The newest Grand-Oompa

 My middle son Arthur and his fiancee invited the family to witness the birth of their first child.  Naturally I jumped at the opportunity and when news arrived that Stephanie's water had broken, the girls and I jumped in the car and sped to Evans Army Medical Center, which happens to be the same hospital Rachel was born in over 17 years ago.  We arrived just before midnight Mother's Day.  Unfortunately the breaking of her water hadn't triggered labor and while she was experiencing contractions, Stephanie would have to endure 22 hours of them before her baby was born.


Nolan Alexander Navakuku was born on May 14, 2012 at 8:33 pm.  The room was full of cheering and singing.  The air was charged with love.  He came into the world with his tiny eyes wide open. Everyone immediately fell in love with him.

I have always regret that I was not able to be there with my first two grandsons.  I am sad that they live on the other side of the country and I have not seen them in years.  I am blessed to have Nolan so close to me now.  And he fits so perfectly into my hugs.  I have already put in an order for a granddaughter.  


It is hard to concentrate on all the devastating misfortunes that have pummeled me relentlessly these past few years when things like this happen.  To say that I am walking on air right now would not even begin to describe my elation.  In laymen terms, my luck has sucked lately but now I'm fricken happy!  Oh yeah!

Why I am fat:

I like creamer in my coffee.  Fat, sweet creamer.  I like buttered toast with orange marmalade.  I drink my wine from a mason jar.  I drink regular beer, not the lower calorie and less filling beer that makes you want to drink more.  And I walk leisurely through life so I can see, and hear, smell and taste... and feel everything rather than rushing through with blinders and hope I don't crash and burn along the way.  I'd rather savor my empty calories than burn them up during a self induced cardio pain fest sometimes referred to as exercise. (shudder!) I've got better things to do with my time.
This may all change very soon.  Today I have a little visit with my family practitioner to discuss my unscheduled overnight sojourn in her facility a fortnight ago.  I plan to plead my case by offering a chart documenting my resolve to get my blood pressure under control but~ realistically speaking I fear my days of butter soaked toast and hazelnut creamer laced caffeinated coffee are over.
Crazy as it may sound, coming from me of all people, I'm okay with that!
My 3rd grandbaby is due on Mother's Day.  And with my 5 kids I just know that there are plenty more where that comes from!  So this, my admission, is my first step to a healthier lifestyle.
Bleh~

05/06/2012

May 6th~
I'm sure there is some silly holiday or day in history to commemorate this date but for me it means one thing.
I woke up alive and that in itself is cause for celebration.  So I shall celebrate, with coffee and chocolate, a stroll in the sunshine with the family I love as I over dose on the mountain air.  Is that even possible, to get too much fresh air?  I think not, but if it is then I cannot think of a better way to go.
But then, if by chance, fate, design or luck, I shall wake up alive again tomorrow then I shall once again celebrate.
With coffee, chocolate, sunshine and the family that I love... in the fresh mountain air.

Sometimes~

Sometimes I have to keep reminding myself 
Who I am and how my life is different now.
Sometimes I wish it wasn't so easy to forget~
Sometimes I wish it wasn't so hard to remember.

THE LADY AND THE CAT

My mother is 81 years old and has small vessel disease.  I had numerous phone conversations with her over the past few years as well as several communications with my father and sisters.  I was aware of her deteriorating condition but nothing prepared me for the echo of the shadow of the woman she had once been. Her quick, motivated gait had been replaced by an uncertain shuffle and her gaze would clear momentarily to express joy on recognition only to cloud over again with simple confusion. She repeated things as if sharing for the first time.  She constantly apologized for not remembering.  A moment later she has already forgotten again.

Oreo is a 17 years old island calico. In human years she would be 84. She has lived in my mother's house almost her entire life.  I don't remember her as a younger cat although I have been home a couple of times since Oreo moved in. She wears scars from a hard life but her fur is immaculately groomed which is impressive considering the staining red dirt of the region.  Each morning she sits in the kitchen, waiting patiently for Mother to feed her.  Sometimes it takes hours as Mother selects a can of food, places it first in one place and then another.  Then she will get a clean dish which she sets on the table or counter, and forgets.  Yet Oreo waits quietly and patiently, staring at the floor until Mother finally remembers and completes the task.


