Time. Emit.

Sometimes I have no time to write or think. Sometimes I have nothing but time to think and write. Lately it's been the latter.

I'm here but I'm not here. Checked in but checked out you know? So I'm here but running in circles and no time for this world right now.

More when I can. Life is taking up all my time. I mean emit. I must pay attention to it all.

Jenn

Aha!

The Littlest has been saying this one phrase for weeks now and I have had no idea what he's been saying. None. I chalked it up to gibberish. Totally acceptable gibberish from a now two year old. Tonight it was like the stars aligned and it hit me as I heard him say it again.

Here is what I thought he'd been saying:

Did jew no now (Did you know now)?

Here is what he'd been saying:

It's a no-no.

Here is how I discovered it:

Tonight as I'm running the cool water in the sparkling clean bathtub with the sparkling clean water, he reaches for the plunger and puts it in the water and as I yell out my very long very ennunciated, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he then turns to me and says, "It's a no-no!"

Well, yes, it IS a no no! Of COURSE that is what he's been saying! Half the things he does are no no's! This coming from me, a dense mom who struggles on a daily basis to have it all make sense, the stuff that flys by me, the new words and phrases, the beauty of what they say and do, the stinkerisms of what they do and sometimes, something so easy is made too hard. Silly mamma.

Jenn

Pow Pow--Shut Yo Mouth; Time Out!

Let me preface this with the "Pow Pow" thing. Suddenly two weeks ago, the Littlest started doing this pow pow thing where he hits his diaper (you'll see) and says "Pow Pow" while he's hitting it. We have no idea where this came from and the first two times he did it (ok three) I literally laughed my a** off. It was my honey who brought to my attention that the more I laughed, the more he'd do it. Well DUH! This had not dawned on me as I was too busy being amused by this sweet little laugh factory. So I immediately cut the laughter but he had already caught on; he knew it was funny. So now, out of the blue, he does it. At the zoo, in a restaurant, wherever. This my friends is my sweet Littlest. He also has an affinity for saying, "Shut Yo Mouth" which he learned at daycare (isn't that nice?). Check it out. I think we're in trouble, folks. Stinkus.

--Enjoy
J

More on Mood Jewelry; It's not a Farce!

Take a look at the Mood Ring colors listed below, and what "mood" they represent. The colors are listed according to the change in temperature they represent, with dark blue being the warmest and black the coolest.

Dark blue: Happy, romantic or passionate
Blue: Calm or relaxed
Blue-green: Somewhat relaxed
Green: Normal or average
Amber: A little nervous or anxious
Gray: Very nervous or anxious
Black: Stressed, tense or feeling harried

If you take a moment to think about the moods represented by the colors, you'll see a definite correlation between your body's surface temperature and the color of the liquid crystal. When you are in a passionate mood, your skin is usually flushed. This is a physical reaction to an emotion, causing the capillaries to move closer to the surface of the skin and release heat. This brings about a slight change in the surface temperature of your body. When you are nervous or stressed, your skin may feel clammy. This physical reaction to your emotional state causes the capillaries to move deeper into your skin, causing the surface temperature to drop.

Mood rings were first seen as an extremely popular fad in the late 1970s, and they resurface regularly! The idea behind a mood ring is simple: Wear it on your finger and it will reflect the state of your emotions. The ring's stone should be dark blue if you're happy, and it supposedly turns black if you are anxious or stressed. While mood rings cannot reflect your mood with any real scientific accuracy, they actually are indicators of your body's involuntary physical reaction to your emotional state.

LOVE IT. Very cool I think.

Trips, Vacations and Such

I think the harder you work for something the more you appreciate it. Some take vacations a lot. I guess we go places (and we do) here and there but I know some who go on big splurge vacations twice or more a year. How can you appreciate that? I don't know, maybe I'm missing out. Maybe you can absolutely appreciate that. (shrugging shoulders in 'I dunno' fashion)

I look forward to the fun trips I know we'll take when the boys get older. Exploratory trips. And the obligatory ones like Niagra Falls; you have to go there if you are on the East Coast. Granted it's basically like going to Canada but still, it's the same Coast. I just imagine it'll be so much fun and adventurous when they get older as we try to soak it all in, and remember all the days and moments we spend with them before they are off on their own; focused on their own lives. I know, I know. Slow down, good Heavens, they are little, we have plenty of time. But that's the false pretense we all fall under. Then time flies and things happen and you don't go or you can't go....

