Happy Birthday, Dad

Today is my dad's birthday.  He would have been 73.  He has been in Heaven for 7 years.  I don't really think of him very often but today I was.  I am the oldest of 5 children and I know my dad wanted boys.  He had 3 girls first and then 2 boys.  So, for the 7 years that he only had girls, I became his surrogate son.  He let me help him around our ranch.  I helped build fences, I held baby lambs while he cut off their tails, I watched him cut off chickens' heads and then helped clean up.  He didn't talk very much and didn't seem very comfortable around me but he made me feel useful and like he really needed my help.  My dad was hot!  He was only 21 when I was born and he always looked young.  He was my high school principal and I was very proud of that.  Everyone thought he was cool.  He had black hair and long black sideburns and even the bad kids respected him because he was always fair and kind.  He had a hard time opening up to me so we never got super close but I remember when I was a teenager we were riding in the car one day and a song came on the radio.  I said I really liked it and I really liked the words.  He asked who sang it which I thought was a little weird because he didn't really care about stuff like that so I told him.  Shortly after that it was my birthday and to my utter shock my dad had gone out and bought me the album with that song on it.  It is the only present to this day that my dad has ever gotten me and I will never forget the feeling I had knowing that he had taken the time to go out and find that album and buy it for me.  It was called "Watching Scotty Grow" and I don't even know who sang it.  How's that for a random memory?  Anyway, my dad was an awesome dad who always took care of us and gave me a wonderful childhood.  Thanks Dad!  Happy Birthday.  I love you and I'll be there soon. 

Help!

My poor little pregnant daughter-in-law is feeling like poop and I wondered if any of you young moms out there have any tips on how she can feel better?  Did anything in particular help you through your "morning" sickness? (Dumbest name ever.  Who is only sick in the morning?  Must have been a male doctor who came up with that one.) I would love to hear what worked for you.  Vitamins?  Special foods?  Drugs?  It's been a century since I was pregnant so I was hoping maybe modern medicine had come up with something that would help.  Let me know!

Grandma much?

Yahoo!  My sweet Michelle is pregnant!! I am soooo happy.  I can't believe Logan is going to be a dad when he is such a child himself:)  I can't wait to be a grandma again.  Maybe we'll get a little boy this time.  I am so glad that they get to experience the incredible love that a parent has for a child.  Thank you Lichelle for making me so happy.

Lockdown!

Yesterday my daughter's middle school went into lockdown for an hour and a half. Apparently there was an attempted house robbery nearby and the suspects jumped the fence onto the middle school property so the police ordered the school into lockdown until they could apprehend the 4 suspects. The suspects started out with a gun but lost it before they got onto the school grounds. The kids, of course, didn't know any of this. They thought it was just a drill at first but when it drug out longer and longer they started getting nervous. Information came trickling into them from their cell phones and from the teachers' computers and I started getting all kinds of texts from my daughter. First it was a pedophile, then it was two rapists and then they had guns. There were helicopters flying over the school so I knew it was real. I was delivering my Meals on Wheels and had to keep pulling over to answer my daughters texts. I knew she was O.K. deep down inside but I started thinking of all the other school disasters I'd heard about and I started getting a little nervous. It helped a little knowing that her brother was in the classroom right next to hers as a teacher. While sitting on the floor in the dark and in hushed tones for an hour and a half my daughter gained strength from texting her family that she loved them and telling them to pray for her and getting all kinds of encouraging and entertaining texts back from them. Kyle reminded her that Brandon (the teacher) was a closet Ninja and would take care of everything. Dad and Kyle were ready to storm the school and take down any and all threats to their sister and daughter. Michelle (her sister-in-law) was reminding her of past funny memories and trying to keep her spirits up. She also encouraged her to think happy thoughts like the summer release of Eclipse (Twilight). I'm not sure but I'm guessing that at one point or another every student and teacher on that campus thought about their families and wondered if they would see them again and wanted to tell them how much they loved them. Just like the people on the plane that went down on 9/ll, the thing you think about the most when you think it's the end is your family and how much you love them. I'm so glad my family knows they are loved. They say it and hear it every single day. I hope it doesn't take a possible disaster for you to let your family know how you feel about them. End of soapbox speech.

