Visiting Hours

Thirty four years ago yesterday, my mother was in a hospital in Charlotte North Carolina. She walked in as a wife and mother to a four year old daughter. Upon admittance, she brought her quick wit, and I am sure she immediately had the nurses doing her bidding as if it was the very thing they were put on earth to do. I can only imagine the pain my mother was in while she was in that hospital in 1976. Medicine was not as advanced back then, but giving birth to a child that was overdue was a relief with or without an epidural. Visitors came from miles and states away to see mom and the new addition to the family. They brought with them well wishes and congratulations. After all, the birth of a child is an exciting time that everyone wants to share. Mom walked out of the hospital with her husband and her two baby girls. She may not have had all of her strength back yet, but she had enough strength stored in her that during the next 34 years she would teach me what it means to be strong.

Yesterday morning I walked into a hospital in Fairfax Virginia. I walked in as a mother to a four and a half year old boy and a three year old boy. I held the hand of a man I have known as my stepfather for the last fifteen years. I thought of my mother as a rode the elevator to her room. I dug in my heels and tried to muster every bit of strength she gave me and I walked in the room she has lived in for over a week. I saw a woman that resembled my mother. Just days ago, this same woman thought Bush was the President and the date was May 2007. I said hello to this woman and she said “hi, baby”. There’s my mom.

I talked to my mom for a couple of hours before her radiation treatment. I tried to get her to stop messing with the stitches where the shunt had been placed in her head. I reminded her, as she has me so many times, to stop picking. I tried to lighten the mood with a joke here and there and at one point my mom flipped me off as her crooked smile curled. She was still in there. As I painted my mom’s fingernails I found myself counting them. I recalled counting the fingers and toes of my boys as I held them in the hospital after delivery and just being happy they were all there. I felt the same way about mom.

As my mother napped after radiation I sat with my stepdad in a small office near mom’s room. The two of us sat across from a doctor that would soon tell us the fate of my mother. The fate of a woman, that in her early 40’s beat breast cancer with one hand tied behind her back. The same woman, that in the last two years, all but beat an unbeatable lung cancer. The same woman that is called mother, sister, wife, daughter, friend and Senior Vice President of Sales.

“The oncology department is no longer going to follow your mother’s case”. “Palliative Care”. “Six Months will be a shock”. “A list of hospice companies”. They will offer my mother 10 radiation treatments and plan to send her home with hospice. There is nothing more they can do for her. The tumor in her brain that has metastasized from her lungs is incurable and due to the critical location is inoperable. Chemo would make her worse and the radiation buys us some time, but no one can tell me how much time.

Each time I visit my mother now, I wonder if it will be the last. Each time she closes her eyes I wonder if she will open them again. Each time someone says I am just like my mother I say thank you.

Like my mother 34 years ago, I walked out of the hospital a different person. I am still a mother, daughter, sister and friend, but I am stronger because of my mother.

I Pee Near You!

It had to be at least ten years ago. I wasn’t married yet and certainly didn’t have kids. The boys’ dad and I were back in Springfield visiting friends and family for a New Year celebration. As far as I can remember, the evening started as most would have that night. The last thing I remember is being driven through the Taco Bell drive through on the way home. I can’t recall if the person giving us food at the window used English as a second language or if English was my second language for the night. As he handed us our bag of food he gave us his New Year greeting of “I pee near you!”. At first I thought it was just me, since I was after all being the one driven. Once we pulled away from the drive through Brad looked at me somewhat perplexed and asked if I heard the same thing he did. Now you know why you may hear me say “I pee near you!”.  I am giving you a well wishes, not a warning.

I pee near you to you and yours!

"What's that smell... Yankee perfume?"

I was told recently by a family member in my home state of North Carolina that she was going to revoke my “Southern Belle” membership card. It seems, according to a family member that will remain nameless for their own safety, that the North has in a sense, tainted me.

