So many times today the tragic death of Dan Wheldon has popped in to my head. I'm really not one to obsess about sad events in the world. I care and include in my prayers the people who are involved, but normally I don't get too freaked out by things. I just can't stop thinking about how sad it is that this young husband, and father of two little boys died so suddenly yesterday.
Of course I know exactly WHY I can't stop thinking about his wife and sons. I have been standing on the brink of being that woman for the last six months. I absolutely do NOT dwell on this, but I am perfectly clear that at any given moment someone could show up here to tell me that my life and my son's lives will never be the same. I don't think about it much because it's terrifying to think about. I have no idea how I'd truly react to it. I'm sure that I would fall off one edge or the other. I'd either break down completely or I wouldn't be able to deal with it at all on an emotional level. I'd like to think at first I would just get affairs in order and take care of our life and our sons and not break down... but I also can see how easy it would be to totally shut down and not be able to do anything but cry and lay in bed.
As I let myself think about it, just for the purpose of writing this, I really hope I could do a balance of both. When something so tragic, so unimaginable happens, you know the person who is gone would not want you to be sad and inconsolable, just as if it was you, you would want people to be okay and eventually go on with life. I suppose the best way to honor someone is to continue on with your life and do all the things that that person would want you to do and to have and to experience.
The only comfort I can see for Dan Wheldon's wife is that her husband left a truly good legacy for his sons. I'm not a big racing fan, but being that I live in Indianapolis, I know who two time Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon is. Whenever the news would talk about him it would always be to say what a good person he was, a good father, and an asset to the sport. There will be no end to the stories his young sons will grow up hearing and a plethera of news coverage and video and pictures of their father. Hopefully on some level they will feel like they knew him. When it comes to my sons, on a subconcious level I know I take a million pictures and write in this blog and write in a journal to them and make scrapbooks and make sure that they know and are close to my close friends and family so that if there was ever a time I or Grover wasn't there for them, they would know exactly how much we love them and would have more than enough access to information about who we are and what we believed in.
As sad as this man's death was, it reinforces to me that there is not always tomorrow. That every day I will tell my kids and husband and family that I love them and to enjoy every moment of our journey through life.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Lysander's 4th Birthday
Okay, the terrible twos suck... the horrifying threes suck WAY worse. So I had a 2 year old and a 3 year old up until this past Sunday... when Lysander finally turned 4!!! I swear, over night he turned in to the sweetest, most loving, and well behaved little boy!! Of course that could have something to do with the awesome party he was thrown on his birthday ;)
I woke up feeling AWFUL. Thank goodness Stef came over super early to help me out with everything AND she brought drugs with her left over from her cold so I got through the day without dying. We finished getting the house cleaned up and then decorated and finished food. My mom got here and brought the rest of what we needed and the party started.
Lysander is my kid who is not into crowds for very long. He does it for as long as he can and then he needs some quiet. So I rushed the party along a bit so that he could get through everything before he got crabby. First everyone ate. Of course Lysander didn't want to eat the pulled pork that I made because he liked it, so all the kids had hotdogs. As soon as everyone was done eating, I immediately did presents since he had been asking for them since the first one had been set on the table.
I woke up feeling AWFUL. Thank goodness Stef came over super early to help me out with everything AND she brought drugs with her left over from her cold so I got through the day without dying. We finished getting the house cleaned up and then decorated and finished food. My mom got here and brought the rest of what we needed and the party started.
Lysander is my kid who is not into crowds for very long. He does it for as long as he can and then he needs some quiet. So I rushed the party along a bit so that he could get through everything before he got crabby. First everyone ate. Of course Lysander didn't want to eat the pulled pork that I made because he liked it, so all the kids had hotdogs. As soon as everyone was done eating, I immediately did presents since he had been asking for them since the first one had been set on the table.
This is only from my mom and Stef and this was when Lysander started wanting to open them!
Unfortunately we made the mistake of opening one of my mom's first and it was Transformer's Play Doh and he didn't want to keep opening, he just wanted to play!
This is my neice Hannah. She looked so insanely adorable at the party. And she was a PERFECT little girl!
This is toward the end of present opening. We were practically lost in wrapping paper. The first thing he did after we finished was ask to play with the play doh!
I had the COLTS game on and they made a good run of it... here the score was 17-0 Colts. They ended up losing anyway, and went 0-4 on Lysander's 4th birthday. Fun Fact: One week before the Colts went to the Superbowl and won, I found out I was pregnant with Lysander.
These were the best cupcakes in the world. S'mores cupcakes from the Flying Cupcake on Mass Ave. Totally the best thing ever.
Everyone was cheering for him for blowing out the candle. He was so sweet. Right after this Daddy finally called and he even talked to Daddy on Skype, which he normally doesn't do. :)
Totally weird but Lysander was all about the cupcake and Isaac who normally has the sweet tooth, took advantage of the Transformer's Play Doh being abandoned for a moment. I like this picture a lot though.
His birthday was a really fun day. Exhausting and now I'm totally sick, but we had a lot of fun. He got some great gifts, and the awesome thing about that is that it's all stuff Isaac can play with too because they are so close in age. Unfortunately since then I've been batteling this cold to no avail, but fortunately Lysander has kept up his incredible "I love you mama" attitude. Wish I could say the same for Isaac, but he never has been as terrible of a two year old as his brother was. ;)
Getting home
For some reason 15 days has become like a theme with me. We had GJ from 15 days, we went to see my dad for 15 days, and today we've been home for 15 days. First we had super fast, then we had super slow, and now I think we are back to normal, though I'll tell you what, things have not slowed down.
