Another Whirlwind Of A Weekend!!

I finally sent the boys to bed after much stalling (I know this is typical, but it gets old!) and now I can do my Sunday evening entry.

Davey had a successful sleepover Friday night. They played Wii, giggled, played, even slept some. He called me Saturday morning around 9:30 to say good morning. It was so sweet. He even told me my chocolate chip pancakes were better than what he ate that morning. Mine are sourdough, do you suppose that makes a difference? Max and I were going to try to go to the Derby Festival Balloon Glow, but it was fairly windy, then we had an invitation to go with some friends to the balloon race Saturday morning, but it was postponed (it did eventually happen last night). We slept in and it was WONDERFUL! Max helped himself to a piece of chocolate ("But, I went pee pee, Mommy") before I woke up.

Saturday afternoon, Max and I picked Davey up and went to a birthday party for the 6 year old daughter of some friends. I felt at first a little lost, still missing the way it should be... attending these family events with all four of us! There was gal I used to teach with that I hadn't talked to since the funeral. As we were leaving the party, she said that she was sorry she hadn't called. but that she hadn't known what to say. She did offer that perhaps she should have called and said, "I don't know what to say". It is hard to know what to do under these circumstances, I know that, so, the best thing to do is to call and just say, "Hi, I was thinking about you."

After the birthday party, we were off to a celebration of the first Eucharist of the daughter of our dear friends the Hubers. It was great! Beautiful weather and we enjoyed their newly completed deck. I kept feeling as if we needed to depart, but they insisted we stay. We were the last people to leave, even after the grandparents. It is nice to feel so welcome and loved! I know I keep saying this, but we have amazing friends (both near and far). It was a late night, but a good day.

Today, we hurriedly ate breakfast, went to Mass, came home, I mowed the grass, chatted with a neighbor, gathered up the boys, went to another birthday party, did a bit of grocery shopping, ran home, cooked a dinner of hot dogs (requested, but I snuck in turkey hot dogs to ease my guilt), fruit and chips. Then into jammies, a mommy-son showing of Scooby Doo (circa 1969!) and off to bed (a LONG and DRAWN OUT PROCESS!!!! I still hear Max playing in his room, but at least he is in his room, right?).

We are gearing up for another busy week, but at least we have Friday off for Derby weekend!! Soccer practice. A soccer game. IEP meetings. Parties next weekend. It is good for me to stay busy, I do much better that way!

Watch the best 2 minutes in sports this Saturday and may your horse do well for you!

My Little Booger

Yup, that is right, I call him a Booger. I just went to check on the boys and their peaceful, sleeping (or so I THOUGHT!!!) faces. I open the door from my room to the hall and, there, sitting on the floor outside the door, is Max (The Booger) with something in his mouth. He ran down the hall to his room, laughing. I followed him and turned on his light to see what was in his mouth. He showed me... it smelled, uh, grape-ish. He had gone downstairs, opened an Easter egg and eaten a grape Jolly Rancher. I made him apologize to me for taking candy without permission. Now I have to hide the Easter eggs! NOT something I thought I would be doing nearly 2 weeks after Easter!

Counting Our Blessings, Again

Well, there is a lot to catch up on. We had a good Easter weekend at my mom and dad's. It was another "first" without David. I am faced every so often, as I was this morning, to make Max understand the finality of death, especially as I teach him about the amazing mystery of Easter. He said to me this morning, as we hulled the strawberries for breakfast, "Mommy, we will share these. Some for Davey, some for Mommy, some for Max and save some for when Daddy gets back." I asked him, Max, where is Daddy?" He said, "In Heaven." "Daddy is staying in Heaven. We will get to see him again, in a LONG time." He tried to convince me that I was wrong, that Daddy was going to be back sometime. It is so hard to know what to say to him when this subject comes up.

Another interesting event this weekend was Max's first bout with vomiting. He used to spit up a great deal, but this weekend was the first "throwing up" that we have had, at a birthday party, in his brother's room (the strawberries), at Sunday School (the goldfish and chocolate cookies that were for snack- gives a whole new meaning to "tossing your cookies"!). He then promised me that he wouldn't throw up again and I told him that if he felt like he needed to, he could. He has been dragging all weekend, until about 5:30 this evening, then he was getting back to himself. We will have to see how he is acting in the morning.

Davey has a jumprope demonstration (tricks, etc.) with the other kindergarteners plus the third and eighth graders, on Tuesday. My mom and dad will be coming for it, so we will get to see them for an overnight. He is growing up! He has even been invited for a sleepover. He is not the least bit apprehensive about it, either. We have been surrounded by so many families of his classmates and buddies, inviting him to play after school, offering to take him to the skating party tomorrow, having him sit with them at Mass while I taught Sunday School. What a community and what a great group of families. I am so grateful to have this environment in which to raise my boys. I know these families will reinforce the right values and goals and I know the boys will have good male role models in the dads of their friends!

We are beginning to look toward our summer plans. We have Derby weekend quickly approaching (Thunder Over Louisville was last night, so Derby Festival 2009 has begun!), as is Mothers' Day and the end of the school year. We have several things already planned for the summer, but if anyone is contemplating coming to see us and why we love Louisville so much, PLEASE come see us! We love to have company!!

