And that's why you need to wear pajamas...

Sleeping in sweatpants has been a habit for years.  While it goes against all appropriate marriage protocol, I am convinced that safety should outweigh beauty.  To prove my point….

Recently, after spending the day doing yard work, I bypassed my evening dressing ritual after showering.  Sleep came soundly…until 3am…when my son burst through our door and yelled the one word no one wants to hear at 3am.  “FIRE!!!!!”

My brain slowly started processing…Fire?  Where?  What?  Huh?  And then I looked down….Where are my pants?  The thoughts continued with….Why is there smoke?  Why can’t I see anything?  And then rounding back to...Where are my clothes???  Nothing gets your heart pumping faster than the realization that you are in a fire...in the room farthest from the exit…and you are stark naked.  At this point, I had fallen off the bed and lie tangled in a sheet in the smoke-filled room.  For one brief second, I started to run down the hall, in the sheet, only to have good sense stop me dead in my tracks.  I think I was willing to die in the flames, rather than risk never being able to look my neighbors in the eyes again.

My husband, who WAS wearing sweatpants, was running down the hall.  Apparently middle age brings on an “every man for himself” mentality.  Fortunately, my 21-year-old son is still young enough to multi-task.  He was able to get dressed AND put out the fire.  While I was still searching for pants, he grabbed the garden hose and drenched the flames which had quickly grown from a rogue candle.  I stumbled down the hall after locating appropriate fire attire, feeling good that I wasn’t preventing him from ever marrying by exposing what 50-year-old women look like sans clothing. 

On a related note, when cooking bacon and removing the pesky smoke alarm, replace it promptly.  The smoke will eventually reach it in the drawer, but most likely not until the fire is out.  The firemen made sure to point this out on several occasions while surveying the damage.  You also will not be allowed back in until they have knocked open at least one wall and declared it “safe.” They will try to make you feel as stupid as possible for leaving a lit candle on a stack of newspapers.  Our middle son had a lot of explaining to do.

We are extremely grateful that we survived the fire with less than $1000 damage.  We are now a flameless-candle family with eight smoke detectors in a 1300-square-foot house.  Everyone received new pajamas for Christmas…in a box with a fire extinguisher.

Time Marches On

Time continues to move on...my boys are all over the age of 18 now.  As a matter of fact, this month I will be the proud parent of 19, 21 and 23 year old "boys".   I can't quite get to the point of calling them men, even though that's what they are.  I'm faced with memories of their childhood every time I get in the car, walk in the mall or just look around the house.  My sister and I went to the movies at Parkway on Friday and as I followed her into a store, I saw PacSun...home of endless visits for skateboard shoes and shirts.  We also spent hours at Avalanche and Tilly's looking for backpacks and boards.  This does not even touch on the time spent at skate parks, or just regular parks.  What I remember most about raising boys?  Only keep them in the house when they are ready to sleep...any other activities are best done outdoors. 

We took Dexter to the dog park at Mast and I could almost see the boys riding bikes and skateboards around the park.  I was filled with memories of birthday parties and park church services.  Driving down Mast takes me to dropping Tommy and Matt off at Santana or in earlier years, dropping Chris off at West Hills.  I'm also faced with the horrible thoughts that I had of wanting to "just tap" some of the teenagers walking in front of my car.  Thank God for inhibition....if I didn't have it...I'd be in jail!

When I drive west, I remember the summers of going to the beach every day when I was teaching at night.  We had a eight seat van - it would be filled with boogie boards, coolers, towels and of course....all the neighborhood kids.  I'm not sure if we ever went anywhere with just three boys...it was usually five or six at least.  It was a huge transition for Matt when we gave up the van for a Honda Civic.  I still remember showing up to pick him up from the beach and he had five friends waiting with him...five friends the size of five men to be fit into the Honda.  Did we make it home?  I'm not telling since I have a feeling that some legal issues could unfold!

What I remember most?  I loved it.  I was faced with hearing of a young family loosing a three month old baby recently.  Ever since then, the memories have increased.  I can't go anywhere without thinking of the time we've spent together.  I need to get my scanner fixed so I can start posting pictures again.  Most of my pictures, however, are in my head.  I have heard of women getting depressed when their children leave the nest.  I don't feel depressed....possibly due to the fact that no one can actually move out in San Diego before their 35....but also because I truly just feel grateful that I had the time with them.  I wish I could have made it last longer but right now...I'm so happy for the time that I did have. 

To my boys...you make me smile daily.  Thank you for being who you are.  I love you very much.

