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Pay It Forward Paid Off

20 Feb

There are nice people out there.  Just when I start to feel like impatient, inconsiderate and irrational strangers are all I encounter, a young boy with hip clothes, spikey hair and a cool earring notices someone in need and comes to the rescue.

Ok, so it’s not like I was a damsel in distress or anything that serious – I was more a lady blocked at a turn-stall.  Being a novice at riding mass-transit, I touched my card to open my turn-stall but I was standing at the wrong one.  That meant my paid ticket had been used and I was stuck while a crowd formed behind and Andrew and Nate were a few steps ahead on the other side of the stalls.  That’s when the kind kid held his card through the stall for me to use.  Just like that.  He saw someone struggling and he made a simple, thoughtful gesture.

I think of this experience as a “pay it forward” that paid off because, just a few hours before this, a homeless man asked Andrew if he could spare any money and Andrew opened his wallet and gave the man all he had.  Whether it was the right thing to do or not, the man was so grateful and it felt good to help.  I hope that kid got the same feeling when he helped me.  I really appreciated it.

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When Mom’s Away …

17 Feb
  • The day care won’t know where Nate is when Andrew goes to pick him up.
  • The dog will poop in the bathroom.
  • Nate will tell me all about the dog pooping in the bathroom.
  • Nia will tell me her thoughts about the dog pooping in the bathroom.
  • Nate will stress that he did not poop in his pants.
  • The dog will poop in the kitchen.
  • The dog will throw up.

And that was all within 12 hours or so.  Poor Andrew.  Poor Joey.  I hope he feels better soon.

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Tooth Watch

12 Feb

For the past few months, Nia has been experiencing loose-tooth envy.  The way she tells it, every one of her friends either has a loose tooth or proudly sports a holey smile.  She would ask us why she didn’t have one yet.  When will she?  Can I push on them and make them loose?  She would also routinely think she finally had one and ask us to check to see if she was right.  We would touch the suspected tooth and respond with disappointing news.  Nope.  Not yet.

That all changed last week.  She finally felt her first real wobble!  She was so excited as I picked her up from after-school.  She came running down the hall holding the prized pearly white between her two tiny fingers, “I have a loost toof mommy!”

Now, she’s constantly asking us about it and preparing for the big day –

“When it will be ready to fall out?”
“What can I do to help make it fall out?”
“Can we pull it yet?”
“Why will that hurt?”
“It hurts now.”
“Will it bleed?”
“After it falls out I will have 19 teeth.”
“If I don’t brush my teeth will it fall out faster?”
“I can’t eat that because my tooth might get lost in it and then the tooth fairy won’t come.”

Which leads to the big payoff –

“The tooth fairy is going to bring me two dollars.”

We have no idea where she got that dollar amount.  To me, you can’t put a price on something so precious.  Our baby girl is growing up so quickly.

Now on to worrying about how the tooth fairy will make the “exchange” without waking up the princess.  Sometimes I’m in awe about how our parents pulled it all off.

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Santa Needs to Make an Exchange

2 Dec

Barbie.  Check

Pink Nintendo DS.  Check.

Games (including the one with the princess) to go with the DS.  Check.

High School Musical DVD.  Reluctant, but check.

A few books, other Barbie doo-dahs and princess thing-a-ma-jigs. Check.

I thought we were covered.  Sure, she’ll see a commercial or a picture of a toy and tell us she wants it for Christmas, but we knew we could get away with skipping those “I wants.”

Christmas 2008

 Then, the kids visited this guy –

Of course she tells him she wants something we haven’t purchased.  Something she’s never even mentioned to us.  “A Tinkerbell doll with wings that flap.”

What?  The official request to Mr. Claus would be just fine if we weren’t already over-budget on Nia’s presents.

It looks like we’ll be trading in one want for another.  After all, that want wasn’t directly delivered to The Man.

At least we got Nate’s request right.  “A Thomas that goes chugga-chugga, peeeep-peeeeeep!”

