Many thanks from a grateful heart

Before my last post and since, I have been beating myself up. The "big mistake" has truly been eating at me, and while I have allowed myself a few laughs over the whole situation, I would be lying if I didn't admit that the whole thing made me pretty sick. If I were a house elf, I would have been whacking myself over the head with a cast iron skillet. Thankfully I'm not, but still a little bruised on the inside. It was a lesson learned. Research before you share. I knew that.
That being said, as I was reviewing the comments for the Zucchzilla post (which you should really check out and join in on), I noticed a comment from my last post as well. It was left anonymously, even though I'm pretty sure it was my Dad, who would know just how much I was beating myself up over the whole situation. The comment said that there was a German poet by the name of Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe, and that I should check to see if it was possible if it was something he had written. With a flutter in my heart, I once again entered the name into the search bar and whuala ( I don't think that's really how you spell that but whowhell), there it was, among quite a few other lovely things. And so I can finally write what I had initially set out to in the first place...
Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe, the German poet once said, "Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to drawback, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."
So thank you "anonymous", for freeing me from my mistake, I have learned the lessons well, I will put the frying pan away for good, put the quote back in it's place on the fridge, and rest peacefully.

Big mistake (Not covered under the 10 mistakes umbrella)

Do you remember my "10 mistakes" post? Well, I recently made a mistake of huge proportions that I didn't mean to make and am hoping that it doesn't lead anyone to believe that I am a Nazi sympathizer. No, seriously.

Now, we've already covered that fact that we all make mistakes. Big mistakes, small mistake, no matter the size we all make them. While I try my best cover myself from the BIG mistakes, like making sure that I lock the car doors and the gate so that littlest doesn't escape with my keys and try to drive off without my knowing, you know safety first, I sometimes make little mistakes like say, forgetting to put laundry detergent in the washer. But this, my friends is a big mistake, the embarrassing kind, worse than the t.p. dragging behind the shoe and more like accidentally swinging an anvil in a crowded room, although I'm not sure how you would accidentally do that, but anyway...
I must start by saying that this big oops was not necessarily by my doing anything, but rather my trusting an outside source and then doing something, actually a number of things, with the information provided by the unknown source.
Earlier his year I had the occasion to write a number of thank you notes. I went off to the scrapbooking aisle of my dreaded local superstore, picked up a package of blank note cards and a little pad of quotes. You may know just the kind I mean, various quotes, some spoken by truly inspirational people like Mother Teresa, and others were just a word like BELIEVE, all were printed on vellum in various colors and fonts. Home I went to make my cards. I used happily colored papers and the vellum quotes, wrote my notes of thanks , stamped and sent them off.
One of my favorites from this stack was this...
"Whatever you can do

or dream you can,

Begin it;

Boldness had genius,

power and magic in it."

