family matters

There are 4 living generations in my family. There's my mom, who just turned 88, "Grandma" to The Girl, there's me, getting very close to being 58, "MawMaw" to The Girl, There's my son, 23, "Daddy" to The Girl, and then there's The Girl. We have a small extended family. "Grandmaw" has been a widow for 23 years. My Dad died when my son was 4 months old. Her family is in England and she is the last survivor of her siblings. She has 3 children, my brother , my sister and myself. My brother, in RIchmond VIrgina, who just turned 60, is a widower for some 5 years or so now. He has two step sons, one in Wyoming or Montana area, and one in the Carolinas. My sister lives locally. She must be going to be 54 on her upcoming birthday next month and has recently married. Her marraige has taken up much of her time (imagine that) so I don't talk to her as much as I did before The Texan came into the picture. She has one daughter, my favorite ( ok only) neice. She has been married over a year now to a nice guy who I like. Then there's me, just about to turn 58 in June. I am married to a good guy. He tolerates and tries to help me struggle through my emotional craziness. We have one son, The Girl's Daddy. He is 23 and is in turmoil recovery.( It's a long story.) Then there is The GIrl, 3 & 1/2 going on about 14. She is IT. She is the queen of going through phazes. Shy, loud, mischevious, pouty, with a lisp. She likes to "read" to me, paint, cut, dance, harass the cat and walk the dog. She has started to grow some and is getting taller. Most of size three clothes still fit, but the pants might be too short. The size 4's will be long enough but won't stay up over that skinny waist and hips. She is a dancer... just wait for the recital. But she dances at home too, and sings all the time. We love to have her with us. She keeps us on our toes, but I am tired when she goes home or to day school.

These 4 generations came together to celebrate two birthdays this weekend. Grandmaw turned 88 and My husband will be 56 Friday, one week later. We had a nice visit at my favorite neice's and nephew in law's. THanks to them, we had a nice place for people to gather to celebrate the family event. Everyone seemed in a tolerable mood. Our son attended, and looked like he did ok, considering the turmoil he has been through in the last year, but super turmoil in the last 4 months. If he was nervous about being there, it didn't show and everyone was pleasant to him. The birthday people seemed to enjoy themselves. We had cake and ice cream, so how could it be bad, really? I love slightly melted chocolate ice cream. I could easily have eaten the entire box had I not been focused on getting The Girl and me home in time to have some semblence of a nap.

You don't really get to choose your family until you get ready to get married, so in reality you are stuck with the family you are born into. Good or Bad, Rich or Poor, Funny or Lame, they are who they are. and Family Matters.

I do not take miracles lightly

I do not take miracles lightly. I do not see many of them....and I am skeptical at best till I can re-evaluate the event at a later time. However, I am seeing a miraculous change in my son. It is real enough to be scary. He is a changed person. Even the fellow members of his group are coming up to us at visits and telling us what a fine son we have and what a change they have seen. He was made group leader of his small group last week, and then the lead counselor put him in the hot seat at large group meeting and made him dorm leader. One of his group members told us today how well he was doing with the leadership roles. Our son did tell us today that when he was made dorm leader the whole dorm was on restriction due to some fighting and other acting out. The next day, the dorm was off restriction. I asked him what he did to make things change. He said I went to the people expressing problems and told them we needed to work things out to get the dorm back on track. We took his daughter, The Girl to see him again today. She wore his butt out. She ran all over the place and we heard "Come on Daddy" about 4 times at least. They had a great visit again. We stayed back as much as possible to let them have time together. One or the other of them would come back to us as the afternoon went on. She was ok to leave once we convinced her daddy had to go back to work. and off we went.

Easter

I have not been able to access this site for a few days. Easter was a good day for us. We unexpectedly had The Girl join us for lunch, since her mom was "having a bad day". We went to my favorite neice's house with all of our immediate family..neice, her spouse, sister, her spouse, mother, self, my spouse and the girl. We had a good lunch...I wanted to take a nap afterward.. instead we went to visit our son, with the girl. We were keeping our fingers crossed that the visit would go well. We could not have been happier with how it turned out. She clung to him when they met up, gave him the biggest hug!! Big smiles all around. We spent the afternoon outside. Pawpaw and I mostly sat back and let the two of them interact. She wore her daddy out with her comings and goings, climbing, basketball, talking, etc. We had brought him a lunch plate and she helped him eat it. She brought him some eggs we had dyed the previous day. She was pouty when it was time to go, so we smoothed that over, stayed alittle while longer and told her we would come back the next Sunday. That seemed to satisfy her. We eventually took a nap and slept too long, so that I thought we would never get to a real bedtime. Thank goodness the next day was not a school or work day for us. We had a pajama day til way late in the day.

eggs, I can't play with you

The girl, who is smart beyond her years and has a vivid imagination, was very busy dying Easter Eggs at my favorite neice's house. We had 36 to dye. She was busily putting eggs in the see through cups we were using, testing them for color perfection and taking them out of the dye bath and setting them on the boxes with the holder holes punched out. She told them "Now eggs, I can't play with you right now, I have a lot of work to do. I have to color all these eggs today." Of course, I thought it was cute and so funny. She really comes up with some interesting stuff. I would like to know what goes on in her brain.

This 2 hour session we had with boiling cooling and dying, painting and stickering eggs took the place of her nap, which she paid for later by becoming wound up pretty tight, when she should have been settling down some. I should have thought to give her a little Benadryl before we went back to her mama's house....It would have slowed her down some and made her sleepy at a reasonable time. No telling what time she went to bed, since we left at 8pm and her mama was talking about making Easter cookies still.

She will lose her nap today too, unless she takes a rest after we get back from visiting her dad. Hopefully she will want to go with me when we leave her greatgrandmother's house after lunch.

egg hunting & the real Easter bunny

There were two egg hunts planned. One at the hospital annual Easter bash and one at church after a potluck lunch. The girl did not remember going to the egg hunt in Pineville last year. It was crowded and I don't know if that made a difference or not, but as we stood in line getting ready for her age group to start, she wanted me to pick her up. No problem. However when it was time to go with all the other kids and parents, she did not let go. She clung to me like a new monkey on its mama. After kneeling down 4 times to pick up eggs, trying to get her to participate, I had to quit. I couldn't do it any more. She did not want to get down and even said she wanted to go to my house and take a nap. That was my clue to get going. We did watch the real easter bunny sitting for pictures with some kids, but she would have none of that. It started to rain, so we hit the shuttle bus and went home. She did like riding the shuttle bus.
The next day was Sunday. She went to church and did just fine in her Sunday School classroom. Then we went to big chruch with a friend and she did ok there too. Then off to lunch and with her friend close by she ok too. Then we went to her age group hunt. She was Queen of the May, baby. She had a ball. Then when her friend's age group was done we went to check on the bunny. She said " I think that is a man with a bunny head on." I told her if thought she was right, and she waved at h im. Then we took his picture, and eventually took her friends picture with the bunny and then herself as well. Whew. All is right with the world.