Husbandless

We had a very nice long weekend.  The weather was great and we were able to spend a good amount of time outside.  In fact, we went camping.  It was a beautiful location and we were with fun people and Girlie did pretty well.  It was a bit difficult to keep her happy and distracted.  Her goal the whole 24 hours we were there was to try and eat the dirt, pineneedles, pinecones and rocks scattered all about her.  If the rocks hadn’t been there I’d have let her gone crazy eating whatever and experience the taste of the outdoors.   Overall though it went very well and she did a great job sleeping in the tent.  My favorite part of the trip was trying to get her to sleep.  I was wondering how to accomplish this and tried a variety of methods.  I tried holding her, laying next to her, rubbing her back, singing and finally when I realized that she was just having a blast not sleeping I decided to try leaving the tent.  I laid her back down, sang her goodnight song and said night night baby!  She waved, said goo, watched me leave and then proceeded to fall asleep on her little pile of blankies.  How cute.  

The only sad moment of the weekend was yesterday afternoon when we said adios to the papa.  He took off for a conference this week in Pennyslvania.  He was very concerned about Girlie forgetting who he was so I’ve been ordered to daily show her his picture and talk about him all the time.   I don’t think that’ll be too hard to do as I miss him like crazy!  Fortunately, distraction is on the way.  My Mom and Godmother Connie are due to drive into Madison any minute now.  They’ll be here for part of the week to keep us girls company, it should be a great few days.  I’ll post later about all that we did together.  It’ll be great having some extended time together, just the girls.   

Little parents

     Here’s some proof that Miss Ruthie is the cutest little thing in the world.  Girlie loves watching her and lately has been learning a few ‘how tos’ in mommying from Ruth.

 What a little love bug!!

As you can see, Ruth is very safety conscious…..

er….I guess most of the time anyways!  Just ignore the photo below…and don’t worry your pretty little heads over the baby doll.  She recovered just fine from the evil jumperoo incident of ‘08.  Nothing a little therapy can’t fix later on, right?!

     Girlie’s been watching Ruthie as well as Mr. William.  Will comes here on Mondays with his little sis Eva.  This last week Will was very interested in the new baby doll as well.  So interested that he asked if he could bring the baby doll with on our walk around the block.  I hooked him up with some equipment to use and it seemed to work very well as you can see below.  He was a very proud “Daddy” wearing an adapted version of my Baby Bjorn. 

How cute…my baby with her little baby doll
(it was actually my favorite when I was little!)

Bud

     I found out from my Mom yesterday that my Great Great Uncle had died.  Bud Gilbert is the original Girlie’s brother, and by original I mean my Great Grandma Georgia.  He was (I’m pretty sure) 95 and a very sweet man.  His wife Maxine is still living and also is one of those people you just have to hug when you see her. 
     While I was growing up I saw Bud and Maxine a few times a year and always laughed to see how Great Grandma always felt better and more alive around her little brother.  One minute she was complaining about her back or her eyes or whatever symptom was flaring up for her that day and the next minute Bud and Max would arrive and she’d do this little jig greeting with him.  It was Bud and Great Grandma’s other siblings, Shirley and Rachel, who gave her the nickname Girlie.  That’s what they still call her today whenever they are together.  This foursome has seen a lot of life.   Bud is the first of the siblings to die and I’m sure it will be tough for all of them to say goodbye.  
     I still remember visiting Bud and Maxine one day and learning of the great sacrifices he made for his country.  In high school I’d heard a few tales of all that Bud had seen and endured as a soldier in WWII through old clippings my Great Grandma had saved.  It wasn’t until I discovered my love of history in college that I realized I had a relative who was truly a piece of living history.   Visiting with him one day at his home gave me the gift of hearing oral history firsthand, rather than reading from a textbook.  I was able to put a face on war and the impacts it had on one man’s life.  Bud’s unit in the army started off with over a hundred men in it.  By the end of the war there were ten left alive.  This unit traveled all over Europe, into Morocco and Malta.  I talked with Bud right after my return from four and a half months of studying abroad in Malta and trips through Morocco and parts of Europe.  It was pretty funny when I asked him what he thought about Malta.  He claimed that he never saw it during the daylight and was only there for a few hours while he switched ships.  He does remember that it was being heavily bombed at the time and he was mostly underground somewhere. 
     While I was studying in Malta I discovered that this tiny 9 mile wide and 17 mile long island was the most heavily bombed area during WWII.  It was still a British colony at that time and there were quite a few ships in their harbors that were important targets for the enemy.  In downtown Valletta, the capital city, there is a plaque from the United States that thanks the people of Malta for their sacrifices and it also serves as a remembrance of the many that were killed.  When one talks with older people of Malta they recall the sounds of the planes starting up in Sicily and taking off to fly the short distance across the water to bomb them.  I visited a church that had been destroyed and saw the before and after pictures and read of the people who were killed while taking shelter there.  
     Bud shared with me many stories of what he saw and how he lost many friends in combat.  At the end of the war his unit was the one right on Hitler’s trail.  Bud talked of how they “visited” some of the many homes of Hitler and also about how when word came of his death they finally relaxed a bit and began to visualize going home for the first time in many years.  While visiting Hitler’s Salzburg mansion Bud and others collected plates, silverware, flags and whatever they could think of to bring home.  It was so eerie for me to hold a plate in my hands with the swastika symbol and wonder who ate off it and what horrible things they had done.  In the basement at Bud and Maxine’s there was a little corner hutch that held all these amazing little trinkets.  My favorite was the camera that Bud had found in Morocco.  After returning home he developed the film and discovered it to be a German soldiers camera.  The pictures show where this soldier had traveled and the most remarkable ones show American paratroopers parachuting a few miles away.  This collection has now been donated to a museum.  
    Bud left the United States three months after marrying Maxine.  they talk of their lovely honeymoon summer and how that time was magical for them.  While marching halfway across the world Bud always carried a picture of his girl in his pocket, next to his heart.  The same picture was among the basement collection and it was in a worn leather case.  I’m sure he looked at that photo constantly and wondered if he’d leave her as a widow.  After coming home Bud and Max had two children and spent the rest of their days together.  Bud woke up often in the night battling some unknown enemy, thrashing in his sleep and punching the air.  Maxine calmed him each time and loved him till the end.  Today I remember this wonderful, giving and brave man who I’m proud to call a member of my family.  My heart is aching for Maxine and the original Girlie as they miss their Bud. 