Lovely sentiment, I thought. To me it meant, go for the gusto, follow your dreams, be BOLD. I used this quote in various places. I'm sure that I put it on at least a couple of those thank yous, added it to my favorite quotes of Facebook, and I'm pretty sure that I used it here in one of my earlier posts. Of course I always gave "Props" to the author, Goeth, having no idea who this Goeth was..
And then, just the other day, as I was writing a birthday letter to my Dad and Step Mom, it made sense to add a little something extra. I looked and looked for the right thing to add at the end. I searched here and there. Finally, I settled on that same trusted saying. Rather than just write it and credit the man or woman who said it, I decided to write something more. My hope was to write something like,"Renowned poet, Frederick Van Goeth once said," or," French impressionist Margaret Meredeth Goeth, upon taking her last breath, gave this advice to her children...". Something that had color, flair. And so to Wikipedia I went. "G-O-E-T-H", I typed and what popped up made my stomach hit the floor. I read the information and then noticed that the name was spelled differently, "Whew" I thought to myself ,"Dogged that one". I retyped the name and when the same page came up again I decided to search someplace else, rather than trust my Wiki, as I had my lovely stack of quotations. NO SUCH LUCK.
Unfortunately, my dear friends, it seems that Goeth, is indeed...
Amon Leopold Goth (Two dots over the "O" that I can't find on the keyboard I guess represent the "E") (11 December, 1908- 13 September 1946) was a Hauptsturmfuhrer of the SS and was the commandant of the Nazi concentration camp at Plaszow. He was responsible for the death and torture of thousands upon thousands of innocent people. Ralph Fiennes played him in Schindler's list.
See, your stomach just hit the floor too, didn't it. Now this my friends is a mistake, and while I do blame the company who's papers I used, I must also hold myself accountable for not checking up on it. You see, you can trust Mother Teresa and Oprah, but if you don't recognize the name, be sure to investigate. It would be a fantastic thought, had it been thought by someone known to be warm and loving, but when said by someone like that it takes a rather ominous tone. I can just imagine the many women, and men just to be p.c., sitting around the table at their scrapbooking party, unknowingly placing the little piece of paper next to the picture of their son at graduation or the one of their newborn grandchild. I can almost see the interns placing that on the list to go into that package as a little joke to pay for their ink stained fingers. Ha back, and a pox on your sales. It might have even been better to quote Edgar Allan Poe, who was crazy as all get out, but probably not as evil. I remember an episode of the West Wing where the characters were debating on whether or not to use something said by Chairman Mao, because he was a communist leader. I can't remember what was finally decided, but it is pretty much the same debate as is going on in my mind now. I think it does matter. If I place the paper on my fridge to remind me to follow my dreams, I think it would instead just remind me of sadness and atrocities, which are of course important to remember, but not necessarily on the fridge.
I guess I can chalk it up to a lesson learned. Check your references. I was taught that in seventh grade by Miss Ayers, I guess the importance just didn't sink in until now. And so , once again, my mistake lead to a lesson learned. I will do my best next time, and will forgive myself for the big one this time, but next time you notice that I do something like that, would you kindly swing an anvil in my direction?

Zucchzilla Contest

Alright, so when I began my lovely garden back in the Spring I was just sure that nothing would grow. Happily, we have been eating broccoli, and yummy tomatoes and lots and lots of zucchini. We've had zucchini bread and zucchini chicken, which is a really yummy recipe I was given by my Step-Mom and will be glad to share if you would like it, we are planning zucchini chicken soup for this week and I'm going to try to find a cheesy zucchini casserole recipe (Hey, if you have one maybe we could do a tradesy), I digress. Honestly I'm kinda tired of zucchini, even honestly tired of saying and typing zucchini, and seriously, I'm hoping that I'm spelling it right because I don't see a spell check at the top of this page.
These lovely vegetables (or are they fruits?) really grow. I mean we have checked them at night and then the next morning they are even more gigantic. I gave one to Mom the other day and suggested she keep it under her bed in case she needs to defend her territory. Here in the mountains you can shoot a person the moment they walk into your house and get away with it, I wonder if zucchini clubbing is included. It would at least make the front page of our little newspaper and obviously it would be the top news story, but of course that would not be funny so I will move on.
I have named this zucc., Zucchzilla, because for the longest time it hid among the flowers and leaves and it wasn't until it was really big that we even saw it. When Brian asked what I was going to make with it, I decided that I was just going to let it grow and grow, and then the light bulb went off and I thought it might be a fun little game.
I don't really think of myself as a competitive person, or at least I didn't until Jake and I had a little competition (or at least I did, not really sure if he knew we were competing, but Grandma wasn't there to let him cheat so I took the chance) to see who could make the most words from the name George Washington Vanderbilt. (The competition was scratched when our meal came and sadly, since he didn't know it was even a competition, it ended before it began.)
Anywhoo, I thought it might be fun, if you wanted to play, if you could all guess just how big he will get and then the winner might just be sent something fun, or we could just play for kicks, who knows. So, Zucchzilla is at about 16 inches now and the contest will end either when he jumps from his stem of little man picks him, whichever comes first.
Hopefully y'all aren't into contest rules, because you will find no fine print here. It just is what it is. Be careful to consider your guess because I cannot promise that the little man won't shoot straight out of bed this morning and run and pull Zucchzilla from his might throne. the prize will not be the zucc. because it falls under the "fragile, liquid, perishable, or potentially hazardous" blanket of questions they ask at the post office. I will keep you posted of his growth and I guess the person closest at the end will be the !!!WINNER!!!The contest will include my blog readers as well as my friends on Facebook. So, Happy guessing, no pushing, throwing punches, or pulling hair now, Play nice! Leave your guesses on my wall, my inbox, or my blog comments, or you can email me of you wanna. Have Fun!

