Becoming a Grandma

I became a "Nana" 15 days ago and have had a lot of people ask me, "How does it feel to be a grandma?"   I can honestly say I don't really feel different in any way really...I just know that this little baby is so sweet and adorable and I love holding her and hearing her little squeaks as she sleeps.   

The one thing I do notice is that I have so much more patience with her!!  She cries and I just talk to her and sing to her and she calms down so easily.   (I know this may not last forever that she calms easily but for now I am liking it).  

I theorize that when she learns to talk and calls me Nana for the first time, that might be the moment I feel different!!    
I love that my daughter is such a good mom, and that our son and mini me daughter just love her to pieces and they are so good with her.   Gentle and sweet and they love holding her and loving on her just as much as I do.   

How can you not love that face!!   <3

Mondays

Monday on Summer vacation seems like every other day when you are a stay at home mom.   With the exception that it is garbage day.  So you have to make sure you are up by 7-ish to wake your teenage son to do his chore of taking out the recycle bins and garbage bag that was tied up and left at the ready behind your car in the garage.   Then you think to yourself, "If I don't wake him and just run it out to the curb myself then maybe, just maybe I can squeak out some quiet time in the sun room sipping my coffee till everyone gets up."   

  

I pretty much do the same thing every week.  

This week my hubby had to work and had to be up early.  His alarm woke me, but not before I faintly heard our son getting up and trying to be quiet at 6am.   This kid hates to sleep!!  I swear I do not know where he gets this from, maybe it has to do with his ADHD, but he hardly ever sleeps in.   When I was 14....I slept till noon!!  My oldest daughter didn't like sleeping much either, but it was more because she thought she was missing out on something.   I had to actually buy a freaking book called,  "Nothing Happens"  Just so it would allay her fears that she was indeed missing out on something.   My youngest daughter LOVES to sleep...that is why I call her MINI ME!!   It scares me sometimes how much she is like me.  I love it and hate it all at the same time.   Crazy right?    

She is such a little mommy, well she isn't so little she will be 11 next month, but alas she loves to micromanage everybody's world and schedules.   I truly believe she is pre-menstrual!!   She has yet to get her period but boy oh boy....does she ever act like she already gets it.  The mood swings can be dizzying!!   Even I can't keep up with her and I have been swinging moody for like 36 years!!  (I was 11 when I got mine for the first time).   

So to get back to my original point....I dislike Mondays!!!   

Shhh.....let him sleep

It is Sunday morning...the day after our son's big 14th birthday party!

My husband is still sleeping....our son is already up, and our youngest daughter slept at a friends house and won't be home until 11am since she went to church with her friends family.  Today will be a day of rest here in our house.  A day of doing absolutely nothing!!   Especially for me, since my back started it's crazy spasm party late last night!   Just so rude and utterly annoying!!  

A good time was had by all, (at least it seemed that everyone had fun, I had fun so that is all that matters right?)   I got to spend lots of time cuddling with our 2 week old granddaughter!!  We haven't seen much of our son since he opened his gifts and discovered that we got him an Xbox360!!  I kind of figured that would happen.  It's okay though, he has to come up to eat sometime right?  Not to mention to use the bathroom!!

I am grateful that the thunderstorms held off until later in the evening, although our oldest had to drive home an hour in the rain.   But, it was nice to sit and visit with her and her boyfriend and our granddaughter till almost 11pm.   I am sure they will all be exhausted today.  

Hope your day of rest is restorative and calming no matter where you are or what you are doing!!

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Stupid People

I have to rant today!  (but hey when don’t I have to rant?  LOL)….lately I have seen some really stupid people while I have been out and about this week particularly.  Perhaps it is due to the fact that I make every effort to not have to leave the comfort of my lovely home and make minimal trips to town and get things done all at once.   Now with that being said, in the past couple of weeks since my oldest daughter had her baby (my granddaughter), I have been out driving here and there and all over the place much more frequently.   Which, I do not mind but…..this past week it seems like we have had an appointment or shopping excursion every single day.  This I am so not used to.   There have been dumbasses who don’t use a friggin blinker when changing lanes, elderly women driving 7 miles an hour in a 45 with their right blinker on, only to turn LEFT!!!   I do realize that maybe someday I will be that elderly lady and when I am someone can write a rant about me too….I am fine with that.   Now this brings me to the pinnacle of my week, and to some it might sound silly, but to me it was the “proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back”. 

Kids and I are driving to get Ryan’s new glasses that were ready for pickup.

 I turn left onto the street where the eye doctor’s office is and in front of me is a guy on a recumbent bicycle.  *you know one of those ones you sit down and pedal* 

 But he isn’t off to the side like bicyclists are supposed to be. (despite plenty of room for him to be over to the right).

 Now, mind you these bikes are set pretty low to the ground, but this guy has no flag sticking up, no reflectors, bright colors, no nothing to warn anyone who can’t see over the end of their car hood or pickup truck that he is in the road.   ( I drive a smaller car so I could see him, but think about the previously mentioned “elderly lady”, or a teenager texting and driving or the tired farmer in his big pickup heading to the farm implement store, none of them wouldn’t have seen him).

Next, we come to the stop sign just before the eye doctor which is on the next corner.

 I stop behind him, of course keeping a good distance since I have no idea which way he is going to go.  Thinking to myself, naturally he can’t be that rude or stupid and surely will signal if he is going to turn or not.   NO HAND SIGNAL, NOTHING!!   He turns right!!   (which is fine because at least he wasn’t turning left or the pickup in the opposite lane would have smashed him to bits).   Ryan yells out *with windows rolled up* “What the heck dude, even I know how to use basic hand signals, you are going to get yourself killed”.   

