Sam pointed out to me that next to Christmas, the day of the Daddy Daughter Dance is what our daughter looks forward to most. She is SO right. We’ve been counting down the days since Christmas!
Thanks to the steroids that the doctor put me on, I packed on a few more pounds than I anticipated. So, I had to alter my outfit at the last minute. Ella, of course, noticed. She asked, “Aren’t you going to wear a tie tonight, daddy?” I told her this year I wanted to be different, and she was ok with that lame excuse.
She looked just beautiful. What an honor to be escorting her to the dance.
We arrived early, and she insisted that she wanted to go inside. I told her we were 30 minutes early and the door was probably locked. She made me get out of the car and try the door, which was open. LOL. We went upstairs to get the professional photo taken, then headed to the gym.
The DJ was already playing music. He was one of those “gotta mix the songs at the same beat guys.” I’ve never been that way. I always felt it sounded weird when two songs were playing at the same time for 30 seconds. Ella didn’t notice and started to dance, even though she was one of four girls in the gym.
The theme this year was Barbie. So we had to get a photo with Ken and Barbie.
They also had a Barbie car for us. Naturally, I let Ella drive….
I think we just avoided hitting a roadrunner on that trip!
One of the projects that we could do together was to “bedazzle” some sunglasses. We made a pair for each of us. She said she wanted to make glasses for her brother and for her mom, so we went back later and did that.
She requested Let It Go from Frozen and we got to dance to that again. Three years in a row, that has been our first dance together. A while later, she was sitting drinking water and they played My Girl by the Temptations. I said, “Oh, Daddy loves this song!” She set her water bottle down and said, “Then we have to dance to it!” I picked her up and swayed with her, singing it to her. She was all smiles.
Not too long ago, on my Music of My Life feature, I mentioned how the song Daughters by John Mayer took on a new meaning when I became “girl dad.” Well, that new meaning went a lot deeper last night. This will forever be one of the best moments of my life:
When Daughters started to play, we were still swaying. She put her arms around my neck and leaned her head against mine. I reached up and wrapped my arm around her. For 4 minutes, it was just her and me. I swayed with my eyes closed, holding back tears. It was the most amazing dance. I was lost in my thoughts, too.
I know that as a 54 year old man, I may not be around when she gets married. We may never get the chance to have THAT Daddy/Daughter dance. So I treasure the ones we do get, and that one was extra special!
Every year, we take pre-dance pictures. It is amazing to compare them and see how much she has grown. This year’s was eye opening. In the first one, she still has that “baby” look to her. She would have been three for that dance. My beard gets more grey in them, too. The photos are a reminder of just how fast time goes by and how every moment is important.
Ella, thank you for spending such an amazing evening with me. Every day my love for you grows. I am already looking forward to next year’s dance. I love you forever!
I truly hope that you and your family had a wonderful holiday! I’m a bit late getting my update written, so please forgive me. It has been a busy, yet relaxing few days.
On Monday, we got quite a wintery mix of weather. The day started with rain and freezing rain. It eventually changed to snow. As the temperatures dropped, the accidents were piling up. All throughout the day, there were messages on social media and on the news about the roads being icy.
Sam had to work Monday, so I was worried about her driving. She promised that if the roads were too bad, that she would turn around and call in. The weather wasn’t a surprise, and the main roads were salted pretty good, so her drive was not too bad. The drive home was a bit trickier, but she made it home ok.
Christmas Eve morning I knew I had to get out and clear the driveway. My sons were planning on coming over and I wanted to be sure it was clean. Ella and Andrew, who have been in the house TOO long, wanted to go outside with me. They ran around the yard, made some snow angels, played tag, and enjoyed the snow. Despite me telling them that it was not “scooter weather,” they played with them anyway!
The boys arrived about noon. They brought pizza and we all had lunch together. When they walked in, each of the two little ones ran to one of the older ones and hugged them. My second oldest was caught off guard by this. All I could say was, “They miss you, obviously.”