His eye is on the sparrow, Hallelujah

Lately I have made an honest attempt to read more. I know, shocking isn't it. I've found that when I read, my mind wanders. I will read a whole page before I realize that I have not not absorbed a single sentence, even a single word.
Last week I was finishing the last in the Harry Potter series in the quiet hours of the morning, sitting in the chair I had sat in a year or so before while my Dad sat on the couch next to me in the late, quiet hours of another night, when into my mind came a picture. I was looking into my old church. The Episcopal cathedral that I attended with my Dad when I was young. The same place that we held my Grandmothers memorial service. I remember as a little girl sitting in the pews and just looking around in wonder at the stained glass windows, the thick smell of incense in the air. I saw the room and saw the pews with the kneelers, I looked around first from the main aisle and then from the pulpit, or maybe it is only called the pulpit in the Baptist church, I'm not sure. It's the same place I sat on an April Fool's day many years ago and, while a prayer began and I should have had my eyes closed, I instead turned and whispered for him to look at a bird that had flown into the rafters. He believed me, of course and began looking and then, snickering, I said full of pride that the trick had worked, "April fools". It's a story we retell each other often. That day he turned with absolutely no expression and replied,"You are in so much trouble when we get home." I was horrified at what I had done, and just sure that this punishment would be quite severe as I couldn't ever remember having been in "so much trouble" with him before. I hadn't received a spanking that I could remember in all my years of being his daughter and so I began to cry. His face softened and he whispered into my ear,"April Fools". We laugh about it all now because I was just sure that I had finally pushed him to the place where I would be in trouble for making a joke, which never had, nor has since happened. But this time I was standing in the aisle of an empty Cathedral and I could hear Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" playing. This is significant because back on the night that I sat in the same chair where I now found myself, we were watching "Feast of Love", a movie that I had needed to see from the first time I saw the trailer and then once seen had to own and share. As we began to watch I became embarrassed, as the first time I watched alone, and couldn't be embarrassed about the amount of nudity. I had forgotten it because it is a beautiful story about relationships and love and tragedy and well, the nudity was not absorbed as much as the lesson of never being afraid to love deeply. As we watched the music began and I remember saying how much the music spoke to me and Dad sighed and said that song was one of the songs he wanted played at his funeral. And so I sat in the wee hours of the morning thinking about Dad and his funeral and the Cathedral and the odor of wafting incense. As morning began and the littles woke and began their morning routines I couldn't lose the song. Later while folding laundry I began to hum a tune, which usually happens for some reason when I fold laundry. I think because I am alone and can sing without fear of being heard. As I hummed I began to sing,

"I sing because I'm happy,

I sing because I'm free,

for his eye is on the sparrow

and he watches over me. "

