Slow down, you're moving way to fast...

I remember as a child I would think things like "when I grow up" and "I am going to do ______ when I am grown". These are statements that ALL of us made as children.

It happened, we did grow up. Many of us now have children. Those precious little babies that screamed all night long with colic. Those little babies that used to think we rocked the world. Those little babies that would desire nothing but for us to feed, hold and love on them.

They too are growing up. They now sleep through the night (thank goodness) and sleep like rocks. As a matter of fact, they are old enough now to put themselves to bed!!! Those little babies have now seen some of the world and realize "yeah my parents aren't as cool as they used to be" or "my parents are stupid". And don't even think about hugging or kissing them where ANYONE might see them. That would be the worst thing you could do.

Time "fixes" everything. I look at my children and things they say are the SAME things that I said and I am certain that my parents probably said the same thing when they were young. My children are 14 and 9. Not too old no, but they are growing up so fast.

I was thinking the other day about our little two bedroom apartment with that long hallway in Little Rock, Arkansas. Hannah walked down that hallway as a very tiny child. She logged about one million jumps on the Johnny Jumper in that hallway. She would squeal with delight when I would say "tomorrow I am taking you to the library". That was almost 14 years ago.

With Trevor, I remember him being so sick as an infant. So sick we weren't sure he would ever come home. Then he did and he screamed all the time. All the time! Did I mention ALL THE TIME? One of his first words was "ball" and those massively long blonde curls that he had.

The sweet times are gone. Now, she is a teenager, who hates that I am even typing these words. He is a boy that can just go outside for ten minutes and come in smelling like he hasn't had a bath in two weeks.

They no longer need me to pick out their clothes, make all their meals, to entertain them. But kids, listen up. You are not done with me! Who do you want when your tooth hurts? When you are throwing up? When you want to play catch? When you need new pants, purses, shoes? When you need MONEY???? That's right your mom and dad.

It's a cycle that hasn't ended...parents have kids, kids grow up, kids become parents....round and round it goes.

Hannah is FOURTEEN!!!!

Happy Birthday Hannah....

Fourteen years ago, we were blessed with a very LARGE 9 lbs 15 oz baby named Hannah. A baby that liked to puke all over the place. A baby that was a good sleeper as long as she was in the swing. A baby that created (and still does) lots of drama. Our dear little Hannah!!!! We love her so. Happy Birthday sweetie

In the Ring

I don't know the terms, don't pretend to understand what is happening...I just know that on Monday and Friday nights my house becomes a Wrestlemania ring. I have a son that not only watches the matches but creates his own during the show. They don't miss an episode. I am telling you it has gotten so bad that even I can recognize a couple of the wrestlers. Not only that I can quote the tag line of a couple of the wrestlers. This is not good!!! I still hate to watch it, but it is slowly imprinting on my brain. Quite like Harry Potter craving "I will not tell lies" into his hand.

This week my son spent his hard earned cash on wrestling figures. And they were used ones...what is this coming too? He sports shirts. plays with the action figures and the last thing is that poor little spidey. Spidey is about 12 years old (having been Tyler's before he came to Trevor) and he WAS in good shape when he came to live with us in 2007. For a while spidey sat on the bed, unattended, then one day....off the bed he flew...He was being body slammed into the floor by a small boy. The boy was shouting "I pinned you". Life for spidey changed a lot. He was soon to be the victim of all the neighborhood boys. They took turns wrestling poor little Spiderman. One day, Spidey had to go to the hospital to have his sides sewn up. Since then he has had a foot worked on and a neck. He is doing well as of today. Actually, for a couple of days, he has been left alone. A John Cena action figure has entered the house and new matches are going down.

I never dreamed my son would be a wrestler, not only that he does bodily harm to defenseless spidermen. One day spidey will get fed up and choke slam (is that a term?) Trevor onto the floor...until then have needle will travel.

Happy 9th Birthday Trevor!!!!!!!!At the LO ball fields

Dressing up for Flood (his 1st grade teacher)

Shh don't tell Hannah he has her dolls

first haircut

Not happy about dressing up for school

Lord Vadar

A good dream!!!

Eye patch

School mug shot!!!

love this one

Happy Birthday!!!! first photo EVER!!!!

Hospital photo 2nd photo

Big boy chair

Day two

9 years ago today, our baby boy Trevor was born...3:41 am weighing in at 6lb 7 oz (he was early and tiny)

Where's my Rosie

When I was a child George Jetson showed me a world with electronic cooking devices, cars that became briefcases, flying cars and a robot that would help clean the house. Robots that clean houses? What a novel idea...Jane Jetson could use her little duster for 5 minutes, push a few buttons on the computer to make supper and then shop for a new frock. Well, Jane Jetson I am angry with you for teasing me with this robot. As a child I dreamed of the day where I would have a grand house in the clouds and my husband would drive a flying car on the freeway. My son would have a pet named Orbity and my daughter would be very hip in the sky high school...but most of all that I would have a maid named Rosie that would assist me in my house cleaning.

