Monday, March 31, 2014

Pennies

Do you believe in pennies sent from up above?  I think I do now.  I know my last post was not very forthcoming, but I think I had to process it first before I wrote about it further.  A week after I wrote my post, my cousin lost his eight year battle with cancer.  In one week, he was gone and I never got to tell him goodbye or what he meant to me.  The next night as I took the girls swimming, I was a bit all over the place and couldn't concentrate.  It was apparent to me when I couldn't even multiply four times eight and yes, I do feel a bit silly now for that error.  However, I still wanted to keep my routine for the girls and so I took them.  In the locker room, I had been by this bench several times especially when I was getting the girls dressed after swimming.  I bent down to try to maneuver my little girl into her outfit and there was this penny.  Something prompted me to look at the date as I picked it up and put it into my pocket.  I walked out with my girls in tow about two minutes after that.  Later that night, I asked his sister if that year was significant to her brother and she told me it was the year he graduated high school.  It completely took me off guard and yet it comforted me at the same time.  What are the possibilities and the likelihood that I would find a penny with that specific year?

So maybe I got to say goodbye after all.  If I could have written to him before he passed away, I would have told him I had always looked up to him.  He was someone who never belittled me or made me feel like I was just this pesky little kid.  He was funny, smart, and of course handsome and thats the way I'm going to remember him.  When my girls meet that someone special, I hope its someone like my cousin.  He was THAT nice and I really wish cancer had not taken him away from his family.  I am truly a blip in all the people who knew and loved him, but I was lucky to have known him.  I was lucky to find that penny too.  It means a lot to me now and I have kept it.  I'm not sure what I'll do with it just yet, but I think in time I will…

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Today & Tomorrow

Today I received some rather sad news and it's been on my mind for the better part of the day.  I'm not sure how to process it right now.  I watched my children play at my feet and knew they had no idea the turmoil I was involved in.  I know this is rather short and it's not suppose to be very witty because honestly there are going to be days that just are sad. There will be happier times, but if I didn't write it then you would only have this rose colored picture what my life is like.  I do hope this finds you well and as you peek upon your children, do yourself a favor and savor those moments of innocence.  Be happy that you are there to protect your loved ones and make an effort to do something nice for them tomorrow.  Give them a hug or take a break from your computer and go for a walk with them.  I'll let you decide, but whatever it is I hope they remember that moment with you.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

How Do You Rate?

Have you ever seen an abandoned dirty diaper on the side of the road?  Do you wonder what kind of parent would just leave their child's waste behind like that?  Today I was in the park playing with my girls and we walked by the picnic tables and right there laid a diaper.  I have to admit its pretty disgusting to just see trash lying around in a park where your children play, but its an even worse offense when you see a dirty diaper.  Now granted I didn't see any waste receptacles in the area and if I had spent maybe two hours, I could have cleaned up the litter leading into the park too.  The sonic ice cream cups, the empty beer cans, and plastic waste.  I watch Survivorman and in almost every episode he seems to find some kind of leftover human rubbage.  I highly doubt though he would have used the diaper.  Maybe I should email Les and see if he would have done something with it.  Would he even dare touch it?

In all fairness, I admit I'm kind of tired of being part of the Waste Management Team.  I've been a horrible cloth diapering mama and you can be critical all you want, but trust me this upheaval in our lives has not been easy.  I still use biodegradable diapers and when they make a mess, I'll do the right thing by disposing it into the toilet.  So in five hundred years when they search landfills for clues to our human existence, I know that my child's DNA should be long gone.  Seriously, we should chat about my thoughts on being put into a coffin and rotting…okay that was definitely a joke since we all know how long it takes a body to decompose these days once they pump formaldehyde into our corpses.  I remember a story about how they pulled a body from a grave to solve a case from fifty years ago and the body was in mint condition.  MINT CONDITION.  Think about that when you start your burial plans and yes we all go at some point in our lives.

Anyway, back to that dirty diaper on the ground and how those parents would have been given a D minus in Waste Management.  They did fold up the diaper so its not an F per say.  However, I feel sorry for the child who sees their parent just leave trash and not do the responsible thing.  How hard is it to take it home or toss at the nearest gas station?  We are ultimately teaching our kids its okay to leave a mess and our trash behind.  Once out of sight, out of mind, right?  Well tell that to the park guy or to the person who comes across that dirty diaper and thinks "REALLY?!? What kind of parent does this?"