He’s asked us for that exact thing two or three times a day for the past week.  Almost to verify that he will indeed be getting the “Thomas that goes chugga-chugga, peeeep-peeeeeep!”

Boy am I relieved that it is currently hiding out in a closet.

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Behind the Wheel Wonderland

24 Nov

My drive to and from work should stink.  It’s 45 miles away and it takes me anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to make the trip – one way.  It’s usually bumper to bumper, gas and brake and then gas and really brake the whole way.  Sometimes, I’m just stopped.  My car, stuck in the midst of four to six lanes of traffic, backed up for miles.

So, why doesn’t this suck?  Part of the reason is because I like heading toward my destinations.  I look forward to being at work and I look forward to being with the fam.

The other reason my drive doesn’t stink is magical and involves my CD player, the library and the ability to be taken to another world, while still paying attention to the road.  (Although I have missed a few of my turns from time to time.)

In the last month, I’ve listened to five audio books.  Right now, The Secret Life of Bees is calling my name and I can’t wait until tomorrow morning when I’ll start my car and the CD will pick up where it left off.  I’m not just listening to fiction either.  I’ve been educated by Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and some guy telling me about The Millionaire Next Door.

I love my books on CD!  My virtual library book bag is growing by the day and I’m shuffling through discs.  Even Andrew is putting requests in for books.  His all involve the deep stuff – politics, history and opinion.  My next one is much lighter – Marley and Me.  I’m sure it will make me laugh and cry and look like a total lunatic to the drivers stuck in the horrible traffic with me.  Their drive must stink.

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Nia’s Shiner & Nate’s Performance

8 Nov

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Nia: The Voter

5 Nov

Nia’s school had its mock election on Monday and I was able to document Nia’s recap.  I apologize for the quality of the video though – I was in a hurry.

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My Knight in Starched Khakis

21 Oct

She is just a little more than five miles away from her sister’s house when the beyond-bald tires on her beat up, old mini-van decide they couldn’t carry her family anymore.  The tires, like her, are worn out.  Sharing the load of moving from Michigan to Georgia – they both have been pushed to their limits.

“Now this?  Now this is going to happen?” she thinks as she looks for a safe place to pull over.  The tire blew out a few seconds ago but she tries to keep pressing on – like she’s been doing since they first started struggling.

Her four young children are both frightened and interested in what’s happening.  Two started to cry.  The other two ask non-stop questions.  She feels the same way – plus – helpless. She doesn’t know how to change a tire – she can’t afford a tow truck – isn’t a member of AAA.

Then, she hears a voice, offering to help.

Within minutes, he has her van up on the jack and the tire off but he can’t get the spare out of the trunk.  He thinks about giving her his but it doesn’t fit.  Instead, he calls AAA and explains the situation.

The children would have to wait almost an hour.  When he offers to drive her and the children to her sister’s house so they don’t have to be the situation any longer, she was a little nervous to accept but he didn’t give her any reason to doubt his kindness, plus, he had two child car seats in the back – he must be ok.

She’s so overcome with gratitude and emotion that she can’t believe that she told him, “Of course you’re married!  All the good ones are taken!”

***************************************************************************************************************************************

He thinks he’s just stuck behind yet another driver going way below the speed limit on the two lane road to his work.  He feels bad when he sees the old mini-van cautiously pull over to the side.

He knows he has to be at work, but something in him compels him to make sure people are ok.

Little does he know, this is going to be so much more than a tire change.  When he sees the four children, he immediately thinks of his own wife and kids and – what if.  What if they were stranded on the side of a busy road with no one to call for help?  He has to do what he can to get them out of this situation.

He doesn’t think it’s going to be hard to do.  He just has to change a tire -something he’s done more times than he can remember.  But this time is a little different.  The van’s emergency brake doesn’t work and (for mechanical reasons the writer doesn’t grasp) the mom has to stay in the van with her foot on the brake. He finally gets the van on the jack but then he can’t free the spare from its compartment.

