I'm Not Dead Yet

Hello my friends! I hope the past few weeks have been kind to you and yours. May you have had wonderful, coffee filled days, and relaxing alcohol filled evenings.

It's been a crazy few weeks here in SRMville. I've been on more airplanes in the past month than I have in five years, traveling to weddings and family vacations. But I'm home now, the kids are packed off to my moms for a few days and I am finally able to sit my ass down and catch up on blogging.

Since my last blog things have changed a bit, which, unfortunately, impacts my blogging time. For one thing, Soren no longer naps. And it's virtually impossible for me to sneak down and blog during the day as I used to. I've tried blogging a few times on my laptop but each time I've gotten half a blog done, somehow I get bumped by the kids racing around conquering the couch in their name, and I lose it. I realized that it was not conducive to my (or the kids) health to try and blog while they are vertical. However I hope that now with things calming down, and 2/3 of the kids heading to school in a couple weeks, I may find a time that works.

So what's been going on? Oh hell, where do I begin? We had two weddings to attend. I think I know only two more people who have not hitched the ball and chain, one of which is going to do so in October, the other being my brother who, I foresee, won't be taking such a huge leap for many years coming.

The entire family took their first trip on a plane together and we survived. Not only did we survive, but we kicked ass. The three kids did such an amazing job, and we weren't forced off the plane. For the record, gummy bears ROCK for getting rid of the preassure in kids ears when you are on a plane.

We headed to native land, a la Massachusetts, for a week of family and friend gatherings, and hitting our favorite haunts.

Xavier graduated fourth grade with flying colors. I mean, the boy kicked ass. We got his EOG (end of grade) test results back and he tested way beyond grade placement. He got the fifth grade teacher his special ed teacher wanted him to have, and he's excited to start school in a few weeks.

 Soren is about to turn three this week, which just floors me. It doesn't feel like it was three years ago on Father's Day that I was breaking J's bones as I squeezed his hands yelling "HAPPY FUCKING FATHER'S DAY SWEETIE!" We'll be having an Angry Bird birthday party this weekend with friends and family. I'll post photos next week. Since I last posted, the boys vocabulary has gone through the roof. We're done with two word sentences. We're now into full on paragraphs, and pronouncing words some adults have a hard time getting out of their mouths, And yet, he still has a hard time with some of the more simple words.

I missed all of you and the blogging world! It feels good to be back! 

The Wedding

 OK folks, it's been over a week since the wedding and I have promised you full disclosure. I apologize for the delay. This past week has been hell, which I'll blog later.

Just to remind everyone, I was headed off to Massachusetts for a friends wedding... at a funeral home. yes, it was just as blog worthy as I had anticipated. Maybe even more so.

J and I arrived at Logan airport at 9AM the day of the wedding. When we left Raleigh at 7, it was a nice 65 degrees. Walking outside in Boston, to a "cool" 40 degrees, we both winced and lamented that it was FUCKING COLD! Ahh yes, we can admit that we have fully acclimated and are now southern.

IF you're familiar to Massachusetts geography, you'll wince in sympathy when I say we had to drive from Boston to Gardner, then to Southbridge, then to Waltham in one day. For those of you not in the know, just assume I said we drove all across the state a couple of times.

We headed to Friendly's in Gardner to grab some food for the first time of the day, meeting one of my best friends, Greg. After, we rushed to J's moms house to quickly change for the wedding. Which was awesome, cause we couldn't figure out how the hell to make the state of the art dryer which caused J to panic as he pictured himself showing up in a wrinkled suit.

For the first time in about 12 years I put on pantyhose. I remembered, as I tried to shove my legs into those tissue paper thin fabric how much I hate them and the person who invented them. But I didn't have enough time to really gripe as we had 30 minutes to go from jeans and ponytail to fashonista.

