and his little sister is often the cause of his rage.  She dared to enter his cave and touch something.  I don’t know how he knew because frankly that Lego Death Star looks to me like it still has eleventy billion pieces in tact, so how can you tell ONE is missing?  Also?  Aren’t Legos meant to be put together and taken apart?  Oh, not that one because it has a 300 page spiral bound instruction manual that you dutifully spent an entire two days locked in your cave turning the pages on?  Well sh*t.  Then I guess maybe she should have not touched it, but somehow I don’t think standing at the top of the stairs screaming at her in non-native tongues is going to get you anywhere and NO, it’s not my fault because son, I HAVE to pee at some point during the day or it could end badly and plus?  The neighbors love that so please do that some more, like every 5 minutes for the next three hours until your dad gets home if you could, that would be awesome.  Also, it’s not a wine and Xanax cocktail in my cup, it’s Ice Tea, I swear and stopjudgingme because it’s Happy Hour on the East Coast whether you like it or not.

So I am reaching out to you dear internets.  WHAT do I do with him for the next three months?  Football camp only lasts two weeks and is like two hours an evening, and the school’s Summer Enrichment program for gifted kids only lasts I think 4 weeks and goes for half a day, and that leaves a WHOLE lot of time for him to stand at the top of the stairs and scream at whoever dared to set him off, and frankly my poor neighbors put their house up for sale and I am NOT sure it’s not because of us.  OK, it’s probably not, but if it was I totally can’t blame them because I want to go with them, please!  Help me!?  Also, if you see the boy pictured above, could you tell him his mommy really misses him and it would be lovely if he could return in place of the Freddy Kruger clone left behind in his place?  That would be awesome-sauce!

Tags: ADHD, Adolescence, Rages, Summer Vacation, Tourettes

An actual Facebook post by one of my son's tween friends.

*So first I have to say I am too cheap for Photo Shop so I had to use MS Paint to block out identifying information in this Facebook conversation as well as the profanity.  That’s why it’s sucktastic.  Sorry!  Alternatively if you’re totally impressed with my ability to use MS Paint I could totally teach you, for a nominal fee *

A week or so ago I wrote about the tween girls my son goes to school with and how vicious they are with each other on Facebook.  Apparently it’s not just the girls.  This is a conversation one of my son’s male tween friends posted tonight.  Nice right?

So that prompted me to want to post about the 13 and over age limit on Facebook and the debates circling with regards to tweens on Facebook.  Recently Mark Zuckerberg commented on how he believes pre-teens belong on Facebook and how he’s going to “fight for their right” to be allowed on the site. The biggest issue with this is that it’s not his call.  For Facebook to knowingly allow anyone under 13 on to Facebook would violate “The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act” which is meant to prevent children under the age of 13 from using sites with open, unmonitored chat channels where they might fall victim to predators, and sites that collect personal information and publish it for all to see which puts them at risk of large fines and sanctions.  I’m not sure what Mr. Zuckerberg’s move here is but his deciding to fight for the rights of tweens comes on the heels of the report released by Consumer Reports that found that almost 40% of the minors on Facebook are actually under 13.

Here’s where I both confess and play Devil’s Advocate for just a second.  My son has a Facebook page.  He’s currently not allowed to access it for reasons I won’t go in to here, but he does have one and even knowing what goes on there I have yet to disable it.  Yes I knew it was illegal maybe not on the up and up when I let him create it but I had my reasons.

• A teenage relative of mine who was actually old enough was forbidden by her mother to create a Facebook page, just created one at her friend’s house and hid it from her mother and she actually had other family members who helped her do so.  I would prefer the control over what my son does and not having to wonder if he’s sneaking around behind my back.
• My son, is the same child who a few years ago at around age 7 broke in to my E-Bay account and spent $90 on something he could have purchased in the store for $15.  He guessed my password people.  He was supposed to be playing Wizard 101 (which by the way if you have a tech savvy kid who wants to use the computer for an RPG but you won’t allow on most RPG sites, is an awesome choice, it’s fully locked down with a lot of parental control options and is actually fun and challenging, it’s a good alternative to almost every X-Box, Wii, or Playstation game ever created that allow them to mindlessly blow things up or drive cars, or jump on mushrooms with little men.  They actually have to think about what their next move will be and strategically plot how to finish the quests.  It’s awesome, and they so DON’T pay me to say that.).  Ever since then I change my passwords every 6 months and I installed a key logging software that I use to monitor his online activity.  So my point is, if he wanted one he would open one somewhere, somehow, so again I’d rather have that control.
• At the time his was created last Spring it was created to keep in touch with out of town relatives and his hockey team in the off season.  It would be awesome if someone created a fully secure social networking site like Facebook where kids his age could do stuff like that, but it’s an endeavor I’m so not taking on.
• He wanted to play Farmville with his grandmothers.