This year we were supposed to go to the beach with some close family friends. One of the girls had a baby and we put it off so we wouldn't have a newborn at the beach; stressful for the mamma and not good environment for the baby so little. So at this point, we have two 'vacations' planned for next year set it stone. One to the beach for a week and the other to Disney in November during Thanksgiving break. There's another possible trip for a reunion again but we'll see how all the details unfold. That's going to be right around the time of the "birthday month" around here where there are 4,000 birthdays too. We'll see how it goes. But for now, I'm very much looking forward to the beach and Disney. Not wishing time away, just cherishing what I know will be great fun with friends and the boys. Maybe by then I'll have lost a few more pounds. It's a slow process! I was stuck at 15 for a while and this morning I weighed in again and finally, one more pound gone. Phew. It IS possible for me to lose weight. :) Of course it is. Focus. Just focus and eat sensibly.

I feel that life is on the cusp of changing again. It's like a change in the air. A sense. Knowing but not knowing. Mark my words; life is full of them but I know a change is coming. Soon. Right around the corner.

Speaking of change; might I mention my baby sister here? Bean! Congrats on the J. O. B. Dang good news! :) Just get yourself graduated next year and things will all fall into place and you can go conquer the world with your self confidence and awesome sense of humor! Mistakes will be made, you'll mess up, you'll learn and you won't do those things again. It's life. It's growing up. I think you are growing up. Must say ya had me worried for a minute. But you are pulling through and of course, as it should be. Real world, here she comes! Good job on the NEW job. :) Yahooo! And sorry I couldn't be more excited when you called, I was in a leasing office and had to be somewhat subdued. :)

--J

Mood Jewlelry

How does it work? I have a new mood necklace that I love and wear and am obsessed with. I keep looking at it to see what my mood is. Isn't that hilarious? Like I don't know if I'm flaming mad or happy as a lark on my own right?

It intrigues me to no end. How do they work? Is it how high your blood boils or not? If your blood is not hot then you are happy? Is it all a big fat farce?

Tell me!

J

For you Lucas

I will never forget you. In all my days, in all my moments, you continue to be the reason I go on. Some might have fallen. Some might have caved. And maybe I did for a long time. Maybe I am still trying to get up from the fall. I am at least up on my heels balancing myself with one hand on the ground behind me.

Why you were born to us only to die ten months later I won't know until I'm standing in front of God. I do know that your presence here for that short time changed so much. It made me resolve to pull your Daddy closer to me no matter how mad he made me. It made me love your big brother with an even fiercer emotion than before. And it allowed us to give in to the feeling of wanting you back so badly but knowing we could not have you to make way for the Littlest, your little brother. Do you know he stands in front of the wall of pictures and says your name as if he's known you his whole two years of life? I just smile.

On this day four years ago, you left this Earth. I watched the life slowly leave your body day after day and finally when we knew it was time; it was time. To know the pain of a parent who has watched their own child die is unlike anything else. I'm starting though to prefer to think of it as a transition. To what, we're still figuring out. Thank you Lucas for being so strong. So brave to fight like you did. To tell those doctors they were wrong and thank you for leaving on your own terms and letting us mull it over for a minute. I know with my whole heart if you had just died right after that operation I would not be on my heels or anything else. I would be somewhere else. The depths.

Today has been quiet and somber and I have been tired. I have laid and I have wept quietly. It's hard you know? To balance the good in life and try to forget the pain even though it weilds through your body on a daily basis?

Happy you are. Peaceful and well. I know this. I believe and depend on it. I miss you always and I'll see you soon. In Heaven, I believe this to be moments. Here on Earth it's years. I will hold you again, and I'll never let you go.

Love Mamma.

Family Reunion

We had a fantastic awesome time on our trip. It was so good to see everyone I had not seen in a very long time. My uncles, my aunts and my cousins. We went on a tour of the White House. While not super exciting for me as an adult (although just being in the White House was a little awe inspiring) I think it was far more exciting for the Oldest and his cousin. They are 8 and 7 and I think it was more meaningful/impactful for them; at least hopefully so. I know the Littlest will not remember being there but hopefully the Oldest will.

It was a lot of go go go and not much sleep for anyone but we knew that going in and it was fun nonetheless. I tried to spread myself around evenly, getting to talk to everyone at least a little bit. When you are trying to balance your kids lovingly (even when you are feeling stress for getting all things done) and tour around, make sure you are at certain places at certain times, enjoy the gathering itself, it's hard to pick everything apart and be one thing to one person, even yourself. But I still enjoyed myself thouroughly and we got to see things I wanted to (except the Lincoln Memorial which one day I will). On our way to the Vietnam Memorial (Wall of Names) the Oldest had a nose bleed fittingly as he approached the copper memorial to the nurses of the Vietnam War. At least I thought it was fitting. As the Littlest napped peacefully we walked up and down that wall of names and it was somber and quiet and so many folks just standing with their hands on the wall staring, staring aimlessly at a name on the wall. Someone they know? Maybe. Maybe not. Somber just the same. It's something to be there and see 75,000 names engraved on that marble slat of never ending wall knowing that because of Agent Orange many more died after the war whose names never even made it on that wall.....

