I Think I Will Saw Off My Head With A Butter Knife

All this in a 24 hour period

So we are on the way to social skills group this morning (not for me I might add!) when out of the blue KU asks, "Why don't you homeschool mom?"

Me: "Well, son why do you think I don't home school?"

KU: "You aren't smart enough?"

Me: " Thanks son."

Later I told him it was because I don't have the patience that a teacher has and when you teach someone you have to have a lot of patience.

Five minutes later I get this.

KA arrives at social skills group and tells me he wants his zuzu pet that is in the car. As we are walking out he says, "THere is one problem it has something wrong with the batteries."

Me: "That's okay, KA you can just push it along with your hands."

KA: "That's what they did in the older days when you were a kid. They didn't have moving parts back then.

So in a space of seven minutes I have gone from feeling young and hip (as much as someone pushing 50 can) to feeling old and stupid. Thanks boys!

THe Next DAY

In the store looking for Mommie clothes size L. I pick something up to look at it and say, " This looks a little small." KE replies, " So do you need a size HUGE?"

 Thanks daughter.

 Now in one 24 hour period I am really old, stupid and HUGE according to my kids. I think I will take a dull knife to myself so I can prolong the pain and agony!

Sometimes Life Just Sucks...Other Times It Doesn't

What is it about crashes? Why is that ones that will ultimately be expensive sound one way while those that involve a $3 cheap trinket from China sound another. It is like the cheap ones have no oomph whereas the valuable/expensive ones shatter with a delayed sense of time so you can hear each atom splitting apart from one another in slow motion; like a chemistry experiment gone horribly wrong.

Crashes also for some odd reason sound different from one another based on whether the crash was intentional or not. For instance, when I was just a wee child of about age two my mother was having a fancy dinner party and borrowed china from all her friends and relatives. Being the helpful little lady I was I decided to vacuum for my mother. Now I am sure that when my mother heard the vacuum going she looked at my father quizzically and then they both made a dash for the dining room. But it was too late. For as they raced down the stairs I somehow managed to wrap the hose around the dining room table and pull the entire thing over. Crash. I suspect that it wasn't one big crash but the tinkle of each dish bouncing off one another as they cracked and chipped and went their own separate ways. That's the way of the "I shouldn't have borrowed so much" crash. It not only splinters your dishes but it also splinters your mind into a thousand little pieces trying to figure out how you are going to tell all those wonderful folks who lent you all that beautiful dish ware that their prize pieces are now sitting in the trash can along with the onion dip and the sweet gerkins.

Unfortunately, the crash I heard last weekend was a deliberate one. It was a crash created in moment of anger like a scorching red branding iron that is doused in water; so steaming and hot; it hissed louder than 100 angry hornets. A crash that was the result of two weeks without pharmaceuticals in the bloodstream and two minutes after a child was sentenced to some time alone. NO greater injustice could have been handed down upon a seven year old. And after a minute in which the blood was boiling so rapidly that the temperature of the brain went so high that it no longer functioned as it was designed to, a pool ball was shot through the window, shattering it into a million pieces right along with my soul. It was loud, angry and each shard of glass was jagged, twisted and capable of inflicting severe injury and pain. Glass that hid out of sight, like a private eye with his hand on the shutter, just waiting to open and expose the skin of a stranger to the anguished other. A crash so unexpected that one is now left to wonder if it is just the beginning or truly an anomaly but either way nothing will be quite the same again.

Then there was the crash of this past weekend. I was not there to witness it nor hear it but I am told that it was the sound a bowling ball makes when it captures a perfect STRIKE. A thud so deep that it resonates throughout the alley. In this case it was one of our old oak trees that guard the driveway to the cabin between the rocks that will catch a tire and the propane tank that lights our fire. Seems that for whatever reason this old oak split itself down the middle; the left half falling into the road while the right half fell into another old oak who strains to cradle it within its own feeble branches without falling over itself as it carries double its usual load. And should the oak lose its fight both will most likely crash into the cabin splintering everything from the roof to the foundation and carrying with it the dreams of past and current caretakers all in one fell swoop. Crash, Bang. It's gone never to be revived again unless, of course, you carry a good low deductable on your insurance policy .

I have heard the question asked that if a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it in fact make a sound? After this weekend I finally have the answer to this perplexing question and quite frankly; it all depends on if you have good insurance with some sort of policy that covers dangerous trees. Seems that my insurance will not pay to have the two trees that MAY crash on my cabin removed. They will, however, pay to rebuild the cabin should the trees decide to fall upon it. CRASH...and I wonder why my premiums are going up!

Beginnings and Ends

Today I took down the crib. It's a done deal. No more kids for it to hold. No more kids for it to protect. It all seems to final...like a story coming to the end.
We put that crib up the first time over 16 years ago. It served four of our five children well. It is a light wood one with 14 slats on the sides, a stain of spit up in the left hand corner and on the end a dab of pale yellow paint that ended up there while I was painting Kellis' room. It's a crib that has been used as a trampoline as the kids got older and occasionally a "time out" space when someone needed to get their act together. More often than not it was me who needed it but I knew I would never fit.
Kylee was the first to use the crib but more often than not she ended up sleeping with us and after she was put on the apnea monitor the crib rarely saw any action.
Karson was the next one to use it and we were determined he would. Everyone chided us "you aren't going to do THAT again, are you? I mean sleeping with your child well it just isn't healthy." Of course, we never understood that an internationally adopted child who comes to you at over 6 months of age might just need to be with you even in sleep. So we put him in that crib every evening even though he woke up 5-7 times during the night in an attempt to reassure himself that we would still be there for him. Eventually, exhaustion set in and he ended up in our room.
Kullen was the third child to use the crib. He came home from Korea at 10.5 months and by the time he was 12 months old he was using it to practice vaulting and high jumping. Because our fear of a life threatening injury was so great he ended up in our room too.
Kellis is the last to use the crib. She was also the first to actually use it until at 2 years old she realized all the other kids were sleeping in beds and she wanted one. I have kept the crib up for the past 6 months even though she has not used it. There was just a part of me that didn't want to admit that we are done. Our family is complete and we are getting old.It is hard sometimes to acknowledge that "this is it" even though we know it is. Because it means the end of the known. The end of what feels comfortable. The end of something new entering your life. Endings are just that...the end. Its like closing the covers of a book when you have reached the last page. But like a good book the crib's story stays with yus, gives us things to ponder and some good passages to look back upon. And like a good book there is often a sequel which in this case is our grandchild who is due in September. A maybe...just maybe...that crib will be used once more. Because when you think about it-beginnings and ends-they really are the same thing aren't they.