We moved into our house in September of 2003. I have to say that was the worst mistake of our lives. The neighbors are great, in fact I love the neighbors I have, don’t get me wrong, but when I moved in I had one child. Never in a million years would I believe I would have 4 children running around my small 3 bedroom house. I have no room, I have no open space, I have too many toys that will now be free to a good home, I have too many books and magazines with nowhere to put them, and for the love of god, I need a darn window to put my plants in.
My sewers are collapsing thanks to the 4-100ft tree’s 10 feet from the back of the house. The bill on that is at least six grand. We have no choice, it’s time to leave. There is too much traffic on my street. Everyone feels it necessary to use my street as a shortcut to the main road behind my house. I’m tired of hearing the Bob’s Market people cursing at each other behind my fence. I’m tired of the noise. We have semi-trucks down my residential street from the store at the corner down the road. It’s just not a safe place anymore. Every now and then stupid Moose decides to belt down the street on me, and he had a near collision course yesterday with a Budweiser semi. The quality of the residents is going severely downhill, the schools are getting worse (thanks schools of choice!). What Southgate was 12 years ago, is vastly different than what it is today. I would like to say my city and area are becoming “ghetto-fied”. I don’t want to come across as racist, because I am far from that. But I’m sorry, don’t bring your thugs to my schools just because you think being here will help them because it won’t, it will just create more thugs. This goes for any race. If the student doesn’t care, changing schools isn’t gonna help.
Anyhow, we found a nice home. The house sits on 2 acres, most of which is farmed by a neighbor, but there is just enough yard for the kids and dogs to run around in. I can’t wait to plant flowers. I love planting flower and vegetables. I can plant my vegetables near the current crops too, which is good. Far enough away that Moose and Captain Jack Sparrow (my golden) cannot trample them like they do every…..single….year. It’s got 2 “ok” sized bedrooms and one bigger bedroom for us. We’ll work with it, as we have done for the past 8 years pretty well. The home square footage still out-does my current home by a lot. It’s more open, and it has a dining room, something I have died to have since regretting the purchase of our current house. The garage, well, that’s bigger than the house. I almost feel bad that it’s not going to someone who actually “needs” a garage like that. The current people use it for what it is. We are going to use it for many things, or try too. We will utilize that space as best as we can. I’m excited. So excited we put down our money after a quick tour without even looking at it thoroughly. It’s crunched between some mansions, but that’s ok. There is a creek that runs behind it. I believe it’s “Sandy Creek” or the “Little” variety of it, which opens up into Lake Erie. I doubt the boys will go back there at all, but if they do an adult has to be with them. We move July 1st. Well, services get turned on then, but we’ll move slowly that whole week. I absolutely hate the thought of having to empty this house. Eight years worth of children’s stuff and possessions to box up. I’m very sentimental about things so, though not a hoarder by any means, I tend to not get rid of things like I should, like old baby clothes and baby toys. I’m even a real stickler about keeping boxes to expensive things we buy in case we have to return them, but Matt always forgets to throw them out after 90 days. The worst box I have I think is either for my Dyson or for my carpet cleaner. I keep Amazon boxes to hide Christmas gifts in. Well, I guess I can use these boxes now maybe!! Ah well, after we leave here and throw 90% of stuff out, we’ll be good.
As for family news. I lost my beloved grandma this past March 5th. That was the hardest thing to watch next to my dad dying of a stroke 3 years ago. She starved to death. She just started purposely rejecting food and the doctor said she didn’t want to live anymore so they threw her in hospice and allowed her to not eat. After a while they started giving pain medicines and things like Ativan to “shut her up”. I am not a fan of hospice care unless you are absolutely terminal. This was almost assisted suicide. Yes, she was 92 years old, but she went from having spunk, to nothing. What happened? Did I not bring my kids over enough? She always told me and everyone else that she lived for my kids. I wasn’t coming by as often as I should have.
Then, actually about a month before then my mom finds out she has a later stage of breast cancer. She had her nodes removed, and after 5 months of doing absolutely NOTHING — despite having later stage cancer, they finally got the ball rolling with chemo. My mom is partially bald from it. Instead of cry like my sister does about it, I put a positive spin on it and starting making fun of it, but of course making sure my mom laughs with me and not cry. I call her “Fire Marshall Bill” from Jim Carrey’s old skit on “In Living Color”. That, and I refer to her as the skeleton creepy guy from “Tales from the Crypt”. She goes without a cap most of the time except when we are out. She keeps telling me she’s got 30 years left. Yeah well statistically people at her stage of cancer — at 5 years out, have a 60% chance. So whatever, maybe she’s lying to stay positive, maybe that’s what they’ve really told her. Who knows. I try to stay positive, but I’ve had so much death and dying and sickness and bull crap dealt to me in the last 3 years it’s hard to remain positive. I freaked out on Matt the other night when he told me he had a pain in his stomach. Maybe to him it was minor, but god forbid if I had a pain in the stomach it would probably mean something is wrong, at least that has been my path for the last 2 years. I don’t take anything lightly anymore so if it goes on he better see a doctor.
