I am thankful for family, cleaning supplies and Benedryl

As many of you did, I decided that the Thanksgiving break would be a good time to clean house. I had off from school from the Wednesday through Sunday. Sadly, it was not enough time. Family obligations pulled me in several different directions.

I had a funeral to attend on Wednesday, which was more important than cleaning. My Uncle Bob was a WWII vet. His funeral was both amazing and sad. He had a 21 gun salute, a bugle play taps, a poem and a flag folding ceremony. It made me realize that there are so few WWII vets left that we need to honor the ones we have left.

Thursday was Turkey Day. I got up early with the children and worked on organizing the kitchen as I made my grandmother's version of sweet potato casserole (it is really a dessert). My husband got the children bathed for me while I worked on picking out clothes to wear, putting away laundry, and just cleaned up around the house. But then the hives came. MM broke out in hives for no reason we could fathom. We thought it was the soap since Andy used an older bottle of baby shampoo, but now we are not so sure. After getting her dressed, I went to the store to get a few things including cream to put on the hives. Then we went to my sister-in-law's house for dinner. The hives came back with such force, we left Evelyn's and went to Kmart (thank God it was still open) and got Benedryl. That took care of it for a while, but as soon as the Benedryl wore off, the hives returned. The rest of the break was spent putting cream on hives and dosing her with Benedryl. We still have not figured it out.

On Friday I worked on organizing closets, sorting through clothes, making piles of clothing to be donated, cleaning my room, organizing the linen closet, doing laundry... Needless to say I had more than a day's worth of cleaning to do. Although I continued off and on over Saturday and Sunday, I still have to vacuum and wash windows. I did finally find my drapes in the back of my closet so I can put drapes up in my living room and get rid of those horrible, broken, wooden blinds that the previous owner had. I have people coming over to celebrate my son's first birthday this coming weekend and I really need to get my house ship-shape; however, my husband is going to the mountains to go deer hunting this Friday so I will not have any more help after Thursday!

On Saturday, I had a surprise wedding to go to. One of my former students got married. She was beautiful, the groom was handsome and the wedding was simple but elegant. I cried, and took multiple pictures. She had only told me about the wedding a week before hand because they realized that their list of attendees had gotten up to 350, but they could not afford such a huge expense, so this wedding was their alternative to eloping. I, however, could not stay for the reception because I had previously made arrangements to visit a friend of mine whose mom is quiet frail.

Finally, Sunday. My mom had hand surgery last month on her right hand. She had carpal tunnel release and a joint replaced in her right thumb. Needless to say, she is not working up to speed. Because this holiday season is finding me low in cash, I have turned to giving services for gifts. Since my mom is not able to clean house very well, I went to her house to clean. I spent about five hours doing minutia cleaning, the kind that would require two hands. I made beds, dusted floorboards, washed windows (not all, some), organized a bookcase to fit more books, re-arranged furniture, cleaned the refrigerator, cleaned toilets, wiped down counter-tops, scrubbed floors, vacuumed the stairs, vacuumed, and decorated. I ran out of steam before I got upstairs, so I have to go back in two weeks to finish cleaning upstairs, but thankfully there is only two bedrooms and a bath there.

So, my house is mostly cleaned and my mom's house is mostly cleaned. MM hives are being controlled by Benedryl until we can figure out what is causing them. So, overall, I am thankful for family, cleaning supplies and Benedryl.

My version of "The Necklace"

So there is a short story about a vain woman who wants to have more and be adored but is stuck married to a middle management person. She convinces him to go to a ball and borrows a wealthy friends diamond necklace for the event. She is dazzling and has a wonderful time; however, she realizes that she has lost the diamond necklace! Her husband finds an exact match, but it will require much sacrifice to pay for it. The woman must clean houses and take in laundry, while her husband works two jobs. Finally, after many, many years, the necklace is paid off. The vain woman is but  shadow of her former, beautiful self. She sees the wealthy "friend" whose necklace was borrowed in the park one day. The vain woman approaches her and the wealthy woman does not remember her. The vain woman tells her story and ends with, but now I am glad to say that it is finally paid for. The wealthy woman looks at the once beautiful, but shallow friend and says, "Oh dear, the necklace was but paste!" In other words, it was fake!

