Friday, May 22, 2009

Look Mom Two Wheels!

I originally wrote this post back in May. I am not sure why I never published it? Maybe I didn't have my camera handy to download pictures?


I have to brag on my little girl! She turned 5 in February. Well, Wednesday (May 20, 2009) we took the training wheels off the bicycle she has had since she was 2 1/2. I had finally gotten my bike down and was riding it. She decided she wanted to take the training wheels off of her bike to be like Mommy. On Wednesday she got pretty good at riding with me holding onto the bike and for a few seconds at a time on her own. Steering wasn't much of a priority for her yet.

Yesterday, Thursday, I explained that the next step was for her to learn to get herself started.

This initially didn't go over very well with her. After all, what could her mother have to do that is more important than bending in half and running alongside a tiny bicycle for an hour? The housework fairy comes in and does all the cooking, cleaning, errands, bill paying, laundry, etc. ...right?! Well, after catching her in a dramatic moment out in the driveway crying because I "wouldn't help her", I informed her that she could always just put the bike away. Apparently, her calmer side prevailed and she began to practice pushing herself off to get started.

Well, this morning I have been watching my beautiful 5 year old daughter ride her 2 wheeler all by herself! She is so awesome! There is no limit to what she can accomplish when she puts her mind to it. I am so proud of her!

She has a goal in mind, though. Next Wednesday is the last day of preschool and the kids are allowed to take their bikes. She wants to be able to show Mrs. Tiffany her newly found skills. We will see...

Thursday, May 14, 2009

This week...


Well, so much for being good about posting regularly. Oh, well, such is my life. For someone who from all appearances should have a life conducive to having a regular schedule, I most certainly do NOT. Since the last post, Mady did lose that tooth and didn't freak out quite as badly as I had imagined. She was very impressed with the gold dollar coin that the tooth fairy left since it was her very first tooth. I made sure to tell her that this may or may not be the case every time she loses a tooth. I am unsure if the tooth fairy has access to gold dollar coins for all teeth or just the first one.




This has not been the best week. My Mother's Day was not what I had envisioned. My husband who had been getting home around 3 or 4 in the afternoon on Sundays, did not get home until 6:30 pm. It had been a beautiful day and I had hoped maybe since the kids aren't baby babies anymore I might get to do something with my family - Including the HUSBAND. Don't get me wrong, but at this stage, I see my children all day everyday. I do not see my husband very often. This was not to be.




Well, our anniversary is May 11th, but based on most of what my husband did that day you could not tell it. For him it was just another day. From a woman's perspective that doesn't hate her husband's guts, this should be a special day. He knows that he doesn't have to spend a lot of money, but a little effort, a nice card, that is MY minimum. On this, our 13th anniversary, I got a whole lot of nothing. He will claim he said Happy Anniversary back to me when I said it as he was leaving for work and I got an invitation to a stressful dinner out with 2 misbehaving kids. Not the picture of romance I was hoping for. I made a comment with my level of pleasure of the Mother's Day/Anniversary combo this year on Facebook. He was less than thrilled at being (in his words) "slammed" on FB. I wanted him to know how disappointed I was and since I see him awake without kids around about 5-10 minutes a day, I did not get the chance to tell him to his face. Let's face it, during those 5-10 min he is usually working on going to sleep.




This time of year is so stressful for us. He thinks he is the only one that has any right to be stressed though. He has never been one that is good at putting himself in another's shoes. He doesn't think I have anything to complain about. I understand getting up at 4 or 5 am and working until 7 or 8 pm is not a walk in the park. He does this 7 days a week. (He works 7 days a week most of the year for that matter, but the start and ending time vary a little. ) Neither is dealing with two kids that don't see nearly enough of their father and proceed to act like freaks when he does walk in the door. Kids need more time with their father. Jeremy thinks that by working like this he can make us more able to afford a farm for the kids to grow up on. I am worried that while he is working himself to death, the kids are growing up without him.




I will be honest, I wish we still connected as a couple. We don't see enough of each other to do that. The kids went to Tennessee and stayed with Jeremy's grandparents for a few days the first part of May so I could go to the Oaks and so our kids could make an appearance at the decoration at the church Jeremy's family attends. I loved it this year. Last year all I did was cry because I was not used to being at our house without them. This year, I would have probably enjoyed more time apart. During those few days it felt like Jeremy and I were the old us. It was great. He invited me to ride along to some of his farms, we went out for a nice dinner. It felt like we were friends again. I usually feel like everybody's mama because he is too tired to do anything when he gets home. So instead of his arrival from work taking the pressure off, it just seems to compound it.




I can't make him see that while his job affords us a lot of things, it creates at least as many problems for our family. I bought The Power of a Praying Wife and it was a great book. I am going to try and read it again and hope it gives me a better outlook this time of year. I bought The Power of a Praying Husband and wanted him to read it. He ignored the book on the nightstand for months. I finally just placed it in a drawer. I bought a book a few weeks ago, that has tips from couples who have been married for 50 years and asked him to read a page a night. He has yet to read page one. I have tried talking to him and he only sees it as criticism and nagging. I just don't know what to do.




Also, this week, my father who has remarried proceeded to place a headstone for his current wife NEXT to my mother! Not on his side of the double headstone they have, on my mother's side. #1 He is her 4th husband, this may or may not last. #2 he placed the current wife next to the dead wife the week before Mother's Day. My sister saw it for the first time on Mother's Day when she went to put flowers on our mother's grave. How classy is that. Who does that for a 50 something year old woman when she is healthy and on her 4th husband?! That is what my family has become- a bunch of people who are led by spite. They want to keep things stirred constantly. I am so tired of this. I am able to distance myself both physically and otherwise, but my little sister isn't able to do this as easily. I really hate that for her.




We have a little baby at church, cute as she could be whose daddy found her blue and not breathing the day after mother's day. They got her revived with CPR, she was taken to the hospital. The outlook was never good, she was having seizures and had to be sedated. She passed away last night. Her parents are a young couple whose parents both attend our church. They had grown up in church together. It was their first baby. She had a head full of hair and pretty blue eyes. She was 5 months old and is gone. She was a healthy baby Sunday.




It has not been a good week. I hope for a better week next week. I am thankful I still have a husband even if our situation is a lot less than ideal. I have 2 healthy kids and I thank God for that in my prayers every night. Jack took a fall down the stairs last week and I am thankful it isn't us planning a life with an impaired child or a funeral. You just never know...


Be thankful for what you have; you could have it so much worse.