Mistletoes

So I got this awesome kit at Wal Mart for $5 that said it was for kids hand prints and pets paw prints, and I thought.. huh, I need some mistletoe. So this is what I made. It was incredibly easy, took 20 minutes in the oven, and catching both of my children, and naptime to sharpie the colors. And really, I just wanted to pin it. I had found a poem on pinterest, but the link was bad and I couldn't read the words, because I thought it would be cool to write a kids poem on the back, but for now, I'm just going to hang this every year in the doorway so I can kiss my boys :D Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and happy whateveritisyoucelebrateevenifitsjustadayoffofwork!

Free Ride

Many cities have now made texting while driving illegal, as it should be.  But when are they going to make being an idiot and driving illegal.  The fact that the following are all things I have seen or experienced in the last week makes me realize... friends shouldn't let dip shits drive.

Yesterday, while on a very busy road merging on a bridge off ramp onto another very busy road, some idiot behind me, who almost drove into my rear Johnny side (clarification: Johnny is passenger, Reese is driver), was listening to his headphones.  Not for nothing, but I really feel like when Stephen King decided to put Tommyknockers on tape, he wasn't expecting he'd scare the pants off you WHILE DRIVING.  So you can't pay attention because you are freaking out in your car, and you can't hear anything going on around you (although the little voice screaming in your head probably isn't helping).  Take the headphones out dummy.

On that note.  When you see an ambulance or a police car, get the hell out of the way.  Seriously.  Believe it or not, this is not a law, only a courtesy.  Well, can you imagine if, God forbid, it was you or a family member waiting for that ambulance, and some crappy person decided he didn't feel like being 'courteous'.  Or it was your house being robbed, or on fire, or any other number of horrible things, and the police or firemen couldn't get there because someone wouldn't move over on a one way 35 MPH road?  I invite you next time you see police, fire, EMT or any emergency responder; MOVE OVER IMMEDIATELY.  jerk.

Speaking of jerks.  In the case of funeral processions.  A hearse is not equipped with the special signaler that makes the lights change.  Trust me, where you are going is not as important as where the cars following the hearse are going.  I remember going to a friends father's funeral.  I had recently moved to the area, and really did not know my way around.  I met John at the church because we both went to work and took half days.  The cemetery was about 20 minutes away from the church, and this was a very very large funeral.  I understand getting a little frustrated when you are on a very major road and there are cars not paying attention to 'every other', but realize that so many of those people are paying respects to lost loved ones, and you need to get over yourself.

I love the bumper sticker, "honk if you love Jesus, text if you want to meet him."  Now, I didn't sign Oprah's 'No Texting' promise, but I like to think that I am a fairly safe driver.  Sometimes I even get in a zone and go under the speed limit (whatever, I have precious cargo).  I know I piss people off, but I don't care.  What, am I going to be late for a playdate?  I'm usually the first one there anyway, so really I'd just be on time.  I can't say I've never texted while driving.  I'll get texts sometimes, and if I'm expecting something I might peek at it, but usually it's at a stop sign or light, and as many of my friends will tell you, usually I don't have time to text back and I forget that I got a text and never respond.  But that idiot that does the whole, hands at 10 & 2 but I've got my QWERTY keypad so I can text and drive and I'll just lean my head down so I can see the screen AND the road; newsflash, that doesn't work.  You are not that important and everyone and everything can wait, because otherwise, you might have to be referring to the previous paragraph.

I can't even believe that I saw all of these things in a week. It makes me sad to know that all of the campaigns and all of the PSA's and all of the knowledge that we have now haven't stopped so many of these things.  Next time you get in the car, put your phone in the back, turn down the radio, and by all means, thank God that you are here another day to drive wherever it is you are going.

they come and they go...

There are a lot of things I admire about my husband; I mean, not his clutter blindness or ability to destroy a pair of socks (seriously, what does he DO in those socks?) But that's another Oprah.  One of the best things about him is his loyalty.  Sometimes I wonder if it's just a 'guy' thing, to be able to make a friend in 8th grade and be friends forever.  To know that when one friend goes wacky for a little while you just give him space and then it all comes back to normal.  John has had the same friends since 8th grade.  He made some new ones in college, but I'm not sure if that counts, because they were all connected with friends from home, and he knew him and whatnot.  The joke in our house is that when I make a new friend, I'm not allowed to 'pimp him out' (his words, not mine) to my new friends' husbands.  He is perfectly comfortable in his bubble, and that's fine, because I just happen to really enjoy the people in his bubble. 

