Great-Grandpa

With our crazy schedules, sometimes it's nice when things just happen to work out. Case in point: Sunday. Let me backtrack...a few weeks ago my mom went to visit my grandpa and noticed that he wasn't himself. She used her wonderful nursing experience and decided to take him to the ER. Turns out his hemoglobin was low, he was extremely full of excess fluid, his kidneys were beginning to shut down and he had congestive heart failure. The doctors and nurses removed close to 20 lbs of excess fluid (!) from him, and he recovered in the hospital.

The next course of action was to take him to a nursing home so he could begin physical and occupational therapy. My mom went down to see him this weekend, and my dad offered to go down for the day and wanted to know if I would like to join him. Seeing as all our activities tend to take place on Saturdays, it was nice to have a Sunday free. So I took him up on the offer.

We met up at a local mall, so I could ditch my car and ride along with Dad. And it was a wonderful visit. We made it down to see grandpa in about 2 hours, and found Mom walking over to the nursing home. She accompanied us and got Grandpa out of bed and into a wheelchair. We had a nice 2+ hour time with him, some of which we enjoyed outside since it was a beautiful day. Although we did get attacked by numerous ladybugs!

Overall Grandpa is doing OK. His mind is fully there, but he's physically exhausted. Not that I can blame him for being 93 and all. I'm glad I went with to visit -- with our schedules the way they are, sometimes it's difficult to have time to do anything except follow what's on the calendar. I know how blessed I am to have grandpa in our lives -- the kids are at an age where they will remember him being a part of their lives. And it's always nice to get away from being a parent for a few hours and be daddy's girl again. :)

Odds and Ends

This school year is already keeping us busy. With Riley having homework every day, to numerous after-school activities, it's a wonder some days that we all remember to eat!

What have we been up to? Well, a lot. Here's a rundown:

*Riley had her first non-family sleepover. She was invited to a neighbor's birthday party earlier this month, and we decided to let her go. I think if it was anyone from school, we might have kept her home. But since she was just a few feet away and we know (and love) the neighbors, we let her go. In return, we kept the birthday girl's 4-year-old brother at our house. So it didn't feel completely empty without Riley. Jeremy had fun playing with a little buddy, and it all worked out fine. Except for the fact that Riley didn't go to bed until 11:30 and we had another birthday party the next day. Yeah, she was a tad emotional/tired!

*Jeremy is really excelling in skating. His coach invited him to a free trial hockey lesson last week, and needless to say, J had a blast! He told everyone at school that he was going, and he couldn't wait to grab his stick and head to the rink. I took some video and pictures, so be ready to see those...sometime.

*Everyone is excited that the hockey season has begun. Well, some of us more than others! Riley has her own tally sheet that she happily adds marks to every morning. Jeremy has taken to memorizing the new guys' numbers (of course). And I'm just happy to hear Pat Foley's voice again.

*My parents came out a few weeks ago and helped us tremendously with some landscaping. They helped rip out three overgrown shrubs in front of the house, and it's like having a clean slate! I cannot wait to get new plants in there. That is, whenever we figure out what we want!

*Riley is doing SO well in first grade. I helped out with her class earlier this week, and I absolutely love her teacher. Despite the homework every night, she has learned how to count money and work on addition and subtraction. She also has to write what she did over the weekend each Monday, so that's been interesting to see. And Aunt Casey is trying to arrange a pen pal exchange with her first grade class in Beirut and Riley's class in Illinois!

*We're sending out Riley's birthday party invitations tomorrow. I cannot believe my little girl is almost 7. It's amazing to think how much she's changed. Why is it that parents always have a hard time admitting that their children aren't little anymore?

Up North

Before school started, which I realize was more than a month ago, we decided to go visit our wonderful neighbors up north. My cousin and her family couldn't make it down to Illinois for our family reunion back in July, and it had been since November since we saw everyone, so it just so happened to work out that we had time to head up there before school started. Kim and her boys -- who are now 9, 6 and 1 -- greeted us with open arms, and the kids had SO much fun playing together.

Chef Riley at your service!

Colton with one of his many tractors.

Auggie and Jeremy.