The lyrics are really,"And I know He watches me", but for some reason, "He watches over me", is what I know, and what I sing when I'm all alone in the laundry room.
Later that afternoon my Brother called, which is rare, but not unexpected as he will be here this weekend. He had called to tell me that my Dad had been in a accident. My heart sank and the first thing that came out of my mouth was that I had known it all day long. My brother knowing me well said that he knew when he called that that is what I would say.
I don't think I'm psychic, not at all, but so many times I have picked up the phone to call my Mom and it was busy because she was calling me. Even once when I had a land line I picked up to call and she was already on the line, she had heard the ring on her end but I had not yet on mine. There are times when my Dad has called when I needed him to without plan or consciousness on either of our parts. I think this is God's way of connecting us one to another. His way of tapping us on the shoulder. And I don't think that me in the church with a song in my mind that will be played at my Father's funeral is a premonition of his death either. I think it is my way of shoring up. Just as the same morning that I had sung "His eye is on the sparrow" standing in the laundry room of my own home, my Mom had been singing it to herself in her home, not telling each other or sharing, it was placed in both of our minds so that when my Brother called her on his way home from visiting Dad in the E.R. she would remind him of the same thing that I had been singing throughout the day.
Yesterday and the evening before I read Joan Dideon's the Year of Magical Thinking, a book I have wanted to read for the longest time, but never made it to the library to get, until a few days ago, in which she mentions her way of shoring up for disaster. She writes how she was prepared with emergency candles and numbers and papers, and that it was her way of shoring up for disaster. I have my important papers and my flashlights, but in a true emergency I doubt that I will think to grab the papers or have working batteries in the flashlights, as I usually find them strewn about the house burned out. I don't feel the need for paper work, I instead feel the need to shore up my own heart, not to block out love, but so that I am prepared emotionally when there is a loss of someone I love, not that there is any real way to do that.
Yesterday with littlest at the grandparents the biggers and I decided to take a hike on some local trails. I packed a lunch and grabbed the bug spray and as I did I kept thinking of other things to pack. We had food already, so I grabbed matches, and a box cutter and a clean towel and the Benadryl and anything else, oh yes, band aids, I could think of that we might need if we became lost or were attacked by a bear or if one of the kids cut themselves or had a reaction. For a three hour walk through the woods on well marked trails, I needed all of this. I guess in some ways I do shore up for disaster, but none came and we had a wonderful time and had a picnic on a rock by the stream. On the way I had said a quick prayer, "Lord please don't take Dad, I'm just not ready." Rather than praying as I should have and allowing God to do what He does in His time and in His way, but as a little girl asking to not have to leave the park yet, because she isn't done playing.
When we lost my Step Dad in January we were all crushed. I know that even as an adult, I am still my parents child and childlike with them in many ways. When I have a really bad day or am sad about whatever it is I am sad about, I need my husband and my children, but I need my parents as well. I need their advice and their laughter and the way they make me smile and feel safe just as they did when I was really a child. I need my husband who thinks it's silly to pack a box cutter in case some escaped convict jumps out from behind a tree and the parents who think that while I may not have to use them, I am somewhat protected by the things that I have packed, because they themselves cannot be there to protect me. And so when Jimmy died we were extremely sad, but he was ready and had been for while a while. It was justifiable. His mind had gone, and it would confuse him to have visitors, anything away from his normal routine would confuse him and while in selfishness we wanted him to stay we were comforted by the knowledge that he was Home. I joked at the time that he was on the back nine of the most beautiful golf course he had ever seen and was able to stand without help and swing the club harder than he had in years. He was no longer sick, or confused and was Home, where he belonged and well deserved to be.
I remember back years ago when my Grandfather (my Step-Mothers father) passed away and then not long after my Grandmother (my Dad's mom) followed. I remember walking with my Dad to see her and say goodbye and as I began to cry I mumbled "I hate this". Not understanding what I meant my Dad reassured that we didn't have to see her. "Not this", I cried making circles with my hands trying to represent the current moment, and then held my hands out in front of me, again making circles,"This". The whole thing, death. Losing two people who I loved in a matter of months, it was just too hard. Losing two people years apart is too hard, losing someone you love is just too hard. They were in a better place, out of pain and at peace, but it was too hard for me. God's timing is hard and it doesn't make sense to our mortal hearts. The loss of grandparents is normal, the loss of parents to an adult child is normal, the loss of children is not normal in any way, shape or form, but no matter the relation, I believe that God has His reason and his timing that we may never fully understand but we must trust, until we do. Age justifies death, just as illness. No one wants to say goodbye to a loved one just as no one wants to see that loved one hurting or in pain or confusion from which they will not return. I'm not ready for my Grandmothers to go although they have both told me that they are ready. And I get it. They have had long happy lives, they are strong beautiful women who raised their own children and saw the generation after that grow and raise the one after that which continues to grow. They were wives to the men they loved and they miss them and I have no doubt that even as we cry when they are called Home, they will be welcomed into the arms of their soul mates who went before them.
I don't dwell on future death of loved ones, but I do sometimes find myself imagining the aisles of the Churches and what will be said and whether I will be able to speak or to even form words. I wonder how long I will be able to pick up the phone and call my parents, or how many more times our calls will pass on those lines. It isn't for me to know, of which I am glad, and it isn't for me to ask for in my own time, because that would never come. And so I pray and I try to shore my own self up, so that when the call does come I will be prepared even though I know that it doesn't work that way. Just as we are still sad and heartbroken and grieving while holding the knowledge that they were ready. But I do know this and it is in disagreement with the last line from Ms. Dideon's book, His eye is most definitely on the sparrow, on the smallest of beings and on the largest, the strongest and most frail and He does absolutely watch over me, and you, and I'm sure that tune will mix with others in future years as I stand and say goodbye to loved ones. And I'm sure that no matter what lyrics are sung I will drift off and remember the graham cracker marshmallow treats and the candy dishes that define my Grandmother's for me, and I will remember the songs that my Mom sang to me at bedtime and the April fools joke and inappropriate laughter and movie watching with Dad, the strength and tuna casserole that are my Step-Mom and the vows I made to my husband. And through the tears I will most likely chuckle just a bit a funny memory, not out of disrespect but out of love for someone who once made me laugh. Because even if they aren't here to embrace, or answer the questions that I need to ask, or chuckle at the silly things I do, I have shored up their memory and I will carry those things, the most precious of all gifts with me and then one day they will be waiting for me, with open arms in a blinding brightness. And I will say...