Our final night there was too much fun. I made Sangria which I'm not sure if folks liked or not but I did and had a glass or two of it. We had three games which everyone participated in; The Pie Game (family quiz game), the Family Line Up game (line up in some order your team decides but do it with no verbal words), and the Who Am I game (each person had to write three uncommonly known things about themself and we all had to guess who it was). Fun.

We walked our legs off, we taxi'd, we metro'd and it was a trip well worth it. Saw the National Zoo, the World War II Memorial (beautiful), the National American Indian Museum and of course, the Vietnam Memorial. In as many days as we were there, you'd think we had gotten to see more but our time was filled with many other things and it was an appropriate fast and furious. I think the Oldest favorite thing in all D.C. was riding the Metro's. He thought it was the coolest.

Overall a good time, no hugely funny stories but just good old fashioned fun. Let it be written, let it be said, the Summer 2007 H Reunion has come to a close. Here we are on the last night.

Are You There God, It's Me, Jenn

So. When you are a Mom, you are always "doing things". And things are always "happening". No? Yes. Your children get sick. Out of the blue. Maybe sometimes you can see it coming on but you ignore it because of the circumstances or just life is rushing by and it's easier to pretend it's all ok.

How about I'm in a restaurant picking up soup for my sick husband holding my sick Littlest and suddenly he starts whining and gets a funny look on his face and vomits profusely all over me, my shirt, the counter, the door to the restaurant, the floor and himself? How about he doesn't just do it once, not just twice, but how about three times again and again and again all over everything? He had eaten rice for lunch and we had just come back from the Pediatrician telling us both his ears are infected and slammo whammo lets add to the day vomitting in public. I felt for him. Absolutely. He was crying, I was almost crying for him and I was utterly embarrassed for the mess I knew I could not clean up. And the poor patrons who were actually consumming food, I'm sure they loved the show, the sounds that they heard in the whole process; very appetizing.

I drove home purposefully with no seat belt and took the shirt off the baby who immediately fell asleep in the car. The smell was lovely but he was calm and that I suppose is all that matters. I just kept holding him in the restaurant and telling him it was ok. What can you do? I could have walked out the door and left the mess and not bought the food. Not the right thing. I stood there and waited for the guy to bring up the food. With vomit all over me. Literally all over me.

It's been a crazy week and this just tops it off. Never mind I don't feel good; Mom's don't count. Keep going and keep doing. Naps? Who needs them? Just the baby. I'm just saying, even in this world of craziness and fast paced, I still believe in prayer, I still believe in good things, good karma, being kind to others even when ugly attitudes and ignorance is shown to you. All I'm asking for is a tiny bit of respit. Just tiny. Little. Nothing grand. I found myself driving home thinking, wanting, daring a police man to stop me. I think I just might have flung all the regurgitated food on my shirt at him. I guess God doesn't like ugly. That was not a nice thought so he didn't let my dare come to fruition. Good thing probably. I might be overnight jail if he did. See, everything happens for a reason now doesn't it?

Mommyhood does rock; for real. As I put the Littlest to sleep both for his nap (after we bathed the yuck off of him) and then tonight, he sweetly tells me in his most innocent whispers, "I love you so much mamma". Done deal. I'm in. Forever. Throw all the vomit in the world at me, I'm still in.

--J

I'll be back.

I'm sure I'll have funny stories abound next week. We'll see.

--J

Yellow Jackets; The stuff of big stories....

Bugs bugs bugs! See this little bugger? That guy up there? Three just like him stung the Oldest today in an episode never to be forgotten by any of us. What is the deal with us and things that fly? Or just bugs in general? And why oh why do I have such huge fear of bugs in the first place? Oh wait, that I can partly thank my sister Minnerific (obviously an alias) for. Yes when we were little and despite the fact that she was YOUNGER than me, she used to torture me with both live and dead bugs. Flash forward to now and it's all I can do to not impart that same fear to my sons. Yeah, good LUCK with that. Um, but I digress..... so today, yes back to today...