But the funny thing is that Riley is so used to playing with other girls, she did complain that there were too many boy toys (such as cars and tractors) and not any girl toys, including dolls. Somehow she managed just fine, as she and Colton are best buds. Jeremy was just happy to be around other boys that he didn't care what toys were involved.

Baby Sam!

Such a cutie!

I think it's safe to say that everyone enjoyed themselves. And it didn't hurt that both kids fell asleep on the way home. I so wish we lived closer to each other, but for now, I'm more than happy to make the 1.5 hour drive to visit with family. Especially since those boys are SO cute and fun! Thanks for the visit!

Sam and his Mama.

4/5 of the pseudo cousins.

This is as good as they all would cooperate.

Riley took this picture of us.

Funny Guy

Some Jeremy-isms for your enjoyment:

The other night at dinner, Phil said something, and we asked Jeremy his opinion.

He replied: Word to your Mom.

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He's also been quoting the movie Up quite a bit, as it seems to be one of his favorites. The scene where Carl and Russel meet Dug for the first time is hilarious. So Jeremy recites the line Russel says (with arm movements, too): But he's a talking DOG!

And then Carl says (according to Jeremy): No, he's just a weird chicken or something.

(To interpret it, Carl actually says: No, it's just a weird trick or something. I kinda like J's translation better!)

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Riley had a soccer game on Saturday, and the weather was simply beautiful. It was also Columbus Day weekend, so a lot of families weren't around. The game was supposed to start at 2:30, but when that time arrived, we only had 3 kids there (you need at least 8 to play). The other team's coach waited a few minutes, and some more of our kids showed up. We only had 6, though, when it was officially time to start. So the other team was nice enough and pulled two of their kids off the field so it would be close to even.

Jeremy took one look at the other team's kids on the sidelines and asked me: Are those kids in the box? (meaning penalty box) How can you not laugh?


He's a funny guy, that 4-year-old son of mine. I think we'll keep him...for now.

Taking Time Out

I usually focus on the living-in-the-now, but that changed last night.

See, yesterday was Phil's birthday, and as a joke I bought him a cable to our camcorder. We had been missing the cable for awhile, so we weren't able to view videos on the television. Yes, we could've looked through the viewfinder on the camcorder, but we wanted to see the video much larger. (It was a joke gift because it only cost 26 cents. Seriously.)

Phil checked it out and played some video on the television. And yes, I lost it. I cried. We watched the videos of the kids' blowing out candles for their birthdays, there was another of Riley helping her younger cousin navigate the stairs (she was 3 and he was about 1.5), but the one that got me was with Jeremy (yeah, go figure!).

I was lying on his floor, next to his crib, and he was lying with me. I'm guessing he was about 18 months old. He was playing with my hair as I read him some stories. I had no idea Phil was there taping, and when I finished reading, J got up and walked over to Phil and said, "Dada!" He then walked back over to me and laid down on me, as if to give me a big hug. Yeah, it really got to me.

And then it made me miss how little the kids once were. How time goes by in such an instant. I try so hard to cherish the time I have with them, for I know it's fleeting. J starts kindy next year, and it's all-day kindy, so it makes me scared to think about that. Maybe scared isn't the right word.

My kids are my life. I NEVER thought I'd be one of these stay-at-home mom types. I thought I'd go off to college, get a job, have kids and work. And I did that with Riley. And then I was pregnant with #2 and thought there's so much more to life than just spending time with my kids on the weekends. I didn't want someone else raising them. And I'm so grateful that I'm able to do it. Some days are better than others, and other days I have to remind myself that I wanted to stay home. But overall, I wouldn't give up these years for anything.

Riley and J were both off of school today for teacher's institute, so I thought we do some fun stuff. The library had a firetruck and ambulance come by today, so we did that this morning and then headed over to a park. I was amazed at the number of moms who were either texting or chatting on their phone at the park. Do they not realize how precious the time is with their kids? Do they not know how quickly time flies by? Now, I'm guilty of chatting with other moms at the park, but I make a point to have my attention focused on the kids.

Time just flies by way too fast. Enjoy your kids every day. No matter what.