Meet George Jetson
His boy Elroy,
Daughter Judy,
Jane his wife.....
do do do do do do do do

They did that in school?

My first experience with school was in the middle (to me, I don't know about geographically) of NOWHERE!!! Our school seemed old to me and served 1st-12th grade. There was a kindergarten, but it was half day and across the street in a Baptist church. The high school kids were so crazy. Did you know that there was an area next to the cafeteria and before the classrooms where high schoolers could take a smoke break? Oh yes, they could smoke at school right next to my first-grade eyes!!! I was shocked!!! And the sad thing was one of the high schoolers that I saw smoking was my dear little baby sitter. I was devastated that she would smoke. The only person that I knew that smoked was my grandmother's sister.

The next thing that might shock you was that high schoolers were allowed to sit on the bus with small children (like myself). I learned many grown-up words and "actions" on the school bus. I even saw a few and was mortified by the stuff that I saw. Oh yeah, it goes on...

We kids had COKE BREAK every day. We were allowed to bring money from home and buy a bottle of coke to drink at school. These were glass bottles and full sized. I remember that my mom let me sometimes by an orange crush. If I did not get to buy a drink I went towards the baseball fields. Here you could see high schoolers kissing their boyfriends and girlfriends.

It was a different time. I remember one "kid" (he was in high school) saying that he would turn 16 next month and he could not wait because he was quitting school and joining "daddy on the farm". Wonder what happened to that kid. I don't know if he ever got an education or not.

I remember the high schoolers pulling pranks on high school girls in the halls, and they were not nice at all. I remember walking into the bathroom and seeing high schoolers smoking in the bathroom. I remember seeing them making out in the bathrooms, oh yes, you know what I am talking about.

I know times have changed at schools now (thank goodness), but this was the 70's. These kids were loving life and glad not to be in the military. The girls didn't always wear bras to school and wore the largest bell bottoms that I have ever seen in my life. They wore those candies wooden bottom shoes (that I NOW wear), carried a cigarette behind the ear, wore long gold chains and had massive afro hair. I bet many of them knew how to disco too! Times have changed and today you kids have your own weird styles and someday there will be a person blogging about the crazy things they saw YOU doing in school. Make good choices kids, somebody's watching you.

Superstar

My parents wanted to go on dates so they decided to hire a sitter. They used a girl named Kim. She was from the trailer park and she rode my school bus. She was a senior in high school and I loved her. She was nice to me when other high schoolers thought to scare me with talking about sex. Anyway, she was great.

We had a great time, but I guess my parents felt guilty about going out because they brought me home my first barbie....superstar barbie! I loved her so much.

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up up and AWAY

Today we completed another season of Upward ball with Lone Oak First Baptist Church. I must say those guys/gals do a great job over there. I know it cannot be easy working with all those kids, it is time-consuming and kids are messy. But they get it done, they are friendly and they are patient.

I like the Upward program because it teaches kids the basics of the game, how to be fair, to be nice to people, and gives them memory verses too! The best part to me though is that the coaches find something positive to say about each and every child (at the end of the game while passing out the reward stars). Those coaches seek out something good in every player, every play, and every "mistake".

Well done LOFBC!!!!!

Strange things are happening

To borrow a line from the great movie Toy Story, this is my life today. We are closing a chapter. A chapter that has been a part of life for so long, I am not sure how to do things without it. It is hard to change course when you have done something for so long. For seven years Trevor has been dealing with his eye issues. It started when he was little and he was watching tv and John noticed his eye floating all over the place. We go to an eye doctor in Paducah and they say that they cannot help us and send us to a specialist in Carp Girardeau, MO who scares us to death by telling us that he will go blind in that eye if he does not have surgery. She even schedules it for the next week. We can't do that with a $2500 deductible...NO WAY....I start seeking options. I mention at church for them to pray for us because we did not know what we were going to do. A member is with the Lion's Club and he says that they may help us. My friend Rhonda told me this was a great avenue to pursue so off we go. This guys name is Tom and he said we had lots of options, the first being to go see their doctor in Louisville, KY at the Lions Club Eye Clinic. They would even sponsor Trevor to help out with the cost, because our insurance was so bad. So off we go....when we first met Dr. Paul Rychwalski, I thought, he is so young. I had done research on him and supposedly he is VERY good, but I expected him to be older. All he does is deal with people with children and their eye disabilities and diseases. It was a very comforting environment. It did not take Dr. Paul and his assistant long to determine that Trevor had a binocular vision disability and Amblyopia strabismus (lazy eye and misalignment). He would never be cured and would need therapy. I asked about the blindness and surgery and he said "Trevor is not a candidate for surgery because of what he is facing...not at this time" He immediately put us on a harsh (yes harsh) therapy of eye patching. Eye patching is a nightmare to parents. The child does NOT want to wear the patch, doesn't understand why they have to wear the patch and because you are patching the good eye, there is NO depth perception and the vision is whacked up. Who wants to go through that? Especially for 6 hours per day? WOW!!! We did it though (thanks to the preschool teachers who helped us out on this), and returned after 6 weeks, with good progress. It was GREAT progress actually, Dr. Rychwalski was proud of Trevor and said he could tell we were patching. He prescribed more patching.....

