Category: happiness

children, gratitude, grief, happiness, loss of parent, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

Slam Dunk

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Hoosiers
Image via Wikipedia

The goal in writing this blog is to give some much needed observatory distance from the chaos that is my every day life.  It helps if I take a moment to reflect on the day’s events and allows me to be a more accepting person/Mom.  I have grown leaps and bounds in acceptance but there are still times when I find myself holding my breath and wishing that my boys were a tad bit calmer than they actually are.

It just ain’t so.

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I had high expectations for our family movie night viewing of ‘Hoosiers‘.  While I am at heart a true girlie girl, I appreciate good sports and I adore a good sports movie.  This particular movie is very special to me.  I vividly remember going with my Mom to see it and we bonded tremendously over the nail-biting basketball sequences and rooting for the underdog.  I truly felt like my mother’s daughter after this experience.  She, the lover of all things basketball, realized that maybe I wasn’t only all about lip-gloss and hairspray.

I prepared myself that the boys would lose interest in about the first five minutes of the movie.  Despite this mental preparation I couldn’t help but ‘wish’ that they would sit quietly for its duration and maybe even love it a little, too.

Thankfully, it exceeded my expectations.  Granted, T.Puzzle fell asleep because the movie had a late start, but Full Speed was riveted.

T.Puzzle can't run with the big dogs and falls asleep before Hoosier's sectionals. No worries, we own the movie little guy.

Maybe there’s more to each of us than we realize.

If we learn to let go of what we think people should be, they might just surprise us and be exactly who we need.

And learning this is the slam-dunk of motherhood.

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children, gratitude, happiness, kids, mommyhood, motherhood

Adventures in Babysitting

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Me and the boys watched Miss Cutie so her Mom could go to her open house at school.

First we ran.

A lot.

Then Full Speed and T.Puzzle showed off their awesome dance moves.

Then it was time to play pretend kindergarten.

Miss Cutie kept up with the boys and we all had a blast.  Even though she was only here an hour, we experienced the excitement of a 100 lifetimes in that short time.

This is the life of T.Puzzle and Full Speed.

Non-stop.

children, happiness, humor, mommyhood, parenting

Are You My Mother?

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One of the absolute highlights of motherhood is the unexpected humor.  It helps because if you are laughing you are less likely to be crying.

Full Speed is convinced that his Aunt Skee gave birth to him and that Mad Dog and I ‘adopted him’.  Long ago when looking at his newborn photos he came across a super-smiley pic of my sister holding him at the hospital.  I guess because she seemed genuinely euphoric at his arrival (while I looked dazed and confused), he assumed that my sister must be his ‘Mom’.

See what I mean? Dazed? Confused? Check and check.
The pic of Aunt Skee and Full Speed that started it all.

No matter how many times I tell him the truth, “Yes, I am your Mom.  I’ve always been your Mom.  No amount of labor or pain meds during my labor will ever change that fact, Full Speed (ok, I left this last sentence out, but you get the gist).”  He just doesn’t believe me.  He brings it up at random times, too.  Like today, “Remember when I was born and I was Aunt Skee’s baby and you and Dad came and got me?”  I’ve learned not to fight it.  “Yes, Full Speed.  I remember.  Your Dad and I came and saw you and you were so cute we took you home.”

“Yes, and I was even cuter than my brother.  He was a BIIIIIG baby!”

I realized through my tears of laughter he must have heard my many less-than-wonderful references to birthing all 9 lbs. 7 oz. of  his ‘little’ brother, T.Puzzle.

T.Puzzle (a.k.a. BIIIIIG baby) gets set to be weighed on his arrival day.

But trust me, my boys are equally cute.  And funny, too.

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children, eyesight, happiness, mommyhood

The Rec Specs

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How many times can an overly active five year old boy pop the lense out of his glasses??

To infinity and beyond.

After the 137th lense pop it was time for a change.

Our optical technician has now used industrial strength glue to hold the lense in place. Our other option was to doggedly pursue the possibility of rec specs for Full Speed. Rec specs are essentially safety glasses that should hold up better during karate sparring and soccer (in theory).

The issue with rec specs is Full Speed’s extremely specialized lense prescription.

The solution? Rec specs that are high-powered yet not as specialized. All parties involved (eye doctor, optician, crazed Mommy and matter-of-fact Dad) said let’s give it shot.

Here is the result:

I’m sorry, but have you ever seen anything more insanely adorable than that?

Then again, check out T.Puzzle’s enthusiasm about Full Speed’s rec specs. He didn’t know why we were celebrating but he was more than happy to jump in the fun:

A good afternoon, indeed!

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children, happiness, humor, kindergarten, life in pictures, mommyhood

Buckle-up for Kindergarten

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Kindergarten D-day has arrived. There was so much traffic, confusion and general chaos that I forgot to be sad (mostly). I became single-minded in my focus to get Full Speed safely to his classroom.

It helped tremendously that Full Speed kept chanting, ‘this is gonna be the best year!’. If my kid was that excited about his new kindergarten adventure, who was I to argue?

Once I had us successfully navigated to Full Speed’s room, I felt slightly less overwhelmed. Again, I was thankful for my boys’ and their gregarious natures. Full Speed promptly found his cubby, deposited his Spider-man backpack and set to work coloring a picture at his desk. T.Puzzle pulled up a chair and sat down at the front of the class. Apparently he thought he’d like to start kindergarten, too.

Overall, a winning experience. There is still the labyrinthian system of elementary school drop-off and pick-up to overcome. Each day will get better I suppose. Either that or I am seriously considering giving Full Speed the keys to my truck and wishing him all the best. All I ask is that he keep the tank full and always, always wear his seatbelt.