When I signed him up for his account I found that Facebook actually does have some serious safeguards in place for accounts held by those under 18, because legally at 13 they can have a page but that doesn’t mean they are ready for all that’s available or open to them on Facebook and what 13-18 year old girl doesn’t need some protection from creeping perverts?  So there are things they do with “minor accounts” that they don’t do with adult accounts.  That made me feel somewhat better about our decision though I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t one I struggled with long before the recent drama I’ve seen in these pre-pubescent hormone factories that he calls friends.

In the instance in the picture above it appears as though one boy’s best friend stole his “girlfriend” while he’s on vacation with his dad.  Most of you I am guessing will look at that and see a really good indication of how an 11-12 year old isn’t mature enough for a Social Networking site.  To that I would say, I both agree and disagree.  I have multiple younger relatives over the age of 13 on Facebook and the level of maturity and the types of postings you see in them really varies.  There are days I go “WHUCK?” and shake my head at kids these days and there are days they act like actual kids and not packs of rabid wolves.  What I see more glaringly is the same problem I see with the same aged girls I posted about.  Their parents are on their Friend lists and they let this go on!  In this instance the mother of the boy being talked to/about/around stepped up because that’s the kind of mother she is, and for the most part most of my son’s friend’s parents are the same.  I weed out those that aren’t, because if they have free reign to be complete buttheads then no matter how much I monitor Joey’s activity he’s going to be exposed to that.  Likewise, that boy won’t be coming over to hang out any time in the near future, although I’m slightly ashamed to admit that because he really doesn’t have the most awesome home life and if  I thought for a second I could help him by allowing him to hang out over here I would do so, but more likely with this boy I’d see the same issues the other mother is seeing and she has tried to shield him from the drama at home until quite recently when she decided he’s just not a good influence on her boys either.  It’s a sad thing when you have to make that decision about an 11 year old who’s troubled because of circumstances out of his control (but that’s another post entirely).

Recently a school resource officer in our community gave a presentation at the Junior High School regarding cyber bullying and he stated that most of the bullying he sees in the schools begins on Facebook or MySpace and spills over in to the schools themselves.

While that may be true I have to say, I remember plenty of bullying when I was that age and the only difference between then and now is that the kids wrote notes with actual pens or called a land line phone to yell at one another and threaten rather than using a cell phone to text their threats or Facebook to start an argument.  So the big question there would be, does a social networking site cause more bullying or is it just a good scapegoat for a problem that already existed in certain age groups and has for a LONG time?  Does anyone remember Nelly from “Little House on the Prairie”?  Hello, she was the CLASSIC example of what I would assume a bully was at that time.  Many classically written books are full of varying degrees of bullying or kids fighting with one another.  The only difference between then and now is that back then the kids threw rocks at each other or beat the snot out of one another and then got up, shook hands and went their separate ways, where today they pull an actual weapon, and kids back then didn’t appear to have the self esteem issues our generation and our children’s generation seem to have.

We live in a time where kids set up fights after school and multiple onlooking kids will video the fights with their cell phones and then upload them to You Tube.  I saw many a fist fight or yelling match in my school growing up, we just didn’t have the means to video it or the desire to do so, although most of us didn’t shy away from meeting out behind the school to watch the after school fight.  I see more and more the pack mentality in these kids where when I was young we just watched the drama of the day and then went on home, and the propensity for violence in today’s youth is frightening because again I say they take it to the extreme and it’s not unusual for a weapon to be brandished and utilized.