Revisit to "Things I have learned"

I love rereading old emails.  I found this one the other day from a class that I was teaching with Ivy Blumberg.  Thought you might all enjoy....

Things I have learned:


1. Don’t let stress rule in the morning. We can pass our stress on to our children and set them up for a stressful day. It also impairs our judgment. It causes you to do things like pulling out of the driveway with the passenger door open. (I never knew that a van door could bend in half…literally!)

2. Don’t let fast food become your norm. When you do have time to serve a home cooked meal, the children won’t eat it because it doesn’t come in a wrapper.

3. Don’t buy a house with white tile floors if you have three boys.

4. There is no house cleaning fairy. And no matter how hard you pray, God will not clean the house for you either.

5. If you think that teenagers need you less, you haven’t been reading the paper or watching the news. The amount of money you will spend on your kids increases in direct proportion to their age.

6. Don’t forget to pray in the morning. Going out into a working moms day without the protection of prayer is like trying white water rafting without an oar. You go wherever the ripples take you rather than where you want to go.

7. Don’t try to make up for a lack of previous vacations by visiting an entire state in one week.

8. Don’t let guilt dictate your decisions. This will lead to you to making decisions like having 15 11-year-old boys over for a sleep over after you have worked 70 hours in a week.

9. Don’t take on more than you can chew…situations get out of hand quickly…the police are called and soon you have four eleven year olds spread out on the hood of a police car. This is not a good testimony to your neighbors.  (And yes....this really happened!)

10. Teach your children to pick up their toys when they are non-lethal. Lego’s cause a momentary pain, fishhooks require an ER visit.

And lastly….

Don’t forget to laugh. It may cause more wrinkles than crying but your children won’t look at your red eyes and wonder if you’ve been smoking things that you’ve warned them about.

Little Cowboys

As I looked through my magic box of pictures today, I was first of all remiss that it has been over a month since I have written.  It does not seem like its been since July....where in the heck did August go?   I started up a new term in school again a few weeks ago, and I am once again buried in Nursing Research studies.  This is a welcome break!

I found three pictures that brought me back to a somewhat simpler time.  It was not unusual years ago to find a lone cowboy, seemingly out of place on a city street, walking his Shetland Pony.  He would find young mothers, like myself, and we would pay a nominal fee to have our kids photographed with the pony.  The kids loved it and I'll bet you can find similar pictures in boxes everywhere in the United States.  I wish I could find the dates of the pictures - Matt looks about 3 so I'm assuming it was around 1995. 

I have other pictures of the kids on the horse, but not a full set.  Matt's is somehow missing.  I have no memories of him not getting on the horse but at my age, I've discovered that I have blocked out all that is traumatic.  These ages were so much fun.  The boys were in constant motion - it's amazing that they stood still long enough to get the pictures.  I'm sure that the horse must have been medicated.  Looking at the pictures, he does look extremely subdued. 

Another picture that brought a smile to my face is one of the four of us.  I know we weren't smiling all the time.  I know there were tears.  I know there were times that we drove each other crazy.  I even remember the horrible day that we collectively killed the guinea pig - another story for another time.  Overall, however....this is what I remember most.  Three amazing boys that made my life have some very special meaning.....It doesn't get much better than that. 


Love to you all.....

The Family that Works Together....

This post speeds ahead to just last year.  We decided to open a family business....me, the boys, and Eric.  A little bit of history - Before the boys were born, I worked as an Inventory Auditor for several companies, one of them based in Burbank.   I worked for a very nice man, Chris Smith, and basically crawled around on convenience store floors with a calculator strapped to my leg.  It was what I would call honest work, albeit, not very glamorous.  Every piece of retail inventory in the store had to counted, categorized and totaled.  Every soda can....every candy bar....every gum pack....and most of the stores were not what you consider....squeaky clean.  When my old boss contacted me a few years ago asking me to pick up his San Diego region, trust me, my immediate answer was "No Way!"  I have a real job now, one that doesn't require me to shower afterwards...but then, he asked the winning question...."how about having your boys do it?"   Hmmm....maybe....they would have their own business....and regular money coming in....and I would be leading them down the path of entrepreneurship.   Of course, I said...."sure". 

