I Guess He Knows Me

This past Thursday morning, Eric was telling me about his new project at work, that is "top secret", and explaining that he couldn't tell me anything about it, even if I wanted him to.

I said, "Wow, they picked the right person to have a top secret project, since you have a wife whose greatest joy in life is ignoring people's pathetic passive aggressive attempts to get her to ask them a question about something!".

Eric said, "Who are you kidding? Your greatest joy in life are those times when the kids are in bed at night and I'm not home yet, your bathtub is full of hot water and you have a bowl of really good food, a book you haven't read yet, Melissa on hold on the phone, and your laptop nearby so you can see if anyone is tweeting anything interesting...".



Can't argue with the truth....

I See, Said The Blind Man As He Picked Up His Hammer And Saw

My new glasses.

EMo says I look like Sarah Palin.

ELew says glasses are as dumb as tattoos; laser correction or contacts are the only way to go.

I say while Wiki may say the name Eric means "Eternal Ruler", the name Eric really means "Full of Opinions That are Expressed for the Sole Purpose of Ruffling Feathers".

Fairies Are Real

When Sophia was born, and Melissa asked if I'd be her godmother, of course I said yes. When I thought about it afterwards though, I realized I couldn't wrap my brain around the thought of me as a godmother. Have you met me? Godmother material I ain't.

But then it hit me; a FAIRY Godmother is TOTALLY what I am! Appearing to her out of nowhere once in a while in times of trouble, bestowing words of wisdom and beautiful new dresses. Inviting her to parties to escape her wicked mother. Instructing her to never stay too long at the party.

And reminding her that even without a magic wand, she always has the power to change any situation for the better.




So yes, I am Sophia's Fairy Godmother. Please address me as such.

Young Rembrandt

I have this set of tealight candles on my island in the kitchen.

Eric told me that the other night, Ava was standing at the island, with this heart-on-a-stick in her hand. He said that she dipped the heart into a tealight, and then pretended to paint on the island. Eric asked her what she was doing. She said she was painting.

But she wasn't painting with paint. She said that each tealight had something in it. One had love, one had sad, one had angry, one had happy. She said "Now I'm adding angry. Next I'll add funny".

So not only was she pretend painting, she was pretend painting with emotions.



Have I mentioned that abstract children can be VERY weird?

Beware The Trees

One Thursday, as I was making lunch for Zachary while Ava was at school, Zachary said "Mom, I don't like eating by myself down here".

I asked him why?

He said, "Because that tree is always watching me".

"Which tree?", I asked.

"The one with the one eye", he said.

I asked him to point it out.





Because both Anne Shirley AND Mr. Tumnus ("Even some of the trees are on her side!") confirmed the existence of Dryads for me as a child, I told Zachary that the tree was just watching him to make sure he stayed safe.

You don't see the eye??

It's Getting Kind Of Hairy

Yesterday I went to LensCrafters to get new contacts and new glasses. While I was trying on frames, one of the salesladies came up and asked if I wanted some advice.


When I turned around to look at her, my instinct was to reply "I really can't in good conscience take fashion advice from a woman with a mustache".


Fortunately, my upbringing allowed me to stifle my impulse and say "No thanks, I'm good!".

Mystery

As I was cooking dinner the other night, a big blanket mysteriously started moving around the kitchen floor....




Colson was hiding, controlling the moving blanket from around the corner...trying desperately to freak me out.

The End Of The Boardwalk

Our last beach trip was June 2008, headed to Sarasota again to visit Pop. Zachary's first airplane ride. He was so excited.


Water park, Stratego, Gator Cruise, Mini-golf (Zach plays golf like McEnroe plays tennis)...

(Pop's backyard)

And of course, loads of beach time.

























My runner-up pictures of this set:




And the winner for Suzanne's Favorite Photo of 2008 is:



Hopefully my beach memories have brought a little sunshine into your dreary winter days. And hopefully "On The Way To Cape May" will stop running on it's endless loop in your brain before summer is upon us again...

Lesson Learned

In the summer of 2007, we took a trip with Melissa and her husband and their three kids. We went to Charleston South Carolina, where Melissa's mother lives. Miss Sharon had graciously allowed us all to take over her gorgeous house for a week. It was a week full of mini-golf, the pool and the beach, Guitar Hero and amazing food. Eric and I drove down with the kids, stopping at the Baltimore Harbor to take the kids to the National Aquarium.


The kids just loved being at the beach, and the Charleston beach was beautiful.

(Melissa's oldest son, Gavin, in the middle)

This was the beach trip that gave us all the scare of our lives. I will retell the story. Mom, scroll down past this part as quickly as you can.

We all went to the beach one day, Eric and I and our kids, and Melissa and Michael and their kids. The beach was fairly crowded that day, but not enough to trigger the panic button. The beach we were on that day didn't have a lifeguard, it was a "swim at your own risk" area. The water was fine, there was just no lifeguard right there.

We chose a location to spread out the myriad assortment of beach equipment that comes with 6 kids. The kids were given instructions to only go into the ocean with an adult. The 3 big kids wanted to spend most of their time in the water, of course, which meant Eric and Michael had to spend most of their time in the water.