It was a nice time catching up. Phone calls between us are often cut short, possibly because of “listening ears.” Texting is hit or miss, so to have them with me and in conversation was very nice. My oldest and I talked about his job and his girlfriend. He also told me of his plans to move in with a friend from work. My second oldest told me that he had a girlfriend, too. He showed me a picture of them from when they went to the homecoming dance. My ex’s family had their holiday get together the previous weekend. Both boys were allowed to invite their girlfriends to the party. They both seem genuinely happy. This makes me happy.
They were able to stay for a couple hours, but my second oldest had to work that night. He works at a movie theater, and the holidays are always a busy time for them. I was glad that they were able to come over and spend time with me and their siblings. Of course, I am THAT dad who has to get a picture of all four of them together. You’re guess is as good as mine as to how many photos were snapped before getting one with all of them looking at me.
The little ones and I hung out for a bit as we waited for Sam to get up. We watched some Christmas cartoons and snuggled on the couch. Sam joined us in the living room and told us that her folks were coming by. They were going to drop off the kid’s Christmas gifts on their way to church.
I had to laugh because when they arrived, I went out to help bring stuff in. There were three boxes. I brought the first one in and set it on the floor. Ella was like, “Is this mine? Can I open it now? I wanna see what it is?” Sam’s folks weren’t even in the house yet and she was ready to rip off the paper!
Once every thing and everyone was inside, Ella was allowed to open her gift. It was a table top vanity. It came with fake cosmetics, but we didn’t know that. Sam bought some cheap – real – make up to go with it. This led to her giving everyone a makeover!
It was not exactly my shade of lipstick ….
She really loves it. I hope it is just a phase. She’s too young for makeup.
Andrew got something called Squigs. I guess they are toys that he uses at Physical/Occupational Therapy. He loves them. They have suction cups on them, and he can so all sorts of things with them
Nana and Pa couldn’t stay too long, because they had to get to church. Thankfully, they both made it out with out a makeover.
About 5:30, we grabbed out coats and hopped in the car. It was time for our yearly Christmas Eve tradition. We drove over to the county park where it was totally lit up for Christmas. For $10 a car, they have it set up so that you can drive through and see the lights. (During the holidays, they have a Christmas Train ride that we like to go on, but didn’t get the chance this year.) As you drive through the town, Christmas music plays and it is really beautiful.
They really do a nice job here. The old houses are even decorated in period decorations.
This tree always amazes me. The detail is brought out so well with these lights.
They have things like this at the Detroit Zoo, too. I wish we had been able to come up for the train ride and village walk. That way we could have gotten a picture in that ornament bulb.
By the time we got home, it was time to get ready for bed. The kids knew that their Elf on the Shelf was leaving with Santa that night. They loved seeing the craziness that she’d do every morning. They wanted a picture of her with them before bed. After hugs and kisses, they thanked Twinkles and told her they’d see her next year.
Andrew fell asleep pretty quickly. Ella, on the other hand, was talkative. Typical “night before Christmas” stuff. She is so sweet, though. As she turned over to close her eyes, she stopped and looked at me. She said, “Daddy, I really hope that Bubby (Andrew) doesn’t get coal from Santa. He doesn’t mean to be bad all the time.” I told her that he would probably be just fine. I made sure she was aware that Santa knew that he was good “most of the time.”
When the kids were asleep, Santa got to work. There were a few toys to put together, but nothing too complicated. I think the house was asleep by 11:00pm. That is always good, because you know how early so Christmas mornings can be!
Lucky for us, it was just after 8am when Ella burst into the bedroom and said, “It’s Christmas!!! Time to get up!!” If we hadn’t stopped her, she probably would have been out the door, into the living room and had all the presents unwrapped before we could put on our slippers! Andrew was still asleep, but once we told him that it was Christmas, he shot up and was ready to go.
They each got a Santa gift. Ella got a balance beam that she can practice on. Andrew got a Paw Patrol Big Wheel!
Andrew got new books, an explorer kit, Bluey toys, and a set of construction vehicles that you can put together and take apart.
