Guilty pleasures

We let the 1st grader play hookie Friday so we could go to the Andrews AFB airshow. To make up for it we took Flat Stanley. If you do not know about Flat Stanley you do not have a child currently in elementary school. Here is Flat Stanley holding an Osprey up at the airshow.
 Neither my first born nor my mother were with us. I didn't actually give Grandma the option. I did give the bearded one (did I ever mention shaving is hard when you can't really stand unassisted for long, or see very well, or that shunts cause puberty to hit years earlier so he's been hairy for a long time? Clealry this is a tangent but it does relate to my guilt because I fuss at him for not shaving) a choice. But then I offered to pay him for staying home with Grandma and I knew he was short on cash. And I also knew I still can't find the handicapped parking permit and the DMV never sent the replacement and it would be a lot of walking and we already had Flat Stanley to worry about.
  And the 25 year old wanted to come but to get in he'd have to come with us for the DOD entrance and he had a committment way back home from Andrews at 5pm and I didn't want to be that rushed and we were invited to dinner nearby. So I didn't make that work. And I always try to make these things work. I did happily take the daughter, home from college, and with whom the 7 year old wants to be with every minute. And I let him.
   In theory I don't think I should feel badly about the 3 adults I didn't include or the one I took advantage of. I think. On the other hand one is my mother and the rest, I'm theirs. It's hard to let go either way. It's hard to know what is theirs and what is mine. I can't even tell where I begin and they end -or when they begin and I end or...
  Or why when I was so good about putting sunscreen on everyone else I forgot my low (but only by Presbyterian standards) neckline? I haven't had this bad a burn in years. It helps with the guilt.

Strength

 This is not a recent picure but it flashed up on my desktop background the other day (set to random picutres in the "critters" file) and it's hard not to love. The eldest wanted to get near the burros but the crutches freaked them out. Oddly enough neither the old guy nor the 4 year old freaked them out.
 Anyway the point of this entry (OK not really a sharp point) is that I was watching a "viral" video on the web with pediatric cancer patients lip syncing to the song "Stronger" -"What ever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger..." and I tried to tell the family members at the table why I had tears running down my face. Unfortunately the members present were my very literal first born and my 94-year-old-not killed-yet mother. The former started laughing and the latter snorted. I tried to correct them. The former insisted it was really ironic and the latter said, "Yes dear. You really should show it to me sometime." (As if after 51 years I don't know a head pat when I get one). My point is not that the video isn't incredible -it really is. But, just maybe, the former and the latter have some points.
                    After all they earned them.

Snakes

Now don't you think that is triangular little head headed for me? He didn't make it to me. He went through a crack and under the house. Which explains less signs of mice. And thanks to the internet I now know not only that I am hosting a Eastern Black rat snake -but he has a bacterial infection -you can't quite see it in this picture but there were several brown lesions on him and apparently it's  pseudomonas. Really.
  I watched this snake wiggle towards me and my 7 year old and I could see the rough brown patches on him and I wondered but I was suprised when ther they were on a snake pictured at a wildlife center. So see I don't only keep up with the Edwards family on the internet. There are many snakes to watch. OH. Sorry. Cheap shot (and possibly obscure).
  Now the winner of the college kids say the darnedest things award for this semester is the email I got after posting a take home exam -12 days in advance of its due date -asking if I could help the student find the answer in their notes because (and I quote -hence the quotation marks) "I have already spent quite a few minutes combing through my notes." I think I spent 3 days walking around foaming at the mouth repeating "Quite a few minutes" over and over again.  Fortunately when I responded that frankly I'd expected "quite a few hours" the student (helpfully) clarified that they only meant on that "particular question" and the entire test had taken (again the quotation marks) "several hours". That took several more days of foaming and repeating.
  And Grandma is back with us which is wonderful and not of course. The little guy loves his captive audience. But then I feel like a captive as she explains to the eldest that we can't teach table manners since we don't stay at the table with her -really we don't stay at the table with our eldest. I mean we start off there but he eats for a long time and it's not just little brothers who don't have the patience for this sort of thing. So we had another mother daughter moment. Or did I already write about this? It's all beginning to blur together. Even the snakes -I thought I'd get better at telling them apart but then I stare at the pictures and the juvenile versions and they all start to look scary.  Was that a rattle? Was that a hiss? You tell me.