While my son’s page hangs in the balance as I lean more and more toward the reasons why it’s not a good idea for him to have that page, I still struggle with it.  Am I teaching him that it’s OK to lie to get what he wants by fudging his age and birth date?  Quite possibly and that’s an aspect I hadn’t considered until someone brought it up on another site, which is really ridiculous because I’m not actually despite what that might lead you to believe, a complete moron.  Is the problem that the kids under 13 aren’t mature enough for a social networking site?  Or is it pointing to a much bigger problem, one in which the parents need to take responsibility for what their kids are doing on the computer and how they are representing themselves in the social arena that we should be looking at?  Because obviously the one mother in the above conversation has a WAY more serious issue with both of her boys than whether or not one of them is too young to be on Facebook, don’t you agree?

Tags: Facebook, Kids on Facebook, Social Networking, Tweens, Underage kids on Facebook

This was totally me until today!

I’m not sharing any big secret when I tell you I didn’t love my job.  I didn’t even like it.  I thought I would.  It seemed like a great job for a “working mom” because the hours were flexible.  I didn’t realize “flexible” meant other people’s schedule for me despite what they said in my interview.  I also was SUPER naive when I took the job.  It was a highly political job and I had NO idea.  How stupid is that?  I took a job where I’d be taking minutes for two board meetings a month and multiple “workshops” and I never considered that the 8 people on the two boards might not all like one another, and oh by the way those 8 people are all your “boss” so just because they can’t agree on who’s project is more important today doesn’t mean you shouldn’t just know which one to focus on and which 7 to ignore.  UGH.  So, 3 weeks ago I took the leap and gave my notice.  My last day was supposed to be the 20th but I left it flexible in case they had trouble filling the position.  I figured once my “official date” came and went if I had a job I could leave and if not that was OK too.  They hired someone on Friday and basically threw her to the wolves the same as they did me.  I offered (in front of her mind you) to help her and was told “thanks, but no thanks”.  When I hired on they made it seem like it was all someone outside my office’s fault there was no one to teach me to do things I wasn’t familiar with.  That wasn’t the case of course.  There are always 3 sides to every story, hers, his, and the truth.  The lady who vacated the position before me gave a month’s notice, they didn’t hire me until two weeks after she’d moved to her new job.  Partly because she was right across the hall and they figured she’d drop everything for them even though she quit, and partly because their failure to plan often becomes our emergency.  I was clear in my resignation letter that I didn’t want that for the next person.  They apparently like it that way.  This way they have someone to blame when someone doesn’t like what they do.  A scapegoat is a terrible thing to waste apparently.  Lesson learned.

One thing I’ve found is I seem to have a knack for falling in to these messes.  When I applied for this job I was more than qualified for all that the position detailed on the state’s job site.  When I interviewed there were a few things mentioned that I wasn’t so sure about so I was honest with them and told them that.  They felt I’d learn it no problem.  I did, I could have learned more.  I just chose not to because the things they chose to leave out on the job board and in my interview were actually quite huge and put me in a bad position constantly.  I actually did enjoy my job when I was left alone to do it.  It was when I called to ask a question about one of those pesky little things that they never explained to me, and I got cussed at and hung up on that I really didn’t like the atmosphere anymore.  That happened a couple of times.  Enough to cause my husband to tell me to quit even though we really couldn’t afford it.

I didn’t think it would take this long to find something else.  We haven’t been as hard hit by the economy as other areas (or so our state news outlets and our state government would have you believe) but here I sit, three weeks later and I haven’t found a job.  Part of me is not sad about that.  I am, as is every mom, tired.  The rational part of me?  Not so much loving this.  Rent is due and so is the oh so pesky gas bill.  Of course it seems like Summer is finally coming and I could choose not to pay the gas bill because we don’t need heat, but we kinda like hot showers around here.  We’re picky that way, I know.

So I’m at a crossroads and it’s not a fun one because to be honest I am freaking out a bit.  I am wondering if my bosses who had 3 weeks notice of my departure are giving me a bad reference, I’m wondering if I’m as out of touch with my field as I seem to be and if the years spent at home being a mom are costing me which if they are just really sucks, and I’m wondering what in the world I am going to do.  My grandma says what’s meant to be will happen and this is all part of God’s plan.  I sure hope so!  I hope He knows what’s coming next and it’s something good, because it’s very hard to be optimistic when bad things just keep happening to you and your family.  Surely after almost 3 years of bad we’re due something good, right?

I never used to be a pessimist.  I was always upbeat and optimistic about everything, even to a fault I never saw the bad in anything or anyone and that bit me more than once but I kept that attitude for a long time no matter what life threw at me.  Then I grew up and got married and adult type problems began and man should someone warn you about those when you put on your first pair of big girl panties.

