Not a nice post -- if you're easily offended, don't read it

The last time I blogged, life was different. Life was whole. One week later, my heart was ripped out of my chest when God decided, prematurely in my mind, to take my Mama to heaven. So, here I am -- a motherless child trying to figure out how to live my life in this new world. I don't like it. I avoid my grief when at all possible, unfortunately, it's a stubborn s.o.b. and won't leave me alone. So when I don't cry and attempt to figure out how to deal with it all, I'm angrier than hell. I spend my time either fighting or succumbing to the sadness. I find joy in my children...but sometimes I'm in such a fog...I feel like a terrible mother. I feel so very much alone in it all. I spend all day with my kids, then my evenings with my husband and yet I feel isolated and alone. Ugh!!! There's no manual to deal with this. What truly bites is that when I talk to someone who's been through it, they say that every person has to figure out on their own how to grieve. Great. So here I am, stuck in this vortex with no visible means of egress. It doesn't help that I can't bring myself to read my Bible. I sort of talk to God, but I'm seriously pissed off at Him right now. (If this offends you, you'll just have to deal with it or die unhappy -- my God's big enough to handle any and everything that I throw at Him. AND, in spite of it all, I know that He loves me more than I can even fathom.) I think I have moved, for this moment anyway, from "Dear God, NO!" being my reaction when I see my mother's picture to, "Damn it, Mama! Why did you leave me?" I'm 37, my kids were nearly 2 and 4 months old, she was 9 days away from 59. This is all so very wrong! And yet, I have no say in the matter. So, that's where I am right now. I don't want sympathy, just friends who will let me be who I need to be at the time -- whether it's ranting, reminiscing or avoiding. I have never before wanted to get "smashed" in my life...until now. Unfortunately, I think it would just make it worse. Damn. And my dog is demolishing his Tuff ball on the floor...so much for it being "tuff." Great.

Nine Months...

So, I noticed today, as I was catching up on The Haskell Rascals, that I hadn't blogged in nine months...nine whole months. I'd say that's an appropriate length of time seeing as how our lives have been radically changed by the advent of Annabelle Grace into our lives. Granted, she's four months old now, but that's neither here nor there, right? I would blog more now, but aforesaid munchkin is hungry and while I can FB one-handed, blogging ain't gonna happen. I'll try to do more later? Don't hold your breath...but at least I want to... I do have to share that as AB fusses in her bouncer, big brother Will is covering her with her toys in an effort to stem the tears. What a good and desperate brother! Bless his heart!

Hunkerin' Down

Blizzard...the end of March? Seriously? With the snow that came the first weekend of Spring Break, I was sure we were finished. With the way that the weather people are here, I figured there was no way. Other people believed it -- enough to cancel school the day before with nothing on the ground. This school district NEVER cancels school. So, we called my sister, and she came over to "hunker down" with us. The last time I had to hunker down was during the hurricanes in Orlando back in 2004. Hunkering down is definitely something to do with people you like. The first hurricane, Jesus, my dog and I hung out under my flipped over couch. The second and third hurricanes I spent with awesome friends Joy and Suzanne -- cards, Monk, food...good times. The Blizzard came, and notice, it's with a capital "B!" The snow started in the middle of the night and didn't really stop until 36 or so hours later. The wind howled, the snow pummeled, visibility was LIMITED, and the drifts grew and grew and grew. I haven't been in snow like this since I was a kid. It was soooo beautiful! We had a great time "hunkerin' down" -- hot chocolate, homemade pancake breakfast, homemade chocolate chip cookies...movies, playing with the baby...aaaahh...good times. :-)

Spring Break

Spring Break is awesome! I personally think it should be two weeks long as opposed to one. It has been so nice to have snow and balmy sunshine all in the same place just a matter of hours apart. :-) This week I have enjoyed having my husband home so very much. We had a wonderful time during our first year of marriage that we were able to live on our savings (PTL!) for about six months and just be together. Any time he's home more than a weekend brings that time back to life. Awww...I know. Most of my seeds have been started, and Andrew has built the frame for my raised bed garden. This is more than we've done before, so I feel like we're being quite ambitious. Drew keeps saying, "What about doing this, too?" Nope. This project feels pretty mongo on its own, AND we're getting chickens within the next week. Whew! It's all about springtime, baby! Lest anyone be too impressed, spring cleaning has not happened at my house, and I'm not even sure we're going to get to that deep cleaning thing. I do have the preggers excuse, and there's many cleaners I just can't use. Darn. hee hee hee Can I post without telling a Will story? Highly unlikely. He's now using "please" consistently and pointing and shaking his head for "no." "Mama" and Dad-dee" are pretty consistent in his vocabulary, but any other words /phrases are at his whim like the "What is that?" clear as a bell at the greenhouse the other day when we were looking at a seed bin. Where did this child come from??? He is an amazing walking conundrum that I absolutely adore. :-)

Oops!