I did my best,it wasn't much

I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch

I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you

And even though It all went wrong

I'll stand before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah

(Leonard Cohen)

I'm packing up my toys and going home

No, not really, besides I am at home, which also means that all of my toys are here anyway. If I was going to pack up and go anywhere it would most definitely be to Florida to sit at my Dad's bedside and have long sessions of inappropriate laughter with him about the indignities of being in the hospital. But I'm pretty sure that those of you who read this already know that story and well, it worries me enough to think about it, and to process it all enough to write about it would make me sad, so I'm going to just skip over that story and move on to my story about, well, moving on.
After many moments of careful consideration and not many moments of packing up things that just sold, I have decided to close down my Etsy shop. I instead will be following the lead of my hubby and move on to the greener pastures of Ebay. I know big steps right. Nah, not really. It is fun to again be embarking on a new adventure, and I know whatever comes, whether it be success or failure, I am still doing what I love and that is really, really fun.
Another big change that you must know about, just in case you try to find me at my new place of business , I am no longer panapizza, but have made the colossal change to ...wait for it...wait for it... anneliesepanapizza. I know, thankfully I don't have to get my i.d. changed for that. Wouldn't they all look at me funny. Besides anneliesepanapizza is still a name I think of fondly from my childhood.
So that's my newest news and if you sense a tinge of silliness in my writing it is because I have been staring at this screen, digitally packing everything up, moving it over, and unpacking since early this morning, and really you should just be glad that I didn't write this in webdings.