Tonight I’ve been reflecting some and trying SO hard to find the good that just seems to be just out of reach for us.  So I made a list and although it’s a shorter list than I hoped, it’s a REALLY BIG list because the good things are so big they have to outweigh the bad, and also?  Also, the “test” has to be about over and we’ve surely passed or failed.  Whichever it is, I would love to just have my grade now so I can move on.  A little constructive criticism would be OK too as long as it came with a high mark.    Tonight I decided that the time IS coming when the path will become clear and I’ll smack my head and go “oh duh, now I get it” because I’ve frankly been waiting almost 3 years for that moment to come and I kinda think it’s gonna be awesome if and when it does.  Then I realized that I need to work on myself in some major ways as well because that always optimistic, always upbeat, never beaten person is still in here and I kind of miss her and I know the people around me do.  I just have to find her again and maybe when I do find her good things will just start to happen.  So that’s my goal for the Summer.  Work on the inner situation to improve the outer situation.  If you all want to say a prayer or 50 for me along the way that would be totally awesome too. 

Tags: Economy, Faith, Hope, Surviving, Work

Cousins

I have a million posts swirling around in my head but I literally had no time this week to sit down and write them, it was a crazy week.  I actually wrote down all of the potential titles so I wouldn’t forget to share the awesome they will surely be.    Today though I have to write about family because my weekend has been all about family.  Extended and immediate and it’s been a roller coaster ride I couldn’t pass up sharing.

First of all, Friday we had date night which was AWESOME.  We never have date night, we just don’t have time and this date night was even more awesome because we went with my brother and sister-in-law who we don’t spend nearly enough time with.  Last week was my brother’s birthday (thus the Rapture didn’t happen because I then had to decide what to get him for his birthday send Joe out to find him something he would love, because he is very hard to buy for and God has a sense of humor).  Anyway, we stayed super late because the kids were having a blast and despite our living like 3 miles away they don’t see enough of each other for various reasons.  We decided to make a serious effort to rectify that and made plans for date night on Friday.  We had so much fun, we were going to go to the movie but it was sold out and I have to say, as much fun as the movie would have been, I am so glad because having a nice dinner, and then just sitting around having a couple of drinks, catching up was way more fulfilling for me.  It gave us the chance to catch up which I know it seems ridiculous that we would need to do that, but quite honestly we just never see each other!  I didn’t want the night to end and I hope we can find the time to have more nights like it!

Saturday we had our first of two graduation parties to attend.  My baby cousins graduated this weekend.  I am the oldest grandchild on both sides of my family by 18 months followed by my brother and then there’s a serious gap before my next cousins.  Obviously there’s an even bigger gap between my brother and I and the cousins that graduated this weekend.  I was 15 when the first was born and that was so much fun!!  While I sometimes envy my kids being so close in age to their cousins that they are friends, I wouldn’t trade getting to be the “big cousin” and babysit and watch my youngest cousins grow in to the fabulous people they are now.  I would be lying if I didn’t say right up front that I envied them some.  My dad’s two younger brothers had their kids about the same distance apart as my brother’s kids and mine are spaced.  They are all very close.  They are VERY different people, all four of them.  You couldn’t find a more diverse group of four kids if you tried, but they are friends as well as family and that’s so awesome.  I have cousins that I am close friends with, but they are second and third cousins, not first cousins.  Outweighing the envy though is the fact that I was their first babysitter, and their biggest fan.  The “generation gap” is huge but we make it work and we always have fun when we are all together because my brother and I aren’t yet old enough to be too gross for them to hang with (at least at family functions where they have no choice).    For all of the reasons above I guess, I got weepy on Saturday.  So stupid I know, but I couldn’t help it.  I was looking at graduation cards and though I’d had their gifts for a month and chosen them to be specific to each of them, the cards were a killer.  I went with sap because I was feeling sappy (hopefully they’ll forgive me my need to be sappy).

