Balancing Act

So today's post is a tough one.

For one, it's a stinking' blizzard out there to the point that most people just planned on not driving anywhere except maybe to catch a glimpse of the lake.  Plus, the power is out in the harbor.

I'm seeing at least an inch of snow fall per hour in Hancock.

The other tough part is that little Brady P. is with his dad and grandparents in Wisconsin, so I don't really have a cool update.

I can tell you about how I felt before he left, though.

It was different for me.

Before Brady P. was in school, we share darn near most every day together.  All day everyday.  For a mom with dreams other than to raise a child who needed extra attention, it was frustrating.  For a boy who just wanted his mama to do everything he wanted her to do with him and hopefully see the people sometimes, it was boring.

But now, with him in school 5 days a week, we have a balance.  A lovely balance.

I am so excited to see him after school.  I feel like I have the time and energy to dedicate to him on a whole new level.  Sure, Brade, let's play catch for an hour.  Let's sink it for an hour.  Let's do three puzzles in a row.  Let's dance to all the same Beach Boys songs again.

And I cherish it.

All of it.

Because there is balance.

In fact, I now cherish that time together so much, that I actually fretted sending him off to his grandparents' house for over a week.  Don't get me wrong, I know that they will be absolutely wonderful to him.  But he is such a big part of my purpose, that I cried about missing him three times before he even left.

P. Pie and Gramps in their backwards Stormy Kromers

Before he left!

That never happened before.

If you are a parent, you can relate that you need balance and that your child is a part of you and they bring you joy and all that good stuff.

Yes, I know the break is good for everybody.

But Braeden Philip Rogers has such a tender heart that tears well up as I type about it.  He is one of the sweetest little beings I have ever met.

He gives me smooches on my arm when I help him get dressed.  He gives me smooches on my leg when we do his homework.  He smooches my lips and hugs me good morning.

It takes a lot of my energy to give him all that he needs each day, but the rewards have become priceless.  I mean, who wouldn't want those sweet little smooches throughout the day?

And I know that now he's gone smooching Grammy.  But that's okay.  She more than deserves it.  I would smooch her too, if I was there!

Perhaps that's all for now.  You enjoy your day of eating too much food and hopefully being grateful for all that you are, all that you have and all that you can be.

That motto gets you anywhere, my friend.

The Smell that Changed the Day

I read something lately about making your first thoughts of the morning positive and full of good intentions in order to have a mindset that is conducive for a happy, productive day.  

We've all heard that, I'm sure, but Tuesday, when my alarm went off at 6:45am, and I awoke from a dream to the darkness of the morning, I tried extra hard.

I get to see my sweet man today!  I get to take my van to get fixed, and it's a nice day to drive!  I have lots of work to do for the Copper Harbor website revamp!  I feel good, and I'm going to have a great day!  Time to get Brady P. up for school!  I wonder what silly greeting he'll have for me this morning...

My thoughts and intentions were set.  I was feeling great.

Then I opened the door to Braeden's room.

I was instantly slapped in the face with a terrible odor.  An odor nobody should ever have to smell... or sleep in... as Brady P. did.

"Hey, Braeden..." I uttered.  "Did you puke?"

"Yes," he said in the darkness.

He often says yes to questions he doesn't understand, so I wasn't sure if he knew what I was asking at the time.

"I'm going to turn on your light, okay?  Cover your eyes."

"Yes," he said.

I surveyed the scene around him and wondered how long he had been laying in his own vomit (sorry, this might be kind of gross, if you're eating or not a parent).

"Braeden, did you puke?" I asked again after not seeing any big puddles or chunks, but definitely trying not to do the same thing myself.

"Yes," he said.  He held his sea turtle out to me and pointed to a white ring around his shell.  Yup.  He knew what my question meant!

"Oh, sweetie!"  I lamented.  "Do you feel okay?"

"No!" he said.

"Do you want to go to school today?"

"No!" he wined and began to squirm as another bout of curdled food began to wretch from his guts.

I'll spare you the rest of the details of that moment because that is not my point.  Here's my point.  Well, the first one.