We dove into the tiny car that can really hold only one full person, and put the pedal to the metal for a 90 minute drive to the wedding/funeral home, straight across the other side of the state. As we're driving through Worcester, I realize that, of course, I have a giant rip in my fucking pantyhose. I mean, how could my day not be complete without that? So I sat there for a moment, contemplating the aerodynamics of wriggling out of the confining ripped pair I currently have on while replacing them with my spare. In a teeny tiny car. On the highway. In the second biggest city in the state, therefore ensuring plenty of people to peep my panties. Did I dare to expose myself in order to look perfect for the wedding?

You bet your panties I did.

And the state of Mass males were happy to see my cute panties and I was happy that I was flexible enough to perform such a crazy thing without killing myself or J, as he tried to keep his eyes on the road.


The wedding/funeral home itself was perfect antique New England. Pink wallpaper, tons of tiny rooms, gorgeous drapes lining the windows, dead bodies in the basement. You know, quaint. We met up with our friend, the groom, while we waited for everyone to arrive and sit. I met old friends we haven't seen in years, small talked with the family members, and tried to be on my best behavior and not go poking into random closed doors, looking for coffins. I did ok.

To my macabre delight, five minutes before the ceremony was to begin, the owner received a call for a "house removal". That's PC for a dead body in someones house. He came out and projected that we had to hurry it up as he told them he'd be there in 45 minutes for pick up. I am so proud of myself that I stayed straight faced, but I did go email myself this little tidbit so I wouldn't forget. Not that I could.

We started gathering at our seats and someone came in and said we could start as the girls were done in the bathroom and ready to go.

Awesome.

The last tidbit that made this absolutely perfect was that as I sat down, I noticed a display case beside me, cut into the wall. Expecting a pretty display of flowers or something, I was caught off guard seeing a GINORMOUS creepy Hummel, staring at me with a wicked grin.

 

Seriously, how can a wedding/funeral home not be complete without a two foot Hummel boy, grinning at you while you say goodbye to a loved one, or watch your friends say I do?

The ceremony lasted a total of five minutes once it began. Which is a good thing since they forgot to tell us guests to sit down again. Yes, we stood the entire time. 

And that, my friends, was the wedding at the funeral home. It was awesome!

Writing For The Win!

My family has a history of atrocious handwriting. I was fortunate enough to bypass this, and my handwriting is actually legible, if you ignore my doctors worthy signature, done in total haste. My father's handwriting is so awful that each time I receive any correspondence from him, it takes J and I hours to sit there and try to decipher it.

My brother also has atrocious handwriting, and while in school, it was utterly painful for him to sit down nightly and write out essays. Both of these family members have ADHD.

Xavier is the same way. He also literally cannot sit down long enough to write out a good essay. Unfortunately come fifth grade, essays will be a big part of his school work. Fortunately, he has an IEP that allows him the use of a computer to type out his essays. Even with a computer at hand it's still hard to keep him on track long enough to write. Because of this, even during vacations, I have to have him sit down daily and practice his writing skills. It sucks for both of us, but over this year he has started to get better. I still need to light a firecracker up his ass once in awhile, but we have gone from him only writing a paragraph per hour to four paragraphs per hour.

Starting this quarter, in order to prepare the kids for fifth grade, Xavier's teacher has started making the kids write weekly book reports. Both Xavier and I groaned loudly at this announcement, knowing it was going to be hell for us each week. But as a team, we sat down and figured out a schedule he could work with, and I would help him look for grammar errors.

The suckiest part of this is that the writing has to be two pages long, and no bigger than twelve font. I saw that and smiled, because if that wasn't in the rules I would have happily let Xavier use 46 font.

I can't even begin to tell you how surprised both of us were when we received his first paper back. Xavier, the one who hates writing, got a 4 on his paper, which for elementary school here, is the highest grade you can get.  One is the worst, three is great, four is above grade level. We were so excited that it is now framed on our fridge.

I guess all that wine chugging and working on vacations worked out. I'm so proud of the little bugger!