At the first party my cousin and her best friend had their parties together and it was a lot of fun.  They’ve been pretty much inseparable since they were young, so it was very fitting they have their parties together.  When we got there, I was already choking back the tears from the card shopping and then there were these great signs out on the front lawn.  On one side was a picture of each girl as a toddler/baby and on the other, their Senior pictures.  I didn’t cry, but it was tough.  What was interesting is my big, tough, rancher turned coal mine haul truck driver of an uncle didn’t hide his emotions.  My cousin is a big time daddy’s girl.  She spends Friday nights in watching movies with him.  There is not room for a boyfriend in her life because they can’t measure up to her dad.  This.is.awesome.  It’s awesome because my aunt and uncle tried for years to have a baby and had a really rough time.  I think they tried for about 9 years (which is unbelievable to me because after 3 years I was miserable and decided to stop trying for a second and it took them that long to have their first).  In those 9 years they borrowed my brother and I a lot and we love them so much.  So when my cousin came along on my grandpa’s birthday (nope, not planned) she was truly a miracle.  To see who she is and to look ahead and see what she can and will become is something worthy of my tears that I struggled so hard to hold back all weekend.  To say she’s a blessing to our entire family is just not enough.  She’s our miracle and she’s amazing and I am so proud of her and was so proud to be a part of her celebration this weekend!  She has grown in to a strong willed, independent, free spirit like her dad who is going off to Nebraska for college which will probably be really, really difficult for both she and her dad, but she will make so many memories and have so much fun!!  Also?  I love her because she is not like some girls her age who has to have a boyfriend to make her life complete.  She went to her Senior Prom with a friend because she just never had much of an interest in having a steady boyfriend and when her date spent more time with his friends than he did with her, she dumped him at prom and went on with her night her way.  She knows who she is and what she wants and I SO admire her for it!!

My brother and sister-in-law left a bit before we did from the party because they got there before us and Joey wanted to go home with them.  So he went off with them and Elizabeth stayed behind because she’d made a new friend in my cousin’s, sister’s, much younger half sister.  I know that’s a mouthful!  She played with my nephew for quite a while and then discovered the other little girl and her doll house and that was that.  Love at first sight.  Later my grandma told me the other little girl can be pretty territorial because she is SO much younger than her siblings and tends to be a little spoiled.  I don’t know if it’s a testament to my daughter, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, and they got along famously and played dolls for a long time.  When we got ready to leave they hugged and promised to see one another at kindergarten in the Fall.  I didn’t have the heart to tell them they wouldn’t, because Sis has a late birthday and just isn’t ready for kindergarten so she’s going to Junior K, while the other little girl just finished Junior K and is heading to kindergarten and they will be at different schools.  I’m hoping to get my cousin to get me their contact information so they can maybe have some play dates over the Summer because Sis just loved her and she needs more friends that are all girl and like to do girly things with her, where she has just male cousins and spends a lot of time with siblings of Joey’s friends who for some reason are ALL boys!  She has a few new friends from daycare that are girls and she will start Junior K in the Fall and meet some more girls her age I hope, but if I can find one she hits it off with that she can hang out with outside of daycare/preschool I am hogging that kid!  Not kidding here when I say her Barbie dolls don’t treat each other the way mine did.  They tend to spit and fight and get in to trouble a lot no matter how many times she watches her collection of Disney movies with girly princesses  (and I totally can’t believe I just admitted that).

So after we left the party my sister-in-law had told Joe we should come to their house to hang out.  Apparently Sis knew this because as soon as we were in the car she started asking if we were going to “Lucas’s house”.  She asked every 3 seconds.  Finally I said “we’re going to the looney bin” and my daughter without missing a beat said “after we’re done at the looney bin can we go to Lucas’s house?”.  That’s my favorite part of the weekend and I am posting it here for posterity because it was just one of those funny things you have to remember when she’s older.

We spent quite a while at my brother’s house and then went to dinner all of us and while Sis wanted to ride with her aunt and uncle, apparently my kick-ass mini-van is cooler than their Tahoe so I got the other three.  The trip from their house to the restaurant has to be my second favorite part of the weekend because my youngest nephew is an awesome story teller and when he says “Hey Aunt Steph” for the 100th time I still say “hey Luke, what?”.  I love my titles.  Mom, mommy, big fat meany, and “Hey Aunt Steph” which oddly is the title given to me by my older nephew years ago as well.  To say Saturday will go down as one of my favorite days ever for so many reasons, is just a supreme understatement.  Also?  I came home a kid short because Joey went back out to my brother’s for the night.  Total win for everyone because the weather was finally not crappy and my brother has acreage and a big shop for when the weather did get crappy again on Sunday and the boys played and played, Cabin Fever can suck it!    Then, then, this happened…

OUCH!