The Oldest and his cousins were outside running, getting into innocent trouble that kids can get into like, chasing girls, throwing water balloons at them and running amok in and out of the trees and bushes when they happened upon what clearly turned out to be a nest of yellow jackets. My son who was the youngest in the group didn't know what hit him till it stung him so to speak. I saw them all running and I kid you not, it was like out of a cartoon or a slow motion movie, imagine this, all the boys running, flailing their arms dramatically and yelling what I could not understand but later turned out to be "Run! Bees!" and there last in the pack was my darling, mortified of bugs in real life but loves to read and learn about them, son; crying and running towards me. His words are illogical. He's crying, clearly he is and you all know by now I cannot take this crying especially if I do not know what the crying has originated from. So I get stern with him, tell him to stop crying and talk to me. What in the world happened? And he's holding his head and then he's crying again. I look at his head, frantically, and see nothing. Tell him to stop crying again. He's in control for a second or two, I look again and then I see it. It's a yellow jacket literally buried in his head. I only see the torso in the shape of an arc. In other words, the head and the tail are pushed into his head. He is angry and obviously stinging him while I'm looking at it. What do I do? Hah! Again with the slow motion, I look up and see my honey walking towards us and I, the oh so very loving mother that I am, I push my child to him, I do not get the yellow jacket myself, I push my child to his big strong daddy and I say, "GET THE BEE OUT OF HIS HAIR IT'S STINGING HIM!!!"

More crying, more drama, we get him in the house and there are people in the kitchen (it's a party BTW) and suddenly where there was a calm Oldest, there is now an angry and re crying Oldest. He's stomping his feet and dancing about and pointing to his pants and I realize, I suddenly realize that there is another one in his pants. We rip his shirt off him, he's completely upset at this point and I'm feeling for him now, I'm feeling horrible, we pull his shorts off, and I tell his big strong daddy to take him in the bathroom suddenly acutely aware of four thousand eyes on us and oh yeah, the Oldest' almost fully naked body in the middle of my sister in laws kitchen.

"Get him in the bathroom!!" I'm sure I commanded in my best I'm in control voice (and I so was not in control of anything as per the norm).

My husband takes him in there, my sister in law, my sweet sister in law goes in there too. I think two of them did. Guess what? They found two in his shorts, they had been stinging him. He got stung once on the back of each leg. Plus one got loose and was in the window of the bathroom. Poor thing. Poor poor thing. He was trying to be brave and as I was watching him, the more he was getting stung, he was getting so angry.

AND the other boys? One of his cousins got stung on the side; it drew blood. Blech. The other cousin got nothing. The friend of his cousin, he got stung on the neck. Clearly in their travels in the trees and little woods area, they upset nature a little bit and messed with the wrong dudes. And you know, once they sense fear, you're done. You can run as fast as you'd like, your basically cooked. May as well stop running.

As I talked with the Oldest before bedtime, he said to me, "Mom I don't think I'll ever ever forget what happened today" and I'm thinking, yep, we're all done here. Remember this fear?

Yep, we're done. So I quizzed him.

"Oldest, what will you do if you ever see a bee again?"

"Be brave and ignore him" Bah hah hah! Right. I WISH. But he won't. And I probably won't either. We've seen too much this summer. Big ole' bugs and ones that sting you. No fun.

And what was the Littlest doing all this time? Running around completely oblivious until he realized his big brother was 'sad' then he was calling for him through the house. Sweet innocence. Ok, so the word on yellow jackets is, don't hit down their nest just cause you think it's a leaf. Yep. This is what the Oldest finally copped to earlier. "Maybe I hit the nest because I thought it was a leaf." WHAT? Well ya dang deserved it then buddy! Good LORD. Bet he'll never do THAT again.

Kids always have to learn the hard way. Eating live worms. Hitting yellow jacket nests. What's next? Wait. Don't tell me. I don't think I can take it.

Have Fun!

Tamm thinking of you and hope that you all have a great time tomorrow at the wedding. Of course, congratulations to the happy couple and that is the most important THING but second to that, I know you have been looking forward to this for a long time and so now the day is here.

Enjoy, get all dolled up, dress your boys up and take one million pix. Like you said, be totally in the moment.

Have fun. Can't wait to hear about it all.

J

Hot? No. That is an understatement.

Hot. Blistering. Scorching. Searing. Muggy. Sauna.

Seriously when it's normal hot summer, I'm totally good. I love it. Even when it's uncomfortable hot, I tend to ignore it, be positive, just whatever. It's summer, right? But this? This is unbearable. Worse than unbearable. I truly feel for the animals that live in the woods or forrests around here. It's that bad. It's so bad that as I'm driving I'm looking at the temperature gauge in the car, worried that the car will stop working. I've never thought that before. I am looking at the cars on the road and they all seem to be driving so very slow.