The burden of dealing with a patient who has short term memory loss is heavy and my father is exhausted.  My brother and his family just recently moved in to help ease the load.  I am eternally grateful for all of the sacrifice they have and continue to make.  My parents have worked so hard all of their lives and deserve to be able to relax and enjoy their retirement. This is their chance.


Tomorrow Oreo will wait patiently on the kitchen floor for Mother to decide which flavor of cat food to feed her. It may take an hour or so but she will be fed and she and Mother will enjoy yet another day in each other's company because time ceases to exist in the world in which they share.

A day with the Oompas~

"What's happening to me?  I'm all toasty inside.
And I'm leaking.  I love ya!

Today was spent Christmas shopping with Oompas Gabe, Zack, Art, Rocky, and Future Oompa-In-Law Steffi.  We made it to only one store, Michaels and spent 1 and 1/2 hours there. I got my stuff rung up and discovered that I didn't have my debit card.  I apologized and told the already holiday harried cashier that I was unable to pay and she would have to put the stuff back. The cashier said I was lucky she was on the other side of the counter then immediately said she was kidding.  I didn't believe her.  She looked and sounded like the kind of person who writes 'LOL' after every threat, insult and criticism she posts online but you know she's dead serious. The kind of person who says "Bless your heart" when what she really means is "Go to hell!"  She just stood there waiting for me to produce my debit card from my previously proven empty pockets like it might magically appear or that perhaps I too had been kidding, LOL and bless your heart!  
I had already told her once to cancel the transaction and was afraid to say it again.  Short of volunteering for a full body cavity search I didn't know what else to do when Art came to my rescue and swiped his debit card.  That was as close to a near death experience as I ever want to get.
My memory returned to me when the chilly December air hit my face outside the store.  Gabe had used my debit card when we gassed up the car earlier.  Phew, that was a relief! 
Dinner at Panda Express (their mushroom chicken is AWESOME, and the blonde Hispanic girl really packs the plates!) and then we finished the night with an encore presentation of "How The Grinch Stole Christmas". For a second, underneath the green fur, I thought I saw the cashier from Michaels.

IT'S A HE!

My newest grandbaby is expected to arrive mid May, and it's a boy! I'm so excited but I have to remind myself to tone it down because it's not my baby... I have to share!  Hmmph!  We'll see about that!  Anyhow, Art and Steff are both positively glowing with pride and excitement. I guess we were kind of calculating on a summer arrival and while the young parents to be are a little frantic now that they have less time to prepare, I am excited because I don't have to wait as long to hold the tiniest Oompa~

EMERGENCY SUBSTITUTIONS: Thanksgiving Edition

* Chicken for turkey: 2 years is 2 years 2 long when storing a turkey in a cranky old freezer. If after thawing you are greeted by a less than pleasant smell coming from your Butterball but the local grocers are all sold out of turkeys of any kind because... hey, it's Thanksgiving day.. a whole chicken, or even cut up chicken pieces, make a delicious last minute substitution. You may even find yourself preferring it if you try deep frying them in peanut oil after injecting them with Creole Butter marinade.  Make sure to fry them with the skin on, that's the best part!

* Confectioners sugar for granulated sugar: This should be used as a last resort (I used all the colored sugar sprinkles the last time I made iced tea here).  Powdered sugar contains starch in it so it will cloud liquids and thicken if it gets cooked or baked.  My biscuits weren't as fluffy as I was used to but that may also have been because the yeast was one year out of date.

* Flour for corn starch.  Good thing Gabe ran me to the store to buy flour before he took off our we wouldn't have had biscuits OR gravy! I would have used the confectioner's sugar which contains starch, but that would have made my gravy too sweet.

* Baking powder for baking soda.  Another reason my biscuits may have been a little off in taste, but they weren't bad.  Of course I found 2 unopened boxes of baking soda AFTER I mixed the dough.

* Boxed wine instead of bottled wine.  And you don't have to worry about finding that forever missing cork screw!


