9/11

9/11:  It was 12 years ago but my emotions are so high today.  The radio keeps playing the 911 calls from that day and they just sneak up on me.  I continuously feel like I am on the verge of tears.  It is still so clear.  I remember being so scared and felt like we were suddenly so vulnerable and reachable... "attackable."  The image I had of the United States at that moment was so different from the one I previously had.  I was born in the mid-70s and raised in the 80s.  The years of Reagan and the almighty and powerful USA!  We were led to believe that no one could ever harm us the way that Japan did at Pearl Harbor.  With all our security, why would we even have to bother worrying about being attacked on our turf?  No one would ever try that again.  Right?!

So it happened.  Right before our eyes.  We watched as the second plane did the unthinkable.  It purposely careened into the side of a New York skyscraper.  Up until that point it the first one could have been an accident.  Then came word about more planes, more buildings.  I did what any girl does when she is scared.  I called my dad.  In disbelief and tears, I watched it all unfold while on the phone with him  Just hearing my Dad's voice gave me comfort.  He was at work and I was home in my apartment.  I didn't have a subbing job that day so it was just me and my 3 month old kitten.  I had already talked to Keith and he was at work watching with his coworkers, huddled around a TV in their office.  Everyone was shocked, scared, mad and unsure about the future.

The future.  Now that opened up a whole other can of worms.  We were within our 30 days until we closed on our house.  Should we still do it?  Would the timing be smart financially?  Would we go to war?  Would the draft system be reestablished to build up our military?  Keith and I were both 25 years old.  We weren't married yet.  Would we ever get a chance?   Everything ran through my mind about what our future would be like, yet we were safe and together unlike many other families that day.  I knew so many people who knew someone involved on September 11th but didn't know anyone directly harmed.  I can't imagine their pain, their uncertainty, their anger.  I am glad that my little bubble kept me from that.  I'm glad I didn't have children to explain things to.  I am so glad I wasn't in a classroom that day.  And I am so glad that we, as a nation, pulled through that tragedy stronger and more aware. 

One more thing I vividly remember in the days, weeks and months after 9/11 is the flags.  American flags everywhere.  It was nearly impossible to drive down a street and count all the flags that we passed.  Everyone had one.  It made me so proud. 

We did go through with buying our house and one of the first things we did was put up a flag.  Our flag lasted several years before it was torn from hitting and catching on our old roof.  I think it is time to replace it.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to drive down the street and see too many flags to count?  And wouldn't it be great to once again have large groups of complete strangers just start chanting U-S-A? USA!  USA! 

So that is September 11th through my eyes.  Completely and utterly impossible to forget. 

If You Like to Scare Little Children, You Probably Shouldn't Be a Pediactric Physician

Dear Doctor,

While you showed up to our appointment 1 1/2 hours late without an apology or any excuse, I can still find it in my heart to forgive you because that is a busy doctor's life.  {I would like to suggest you take another looky-loo at your "bed side manners" to see what improvements could be made.  Trust me, there are a few.}  However, when you kept insisting on trying to "dazzle" me with your so-called creative solutions to parenting problems that do not exist in my house, I draw the line.  My 6 year old now believes she has to worry about monsters under the bed because you wanted to impress me with "your" "new" idea about monster spray to ward off any monsters hiding in her closet and under her bed.  She firmly believed monsters were not real until you, the expert, decided to ask about the monster under her bed.  Really?!!  If you had any children of your own, I would crouch down outside their bedrooms wearing a boogeyman mask so that you could be impressed when I tried to soothe them with my magical  anti-boogeyman air freshener (patent pending). 

And don't you think for one second that my barely 6 year old child needs to be treated by a behavioral specialist because she has an accident once in awhile.  What kid doesn't?  We will not think it over but we will consider whether or not we will continue to be your patients.  Granted, you will be hard to replace because there aren't many doctors out there that can keep their patients waiting AND scare the little children.  You, good doctor, are virtually alone in your field.  Kudos.

In conclusion, my parenting style ROCKS!  I am fun, involved and provide my girls with every essential childhood experience that will fill them full of warm, fuzzy memories when they look back on their lives.  Bottom line, they are safe and happy.  I hope you decide to change the way you approach pediatric medicine and that you  never have your own children.

Warm Regards,

Mama Bear

P.S.  I can run creative circles around you any day!  Put that in your chart!

Catching Up

Alright.... I am trying to sort through the photo challenge list and the pictures I have taken while I was visiting my parents.  I feel so unorganized right now.  I have all the suitcases unpacked but none of the laundry done.  We got back here Saturday night and Keith put me right to work mowing the lawn.  Sunday we were on the boat and so today is our first day at home.  It is awful!  The girls have trashed every single room in the house.  I don't even know where to begin with the house so let's escape back into my pictures and forget about that mess for awhile!

July 12:  Flashback  (This is a photo of the hippo in the Tawas City park that the girls were playing on.  It is a flashback because I was their age when I played on it.  Back then, the park was full of these sculptures:  castle, fish, whale, Pluto the dog, a boot, etc.)

