Smiling Mom

Hi all!!  My pho­tos have been upda­ted.  Go check them out!

So today is my dad’s birthday.

57.

Yikes.

He’s gray now, and bla­mes my tee­nage years for this sud­den onset gray­ness that somehow hap­pe­ned right about the same time I got my first boy­friend and went off to college.

Wha­te­ver, it couldn’t have pos­sibly been all my fault!

I was an angel.

Per­fect.

Ahem.

My dad doesn’t have a sense of humor, at all!

(My dad, gues­sing eClaire’s gender)

Well, maybe a little bit.

He’s a fan­tas­tic photographer.

(eClaire in the same dress my mom and I wore at the same age)

(BC on his second birthday)

(A pic­ture of me last Christmas)

(Uncle J with the kids)

My dad is about the best grandpa a kid could have. He takes time every sin­gle day to talk with my kids. He video con­fe­ren­ces with them through our com­pu­ters and watches as they dance around the house in their goofy ways.

I can mail one of BC’s scrib­ble dra­wings down to San Diego and and my dad treats it like it’s the best art­work he’s ever seen.

He’s everything you could ever hope for in a grandpa.

My kids love him more than just about anything in the world!

My dad often says that I’m quite stub­born. That I’m a bit pig hea­ded and quite strong-willed.

Need­less to say, we weren’t all that close throughout my tee­nage years.

Funny because I get these stubborn-like traits from my dad. Every. sin­gle. one. of. them.

It’s true.

You would think that he would have ‘got’ me a bit bet­ter than he did when I was a teen.

But now that I’m an adult he fre­quently tells sto­ries, to anyone who will lis­ten, about those days. He tells about how I crea­ted a power-point pre­sen­ta­tion of sorts when I was 12 (with a flip chart et. al) and lots of pic­tu­res and dia­grams and direc­tions on how to pro­perly wash a dish. Then I called a mee­ting and pre­sen­ted it to the family.

Or about the time I ran over lightly tap­ped the neigh­borhood boy’s butt with my Toyota truck when I was 16 because he stuck it out at me in the middle of our cul­de­sac and wouldn’t move.

And dare I say, that I usually detect a hit of pride in his voice as he tells each story?

I eat it up! My dad is almost per­fect in my eyes and he has a huge impact on the way I choose to live my life.

He is a great man.

I guess I feel as lucky, if not more, than my kids. My dad loves me more than anything in the world. Until recently I never really unders­tood this type of love. And then Hubby and I had our own daughter.

Now Hubby’s eyes light up and heart melts with just a bat of eClaire’s eyes.

It’s only now that I rea­lize I had, and will always have, the same effect on my dad too.

This is something I will never take for granted.

A dad’s love.

How lucky am I?

Happy Birth­day Dad!

57 and still kickin’

Not Bad!! You may make it to a ripe old age yet!!

So din­ner tonight was, interesting.

I’ve got­ten good at ser­ving vege­ta­bles as the ‘first course’ and the ‘yummy’ food as second course.

For ins­tance, eClaire is a huge fan of mashed pota­toes. Huge. And she’s actually a pretty good eater. But, if given the option bet­ween say… zucchini and mashed pota­toes, she’ll take the mashed pota­toes and nothing else.

So, my kids need to eat a few pie­ces of veg­gies and if they can swa­llow sto­mach it, then they can eat the rest of the meal.

Easy right?

Usually, yes.

Today? No.

BC, my picky one, for some rea­son unbek­nownst to me, deci­ded to pile on the zucchini tonight. He took a ton and ate it all! (I was fee­ling proud. )

eClaire, who will eat anything and everything, sho­ved the zucchini in her mouth.

Yeay! Mom-1, Kids-suckka!!

A few minu­tes later I noti­ced eClaire was gag­ging on her mashed potatoes.

Strange.

Turns out, she still had about six mashed up zucchini in her mouth.

And the stand off began.

SM: eClaire, you need to swa­llow the zucchini.

eClaire: (stic­king the zucchini out of her mouth)

SM: NO!! Make your mouth empty. You need to swa­llow your food!

tweet tweet tweet

Nothing.

SM: If you don’t swa­llow the food, you WILL get a time out.

Nothing.

eClaire was sent time out.

And her food sat in her mouth

And sat.

And sat.

SM: You can get off when you swa­llow that zucchini.

She sat.

And sat.

Finally, like after 10 minu­tes, I brought her back to the table.

I tried mul­ti­ple stra­te­gies at this point to *make* her swa­llow that dam­ned zucchini.

1. You can have a coo­kie when you finish.

2. You can eat your mashed pota­toes when done.

3. EAT YOUR ZUCCHINI

4. Here’s a coo­kie Daddy and BC. Eat it at the table in front of you sis­ter!!

5. Shove it down her throat with my finger.

oh yes I did. In hind­sight, I rea­lize this might not have been a great idea and it cer­tainly wouldn’t win me an award for Mother of the Year.

6. Spit it out and eat it again. (it just sat in her mouth, shocker!!)

7. Spit it out on mom’s fin­ger, Mom mixes it together in the mashed pota­toes and lets eClaire eat the mashed pota­toes laced with regur­gi­ta­ted zucchini.

This one, my friends, worked.

Mom 2 eClaire 0

Or was it eClaire 2 and Mom 0?

Hmm. Did I just loose that one?

Yes­ter­day I spent the entire night slee­ping with BC.

Let me back up.

BC is the kid who can have green snot pou­ring from his nose, totally and com­ple­tely sick, but still runs around without a care in the world.  Usually the only dif­fe­rence in him is the amount of time he sleeps-longer.

Yes­ter­day BC was sick.  We brought him to school just long enough to par­ti­ci­pate in his Christ­mas per­for­mance then took him out, brought him home, and put him down for a nap.

Two hours later, BC woke up crying and com­plai­ning about his ear.  I gave him medi­cine, and told him he’d be OK.

Weeks ago Hubby and I made din­ner plans with a cou­ple whom we’ve been attemp­ting to see for quite some time.  The night was last night.  I briefly thought about can­ce­ling, but then deci­ded that BC would be fine.  After all, even when he’s sick, he doesn’t complain.

Ya.  No.

The minute we got to din­ner, he began crying. I orde­red him his favo­rite din­ner, Mac and Cheese.

He didn’t eat it.

He laid his head on Hubby’s lap and cried.

And cried. His ear hurt.

My son, who is hap­piest in any social situa­tion, wasn’t having it.

After lea­ving din­ner early and calling the advice, Hubby and I deci­ded we’d hold off brin­ging BC to the doc­tor until the morning.

An hour later filled with Tyle­nol and a warm com­press to the ear, BC hap­pily fell asleep.

And then cried. all. night. long.

Poor guy.

There’s little that effects me more than a sick baby.  I felt so hel­pless throughout the night as BC laid on my arm, smashed up against me trying to sleep.

This mor­ning when BC woke up I asked him how he felt.  He pau­sed and thought then said, “Well, I’m still sick but feel much better!”

So today, we’re off to the doc­tor to be told that my son has a cold and there’s nothing they can do to help to see what’s wrong.

And then I’m taking a nap.