Our life over the next few years has been full of patching and an eye drops...Atropine. It was a scary thing to do because I have heard that it can damage the good eye. Also, it allows more sunlight to enter the eye so that it can cause cataracts and other vision issues. You are putting a chemical in the good eye to blur it so the bad eye has to do the focusing. I actually hated the atropine, but Trevor tended to prefer it. Mainly, because his friends had NO idea that there was "something wrong with him". We have had to be very careful with the atropine because we go to theme parks a lot, he plays outside sports and he is a boy and they like the outdoors. I still don't know when we will be able to tell if he has damage because of the sun.

Trevor has gone to the eye doctor every 6 weeks or so for almost 7 years. Because we knew he would never be cured, that we were just getting him to the best that we could get him, our goal was set kind of low....20/50 with visual aids. That means he can read the 20/50 line with the glasses on his face. It has been a back and forth emotional journey....20/70 at the worst and 20/30 at the best. Dr Rychwalski had been so pleased with his results and our determination to help Trevor the best that we could, he let us start seeing a local doctor in 2005. Dr Jeff Taylor. He has been a little bit of wonderful for us as well. He has taken Trevor's goal on as his own. When Trevor was not doing well, he too would get upset about it. When Trevor did well, he was just as excited as we were. I have recommended him to everyone that I know looking for an ophthalmologist because he is so wonderful. He has taken Trevor's concerns to heart as if Trevor were an adult, and this speaks volumes to me. He has been wonderful with my little boy.

Dr Taylor said it was coming, he has warned us for a long time...around the age of 8 Trevor's eye would stop growing and there would be nothing else that we could do. Here we are, age 8 and Dr. Taylor wanted him so badly (right on with us) to read that 20/30 line (that was sort of a secret goal)....Trevor could not do it. We went to the dr last Friday and he said "stop using the drops." This is it the end...20/50 is the best Trevor is going to do. Yes, it is the goal, he will be able to drive a car, it is just bittersweet. There is nothing else we can do to make it better. Trevor really knows no life outside of eye therapy. It is going to be strange all his life we had to put the patch on or drop the drops.

Let me explain his life...He has had to cover up an eye that sees perfectly. Therefore, his vision has been a constant blurry out of alignment mess for almost 7 years. He has never seen a baseball coming at him as his teammates have, he has never read a book like other people, he has never watched tv where he didn't angle his head to be able to see better. I am so proud of the things he has accomplished under these circumstances, he is a great student, he is a very good baseball player (when his bad eye will work like it is supposed to), he is not afraid to try new things, and doesn't know the meaning of "I can't see so I won't do it". He gets out there and tries and most times, he succeeds.

Now that we are at the end, we have to make sure that we have not damaged that good eye. That poor eye has been through a lot over the last 7 years as well. It has had to turn itself off, be covered up and blurred so it could not see a thing. Have we damaged it under all this therapy? Actually that is a possibility. We have finished with all therapy! A hard concept for me to grasp. Trevor is having no issues there. Now we go back in 4 weeks to see if the good eye is ok. To make sure there is no damage. Are we finished going to the eye doctor all the time? We don't know yet. Is this eye going to be ok? We don't know yet. Will he ever need eye surgery on the bad eye? We don't know yet. But I will tell you, it will be nice to not have to go to the eye doctor every other month, it will be nice not to have to use eye drops, it will be nice not to have to put on an eye patch, it will be very nice to see how he hits a baseball using NO therapy. I think I look forward to that...yes I know I do. Now that the good eye will be able to use the depth perception that it has...he may really have a great season.

Trevor has been great through all of this. Yes, he has screamed and cried and ran away from me because I had to do stuff to his eyes, but gosh Trevor it's over. I am proud of you for being such a good boy at the eye doctor all these years, I shall miss playing eye spy with you while we wait for Dr. Taylor. I shall miss playing jeopardy with you in the waiting room. I shall miss buying you a hamburger because you have been such a good boy. I shall miss the nurse saying "why do you never want a sucker?" to you. But I am glad that you will be able to drive a car one day and your mama won't have to drive you and your girlfriend on dates. Yes, that part makes me happy. I don't want to be toting you around when you are 50, I am glad that you will be able to drive and you can tote me around.

