Hey, Mom

 

Frustrated doesn’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling right now.

It was a great long weekend with all four kids home.  While it was exhausting, I so much enjoyed having my kids close for a few days.  More than the interaction I had with them, I enjoyed watching them talk to each other.

Boom!  One phone call later, and that feeling of satisfaction over a job well-done in raising such wonderful adult children, is gone.

Alone

“We need others.  We need others to love, and we need to be loved by them.  There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death.” ~ Leo Buscaglia

No one person can be everything to another person.  I need someone to talk to who knows my heart, but there is no one there.  There is no one I can pick up the phone and call who would understand…or not think that I have lost my mind to call and reveal to them the inner workings of my heart.  The fact that there is not one person I can reach out for right at this moment makes me feel so lonely.

Baseball Memories

 

When I was a little girl, my father gave me the most important gift, the gift of acceptance and unconditional love.

I was in the midst of those awkward middle school years.  I was trying so hard to be cool, to be like everyone else.  Above all, I wanted to fit in.  All my friends played softball, so of course, I signed up to be on a team, too.  I hated every single moment of it.  I was afraid of being hit by a ball.  I couldn’t catch, pitch, throw, or hit.  Yet I kept right on trying.  I went to each practice.  When I got home, my dad spent countless hours trying to teach me and trying to help me improve.  Nothing worked.  I didn’t improve no matter how hard I tried.  As hard as I was working to be better, my heart wasn’t in it.  I wanted to be reading a book, or playing the piano, or spending time with my pets.  The only things I liked about playing softball was sitting on the bench, visiting with my friends, and going to the concession stand after the game.

Cell Phone Hostage

Yesterday morning around 6:00 a.m., before I was even out of bed, I sent my three oldest children a text message.  The message was in response to a text I had received from Verizon notifying me that we had exceeded the data usage limit on our phone plan, therefore we would be incurring an additional charge.  While the charge wasn’t overly excessive, I was upset with my kids for not being more cautious with MY money.  I knew our data usage was close to the limit; so did they.  We had all received the warning text a week ago.  So I sent the following text to my kids:  “I am going to check my Verizon account to see why our data is being overly used, and who is using it.  Please be respectful of the fact that you are all adults, and your parents are still the ones paying for your phones.”

Not A Hallmark Card

***Another “Blast From the Past.”  I’ve been reading through the blog posts in the Drafts folder.  I’m deleting some of them.  Others, like this one, I will post.

This entry was written on Sept. 5, 2011.  Weird that I would read this today….exactly two years after I wrote this entry.  All I can say is, “WOW!”  Our lives, all of our lives, have changed so much in these past two years!  

I called Andrew tonight, and read him this blog entry.  He was stunned, too, by how things have changed.  Thankfully, the changes have been for the better.  Yes, there have been many, many growing pains along the way, but I am so very proud to say that we’re all in a better place now.  🙂

As much as I wish that my life would be as neat and tidy as a Hallmark card, things usually end up being much more like the made-for-TV, full-blown, Sunday night Hallmark movie, a Kleenex box tear-jerker.

A May Day Memory

The year was 2001, and my 12-year-old son had been in a coma for over a week. He had recently been airlifted to a university hospital for another surgery, his third in the past week. This was going to be a delicate surgery. His eye muscle was trapped in an orbital fracture. His nose was broken, too, and needed to be repaired. While these repairs would ordinarily be complicated, the complications were compounded by my son’s skull fracture and significant brain swelling. The surgery posed a risk of further brain damage. Without it, his eye would forever be “sunk” into the socket and cease to function. These were horrible choices for a parent to make.  I wouldn’t wish this kind of life-altering decision on my worst enemy.

Continuum

Last night I spoke to my younger son for the first time in three weeks.  That is the longest time I have ever gone without hearing his voice.  We had exchanged a few texts, and I knew that he had talked to his dad.  Of course, T filled me in on his conversation with our son, but that was nothing compared to having Luke on the other end of the phone.

Happy New Year

I held Lola’s hand to cross a busy street in Milwaukee.  As I hurried her along, she said, “Mom, you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.  We go slow in the country.”  I immediately smiled at her words.  I don’t know where she has heard that phrase, but I do know that she was speaking the truth.  No matter where she is, now or in the future, she is a country girl.  I was so proud to hear those words, at that time, and in that place.  What my little daughter’s words reminded me was that fact that the things we instill in our children stay with them no matter where they go,  or how far away they are from home…or from us.