Well, as you can see, I've signed up as a follower of my own blog! Ugh. I was trying to follow someone else's and ended up following my own. How the heck do I get rid of the obvious stupidity with my face nicely plastered in with my sweet followers? And, how do I follow y'all??? I've tried to find it on your blogs to no avail. "Help me! Help me! Please!" she said.

Gray Days

It's gray today...again. Sigh. I hate gray days. No, let me rephrase that. I seriously miss the sun on gray days. I'm thankful for each day and the mercies that are new to me each morning. It just seems that on gray days I find it harder to be motivated. My whole body feels weighed down with the seeming heaviness of the clouds. Yuck. I think the worst part of it is that my husband (who is secretly a troll, I believe -- fair complection, needs a cave, loves to be in dim lighting, etc., etc.) revels in these days. They are sooo very good for him. As giddy as I get on sunshiny days, he is as close to that on gray days as he can be. Who says opposites don't attract? So what am I to do? I can turn on every light in the house, make myself get dressed, and fake it til I make it. Or, I can sit here on the computer in my fuzzy robe (don't even look at the time stamp!) and commiserate with myself and my heavy eyelids. Hmmm...what to do? what to do???

My Own Little Genius...

*Warning -- this posting contains a mother's proud, gushing remarks. Proceed with caution! My mother became a grandmother relatively early in life at the hip young age of 51. She had older friends who had plenty of granchildren themselves and one quipped to her, "Now you have your own little genius!" Too true. Ok, so I'm forever away from being a grandmother, but I certainly feel like Will is my "little genius," "little comedian," "little sweetheart," and "all boy!" all rolled into one. To demonstrate the first...we've been trying to teach Will bits of sign language -- bottle, drink, hungry, more, please, and thank you. The first four he caught onto pretty well. The last two I guess are pretty abstract. He did sign "please" at my parents in November, but that's been it. Yesterday, however, he proved without a shadow of a doubt that he was able...when he wanted to be. I had a Braum's sack with a few brightly colored business cards in the bottom. Will could see the cards, but he's just too short to reach all the way into the bag with it standing up or laying down without crawling into the bag. This, he was not into. So, he crawled up into Mommy's lap -- not a bad place to be. His daddy came over and tried to entice him to pull out what was in the bag. Will, first child that he is, pointed to his daddy and then pointed to the bag. Daddy said, "Say please." That little Bugger signed for please without being shown the sign or anything! To demonstrate the second...he loves playing "Simon Says" when HE's Simon. The other night my sister was over for dinner. We sat on the couches in the living room and Will was in his highchair eating. He put his hand on his head, then looked very pointedly at me. When I followed his instruction, he looked pointedly at Rachel and then at Andrew. When we were all doing what he wanted, he laughed hysterically and gave us something new to do. To demonstrate the third...he did something I didn't even expect with him just having turned one. We stopped at Braum's one morning this week after we took Andrew to work. I had two heavy bags -- two gallons of milk, 14 yogurts, and some bananas. Unfortunately, my ability to judge distance is a little off, and when I opened the screen door, I ripped one of the bags I had set on the porch . All was good, I could still carry the bags in after I put Will down. One yogurt fell out on the living room floor. Out of curiosity, I asked Will if he could help Mommy and pick up the yogurt and bring it to the kitchen. He toddled back into the living room and after half a dozen or so attempts, he picked up the yogurt! He very determinedly, very seriously brought it to me in the kitchen...dropping it four or five times on the way. We were both so very proud of him!!! To demonstrate the last...we have a stump in the backyard that is the perfect height for him to sit on, and Andrew had placed him out there a time before. This day, however, was different. Will was not content to just sit on the stump and play with grass. He sat there for a moment, pondering, then he got up and surveyed the stump. Very intentionally, he leaned over the stump and placed his hands on the far side. One foot up, the other foot up...Andrew and I held our breath. Gingerly, he moved his feet to the center of the stump and stood up! Andrew and I didn't say anything for fear of startling him and causing him to fall. Will just stood there, checking out his kingdom. Then he put out his arms, hands opened, and he beat his chest! He was king of the world! He looked at us and did it again. With that, we had permission to holler and praise and make all kinds of commotion for his great accomplishment. Wow. Could he be anymore amazing?