Thanks to the doctors who have helped us over the years...Especially to Dr Paul Rychwalski, who was willing to try hard to make my babies life better without putting him under the knife. Thank you for all that you and Dr Taylor have done for my little boy.

Grounded

You have all read (hopefully) about Trevor being grounded. I am telling you this child just must play...it doesn't matter when, how, or with what; he has to play. So he was grounded from certain toys and his friend, so he just had to be creative and think, "what can I play with that mom won't get mad?"

I keep my morning "get ready" stuff in the living room, make-up, curling irons; and also in there is my sewing basket that holds whatever I am sewing at that time. They are in 2 baskets that sit on the side of the recliner. My son got into a 1 foot space between the wall and the recliner and began to play with the curling iron and the flat iron. The 2 irons were fighting with each other and making these great gun sounds. And of course he threw in the typical "sword fighting" techniques that one usually uses when one plays swords.

When I asked him,"why do you want to play with curling irons?" He said, "I am grounded from all the fun things". Enough said!

See ya

Throw back to the 70's and 80's

I remember as a child going through Woolco here in Paducah KY. I remember looking at the dolls (a barbie type/size doll). She was so pretty. She had big hair (which even then I loved). A red jumpsuit (polyester), and wonderful white high heels. I wanted her so much. Begged for her...but was told no. Every time we went to Kmart I would see her. She wanted so much to come to my house (trailer) and play. However, I am guessing she was expensive. After all I had the Superstar Barbie, the Donnie and Marie, the Bionic Woman, even the Wonder Woman (which I also had wanted so badly), but not HER! I wanted HER!!!! She even had "fluffy" eyelashes! She was perfect!

Well, come Christmas time we were at my grandparents opening gifts. In most years we opened gifts in an old converted garage. This was way before that. So how old was I? 5? I bet so! Well, we are opening the gifts and there is one for me! I open it up.....THERE SHE IS! SHE IS MINE! My very own FARRAH! She was way better than I had imagined. She had a red jumpsuit on, but also came with a blue evening gown (polyester), and a red dress. She was the most perfect toy (and wonder woman was the bomb)...that I could have. Farrah and I spent a long time together. But eventually she got a cracked neck and just fell apart. I had to throw her away. However, to this day, I have all 3 of her great outfits. I loved you Farrah.


Then in 82' when I was much older, I got a poster for my birthday. A poster of a dude in a pink sweater, and I believe blue jeans. He had on a button down shirt under the sweater but the color escapes me. I must tell you, this poster started a craze of hanging posters all over my wall. This one had prominence directly over the bed (at least until 86' when Def Leppard hung in that spot). I would dream that I would marry him. He could dance wonderfully. I was amazed even then by his talent. Of course at that time he was not labeled as "weird" so it was great. Near the end of 85' at Christmas time again, I got a gift from Santa that I was so excited to have. I got the Michael Jackson doll. He wore the Blue sequined jacket from the awards show. For my birthday I got another one...This was the thriller one. I love both of them. I played with them so much that the awards outfit tore up (it was poorly constructed). Then the dolls started falling apart...one spilt up his torso and just literally fell to pieces. The other cracked in the chest, but I do still have it. The thriller outfit fared well all these years. It was a pleather type thing, and held up so great. I still have it and my one MJ doll. There was a time that I could say that I had every MJ album available, you know I may still have all but the last one (only most are LPs). I was a huge fan of his a well, even when he got creepy I was amazed by his talent and writing ability. I was however ticked at him when he got the Beatles song rights. I have hoped for years that Paul would have those. I think that is what is right. Paul and John were swindled out of those rights and I am hoping that maybe the estate would sell them. I am sure Yoko and Paul would pay alot for them. They should have them since THEY wrote them. It is their art, but that is an argument for another day.

Anyway, today I mourn the lost of a piece of my childhood. I pray for their families. MJ had very small children, I pray that they are cared for and not taken advantage of. Farrah's son sits in prison, I pray he gets his life on track and becomes drug free. It is very shocking about both, sort of a surreal feeling that I am feeling today.

Thank you both for entertaining me. Thank you Farrah...for having great hair, and perfect teeth, for creating movies that I will never forget. Thanks for being one of my favorite little dolls and making me so happy as a child.

Michael, thank you for Thriller...what an amazing record that I still listen to today. It was just in my cd player less than 2 weeks ago. Thank you for a cheap little doll that I had lots of fun playing with (you know I killed you off the top of the Barbie house balcony when the torso split....that was such a poorly made doll), thank you for your dancing....words can't describe how wonderful it was, thank you for drawing a picture of Paul McCartney that I think it so cool...but not thank you for getting the Beatles songs. I pray that all those allegations aganist you were never true today, but shall not talk about that because it makes me very sad.