A Day Late!!
So, in observance of acknowledging this day late, I have personally instructed FedEx to make sure and deliver anything that might be coming your way late. Wasn't that nice and considerate of me? That way you can spread your birthday out over several days instead of just one measly little ole day. :)
Hope you had a good one!!
In this stressful time, my son is just pure joy to me. (Yes, he is still a stubborn, whiny 4yo, but, right now I wouldn't trade that for anything.)
Some recent Nateyism's:
1. We have been listening to a cd of old 8-track songs lately and one of his favorites is "Play that funky music, white boy". Well, he was strolling through the house, singing this song, loud and proud - with one minor, glaring exception (yes, i know that would be an oxymoron). It had become "Play that fuckin' music, wabboy". Yeah. Uh-huh. Soooooo....... Anyway, I have to stop him and explain that it is "Fun-ky" and only getting a glazed look in response. I then found myself in the surreal experience of getting out a notepad and spelling out "f-u-c-k-i-n-g" and "f-u-n-k-y" and explaing the differences to a 4 year old boy. (The main difference being a "N" and not "C".) Yeah. Right. K. So, now I have a 4yo boy that sings it "Play that Fun Key music, wabboy", about one beat off.
2. At soccer practice, the other day, one of the little girls on the team kicked a goal and all us parents were yelling and cheering. Nathan stops in the middle of the field and yells at me, "YOU ONLY YELL FOR NATHAN!" at the top of his lungs. At this point the ground is sinking below me as one of "those" momma moments happen. The mom next to me leans over and says, "Only kid, huh?" and I say, "yeah" as I am giving my son the evil eye and motioning for him to get his ass over to me right that very second - which he does while dragging his feet slowly across the field. After the stern "this is a team, you cheer for everyone, blah, blah, blah" speech - he is back playing again -telling the coach that he wants to be "it". And finally the mom's around me lose it and just bust out laughing - myself included.
3. Natey hasn't really watched any of the coverage of the WTC attacks, so I have tried to keep things simple when explaing some things to him.
Where we live, there is a church at the entrance to the addition. Last Tuesday night, the parking lot was full for a prayer service and Nate asked why all the cars were there. I told him that alot of people had gotten hurt that day and that people were in there praying - just like he does as daycare. He said, "before we eat" and I said, "That's right. Thanking God for what he has given you". And he seemed to understand that and didn't ask any more questions.
When Friday came around and we were getting ready to go outside for the candlelight vigil, I told him we were going outside to pray and have a moment of silence to think about all of the people that got hurt on Tuesday. And with three little words, it was like he was a very wise old man, "Did they die?" I told him, very simply, that yes, alot of them had and we should go outside with our candles and think about them for a little bit. Very proudly and carefully he carried his candle out to the driveway, where we sat down and he said he wanted to say a prayer - which turned out to be the blessing before eating - something like "Jesus is our guest and our food is blessed". But he said it so sweetly and solemnly that it was as good as any eulugy I had ever heard.
The next night, I was letting him watch a bit of tv in his room while going to bed, since he didn't have to get up for school the next day. Instead of clicking 5 and 2 for the Cartoon Network, he clicked 4 and 2, which gave him MSNBC and their news coverage. Luckily, by this time, the networks had stopped the contact replaying of the planes actually hitting the buildings, and were just showing an almost static picture of a dump truck full of debris. When I sat down on the edge of the bed, Natey said he wanted to watch this for a minute and I said, "....okay". He said, very matter of factly, "I think there are people in there", pointing at the truck. Not wanting to lie to my child, I said, "You might be right, baby". And I asked him if he wanted to sit down and ask me anything about what was on tv. He said no and that he just wanted to watch it for a second. After just a bit of watching in silence, he said, "Okay, momma, I am ready to watch 'toons now" and put it on 52 and climbed in to bed and said "I love you, momma".
It was so hard to walk out of that room that night, because all I wanted to do was crawl in that bed with him and not let him out of my sight again. But I have to, I have to keep going on with my life as if everything is normal, for his sake, even though somethings will not be the same again - and at his age, everything for him from now on, will be normal - the way it has always been. He won't remember what it was like before last Tuesday, and in someways, that might just be a good thing.
