Month15-Month and Month 16

Dear Jack,

On New Year's Eve, your father and I were reminiscing on the year now, almost behind us. We talked about how much you have grown- your eye level now reaches a couple of inches above the window sill so that you are able to see out into the world beyond your four walls. We started to think of the milestones you have accomplished, and the remembering the cute things that you do and used to do. What we did not expect, was how much we had already forgotten. All of the adorable things that we swore to ourselves we would sear into our brains and remember never to forget...we forgot. How you used to play peek-a-boo with one finger on each hand and barely cover your eyes. How you started saying "yes" way before you starting saying "no" and how we thought we had to be the luckiest parents ever because you were agreeable to everything. "Hey Jack, would you like to go to bed?" You would promptly say "yes" and walk into your room. "Jack, would you like some fruit?" You would gleefully say "yes"! "Jack, would you like to watch yourself while mommy and daddy go out on the town- here are the emergency numbers!" "YES" you would reply. Unfortunately you only said "yes" until you said no...and now "no" is all you say. Half the time you say "no" as you are agreeing to our question with your actions. I will ask you if you want a drink, and you will say "no" as you extend your hands out for your cup. ANYWAY...I have gotten a little off subject. What I was getting at, is that I started to write these letters to you because I wanted to remember the little nuances that I was afraid to forget. Until one day I got cocky and figured I would not forget...but you see, you grew up TOO fast. WAY too fast. What are you doing?! Slow down. It's like, today I was teaching you the word "please" and tomorrow you'll be asking me to borrow the car...with a "please" of course. I look at your pictures just from August of this year, and I feel the pressure well up behind my eyes. I can not handle knowing that you will never be that little again. Maybe if I just hold you tightly enough, you'll stay little and innocent and oblivious.

Regardless, no matter how fast you grow-up, please do not forget how much we love you. I do not regret any decision I have ever made, because if I had not made them then I would not have you. Grow-up, just do not forget where home is and what it means.

Love,
Dad-dy (as you call me....trust me, it was not your dad-dy who was up with you 67 times last night)

Month 14

Dear Jack,

You have become a lot more active in the last month. You run faster, and hit run into walls harder. There are those movies where is always guy standing on a train track and a train is coming at him. He has a good minute to move his feet forward and walk off the tracks, but he stands there and screams and chooses to not move. I'll see you in a situation where I have a feeling you are going to fall into something, and I find myself just cringing and holding my breath in preparation. It is kind of like that.

Right now it is fall, my absolute favorite time of the year. While you were in my tummy for that 9 months, 2 days, 22 hours and 6 minutes- I would find myself thinking of all of the fun things we would be able to do with you. We would dye Easter eggs, go to the zoo, go to the pumpkin patch, pick out a Christmas tree, bake cookies for santa and so on. Last year at this time, you were still quite the little blob and your participation in those things was obviously not going to happen. So you can imagine my excitement this year because you are at a stage in your life when you are starting to discover things and are curious and excited about everything. So, we went to the Zoo a couple of weeks ago. I was so excited- I mean, you LOVE your plastic elephant, surely you'll love the big live one only football field's length behind a fence!!! By the time we got to the real elephant at the zoo,you were reaching for your stroller. Ok- so you aren't ready for the zoo. Surely you'll love the pumpkin patch!! So, last weekend we went. We got on the hayride and we got off where all of the pumpkins were sprawled out through the fields. PUMPKINS WERE EVERYWHERE! BIG ORANGE THINGS YOU COULD CLIMB ON, THROW, AND DESTROY! I figured that once I put you down you would never want to come home. We would have to change your address to 101 Pumpkin Field On The Right, Pittsburgh, PA. So, I put you down. You looked around- assessed your surroundings- looked back at me and made your "come here mom" sign with your hands so that I would pick you up. What else you got mom? See, that? By bubble.

