My wild child keeps me busy

08182008 Gregory2
Originally uploaded by smileahug.

Gregory is always going and going and keeping me moving. He unfortunately does not like to go to bed and will stay up till midnight with no problem. This is a problem for mommy because mommy needs mommy time sometimes. So, the busy child keeps himself and mommy very busy.

This past week Gregory woke up early. Daddy went out to the living room and fell asleep. Gregory decides he is thirsty and decides to get three juice boxes out of the fridge and drink all three.

This morning he decided he wanted a chocolate boost for breakfast and got one out of the fridge with out asking.
At least it was not eggs.

I guess he has to have a bit of coordination to get in mischief. This picture is of him in his yellow room with a necklace he made himself. I put some string on a needle. I showed him how to put beads on. I gave it to him and he picked the beads and threaded the whole necklace himself. He was very proud of himself.

Gregory will be three in less than a month and I think this upcoming year will bring a few more difficulties for Mommy. He is as hard headed as me.

Gregory’s new skill

I didn’t know but Gregory is a great egg cracker.
A few days ago Gregory came running into our bedroom.
“Mommy Daddy want eggs”
He handed me a cold egg and then went running out.
A few scary thoughts went through my head at that moment.
Walking into the kitchen Cullen found the whole egg carton on the floor with all the egg shells in the carton.
The eggs on the other hand were all over the kitchen floor.
I think Gregory does perhaps a better job of keeping egg shell out of the eggs than some people do.

Next step: Getting eggs in bowl or pan.

A Tip

If you are a bus driver and a blind person asks you a question as to where the bus stop is for a particular bus please don’t say “over there”. It doesn’t help.

Gregory's big band aid

This evening Gregory comes walking up to me.

“Mommy help me, boo-boo need a band aid”
Gregory then shows me his knee and then hands me a panty liner.

As I crack up laughing “That one’s too big let’s get you a different one”

I do love his resourcefulness.

Um… Please let go of my cane.

Almost every time I ride the bus someone accidently grabs my cane thinking it is one of the poles you can hold on to. I can understand the mistake, because sometimes people just grab without looking. The thing that irritates me is that afterwards they giggle or laugh for the next five minutes or they apologize fifteen times. They also expect me to think this is incredibly funny. Um after about the 100th time I got sort of tired of the whole thing. One apology will do or if you do laugh please don’t continue the laughing for a long time and try to get the rest of the passengers to laugh. Is it really that funny?
I know you will probably not get this note so I will just sit, smile, and nod.
Hopefully the whole thing will wake you up a bit to realize that there is a world around you that you are not noticing. If you are too absorbed in your world to realize that my cane is not a bus pole you probably are missing the puffy white clouds and the flowers that the city planted on the side of the road. You are missing all the little things. I know it isn’t anything meant to be amazing but it is the little things that make the day a bit brighter.
So, I do hope I woke you up.

Gregory loves hot dogs

This morning while Cullen was home with Gregory he went to go take a shower. When he got out of the shower Gregory ran to the bathroom.

Gregory – “Daddy I love hot dogs.”
Cullen – “Do you want a hot dog?”
Gregory – “No”

Gregory then ran back into the living room.
Once Cullen was finished dressing he went to the kitchen and found out that Gregory had gotten into the fridge and eaten one hotdog and a half.
No wonder he didn’t want one.
And thank goodness they are precooked.

Cullen also told me he had already fed Gregory a large bowl of macaroni and cheese. I guess he was still hungry.

It is also a good thing I hide the chocolate or I am sure that would have been eaten too.

Better than last week

Cullen’s stress has been from his work. Today he feels better. He finally got his audit at work and passed 100%. Yea!

Gregory probably is getting a cold, but otherwise is his bubbly self.

I am doing pretty well. The weather around here has been awesome and I have been enjoying it as much as possible. At work today the fire alarm went off. I don’t know why, but I am glad it went off on the hour, because most people were not in services at the time. I am always paranoid when an alarm goes off. What if they don’t let me go back in? So I make sure I grab my purse and my cane. That way I can get around on my own and have all the access to the necessary items us women keep in our purses. I guess I was a girl scout for too many years. You know “Be Prepared”.

After I picked up Gregory from Ms. Linda’s house this evening I was crossing the street with Gregory. I made it to the other side and a woman asked me if I could see. My response was “a little bit”. Her response to this was “Good I was worried because you were crossing with a baby”.
So to clear this all up it is perfectly safe for me to cross by myself, but not with Gregory. Or maybe it is ok for me to get hit and not him.
I haven’t gotten hit by a car, yet.
And what difference does it make if I can see or not if I have already made it to the other side of the street?
People pick funny times to ask questions.
Boy am I tired. Hope ya’ll are having a good week.
Night

Rest helps

The frustrations last week.
- The bus driver missed my stop and I ended up riding an extra 40 minutes to get back to my stop. (He couldn’t just drop me off at a later stop because being blind I would have probably gotten lost and not made it to work at all.) I was five minutes late to work.
- There was a corporate change at my work where the whole booking system has changed. So instead of everyone getting booked evenly the people with the highest request and retail get booked completely then the next person. So what you have is one person doing eight massages and another person doing only one. This change has created problems within the massage therapists. Where we once were great and tried to take care of each other now it is take care of yourself and hope everyone else sucks. So, I have been hiding in my room at work. I don’t need the stress. I think I will stick there until everyone calms down. I am ranked in the middle so I get book decently. No one likes the change in booking.
- Headaches.
- Cullen’s stress.

