Unmitigated

Is it Insane to Try to Post in Between Trick-or-Treaters?

There aren't many Halloween-age kids in my neighborhood, BUT...we live in a safe neighborhood that is near to many that aren't so safe. Every year it makes me feel good that we can provide a safe and fun Halloween for 75 -80 kids whose parents don't want to take them to the local crack house.

On the other hand, it means I spent $34 on candy for tonight. Last year, I had just enough for the little ones, and closed up shop once the costumeless teenagers started visiting. I don't object to teenagers, as long as they have gone to the trouble to get dressed up...as something other than a sullen teenager.

What's new? Hmmm. Not too much. I just had the carpet cleaned for the first time in about 4 years, and tooki the opportunity to rearrange the furniture. It looks and feels much more spacious in here...hard to do with a 1,000-square-foot house. 

Last weekend, while the Tigers were stinking it up in the World Series (still love you, boys!), Jim and I went up north with a friend for Potterfest. We arrived Friday at about 3 pm, and left Sunday around 4 pm. In between, we watched ALL EIGHT Harry Potter movies. It was Nerd-vana.Some of them I had only seen once, in the theater, and remembered very little of how they were translated from book to film, so they felt very fresh to me. I ordered a box set of the Bloomsbury UK hardcovers of all seven books from Amazon.co.uk. The Potter-phile and Anglo-phile inside me is just dying to get my hands on the originals, which Jim will wrap and give me for Christmas. Seven hardcover books shipped from London to Metro Detroit for a grand total of about $93. 

I'm not going to say much about the election except...today I got an email from Robert Redford. None of my Republican sisters did, so THERE! One other thing about the election in Michigan...it seems as though every special interest group has decided that their particular ideas should be enshrined in our state constitution. Really? No. Just no. Also, I have to ask...why is it referred to as "inaccuracy" when candidates or parties lie and distort? If you do it on purpose, I think it should be called what it is. Lying. (No, Mittens, Chrysler is NOT moving any Jeep jobs to China.) No more election crap. I will be SO glad when next Tuesday has passed. My son registered to vote just in time to make this his first election...and our ballot this year has several pages!

Mr. and Mrs. Partly Cloudy (daughter and son-in-law) returned recently from their honeymoon. Yes, they got married in November last year, but  Mister PC had just started a new job, and didn't think it prudent to ask for a week off. As a gift, we sent them to Vegas for a week, where they stayed at Mandalay Bay. I understand it's lovely. I have never been, and have no desire to go either. Honolulu, yes. 

As I type this, it is about 7:45, and I haven't had any kids come calling for about 15 minutes. I hope that's not all there are, or I am gone be eating a lot of candy over the next couple of weeks.

 

Gratitude

*I haven't posted in so long, nor typed on a regular keyboard, that I have lost the skills required. Also, my netbook doesnt add in the apostrophes for me.*

You all know my daughter got married last November, right? She married Lovely Young Man, and they are happily ensconced in the house across the street from us. Lovely Young Man has a new, full-time job, and they own their house, and the New Mrs. has a job she loves.

Every parent out there is sighing with me. What a wonderful thing; to know your child is moved on safely and happily, but not so far as to be painfully separated.

My son, on the other hand...well, he is still a bit up in the air as to location, but the girl? She is a doll. She is smart and funny and beautiful, and they are crazy about each other. I could not have hoped for a better partner for my boy. The fact that they currently live about 2,000 miles apart? We'll call that a hiccup. A minor irritation (for me, at least. I'm sure they find this obstacle to be more than a minor pain).

But they both seem determined to see this through until such time as they can be in the same place together. I am so happy for them, yet I ache for them both when they must separate after each week or two together. Since December of 2011, they have been in the same place at the same time for a grand total of about six weeks, not including her current visit of two weeks. 

So: No sighing for this one just yet, but it still feels good.

Really, Golf Digest?

My son has a subscription to Golf Digest. I think he likes to read about the clubs he can't afford and the courses he'll never play. The new issue arrived today...

For some reason...this looks so familiar to me...oh, wait! I know!

Apparently it's okay for Tiger to smile in public again.

Nineteen

Nineteen years ago today, my son was born.