Ella got some things for he Gabby’s Dollhouse, a Barbie changing room, Pocahontas pajamas, and a Tiana cookbook.
They had just the right amount of things to open. It wasn’t overly elaborate. There were not hundreds of gifts stuffed under the tree. It was simple and they were happy with everything!
Someone posted this on a Facebook page and I completely agree:
“I understand now. The Christmas magic I experienced as a child wasn’t about the decorations, the food or the gifts. It came from my parents and the effort they put in throughout the year to make the holiday special for me. I’ll always be grateful for that. Now, I have the privilege of sharing that same joy and magic with my own children.”
When everything was opened and the playing commenced, Sam was off to make her homemade cinnamon rolls. I made a pot of coffee, and called my brother. As we sat and enjoyed breakfast, I chuckled as Bitsy, our kitten, looked at the piles of wrapping paper and boxes. She would eventually make the boxes her new toys.
There were plenty of wonderful memories made this year. I will look back on them fondly. I’m already looking forward to next Christmas!
I am really looking forward to tomorrow. It’s a pretty big day.
As I write this, my daughter Ella is heading to bed as a three year old, but will wake up as a four year old. Over the past week, my Facebook memories have been loaded with posts from 4 years ago wondering when she was going to make her debut into the world. I feel like it truly was yesterday that she was born.
This afternoon, Sam took her to the party store to pick out her “theme.” She wanted Barbie stuff. We have Barbie plates, napkins, banners, and table cloths. Nana was requested to make a Barbie cake for her birthday. Sam sent me a photo of it – truly amazing!
She is going to love it!!!
We are going to spend the day at the museum, go to Nana’s for cake and ice cream and finally, we are heading to the Daddy/Daughter Dance.
When she found out the dance was on her birthday, she was super excited. I am, too! She has a beautiful dress with light pastel colors on it.
I have a light blue dress shirt and I think I have a pink tie somewhere.
Last year we had such fun. The theme is Candyland. I can’t wait to spend the evening with my baby girl!
It doesn’t seem possible that she is turning four! My wife had me sign her up for T-ball tonight. Looks like I’m going to be taking some time off to be at those games this summer!
In all the years I worked in radio I was star struck quite a few times. This weekend, I got to witness first hand my daughter being star struck and it was worth every second.
Laila Lockhart Kraner, the star of Gabby’s Dollhouse, did a meet and greet at a local furniture store this weekend and I took Ella and her cousin. She’d been counting down “how many sleeps” since I told her about it. Sunday was the big day!
She could hardly contain herself when she woke up. She was ready to go almost immediately. Sam had bought her a Gabby shirt to wear for the day, and she couldn’t wait to put it on. ”Gabby is going to love it,” she told me.
I left a bit early, figuring that it was probably going to be a bit crazy. When we pulled in, there were people waiting in their cars. It was about 10:15am and the event was supposed to start at 11. As soon as I put the car in park, Ella wanted to get out and wait at the door. Thank goodness it was like 50 degrees and sunny!
Turns out, we were the first in line. Other parents followed suit and lined up behind us. Ella kept staring inside the place, hoping to get a glimpse of Gabby. I was grateful that they opened the doors early. We were given a number (we were #2, despite being first in line) and that would be how we got to go to meet her.
They had the place decorated with lots of cardboard cut outs and such.
There were snacks and plenty of things to do. We went right into the balloon art line, where my niece got a unicorn and Ella got a dog.
They had a DJ there playing music and he was the one who would call our number. There were SO many people. Ella wasn’t quite sure what to do. It wasn’t long and they announced that Gabby was coming out to meet everyone and they played her theme song. I pointed her out to Ella as she came out and she was just in awe! They walked her over to a couch where she would be posing for pictures. Ella stood there and just watched her – star struck!
Soon after, they called out a range of numbers and it was time to line up to meet her! I snapped pictures with my phone, but my niece wanted me to take one with her phone, too. When they got up on the couch, Gabby said hello to her and I think she thought she was dreaming!
