Boys and Frogs.

TODAY’S SUNRISE!

I know that there is a scientific explanation for the color in the sky during a sunset or sunrise.  I know that it has something to do with the gases in the atmosphere and the temperature, etc…   I’ve never taken to the life sciences much… perhaps that’s why I am a designer.  Actually my career choice was more like a process of elimination… which career could I be decent at and not have to solve a formula or solve for x.  (turns out web dev has some of that fomulaic tendency… darnit, I can’t escape it).

ANYWAY,  in my heart, the colors are kind of a reminder of two things
1.) stop and look at the every day things around me that are mind boggling beautiful
2.) our God has a masterful way of showing us the beauty in his creations by giving us a fresh painting every morning.

And a third thing: Teach the boys to stop and admire the beauty of everyday things, even if you’re on the way out the door… because little things are BIG things!!!!
Drew said this was “Fab-lee-ous”.  (I am going to hang on to that one… going to hate the day he starts saying that correctly!)

Country cruisin’ is even better when it’s with a friend from the suburbs of Chicago!!!

My best pal from college came down to visit over New Years weekend to hang with my family, friends and me.
It was really nice to spend a couple days with her… I hadn’t seen her since the big lake weekend in Kentucky back in July.

She is one of those friends that I don’t always talk to regularly like I should.  We talk every few weeks maybe even more like every couple of months unless something major is going on and then it might increase to a bi-weekly thing.  But it doesn’t matter. when we see each other, we just pick up right where we left off.  This is one of those friends that has witnessed and experienced a lot with me through the years.  We met at Purdue my sophomore year and have been great friends ever since!  I was immediately drawn to her down to earth sense of being… though she’s insanely smart and dedicated to living an excelled life!  She’s a captain for American Eagle Airlines …  but refers to herself as a “glorified bus driver” and has some hilarious stories of how mankind’s sense of class diminishes exponentially when faced with public transport.  I guess every career has its ups and downs.

On New Year’s Day, we headed out for a drive for lack of anything better to do besides sit around eating and watching football.
I drove through the Amish part of Daviess County to show her all the farms, stores, Amish owned businesses and massive amounts of livestock nestled in the middle of absolute nowhere.  (we learned what miniature horses look like – nothing like horses it turns out)
It’s amazing really, what is all around us that we hardly realize on a daily basis.  The whole Amish community is just a couple miles from my house.  We must have passed twenty horse-drawn buggies while driving around.  Between that, the Naval Surface Warfare Base, and the gorgeous Glendale Lake, Wildlife and Forest Preserve area… we’re sitting on some hidden gems around here!  Who knew!

The point I can’t quite get to here, though, is that the drive reminded me of something far greater!
Spending a couple hours with a long-time friend is one of the best things in life… it really is.
We didn’t solve the worlds problems on our drive, or even our own problems… but we had a good discussion about almost everything.
I am so thankful… I mean, get down on my knees and thank the Lord, thankful for the friends I have in my life!!!!
And Heather is most definitely one of them!  It doesn’t matter what I say to her, what I do, what crazy stupid dumb thing I’ve done; she always listens with an open mind, offers some strangely rational perspective and accepts me no matter what.

It’s weird how a couple of hours with an old friend and a drive through the middle of nowhere can renew your spirit a little!
Thanks for the visit Heather, Love ya!!!!

It’s probably going to take me a few posts to get through this… but I have a lot on my heart.

Drew, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, has the same eye conditions I have… nystagmus (wobbly eyes) and strabismus (crossed eye).
I noticed it when he was a couple weeks old, mentioned it to our family doctor and got him into an ophthalmologist by 6months.
He now goes to a doctor in Indianapolis at the Midwest Eye Institute, who is actually in the team of doctors that I went to as a child.