Kids are doing alright. Chris is excelling in school. He was removed from the speech and language program. He “graduated” the program, and I was so sad because he has been with Mrs. Wynn since he was 3 years old. She is retiring this year so it works out. Andrew was also graduated from the speech and language program. I’m so happy for both of them to finally be caught up to their respective learning levels.
Caitlyn is now 2 years and 4 months old. She has quite the language ability and does not suffer the setbacks the boys did. She loves cows and dinosaurs. She had her first real interaction with a little boy close to her age today and it was the cutest thing. She’s not potty trained yet, we’ll work on that after we move. She is ready though I think. It’s a matter of understanding what potty is and means. Right now Caitlyn is battling a cold my mom passed to her I think. She’s almost over it though.
Ava, my little lady monster is actually becoming a tolerable baby these days. We had a rough first few months. She just seemed like she hated us and hated the world, but now things are better. She sleeps through the night good, takes a couple scheduled naps during the day, and doesn’t get all bent out of shape if we don’t keep to a usual schedule. I think she’s actually not feeling good today. She has not been demanding her bottle and been a little warm and sleepy.
As weird as it sounds, even though I’m a freak now abou
t every little problem wrong with myself or Matt, I don’t rush the kids to the doctor when they are sick. I let it go a few days just to see if it’s something that will pass. I used to take Chris & Andrew all the time when they were babies and the one thing I learned was all they are gonna tell you to do is go home, watch the fever, give Tylenol, and come back if it gets worse. Usually. I haven’t had too many occasions where we’ve had to have antibiotics. Recently our entire household, all 6 of us had pinkeye. And it kept circulating because there is just no way with 4 kids to sanitize everything they touch. Eventually it passed but it took like 3 weeks of it rotating around each one of us, sometimes twice before it disappeared, even on eye antibiotics.
Chris & Andrew are in little league again this year. Chris is embarrassed at his team name. The “Iron Pigs”. Come on now, who really thought of that. I hear it’s a real minor league team, but still, not for kids. Everyone calls them the “Hogs”. Andrew is playing t-ball again this year, and he is on the “Astros”. My mouthy little boy likes to emphasize the “Asssssssssss” in Astro’s when he’s being a smart mouth. So far Andrew has had like 2 games, and Chris has played 8 I think and only lost 1, so I think his team is leading anyhow.
Matt is still with General Electric. They filmed an “eco-magination” commercial where they are all doing line dancing at his work. You can view that here: Click Here – it’s pretty funny considering Matt is in there somewhere. It’s completely done at the Van Buren complex, they did a good job! They travel him, and he’s on track for management in the next couple years. He’s in tight with management already… apparently some man named Bruno originally from France. I make fun of him because his close co-workers are named Priti and Patti, so I call them his “Pretty Patties” in reference to Spongebob Squarepants’ “pretty patties” in one episode.
Me, well, yeah another day, another problem. I found out last week that my thyroid is enlarged, and my neck lymph nodes have been really enlarged for about 5 months. I had a CT scan done on Thursday, now I’m just waiting for the results. I’m praying to god in a more severe way than normal that NOTHING is wrong, especially a cancer. I’ve had ENOUGH of it, for reals. I do not want to hear I have to have a biopsy, nothing at all. I want to hear that it’s just “one of those things” that occurs. I am not prepared to deal with anything else, I have too much on my plate to deal with already.
If the darn weather would ever cooperate I’m supposed to go to Cedar Point twice. I promised Chris we would take him because he’s now all of a sudden a “ride warrior” and thinks he can handle things like “Top Thrill Dragster” just from watching YouTube videos. Yeah I told him, just wait until you walk into that park and stand next to that ride. It took me several visits to the park before I could get on that ride. I stood there and stared at it, debating whether or not I had the courage for that one several times before it happened. I also have to go with my friend Julie for her birthday. We’ve already cancelled twice for the weather. We’re hoping for Sunday (horrible memorial weekend) for Chris and the following Tuesday (next week) with Julie. May weather has not been good to us this year.
Well, not much else to share right now. I’ll update when I find out if I’m dying again or not, LOL!