I fumbled with my niece’s phone and figured out the camera and asked if we could do one more picture, and she said “Sure!”
I guess that one is a little better.
I thanked Gabby for giving the girls the chance to meet her and we went off to get faces painted. Gabby has lots of cats on the show, so Ella had to get a cat.
Both girls asked where the play place was. I laughed and said there wasn’t one. So they decided to play “Hide from Keith” and they were all over the place! LOL I told them I knew there was a play place at the McDonald’s down the road and we went and grabbed lunch. At the play place, we ran into many other Gabby fans who were wearing cat ears and had faces painted. They played and had a blast.
When we left my niece said, “Uncle Keith, since we were both so well behaved, maybe you could take us to that Target and we could look at toys.” Needless to say, we went to Target, but I had to rope them both in when they began asking for $150 dollar Barbie houses and other stuff that was super expensive. They both picked a Barbie doll and we headed home.
My mother-in-law was at the house watching Andrew and was going to take my niece home with her when we got back. Ella was having such a fun time, she cried when she heard she was leaving. So I told her she could stay and I would take her home later that evening.
On the ride back home, Ella and Andrew both fell asleep in the car. None of us had dinner yet, so I drove through somewhere and we went home and ate. We stayed up a bit later than normal, so the food could settle a bit and after reading books, brushing teeth and saying prayers, we were off to sleep.
It was a fun and exhausting day, and I hope that Ella will remember it for a very long time. I know I will.
Christmas has come and gone. I hope that you and your family had a wonderful holiday! We had a lot of fun moments, for sure. Here is my Christmas recap.
I want to start by saying that this had to be the least “Christmassy” Christmas in a very long time. Part of that could be that there was no snow on the ground and it was about 50 degrees. The sounds of the holidays were certainly there (musically), but it was very difficult to get into the Christmas “mood.”
That being said, I had Friday off and I needed to get a few last minute things for my sons. They had asked for a couple video games and I couldn’t find them. I could have ordered them, I suppose, but all the sites were saying that they would not arrive until January. So I improvised. I took Ella and Andrew with me and we went shopping. I found them some things (that I am sure they thought were not fun) that were more … adult.
Dante’ is 21 and Dimitri is 16 now. I got them things I knew that they could use or needed. It’s hard when you ask them what they want for Christmas in the fall and they have no clue. Or better yet, you find out that the thing they told you they wanted, they went out and bought for themselves with the money they made working. I didn’t want to do gift cards. That just seems easy, boring and requires no thought. I couldn’t help but remember when I started getting the more adult gifts….sigh. The Christmas magic fades too soon.
It was nice, however, to have all the kids together on the morning of Christmas Eve. I made a big breakfast and we had some good conversation. Dimitri had to work that day, so they weren’t at my house more than a few hours. It is a rare occurrence to have them all together in one place.
Christmas Eve night, we went to Sam’s folks for dinner. It was quite a spread: turkey, ham, meatballs, mac and cheese, baked bean, potatoes, and just about every dessert you can think of. Sam’s mom set up some cups on a table for the kids to toss cheese balls in to win prizes. Afterward, $200 in play money was handed to each person and gifts were auctioned off. I won the bid on a nice “evening in” bag – popcorn, candle, candy, hot cocoa and slipper socks. We also played a board game called “Something Fishy” or “Sounds Fishy” where you had to lie about a question that was asked. It was a fun night.
We left later than we expected and got home to get the kids in bed. Before we could do that, we had to leave out cookies and milk for Santa. One of our neighbors (the one who has the box to mail Santa letters – and answer them), messaged me to say that they had something special for Ella and Andrew. I went over Friday and they handed me a beautiful board for Santa’s milk and cookies.
Once the cookies and Egg Nog were in place (we were out of milk and I told them that Santa liked Egg Nog), the kids were off to bed. It was then that Santa began building toys! Ella asked for a Barbie Princess Castle and Andrew wanted a train table. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, as it only took me about 3 hours to put every thing together.