Sisters

For the first time in a very long time I miss my sisters. I have two sisters who don't live anywhere near me and who I don't really have a great relationship with. It's not that we have a bad relationship, we just don't really have a relationship at all anymore. We used to be pretty close while we were growing up. We sang together all over the place and we lived kind of out in the country, away from the rest of the town, so we didn't really have people over much. We just played with each other. We all used to live right here in North County for a short time and celebrated birthdays and other special occasions together and I really enjoyed that time. Since they moved away though we have just gotten caught up in our families and kind of let our relationship die away. One sister hates to talk on the phone and the other likes to talk for hours and I'm kind of in-between so the phone isn't really a viable option. Neither one of them knows how to work a computer so email, which is my favorite form of communication, is also not an option. We rarely see each other and never all at the same time so most of the time I just forget they are even there but sometimes, like today, I think about the fun times we've had and the silly inside jokes we have and our mutual sense of humor and I miss them. So even though they will probably never see this (note computer illiteracy) I want to give a shout out to my sisters. Cathy and Susan, I love and miss you and hope you cherish our past memories as much as I do.

Whatever it takes

Recently our family went through a minor crisis and it was brought home to me like a sledgehammer how important it is for children to have both a mother and a father. While dealing with the situation I realized that if our child only had me disciplining them they would be dead. All I could do was feel. Pain, revenge, anger, sadness, betrayal, disappointment and hopelessness. Thinking was not part of the equation, just feeling. My husband, on the other hand, while still probably feeling some of those emotions (albeit in way smaller doses) was also able to employ his brain into thinking some rational thoughts and coming up with way more realistic solutions than death. In making up with this child it was revealed that they were very thankful to have 2 parents and not just one as the balance would have been off without one or the other. Right in the middle of this fiasco I ran into an old friend who I hadn't seen in awhile. In catching up with the activities of her family she mentioned to me how hard it was to raise children while divorced even though she and her ex are on great terms. She was the one who initiated the divorce so I thought she was happy with the situation but she looked me right in the eye and said "Do whatever it takes to keep your marriage together". She was telling me that when children are involved it is way easier to be unhappy in a marriage than out of one. I think children kind of do that to a person. I think that children would rather have their mom and dad be unhappy together than to have the child be unhappy that they are apart. In a child's mind, if mom and dad are together then there is always hope that they can become happy again if they just try hard enough. Once they are apart, everyone is unhappy and hope is harder to hold onto. This is coming, of course, from a very happily married Mormon wife and mother with absolutely no training or education on this subject so you can take this whole entry with a grain of salt but for all the young mothers out there who are struggling to make a strong marriage, my unsolicited advice is "Do whatever it takes"!

Ouch! Another crack in the rock

I just got back from my walk and while I was on it I got another sliver of wisdom and understanding. Have you ever wondered why certain things happen to you? When you are in the middle of a tragedy or a triumph do you ever wonder, "Why me?"? Recently I have had to draw on feelings from past situations in my life to get me through current ones. In doing so I realized that the reason I had to go through those situations then was so that I could handle the ones now. When I was a little girl I remember vividly on several occasions when I was either getting yelled at or praised that I would think "I will never forget how I am feeling at this moment and I will either a. never do this to someone else if it was negative and hurtful or b. try hard to do this to someone else because it feels good. I'm quite sure that most of you were not nearly such odd children so you probably didn't really focus on your feelings to that extent but if you tried you could probably remember and bring back how you felt on certain occasions. It's amazing how past experiences can help you in later life. You might get a certain type of mother so you can be a different certain type of mother. You may go through the pain and jealousy of having someone close to you seem to have a glamorous and wonderful life while making wrong choices and then watch them pay dearly in later life for those choices so that you can help the next generation with their choices and help them recognize that every choice has a consequence. You may fall in love too young and face all the struggles and challenges that that brings so you can help your children avoid those challenges. To all my friends out there who are struggling with situations that are making them sad like divorce, trying to find a spouse, trying to make their mark in the world and be noticed even if it's maybe not quite the right way to be noticed, know that all this shall be for thy good and that someday you may need to draw on these experiences to help someone else, maybe even your own child. Remember how you are feeling right now and vow to help someone else to not feel that way if it looks like they might.