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on the particular day) I'm a girl, and it just doesn't seem to be that easy.  I remember having a conversation in college with a sorority sister (also, another Oprah) after a particularly rough fight with a friend from home.  The discussion was about how high school friends don't really matter, because the friends you have in college are the friends you'll have for life.  HA! I mean, that's probably true if you don't go completely insane in college (whether I did or not is debatable AND let's be honest, who didn't), but for some of us, everything comes full circle, and the best friends of my life; well, let's just say I'm glad I started Westlake in 8th grade. 

Two of my most dear friends are from high school.  I can't even remember meeting Cortney, but Adrienne... haha, oh Adrienne.  I was friends with her brother, and she stopped me in the middle of the hallway one day in June and said, "you're Jessica Mellom right?  I just want you to know your boyfriend is cheating on you." I stood in the hallway and cried.  Big ugly cry.  Right there on her shoulder.  Poor girl had no idea she was setting herself up for life.  The funny thing is, we are all completely different people than when we met.  We've all got 2 kids each (which blows my mind), we're all happily married (only slightly blows my mind) and we're all not the least bit concerned about what's going on Friday night (who has time?) 

College, I've definitely got good friends from college.  A couple of awesome roommates that weren't friends with anyone else I knew and managed to not be a part of my ridiculousness come up on the short list.  I love them and I always will.  We don't talk often, but when we do it's like nothing has ever changed.  It's the ones that are gone that I think about.  Not all of them, and thanks to facebook everyone is so connected, I know what so many friends from college are doing without ever even talking to them, but somehow it makes you feel connected, like all is right in the world because she got married and she had a baby and she got divorced but now she's remarried and you realize that as long as everyone's happy, that's really all that matters.  It's the ones that you were really close to, the ones that you didn't choose to stop being friends with, those are the hard ones to let go.  The ones that you know are getting married next week and you just wish you could call and tell them you are so happy for them, and you hope and pray that they will be as happy in their life as you are in yours; that you hope they have kids because they are the best gift in the whole world, that you hope they find the house they want, and the job they want, and that they can just. be. happy.  But it's the ones that you can't call and tell that too that make you sad.  That for whatever reason (no really, I'm not sure the reason) you just aren't friends any more.  But at some point you just have to grow the hell up and get over it. 

And then you have your adult friends.  If you are lucky enough to work with girls like I did, you have truly been blessed.  Once you get over the crazy, and you get a grown up job with a grown up house and grown up life, you meet Lisa and Theresa.  And well, there's just not a lot I can say about them, mostly because I either don't remember (unless you buy me a 30 pack) or I've been sworn to secrecy.  I just hope you have a Theresa and a Lisa. 

As a mom, and a stay at home mom at that, sometimes talking to my 2 year old, that just learned to talk, makes my brain a little mushy, my throat a little sore, and my mind completely gone.  Enter Jeanne, Nicole, Jess, Samantha, Michelle and... oh... Cortney!  You know, when your priest sets you up on a supervised blind date, you don't realize that your whole life is about to be knocked upside down.  After moving to a new town, having a new baby, quitting my job and fighting the baby blues, meeting a friend might be the saving grace you need.  And I mean this girl even wore the same prom dress as me, and we didn't know it until 10 years later when we met.  AWE. SOME.  And she knew her, and she was her sister, and she met us, and she knew her, and now, no one can tell me that these girls won't be at my son's wedding(s). 

So the friends you make in college are the friends you'll have for life?  Maybe.  But if you're lucky, like me, that's the biggest lie you'll ever be told. 

What's in a name?

"Wherefore art thou"?  Well, I'll tell you.  Despite what every ninth grader I ever taught thought, wherefore means why, not where, and Juliet just wants to know why the hell Romeo is a Montague.  It's so hard to try to choose the right name for your son or daughter.  If you are a teacher, you have to go through all of your old students and hope that a name you liked your entire life wasn't ruined by somebody's crappy kid.  You figure in high school, you average around 100-120 kids a year.  That's a lot of names to eliminate. 

I feel like I was fairly lucky when it came to our first.  I always wanted a junior, and it worked out well that John was already named after his father.  So we had a third; sort of.  In our family, the tradition is to have different middle names.  Works for me!  John Joseph, John Gary, John James.  I'm so lucky I was able to name my son after my husband and our fathers.  I love that his name is so meaningful to us. 

For our second, the decision was much harder.  When we found out we were having another boy, we struggled with a name.  We (I) had always wanted to name a baby girl after my Grandfather, Reese Freeman.  Reese has become so commonly a 'girl' name that it seemed to fit.  We really liked Jacob, but it was just a name, it didn't mean anything to us.  Joseph is the other family name that we love, but we didn't want to take that from John's brother Joe. So here we were, looking all over the internet for 'meaningful' names.  I kept coming back to Reese.

