Happy Birthday to my Homebirthed Kiddo
Twelve years ago, I homebirthed my youngest kiddo. Happy Birthday, Steven!
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If you like this then please subscribe to the Scentsy Makes My House Smell Nice
My friend Diana sells Scentsy– the wickless candle with the fabulous, chic holders. I volunteered to host a party to get her started in her new business but my first attempt ended in a canceled party two weeks ago — very few gals were able to come. But last night, we had a good turn out and a fun time together.
My daughter came up to me in the middle of the party and asked, “Mom! What did you do? The bathroom smells great!”
I guess she noticed the Vanilla Walnut wafing from the plugged in Scentsy instead of the usual boy-mis-aims-and-leaves-a-scent that usually permeats the bathroom. Needless to say, that was one of the scents I selected for my purchase.
You know what that means? The next time my Mom comes to visit, I can mask my lack of cleaning skills by simply plugging in the Scentsy and popping in the Pomegranate Ice.
Diana demonstrates.
Roberta, Lori (The Facebook Queen) and Lisa.
Jane ponders what scent she’s going to pick. Or maybe she’s wondering if there’s any Tuscan Lemonade left?
Come on girls, it’s important to choose the right scent. Concentrate!
What’s a gal’s night out without some Tuscan Lemonade with limoncello?
Next time, don’t leave so early, gals or you’ll miss out on our group picture! It was 1 or 2 a.m. before we called it a night.
How Deaf Weddings are Different
It was an absolutely stunning day for a wedding on Saturday. The colorful mums were in full bloom and the sun began a slow descent when Ron and Meredith exchanged their vows in American Sign Language. About half of the guests were deaf or hard of hearing. There were supposed to be two interpreters there, one for the audience and one for the couple, but one interpreter did not show. It was difficult to view the interpreter from where I was sitting but I caught as much as I could. Standing on either side of the couple was the groom’s two young sons with the cutest smiles on their faces.
I especially enjoy deaf/hard of hearing weddings because at those weddings, communication is often a breeze at the dinner table and on the dance floor. When the hubby and I are seated at a wedding where all the guests at my table are hearing, we are often left out of conversations that simply flow too fast for us to follow. Sometimes we’ll gamely attempt to join in the conversation and let everyone know what they need to do to include us. The conversation will slow, we’ll toss in some banter, but it usually ends up going back to the same fast pace at some point. Then we end up talking to each other.
Deaf/hard of hearing weddings are a whole different ball game. Conversations zip back and forth visually while the bread gets passed around. Shoulders are tapped, arms are waved and the energy in the air takes on a different vibe. I catch the eye of a friend two tables down and we catch up on news while we wait for the salad to arrive.
It’s not long before the first napkin pops up in the air. Then another joins, and another– until the air in the whole room is pulsating with the napkins that are being whipped around and around. The usual tradition for a bride and groom to kiss is the sound of a spoon tapping against a water glass. That tradition doesn’t serve well at deaf and hard of hearing weddings where the couple may not hear the tinking sound. Instead, it is a tradition to whip the napkins around in the air to signal the couple that it is time for a kiss.
On the way home from the wedding, the hubby and I reflected on the evening. “I always like going to deaf weddings,” he commented. “We can just kick back and not have to struggle to understand everyone, ya know?”
Yes, I know.
What I Learned from Laughter: Laughing at the Small Stuff
Every now and then, I like to participate in Robert Hruzek’s group writing projects–they’re always a fun read! This month’s subject focuses on:
At first, I thought I would just share the blog post I wrote over at Chicago Moms Blog:
When Your Only Option is a Thong.
When I wrote that one, several friends emailed me and told me they couldn’t stop laughing. I wasn’t laughing too much when I wrote it, because I was overwhelmed at the laundry piles around my house. But hey, I learned a valuable lesson from that episode: do your laundry on a regular basis and you won’t have to resort to thongs. Or worse, commando, as Vicky once teased on Twitter.
When I think about what I’ve learned from laughter, there’s one episode in my life that stands out. When the three kids were younger, I often had days when I counted the minutes until the hubby would arrive home and provide an extra pair of eyes and hands in my quest to keep three kids in one place.
My oldest kiddo, David, was often on hurricane cycle. He would bounce from one activity to the next (like his Mom??) and leave a path of destruction in his wake. I once put the baby down for a nap and left David and Lauren parked in front of the TV so I could quickly go to the bathroom. I walked into the kitchen to find the two of them drawing wavy lines on the kitchen wall. In a matter of seconds, David had grabbed some crayons off the counter and coerced his sister into drawing artwork on the flat white builder’s paint. The artwork stayed on the wall for over a year– because neither the hubby nor I could muster up enough energy to paint over the crayon.
One evening, David was a category five and my patience was long gone. I was just trying to survive long enough until the hubby arrived home so I could hand off the kid duties to him. The hubby arrived home and surveyed the toys strewn about, the lunch dishes on the table and me with the harried look on my face. He could tell it was “one of those days.”
After a hurried dinner, I filled the bathtub up and went to grab towels from the other bathroom. As I walked back in, my eyes caught something floating in the bathtub.
I screamed.
It was a brand new book: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.
I fished it out of the water, wiped as much of the wet stuff off as I could and started to cry. I sat on the toilet and the tears kept coming. Mothering three kids just two years apart had taken its toll and came crashing down on me at that moment. Just then, David came over, climbed in my lap and started hugging me.
“I love you Mommy.” He hugged me again.
My eyes went back to the book and I saw the title more clearly. “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.”
I started to laugh.
Alternating between tears and laughter, I smiled at the irony of the whole thing.
It is now years later– the little boy has grown into a young man– but I still have the book with the warped pages stuck together. It’s a reminder of that hectic time of three kids under the age of four–when I thought the day would never end and I’d never have a minute to myself. Today, the kids amuse themselves and there’s a little more time for me. How quickly the time flies, how valuable that lesson of laughter is.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. And remember to laugh in the process.
Saying Goodbye to Summer
I hate Labor Day Weekend. It’s the “official” end of summer at Christie Lake and it always makes me sad. We try and grab as much as we can out of the weekend and always have to make the decision of whether or not we’ll take the boats out or stretch out a couple more weekends into the fall.
It’s been a rather cool summer this year and the summer was one of the speediest summers I can ever remember. It was gone in a flash. Joe’s Mom keeps trying to tell me that the older you get, the faster time spins. She told me this when David was a baby and I laughed. She said the high school years were a blur. I couldn’t fathom that, because I was holding a little kiddo in my hands and just trying to make it through the next hour with some semblance of sanity and intact thought.
Damn. She wasn’t kidding. Time is indeed spiraling by and I swear, it seems like someone keeps turning the clocks on fast-forward. You know that little baby I was talking about? This is him:
He’s an offensive lineman for Hinsdale South now. In two short years, we’ll be sending him off to college. I don’t understand how he went from being a baby just yesterday to this strapping hulk of a boy/man. I kind of envy the Duggars. If I was smart, I could have cheated Father Time by just having baby after baby. Yeah, that would have been a good plan– you know how time crawls when you try to get through hour by hour with little ones. And then it would take forever before the last kiddo goes off to Grown-up-hood.
But getting back to the weekend, another reason I don’t like Labor Day weekend: each summer that goes by is a summer that I know I can’t get back, another summer ticking by.
So here it is, the big weekend of summer. So rather than thinking about endings, I’m going to celebrate the weekend instead. Join me–not in saying goodbye to summer, but just merely, “So long, see ya next year!”
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