Happy Thanksgiving!

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Hug a little tighter today

I decided to go grocery shopping at 5:00 am this morning to beat the Thanksgiving last minute rush. I weighed the pros and cons and it seems that loosing sleep beat out over taking three restless kids to THE VERY BUSY day before Thanksgiving grocery store.

As I finished my shopping and packed my bags it was still dark. I hopped into the car to head home.

As I was turning onto the off ramp from the highway I could see flashing lights. As I got closer I could see the ambulance and the four squad cars. As I got closer still I saw the motor cycle laid down on the pavement, broken glass shattered on the road and a person completely lifeless on a gurney covered from head to toe with a blanket. The paramedics and policeman were not rushing around with any urgency.

And as I drove away all I could think of was the empty space he will be leaving at his family’s dinner table and the pain they will have to endure this Thanksgiving.

Dream analysis please

Last night I dreamt that my children cut off all my hair in the middle of the night while I slept. They left the cut off ponytail, bound by a binder, in bed with me so when I woke up it was laying on my pillow beside me.

A little touch of Esther

Esther is my Grandma. She is my mom’s mom. She was an amazing woman. Not in that she “did” so many things to save the world or make an impact locally or globally, but she was an amazing woman in spirit and strength and kindness. She died from cancer a month before CT was born. I wasn’t able to make the funeral because I was on strict bed-rest. I have always been sad that I wasn’t able to make the trip to say my final good bye to her. I have also always wished she could have spent time with my kids. They would have loved her.

I decided to knit each of my kids a scarf for Christmas this year. I took a great deal of time in finding the yarn that I thought each child would like. As I started knitting PJ’s hot pink,eye-lash, confetti yarn scarf, I realized I didn’t have the right sized needles. I pulled out some old plastic needles my mother had given me which were just the right size. Halfway through the scarf, I was thinking how crazy the very long and very bright yellow the needles were and then it dawned on me…they are my grandma’s.

The realization made me pause. It made me miss her. It made me think of how lucky I am to still have them. It makes me think how lucky PJ is she will get a little bit of both of us for Christmas this year.

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$10 sale at Threadless

If I had an extra ten bucks to spare I would buy my haiku loving husband this t-shirt and then I would have to buy CT this shirt and then PJ would really like this one (but PLEASE don’t tell her what is really going on in the picture) and then you can’t leave out KP, so here is his shirt.

And if I were to buy one for myself…it would be this one.

The TT’s have hit

I am officially calling it…KP has hit the terrible twos. It doesn’t matter that he is 2 ½, it is here. My sweet funny little man has successfully turned nasty.

Each one of the kids hit their ultimate rottenness at different times. PJ started at 18 months and it lasted until she was 3. CT breezed right threw his second year without a problem and on his third birthday, he became an asshole, however it only lasted 6 months.

I found this “new” behavior funny at the beginning of the week. But today, when he ran out the gym door, down the hallway and almost into the street with no mom, no shoes and no coat, he got punished and that made him very mad.

The punishment was light, I wouldn’t put his shoes on his feet and I wouldn’t let him walk to the car by himself. So he screamed and screamed and screamed all the way to the car, while being buckled into the car seat (landing a few slaps to mom’s face) and then all the way home, which took 20 minutes. He wasn’t just screaming nonsense. He totally communicated his feelings and his feelings were:

YOU ARE A BAAAAAAAADDD MOOOOOOOMMMMYYYYYYY!

Can’t you just feel the love?

HEAD LICE

Yesterday CT brought home a handout on HEAD LICE from the school nurse. It was so nice of them to let us know that someone has indeed contracted HEAD LICE in his class. Included in the information was the whole life cycle of the louse, which is very compelling and interesting reading for a Thursday afternoon.

I remember back in grade school when there would be a head lice scare. The teachers would line us up by class so we could wait patiently, or not so patiently, for the entire school to get their heads checked by rubber gloved woman sitting at card tables with old fashioned black combs just waiting to find the little critters laying nits in someone’s hair.

Then, once they found the culprit, the poor little bastard would immediately be sent home for the day to be disinfected. It didn’t matter to the gloved woman that the infected kid would be ostracized for week’s even months later, they just wanted them out. And by the end of that school day, everyone knew who had it.

Oh sweet school day memories.

The man who hangs on to all

My father and I were having one of our many daily phone conversations of the day and politics crept in, seeing it is November 7th and all.

This particular call consisted of how his voting went, who he voted for and why he voted for them. The he went on to tell me why he wouldn’t want certain other candidates to win.

He got to the end of his list, took a deep breath and while exhaling remembered one more female candidate that he did not like and did not want to have win. I of course had to ask him what was wrong with her. His response…her dad’s a drunk and an imbecile.

Anything is possible

Yesterday CT and I took a bike ride on the path near our house. As I walked out the door and buckled my helmet he told me that we wouldn’t see the train today because he had just heard it go by.

He was hoping to see it. Last time we rode we stopped on the bridge as the train passed underneath us; we laughed and laughed as the bridge shook with the enormity of the train passing by and our hair whipping around our heads.

As we made our way down the trail, we start to hear the far-off rolling thunder of the train. I ask CT if he hears it. He turns around to see it coming up behind us. As it meets us and speeds by, CT is eyeing it up. It is rolling fast only 30 feet to our right. To him he can almost touch it. I see him start to go, and look, and go. You can see it in his eyes, he’s trying to catch it, be as fast as it, be with it. With his little bike and his little legs going around and around and around as fast as they can.

It looked like an old movie scene in sepia tones. All you saw in the frame was the boy moving as fast as he could so filled with excitement at the possibility of catching the train and the train just effortlessly slipping away into the horizon.

I so wish I had my camera.

Goin’ out

Tonight my sweetie and I are going out on the town to see Kubla Khan. If you are in Minneapolis and can make it to tonight’s show at the 400 Bar, you must. If you can’t, at least give them a listen, and then…buy their CD.

Oh and by the way, Happy Birthday Nathan!