My life in movies

I would love to sit and tell you that I don't watch t.v., that instead we all sit at night and read by firelight. I would love to say that I have never, ever rushed the kiddos to bed to assure that I see the first 5 minutes of a given show, so that I know just who it was that had some horrible thing happen to them. I must admit, sadly that I have, and most of the time I spend the first 5 minuted of said show thinking about the fact that it was terrible that I just threw my kids into bed and traded them for television.
I have found that when I write these little bits, I tend, at some times to sound a bit overly romantic. My sweet children who I am in awe of daily and my husband who was made just for me. It is all true. I do love my family. I am blessed to be a mom and wife. I have parents that I adore and who are always there for all of us. I am a lucky, lucky, blessed girl, and I know it. The problem is that I don't want any of you to think that I'm full of it. I am not.
Life can be as tragic as it is wonderful, and while it seems sometimes to be a hearty strong thing, it can just as easily be broken down. Like a dam that needs constant tending so that when the flood does come, it doesn't wash away the whole town, life and love need constant attention.
As my daughter, who is now home from her cross country romp, and I sat watching "Ya ya Sisterhood" the other night, I began thinking just how life can mimic the movies, or at least how movies certainly do mirror life. There is a scene where the character Vivi runs to her sick child only to find that all of her children have come down with the flu. She is holding one child who gets sick on her, while the others all cry, and well, she loses complete control. I believe that the movie goer is supposed to think that she completely lost her marbles. What a crazy lady, right? Well maybe, but there was a winter night in our house that went down just like that, and well(again) I almost almost completely lost control. I had been almost three nights without sleep as Middle Little was up with a stomach flu. Just as he was recovering Lady and Littlest became sick at exactly the same moment. There I was trying to direct littlest body so as to not get the sheets any dirtier than they were, and stepping in things on the floor that I shall not mention here, while Lady, across the house was calling for me. It was almost just like the movie. I began to cry(sob), and my husband began to look at me as if I had grown two or four heads, because who cries over vomit?(me obviously). But I didn't run off for three days of sleep in a hotel room, as Vivi does (although I really, really wanted to), instead I cleaned up the mess, started the washer, loaded a couple of unsalvageable things into a trash bag and carried it outside, set my foot on a fresh patch of ice, landed on the icy pavement and just sat and cried.
See, it isn't always marvelous here in the cove, but I am sure you all suspected that. We have days where bedtime is more like a scene from "Night at the Museum" . The directions say to lock the lions up before they eat you, you know. While we do have fairy tale days where everything goes according to plan, we also have days where there is enough tension to blow the roof off at any moment as in some action flick. There are moments when the boys throw down like a scene from "Fight Club". I have times when I can't keep up, days where I feel like both sides of Cinderella, the one who cleans and the one who runs off with her prince. If I am going to be completely honest, which is really the whole point here, I have days where I want to have a knock down, drag out, "War of the Roses" fight with my husband and I'm sure he has days where he wants to "Throw Mama from the Train". That's just life. Good and bad, pretty, ugly, and down right disgusting, happy, sad, and amazingly hysterical. But no matter how it is at any given moment I do know this, it is a gift, and it is up to all of us to make the best of the bad times and relish the good and maybe even hope for better. I loved the movie "Little Miss Sunshine". It is the perfect example of a family trying to do the best for their little girl while everything is going wrong. The teenage boy is tells his uncle how he wishes he could just skip the teenage years and the uncle replies that they are necessary because if you didn't have hard times how would you know how wonderful the good times are. That might be one of the most simple and wonderful things to take away. Life can be all of the things I said before, and so I can focus on the bad side of life, the hard times that everyone in their own way is dealing with, or I can focus on the good side, the raw beauty, and that is what I choose to do here, if not to tell you about it, maybe just to remind myself. Life is short we all know that, and have learned the lesson the hard way even though we are told. I want to be the parent who, when my children have a bad day, no matter how old they get, come to me for advice or assistance like I do with my parents. I want to be the kind of wife who my husband wants to come home to at the end of a stressful day, because I help him find peace. It is easy to let myself believe that to be that person for my family I have to be perfect, all smiles and no tears. I know, though, that is not the case at all, I just have to be real. In bad times, I don't need the candy coating, although a bag of MnM's does help in some situations. I need the ones who say,"Yeah, I've been there and it really sucks."
Life is all about the highs and lows and even the sideways. It is truly the the lessons learned in the hard times that help us appreciate the good. So, while the things I write here are true and very real, I also have things in my life that are not so rosy, like the day I shared about falling through the heat vent.
I will leave you with this, in "Sex and the City" , the girls are having a conversation about whether they are happy or not. They ask Charlotte how often she is happy and she says ,"Every day". The other women look at her like she is lying and her response is something like this,"I'm not saying that I'm happy all day every day, but yes, at some point every day, I am happy."
I think that pretty much sums it up, don't you?