I am starting to get the feeling that this is what happens for most parents. That they are more excited at the thought of the memory they are going to make, then letting the memory happen for itself. I am not surprised though. I find myself doing that with most things in life; playing out events in my mind before they happen. How I think things will go, how perfectly I plan things out in my mind. It is why I am so easily pleased, and yet so easily disappointed. I hope that you aren't like that. I hope that you are responsible and think before you leap, but I also how you do not obsess over things before they even happen. I hope you simply expect an event to be what it is going to be- and leave the possibilities open. Be a dreamer my baby, but don't forget to watch where you are walking.

Love,

Mommy

Month 13

Dear Jack,

I was originally going to talk about your new obsession with playing 64 pick-up with the crayon box - not my favorite game- how you love to nest in your father's golf ball collection, and even how you have grown so attached to the lady at daycare that it makes my heart ache. Instead I have decided to talk about something happening right now that you will possibly read about in school when you are older- but like so many things I learned about in history classes, not truly appreciate the true intensity and fearfulness surrounding the situation.

Our country has been lending money to people to buy houses, cars, businesses, and to take out credit cards with large amounts of spending room. This is of course fine, however, a lot of people in this world are motivated by one thing: to impress their neighbors, friends, family, and even strangers with all of the extravagences they own. The problem is, these neighbors, friends, family, and strangers do not pay the balances that these people have open. There is a cliche that my grandmother said to me and I am sure I will say to you "eat with your stomach and not with your eyes"- just because that cupcake looks good, doesn't mean it should go on your plate. Over the last decade or so, people have been seeing everything they want but not thinking about what they can actually handle. Over time, these people realize that they can not afford the extravagences they wanted and eventually default on all of those open balances. The problem is, that the banks have already paid out this money to the car companies, stores, brokers, etc and now this money is an open debt. Those open debts have accumulated over time and have slowly brought the country we live in into a dire economic situation. People who have invested money over the last 30 years into their retirement accounts now do not have enought to retire on. Banks are closing, companies are closing, people are losing their jobs, and the price of food and gas has gone up tremendously. It is a scary time, and there is a definite uncertainty to our very near future. A lot of people are scared, myself included, that things will get too out of control and the economy will go into a recession.
You are probably wondering why I am telling you this, why this even matters to you right now. All you care about is where your next oreo is coming from. But, the thing is that sometimes there will not be oreos. Sometimes there might only be crackers, and you'll kick and scream and you'll tell us how much you want an oreo right this second and how horrible we are as parents for not giving you that oreo. And it will not be that we do not want to give you an oreo and that we are going out of our way to be cruel parents because we get out kicks out of watching you scream and writhe on the floor. One day there may be oreos every week, but until your father and I can get to that point financially- sometimes there will not be enough money for oreos because we will need milk instead or because you need to go to the doctor. You have to make sacrifices to survive.

I used to think money grew on trees- that it was so easily attainable and so was anything else I wanted. Unfortunately, it isn't and even if you are able to get all of those out of your league things that you want-you'll only have it temporarily- and things will eventually catch up with you and you will find yourself in a horrible predicament. And, no matter how much money we do make, there is still a good chance you'll find yourself still writhing on the floor screaming because we wouldnt buy you a new toy that you absolutely needed because everyone else has it and you dont.
If you learn anything growing up, I hope you learn to have an appreciation for what you do have and not obsess over what you do not have. There is not a rush to buy a house, a brand new car, to have a closet full of name brand clothing, or to have the most high tech gadgets available. Let things happen when they are supposed to and never put yourself in a situation that makes things financially tight if they do not have to be. Pay your rent and your other bills before you go out to dinner with your friends or before you buy that new television that your friend has. Always have something saved just in case, and do not live off or depend on credit cards.
Don't let your eyes get away with what your gut doesn't feel it is ready to handle.