4 of my kids were in the 4 directions of the compass so it was just my future ex, my 2nd oldest son Zachary and myself.  The table was cluttered so we cleared a spot for our plates and sat down.  No candles this year, no fancy glasses.  I even forgot to cook the yams but nobody seemed to notice.  Bing Crosby was singing 'White Christmas' in the background.  It wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving, but it was certainly a pleasant one.

Note to self:  I moved out of the house a year ago.  Since then my well stocked kitchen has dwindled.  The next time I have to cook or bake at the house I should bring my own ingredients cos it's a Man-Cave now~ they don't have sissy things there like sugar, just salt, pepper and Tabasco sauce.

Finally, GREAT NEWS!

I'm positively glowing.  Pregnancy does that to a woman.  No, I'm not pregnant, my son Arthur is~ or actually his girlfriend Stephanie is.  And I am positively glowing! Next year is going to be a great year.  I'm anticipating a visit from my first grandbaby, who is almost 7 now, and the arrival of my newest.  There's no stopping this smile on my face and in my heart!

NEWS FLASH~

Sometimes I wish people could read my mind so I wouldn't have to stress over how I should tell them~

PPTSD? (Parental Post Tramatic Stress Disorder)

As the mother of a soldier who was deployed in a war zone twice, I think I suffer from a different type of PTSD.  I never saw the horrors, and my son came back to me in one piece although he would never be the same~ but I myself had changed.  The months of staring at the computer screen, searching for the tiniest bit of information and yet hating to read it for fear of the worst.  Waiting for hours for the phone not to ring~ only to stare, frozen in my seat when it did.  Running to the window every time a car drove into the cul de sac, but not wanting to look in case it was a black government vehicle.  I can no longer watch war movies, not even my favorite Green Berets. And this video brought me to tears.  Loved it by the way, but I still cried.

After-thoughts~

So, after sitting and thinking on it for a day I realize that perhaps my last entry may have been published a little hastily and without careful consideration.  Chances are he will read it.  And so might she.  She may be flattered... or offended.  If he hasn't seen it yet, he will after that.  There will quite possibly be no more invites to cook, no more free steak dinners.
And yet the entry remains~
Probably because even if I were to delete the words, the feelings remain the same.
I don't see how they can go on acting like nothing happened to anyone but themselves.  My whole world was knocked off of it's rotation, my future plans were discarded like yesterday's trash.  I sit in a bedroom that I share with my daughter, a dog and a cat, trying to stretch an $800 paycheck into $1000 worth of bills and failing miserably.  I can't even afford my own pride~
It would be so easy to just hit [Delete] and play along like everything is okay. Wedding vows, pahhhh! They are so over-rated, merely a mindless tradition. A simple click of a button before they see it and I can prevent so much additional grief. Yet I can't. Tonight I shall enjoy our last supper of sorts because when it hits, and it will hit, it ain't gonna be pretty.
It happened. Things changed.
And the entry remains.
(jab!)

I'M SO OVER HIM!

I've been invited to cook supper over at the future-ex's.  I don't mind~ free steak and the company is decent.  We're still friends, he and I, so it's cool.  All I wanted ever in terms of revenge (yes, I admit I want revenge!) was for him to miss me.  I think I've gotten the hint by now that he doesn't really miss 'me' with my sarcasm, flipped priorities and extreme organizational flaws, but he DOES miss my cooking and pathetic as it may seem that's good enough for me.  Do I miss him?  No.  I miss the relationship, but not him.  Can't miss what you never had.  
Agh!  I can't believe he pretended that I was HER! (pokey pins away!  STAB, STAB, STAB!)
Oops, sorry, relapse. I'm okay.
And I really am so over him! (poke!) 

?

At 50 years of age I wonder... is it easier to look forward or behind? Is it easier to go back and fix things or to just start anew and see where experience will take you? Can my life long mantra of "No regrets" continue to serve me now that the number of days left is undoubtedly less than days passed. Should I mend those fences and broken bridges or forge new paths as I always have without a backwards glance?  At what point should I admit that what I have artfully tried to portray as tracks of forward momentum have in fact all along been nothing more than splattering from the centrifugal force of my life, through no control of my own?
I can't believe I am losing sleep over this.  I suppose that in itself is my answer.
May as well put on the coffee.  It's going to be a long day.