Knowing he can’t leave them like that, he calls AAA for a tow truck.  They tell him he will have to be there when the driver arrives in order for her to get the tow without a charge.  He knows it will take about an hour for the tow truck driver to show up so he offers to drive the family where they are headed.  He worries about how the four children will safely fit in his small backseat but rationalizes it would be more dangerous for them to be where they are now.

In the end, the family safely reaches their destination and the Knight in Starched (and now slightly dirty) Khakis makes it to work.  He knows the family still has to figure out how they will pay for the van’s repairs, but he hopes that he helped take a little of the burden off their shoulders – at least for one morning.

 

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Poor Pooch

14 Oct

They really shaved him

Poor Joe-Boy. He went through the shaving, the surgery and now we wait for the healing, hoping it makes him feel all better.

As for the surgery, he now has a metal plate and several screws in his left knee – a fix that many retriever and sporting dogs undergo. His rehab consists of being confined to the downstairs bathroom which, luckily, is one of his favorite places to lounge in the house. He has pills he needs to take pain and inflammation and we have to walk him on a leash for his potty time because he’s not supposed to run or overuse his leg yet. This will last for the next eight weeks.

Our neighbor says it looks like he's mooning

We are just really hoping that he won’t have to have surgery on his other leg. The vets say that it usually happens that way.  Dogs will have one leg’s ligament repaired and then a few months later, the other one tears.  We would just feel so awful for our buddy. He’s such a good dog and we hate to see him hurting or not himself. All he wants to do is run and play. Our 8-year-old puppy.

(To spare some of you from the more graphic scar picture, I didn’t post it on the this blog. If, however, you want to see his boo-boo, click here.)

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If Life was a High School Football Game…

4 Oct

I guess I would be in the second quarter of my years.  Happiness would be winning over anything else I’ve experienced in life and I would have a penalty for that one time I jumped out of a moving car.  Right now though, I’m calling a time out to review some years gone by.

The last time I spent a Friday night at a high school football stadium, I was in high school.  That’s why I was excited to go catch our local teams compete last night.

I loved the atmosphere, the game, the bands, the people watching and the smell of all of that football stadium food.  I really had a blast and the kids loved it too.  It brought back so many memories and feelings, but also added a new feeling – my youth is gone.  I got that feeling when I saw all those teeny-boppers in their cutesy little outfits – their only care being who they’re going to hook up with that night or did they see/talk to so and so.

They are just so young.

What really put it in perspective for me is when I saw a woman, probably in her mid-30’s, surrounded by a bunch of teen girls. The woman was attractive and, I thought, stylish but she seemed to be intimidated and was definitely uncomfortable suddenly face to face with all that youth.  I wondered what she was thinking.  She tried to keep a look of confidence on her face but I could see the thoughts going through her mind.  “Girls, you don’t have anything on me.  Been there, done that – way before you.”  It made me realize how precious our time is.  Before they know it, those girls will soon become us.  After all, many of us were once them.

It’s not that I’m jealous of them or want to go back to that time, it just made me nostalgic and well, basically, feel old.  I know I’m still “young” by many standards but I’m certainly not young enough to:

  • Paint all of the skin visible outside my skimpy shorts and tank top, (That’s another “I’m old” indicator – when I was their age, I would never have considered them “skimpy” shorts.)
  • Act crazy even when I’m just standing in a group of people. (Well, I guess I still do this.)
  • Walk around with my chest out, trying to portray all the confidence in the world. (My posture is getting worse and worse, Osteoporosis?  I drink my milk!)
  • Chill in the Student Section of the stadium. (Man, were we like that?)
  • Not care where I sit, stand, stop, walk.  Being oblivious seems a lot less stressful.

The other feeling I had that made me aware of my age – the fact that I was worried that the players would get hurt.  I’m such a mom!  This one play had five guys tackle one guy and I said, “Oh my!  Did they really need to be that rough?”  Andrew’s response?  “It’s tackle football!”  Man, I hate to see what I’m going to be like if Nate plays!  I’ll be an even older mom then!

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