July 13:  White  (Lilies in my backyard)

July 14:  Morning  Mourning  (We lost our lovely family pet, Daisy on the 15th)

July 15:  My Drive (I-75 North/ Standish Exit, heading home to Tawas)

July 16:  Frame 

July 17:  Around the Table  (Goodman Family Reunion Lunch)

July 18:  Favorite Person
Not playing this one.  I couldn't choose just one.

July 19:  Adventure:  (The girls and I ran around Frankenmuth doing some shopping.)

July 20:  Treasure  (A blurry image of my favorite restaurant, Desi's.  It is a treasure.)

July 21:  Looking Up  (I'm back home.  I am enjoying kicking back in the recliner but looking up is Gary, the deer.)

Almost done!!!

Day 11

I can't believe I am still doing this photo challenge for July!  I am skipping Day 10:  My Style.  I don't really know what I want to photograph for that.  It can't be clothes... I am a sloppy dresser.  Jeans and t-shirts accessorized with breakfast or lunch.  So let's just imagine that and skip ahead to today.

July 11:  Homemade Art  

We are lucky enough to have met some really awesome kids and their fantastic moms through preschool and we tend to see each other quite often during the summer.  Our fearless leader Nicole always plans a day for us to do tie dye t-shirts.  I prepared our shirts ahead of time by wetting them and bundling them up.  I used zip ties instead of rubber bands because the bands kept breaking.  Perfect use for them but a few of them cut through the plastic bags I had the shirts stored in and dyed my fabric tote bag.  Oh well.  I let the girls do all their own coloring and look at the focus in this picture!  They are serious about color use and placement.  I was extremely impressed with Lilly... my messy kid.  The one who flies through everything just to get it done.  Not with this.  She took her time.  This was a great day and I can't wait to see how the shirts turn out.  I plan on sewing dresses out of them again this year.  Love it!!

Picture This ... July

July 2nd:  Frame  (For this I am interpreting it as frame worthy.)

July 3rd:  Ordinary Moments  (In the summer, there is nothing more ordinary than my girls eating strawberries on the beach.)

July 4th:  Celebration  (Lauren watching the fireworks.)

July 5th:  Hero  (How can a girl not look up to her dad?)

July 6th:  Tiny Reminder (The girls drew chalk drawings all over my parent's street.  Tiny reminders of how much they love our family.)

 July 7th:  Find Fun  (My partner in crime for the night was Jaimee and this was our last glimpse of the cabin as we took off in the golf cart to have a blast!  Fun was found!)

 July 9th:  Neighborhood  (Mom and Lauren playing on Janet Street... the neighborhood I grew up in.  The best neighborhood for kids!)

Yes, I did skip July 8th:  Food.  I should have taken a food pic because we stopped at G's in East Tawas for brunch on our way out of Tawas and had their famous bread spears.  Are you picturing it?  Click.

Starting the July Photo Challenge

I'm not a blogger.  I never blog, yet here I am.  Again.  The whole reason I started blogging years ago was to keep my family up to date on my pregnancies, then babies....  Now that I have been using Facebook for a few years, I don't need the blog.  However, my friend Alita asked me if I wanted to participate in a photo a day photo challenge for the month of July.  So I am back to blogging as a way to entertain myself and have a place to post my, hopefully, daily pictures.

Day 1:  Red 

Red Heads in the Fairy Garden

Back with Inappropriateness

It seems like once a year or so I have a post where I announce I am a bad blogger and that I am back to make it right.  Well, I'm back, again.  Since I have discovered facebook, I haven't had a need to update this blog until now.  A friend insisted that I enter a contest revolving around the little, scary elf on a shelf.  Just do a quick Google search or look on Pinterest and you will see hundreds of cute ideas to play into the magic of Christmas and keep your children behaving well.  However, the twist to this contest is that the elf should be photographed doing something inappropriate.  As Barney Stinson would say, "Challenge accepted!"

We were already playing by our own rules.  Lauren was terrified of the original elf and wanted a girl elf.  So we sent a special request to Santa and surprise, surprise our pleas were answered with a perky, pretty little thing that the girls named Raquel.  She has only been in our house a few days but as gotten into a few situations that the girls didn't quite understand - strip poker with the Kens - but that is as far as I am willing to go with the girls.  They just thought it was a card game with the boys' shirts off.  Wink.  Wink.

So while the girls were at school today, I decided it would be the only chance I had to get the inappropriate shenanigans out of the way when they wouldn't see it.  So out came the whipped cream and off came the clothes.   It was a lot more difficult then I expected.  The cream kept melting.  So I took the picture as quickly as I could and popped her back on top of the deer mount in the living room where the girls expect her to be and started the upload.  The picture came out a little blurry but the inappropriateness came out clearly. 
I
Someday, when my girls are adults and hiding the elves around their houses, I hope they can appreciate their mother's bizarre sense of humor.

The contest can be found at http://www.babyrabies.com/2012/11/inappropriate-elf-contest-2012/

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Lauren's valentine's day cards

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