My Grandfather was a lot of things.  He was a father.  He was a friend.  He was a twin.  He was a confidant.  He was a Pearl Harbor survivor. He was an alcoholic.  He was my idol.  He raised 6 girls and 1 boy; and despite what it may have been like growing up with him at the dinner table; he loved his family and did his best to put food on the table (the miracle that happened after the food was bought, that was ALL Nanny).  I've heard so many stories of what it was like to grow up with him, and not sugarcoated, it sounds like sometimes it sucked.  Luckily, raising 7 kids wore him out a little bit so by the time I came around, 12 years younger than the youngest cousin, he was much calmer.  Could have been the beer, but I like to think it was just calm.

My Poppy probably suffered from PTSD, but during and after WWII, that wasn't widely diagnosed, so unfortunately there are hundreds of thousands of veterans from WWII and Vietnam that didn't receive the help they needed; but I digress... The Poppy I remember woke up about 4 every morning (which I didn't understand when I was little and I sure as hell don't understand at 30), he sat at the kitchen table and played solitaire for a few hours.  It never gets that cold in Atlanta, but on the really chilly days he would start the woodburning stove out in the finished patio.  He'd let the chill burn off the house; or in the summer the dew dry off the trees and grass.  He'd play until 7ish, when my Nanny woke up and shuffled in her housecoat into the kitchen.  I don't remember ever seeing him eat anything but peanuts until dinnertime.  I'm sure he did; I just don't remember it. 

Every day my Poppy had to leave the house.  I don't know why, he just did.  After he passed, my Great Uncle, his twin came from Ohio to Georgia for the funeral.  His wife told my mom, just in passing, that Uncle Richard left the house every day.  It's interesting to me how connected twins can be.  I definitely get that trait from him, I get itchy staying in all day.  I guess at 70 it's worse.  Those days were great, he'd say 'Jessica, let's go' and I'd just go, never really knowing where we were going.  The most I remember was going to Battles, the grocery store.  It was in a little strip mall, and sometimes we'd walk down.  I remember a book store was there, and at the store he'd say, 'pick something out', and so I'd ask for a book, and he'd say, 'Naw, how about a candy bar or something'.  So I'd get a candy bar.  I've gone through many thoughts as to why he said this, starting at 10, he didn't want to wait for me to pick out a book, at 20, he didn't care about reading (not true btw), at 30, books are fricken expensive and that stuff adds up WAY faster than candy bars!

The best thing I remember about my Poppy was that he loved his family, sometimes to a fault, but always with his whole heart.  He didn't always know how to show it, but it was there.  I'm glad I met my Poppy after everyone was out of the house and he was retired.  He was always extremely blunt; when the movie "Pearl Harbor" was released he was invited to see the premiere in downtown Atlanta.  When he was interviewed for The Atlanta Journal Constitution, the reporter asked him what he thought of the movie.  He said, "I don't know about all that love stuff, but that's how it happened, you just picked up whatever gun you could find and started shooting."  That pretty much sums him up.  The truth, just the truth, and nothing but the truth.  He was a much softer man than I hear about in stories, and he wasn't lovey dovey or outwardly affectionate, but damn did that man make me feel special.  I loved him more than I could put into words. I miss him and my Nanny daily.  As anyone that has lost someone close to them can attest; ten years later it still hurts that he's gone. 

So my Poppy was many things.  A father.  A husband.  A veteran and American hero.  An idol.  And if I could give my son any gift in the world, I'm so glad I gave him the gift of naming him after such an amazing man.

and so it begins...

I've always wanted to write.  I, of course, always thought that my English papers were stellar; my teachers may or may not have agreed, but that could have had something to do with my hatred of research, inability to concentrate on proper MLA format, and all around self righteousness.  The fact that one of my favorite author's is J D Salinger, who writes in a stream of consciousness that befuddles even the best critics, probably has something to do with the distaste for my writing.  Although I may do my best, emulating his writing style is difficult to say the least.  The best part of blogging though could just be that I don't have to sit and write that novel I've had in my head for the last five years, I can just put my opinion out there and see what happens.  Considering the random shooting thoughts that cross my brain on a daily basis, I should warn the content you follow may or may not make sense day to day, but then again, I've been known to spend 3 hours with someone and not complete a conversation.  I do have to thank my very good friend Jeanne McCullough (follow her at Adventuresinmommyhood2009.blogspot.com) for encouraging me.  The second best part of blogging?  All of my friends and family can read my rants and raves and not have to listen to my incessant opinions of everything.  Of course, nothing is off limits so here's to hoping I don't offend anyone!

Side note: I double space after periods.  Deal.