The dog started barking earlier than normal and I was up to let her out. Andrew was up first and he ran to get Ella because Santa had arrived. For one brief space of about an hour, we felt like it was Christmas. The magic of watching them walk out and seeing their toys ready for play! Wow, do I remember that feeling! It is one of the most powerful memories in my life. That initial walk out to the tree … pure magic!
They were so excited that they didn’t open another present for some time!
Ella got this HUGE Barbie. It is almost as big as her. She loves it!
Andrew loves to take pictures with our phones and his tablet. We found a cool camera that he had a lot of fun with.
Christmas day was nice because we just got to chill out at home. After we played a bit, we watched The Polar Express together. It is such a great movie. We napped because we were all up early, and then got ready for dinner. A Christmas Story was on and I had yet to see it this year, so I watched as we cooked up our ravioli dinner.
Sam’s folks stopped by to see they kids and what they got for Christmas. After they left, we ate and got ready to call it a night. Sam and Ella were in our room relaxing and I was out in the living room with Andrew. I was getting ready to turn off the TV, but he was engrossed in The Wizard of Oz. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. When the commercials came on, I told him we’d have to finish it another day and we went to bed.
I tried to be more in the moment this year. I neglected to take a lot of pictures. Playing with the kids, chasing them around the house, snuggling them in our bed….yeah, those were the moments! It was a Merry Christmas for us!
Oh, and as a Christmas bonus for guys like me who have been waiting a long time … The Detroit Lions clinched the division. Merry Christmas!!
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your family. I can’t wait to read about it!
I’ve been asked by my boss to act as Emcee for Holiday Trivia at our Christmas Meeting/Gathering. There will be some training before hand, catered dinner, and Holiday Trivia.
I’ve never been to a Trivia night at any local bar or pub. Because of this, I really have no idea how they play. I know a few bloggers who have and some friends who go, but it seems that every place does it a bit differently. Getting questions for this is no issue – all I had to do was go into my folder of Christmas trivia I used when I was on the radio. It is the execution of the game itself that I don’t know.
The basic gist of the thing is that there are 2-5 rounds of questions. Teams write their answers to the questions on a piece of paper or on index cards. There are points for getting the right answers. Some places wager on questions based on the topic. I really am clueless. I plan on doing some sort of search online to see the best way to do this.
Have you ever been to one of those trivia nights? Any suggestions?
Our doc is probably sick…. of us!
Over the past 10-11 days, every one of us has been to the doctor. Today, I had both kids in the office again because their coughing sounded awful. We were worried that the gunk we all got was in their chest and might lead to pneumonia.
I swear, between in office visits, ER visits, telemedicine calls, and messages back and forth through the office portal, our doc has got to be sick of seeing our names! On the other hand, she might just thank us for making her house payment this month!
Chilly Fun
Daisy finally got to go outside in the snow. She wasn’t really sure what to make of it. She was biting at the falling snow for a bit and really didn’t know what to think about walking on it. It didn’t take long and she was running round and rolling in it. She was even eating it off the ground.
The kids were insistent about going outside when the snow fell. Neither was feeling great, but they wanted to see the snow. We bundled them up real good and we were outside for 10-15 minutes. In that time we started to build a snowman.
At first glance, in the above photo it looks like Andrew is putting the snowman’s head on. That, however, was not the case. He has actually removed it and about 2 seconds later, he threw it on the ground. Then he and his sister jumped on the rest of the poor snowman. Sigh.
Elfin’ Around Again
The Elf on the shelf is back and once again, I have to be creative with it. I’ve been lacking a bit, but the kids still get a kick out of it. Two nights ago, I just put it on top of the TV looking down. The laughed at that more than the Elf and Barbie looking at Christmas lights…
Last night, I printed some pictures of the elf and made it cover all our faces in the pictures on the wall…
Perfect Gift
I’m not sure who might read this, but this will be a bit cryptic. My wife’s Christmas present is on the way. All I will say is that I may have mentioned something about it in a past blog. I have seen some pictures and I cannot wait to see it in person. I truly believe that this will be a BIG surprise for her and I hope that she will love it!