Sis was so tired she didn’t want to put her arms in to her jammies on Saturday night.  She was on her knees on the couch and went to put her arms through the holes and the stupid too soft couch cushions bucked her off and she fell face first in to the coffee table.  She scared me to death because she hit SO HARD and she screamed SO LOUD.  Sis doesn’t cry.   She’s all boy, she’s one big bruise all of the time so when she cries that hard it’s a big deal.  I called my mom (the nurse) at 10:30 PM and rushed my exhausted, screaming, daughter to her house to rule out broken bones.  We don’t think anything is broken but her nose is really running a lot so I think we’ll go to the pediatrician tomorrow just to rule out a problem with her sinus on that side.  This is the “morning after” photo.  It looks worse today and I’m sure will look even worse tomorrow and in the coming week.  *sigh*  Also?  Her nose didn’t bleed, that’s a bruise under her left nostril.  I thought it was bleeding at first too, but it’s not it’s a bruise.

As you can see in the picture at the top, it didn’t slow her down.  The picture up there is all four kids at the second graduation party of the weekend.  Which leads me to that party.

My other cousin who graduated had his party Sunday after graduation.  It was a shorter party, but his slide show was on the TV so I again found myself fighting back tears (I kinda avoided the slide show at my other cousin’s graduation party because I was already weepy).  They are all grown up!!  And he?  He has grown to be a person I admire and truthfully wish I could go back in time and see through the eyes of a kid his age because he my friends, is phenomenal.

He is a young man who puts his Faith at the center of everything he is and does.  He spent his lunch hours at school preaching to any who would listen, he held morning prayer groups before school.  He spent his free time volunteering to share his Faith with any who needed it, whether it be classmates, or others in the town.  He spent Sundays preaching at his church or others, mentored by his own Pastor, and his Wednesdays at his church or another sharing his Faith with the other kids in the community.  He’s been on mission trips volunteering not just his gift of public speaking and sharing God’s love, but offering his strong back to anyone who needed it.  He eventually wants to enter Seminary and then come back home to bring his Faith with him with an emphasis on sharing it with youth who he feels can really benefit from it.  He wants to save them all and I have to say, if anyone can, he can.  They listen to him and look up to him and if you know teenagers, you know that it’s no small thing to have chosen to walk his path and not only to walk that path in and out of school but to be able to share his Faith with many because they truly like him and want to listen to him.  I found myself yesterday looking back to my high school days and wondering if I could have done the same?  I don’t think so.  While I spent a lot of time with my Faith as a teenager, I did so while spending time with others who already shared in my Faith at my church, or with just myself and my family.  He chose to share his Faith with hundreds of others his age, not knowing or caring how he would be received and I have to tell you, they received him well which I think is a testament to WHO he is.  I personally can not wait to see who he will become in the next chapters of his life, but whoever it is, it will be who he wants to be and I can’t see that person being anything short of truly amazing.

My kids, especially Joey look up to their older cousins and I can’t think of better role models for them.  There are still two left to graduate and they will be just as amazing and probably I will be just as weepy when their days come as I was on Saturday and Sunday.

Today for me has just been a day of reflection and fond memories, and quiet time with my own little family.  To say I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at my own kids and seeing that they are growing WAY too fast, and realizing that one day soon I’ll be at THEIR graduation parties, along with those of my nephews and my niece, would be less than honest.  I just hope that they can follow the lead of my cousins who they love, look up to, and admire and that we can be the type of parents my parents, aunts, and uncles have all been so that my children and my niece & nephews will become what my cousins, and my brother have become, which is strong willed, free spirited, loving, amazing, people with a world wide open to them and the ability to foster in the next generation (hopefully not before they’re ready where my cousins are concerned, whenever that may be, because I think they are both a ways away from that yet) of our family the same qualities my generation (no matter how spread out age wise we may be) has.

For me it’s been an amazing weekend and I just had to put it in to words on here so that I can always remember it, so this post is for me as much as it is for you.  The only thing that would have made the weekend more complete would have been if my niece was here, but she doesn’t come for a few weeks yet.  I hate that she misses so much of this side of her family, but she’ll be here soon for her too short visit and then I’ll get my time in with her as well. 

Tags: Faith, Family, Graduation, Kids, Love