He has managed his poor eyesight, lack of depth perception, horrible distance vision and strange head tilts with complete strength.  Drew never complains, never whines about not seeing things, and does anything to distract any makings of a big deal about it.  So.. much..like..me!!!!!    I have tried so much to hide it that I’ve gone to great lengths to ensure that people don’t notice whenever possible.  I see him, unknowingly, doing the same thing.
If he struggles to see something, he doesn’t mention it.

As an example, I took the boys to a movie and didn’t realize until we got there that it was on the 3-D screen.  Drew and I don’t get 3-D…  we cannot see in the third dimension.  So, the whole buzz about the 3-D movies… it’s lost on us.  You know what?  Drew put on those 3-D glasses and watched the movie anyway.  Grant would look at us every now and then and say “Whoa!  That was so cool… it was flying right at me.”  Drew and I just smiled and said “yeah!”  We were happy for Grant and just as happy that no one else realized we were not fully enjoying the impact of flying objects as nothing was flying at us.  In the whole scheme of things, we could still enjoy the movie… just not maybe in its intended capacity.

This reminded me of a couple times I went to shows with people and was thoroughly bored but didn’t want to explain why.  Like the time in college I went to the live show of Madam Butterfly with some friends.  The whole thing was in a different language so to follow along you had to read the sub-titles showing on a screen beside the stage.  I’m telling you, I’m pretty sure the text was at about 8pt!  Or at least it seemed like it to me.  I tried to read the first couple but I had at least three things weighing against me.  #1  We were sitting pretty far from the stage / screen  (poor distance vision).  #2 We were sitting at the wrong angle. (in order to read, I and anyone with nystagmus HAS to be sitting at a certain angle) and #3 It must have lasted six hours!!!  (okay, probably two but reading at a distance with poor vision makes me tired and often gives me a headache… it completely stresses me out!)  Conclusion:  I didn’t like Madam Butterfly!  I really don’t know though, because I have no idea what it was about.  So, trying to hide the fact that I couldn’t read the screen text, I sat silently during my friends’ post-show wrap-up.  They even asked me if I liked how it ended.  I probably replied with something like “I guess…”  Since I was often somewhat aloof about general topics anyhow, I’m sure they didn’t think much of it.

Back to Drew… He started pre-k at Cornerstone Christian this year.  It’s not like the sing your ABC’s and identify the colors kind of preschool.  This is intense, you’ll be reading by the end of the year preschool.  I love the curriculum at this particular school.  It’s a little accelerated and extremely thorough!  Even at this level.

Drew struggled to begin the year.  He very quickly won the heart of his teachers with his personality but just as quickly showed very little potential for growth in his academic ability.  Drew is a really smart kid in a lot of non-traditional academia ways… like persuasion, manipulation, the ability to draw you in with his beautiful face and sweet words just before he slams a brand new toy against the wood floor and breaks it into pieces!!!  I don’t know how one would label that… other than… exhausting!  He also has really high sensory skills with things like hearing and retention.  So, if he hears a story for instance, there’s a good chance he’ll remember it forever.  BUT… writing, reading, coloring, letter recognition… all the cognitive skills of a preschooler… he just wasn’t on par.  His teacher let it go for a few weeks.. and so did we though I noticed every day when I’d look at his papers that things didn’t look right.

What frustrated me the most is that he just didn’t care.  He is not all that competitive, so the fact that he wasn’t performing at the same pace as his classmates was completely inconsequential to him.  If you’d have asked him at that point if he liked school he’d answer with a resounding YES.. but his perception of school was not the work.. it was the play time with other kids.  He is a social butterfly!!

The biggest thing we noticed about his school papers was that he couldn’t even trace the letters on his papers.  His lines were all over the place and never straight or smooth.  It was like reading someone’s writing that was right-handed trying to write with their left hand for the first time.  In addition to the poor writing, he did not recognize letters or their sounds.  He couldn’t write his name and even some numbers he struggled making out.  When I’d ask him to work on it with me, he would quickly get bored, give up or just flat out refuse.

Enter teacher intervention.  I had a little talk with his teacher and she voiced much more concern than I had even anticipated.  She said he hardly participated in anything in class (other than friendly chatter at which he seemed to excel).   We both concluded that it was most likely his eyesight but not sure what to do about it.

The more I thought about things, thought about what his teacher said, and really broke down how he was acting…….well…….it broke my heart.
I realized the meaning behind his aloof behavior, his lackadaisical attitude toward school work.  He couldn’t see!!!

OH MY GOSH!  How did I not anticipate that?  How did I not head that off before it started?  How did I, THE MOM WITH THE SAME PROBLEM, not even think about it until now!!!!
Big time mommy guilt.  BIG . TIME!!!!!  As if I don’t have enough guilt already, let’s add this to the mix.  Poor kid!

For the next couple of weeks after the meeting with the teacher, a lot of things became clear to us.  He lost his attention span on the work because he couldn’t see it very well… he got bored and tired of it because it was most likely exhausting.  And also for the next couple of weeks, his dad and I and his teacher worked with him a lot more, made things bigger so he could see them better and praised him for every little stride he made!

He has the great fortune of a FANTASTIC and LOVING teacher who genuinely cares about him.  She magnified his papers, took more time with him, sat him in a particular seat, held the flash cards closer to him… all so that he would no longer have such a disadvantage.  I am SO . THANKFUL . that he is in her class.  She took the time and was patient with him and after a few weeks his classroom performance improved drastically!!

PART 1 of .. ?????…

Insanely biased, I know!  Do all moms think their kids are the cutest ones alive?
Because mine seriously are! 
But what they lack in ugly, they make up for in orneriness…

Guess what Grant wants for Christmas?  Yup!  Two front teeth!
(Took these pics myself.   No photographer this year, and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out!)

Sitting in my office, I’m working and Grant is drawing a picture.

He looks at what I’m working on and says “mom, haven’t you been working on that website forever?”

Me:  “Yeah… it sure feels like it.  But every time I finish it, the guy wants things changed.”

Grant:  “Gosh.  That must be frustrating.”

Me:  “It is a little.”

Grant:  “Well, I’m sure you’ll do great this time!”

Everyone needs a cheerleader in their life.  Mine is 7.

Grant:  “So mom, when you were at the Sugarland concert, did the stage fall before they even started performing?”

Me:  “Yes.  But I did see one act perform”

Grant:  “Who was it?”

Me:  “Sara Berrelis”

Grant:  “Oooohhhh… she is awesome”

Me: (thinking I didn’t even know he knew who she was) “You like Sara Berrelis, Grant?”

Grant:  “Oh yeah!  She . is . HOT!”

Me:  “Wow!  Really?  What do you mean by ‘hot’”?

Grant:  “Mom!  You know what ‘hot’ means”!

Me:  “Well, I do but I just wondered what you think it means.”

Grant:  “Well, you know it’s like when you think a girl is cool and really, really cute.”
(he’s 7… really? he knows what this is all about?  Already?   <sigh>)

Me:  “oh, right”

Grant:  “Like this one girl in my class, Adyson, SHE is HOT…. I’m just sayin’!!!”

Me:  (couldn’t help it, I chuckled.  No, I laughed… really really laughed.)

Drew chimed in: “Mom, I think YOU’RE hot!”
(because he is still 4… and I’m the only girl in his life… for now, but I’ll take it!)

Drew: “Mom, when you die, can I have your car?”
Grant: “No, I want it!”
Drew: “Grant, you can have it when I’m done with it.”
Drew: “So… Mom. Can I?”

I’ve had the biggest Monday.
I in no way want to use this blog to just vent and blow up about meaningless bad days when, in reality, I have it pretty good on even the most horrible day (excluding my mental stability which is almost always in-flux).

But today, I just want to write about the comedy of a Monday I’ve had… it’s worth a small rant anyway.

It actually started last night.
I spent a great deal of my Sunday afternoon preparing for a meeting this morning with one of my best and favorite clients.
At 8pm, as I was printing a draft of the packet I was preparing for my client, my printer ran out of ink.
I made a quick trip to the store and guess what?  Not there.  The only store around here open at 8pm on a Sunday.
Meeting at 9am.  Yikes!
I resolved to just explain the situation to them.  I still needed to go over other details with them anyway.

Fast forward to this morning.  Running late, boys do not want to get up, forgot to pack their lunches, whining all the way out the door as I do the bad mommy thing and shove a granola bar at them in leaux of their typical lazy, sit in the kitchen and take 20 minutes to eat a small bowl of cereal breakfast.  I, of course, didn’t realize I had forgot to pack their lunch until we were half way to school.  I did get out the door spilling half of Grant’s red Gatorade on the wall in the garage.

Running late already, I thought I’d call Walt… who had been at work already for the better part of an hour.  (he escapes at 6:45am before any of the morning chaos begins).  He was going to take my dentist appt. for me at 10am because I over-booked my morning with my big meeting and that appt.  I figured I’d save myself some time and have him pick up something for the boys for lunch and drop it off at school while in town for the dentist appointment.  Perfect plan.  That way I would still not be late for my meeting at 9am.

Guess what?  Great plan if my phone was charged.  But it, of course, was not.  Got a new phone two days ago and they assured me that if I’d quit plugging it in every night, my battery life would not dwindle away as the other had.  So, trying to follow instructions, I did not plug in my phone last night.  So perfectly I couldn’t have scripted it better, it runs out of battery when I need it most.  Oh and that new car charger I got for it was still sitting in its case, in my office.  Yep.  Off to a fantastic start.

So… I rushed home, got the charger, drove by the grocery store, picked up some lunchables (which, by the way, I think are a big waste of money) because Walt was completely unavailable to answer a phone, dropped them off at school and headed to the 9am appointment at the favorite client who is 25 minutes away… it was 8:50am.

At this point, I hadn’t even had my morning coffee.  Nothing….  ggggrrrr.  Stopped at a gas station for a cup… already late, what’s two more minutes.  Made it to the client at 9:15 and THANKFULLY greeted with a smile and a very forgiving welcome!  LOVE that client!

I showed the packet with two missing pages due to that ink that ran out… I explained though, that it was no problem.  Had my laptop with me, I could just show her on-screen.  Laptop is dead.  Forgot the chord!  On my way to big time frustration and humiliation I offered to bring it up on her computer as I did save it to my web-based email (brilliant, right?).  Great plan, she exclaims… ever the optimist in the midst of what was clearly a morning I may as well have stayed in bed….  I open the email where I saved the file… it’s a native file to a program on my laptop … of course, not something she would have.  AAAUUUGGGGHHHH!!!!  She LAUGHED.  REALLY LAUGHED.  “Having a Monday, aren’t you?”

Thanks goodness I’ve worked with this client a million times over the past four years.  Otherwise, I’m positive she’d think I’m some sort of lunatic!  Further on to this glorious Monday, we sat at a table and hammered out some more details.  I brought that coffee in with me that I just had to stop and get on the way.  I would NOT typically do that.  I try to stay extremely professional while out at clients.  That includes toting food or drink while meeting.  But today, I really wanted that dang coffee.  So… guess where this is going?  Took a drink, the lid was not on all the way…. spilled all down the shirt, on my feet and on the floor.

Can I just say again how thankful I am that this is a long-term client!!!!  She belly-laughed.  Belly-laughed!!!!!
And I even got a “oh, Leslie… you poor thing”.  Yep.  That’s a sign it’s time to rewind and start the day all over again.

After that meeting I had a couple more places to stop… and I proudly sported that coffee stain all down my cute pink shirt.

Happy Monday!!!!

Seven years ago on September 2nd my life and attitude toward it changed f.o.r.e.v.e.r!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My first born, my conscience, my helper, my brain some days, and the boy that stole my heart the minute I felt him growing inside of me!

