October

I love October. I love the change in the weather. The crispness in the air in the morning. The leaves changing colors. Wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts. What I don't like is how quickly it seems to pass. This October was no exception and this weekend has been the busiest of all and it's only Saturday night.

Friday I volunteered to help Maddie's class with pumpkin carving. Now you have to understand that in Cobb County they are obsessed with squeezing learning into every last second of the day and so the only "party" they can have is a "Winter" party (can't call it Christmas because some people find that offensive)and so all of the other holiday celebrations have to have learning attached to them. So for Friday's Halloween celebration, the kid's measured pumpkins (height, weight, inches around) and estimated how many pumpkin seeds were inside their pumpkin and then counted the seeds out by 10's for their math lesson. I love kids at this age. First graders are a funny lot, they will tell you all kinds of things and repetitively call you "Maddie's Mom" when they want to get your attention. I didn't tell Maddie I was coming so the look on her face when I walked through the door was priceless.

Maddie digging out the "guts" of her pumpkin. She laughed every time someone said "guts."

Maddie's teacher, Ms. Rogers

The pumpkin seeds she was supposed to count. We counted to 100 and then stopped.

Maddie and her friend, Caleb

Maddie and her kindergarten buddy, Nicholas

Maddie and friends

Every year in my mind I can picture the perfect fall day. Taking a leisurely drive, stopping at a little pumpkin patch and picking a pumpkin. My dream life rarely matches up to reality and it was no different in this case. Every free minute we had, it rained. So......we bought our pumpkins at Lowe's. Not much atmosphere but then again they only cost me 3.00 a piece which was a steal.

I figured that they would look lovely on our porch for a few weeks and then we would carve them a week or two before Halloween and put candles in them. Wrong again. They actually sat there until this afternoon, Halloween, and while we did carve then by the end it was raining enough and we were not going to be home that the whole candle thing was a moot point.

Let the carving commence

Hard at Work

Maddie and I's haunted house. It kind of looks like one, doesn't it?

Abby's face came complete with eyelashes

Destiny and her face. She also carved "Boo" into the side.

I grew up in Pennsylvania. In Pa. trick or treating was on a night that your community specified and then I moved to the South. Bud laughed at me when I asked him how we would know when Trick or Treating was. "Why it's on Halloween of course." "Well, how do you know what time?" "You start just past dark and go in around 9." Apparently everyone in the South knows the rules. Everyone but me.

The girls have been talking about their Halloween costumes for the last six months. They poured over the catalogs that came, visited the costume section at every store we went into. Maddie decided very quickly that she would be an "80's girl." It took Abby a little bit longer before she decided on a "Disco Dolly" costume (I think the deciding factor was the white go-go boots). A lot of Aqua Net, some blue eyeshadow, black eyeliner and pink lipstick and we were good to go.

Abby, our "Disco Dolly"

Maddie, my "80's girl"

Hamming it up

For the last two years we have stayed in our neighborhood to Trick or Treat. It really hasn't matched up to our past experiences trick or treating on a military base. Here very few of our neighbors participate and there really isn't a sense of community. There are tons of hills and driveways which make it a long haul between houses with actual lights on not just for the kids but for the parents too! One of our very good friends graciously invited us to their Halloween night celebration. Pizza and cookies and cake and drinks and then Trick or Treating in their kid friendly neighborhood with houses close together and lots of participation. It didn't take much arm twisting on their part to make us come. And don't worry, we took the candy we would have given out over to their house.

All of the kids around the table

Cheese

Abby and her cheer friend, Rachael

Maddie and her friends, Emma and Adrianna

Lizzie Grace enjoying a black iced cookie

The gang at the Spencer's for Trick or Treat 2009. You will notice that Destiny is in the pictures, she decided to go as a soccer player instead of spending her money for a costume this year.

My Trick or Treaters Last Year, 2008

Halloween Jam

This past weekend was Halloween Jam. It is the start of a month of recreational cheerleading competitive events. It is what Abby lives and practice for all season. The chance to perform. She is smart enough to realize that no one really watches the girls at youth league football games other than their parents but everyone watches at competition.

I used to say that cheerleading isn't what I would have chosen for her. But you know what? It is exactly what I would have chosen, not because I am trying to fulfill my dreams but because Abby is such a great cheerleader. She is smiley and peppy and loud. She loves to jump around and fly through the hair. She loves to be part of a team but yet shine on her own. Cheerleading lets her do all of that. She asked me the other day if I was proud of her for being a cheerleader and I could honestly answer "yes." Truth be told I would be proud of her no matter what because she is an awesome kid.

So Sunday afternoon, we did the hair, put the paw print on her cheek, dressed her in her full uniform and added some shiny lip gloss and sparkly eye shadow for good measure. We arrived late as usual and she jumped out of the car with water bottle in hand and ran to find her team. Maddie and Abby's little friend M.K. and I were left to pay our admission fee and find seats in the overheated, very loud gymnasium (Bud and Destiny were at Destiny's soccer game).

If you have never been to a cheer competition, it is an experience to remember. Lots of little girls running around, lots of big hair and curls, loud music, loud yelling and just frantic energy from the girls and their parents. Sunday's competition also featured a spirit award for the girls supporter's with the most spirit. So we came prepared with our megaphone, our pom-pom's, our Hoya t-shirts and our loud voices. Maddie came prepared with ear plugs because she hates the noise.

Sunday turned out to be a great day for the Due West Hoya's. Abby's team placed second which was incredible because they were in a category with two other teams that beat them soundly last year. They also won the best choreography award (way to go coaches!!!) and we won the Spirit award for being the most spirited supporters. Go Hoya's!!

Grief

is a funny thing. It can come out of nowhere when you are having an otherwise good day and blindside you. It is triggered by a word, a conversation, an action.