Over the last fifteen or more years, I have moved back and forth between my Southern home and the Northland that somehow sucks me back like a pool vacuum trying to get the smallest piece of soot from the bottom of the pool…it is relentless. Like that last piece of pool gunk; I have finally given in to the pull that I cannot resist; my fate is inevitable. Although my changing ways were vividly apparent to my family; I denied the accusations that I was somehow being “influenced” by “those damn Yankees”.

The irony of the situation is that to my friends in New England, I currently live in Hillbilly Country. I try to remind them that just because we like our “throwed rolls” and our okra fried, it does not mean we are backward in any way. My friends in the first thirteen find it funny that I have to explain the difference between tin and ten to my children; not the actual definitions of the terms mind you but the way the words are pronounced.

Looking back, I suppose it started after attending school in Missouri.  I moved back to North Carolina where I announced in mixed company that I did not care for sweet tea. You could have heard a pin drop. That’s right folks; a pin, not a pen. The family blamed it on the six months I spent in Connecticut. I attributed it to the fact that I like my syrup on pancakes, not in a glass.

The hardest thing for my family to swallow is that I refuse to eat anything that I have affectionately named “geriatric food”. You know what I am talking about; meatloaf, gravy, and beans. These foods require absolutely no dental tools that should be used for consuming sustenance. I just have a problem eating food that I could drink through a straw. As you can imagine; the fact that I “suddenly” will not eat brown gravy was like personally going to the cemetery and rolling over every ancestor I have.

Fortunately, I was given a very short probation period. The committee gathered around the kitchen table while playing Pinochle, and after a heated debate on the merits of my home made pie crust decided I had not shamed the family enough to take my card just yet. I was given a strict diet of pecan pie, Sundrop Soda, and NC State. I think it is fair to say the punishment fits the crime. Now where did I put my Wolfpack sweatshirt?

Pasties, Diaphragms and Back Yard Parties

I rarely write about my family other than hubs and the boys. I guess I feel like the family beyond the nucleus should not be subjected to such scrutiny. This story, however, was just too good to pass up.

A woman (she is in her early 30’s) recently told me the most hilarious story I immediately told her it would be blog fodder but I would not mention her name. Imagine, if you will, a woman. This woman may not be all that endowed. She is wearing something that warrants not wearing a bra. This woman prefers to not show off her nipples so she get some “pasties”. See, here’s the thing; some woman feverishly try to prevent their nipples from showing and others just don’t care. I am of the don’t care group. But I digress.

So my lady friend attends a backyard party and leaves to head to the next event with her beau. The night continues with a couple more parties and my friend heads home. Upon taking off her clothes to go to bed she notices she is missing a pastie. Not much to get worked up about right? Probably in a back yard somewhere; even if someone finds it they will not be able to figure out to whom it belonged. Or so she thinks.

Seems her soon to be mother law stayed behind at the first party. Something catches the eye of said mother in law and she asks another guest what it is. The mother in law picks it up and makes her own assessment. The next morning my friend listens to a somewhat serious voicemail from her soon to be mother in law asking my friend to return the call as soon as possible with the closing “we need to talk”.

It seems that the mother in law was under the impression my friend had lost her diaphragm. I did not know that was a common occurrence or that pasties and diaphragms look alike for that matter.

My friend is slightly embarrassed and assures her soon to be mother in law that it was just a pastie. I guess the mother in law is not quite ready to be a grandmother.

You Talkin' To Me?

I think it is obvious at this point that I have my pet peeves. Rather than dissect my laundry list of issues with others, I will concentrate on just one; eye contact.  Worse than a hand shake from a cold, clammy, dead fish; I cannot stand it when people do not look at me when engaged in conversation.  I am an eye person anyway.  Some woman like full lips, tight butts, strong arms, long hair, etc.  The first thing I notice on someone of either sex is their eyes.  The infamous “they” have said that the eyes are the window to the soul.  I am not sure if that is true, but I believe they can tell a lot about a person.

