Real life. Real lessons.
Forgive my silence.
PhilBillPaul’s younger brother passed away very early this morning after being at home in hospice for just over two weeks. He fought a very courageous battle with liver cancer.
Phil is on his way to Texas tomorrow.
Please keep him and the whole family in your prayers.
If you feel compelled to do so, I know he and Granny will read every comment left here…
Best 30 second commercial I’ve seen in a long time.
Whether you have teens who will be driving soon…
Or you’ve lived through teaching your teen(s) to drive…
Side note: I hope it wins awards and they play it in some primetime slots! When I went to look for the commercial online to show PhilBillPaul, I discovered “The Dad” is the real-life father of both the 6 year-old and the 16 year-old girls in the car. Very sweet.
Just a little stroll down memory lane with some random pictures I found over the weekend cleaning and organizing one of our rooms…
Your first year made motherhood look too easy.
Surrounded by girls by your second year, you adapted well as evidenced by the hot pink tights you are wearing in this photo.
More girls and thank goodness you were fine with my desire to have you coordinate with your darling twin sisters (and your cousin).
So maybe the color coordination thing was an obsession.
Looks like I might have let you finally dress yourself. But yet another girl…did I not have any friends with boys?
In the early years, it really worried your dad about how much you liked girl clothes and the dress-up box.
I told him not to worry, you would outgrow it.
Oh wait, that’s you at the beach last month.
I hope you can look at that print I gave you on your birthday a few years ago and you will always remember…
“There has never been a day when I have not been proud of you, I said to my son, though some days I’m louder about other stuff so it’s easy to miss that. ” –Brian Andreas
Happy Birthday my firstborn miracle.
Checked out for a week but checking back in.
So many things to talk about, so little time.
I left unexpectedly last weekend to see “My Other Family” as in the one I don’t live with.
One of my uncles in Indiana passed away. Uncle Bob was just a month shy of 84 and I have written about my cousin Sally here. His wife, my Aunt Jane is my mom’s sister.
Wizzy was kind enough to cancel her 4th of July plans and jump in the car with me and help me drive to Indianapolis and then on to Chicago. She earned her darling twin moniker for being so willing to be trapped with me in a car for endless hours upon hours and then be trapped bond with extended family–most of whom she hadn’t seen for about ten years.
It was a poignant 4th of July service as my Uncle Bob was a Marine as were his two sons.
I can’t resist another opportunity to post my favorite picture of Sally’s family.
Sal: Was this in the slideshow?
Oh, the fun family things I could write about.
Oh, the fun family things I must refrain from writing about.
Uncle Jack and I did have a nice conversation and he wholeheartedly agreed with me about Tiger Woods.
I have discovered I have at least 3 more relatives reading the blog and we already know how Junebug feels about my writing so I’m going to exercise some self-control.
For now.
I’ll catch up this week on blogging and life and The Bachelorette. It was a tiny bit stressful to not watch the Monday night show until Thursday night when we returned home.
My only comment from last week’s episode especially since it’s old news.
Jake is a bigger tool than I even thought possible.
Thanks to those sweet people who checked on me and for being concerned. For those who didn’t miss me…well, you aren’t even reading this, are you?
Busy weekend. Busy week.
It’s that time of year with end of school activities. Don’t get me started on how much can be crammed into the last few weeks of school.
Scary Baby is almost done with 5th grade and will go to middle school in August.
Not possible.
But true.
I took this picture a few months ago.
The Grunter started his quarter collection the same year Scary Baby was born.
He was missing 2007′s Wyoming.
It was only fitting that she complete his collection by finding the last quarter he needed.
A decade of milestones.
Surely worth more than a quarter or two.
Last week I said to PhilBillPaul,
“I hate it when they are home. I hate it when they leave.”
Their leaving last week caused a wee bit of stress.
Understatement of the year.
Stress that only parents can understand. And even then, some of you don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe because your darlings haven’t left yet.
The darling twins are now gone for five months. I’m equating this departure to a semester abroad. Except they are in Arizona. So I guess it’s a semester out west.
They will thrive and shine. They will be fine. Because we have prepared them for life in ways I’ve seen many of their peers are not prepared. For that, we are grateful.
We know they are equipped with life skills and life lessons. Even though they choose not to use those skills here at our house.
Roger Leroy sent me this text tonight just as I was about to write this…
“You not sharing any life lessons lately is bothering me.”
Funny kid.
I don’t like the blog pressure. Funny thing about the blog is that when I don’t write, people worry.
Sweet, kind people who wonder if something is wrong.
A few emails. A few phone messages.
As if my silence might indicated that my feet have been dangling dangerously close to the edge of The Black Hole.
Or that I may have set a personal record and taken xan*x three days in a row.
Side note: I’m not spelling the drug name out any more as it seems to attract spammers offering me all kinds of interesting pharmaceuticals.
I’m fine, fine, fine. I promise.
I’ve just been really busy doing some blog design work in between recovering from the holidays and spending quality time with the family.
