Reflections.

Today has been a long, emotional day. The Lizard's Aunt K passed away last Tuesday, her memorial was today.

I'm beginning to think that it's almost better to be in the thick of things than it is to be on the periphery. With my grandmother, nearly two years ago, the memorial services held little emotion for me. For the 1-2 weeks prior, my parents and I had been in her home, making arrangements, pulling together pictures and information and things for her memorial. We buried her privately: just my mom, dad, me, the guy from the mortuary and the grave digger. We said good bye. We held each other. We cried together. And we laughed and cried together as we sifted through her treasures and dealt with idiots from her insurance who did not understand any of the following phrases: she's no longer with us, she passed away, she's deceased, etc. He finally "got" it when I said quite bluntly, "She's dead. Do you need to see a death certificate?"

Anyway, when we finally got to the memorial services, my grieving was done. I had said good bye and made my peace with events. In a way, the services were anticlimactic (there were two, for the benefit of friends and extended family).

Today was definitely not the same. My emotions are still raw, and fresh, and bubbling to the surface quite easily. This week I've had to focus on living life and moving forward with everything else, not reminiscing or laughing at the fun times or crying that she's gone. Very little of my grieving was done until today. It was bottled inside, simmering quietly. It's so hard to say good bye under those circumstances. It's much easier to be in the middle, moving through the grief one step at a time, one memory at a time, until you have digested each small piece of the process. Today was like trying to gain control of a fully charged fire hose; it's nearly impossible as it whips around erratically.

The one thing that has helped most today is the following thoughts from Bishop Brent:

What is dying? I am standing on the sea shore. A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her until at last she fades on the horizon, and someone at my side says, 'She is gone' Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination. The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'she is gone' there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up the glad shout, 'there she comes' - that is dying. Bishop Brent

What I learned today.

So Facebook has a bunch of little "things" to write on, talk about and generally reflect or be narcissistic. For the most part, I ignore them. Yes, it is interesting to read about people and the fascinating things in their lives, but I hate posting a big list of stuff about me. I'm just not that "into" me...I'd rather hear about other people. However, one that was floating around was a series of questions to ask your children. Now that I'll do. And I learned a lot today. Here's the interview. Each question has 4 answers arranged youngest to oldest: Little Dude, Mighty Man, Monkey Boy, Little Miss.

1. What is something mom always says to you?
Don’t put your feet and fingers in your mouth, right mommy?

If you need help doing something, you can ask for help.

I love you.

Brush your hair.

2. What makes mom happy?
When I don’t put my feet and my fingers in my mouth.

If you clean up every single day.
Me doing my school work.

Spending time with me.

3. What makes mom sad?
Putting my fingers and my foots in my mouth. That makes you sad, mommy.
If you don’t clean up all the toys and all the magnatiles every single day.

Me not doing my school work.

When we don’t love you back.

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
Tickling me!

By tickling me!
By tickling me!

You tickle me!

5. What was your mom like as a child?
You were like toys.

I don’t know.

I still am a child. You? I don’t know what you were like as a child.

I have no idea!

6. How old is your mom?
Five? Are you five mommy? How old are you again? Are you firdy five?

I forgot. Sixteen?

Thirty five.

You’re thirty five, almost 36.

7. How tall is your mom?
You are so big mommy, but I am so ‘mall.

A little tall.

I don’t know. How tall are you?

64 ½ inches.

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Play Mater’s National?
Watch movies and play with magnatiles.

Playing Spider.

Spend time with us.

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
Play work? I don’t know. What do you do mommy?

Uh…go wild!

How would I know? I don’t know what you do when I’m not around.

You relax!

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Playing Mario Karts.

I don’t know!

You would be famous for being the best mommy.

Probably for being the best mom in the world.

11. What is your mom really good at?
Working and doing school. And reading me books.

Helping me read and helping me build a bunch of ideas.

You’re really good at Mario Kart! You’re good at being fun and being nice.

You’re really good at helping me do my math.

12. What is your mom not very good at?

You are not very good at driving the car.

You’re not very good at chopping off sticks and cleaning the floor.

You’re not really that good at Mario Kart. But sometimes you can beat Mighty Man.

Playing Mario Karts.

13. What does your mom do for a job?
You do school.

You vacuum.

You do school with us.

You watch us.

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
Cereal.
Whisper it to me, I don’t remember. Meat?

Cheesecake!

Ramen Noodle soup.

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
Um. You don’t have gas.
That you give me hugs and kisses.