What I didn't consider was that I had been recently promoted to Director at my full time job, and that my hours had greatly increased.  In order to fit our new business into my schedule, we had to begin our day at 5am.  We took on 14 convenience stores that took us anywhere from one to three hours to complete.....and that was after we finished training.  The first month was pretty slow.  I will say that the boys must have calculator talents in their genes as they picked it up pretty quickly.  Chris became our "Cooler Guy" and counted beer, wine and soda in almost every store.   He had a talent for counting cases, and was able to count by seeing what was missing, rather than what was there.  He became very quick and accurate over time. 

Tommy would count the Checkout, Matt would count the 'tables' and I would grab the backroom and whatever was left over.  We actually worked really well together and I enjoyed the time that we had.   We would work about two to three mornings a week and usually drive two to three cars (not the best way to save expenses!) since we all had to be at either work or school at different times.  We worked almost every Saturday and then would go to breakfast.  Eric would join in when he was free and all five of us would spend the morning together.   It may not have been the typical family Saturday but I really enjoyed it.   Ok....for those that were friends with me during that time....enjoyed may be a bit strong.  I had my moments of sheer craziness....but I will say, that I enjoyed our actual time together very much! 

The early mornings became overwhelming for me after a year, as well as the number of stores going through revamps.  At every store that was being remodeled, we were met with 20 or 30 plastic bins of miscellaneous 'stuff' that had to be dumped and counted.  The stores began taking several hours longer so were not financially feasible anymore and we decided to pass the work onto another company.  I do really miss the time together; we spent more time together then than probably any other since they became teenagers.  I'm sad in some ways that I couldn't hang on for longer.  Eventually, I would have been able to back out and let them run the business.  I think it was just too much at the time. 

I'm proud of what we did accomplish and I did get to do a lot of coaching on work ethics.....like it's not a good idea to roll out of bed ten minutes before you need to be somewhere...or flip flops are not appropriate work attire....and it doesn't matter if you don't want to finish something, you have to keep working until it is done. We just had another family day yesterday and it again, made me proud. The boys attended Eric's Retirement Ceremony. They were respectfully attentive and I watched Matt walk up to the other Retirement participant, Commander King, shake his hand and thank him for his service. Proud moment for a proud mama.

All three boys showed great respect for Eric's accomplishment, as they should.  It was good to be together as a family yesterday.  I have learned now that these moments are golden....easily stolen...and never to be taken  for granted.  Time continues to move forward and can never be regained.  This blog has become another way for me to hang on to these little moments of time.  Thanks you for sharing them with me! 

  

Watch Tommy Grow

I've written before about how striking Tommy was as a toddler; he continued with his good boy looks long past his terrible two's.  Tommy was graced with a thick head of hair, a great smile and a very outgoing personality.   I refer to him as my "emotional twin" (poor boy!).  Tommy and I have always enjoyed time talking, usually late at night or early in the morning.  He has incredible insight and good sense, although, just like his mother, he doesn't always use it!    Take a look down at the pictorial journey of seeing Tommy become the man that he is!

All that we had....

Christmas can be a struggle as a single parent.  There is always the feeling of inadequacy that you can't get your kids the same type of presents that their friends are getting.  Those feelings continue to get amplified when you forget what's really important and focus on what you don't have.  What was really funny about this, was I don't think the boys felt that they were missing anything.  We were adopted by Grossmont College one year and received a large black trashbag of wrapped gifts for each of us.  We were also adopted by the Nursing Program one year.  They had done a food drive and split the food between me and another single mom.  I had canned food in every room since I couldn't fit it all into the kitchen!  We invited the campus group to come over and go shopping. 

Grossmont College also had a Christmas party every year for the single parents.  The party was complete with Santa Claus, dinner and party gifts.  This picture would have been from the year I was graduating. 

One of the things that makes me ponder frequently, is how I was much more grateful then.  We didn't have a lot of things, but we had a lot of people around us.  We were surrounded by friends at church, at school, and in our apartment building.   I remember being grateful for simple things like not having to pay for the kids to take the bus, and having friends that I could call at a moments notice.  I remember being sick one night...alien coming out of your stomach sick.  They boys were running around.  Matt took a whole loaf of bread and began using it like play dough.  I watched....and was just happy that he was occupied.  I called Loree...and she picked them all up and took them overnight.  I knew they were safe which allowed me to just sleep.  The alien was gone in the morning and she dropped the kids back off.  Maybe that explains what type of people we were around....and why my gratitude was so strong.  I still have my friends but sometimes life gets cluttered with things that don't really matter.  Having no money can be a blessing....it keeps life simple.   I have asked the boys many times if they felt cheated somehow with their childhood.  They respond with a resounding "no".  We may have been "poor" by someones standards, but we were very rich in ours.