It actually feels damp outside. Oppressive doesn't do it justice. 101? Yesterday driving back from Richmond the car thermometer said 103. No lie. So you know it feels even hotter than that right? I'm thinking, this is not good. The yard actually stinks. Like something is dying. Uggy. I'm waiting, anticipating the huge storm that I know MUST be coming. Something has got to break this little wave we have going. Something.

Yes. It's me saying it's hot outside. Not just HOT but TOH. It's TOH HOT. Get it?

I so funny.

Dreaming

Dreams have been swirling in my head lately. Odd ones. Usually they are. More intense, maybe more visceral in nature. I think at times, my dreams are too meaningful to me but I try to let them go. Sometimes I wake up and remember the dream immediately and I come back to it constantly through the course of the day. All it takes is one thing, just a surprise in my day or a moment of panic and the dream goes away from my memory. If I wanted to, if I forced myself to, I couldn't remember it.

Of butterflies, lots of them, flying softly through the air. Silently waiting, quietly beating their wings with their colorful banter almost. The color is so vibrant and the designs on their wings mean something but I'm not sure what.

Or of violent waves, crashing on the beach. One after the other with no end in sight, pummeling the tiny grains of sand. I sit and watch and the sky is so dark, so grey and it's so obvious, very apparent that the sun should be out. But it's not. There's no rain but there is wind. And there are waves. It's like I'm being pulled in and I feel a huge sense of fear and the more I fight it, pretend I'm not afraid, the awareness grows in me that I'm going in the water, whether I want to or not. The pull is strong. This one I've dreamed a couple of times. And there is always always a tall wall of rocks nearby. I know I will fall down it but I never get there because I wake up first. The dream is driven by fear.

I wish I knew what it all meant but I suspect I do. In the furthest depths of me, I do know what they mean. I'm just not willing to verbalize it. To put credence to it. Sure. Maybe. Who knows.

I think some people dream more vividly. Take my husband. He never (and rarely really) remembers his dreams. He looks at me wildly when I tell him mine. I think he has come to accept that he should sit quietly while I spill my adventures in my brain from the night before. He says not much anymore. Just sits and listens. Maybe a random, "gosh honey, you dream some crazy stuff". Yeah. Real high level analysis there. ---I'm not well equipped to figure all of this out. I am only human. I reach as deep as I can on the emotional stuff but even that isn't deep enough.

As much as I look forward to sleep sometimes, as tired as I get, sometimes I put it off because I know the dreams that may come will keep me up longer the next day. Just trying to figure the night before out. It's a vicious cycle really. Just like life.

Tomorrow is a BIG Day.

I remember being pregnant with the Littlest and carrying him feeling like, wow, I'm doing this again. I am? I am. What will he look like? What will his personality be like? Will he and his big brother be close? Well. Now two years later, these questions and so many more are answered for me. He looks like his Daddy. His personality is very zing zingy; he is a fun lover and has an extreme mind of his own. Listen? Uh uh. We already know and have discussed on several occasions that he will be the one that tests us to our limits. And we know it will be wild fun. He and his big brother are very close and that was a stupid question on my part. Seriously, what was I thinking? So now, two years later, I am amazed that this little man can talk in sentences, communicates very well and will tell you if he loves you. We teach him that of course, but he has caught on rather quickly.

I have been singing him happy birthday and he quickly tells me, "no singing?" meaning, uh, I think he doesn't like my singing. Tomorrow I'll be singing it even louder. A day to celebrate life. He's two! Wow. He's two. And-----we are so proud.

Happy Birthday Littlest.

Do ya?

Do you know or believe in any of the below stuff that has been flying through my head lately?

• Aliens? Are they out there? It's quite possible I think. And why not? Are we so great and almighty powerful that we are the ONLY ones in this huge universe? Uhhhh no.
• Think one day our health care system will be reformed? Notsomuch.
• Know why laundry does not do itself? Oh yea, it's because it doesn't have feet, arms, and a brain. Dang it.
• Believe that if you have lost someone you loved with your entire being, heart and soul, that they are right here, right here by our side even when we can't 'feel' that they are?
• Know that football season is right around the corner and I'm cringing already?
• Know if Derek will be mad if I send his birthday present early since Joey's is already so darn late, maybe I can send them together, like soon? huh?

I am a busy bee and these random things go in and out of my head a lot. My favorite job in the world is calling my name quite loudly and I have really no excuse to not do it so I guess I better get to it. Chop chop. Lets go. Gee I love folding clothes. Absewlewteley.

J

Me and My "Ted Bear"

It's not his Teddy Bear. It's his Ted Bear. I am told I enable him with it. What's childhood for if not favorite and tattered stuffed animals and blankelets? Pish Posh. Go on honey, you keep your Ted Bear. Mamma said you could. Enjoy.

-J