Sunday and Monday (today) Cullen and I have been able to spend some good time together and I think time together has helped us let off some of the stress.

So, we are both feeling a bit better. I have been able to rest and get the house more organized. Tuesday is Cullen’s day off so he will catch up on his rest tomorrow. It stinks that we rarely have the same day off together. I don’t feel like going back to work tomorrow, because of the craziness, but on Tuesdays work is usually pretty nice because there are only three massage therapists working.
Well, I will enjoy the rest of this beautiful day with my son and play outside.

Smiles!

Blocking out frustration isn't easy, but it is sometimes best

How quickly life goes bye day, by week, by month, by year. In this case it is the week that I am referring to. I can hardly believe it is Saturday. As I sit here at my computer typing I can hear my precious child sleeping in his bed room, his bright yellow bed room. The color he loves. He is lying in his bed surrounded by the toys he delights in playing with. His slide, his cars, his kitchen set, and his books that he could sit with and look at for many hours. He has all these wonderful things but he gladly leaves them to spend time with Daddy or Me. Grandpa picked me up from work today and drove me home. After picking up Gregory from Ms. Linda’s house we went home. Grandpa asked to see Gregory’s room and Gregory was so very excited to show Grandpa. That excitement, that delight is quite something really. I have tried to keep it alive in myself, but with age come life experiences that change the feel of life, the taste of it. Which in life is not as sweet as it once was, but in some parts still exists. How easily a giggle, a laugh comes to him. This joy that Gregory has in even the smallest things. I know I once had and still do. This week’s frustrations have let many negative emotions come in. Things I have had a hard time blocking out. Cullen is also dealing with similar feelings although his come from a different source than mine. Our frustrations are sucking our energy. Which if we just looked at Gregory we should know life is alright and it will be ok. The hard part is letting go so that we can move on with the day and be happy. We are happy together. The part about blocking out the outside pressures is what we are having a hard time with. So, tomorrow we will just breathe and enjoy each other. Tonight we will rest.

More Gregory moments

Do we go to Wal-Mart too much?
Today we were stacking blocks.
“Mommy a tower”
Gregory then finds the letter “W” and sticks it on top of his block tower.
“Wal-Mart, Mommy it’s Wal-Mart”




Yesterday
Mommy – “Gregory I’m gonna get your butt.”
Gregory – “NO, it’s gone.”
Mommy – “How is it gone?”
Gregory – “I sit”
Mommy – “You silly boy, come here.”

Am I too normal for you?

I do my own hair.
I get dressed on my own and usually match.
I can cook, but don’t love doing it.
I clean too, but don’t enjoy that much either.
I go shopping.
I like to go to the movies.
I love doing crafts.
I try to dance, but I am sure I look funny.
I graduated from High School, college as a double major, and Massage Therapy School and in all three I did well.
I can get places on my own with public transportation.
I enjoy reading books, on audio.
I can use a computer and even have my own blog.
I can take pictures, but they don’t always come out right.
I have a job that I like.
I have a husband whom I love.
I have a son that is the light of my life.
You wouldn’t really enjoy my singing, but my son loves it.
My glass is half, usually half full, but other days it seems to be a bit empty.
The days in which my glass needs some refilling the two men in my life pour their love into it.

I am blind and this part you may struggle with. You respond like I should not be able to even think on my own.
Yes I can see a little and so you discount the fact that I am blind. I am either in or I am out. For in that case I don’t fit in either place.
No, when you take out your contacts it is not the same. Leave your contacts out for a year or maybe two and you will understand a bit better. I have no contacts, just a white cane and the two are quite different.
How do I do it? I just do. You do what you have to, to make it. I try to do what I need to to be happy. Life seems so much better when I am smiling.
And this astonishes you.

So as people we are similar, but quite different.
Which is fine as long as we all try to help each other.

Gregory moments from today.

This morning Gregory got two pieces of cheese from the fridge. “Mommy mine cheese. Mommy’s cheese.”
He handed one to me to open. I opened it and handed it back to him with the trash. Then he handed me the other piece. I opened it. He took the trash from me and then threw the trash away.
So I got some cheese and didn’t even have to throw away the trash.

Gregory won’t touch lint from the dryer because “It’s NASTY! It’s nasty Mommy.”

I was in the kitchen and dropped something. I said quietly “Oh damn it.”
I then walked out of the kitchen and Gregory said “Oh damn it. Oh damn it. Oh man.”

Gregory cleared the table of dinner dishes tonight.