Contrasts

 So does anyone know how to handle these kind of color contrasts? All my cameras when left to their own devices seem to lose their little electronic minds trying to capture the red azaleas. This one for instance is intense but it doesn't actually hurt your eyes as it appears here. An excellent metaphor for my life (you could see that coming right?).
 Grandma is back after a little less than a month and she still wants her coffee really hot. And she still wants silverware with her food -which is more understadable but as often forgotten. And I know she is here as I sit down to start grading and I feel guilty for not being with her and a little annoyed for the comment about "having done my duty" as I leave her. Not mind you that I was going to go do my duty when I do my work but as if having had breakfast with her now I am free.
  When my daughter called the other day to tell me about some really weird thing a professor had done and how she now had an extra 20 points "towards her final" every "uh hunh" or "wow" or yeah" I said she was sure had some tone and she declared she would not tell me another story. I declare I had no tone - or at least if I  did it was more about what I had for dinner andbeing past my bedtime. I remind myself that as my mother sounds to me I sound to my daughter. It's not that I'm like my mother, or even that my daughter is like me -it's just that special filter between every mother and daughter. Whatever the mother says is criticism, and whatever the daughter says is rebellion. Or maybe it's not a filter. Maybe that's just the truth.
  So at least the 7 year old is very happy to have Grandma back because she listens to his stories no matter how long they are (and sometimes her eyes are even open). He has saved up a month's worth.

Focus

The jumping boy is whining at me because we are visiting his sister at her college and unreasonably we aren't taking the cat and she loves cats. And even 'worser' he then learned that one of his older brothers is not coming. Guess which one?
 Or rather guess which one at 27 still has no particular choice -or at least little to choose from. We were discussing slavery the other day and this older brother said he has no freedom. I tried to argue he did -but even to me it sounded weak. Maybe that is what got me going on this present jag.
 It's always there but mostly I ignore it. The non-normality, the lost dreams (oh, I hate the melodrama). Twenty-seven year olds should be getting married. I would say like all his friends but he doesn't have any. Too stark a statement for me. I like things nuanced but some days there is no finessing it. He has family and a computer. He is a brother and a son and a grandson but there are so many other things he is not. It is so heartbreaking in a small child, these disabilities that separate them from so much but past a certain age, and with a certain amount of facial hair it is just kinda creepy. Clearly I am not supposed to say that but you know it is. Not always, not when I have the right attitude and the sun is shining and we are laughing together. But at night, when I am tired and I think of all the things I have not done right and all the things I should have done and should be doing and maybe one more docter or program or push to get him to have some plans and hope himself, and when there are so many marriage plans and baby's due and he has no plans and nothing due and not even any connection to those who do -then. The eternal perspective gets a bit blurry and I can't remember why this is really all ok. I forget. That all life is moving fast and you just keep jumping. I forget that the verse I chalked on my door means it when it says, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ then we are more to be pitied than all men." I am too busy with the pity... and whining about what I can't bring along.

Crystals Balls (no not the politician)

Just now I was crying at the end of the movie A Dolphin's Tale as they showed the real footage of amputees visiting the real dolphin with the prosthetic tale. So my 7 year old put his arms around me and this is what he said, "It's OK mom. It's OK. People have different disabilities. Like my brother." These were his words of comfort. You see -to him this was really comforting. Don't cry about this because we know about it already. Also I didn't say "disabilities" -he did and if this had been movie dialogue I would have found it extremely unrealistic for a just barely 7 year old. None of it is what I expected.
My other half is on travel all week. The eldest is staying with his other grandmother, the grandmother who normally inhabits my blog is with her other daughter, and all my other children are doing other things (no need to find an other word). Even the youngest had a playdate this afternoon (pre-movie) and I had an empty house. I literally can't remember the last time that happened. I graded papers, worked on my powerpoints and fielded calls from absent family members. Still I was on my own. I ate lunch with no thought to anyone else's tastes, I went outside witout telling anyone. I wrote a new quote on the front door (it doesn't really surprise you that I write on my house does it?). I didn't even miss my missing half. For almost 5 hours.
Now I am taking comfort from little arms and still sniffling over all the missing pieces because even when they can be replaced it's never quite what you expected.

Fantasy...

...TO DO List while my mom is with (her) 1st daughter for a few weeks and (my) husband is on travel:

Item 1: Clean entire house

Item 2: Wash chalk messages from last summer off front door

Item3:Get out summer clothes (since the temperature has dropped 20 deg., of course?)

Item 4:Put away winter stuff in an organized way

Item 5: Reorganize my mom's closet and "supply" storage

Item 6: Find husband's lost Kindle since he swears he didn't leave the house with it

Item 6: PLant those plants I keep pickinh up at Garden Centers -it wouldn't be so bad if I just picked them up but I actuaaly paid for them

Item 7: Pay medical bills (semi-annual)

Item 8: Better organize time...oops, gotta go to the old ladies exercise class....

(you'll have to figure out the conection between picture and list)