Wishing everyone a spectacular week! Take time to count YOUR abundant blessings!!


We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.
-Neil A. Maxwell

Count your joys instead of your woes; count your friends instead of your foes.
-Irish Proverb

God will not permit any troubles to come upon us, unless He has a specific plan by which great blessing can come out of the difficulty.
-Peter Marshall

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
-Eric Hoffer

A Touching Mommy-Son Moment

Tonight, after Max was in bed, Davey came downstairs and told me his "eyes were watery". I asked him why and he said he had been reading When Someone You Love Has Cancer, the book I read to him the night the doctors told us there was nothing else they could do. A little later, he and I were talking about his favorite subject next to MarioKart, "Wicked" (the stage production we went to see in late Jan. during the ice storm). He asked me why Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) went into the trap door. I explained it was so she could be with Fyero. He asked why and I told him sometimes people do thing just so they can be with the person or people they love. He asked me, "Did you ever do anything so you could be with Daddy?" I told him that I got a job in Texas and didn't move to another city (like Seattle, one of my thoughts as a senior at TCU was to be adventurous after graduation and move somewhere entirely new, but I wasn't that brave, David was only part of the reason, the main reason being fear of being away from everything and everyone I knew) so I could be near Daddy. He asked, "So you really loved Daddy, huh?" "Of course!", was my response. "What did Daddy do that made you love him?", Davey asked "Did he take you out to dinner?" (how quickly they learn that food is the way to someone's heart!) I explained David took me out to dinner, to movies, gave me flowers, and made balloon flowers. The balloon flowers got Davey's attention. He told me that Daddy is probably making balloon flowers in heaven.

Can anyone tell me... should heaven be capitalized, like other proper nouns that are places, or not capitalized. I need to have an answer for the genius kindergartener in the next couple days... he really wants to know!

So, we had a nice, touching, and deep for a six year old, conversation about love and companionship and sacrifices made for the ones you love. I may have to tie things in future into the Elphaba- Fyero relationship. Many parallels to real life can be made!

Buffalo Boys at the Louisville Zoo

Here are the boys with Davey's buddy from preschool, Ben, at the beginning of Spring Break. The zoo was pretty empty... it was cold, drizzly and the u of L Cardinals were playing. We loved seeing the animals minus crowds!

The Trip, A Milestone

Well, the boys and I survived the long drive to Kansas City for a week of water slides, family time (with my parents, my brother, sister-in-law and nephew), sightseeing and catching up with a friend from college. It was our first trip (other than the shorter one to St. Louis in November) without David. It was a long drive to do alone (probably would have been better to do sharing the driving, but it went just fine- I did have to promise my friend, Melanie, today that I would not try to spread the peanut butter on the celery for the boys while going 72 miles per hour on the way home, so, instead, they ate spoons full of crunchy PB, healthy, huh?). While in KC, we rode many waterslides at Great Wolf Lodge. I was much more successful that I was in February. I even called my physical therapist on Tuesday to tell him that my hard work had paid off, resulting in little pain from the long drive and the ability to be the adult in our group who rode the slides the most. I was quite a hit with my boys, perhaps my 4 1/2 year old nephew, too!

I decided to check out what was available at Cabelas and a huge furniture store next to GWL. The night before we left, while I was packing the van and the boys were inside, I heard a crash. Like any good mother (which I think I am...), I ran into the family room to ensure the safety of my offspring and THEN noticed the lamp on the floor next to the end table in a hundred pieces. I noticed Max looked guilty (and Davey seemed entirely oblivious to the fact that anything happened), so I questioned Max (the FBI has nothing on me when it comes to interrogation!). Max admitted to having climbed on the end table and knocking the lamp off. He apologized and helped me clean up a little.

We did some sightseeing (Crown Center, Union Station, Moon Marble) and enjoyed a couple days with the Coatses. They have a boy 8 months older than Davey and one almost 4 months older than Max. The boys hit it off from the beginning.

We have seen my brother and his crew 4 times now since last June, at the beach house, in August, at Thanksgiving and now spring break. My boys only have 4 cousins, 3 on David's side and 1 on mine. Chip and Sherri and I have had to make a concerted effort to get the boys all together, usually by meeting somewhere agreed upon by everyone, but it is worth it to see the cousins together. I never saw much of my cousins growing up, the few days some summers, if they were where my grandparents were when we were visiting them from England or Alaska. I want my boys to have lots of opportunities to spend time with their family (both related and chosen).

We are glad to be back at home, in our own beds. I felt motivated enough today to go to the YMCA after church and do most of my program, not the back and abdominal section, since that is verboten per my PT,but the cardio, arms and legs portions. Then I even mowed the front yard, raked the sticks and other remaining debris from the back, but didn't get to mow the back before the rain, thunder and lightning began. The prediction for tomorrow is for snow, so we will see... hope my daffodils and tulips survive. Back to work and school tomorrow! Hope I can feel motivated to get moving for that!

Happy spring and happy Eastertide!