He was smaller than that, but not by much. His head was 34 centimeters around, and I felt every centimeter, since I dilated immediately to a 10 after the doctor broke my water.

That's him, top center, with his Relay for Life team, organized by the buddy to the right of him. Down in front, the goofy kid with the red shirt is Joe. Jim and Joe met in preschool at age 4 and a half. They have been best pals ever since.

One of the proudest moments of his life was earning this blue jacket. He became a member of the SWAT team (Special Winning Attitude Team), and it meant that he got to help the teachers at martial arts classes, because he was patient, and dedicated, and trustworthy. Next to him is one of the village of moms he has grown up with, Miss Liz. She and her husband Rocco own and run Ambrose Academy of Wing Chun Do, in Livonia, a place I have trusted my son to for the last eight years.

This year, after he earned his green belt in the adult program (he was a black belt in the kids' program), he applied to and enrolled in the Instructor in Training (IIT) program in Wing Chun Do. The cost for the entire program is the same as one semester at a state college...but this is so much more. Sibok Rocco gets him to think. About teaching, about training, about living life well. I'm very proud of him, and I hope and suspect he is doing this because it calls to him. What better motivation?

This is my handsome young man:

Three inches taller, and he'll need to duck going through doorways!

Happy birthday, Jimba! I love you.

My Son, the Worrier

My almost-19-year-old son is not much of a communicator. It's something that I bug him about occasionally. It's a little ironic that I bother him about it, because I'm certain this stoic attitude came from me. I stil work on communicating with people I love. I am a little better at it now than I was at his age, but if I am speaking truthfully (and I'm trying), then the degree of improvement has been small-ish.

I added the "ish" there, because I'm also trying to cut myself some slack, but that's another topic, and this post was supposed to be about my son. SO...

My friend's pediatrician told her something very wise. There are three things you can't make kids do, as a parent: eat, sleep, and use a toilet. I never wanted to battle over food, because I didn't want food to have that kind of emotional baggage. I was very lucky to have two good, cooperative sleepers. The toilet?

After months of battling with my daughter about toilet training, I decided that I was not going to battle the next kid, and I let him decide when he wanted to do the whole 'potty like a big boy' thing. Which meant that he, like his sister before him, left diapers behind at nearly the age of four, when it was time for Pre-K. My sanity was saved, but not my budget. Diapers that fit a three-year-old kid are expensive!

As part of getting ready for Pre-K, he had a physical, like his sister had. He was very excited to get to pee in a cup! It turned out that there was just the merest hint of blood in his urine, and the doc wasn't alarmed, but wanted to do an ultrasound, just to err on the side of caution.

It was scheduled for the following week, and I spent some time telling him about how it wouldn't hurt, and that the doctor would be able to use a special machine to take a look inside of him.

Whatever I said, I somehow managed to increase his fear, rather than allay it, and on the way to the doctor's office for the ultrasound, he said, with tears in his little blue eyes, "Are they gonna take off my brown?"

Your what?

He grabbed the skin on his arm, and said, "My brown. Are they gonna take it off to see inside me?" We are a pretty pale family, but the boy has always gotten a bit of a suntan, despite the sunscreen.

He thought they were going to remove his skin to look inside.

Let me tell you how much my heart broke for him, right there. Poor baby, had been worried for days but didn't say a thing, until he could no longer hold it in.

Ready for more?

The summer of 1999, I was getting ready to return to college to get my teaching degree. We had been talking to the kids about it for months, as it meant a few changes in schedules, etc, for all of us. The boy, now seven years old, asked again, with those damn blue eyes, "Mom, when are you moving into the dorm?"

Gah! How long he had been carrying that one around, I don't know, but he managed to break my heart again. He knew that college students lived in dormitories. The idea of a commuter campus was beyond his imagining. Older sister didn't seem worried about anything, so maybe he thought she wasn't concerned because she was nine years old, and maybe when you are nine, you don't need mom so much.

Lately, when he asks us about things like the Instructor-in-Training program he is joining at the martial arts school, I can see him framing questions carefully. I know there is some kind of fear in there somewhere, and now, if there were tears in his blue eyes, I'd have to look way up to the top of his six-foot-three frame to see them.

Damn kid. Better not break my heart again.

*sigh*