Wow!!! It's been over a year since I posted on this blog. What
have I been doing? What have I been doing with all of those random thoughts I
used to write about all the time? Let's see if we can all get caught up real
quick, shall we?
In a nutshell my life has been work, kids, and teaching at the
pool. It's crazy how time consuming those three things can be. We just
celebrated my nephew, Ben's, 1st birthday yesterday. It's crazy to think that
he's already a year old. It seems like just yesterday that I forced my sister
to watch "Girls Trip" while she was on bed rest. Was I offended
when she didn't laugh at the same parts I did? Yes. Was I even more offended
when I realized that she didn't really laugh one single time during the move?
Probably. Did I give her a free pass because she was super pregnant and
miserable? I doubt it.
My sister and her husband chose to also Baptize Ben yesterday. He
was much more calm and behaved than Jake was during his Baptism. Actually this
coming Saturday is Jake's 4th birthday. He's already 4! And his big brother,
Ethan, would've been 10 on December 19. Double digits! That's crazy to think
about.
I've been teaching lots and lots of babies aquatic self-rescue
since March or so. It's been way more time consuming and difficult than I ever
expected, but it's also been way more rewarding than I anticipated. Each one of
those kids has their own story and requires their own personalized lesson each
day. It's still crazy to me to think that anyone would give me their kiddo and
trust me to teach them life saving skills, but I'm so lucky that they do. Had
we taught Ethan these skills I might be talking about him turning 10 in
December instead of saying that he would've been 10.
Speaking
of the nephews, my sister and I met at the rec center to start our running
careers again last night. After we did the run we took the boys to the
playground for a few. While we were there this boy came up to us/the boys at
the slide. This child is doing some growl scream type of thing in Jake and
Ben’s face. I kinda looked around for a parent to maybe step in and stop him,
but I didn’t see anyone. Then the kid proceeds to climb on the slide between
Jake at the top and Ben at the bottom. The kid comes a couple of inches from
Ben with his foot, but what can we do? He’s not done anything “wrong,” but just
a little slip of his foot and he would take Ben out. So Jake stepped in since
it’s less offensive for a toddler to tell him to stop than it is for my sister
or me to do it. That didn’t stop the kid, though. He continued to climb up and
push Jake off of the top of the slide. I wanted to grab that kid by his hair
and tell him to be nice, but I didn’t. He didn’t hurt either of the boys and no
parent stepped in to tell him to calm it down, so I was just glad when he ran
off and started growlscreaming at a bigger kid. I felt bad for that kid, too,
but there wasn’t much I could do for her. Seriously, though…where were his
parents? And as an attentive caregiver, what’s the right thing to do with this
kid?
And
even more nephew talk…I took Jake to the playground this part Friday, too. He’s
one of those kids who loves climbing up the slide and, since it was at the part
of the playground for the little kids, I let him do it. He started getting
tired and got stuck in the middle of the slide. So, I decided to help him with
a swift push on his bottom. Bad idea. I don’t know what happened exactly, but
his arms went limp and his chin went straight into the base of the slide. Oh my
GOD. I have never felt like such a piece of crap aunt ever before in my life.
He didn’t cry, but he laid there on the slide for a minute with his arm
covering his eyes. He uncovered his eyes and yes…there were tears there. But he
shook it off and got up to play more. He’s getting big and that sucks and is
really great to see all at once. Here’s a pic of him yesterday so you can see
the bruise on his chin. I feel AWFUL about this.
I
go and pick Jake up from school three days a week and I see all of the other
kids in his class. They’re all 3 years old and they’re so little. And that’s
the best, isn’t it? Kids with innocence and nothing but the potential for a
bright fulfilling future ahead. Their little minds are still their own, which
means so many possibilities, doesn’t it? Yes, they can annoy the crap out of
you with their tantrums and asking “why” 8,000,000 times an hour. But it’s our
job as the adults in their lives to let them be those annoying little people
while they can still get away with it. Let them be little! Let them stay naïve
and enjoy the most simple things in life while they can because they’re going
to be big enough to take in every ounce of this cruel, sometimes s**t world
soon enough. I’m going to hold my nephews for as long as they will let me. I
will let them lay their sweaty heads on me while they nap until they finally
realize how uncomfortable I am or the fact that I cannot be still. I fell like
it’s my job to take these things in because they deserve people in their lives
who choose to take these things in. And honestly that’s a job I’m happy to make
no money at doing…even though their sweaty little heads do cause me to break
out sometimes.
On
a completely unrelated note…has an adult ever gotten on your nerves to the
point that you legit wish bad things on them? I’m not talking really bad stuff,
but just some annoyance that just won’t go away? Like the constant feel of a
hair in their mouth. Or an itchy inner ear. Just something to maybe cause them
to shut up and do something other than annoy you for a while? Or is this just
me?
Oh,
I’ve been to church two weekends in a row now. Yes, Catholic church because my
brother in law’s family is really, really Catholic. So, that’s where we go! The
Catholic Church. I’ll say this. If you’re gonna go to a Catholic mass and want
the shorter version of it, go to the very early service. They’re saving their
shtick for the later mass. And if you’re OCD like me, DO NOT DO COMMUNION. I
gave into the peer pressure of going up there for the body of Christ a couple
weeks ago. It’s a hard, thin piece of bread. It was given to me by someone
other than Father Mike, so I panicked. Where has this guys hand been? It’s cold
and flu season, so is it safe to eat this bread? I battled with this until the
end of the service. I held the bread in my hand until I could dispose of it
after the service. But then I felt like Jesus wouldn’t approve of that, so I
sucked it up and ate the bread. I chose to skip communion this past Sunday so
that I wouldn’t go into an OCD panic or offend Jesus. I feel like this was the
better choice.
I
won’t even waste your time talking about my feelings regarding greeting those
around me…shaking hands and wishing them peace. In all honesty they could offer
Catholic Immersion Classes for OCD people like me to get over our issues. They
force you to face your issues over and over in an hour’s time…imagine what a
full therapeutic mass treatment could do for us!
I
know that I’m forgetting so many of my super important thoughts, so I’ll
probably have stuff for another post next week. If I remember it. My memory
really, really sucks. I used to annoy myself with my amazing memory, but now
it’s just bad. Was it my surgery? Is it years and years of a lack of sleep
catching up to me? Is it the fact that I’ve just gotten so much smarter lately
and those smart facts are replacing memories in my brain space? Doubtful. But
I’ll try to post something again without a year between.