Eric and Michael were doing a changing of the guards act for most of the afternoon, taking turns coming back to home base for a break. At one point, Melissa and I, who were sitting on beach chairs with the little kids, saw Gavin and Ava running towards us. I can't remember how this part played out exactly, but somehow the message was communicated that Colson was missing, or that Daddy was looking for him, or something. But it was conveyed casually, in that childlike way where nothing bad ever happens.

Melissa casually said "I'll go check with the guys", and I stayed with the baby and the kids. I watched her walk down towards the water, where Michael was standing. She spoke with him, and then she started walking down the beach. I couldn't see Eric at this point. But I still had no reason to worry, the guys had been playing around with the kids all afternoon, I figured Cole and Eric were together.

Unbeknownst to me, Micheal had told Melissa that Cole had been lost for some time, and she didn't want to come up and tell me yet. I think she thought she should try to find him first, hoping her motherly sixth sense could accomplish what the guys hadn't so far.

After a certain amount of time, Melissa came back and said something like "Don't freak out, but the guys are looking for Cole". She said she would stay with the kids, so I went down to the water. Michael was down there, and he told me that during one of the changing of the guards, a breakdown in communication had occurred, and Colson thought Michael was staying the water with him, and Michael thought Eric was going back into the water to stay with Cole.

So the last anyone had seen Cole, he was in the water. That is when a little tiny sprout of nervousness sprang up in my soul. But I stayed calm, knowing it was probably nothing. Michael told me that Eric had walked up the beach to look around. So I headed off in the direction that Eric had gone, scanning like mad for Colson in the ocean. My assumption was that he was in the water, knowing that was the last place he had been seen.

When I caught up with Eric, who was heading back in my direction, and he didn't have Colson with him, I got really nervous. I could tell he was starting to get very worried as well. When I started asking him questions, I realized that a really long time had passed. That it was getting close to 20 or 30 minutes since they had started looking. That's when that sprout started growing like someone had poured a whole bag of plant food on it.

I realized that Cole drowning wasn't the only scenario. That he could have come out of the water, and been kidnapped. I started running back towards home base. Eric kept walking slowly, scanning the crowds and yelling Cole's name. As I ran, I was having a hard time keeping my heart out of my throat. All I kept thinking was how I'd heard that in a kidnapping situation, time in precious. You have to notify the police ASAP if you want any hope of them finding the kidnapper. And I kept thinking "Oh my god, it's been 30 minutes at least".

On that run I was also preparing myself for what I was going to do if Cole was gone for good. I thought about funeral arrangements, I thought about the phone chain that would have to take place to let everyone know, I thought about what I would tell Zach and Ava, and I thought about what I would do to reassure Michael and Eric that it wasn't their faults. Lastly I thought about what I was going to do to handle Cole's death. I was preparing my brain to handle the news that might be coming. I was praying fast little vomit prayers in between each of these thoughts, because I couldn't stop long enough to pray a real focused prayer. All of this was accomplished in the two minutes it took me to get back up the beach.

I got back to where Michael was standing, and he handed me his cell phone and told me to call 911. I think he suggested it before I walked down the beach to meet Eric, and I said something like let's give it a few more minutes. Now I was ready to make the call.

I called 911, my first time ever doing so, and within 60 to 90 seconds, the lifeguards up and down the beach had been notified. The 911 operator kept me on the phone, and said she was sending an officer my way. She told me to go up onto the boardwalk to meet him at the entrance to our particular beach. As I ran up that way, I remember thinking that if I found the guy who had taken Cole, I would hurt him badly. I wouldn't kill him, but I would find a way to inflict massive amounts of slow excruciating torture on him.

I saw the police officer walking towards me, and I hung up with the 911 operator. The officer was on his walkie-talkie and I heard him say "You've got him?". He saw me and said that they thought my son had been found. We ran back onto the beach, there was a big Baywatch style jeep-dune buggy type thing at our location, and a bunch of lifeguards. All of a sudden we saw Eric walking up carrying Cole. My first instinct was to act as normal as possible and not let Cole see me upset. So I gave him a big hug and a smile and said "We found you!". Turns out he had come out of the water and had gotten disoriented. He had been wandering around in the crowd of beach umbrellas and beach towels that whole time, looking for us.

The authorities made sure everyone was okay, and left. I learned a valuable lesson that day. CALL 911 RIGHT AWAY! That's what they get paid for. They "mobilized their units" so fast I was amazed. My instinct is to not bother people unless I know for sure it's important. But that's what they do. It's their job. And isn't it so much better, in that kind of situation, to be safe than sorry? I will never hesitate to call 911 again.

I don't think I cried much over this then. My mindset in times of extreme stress is to stay calm and clearheaded, and make sure that things go as smoothly as possible and everyone is taken care of.

But I will admit that I got halfway through writing this, and I fell apart. I cried like I haven't in a very long time. That was definitely the scariest, most "real" moment I've had as a parent. I don't want to ever revisit it.

And here's my opportunity to thank Michael and Melissa, for being exactly what you would want people to be in that situation: clearheaded, calm and supportive, and helpful without being aggressive. Perfection.

It wasn't Cole's day to go. I'm very thankful to God for that.











And my favorite picture from Charleston 2007 is, of course:


Our last stop will be Summer 2008, another Sarasota trip.