Yesterday

Today The Hubster celebrates his 41st birthday. To commemorate the occasion I wrote him a little story centered around our first meeting on Facebook and tagged him in it. You can see it below.

I posted this video along with it. 

That song perfectly sums up our relationship. I'd marry him yesterday, today, and tomorrow. No hesitation, no doubts. Now we sound like newlyweds, huh? Nah. We've been together for just shy of 17 years now. Pretty much conjoined twins from our first date to the present. Has it always been easy? Umm....NO! I can't tell you the number of times that it would have been easier to throw in the towel and call it quits, rather than fix what was broken. The Hubster and I don't think like that, though. We're fixers. We got married determined to grow old and gray together. It'd be kind of stupid to throw all of that away just because you're both too stubborn to work on yourselves.

ANYWHO....I'm off track here. Writing that little story for him has made me wax poetic about the passage of time in our lives. Whether we're on this earth for a second or a century it's still just a blink of the eye. You see, to me, it feels like just yesterday that he barked out the order for my phone number. When I look at his face, now starting to show the lines of aging, I can still see the smooth skin, crooked grin, and dimples that are forever stamped on my heart from our first meeting. I still feel like the young girl who repainted her nails 4 times the day of our first date, because I couldn't decide on which color I wanted.

Just yesterday I was wrapping our youngest son up in his hooded towel after his bath, heading to his room to get him diapered and dressed. We had a ritual, you see. As he was getting lotioned and powdered we'd sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes". Then, as soon as he was dressed, we'd sing "Ten Little Indians" on his itty-bitty fingers. A quick brushing of his sweet smelling hair and it was off to the recliner to read Please Try To Remember the First of Octember, which was always sure to get a giggle. 

That sweet little baby will officially be a teenager in 2 short months. He's spent his day evenly divided between playing PS3 and taking care of me, as I'm down for the count with a bad cold that's trying its best to turn into bronchitis. He made me a bagel and bacon for breakfast. He's brought me glass after glass of ice water. Heated up some leftover chili for my lunch. It seems so unbelievable that he's already almost grown, that our time as parents is almost over.

See what I mean? Yesterday is just chock full of things that just happened...even if the reality is that they happened almost two decades ago. That's how fast it passes. You blink and it's over. I guess I could allow myself to feel maudlin about it. I'd rather feel anticipatory, though. I'd rather look forward to the next blink...the next breath...the next yesterday, because I have a feeling they're going to be just as special as today's yesterday is!

Fare Thee Well, Mr. Fuzz E. Blanket (2000-2012)

Fuzz E. Blanket

Today shall live in infamy within our little family. Fuzz E. Blanket has been placed in storage. Fuzz E. has been an important part of our lives since February 27, 2000.

A gift from Papaw Warren given on Christmas Day, 1999, Fuzz E. Blanket was our youngest kiddo's first gift. He was thick, warm, vibrant, and fuzzy. Filled with the promise of protection of all sorts of things: from cold and snow to monsters and boo-boos. 

Our first hint as to how important Fuzz E. would become in our lives was when he covered the infant carrier on the frigid walk from the hospital doors to the warm car, as The Hubster and I left for home with our new bundle of joy. In the almost thirteen years that have passed he has seen Kiddo through nightmares too numerous to list, time outs that were always most unjust, and playground face plants that left behind blood and tears. Most recently, Fuzz E. was instrumental in seeing Kiddo successfully through a series of sleep studies, two naso-pharyngeal endoscopy, a tonsilectomy, and (what we like to call The Final Battle) a trip to Cincinnati for a Pharyngeal Flap Augmentation.

One Last Cuddle!

Early this morning, upon removing bedding for washing, it was discovered that Fuzz E. Blanket was missing. An extensive search showed him to be well hidden between the headboard and wall of Kiddo's bed, near the floor. It was obvious that Fuzz E. had been in this state for quite a period of time. Upon retrieval it was decided that, in order to preserve Fuzz E. and his precious memory, he would be put into storage after this one last washing.

Entering The Final Frontier

An hour and a half later, and after one last sniff and hug, Fuzz E. Blanket was placed in his protective shroud, and sent on to The Final Frontier (a.k.a., the cedar chest). While Kiddo is sad, and a little nostalgic, he has declared himself ready to move on...as long as Fuzz E. Blanket can return to visit should the need ever arise.

Thank you for the love, care, and security you provided, Fuzz E. Blanket. You will be forever in these parents' debt!

A Cherished Visit

Anyone who knows me knows that I've been pretty darn sick for the last week. My hubby decided to share his cooties with me, and I have been down for the count. As is usually the case with a bad case of the cooties everything has now settled in my chest, making sleep a commodity that is hard to get my hands on. Last night I sat in my hubby's ratty recliner (why he loves that thing so I will NEVER understand) reading Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth until 3:00AM, praying the entire time for sleep to come to me. While reading I found my thoughts drifting to my grandfather, who passed away in 2007. We were very close, talking to one another every morning at 10:00AM, and 3 years later I still feel a pang in my heart every morning at that time when the phone doesn't ring. Finally feeling myself nodding off I dashed to my bed and got a fitful 2 1/2 hours of sleep before it was time to get the kids up and off to school.