A brothers love

We are in the final countdown until Lady Little's wheels touch down a little closer to home. It has been a month since we saw her last. A long, testosterone filled month. I am in serious need of some good old fashioned girl talk and most definitely a mani/pedi day with my firstborn. Last night as we all settled in for the night I mentioned this need to the hubs. He just didn't get it, and actually looked quite offended that my boys were not enough to make me happy. Of course it's not that at all. I have enjoyed my boy time tremendously. I have loved watching Middle Little ride his bike over his new ramp as Littlest rolled his dump truck down the hill to see what it crashed into. It's just that life with all boys in the house is a bit more rough around the edges than it is when there is a girl in the mix. Plus, my boys just don't understand a bad hair day that can't be fixed with a baseball cap and in their world there is no reason to put on makeup before a trip to the flea market. She gets those things, and I am, as we all are, ready for her to come home.
The truth is though that while the sensitivity level of our household has gone down quite a bit since she left, I am happy to say that it has not been lost all together. A testament to that was my sweet Middle's actions yesterday. Littlest had his 3 year checkup with our family doctor. With the Hubs at work I had prepared myself to take both boys. Now, I can handle heading out with both boys most days, but when a doctors office waiting room, and possibility of shots is thrown in, I tend to have anxiety over it.
The morning did not begin as I had hoped. It was filled with bickering and all sorts of disagreeing. When we arrived and I began to fill out the paperwork, Littlest began acting like one of those kids. You know the ones that you look at in the store and think, or even maybe say out loud,"Boy, if that were my child...". It wasn't pretty. His actions mixed with the fact that Middle would really rather have been anywhere else at that moment and was not too timid to tell me so, prompted me to text my sweet hardworking husband to say that the next appointment was all his. After weighing and measuring we were put into our little room. Ahhh, a controllable environment with no senior citizens to horrify. All was going well. Middle was enjoying the company of our doctor and her nurse, who he may just have the tiniest crush on. Dr. I decided that we should check Littlest's iron level. "No problem", I said way too soon. "He does really well with the finger prick".
No such luck, as the lab they use requires a blood draw. Of course they don't require that you come into the lab, they know better.
Up on the table he went and the doctor sweetly explained to him just what would happen and while it didn't really sound anything like this, this is what I heard.
"You will hold your strong willed 3 year old down while we do our utmost to get the blood before he screams."
Now remember that an exasperated Middle was in the room with us, making a mental list of all of the places he would rather be than in this tiny room with his stinky brother and his grumpier by the minute Mom. While the doctor explained what was about to happen, this is what he must have heard."NOW we're going to set your sweet little brother on this table, see, and your Mom is going to hold him down, see, and laugh at his pain while we take this huge needle and fill this bucket up with his blood. Muahahahah!"
As the procedure began it looked like it might all go off without too much drama. Littlest was being very agreeable and held his squeezy truck while they tapped his chubby arm looking for a vein. I tenderly draped myself over him and brushed the hair from his forehead as they began. He watched in awe. What male of the species wouldn't love three women talking sweetly and focusing on just them, right? And then it happened. A scream that surely shocked the elderly patients in the other rooms ripped through the examining room. I tried my best to hold him still, but to no avail as the needle popped out of his arm.
"Well, we'll have to try the other arm", the nurse explained. We all did a swticharoo, but quickly decided that the other arm was best so again we traded places. As I looked over to check on Middle I saw that he had covered his ears to block out his little brothers cries. I did my best to assure him while also doing my utmost to keep Littlest from jumping off the table.
More determined than ever we began again. Holding tightly to his legs and making way more promises than I will ever be able to keep, I tried to explain the need to hold still so that these sweet ladies didn't need a stiff drink when the shift was over.
In a whirlwind of screams and tears we finally had success. As the three of us had a short celebration of victory and told Littlest what a big boy he had been, all of our eyes fell on my sweet Middle Little. He was curled up in a ball in the chair, covering his ears and his face. Before I could reach him, our sweet physician patted his back and told him it was all done. As he sat up we all saw it. The tears that were streaming down his face were every bit as big and real as his baby brother's. It was if he had felt the same fear and pain that his brother had. He came to my side and buried his face. I reassured both of my boys, and remembered back to a few days after we brought Littlest home. The hospital called to say that I had left something. As I hung up Middle looked at me with huge eyes and asked if we had to take his little brother back. All was well as we left the appointment. The stickers and lollipops that filled both of their hands must have wiped away the trauma. I didn't need stickers, the fact that we were on our way home was enough for me.
I'm sure that we will have more bicker filled days. Middle will surely have days where he wishes he was an only child, as all children do at one time or another. But no matter what, they are siblings, and while it may be fine in their own minds to torment eachother, everyone else had better watch out. Had the ones torturing his brother been a pack of bullies and not a sweet doctor nurse duo the outcome most likely would have been very different.