Just over ten years ago a 20 year old girl, with nothing much else going on in her life, took an oath to serve and protect America. But in the back of her head, she is thinking, "Cool, I get to train in Denver, CO and go skiing every weekend", with little thought to what she would be training for, loading bombs on the F-16 fighter jet.
Sure it was right after Desert Storm, but it was the Air Force Reserves in Oklahoma - so far down the chain of deployment that it would never happen and besides, she got a $2000 bonus for signing up for that specialty job. Hoo-rah! And so she trains one weekend a month, two weeks every summer, for a check, to socialize and maybe get to do some traveling, until the unit's obligation changed and she retrained to became a pencil pusher in the safety office until she fulfilled her commitment in 1997.
During that time, things change. She starts her own business, gets married, has a son - basically becomes a contributing member of society, putting her days of searching in the military behind her. But then terrorists strike in New York and Washington D.C. and the real prospect of war looms. Then comes the rumors that if we do go to war, people that had been out of the military less than 7 years could be recalled - most notable the specialty jobs having to do with aircraft munitions, since we now fight wars primarily in the air. And even though this girl was retrained to be a secretary, her primary AFSC is still Aircraft Armament Systems Specialist, and that is what she would be called to do.
And she worries and becomes selfish. She feels the need for revenge and the sadness for the victims and their family, but all she wants to do is hold her family close and try to lead some semblence of normalcy. She thinks, there are so many other people out there that can do what I can, including all of the NATO nations, that what would they want with a soccer mom from Oklahoma?
But if they call, she will go - she has to, it is her moral and military obligation to do, but all she can think of is "I can't go, Natey has a soccer game on Saturday".
Google has complied a page with all kinds of links to news and information about the attacks here.
Here is a brief list of some blogs with first-hand accounts of Tuesday's attacks.
And if you have already donated blood to the Red Cross and still want to help even further, Amazon and PayPal have both set up donation funds that 100% of will go directly to the Disaster Relief Fund of the American Red Cross. Please help in any way you can.
The Williams sister's just played each other in the final game of the US Open, so no matter what a Williams was taking home the top prize along with each of them taking home a chunk of prize money.
Venus beat Serena in just over an hour, I believe. As runner-up, Serena took home $425,000 and as the winner, Venus got $850,000. Damn. That household took in over $1 million dollars in just over 60 minutes. That is some serious change. And since their Dad is also their coach - the money stays in the family. That just seems ludicrous to me.
Damn. I am so jealous.
One of the things my friends give me shit about is that I am not much of a music person - at all. Seriously, the last cd I bought was "Now That's What I Call Music, Vol. 6" and that was for my kid. Or if I listen to music at work, I will usually listen to streaming music like Absolutwade Radio. I don't have my own real collection of mp3's that I downloaded from Napster, I only have what someone has sent me as a specific listen to kind of thing.
So it was pretty funny that I was out shopping for an mp3 player. I ended up with the Rio 800, which seems to be pretty bad ass as far as players go. It isn't that I have suddenly had an epiphany and need to be soothed by converted songs all day wherever I go, but I have a desire to get back, albeit in digital form, my love of books.
I adore reading but, god love him, ever since Natey was born I have not had the time to get back into reading books anymore. Anyway, thanks to this article in USA Today, I found a couple of sites that has downloadable audiobooks, Audible.com and Mediabay.com. Since spoken word takes up so much less bandwith than music, I will be able to put up to, something like, 56 hours on the 128mb player. So I am going to download a few books, and a couple of magazines from there and give it a shot.
I know it's not going to replace the joy of soaking in a bubble bath and reading a trashy novel, but when I am sitting next to the soccer field watching Natey practice for an hour, it might not be so bad to drift away for a bit.
A true testament of friendship is when someone will come over and watch your kid so you can go out and get drunk and stupid. Not only that, she will actually cook the kid dinner when she doesn't even cook for herself.
Thanks again, Stinky.