Just as I was feeling good and purposeful and ready for the day, I got a whiff of a sick little boy, and my personal goals went down the tubes.  Everything changed in an instant.

But I had to roll with it.

In between cleaning and changing a little boy and holding him upright while he went into another round of liquid expulsion, I had to call and text a few people to cancel my plans for myself and for him at school.

Whew.  I got everyone notified.  I got the boy cleaned up.  He seemed stable for a moment, so we snuggled in my bed until he woke up... in another bout.

Oy!

But this time, and the couple times after he was done sharing the juice he swallowed, he went from a hot squirrelly mess to looking at me with gratitude and saying "all done."

"You're all done vomiting?" I asked in disbelief.  I mean, how does a little kid know that it's over for now?

"Yup!" he answered and ran off to play as fast as I could catch him to wipe him up and change his clothes.  Again.

Here's my second point.  That kid is tough as nails.  I mean, wow.  

He's sick from some bug that we couldn't really figure out yet, goes into these awful bouts of purging, then goes about the rest of the day like business as usual. 

Sure, he didn't really eat a whole lot and he got tired for bed earlier than usual, but we still danced to the Beach Boys, jumped on his trampoline, did puzzles, watched a couple videos on the computer, read books, took a bath, etc.

Snuggling warm and dry after bath number one

Business as usual.

Just some wrenching and lots of laundry in between.

Well, rest assured he is much better today.  Day two missed of school in a row, but I wasn't chancing the teachers having to clean that up!

We made it through.  It's just life.  Life that we have to carry with a positive attitude in order to make sure things go as smoothly as possible.

That's just what we did.  Thanks to everyone who wished him well and called with concern.  And thanks to Craig for coming to help and snuggling with us.

Here's to another wonderful, productive day... no matter how life makes you follow your nose!

Whoops!

Oops!  Another Wednesday has come and gone. 

I'll catch you next week!

Halloween

Brady P. has been into Halloween for a while now.  

Like, ten months.

So imagine how much he liked it when the Halloween holiday came around!

I'll let him tell you about it.

***

Hi.  This is Braeden.

I really like Halloween.  My mom and I started listening to Halloween videos on Bounce Patrol a long time ago, and we did the Halloween Stomp every morning.  She was really good at it, and I liked to watch her moves.

I learned about werewolves, spiders, witches, zombies, ghosts, pumpkins, skeletons, mummies, vampires and other scary creatures.  Boo!

Every time I got to watch computer, I would pick a Halloween video.  I probably watch 100 Halloween videos or more.

I got really good at pretending to be Halloween guys.  First the zombie.  Then I learned the ghost by finding one of mom's towels and putting it over my head and shouting boo!  I do a good mummy too.  It's kind of like a zombie, though because I put my arms out in front of me, walk slow and groan.  I can even be a vampire when I put my arm over my mouth like it's my cape.

Finally, it started to really be Halloween time.  I could tell because that's what we did at school, and mom put up decorations around the house.  My favorite was the spider.  It was really big like a tarantula and I wanted to see it, but if she moved it toward me, I got really scared.  One time it even made my heart hurt.  It scared mommy a couple times too.

Then one day she asked me what I wanted to be for Halloween.  She thought I was going to pick a zombie because I was so good at pretending to be a zombie, but I picked a ghost, and made her be a zombie!

When she came to my school Halloween party, she was a zombie really good!  Some of the kids were scared, but I knew it was her, and she pretended to be a zombie so good, I was really proud of her.

She scared the kids, but I scared her because even zombies are afraid of ghosts!

Me and mom at school being scary

Later we went trick-or-treating on the bus.  The bus was way more full than when I go to school in the morning.  It was really loud too.  All the kids were dressed up and the parents were loud.  I got to eat a bunch chocolate.  I love chocolate. 

When we stopped and got off the bus, I carried my pumpkin bucket and said "hi"  and "boo" to the people, and they gave me candy.  I like that idea!

It was pretty fun, but I was tired and it was loud.

Now Halloween is over and I pretend to be a dinosaur.  I am really good at it.  You should hear my roar.  I am good at stomping too.  I also like to watch dinosaur videos when it's computer time.

Okay, bye!