When I first meet someone I can tell how they feel about themselves by whether or not they look at me when introduced, and for how long.  Eye contact tells me they are confident but not necessarily cocky.  If they look at me too long I can get a little creeped out. You know what I am talking about; that guy that is still looking at you well after the introduction is over and you are looking at the introducing party.  Weirdo.

When I am talking to people I also pay attention to how often they look away.  It is one thing to get distracted by someone or something going on the room; especially if in a public place.  I too can get distracted by shiny objects. However, if I am having a one on one conversation and the other person looks away often, I start to wonder what they are hiding.  I read once that “A person who is looking to his left is accessing the memory; he is trying to recall the facts before relaying them to you. A person who is looking to his right is accessing the creative part of the brain. He is inventing a version of events or story to tell you.” I rarely pay attention to the direction someone is looking, I just get irritated they are not paying attention to the conversation. It’s just a mutual respect thing.

The one part of eye contact that we have no control over is the size of our pupils. In 1975, a study discovered pupils do more than simply react to light. When we are interested in the person we are talking to or the subject we are talking about, our pupils get bigger. When we're bored, they get smaller. To verify this, next time you're hanging out with a friend or significant other, talk about something you know he finds interesting, then suddenly change the subject to changes in this year's tax laws and watch his pupils change. I have tried this with hubs and can verify the validity. What do you think I chose as my subjects?

Because I am Mom, and I Have One Too

I normally stray away from "those" posts.  You know the ones; all about how little junior is such a super star and is in the gifted program and blah blah.  Sure my boys are great and super cute but they also drive me nuts at times.  Then they redeem themselves by saying something like "mommy, put on this blanket; super heroes need capes".  Where do they get this stuff and do they know what they are saying?  They break my melting heart.

I started this blog over two years ago with the objective of keeping my nationwide gypsie family up to date on what is happening with the boys; hence this post.

Little Man is graduating from preschool today.  I realize he only turned four in June but he is going to attend a super cool program at the elementary school!  The program integrates children of appropriate development with others that may be having difficulties.  I am most excited that LM will have the opportunity to be  in class with some hearing impaired kids. The idea behind the program is for Little Man and his counterparts to mentor the other kids and vice versa.

In honor of this exciting milestone I wanted to document some of his recent answers to a teacher:

My Favorites:

Food: Pizza
This is so true; the kid could eat his weight in pizza every day.

Music: Big and Rich
Another truth.  Every time we get in the car he asks to turn on Big and Rich.  It is a good thing we have a number of their albums or I would go crazy.

Sport: Baseball
Like his mama he doesn't like to do anything if he is not good at it from the get go.  He has had the most success and fun with baseball.

Color: Red
Of course it is.  I bet he will marry a redhead too.

Movie: Batman and Spiderman
Big surprise.

Book: Lightning McQueen
I need to find out where he read this book.  We obviously need to get it at home.

Place: The Zoo
What kid doesn't love the zoo?

Subject: Puzzels
This is the neurotic in him; the challenge of putting things back in their place.  That's my boy!

My Nickname: "No"
Well I normally call him crazy monkey.

My hobby: Playing with my kitty
I am not sure if Poco the kitty would call that playing.

If you could chose any animal to be what would it be and why: Big giant elephant because I really want to scare people.
I don't consider elephants that scary.  Might need to get this answer analyzed.

What would you like to do or become in the future: A firefighter.
Not sure about this one.  Apparently we hang out with too many firefighters.  His favorite uncle is a firefighter and a friend of ours  that Little Man says is "super funny" is also a firefighter so we tend to visit a station regularly.  If I ask their wives they would say "mama don't let your baby grow up to be a fireman" because the schedule sucks.  May need to consider new hang out spots.

Like a string on a sweater that you pull but you know better/But doing what you shouldn't is half the fun