The first day we were back I did practically nothing. The next three days though were filled with errands and cleaning, and then a night out, and then a night in with the kids and Stef, and then a day full of relaxation with Stef and Heidar. So the first week flew by. Then the second week was basically spent starting back to preschool and getting ready for Lysander's 4th birthday party.
We also got some good news that Grover is going to be home sometime in November. Which is WAY sooner than we thought originally, so of course that was super exciting. Also a little nerve wrecking because now we have to figure out what we are going to do now with regards to the future. We've worked toward this deployment for so long, so it kind of feels like now what?
I've also started the refinancing process. That is scaring the shit out of me, pardon my french ;) I'm so ready to have this done and over with. We had some estimates already and we had the appraisal done today, so now it's all down to that and how much money we will get. I just pray every time I think about it that it will all work out and we will FINALLY get this done for good. I'm ready to stop having to stress so damn hard about this. One way or another, we will know soon. :)
And that puts me at home for 15 days. Now I have 8 more days til I go to Florida for five days and I'm sure THAT will make for some interesting blog posts ;)
The first day we were back I did practically nothing. The next three days though were filled with errands and cleaning, and then a night out, and then a night in with the kids and Stef, and then a day full of relaxation with Stef and Heidar. So the first week flew by. Then the second week was basically spent starting back to preschool and getting ready for Lysander's 4th birthday party.
We also got some good news that Grover is going to be home sometime in November. Which is WAY sooner than we thought originally, so of course that was super exciting. Also a little nerve wrecking because now we have to figure out what we are going to do now with regards to the future. We've worked toward this deployment for so long, so it kind of feels like now what?
I've also started the refinancing process. That is scaring the shit out of me, pardon my french ;) I'm so ready to have this done and over with. We had some estimates already and we had the appraisal done today, so now it's all down to that and how much money we will get. I just pray every time I think about it that it will all work out and we will FINALLY get this done for good. I'm ready to stop having to stress so damn hard about this. One way or another, we will know soon. :)
And that puts me at home for 15 days. Now I have 8 more days til I go to Florida for five days and I'm sure THAT will make for some interesting blog posts ;)
15 days...
When Grover was home on R&R, 15 days went by in a blur. I didn't know that 15 days could go by that quickly. Then, two days after he left, I discovered how long 15 days could be. Don't get me wrong, I would not have done anything different, I was happy to take care of my Dad and Grandpa, but it was just one catastrophe after another. I left off with Lysander deteriorating health wise, and as it turned out, I had a trip to the ER with him as well. To be fair, I wasn't quite as freaked out when I went with him because I knew what was wrong. But he was so sad and so scared and it was just exhausting. As it turned out, he only had crupe, not pneumonia. As it also turned out he recovered way more quickly than Isaac did because two days after I took Lysander to the ER I had to find a pediatrician to take Isaac to because he stayed up all night long with an ear infection. ONE. THING. AFTER. ANOTHER.
Luckily, after that it eased up for our last week. Honestly, when I came home, it made me realize how much time I actually have to relax here as opposed to there. There was constantly something to do, something to clean, meals to fix, meals to clean up, toilets to empty(I can't even talk about that again), pills to give, diapers to change etc. What I came away from it with however, is I do want my Dad and my Grandpa to be around us more. Not that of course I didn't already know that, but somehow this trip, I really started wanting them to move closer to us. I liked being with them for two weeks and my boys really enjoyed it as well. Isaac called my dad Duf-fey. It was so cute. Even Lysander warmed up to both of them. It's amazing to me that at 95 years old, my Grandpa really takes a big interest in the kids. He laughs with them, and talks to them. Every morning he would give Isaac a high five. Every time I would take a picture with them with my Grandpa I would just think how special it is that they get to be around their great grandfather and have something to look back on with it.
Luckily, after that it eased up for our last week. Honestly, when I came home, it made me realize how much time I actually have to relax here as opposed to there. There was constantly something to do, something to clean, meals to fix, meals to clean up, toilets to empty(I can't even talk about that again), pills to give, diapers to change etc. What I came away from it with however, is I do want my Dad and my Grandpa to be around us more. Not that of course I didn't already know that, but somehow this trip, I really started wanting them to move closer to us. I liked being with them for two weeks and my boys really enjoyed it as well. Isaac called my dad Duf-fey. It was so cute. Even Lysander warmed up to both of them. It's amazing to me that at 95 years old, my Grandpa really takes a big interest in the kids. He laughs with them, and talks to them. Every morning he would give Isaac a high five. Every time I would take a picture with them with my Grandpa I would just think how special it is that they get to be around their great grandfather and have something to look back on with it.
Isaac and Grandpa would eat together a lot. They both like to take their time.
Isaac would wake up every morning before me and go into Grandpa's room and hang out with him. Of course Gryffin was always there too.
This is what my dad's leg looked like the first week.
We were also visited my Uncle Murph and Austin, some of my brother's friends from high school. Isaac was all over them.
And they got a chance to hang out with their cousins as well. This was the only picture that I could get of Lysander practically the entire time we were there because he was sick for so much of it. They are all such handsome boys :)
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