About a boy

Now that I have some more time to write, here's how the weekend went:

Normally, I wouldn't dream of having two parties. (I mean, why would you? Staging one is stressful enough!) But my Grandparents, who have lived in the Phoenix area for the last 10, 12, who knows how many years, now live back in town. Last winter ('06), my Grandma was diagnosed with ALS. At this point, she's wheelchair bound, and every day is a struggle. One of my Aunts stops by in the morning to get her out of bed, to the bathroom and dressed. Grandpa's with her during the day, then another Aunt stops by in the evening and makes sure she gets into bed. I couldn't see having a 1st birthday party for a little boy she loves so much without her. And I also couldn't see inviting other friends and family (that aren't family to her) over to their place. So we had two.

Saturday was my Mom, Jay's Mom and sisters and some of our friends and their kids at our house. In the end, I was up late Friday, then up early on Saturday and didn't get a shower, but the house got cleaned and food was made and kids were dressed (naps had) and everyone had a great time. A few friends stayed late and we played video games and laughed and the house was messy again, but actually, less messy than it was when I started, if you can believe that. (You should...)

Sunday we did it all over again. Except this time we packed everything up and drove 30 minutes to my Grandparents' place and we had two kids that were still tired from the day before. Our group was a little more whiny, but I'm glad we did it. One of my Aunts is visiting from CA with a cousin, and another cousin, who's currently stationed in Iraq, is on leave from the Army. (He told us a highly amusing story about shooting and eating a camel. Yuck.) More cake, more gifts, more laughing.

It was all highly good for the soul, but my body is still tired. And here it's after 11 and I'm still up, typing away and not even scratching the surface of all I wanted to write about this weekend. But I needed to relive the fun we had this weekend cuz did today STINK!

Will had his one year check-up at the doctor's, so I left work a bit early to take him. Now, let me preface this with a tasty tidbit for your funny bone: I wore a pair of khaki pants to work today that had a broken clasp at the waist. It previously broke on me while in the middle of a Target store with two kids crying in the cart and it took a combination of prayer and tucking the top into my underwear to keep those pants up. Why I didn't throw them away is beyond me. But they got washed, dryed and hung in the closet (probably by me) and I blocked the whole experience out of my head. Fast forward to this morning, when I grabbed them in the dark (because there were two small people sleeping in my bed) and didn't notice the broken slidy-claspy-thing until I sat down in my car. At that point, I was running late for work (don't say "AGAIN" in your head like that) and I figured screw it, I have a desk job and no one will see.

Only, like I said, Will had this doctor's appointment. And there wasn't time to stop home and change. And I never imagined that Will would poop his pants in the twenty minutes it took for his Daddy to put him in my truck and for me to drive from downtown to the doctors' office. And I didn't have a diaper.

On top of all that, I had a ROTTEN three year old. Turns out, as Jay told me later, that he had to be woken up from his nap because of said doctors' appointment. He was whiny and sassy and just down right HORRIBLE. To make a long story short, he was rude to me in front of the doctor AND the nurse, and when I stood up to hold down my screaming child so he could get FOUR shots I almost lost my pants.

In the end, sassy boy got three time outs, didn't finish his dinner and did his fake crying bit til I called Daddy at work for him. He said all of 10 words to Daddy, then didn't like what he was being told so he said, "Good night, Daddy. I'm a good boy. I love you." Then handed the phone back to me. OOOOOH my blood boils all over again just writing that!!!

Well, the day is over and more fun awaits tomorrow. I'm posting the above photo to remind myself that he *can* be cute and good and that most days are not like this. (There's no place like home...there's no place like home...there's no place like home...)

G'night!