What I Missed While I Tended to the Ladies

Tis the season for picking, buying and carving pumpkins! While I wish I had had this past weekend free to shop pumpkins with my two fave guys, I know that I was where I belonged- tending to the ladies. I have pined and pined all week for my mom. I worry when I am not with her. She worries about memaw...all of our worlds have been turned upside down and sideways. KK has done a brilliant job of keeping up with mom while I am in GA trying to hold down a job:)
Even though I know I was in the right place, I still would have loved to be there when these pictures were taken.
Dan said Jack had a ball- and BONUS.....


They had a bounce house!
Notice the little girls in their Auburn cheerleading uniforms. We are right at home in GA during football season. There are so many Auburn fans around here. It is comforting. And can I get a WAAAAAAAAR EAGLE from all you Auburn fans? NUMBER ONE BABY! WHOOOO HOOO!


Little do Dan and Jack know, but I myself was having a ball on Saturday.
Mom sat up from 9am until 3:30 pm. Nice Work, mom! I am so proud of the progress that she has made. Memaw and I were at the hospital for the 10 am visit and since mom was going to be in dialysis until 1pm, she asked that I just come back at the 2PM visit.
OK, so that gave us time to go get the groceries that memaw so desperately needed. After all, that gallon of neopolitan ice cream is not going to get itself from the grocery store!
SO off we went! I made a detour at Blue Ribbon Shoes (my fave) to let memaw try on some winter shoes. She was not impressed with the Naturalizer's, the Born's, the Clark's...oh no. They could never compare to her Cuddler's. SO off we went to K-Mart to get her Cuddler's. She even snatched up a pair of Cuddler white sandals on super sale for next year!
I decided to treat memaw to some baby back ribs at Chili's. She deserves it. I love Chili's. We all win. Well, I guess I let me guard down because the time was just a tickin' and we still had groceries to be gotten.
I had driven all the way over there from GEORGIA to see my momma, I was NOT going to miss the 2pm visit. SO, poor memaw. I practically DRAGGED her through Wal-Mart. I dumped, ahem, dropped her off at her house at 2:00 and left her with a kitchen full of groceries to be put away. By the time I drove to the hospital, and got up to ICU, it was 2:30- exactly the time that visiting hours were over. Thank goodness for nurses who bend the rules. She let me visit until 3:00pm. Well, all was well except for the fact that I missed kick off! I did get to watch the game in the waiting room though.
Sunday was a good one too....I was able to go by my in-laws' to deliver the special goodie basket that I got from Mel's Sweet Treats for his my Father-in-law's birthday. I was glad mom was doing well, and glad to be heading home! It was a little easier to head out, because they put her in her own room Sunday afternoon. It is a nice one on the 4th floor. I talked with her today and she is doing good, just tired from another round of dialysis. Please pray that her kidney's kick it back into gear soon!
I missed my boys!

Killing me with Kindness

This little stinker has been a handful lately! He is really trying to establish his boundaries and become more independent. We get a lot of "I don't want to's" and "hmmmmph's" lately. Throw in the fact that we were suddenly and unexpectedly at grandma and grandpa's for two weeks and it all gets even more complicated! No matter how hard you try, taking a toddler out of their normal surroundings, routines, and time zones, is like yanking their sense of security right out form under them! He was a little discombobulated to say the least. Grandma and Grandpa certainly did their duty of spoiling him rotten! He got so much attention, outside play time, and one on one time. He also got an unexplained fever for a few days so that got him even MORE attention. He got to sleep in bed with mommy(that NEVER ususally happens).

Well the thing that is KILLING me is that he tells me no. I cannot stand it! But it is not just no....

It is "no thank you".

Me- "jack eat your Pop Tart"...Jack- "no thank you". Me- "Jack it is time to get out of the tub"...Jack- "no thank you". Me- "Jack it is time to clean up"...Jack- "no thank you".

HMMMM. I am having the MOST difficult time because while I do not want him to tell me no, I am so proud of his manners!

Backing up to the suddenly and unexpectedly at Grandma and Granpa's house part....

Big thanks to John and Joanne for being so understanding and taking complete responsibilty for our boy for two weeks while I flitted in and out of the house to the hospital! You guys spoil us all rotten and we appreciate it so much! I am such a lucky daughter-in-law!

Have a great weekend!

I plan to see my momma and enjoy some good football!

WAAAAAAAAR EAGLE!

hole in my heart

I have been walking around with a hole in my heart for two weeks now. Mom's blood clot has turned into oh so much more. On October 4th, her blood pressure dropped to 70 over 30 and all of her organs were shocked. It was a 10 day battle in ICU for her liver to recover. There was a chance that she would die. Well, she beat it, she did it and the next hurdle was getting her kidneys back in order so that she could keep the fluid out of her body and especially out of her lungs. It seemed like she was out of the woods- she was SOOO happy to be in her own room out of the ICU. Then she became non responsive. She quit talking to us. It seemed like she was ignoring us because sometimes she would respond and sometimes she would not. It got progressively worse until yesterday she could not even swallow. Last night she was moved back into ICU so that she could be better monitored. This morning, she was put on a ventilator because she was having trouble breathing. God please let her be OK. It is so painful to be trapped here 3 hours away. It is equally as painful to be trapped in the ICU waiting room in Decatur Alabama because either way, there is nothing I can do to help. The only thing I can do is give it to God. It is in his hands now.

Perfect October Saturday

Our day ENDED shopping for pumpkins. We wanted to go to our regular "patch" but it was not open yet. We will save that for another day. Since we had kind of already opened our big mouth and to be honest, Dan is somewhat of a sucker for a pumpkin, we stopped by Home Depot and picked up 1 or 4. They had them all in these tall boxes and Jack could not see. Dan wanted him to pick out the pumpkins, so he sat him inside the box!

Earlier that morning we went to the North Georgia State Fair. From 10-11 am admission and rides were all free so I figured even if it was a bust we wouldn't be out an moulah! Well, turns out it was a hit!

Jack had so much fun riding the rides and seeing the animals.

The funny thing about it was, he was virtually expressionless on every ride.

For a child that is usually super animated, it was a strange thing for Dan and I to see...I was concerned that maybe he was scared, but I can asure you, he "wubbed" it! He had a blast seeing the animals, too. They had all of the barn animals; cows, horses, chickens, ducks. That was really cool. But they also had elephants and tigers!

We ate a funnel cake and had some lemonade and then headed out for lunch. It was a great morning.

first state fair from Melanie Marsh on Vimeo.