Frazzled

     I was realizing I hadn’t posted in a while.  What can I say but our activities/involvments have caught up with us and we’re too busy for anything lately.  So…to catch you up on my life here’s a few happenings that have happened!

1.  I’ve been getting a ton of calls from folks looking for childcare–yay!!  About time!!  Where the heck have you people been!!  It’s going to take me at least a week until I’ve decided who to choose.  Yes, that’s right…I’ve got options and I’ll be sure to choose a family that fits well with me and the schedule (aka my day off!)

2.  I had my last spring ultimate frisbee game.  We lost, but it was to the best team and it was only by three points.  After the game my friend Lisa and I joined the team at a local restaurant called The Great Dane for our two free pitchers of beer and dinner.  It was a nice night out for me although I was pretty tired the next morning.  Summer league with our infamous team Huck Foo, which we’ve been on for 4 years now starts up the first week of June.  I’ll be playing twice a week then…man, I’m already tired!

3.  I’ve decided to have a garage sale tomorrow.  And no, I haven’t been taking any drugs, I just thought I’d add extra chaos to our life for the fun of it.  I’ll let you know my ‘grand total’ sales next week.  I’ll also fill you in on whether Erik manages to put our fish tank up for sale.

4.  Oh yeah, one of our fish went belly up the other day.  Erik tried to convince me, once again, to get rid of our tank.  I’m still attached to our lazy, castle dwelling, Gordo Poper The 2nd bottom feeding fish.  We’ll see what happens at the sale. 

5.  Girlie is excelling at falling and bleeding.  I’m excelling at freaking out each time she’s gushing blood from her mouth.  So far, all of her teeth are still intact and none of them are fake like some of her Father’s and Grandfather’s.  Those are stories for another day…  

     Well, that’s about it for happenings.  We’ve got a busy weekend ahead of us and the next week is looking a bit less crazy.  I’m trying to take each day as it comes along and enjoy the ride. 

Here are some shots of how my morning went today.  let’s just say I’ve been working on my patience quite a bit today…phew…I’m ready for a nap!

Mother’s Day Poem

    Happy belated Mother’s Day to all you Moms and Moms-to-be out there.  I hope your breakfasts in bed, flowers, chocolates, cards or whatever you received from loved ones were a sweet addition to your day.  My hubby was wonderful yesterday and gave me just what I wanted…time as a family!  In fact, we had a lot of nice time together this weekend.  Saturday we completed my shade garden in the backyard.  I’ve had a little mini perennial flower spot behind our ugly brown storage shed for a few years and this weekend we expanded it and made it look much nicer as you can see.  
 

     Besides nice time together Erik and Jannah took me out for ice cream, helped me pick out a new microwave for over our stove (we’d been planning on getting a new one…this was not a bad appliance gift error), and then we went out to dinner.  The best gift was the poem E wrote for me.  He’ll probably kill me for putting this on here, but I loved it and thought it was very sweet.  It was especially cute that he tried to have Girlie color on it.  I guess it was more of a losing battle with her as she preferred eating the crayons rather than coloring with them.  I think he was pretty happy that I enjoyed it so well….even though he rolled his eyes when I insisted on reading it to both of our Moms, he he. 

Here it is…
                     
A Mother’s Day Poem for the World’s Greatest Mom

Not quite a year ago now a new Mom came to be,
As Jannah did open her eyes up to see
She had a mother who’s wonderful, wise and funny.

When daughter or husband lets out a yelp,
She makes all of those other moms look like poor whelps,
As faster than Supermom she’s there to help.

With feedings, diapers, laundry & floors to mop,
She does so much she seems not to stop,
Yet she smiles and moves with a skip & a hop.

And with all of the grace with which she takes good care,
It really just doesn’t seem overly fair,
That she’s still so darn beautiful she makes me stare!

At taking care of our family she is simply the best,
And still takes great care of all of the rest,
So she really deserves a “We Love You” fest!