I’ve had to tell her that there is a package arriving and that she cannot open it when it comes.
I have to thank the mail lady at our local post office who literally saved Christmas today! Let me explain.
Sam took advantage of the Amazon deals and finished up the Christmas shopping this week. One of the things she ordered was a big Barbie Townhouse thing for Ella. She kept asking for a Barbie Dreamhouse, which is like $200 and as big as our living room!
We decided to go a little smaller and got her the Barbie three story townhouse… which has an elevator!
Considerably smaller, but still a place for her Barbies to play!
Anyway, because of all the construction on our street, the Amazon driver called to say that he couldn’t get to the house. He left the package at the local post office. Sam called me while I was out running errands with Ella and asked me to stop and get it – hoping it was in a cardboard box.
I walked into the post office and explained who I was and why I was there. As Ella was wandering around the lobby, I mentioned that it was a Christmas present and that I hoped that it was in a box. The lady looked at me and whispered, “Is it a Barbie house?”
I told her it was and she shook her head. She informed me that it was literally in the box you would see at the store. I obviously was not going to be able to get it with Ella there with me. I told her that I could probably come back later and pick it up on my way to work. She told me to wait a second and she looked under the counter.
She found a garbage bag and said she thought maybe she could fit it in the bag. It just fit, but she said it wouldn’t close at the top of the bag.
She wanted to be sure the secret was not revealed to Ella, so she grabbed a few USPS envelopes and covered the end of the box that was showing so that there was no way Ella could see what it was!
When she handed me the bag, I expressed my thanks. She really went above and beyond for me and I could not appreciate it more. In my mind, she truly saved Christmas!
Had a childhood flashback thanks to my daughter yesterday.
It is that time of year! The commercials are already starting and two things arrived in the mail.
The Amazon and Walmart Wish books arrived in the mail!
Let me say that these are a FAR cry from the HUGE wish books that I went through growing up. And we certainly had a few to go through –
Montgomery Ward ….
Sears …
And JC Penney (which was our favorite)
We’d spend hours looking through these wish books, thinking that these were commissioned by Santa. After all, we were creating our list of toys that HE was going to bring. Our folks told us constantly that they had to pay him for them!
I remember the above page like I was still 5 years old. We actually had that treehouse!
The above page was one that had a huge black circle around that Millennium Falcon! Santa did bring it to me that year, incidentally!
Anyway, back to my daughter. She is at that age now where she wants a say in what she wants for Christmas. So I grabbed a pen and we opened up the Walmart Wish Book (which was more like a cheap magazine). Her finger pointed to toy after toy. “Circle that one for me!” “I think Bubby (her brother, Andrew) wants that. Circle it for him!”
I circled and circled many items. It was insane! I circled doll houses, electric cars, Paw Patrol, Cocomelon, and Gabby’s Dollhouse stuff. There was something on every page. There were even times she would offer special instructions. For example, when we came to this …
…she made sure to say, “I want this Barbie house. With the Barbie car. And all the Barbies, ok?”
She is a hoot and it was a lot of fun going through the books with her. Now we wait to see if she is on the Naughty or Nice List, right!?
If you are a parent, you know that your children are always a good source of stories to share. Here are a few of mine from the past few days:
Tea Party Gone Bad
While Andrew took a nap recently, Ella and I were in the living room playing with her Disney Princess Barbie dolls. She brought me the Mulan Barbie and she had her Moana Barbie. She sat them both across from each other and then grabbed a tea pot and tea cups. She set them in front of each doll. She then brought over this mushroom/muffin looking toy (she obviously thought they looked more like muffins). This is when things went awry!
I started to make Mulan (who she had given to me) drink her tea. I made slurping sounds and then did a loud fake burp. This made her laugh. Then I did it again. More laughter. Then I made really loud slurping sounds and the cup ended up on Mulan’s head. She started to do the same thing to her Moana. I was laughing just as hard as she was, especially when she was making her fake burp sounds.