How nice you are.

You’re a really good mom.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
You would be a mommy!

You would be Tinker Bell, because I like her!

Bambi, because he’s cute.

You would be Kanga.

17. What do you and your mom do together?
We do school together. We do the reading a whole bunch together. Can I draw a maze on my big book?
We help doing things right.

We do school together and go on rides at Disneyland.

We snuggle.

18. How are you and your mom the same?
We’re boys! But you are a girl, mommy. And I am a boy and daddy is a boy. And Little Miss is a girl too and Mighty Man and Monkey Boy and daddy are boys.

Our feet are the same.

We both are in the same family.

Our hair is the same color.

19. How are you and your mom different?

You are a girl and I am a boy. (whew! I'm so glad he figured that out, lol!)
The sizes of our feet are different.

We are both different people.

We have different personalities.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Because I know. Because you are makin’ sandwiches and macaroni and cheese and hamburgers and cereal and milk!

Because I do good things and we have connected brains. That’s how I know.

Because you say you love me.

Because you do things for me.

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
Lovin’ each other. Like kisses.
That he helps you every single day.

You like how much he loves you.

You like that he’s a good dad.

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?

You like to do to the zoo and go to Disneyland.

Disneyland!

You like to go to the Birch Aquarium.

Disneyland!

What I learned from interviewing our children: That I don’t have gas, I’m a terrible driver (who knew?), I'm nice but I suck at Mario Kart, I’m really good at “doing school,” my housekeeping skills are lacking, we have lots of tickle fights, I’m the best mom in the world and I’m married to one terrific husband. Oh, and I like to go to Disneyland. And for the record? A good steak followed up by cheesecake is my ideal meal.

And now for your local news...

BANK EMPTY!

More than 5,000 people were disappointed to find all their money gone. The bank only held a little money in the first place. Then, PayDay players Little Miss and Monkey Boy Lizard admit emptying the bank while playing.

"It did make us rich, though," said Monkey Boy.

"Yep," replied Little Miss, "I counted the money afterwards. He had $141,900 and I had $229,000! We had a lot of fun!"

So, end this article...now about the dead skunk...blah blah blah

The above "article" was written on a scrap of paper I found tonight while cleaning up a table. Little Miss apparently wrote it a couple of weeks ago when we were experiencing prolonged exposure to a dead skunk somewhere in the neighborhood. I laughed when I read this. I never know what I'll run across when Little Miss has been up to her writing.

Finally!

After months of being in a cast and not being able to do much (especially when taking loads of painkillers), I finally feel like I'm back on top of things. Most notably, I am finally caught up with school for the kids! This has been a huge challenge for me, but I'm so glad to be back on schedule.

The kids are enjoying the perks of being caught up as well...more walks, more time to play, and of course, more free time to play the Wii. :o) Life is good!

Daily reading

About a week and a half ago, I started teaching Little Dude how to read. A few days ago, he started sounding out words. Here are the words he sounded out and read to me today:

am
me
see
sat
ram
eat (his favorite word)
rat
at
seed
sam
seat (his second favorite word...he's weird)
sad
mad
meat (yep, another favorite)
read
it
sit
meet (not the same appeal as meat)
ear
is
seem
this
that

We stopped there today as he is sick and his attention span (usually about 20 minutes for reading, longer for other things) started to wane. He is so eager to learn, which makes him easy to teach. If only they were all this easy! :o)

A poem.

Little Miss likes to write, a lot. Recently we visited the zoo and we saw a baby takin who was 24 hours old. Here's the poem she wrote about the baby takin:

The Takin
Dainty hooves dance and stomp,
Someone tiny is on the romp.
It’s plain to you and me,
He’s as happy as can be!

Teaching Little Dude to Read.

So I've been teaching our youngest to read. It has been quite entertaining to say the least. Today we were reviewing sounds and sounding out new words. It's supposed to go something like this:

MamaLizard: "Sound it out."

Little Dude: "mmmeeee"

ML: "Now, say it fast."

LD: "Me!"

Today we were reading along quite nicely, until...well, they weren't going along quite nicely.

ML: "Sound it out."

LD: "mmmeee."

ML: "Say it fast."

LD: "Rat!"

ML: "What?? Sound it out again, please."

LD: "mmmeee."

ML: "Good! Now, say it fast."

LD: "mmmeeeT da RAT!"

*snort* I'm sorry, but how in the world am I supposed to keep going when I'm giggling? It's just not possible!