I do miss them when they aren’t here. I really do.
Since this blog is really my online family photo album and my personal therapy, I’ll share this tiny glimpse of what I don’t and won’t miss…
Oh yes, that is my precious little blue bug (that Wizzy is in the process of buying) and that is where a passenger is suppose to put their feet.
Why yes, that is chocolate milk and orange juice. And marinara sauce on the floor mat, I think. For the record, in an attempt to make me feel better, Wizzy did say it was OPT…Other People’s Trash.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I did cry. And scream. A lot.
Another proud week at the Humpfreeze.
Note to darling twins: I did refrain from posting pictures of your room (again). Or your laundry. Where Dad found a clean stack of clothes still folded in the bottom of one of your hampers tonight covered with dirty clothes you left here. Nice.
Just want to keep it real.
Where is that prescription bottle?
If you have read my blog from the beginning you probably know a few things about me like…
I have issues
Parenting wears me out
Parenting teenagers has still not driven me to drink
And if I ever do decide to take up drinking, you would also know that I would never drink and drive.
I actually made that life decision long before I became a drunk driving statistic and a severe head injury survivor.
The irony of me being the designated driver for friends who drank in high school and college and then me being hit by a drunk driver doesn’t escape me.
I vividly remember that Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) campaign at the time of our crash was “Don’t call me lucky” which is a slogan I have worn out over the years. Being hit head-on by a drunk driver, living through it and having your life turned upside down is not lucky.
Don’t get me wrong – I am blessed and grateful for my recovery and I have a good life.
It has always seemed incredibly selfish to me to put other people’s lives at risk because of your bad choices. (Not to mention putting your own life at risk.)
MADD has a new campaign that I am happy to tell you about because I do believe that the “Power of Parents” is worth blogging about. If you have teenagers, the message of choices and of making the choice and commitment to not drink and drive is worth talking about.
Take their quiz or watch their video to help you get started with this important season of parenting.
The Power of Parents campaign with the tagline “It’s your influence” is an important reminder for all of us to remember we can really make a difference with our teenagers. It is our job to do our best to influence them to make good decisions.
I am a nut about driving safety as I’ve shared here before and this is certainly part of that whole process.
Remember…
I hope you will be that parent too.
Full disclaimer: I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of MADD. A donation was made to MADD in my name to thank me for taking the time to participate.
Just so you know…the donation is lovely but I would have written this without it. 
Have a fabulous and safe weekend!
To remember…
Where you were the moment you heard…
And send a prayer up to those who were lost and those who still grieve…
And for everyone who needs an extra prayer today.
With gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, the Kell antibody in my blood and I was labeled “High Risk” since all those factors coupled with that pesky head injury and coma of ’87 seemed to be in my permanent record.
Just a few hours before, they told PhilBillPaul it was going to be a long night and he should get some rest.
So he promptly went to sleep on the empty hospital bed next to me.
While I laid awake for several hours after the nurse told me I might experience some “slight cramping.”
Yeah, it was nice to know that PhilBillPaul got some rest while I was pretty sure I was going to DIE as I watched that bottom number on the blood pressure monitor keep rising.
I beeped the nurses and said that if this was “slight cramping” then they could just kill me now because I was never, ever going to live through the actual labor.
Surprise, surprise – I was in labor and they kicked it into high gear.
I demanded an epidural.
And when the doctor arrived, he had the gall to say to me “Oh, you’re too far along but I can give you some Demerol to take the edge off.”
Natural childbirth was not my birthing plan.
In spite of the grudge I still hold (just towards the doctor), I birthed a perfect little baby boy.
Who, today, leaves his teen years behind…
On this milestone day of 09-09-09.
Not only does the date look good in marketing promotions, but it also represents the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we’ll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), or a millennium (mark your calendars for January 1, 3001), depending on how you want to count it.
Beyond the Cocoa Krispie Nightmare and his using pot in front of us, he is smart and funny and seems to be turning out okay in spite of being surrounded by estrogen, chaos and dysfunction.
He continues to bless our lives…
Evie James Humpies…we love you to the moon.
xoxo
We really are trying to get back to normal.
Whatever normal is.
I tend to interrupt people when they say
“When things get back to normal I will…”
Wait. Stop.
We have had a few normal moments.
In between the darling twins arrival, departure, return, departure, return, departure…yes, if you are counting – it means they came home.
AGAIN.
But back to the subject of normal…
We have experienced Scary Baby’s first day of school.
In a brand new school. 5th grade. No pictures. 4th child syndrome. Sorry.
PhilBillPaul had another birthday. That was barely acknowledged because it fell on the 2nd day of school and the day the twins left. Sorry.
This is our normal.
This past Friday after school, Scary Baby had another unnecessary magical elementary school dance.
This one with the theme of Solid Gold 70′s Dance.
Do I really need to tell you that the one with the rainbow afro wig (which doubles as a clown wig at Halloween – I love multi-purpose items) is our precious Scary Baby?
This picture brings us back full circle.
Hope you have some *normal* moments this week…