My youngest got home from school at 3:00PM. At this point I was suffering from blurry vision, and had a pretty horrible headache. I got his snack, settled him into his homework routine, and returned to the couch. Finally, at 4:00PM I felt sleep, blissful sleep, settling over me. When I gave myself over to it I had a visitor waiting for me on the other side. My beloved grandfather was there! We were visiting, I was cooking him dinner, and we were planning his birthday party for later that night. He was SO excited about it, beaming and looking up at me with such love in his eyes. I awoke an hour later, and when I opened my eyes I swear I could smell the combination of Ben Gay and Black Suede that was his alone. I wanted so desperately to go back to sleep, to see him again. Had he lived to be 150 years old I still would not be ready to never see him again. My heart broke when I realized that I couldn't go back to sleep, that life demanded that I remain with it, rather than visiting with someone who had passed. Forcing myself up, I went over my youngest's spelling words and began cooking dinner.

Maybe my brain was giving me comfort that it new I needed. Maybe, just maybe, he did visit me for a time, knowing that I was sick and missing him more than normal. I'll never know, and I never want to. I just hope that he'll show up again someday, and that I can see that smile and the love in those eyes that I miss so much again. Oh, and just in case our beloved that have passed are checking in on us? Thank you, Papaw, for coming to see me. I love you!

1-11-22 to 1-27-07

T.A.R.D.I.S.

Time And Relative Dimension In Space, for those of you not completely obsessed by Doctor Who. I, on the other hand, am proudly obsessed. To the point that I am currently finishing up the first half of pair of T.A.R.D.I.S. socks. Yep, I'm that girl; however, I fully embrace my geek status and make no apologies for it.

The point of this blog entry, though, is to acknowledge the discovery of my own T.A.R.D.I.S. That's right...be jealous...I have my OWN! You see, last week I was standing at the kitchen sink preparing to wash dishes when I noticed that one of the males in the house had not tightened the lid on the dish wand properly and some of the Dawn had leaked out onto the surrounding area of the sink. I tend to be a bit frugal about things (i.e., I refuse to use lights during the day, turn bottles upside down to drain every drop of the goods that they hold, etc.), so decided to just scoop the spill up onto my sponge and rinse it into the filling sink. I mean, it was soap...and waste not, want not, right? I failed to realize just how much soap it was, though, and soon had a sink full of very sudsy dishwater.

BAZINGA! (If you get that reference, as well, you are my kind of person!) I found myself instantly transported back in time. The year was 1978, and I was five years old. I was standing in my grandparent's tiny kitchen, getting a lecture from my grandmother about how to be a lady. I was alternately stepping on my own toes in a strange little dance and hiding my sure to be filthy fingernails behind my back. You see, I hated being a girl. I refused to play with girls, choosing instead to build hot wheels tracks in the dirt with the boys. My parents couldn't even get me to wear a dress to church on Sunday mornings. The best that they could do was dark finish blue jeans and a ruffled plaid shirt. My grandmother is not fooled by my evasive tactics. With an eagle eye that only she possesses, she tells me to show her my hands. I do so, knowing what is going to happen next, but unable to deny this woman who both terrifies me and fascinates me, who I am positive that the Earth revolves around. Sure enough the next minute is filled up with me getting an apron tied around me, watching a chair being dragged over to in front of her kitchen sink, and her telling me that I'm going to wash the dishes. Then comes the moment that transported me to that particular time in the first place...my grandmother pulls out a box of Tide and dumps a scoopful in the sink. Yes, you heard me right. My grandmother used Tide for everything! From washing clothes, to doing dishes, it's usefulness knew no bounds...she even bathed my father and uncle in it when they were boys! I could already feel the slimy, sudsy water rinsing away the dirt that I had spent the better part of the afternoon embedding into my skin. The water would be hot, and after I had washed the dishes and loosened the dirt I knew a nail brush was waiting in the wings to make sure that the miracle soap had removed all traces of filth from me. Sighing, I step forward and take the plunge.

Now I'm back in 2010, standing at the kitchen sink in my own home, with my own dirty dishes, left behind by my own two sons. I've never bathed them in Tide, though surely they've been dirty enough from time to time in their lives. As I get ready to plunge my hands into the water I look down at my nails. They're clean now, no dirt to be seen. The nails are neat and trimmed, and I'm a perfect lady (Okay, this isn't technically true, I'd still rather play football than read gossip rags, so let's just say I look the part!) I glance over to my left, into my laundry room. There it is on the shelf above my washer...Tide. I smile a little smile and feel my heart break a little, yearning to be that five year old tomboy once again, just to feel my grandmothers hands again...to smell that smell that was hers alone; yet, honored beyond belief that I got to have that trip back in time to experience it....to experience her again.