Love,
Mommy

Bar Fights

Apparently, Jack sneaks out at daycare and goes to the local Conway bars to hang out with his buddies. Yesterday, his friend Frank started making comments about how hot his mom is. This offended Jack- he does't appreciate people calling his mom hot in front of him, so Jack did what any one year old would do and punched Frank in the face. All of the sudden, the whole bar broke out into a giant brawl, and Jack was left with some battle wounds.

I think Jack should use that story instead of telling his friends he tripped and fell into the pink plastic pool at daycare. It sounds a lot more bad ass.

Twenty Four Candles

I have to admit, after my 21st birthday, birthdays themselves started to become normal days. Today, however, was actually pretty wonderful.

We dropped off the endeavor for the paint job today, and we needed a rental car because we had things that needed done and only having one car would have made doing them impossible. When enterprise came with the rental car, I almost peed myself when I saw what it was. She must have known it was my birthday, because I got to drive around all day in this:



Apparently, there was a high demand for ford focuses or hyundai accents, because the "Jag" was the car they decided to bring for me. SO exciting. I learned two things while driving it today:

1) Nice cars make driving fun again

2) Bill and I will not have nice cars until our children are out of the house. I wouldnt let Jack drink his milk while he was in the car. Well, correction, I would not let Jack throw his milk around the car. I refuse to have really nice things right now, because I refuse to be paranoid 24/7 and worrying if Jack will spill something on it or lick it or do whatever else he does to things.

On top of the sweet ride, there were also other birthday perks. The wind last night knocked out the power at work, and so we didnt do anything all day and I left at 2pm. Sweet. Then my mom made dinner and cake for us and got us a new camera (which we REALLY needed) and my husband got me flowers and chocolate...and it was just a really good day.

It felt really great to have a birthday that was extraordinary. However, now I have high-expectations...I mean next year I have to at least be able to drive a porsche :)

Don't buy a Mitsubishi

About a month ago, Bill and I put a claim into Mitsubishi to fix the paint job on our car. From 55k miles, the paint started to deteriorate, and it has since been spreading like a cancer all over the car. The car looks horrible, like it was taken to the Sun and put there to bake for a year. Not only is it embarrassing to drive around in, because it looks like we do not take care of it but it is also getting down to the primer in a lot of spots and that could cause structural problems down the line.

Today, we found out that the dealer will pay $2k, and we would have to take care of the rest. The cheapest quote was $2942, but the rep from the dealership got them to go down to $2500, so we would "only" have to pay the remaining $500. Thank goodness I have the money left over that I had put away in case it needed work during inspection. I am happy that they said they would do it, but I am also still peeved. They act they are doing us a favor- "good will" is the term they used. Apparently, they need new dictionarys, because favors are things you do for people when the problem they have is NOT your fault. We didn't destroy the paint, Mitsubishi didn't do their job. If you research on the internet, you will find thousands of people with the same problem as us. In fact, when we had made the claim there was another car in the lot parked right next to us with the same problem!!!! But, they are doing us a favor.

Oh well, at least it will look nice again.

I also called to try and extend the warranty on the car. They want a $400 down payment and then $186 a month for four years. Sigh, I know that it would be worse if that car would break down in 20 thousand miles and need a new engine, but I also do not have an extra $400 plus an extra $200/month to even put myself in a safer position. This is so discouraging. The car already has 90K on it ( i know i know...thats A LOT for an 04), but it was our only car for a year and a half, and add a trip from florida and a couple back and forth to Johnsonburg, and it added up. It isn't even like we go on road trips, we just used it for basic traveling to and from work and the grocery store and stuff. It won't even be paid off until 2013. Sometimes I wish someone would hit it hard enough to total it without Jack being in the car and without anyone getting hurt. I dont care if it breaks down the day after it is paid off, I just hope and PRAY that it doesnt need any major work until then.

I enjoy being in one piece.

I am all about gas conservation, but there comes a point when safety out weighs more miles per gallon. I wonder if people who buy little itty bitty cars consider the other very large and not itty bitty cars on the road.

That is why this:



Is why you will you never see me in this: