Give Thanks...

Today, I am thankful for the family that I will be spending time with. Time with our loved ones is short and I’m blessed with plenty of the everyday little things that make up a lifetime. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my Savior Jesus Christ. And for my good health and the healthiness of my children and family, I am grateful. I’m thankful for my hubby- Even though he can drive me crazy. I’m thankful that we get up every day and have jobs to go to that day.


I’m thankful for all of the people in the military serving overseas and here at home. And for their families- it is the love and support of those holding down the fort at home that allow them to do their jobs. I’m thankful for the freedom that their sacrifices provide.

I’m thankful for the examples that my late grandparents set- that through hard work and perseverance you can achieve. I’m thankful to my parents for sticking it out together, through thick and thin. I’m even thankful for that embarrassingly insane extended family because, I’ve discovered that ‘normal’ is boring.

I’m thankful that WC has figured out how lucky he is. And that not everyone in the world has the same advantages he has had. I’m thankful that CJ’s temper tantrums have eased and that he’s started giving out hugs on a regular basis. I’m thankful that I get to be their mom.

I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

Alexander

Two years ago today, my godson, Alexander was born in silence. We knew when she went to the hospital, if they couldn’t stop it, that he would be born into the arms of Jesus. Alexander, who was wanted more than anything and not only by his parents, was simply still too early for the NICU.


I spent the days in silent prayer vigil, almost constantly praying, going through the motions of my days. I’d prayed until I fell asleep then I’d wake in the middle of the night and continue praying. I waited for an update to tell me that everything would be alright and Alex would stay inside the womb where he belonged. I held onto the hope until news of his arrival came. My godson had arrived and left this world.

Because of his prematurity his parents were allowed to have the labor and delivery of their choice, free of medical intervention. In peace Alexander was delivered lovingly by his father. They said their goodbye in private.

Every so often, I wonder what Alexander would look like today. If his arrival hadn’t come too early, if he had been on-time then who would he be today? He wouldn’t be turning two, no, he’d still be in his first year on the way two. He’d be learning to walk and into everything. Would he look like his mom or dad? What color would his hair/eyes be? I’d get texted photos of him happy & smiling.

So, Alexander’s story doesn’t end there. His legacy lives on. His arrival gave his mom’s doctors just the information they needed. The very next year, Alexander’s parents brought home his younger siblings- A brother and a sister, twins, who were healthy. Without him, they wouldn’t be here. His time here may have been very short compared to some…but his impact is lasting.

When To Stay Home

I discovered yesterday that I should not leave the boys in the care of their father during a Titans football game...even a bad one. It's a total cliche about men being unable to tend to their kids while the wife is away. I'm a firm believer in 'you helped make them, you help raise them' mentality. And normally, Jay does a good job with them. I learned a long time ago to just accept the fact that things would be accomplished differently under his watch. But as long as everyone is alive and pretty much in same shape as I left, we're a-okay. When I arrive home from a trip at the store yesterday, I discover WC, shirtless. Odd, but not that unusual. Then CJ enters the room...oh how I wish I'd thought to grab the camera. There he stood...in his Thomas the Train undies and his arms were still in the sleeves of his shirt but the rest of it stretched across the back of neck to his shoulder blades looking like he was wearing a woman's shrug. Where were his pants and why was his shirt half off? The only thing CJ said was that he was stuck inside his shirt. From the look on Jay's face, he obviously hadn't a clue to what was happening under his nose...

In the spirit of upcoming Thanksgiving: I am thankful that WC does not have homework this week and only one more day of school!

A Season Lost

Last Sunday I went to the grocery store with WC. He wanted to do a cooking project and we needed some ingredients. We usually put together a simple desert that he can construct by himself. Now that he's gotten a little older, I wanted him to do something a little more challenging, but that he could still complete successfully. I settled on rice krispie treats which involved mostly melting and stirring. His challenge would be that I would ask him to measure the ingredients- a handy real life application to the math he's learned in school. He wanted to decorate them up for fall and use candy corn. He really just wanted a bag of candy corn and saw an opportunity. But, at the store, down the candy aisle, not a single bag of candy corn could be found. We went to the "seasonal" aisle and we discovered red and green as far as the eye could see. I stood there, dumbfounded, at all the boxes of Christmas candy. Christmas Candy? I still have ten pounds of Halloween candy in the kitchen!  There's a six foot snowman waving at me from aisle 16 and it's 75 degrees outside. Where did Thanksgiving go? Did I miss something? I mean, I have enough trouble keeping up with what day it is. I complain the year is slipping by me, but this is ridiculous. We've gone straight from "give me candy" to "give me toys and candy" without stopping somewhere along the way to be grateful. I suppose that gratitude doesn't sell. But, this girl isn't buying a single Christmas item until after Thanksgiving.
 And in this economy retailers are trying to squeeze every last dime we have out of us-in order to stay afloat. That is every one's goal. While, I will admit that we all need to have enough, business and personal accounts alike. I'm not sure that the idea to start Christmas earlier and earlier every year isn't rooted in greed for some. They make more money if they can convince a population of people that they can buy their way to making a perfect Christmas. And having the perfect Christmas is the key to happiness. Now who wouldn't be happier with a six foot waving snowman?