To which I reply:  “I know right!!”  

The moral of this story is Pay Attention people!!!    Get your head out of the clouds or out from your ass or wherever it is, and focus on your surroundings!!   And please, please use the proper safety equipment!!   Too many people are getting hurt or killed in accidents that most do not ever have to happen.   

TGIF???

I am not so sure I am glad it is FRIDAY (this week at least).   I say this because our son's 14th birthday party is tomorrow and I have a million things to get done today.   Hubby has to work today and won't be home till 8pm.   

This morning I get up and he is outside checking on the garden, then he goes onto the deck to pick some catnip to make our cats all hyper.   When he comes back in he informs me that, "something has gotten under the deck and died and it smells bad out there".   GREAT!!!   Because I don't have enough to do today baking cupcakes, running to town to pick up Ryan's glasses, prepping the rest of the stuff for his party tomorrow that now I have to try and vanquish the smell of "something dead under the deck".  *GAG*   

   We have gotten so much rain here lately too that the yard is all soft and muddy.   This is supposed to be Iowa in June for goodness sakes, not Monsoon season in the tropical rainforest!!   

    Oh well, I guess it is just another day in the life right?!!  

Here's hoping we don't get anymore rain so his party will be a success. After all it is the first one where he is inviting GIRLS!!!   

Frozen

Okay so my kids aren't little anymore but they do still like the Disney movies....I finally watched Frozen today with them, since it is rainy and they sing the songs just as much as the little ones do.  It is what prompted this post today......

“Let it Go”!!   

Yes, I said it…..”let it go”!   Not always an easy thing for any parent to do.   Myself, being a control freak from birth, I have a hard time “letting go”.   Although I do realize it is definitely part of growing up and being a good role model for my kids.   It can suck at times too.   For instance when our oldest moved out right after high school graduation it wasn’t easy.   I recalled all the struggles I went through as I moved out on my own when I was about 19-20 years old.   I had a great job that had benefits and paid good money and I didn’t have to work myself silly to earn it.   I had nothing, no furniture or anything.  But I figured it out.   But with her I tried to help, tried to help her get the things she needed so she didn’t have to go without.   Was that a smart move on my part?   Probably not.   We went through a trying time for several months where she blocked me from Facebook, and didn’t answer my calls or texts.   It really sucked big time.   But, we both learned.   I learned a lot about letting go and letting her make her own mistakes.  So, now with Ryan and Elizabeth I am learning to let go even more and giving them opportunities to learn, grow and become the independent and strong people I want them to be.    So all you parents out there,  “Let it Go”!!  Choose  your battles, stop micromanaging your kids lives and they will be so much better for it.   Are they going to get hurt?  Possibly.   Is it hard to see them struggle?  Hell yea!!    Will you want to help them out of every fix they get into?  Definitely.   Will it all be worth it one day that you taught them to be strong, smart, hard working and independent?    MOST DEFINITELY!!      I wish I had done it sooner, I just hope I learned it in time for all of my kids.   I also hope my kids do not follow my lead and that they do it from the start and not wait till their kids need therapy because I don’t know how to  “Let it Go”!!

Welcome to my imperfect, yet perfect for me world!!

This blog is my place to write whatever I want, express myself in whatever way I see fit at the moment.   I am sometimes very sarcastic, (okay so most of the time so what!)  My family comes first and foremost in my life.   I am by no means perfect or even think I am close in any way.  I struggle just like every other person out there.   But, I believe that we all have a choice to be happy or be miserable.   Sometimes, I am not so happy and just downright cranky, but I do try to always see a positive in every situation.   Now don’t go thinking I am some Miss Mary Sunshine because frankly I can be a bitch.   I  try to be nice to everyone I meet and there are just some people who rub me the wrong way and I just try to avoid them.   Anyway, a little bit about me.   I am a wife to an amazing man who rocks my world in every way.   I have 3 kids (he didn’t have any children so he is stuck with mine…LOL, but he loves them as if they are his kids.)  Our oldest daughter Shelby is almost 21 and has been out of the house since she was 19 (she just had a baby on Fathers Day this year so that makes me a Nana too.)  Our son Ryan is going to be 14 this weekend and our youngest daughter Elizabeth will be 11 next month, (please don’t call her Lizzy or Liz because she gets all pissy about it and nothing is worse than that high pitched, whiney 11 year old, about to have her period, thinks she knows it all voice that she uses when one does accidentally call her Liz or Lizzy).  We also have two cats Ziggy and Wesley.   We live in Iowa in a rural town with Amish horse and buggies that ride around town.   I am originally from Boston, Massachusetts and have more of an East coast attitude when it comes to stuff.  I have no family here (except for the hubster and our kids) but have many friends and Ex in-laws who don’t speak to me anymore, but hey that is a story for another day.  

I love to cook and am currently attempting to write a cookbook of sorts.  I love to watch Boston Bruins hockey and New England Patriots football. I have tattoos and want more.  I am addicted to Facebook (and probably need an intervention, hence the decision to blog about my day to day life and share pictures and quirky things that I find funny).   I have lots of other interests that I am sure as you read on you will discover along the way.   

I look forward to sharing my crazy life with you all.   J 

This is My hubby and I on our wedding day, 10-16-2011