Pausing Pap
Andrew has been using CPAP for over a week. Here’s the thing, it is supposed to help him sleep better. However, because of his age and the limited masks that he can use, the one he has works – when it stays on. Basically, mom and dad are the ones who aren’t sleeping now. Sam and I find ourselves pulling it back on his head or fighting him to get it back on. It is a struggle.
We e-mailed his doctor about it and we’re gonna take a break for a day or two to see if that helps. The good thing is that his apnea is mild, and we were only anticipating him wearing it for less than a year. The doc told us, if he lets us put it on – use it. If not – don’t.
All in all, whether he is rested or not, he is still giving us plenty of smiles!
Toddler Vocabulary Lesson
Ella did the cutest thing the other day. We had misplaced the TV remote and I asked her to help me find it. She reached he hand up to her eyes like she was looking through binoculars and said:
“Daddy, I can’t find the remote. I will have to use my ‘oculars’ and look for it!”
Hardest Part of Parenting
As a father of four children, I have taken each of them in for shots more times than I can count. There is always that look of, “How could you let them hurt me like that, Daddy?” after they get poked. It kills me every time.
Last week, Ella had her three year old well visit. We noticed that she is bruising very easily. She jumps around a lot and (as most toddlers do) bumps into just about everything. The bruising concerns us a bit, so her primary doc wanted to run some bloodwork to make sure she is ok. Sam was with her at that appointment and she was told she could just go next door to the lab to get the blood draw.
Ella was extremely scared and voiced that numerous times. I guess they poked her a couple times and could not get the draw. They were going to try to do the other arm and Sam said, “No, we’ll do it another day.” Ella had been through enough. So, today, it was my turn to take her to get it done.
I had picked out a short sleeve short for her, but she wanted to wear a dress. There were no sleeves on it and so the tourniquet the wrapped on her arm bothered her a lot. She sat in my lap and said she was scared. I did what I could to keep her calm, but after the first poke, she moved and wound up blowing the vein. The tech decided to try the other arm. In my head, I decided I would let them try one time and if they didn’t get it, we’d leave.
They found a good vein, got the poke and Ella and I took deep breaths and counted to 5 (over and over). That helped a lot! Once they were done and pulled the needle out, she was still crying, but she looked at the techs who did the draw and said, “Thank you.” They offered her a pack of graham crackers, and she was all better.
Hopefully, the test results will be normal.
Heavenly Visitor?
I’ve never been one to believe in supernatural stuff, but today something happened that made the hair on my neck stand up. I’m still scratching my head over it.
When I woke up for work today, Sam asked me what my oldest son called my mom (he is the only one of my kids who knew my mom before she passed away). I told her that he always called her “grandma.” She asked further, “Did he ever call her Grammy?” He didn’t. My ex’s mom was “Grammy,” but my mom was always “Grandma.”
I asked her why she wanted to know. She proceeded to tell me that Ella had said something to her today and when Sam asked her where she heard it (or maybe it was who told her that), she replied, “My Grammie in heaven.” So this peaked my curiosity and I asked her what else she had told her. She said something about princesses, but Sam and I think she was just talking about the princesses that we got for that Tonie.
The longer I sat in the living room drinking my first cup of coffee, the more I wondered about what she said. I have no pictures of my mom hanging in the house. I don’t have photo albums that we can look through. All the physical photos I do have are in a box and the rest are digital. For some reason, this really bugged me. So I took it a step farther.
I grabbed my phone and opened up my Facebook page. I went to the photo albums and found one that contains pictures of my mom. I pulled up one from before she got sick and opened it on my phone. I showed Ella this picture:
It had been a few minutes and I was sure she had already forgotten our mention of my mom. I asked her, “Ella, who is this?” Without missing a beat, she said, “My Grammie in heaven.” I was dumbfounded. I truly don’t know that Ella has seen but one or two pictures of my mom, yet she recognized her immediately.
When we found out that we were going to have a baby, my wife bought a special onesie that brought me to tears.
Who am I to question whether or not mom and Ella still talk?
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 