My Grant Michael!

He had a crazy birthday this year as our life has been anything but normal for … oh… about six months now.  I think we’re finally settling now.  But, on the weekend of his actual big day… we moved into a different house.  It happened so fast… some friends moved away, we bought their house, one month later we moved into it.  Unfortunately for Grant, move in day was on his birthday.  So, we had cake and ice cream in the midst of chaos and lots of boxes.  He didn’t seem to care, as long as it was acknowledged.

yep, that’s the Death Star and a couple of Light Sabres!

Drew got in on the Star Wars action!

We made up for the “move in” birthday by letting him have a party the following weekend with his buddies at the miniature golf place.
They had a great time!!!  (and I had minimal clean-up… BONUS!)

You might notice there was one girl there.  She’s the younger sister of two of Grant’s very best friends.
I told her we’d stick together since we were the only girls there, she asked me if I’d go to her house and have a tea party.

I thought about how I’m really not much of a “tea party” kinda gal.  I said I’d come to her tea party if I could drink Mt. Dew instead…
She said..”it’s okay, my mom usually gives me orange juice instead of tea anyway”.  I said “sweet, I’ll be there!”

Grant started 2nd grade yesterday and Drew pre-k.
Drew was so excited he was about to burst!
Grant was excited too but opted to withhold his happiness due to some second grade pride issues.

I swarmed Drew with hugs and kisses as I wished him luck and told him good bye at the doorway to his classroom.
All I got from Grant was a “see ya mom” in some sort of  “I’m too grown up for you to love on me in front of my friends” fashion.

That’s when it finally hit me that this is the beginning of the end… the babies are gone… they’re boys now.
I remember longing for this day three years ago.  I prayed that if I could just make it through the baby / toddler / home with me all the time years… then I’d keep my sanity.

Now I’m looking back and thinking it went too fast.
The past few years are a complete blur… for a million reasons… mostly of my own making.
But… a blur nonetheless.

Maybe the summer of pure luxury with the boys made it worse.
I worked as little as possible and spent a large amount of my time with them… playing, cuddling, laughing… living.

A few weeks ago I accepted a contract position with a firm which will give me a more steady stream of work and allow -hopefully- a bigger paycheck.  Then yesterday I dropped off my youngest at the private school that offers full day preschool they call K-4.
I’m incredibly excited to have more time to get back to my career that’s been part-time at best for the past six years.  But…. I’m also a little sad to say goodbye to long days of play with my kids.

Seems like every transition in life is always bittersweet… good and bad… hard and easy.
This is no exception.

I watched Drew’s eyes light up when he saw his new classroom for the first time.  He’s used to going to a sitter a couple days a week … but he’s never been away from me every day like this.  He loves it.  He’s completely embracing the new environment.  And already, he has captured the heart of his teacher.  She stopped me today at pickup to tell me what funny things he said today.  Her favorite happened when she passed out a worksheet this morning.  He saw it on his desk and exclaimed “OH YEAH, BABY!  THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN!!!”  Yep.  That’s my kid!  Full of life!  And mischief… but I’m hoping it’s a few weeks before that side comes out!

I think the past several months there have been more transitions / changes … whatever you want to call them… in my life than ever before.  Life’s moving fast and the boys are growing and changing daily!  I realized today that I really need to concentrate on enjoying each phase of their life.  I don’t want to miss any of it!  I could go on with some winded drone about how I feel my mental stability (or lack of ) cheated me of enjoying the baby years with Drew.  I could calculate the number of times I’ve blown off opportunities with Grant to experience his beautiful mind and ability to calm me and move me to engage in learning with him.  I could ramble about all the things I should have been doing the past few years when I was too wrapped up in my own needs… my own problems… and my own weaknesses.  But I’ll just say this.  I’m going to make a clearer effort from here out to catch every moment I can!!!