FYI~

Parenthood does not expire.  18 is not the magic age at which time you no longer must care about your children. It is not like a marriage.  There are no vows taken and then taken away~  It is not like having a pet that you discard once you tire of it and the responsibility.  And if you get hurt, you don't burn the bridges that you helped to create even though it may already be ablaze on the other end.  You be the wiser one, the mentor... and you give that child the space and time to grow up and learn but you keep that door open in the case they should ever need to walk through it to you again.
You be a parent.
And parenthood never expires~

CAKE~

Feeling a little like the eaten cake in the old "Have Your Cake And Eat It Too" equation.

Life is a race and the world is my track~

Okay, so I'm 50.  I don't exactly consider myself 'over the hill and on the downward slide'.  That's for old people, older than me.  I prefer to think of myself as being on the second lap of my life.  I've gone around the track once and I'm picking up the pace.  The funny thing is, I've noticed I'm making a lot more pit stops this time around~

Dirty rotten scales~

I saw a bathroom scale lying out in an aisle of the Hardware Department at TheStore and gave in to the temptation to step on it.
I quickly remembered why I haven't been on one for over 2 years.
They lie!

FIRST SIGHT SYNDROME~

Two guys passed me in The Store then one stopped, came back and smiled at me before rejoining his friend.  I heard them talking behind my back.
"It was first sight syndrome.  You know, when something looks good when you first see it but on second glance not so much~"
10 years ago I might have been hurt or even  offended, but today I felt a sense of pride.
Hah, at least I made him look!

The Ultimate Psych-Out~

It's 9:30 Mother's Day morning and someone is banging on my door.  I peer through the peep hole and see Dickidoo with my middle son Zack.  Wow, didn't see that one coming, but ok!
I let them in thinking they have some kind of Mother's Day surprise in store for me.  Dickidoo asks where my youngest son is and seems irritated when I say he had just left for places unknown.
"We're supposed to work on the truck!"
Right~ I'm thinking and pretend to ignore the obvious ruse.  Dickidoo helps himself to coffee and asks if there is anything to chew on.  I direct him to the egg salad in the fridge and he makes himself a sandwich. 
Okay, so maybe breakfast wasn't the plan.
They get in touch with Art and he returns home.  The guys go out to 'work on the truck'.  Or maybe they are cleaning out my car and giving it a nice wash like they did one year long ago.  I get ready for work then open the door to check on 'the truck'.  Art's girlfriend informs me that they probably aren't out there cos Art had mentioned that they had to go get parts.
Right~  I can play along....
The hands on the clock get closer and closer to my depart time but I dig deep into my unused patience and wait. The guys return and sit down, congratulating themselves in getting the truck running.  It is now time for me to leave for work.  Nobody gets up to see me out the door but I know they're be watching when I see my surprise.
From the sidewalk I recognize the dirt on my car.  I am still hopeful when I open the door... and am greeted by the same old mess.
Then it dawned on me~ they were just waiting for me to leave so they could clean the apartment and fix me a nice dinner.  The day dragged but I got the expected text from one of them, Becca, asking me to come home for supper so she could get something.  Right~  
I got home to an empty but messy apartment.  Supper was the last of the egg salad.
Dickidoo texted me so he could pick up the car to drive Zack back to the Shop and I met them in the parking lot.  He asked how things were going.  I don't think it even dawned on him that it was Mother's Day.
"You sabotaged my Mother's Day!" I accused.  "Those kids probably weren't planning on making breakfast but I could have blackmailed or guilt-tripped them into making something until you came banging on the door to work on the stupid truck... on MOTHER'S DAY!  I saw more of Art's girlfriend than I did of my own children, how sad is that?"
Well, he did offer to take me out to dinner after work but the truth is, it wasn't about us~ it was about me and the kids, and he ruined that.
Well, not really.  My kids did shower me with gifts and cards, notes and texts, hugs and kisses later and throughout the day and once again I was Queen for a day.
But man, that guy really knows how to pee on a parade!