Our medical assistant in the clinic offered me half a piece of gum the other day and that action nearly brought me to tears. My dad never chewed a whole piece of gum-ever. He would rip each piece in half and sometimes even quarters and chew it. He hated giving me a whole piece of gum, to him that was a waste. My sense of loss is greatest when I pick up the phone and see the caller ID with his name but know that it isn't him on the other end.

Grief is tempered by time but it doesn't ever really go away. Some days it is less and other days more. Some days I can distinctly recall every moment in agonizing detail of my mother-in-law's last evening. I suppose I will always feels some sense of responsibility, maybe if I had done something differently she would be here with us. Rationally I know better but ration doesn't always prevail. My sense of loss for my mother-in-law is greatest when I watch the girls at their activities and I know how much she would have enjoyed being there cheering (okay screaming) for them.

Finally, I think of the friends I have lost. It doesn't seem right to write that I have lost friends because they were far too young. Scott was my friend. Also my first "real" boyfriend, the one I served detention with for kissing him in our Christian school hallway. We remained good friends following graduation and forever he will hold a special place in my heart. The last conversation I had with him before he passed away was when he was visiting in Pennsylvania from South Carolina. We hung out for the day with a bunch of friends and that evening as I went to say goodbye to him he hugged me and said, "You know I love you, don't you?" I told him that I loved him too. I will always be grateful that I had that conversation with him. Losing him was unexpected and it was that moment when a young person (me) realized for the first time that they were not invincible. I have thought of him so often over the years, wondered what he would be like now. Would he be married, have kids? The one thing I have always carried with me since then is to cherish your friends. Love them, enjoy them and never let an opportunity to pass to tell them how much they mean to you.

Heather was my irreverent friend from ninth and tenth grade. She would laugh at things that no one else found funny. She delighted in making me blush. She saved me from being too serious. She died a few months ago of undiagnosed MS to the brain. Her precious daughter, Molly is a year older than Abigail and I can remember just how Heather looked with Molly perched on her hip nine years ago. She delighted in being a mom and a wife. Several times I have sat down to write Molly and her brother, Ian, a letter about their mom since they will never know what she was like during those high school years. So far each attempt has caused more tears than writing and so it is not yet finished.

Trisha was a nursing instructor with me in Ohio. We became close friends when we were clinical instructors for senior nursing students. We ate lunch together every Thursday and Friday and became fast friends. She amazed me with her knowledge of the heart. She had literally put herself through school while working full-time. She got her RN first, then her BSN and finally her NP. After we left Ohio, we kept in touch and she came to see us the summer after we moved to Atlanta. We had a great time visiting Olympic Park and the CNN center and just talking and laughing. Less than a year later and two months after she finished getting her NP, she was killed in a car accident with her six year old niece, Abbey. I still keep her emails in my inbox to read because they were always so positive and encouraging.

As painful as my losses have been and as never ending as the grief has seemed at times, I would never have wanted to not know them, to not have them be a part of my life. What is the saying?, "it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all."

Night at the Aquarium

Today was an incredible day. Not the work part. That was long and tedious and I thought that 3:00 would never come. It finally did and I bolted out of work and up the highway to home to change and scoop up all three girls for our fun night in the city.

We went to the Georgia Aquarium. I have only been once before when we had friends in town and when Bud got the opportunity to go to a meeting/conference there today and I found out that families were invited, we skipped tumbling and cheerleading and went. I am so glad that we did.

It was such a nice evening. There was dinner in the Ocean Ballroom and the food was fabulous. I am embarrassed to admit that it is probably the best food that my family has eaten all week long!! There was chicken and halibut, asparagus, steamed squash and other veggies, roasted potatoes , salad and plenty of yummy desserts.

After we ate we headed out of the ballroom area to enjoy the after-hours non-crowded tour of the main aquarium. The girls had so much fun looking at all of the fish. They especially enjoyed touching the stingrays and the little sharks. Bud and I enjoyed knowing that this wasn't costing us anything since our last visit to the Georgia Aquarium set us back about 120.00 dollars for admission alone! I think that the little girls favorite part was Miss Laverne who snuck them on to the elevator and let them come down the two story fish slide even though it was supposed to be closed.

What a great unhurried evening for us (unless you want to count the dash from work to home and then back to the aquarium :) ). A chance to spend some time together and enjoy each other's company in a beautiful setting.

Maddie through the glass

There's a ham in every group

Lionfish

In front of the large aquarium tank

Bud loved the zip ties on the crab legs

"Peach" stuck to the glass saying "hi"

We found Nemo

Petting the stingrays

Fabulous fish slide

"Just once more Mom, please?"

Dynamic Duo

J.J. and Speedy

The little girls have been obsessed with frogs since first discovering them back by our pool. They have spent hours chasing them, catching them, creating habitats for them and trying to convince me that they should be allowed to keep them. I even had a friend tell me that I should let the girls keep one. With faces like these,

it's a wonder I haven't caved before now except visions of one of the two dropping the frog in our house and then trying to catch it kept me from saying yes.

Sunday afternoon we were wandering around the Learning Express when we came across two little African Dwarf frogs and the girls decided that they couldn't

"Live....Another...Second...Without...Them ...Mama"

It took some convincing but the clerk managed to talk me into it because "they only eat once a week and we give you enough food to last a year and you only have to change their water three times a year and they are water frogs and are not held-ever!!" Sold to the lady whose kids have gift cards burning a hole in their pockets. So 24.00 dollars later, the girls are now the proud owners of two African Dwarf frogs, J.J. (Abby's) and Speedy (Maddie's).

J.J. is on the right. He's twice the width of Speedy (who's a bit camera shy on the left). Please pardon the powder sugar fingerprints left by someone eating Chex Muddy Buddies (not saying who that was!)