I feel as if I am in the middle of this story, but I can not claim to be beautiful, but I am sure I have been a snob. I am doing "penance" (not Catholic though) for not being caring enough or unselfish enough in my youth. I wasted money that I did not have and I did not appreciate what I had. I shopped to fill in a need, but did not know what that need was. I am now paying the piper, so to speak. I am stuck working as many hours as I can squeeze into the day and it is still not enough. I want to be able to do and provide better for my family but it is impossible to squeeze anymore time into the day. I wish I had some of that stupid money that I wasted over the years. I wish I could go back in time and smack some sense into the younger me! Until then, I am going to have to weather the economic storm that placed me in this stinky spot and hope that next school year will be better.

Sorry to be a downer this time!

Oh, BJ has eight teeth and can stand by himself (at least for 30 seconds or so)!

The glue that holds the family together

My grandmom Van Den Heuvel died 17 years ago; she was the glue that held the extended family together. In the years since her passing, my family has lost some of the best traditions, one of which was always getting together for Thanksgiving.

To share the "burden" of the meal, my aunt and my mom would trade off years. Who ever had the meal would take care of the main parts plus a few side dishes and the guest family would bring a few favorite side dishes with them. There would be aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, grandparents, and friends squeezed into one house. One year we had 24 people for dinner. We could never sit all at one time, so the men sat first and the children sat at the children's table. Once that part was complete, the men would waddle over to the living room to watch the game and the kids would race each other up and down the stairs, walk outside, and/or sit at the women's table. It was at the second seating that the best news/ gossip could be heard. I always enjoyed sitting there and listening to my older cousins, mom, aunt, grandmom and other relatives talk about life. It was a wonderful experience.

This year will be the first year that the family is not getting together. Well, I should say most of the family. My parents are staying in Florida because my youngest sister and her family are traveling to them for Thanksgiving and Disney World. My sister who lives in Virginia is staying there to work on her house that she recently put on the market. My oldest sister is doing something with her husband at the American Legion. I had offered to make the Meal for the sister who lives nearby, but now am left with only my immediate family (not that they are not important, but I make dinner for them every night). My aunt and uncle are doing something separate from their children and their children are going to different homes for their Thanksgiving meal. What used to be a wonderful, crazy, loud Thanksgiving meal that lasted for nearly three hours is now a thing of the past.

Grandmom would have been so sad.

BJ updates

It has been a while since I have shared anything about my son. He is 11 months old now and crawling up a storm! I was really worried about BJ not crawling since he seemed to want to bypass the whole process and move quickly to standing and walking. His earlier digestive issues seemed to impact the desire to be on his tummy, but now that he realizes that he does not have to have his head down while crawling, he is like Speedy Gonzalez!

Other than the crawling his personality is really beginning to shape. He loves to laugh, especially at his sister. I think that MM is his number one toy! The other day she entertained him for about 20 minutes pretending to "spit" out a soft block. BJ was into full bodied laughs at the end of it. I can not tell you how relieved I am about this. The first five months of my life with him was not the most magical and I really worried there would be other issues developing. Who doesn't worry about autism or some other issue when there are so many complications with the pregnancy and then the first five months being so rough. Not that it compares in anyway to parents who have children with severe issues, but since my only comparison was with my sister's children and my first born, BJ was a challenge. To add to that, I have been under so much stress with work that I know that my stress can be felt by my children. I did not want to do anything to create an issue where there might not have been one otherwise.

I also think that BJ is going to be clever like his sister. He saw the vacuum cleaner cord the other day and crawled with it over to the outlet (covered of course) and tried to plug it in. Now, I do not vacuum in front of him, but he made the connection that its plug got put into the wall at that point. You know I went out and got more outlet covers that day! He seems to sit back, analyze, plan his attack and then makes his move. He has also gotten his sister down a few times (revenge!) and I have had to rescue her.

Oh, the teeth are coming in with a vengeance and his is getting huge. The teeth all decided to arrive at the same time. For awhile he only had two teeth, then a third one appeared, but all on the bottom. Well, the upper teeth are making an appearance, but it is the eye teeth! So just in time for Halloween, he had fangs! I am going to guess that by his first birthday he will have another six making an appearance if the little gum buds are any indication. He is now 25 pounds and 28 inches tall. For a little perspective, MM is 3 years old, 31 pounds and 36 inches tall. BJ better be a professional football player!

I know that there will be many more interesting firsts with him, I just hope that I appreciate them as much as I did with his sister. I do not want to treat him like the second born, but his own unique self.