Juggling

Here lately I'm finding that I do not have enough hours in a day. Between a fairly long commute (31 miles one way), the full-time day job, my children, spouse, editing and polishing my story, studying up on grammar, thinking about my next story, blogging, researching agents and the publishing industry...I might be leaving something out... You get it. Loads of items on the list and only 24 hours in a day with 6-7 of them devoted to sleeping and 8 of them taken up by the folks who deposit money in my account and give me health insurance-there's little time for the other things. My exercise regimen has fallen by the wayside because otherwise my sleeping would fall to around 5 hours. And to top it all off, now I'm sick.
But, two things came to light last week that made me drop almost everything in my list above. Report card day happened. For the most part, it did not surprise me, he was where he needed to be for most things and the items that were on the lower side I knew about, except one. It leaped off the page and slapped me square in face and told me that I was a terrible mom. Okay, not literally, but it might as well have...An item at the bottom of the page was checked that said 'I have a good self image.' I verified with the key needed to decipher the report card-it meant-needs improvement. He doesn't have a good self image? Why not? He's intelligent, good looking, good personality...how could he not feel good about himself? There's nothing wrong with him. I tell him all the time how wonderful I think he is...don't I?
The teachers written remarks in the comments section stated something along the lines of that he is easily frustrated and he swings back and forth between perfectionism and half-assing it. I'm paraphrasing here.
Me, being me, I then research kids on self esteem and self confidence and building of both. My initial findings centered on attachment parenting and infants...And that's great and all but I have a 7 year old and whatever happened as an infant is gone. I don't get a redo of that. Did those months I spent in postpartum depression have that big of an impact? Surely all of the nurturing that I've done since then have made a bigger impact. I've gone in search of more. I've read and went down lists of items to build your child's self esteem and checked them off one-by-one. Then something stuck out- make time to ask your child questions and converse with him/her and really listen to the answers without multitasking your adult responsibilities at the same time. This shows your child they are important. OUCH! Nope, I haven't done that in some time.
Also, there was to get down and play with your child in activity of their choice and put aside your phone, computer or whatever else you have to do. For at least a little while.
And that is what I have done. I will, of course continue to blog. But sometimes it might have to go on the back burner to put some special boys first. And I hope to continue to research the subject and provide some entries on my experience in attempting to build him up. I'm not sure why he's such a sensitive child, he always has been. My main job is and always will be to parent these children and grow them into good men.

I Know Natalie

Something no one wants to go through. Stop by and give this mom some support and pray for their healing. Go, grab your kids and hug them tight and appreciate every single second.

More Chattanooga Trip Review

Our first evening in Chattanooga we chose to dine at The Choo Choo hotel. We'd chased the kids around The Creative Discovery Center all afternoon and we're interested in going far after we checked in. Our trip package included two meals at The Garden Restaurant inside the main building. Also, kids twelve and under eat free--cha ching--deals like that do not exist anymore.We strolled from our train car to the main building while attempting to keep the kids away from the train. The Garden restaurant is bright and airy with wrought iron tables and chairs. The hostess was friendly and we were seated quickly. There were about a dozen other tables full about five thirty on Thursday evening. The menu didn't have a large selection. The waitress left a lot to be desired. We ordered- Jay and I each ordered a sandwich and WC a cheeseburger and I don't recall what CJ requested. But after we ordered the waitress returned with rolls and told us that it would be a while since they had a bunch of orders. We looked around and with the place about empty were worried about the ability of the kitchen staff, if they couldn't handle this at dinnertime. The food arrived shortly after. Turned out the kitchen wasn't ill equipped to deal-it was the waitress. Jay's buffalo chicken sandwich didn't arrive with the blue cheese that it was supposed to; she said she would bring him some. He sat and waited, unable to begin eating with the rest of us. Nearly ten minutes passed before we saw her again. In the meantime CJ's cough that he'd developed that morning on the drive and now progressively worse the more tired he became. He'd also began this annoying habit of forcing himself to cough harder than necessary and sounding like he was trying to throw up; no amount of scolding would change this. And CJ's mood deteriorated throughout the meal until WC was hiding his face while at the table. I ended up taking him back to train room before WC and Jay finished eating. I needed to make sure WC enjoyed his food and was able to eat dessert on his birthday without his brother vomiting on the table. Also, I worried CJ's constant hack might ruin dinner for the dozen or so strangers surrounding us. And fittingly, after CJ and I left the restaurant, he didn't cough. We returned to the room and I ran him a bath. I've discussed the bathroom in my previous post. Our first night there was comfortable; we all slept well.
Now I've spent a little time in Eastern time zone and I've never noticed this before. The sun really comes up late...maybe it's the time of year? I'm laying there and the clock says seven a.m. and it is pitch black outside. It looks like the middle of the night. I had to remember that it was my six o'clock. It was odd, for me. And the kids were already bouncing off the walls. Can't quite comprehend why but every morning that we don't have school/work they are awake and up well before sunrise. On school/work day we can't blast them out of bed with a high pressure hose.This is the pattern without fail.
For breakfast we head back to The Garden restaurant (yes, even with the horrible service) but again we have free breakfast voucher and their breakfast is in buffet form. Oh yes, four free all-you-can-eat buffets for breakfast. Can it get much better? The same hostess from the night before sat us and she was really sweet. The buffet contained a good assortment of your standard breakfast foods and we all ate well, even the kids. My goal was to stuff them well because that day we were headed to the TN Aquarium and IMAX; so lunch would be late.
The Choo Choo hotel also has other dining options on site that we did not try:
The pizza place- we didn't want pizza.
A fine dining train car- I can't think of the name but the description in the book used the words elegant and romantic. Yep, not words used to describe places my kids belong.
And a restaurant where the staff also sings. The sign on the door stated that a 15% entertainment fee is added onto the meal and that didn't include gratuity. Personally, not my thing and I really didn't want to spend the money on that.
Would I recommend The Garden Restaurant in the Choo Choo? For the breakfast buffet, yes. For another meal? Maybe. With one experience, it is really hard to say. Maybe she was having an off night? Maybe you'd get another server. There is also a dinner buffet on Friday and Saturday nights. We didn't try it. But I think it would be worth a try.

Next entry: Aquarium, IMAX, Zoo and where else we ate.