and life goes on

It's busy at our house these days. Our daughter Aimee and grandchildren Gaige, Nathan, and Kaitlyn are living with us temporarily (since Christmas) while she is going through a divorce. It's been a rough ten+ years for her, and sometimes for the kids. She married very young, one month before Gaige was born. She was headstrong and was drawn to the bad boy persona in young men. Unfortunately, what age and wisdom and actually living with a person day in and day out brings is the knowledge that bad boys don't treat women with respect. They don't hold down jobs. They care more about themselves than they do the people whom they claim to love. They don't accept responsibility for their own actions, always blaming someone else for their mistakes and wrongdoing. They possess, rather than love. They have violent tempers.

I love having my daughter back. She's her old self again...the person she had suppressed for many years...the wickedly funny, extremely intelligent girl she used to be. The woman who for so long was allowed only the friends chosen by her husband, ones he could control. She has reconnected with so many of her childhood and teenage friends, friends whom SHE chose. She's back in school, getting a degree in nuclear medicine technology and doing great...getting all A's. I can have lunch or go shopping with my daughter whenever I want, something that hasn't happened in all those years. She is a part of our family once again. She is finally getting her life together. I have my daughter back!

Christmas was hard. We went through the motions and even enjoyed parts of it, but it was so different. I didn't send Christmas cards for the first time in forty years. A friend to whom I hadn't spoken since before Christmas pinpointed the reason for me yesterday...it was because I couldn't take the annual grandkids family portrait. There were no raucous and crazy portrait sessions as in years past. I know it wasn't fair to the other kids, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. There would have been too big a hole.

That space will be filled just a little come June. Jaye and Kelly are expecting a son! We are all so happy for them. They hurried just a little, because of Kelly's age (she's 42), and because they don't want Matthew to grow up an only child. He is so lonely. He clings to Kaitlyn when she visits. Aimee let her spend the weekend with them last week and she and Matt had a great time. But when it came time for her to come home, it was devastating for Matthew. He cried and cried, begging her not to leave. We're hoping this new baby will bring some solace and comfort to them...to all of us. We will celebrate his birth with joy.

Meanwhile, we're still waiting on justice to prevail. The driver who killed Lauren was charged with vehicular homicide and vehicular manslaughter, but after the arraignment, the prosecutor received the records from her cell phone company and they confirmed that she was texting at the time of the crash. Also, the crime scene investigators finally determined her speed...70 mph on impact. Jaye had started moving his vehicle, but was going only 10 mph. The prosecutor is hoping to use the new evidence to bump the charge up to aggravated vehicular homicide, which is a felony in Ohio, and carries a much more commensurate sentence. We have hope that the judge will actually apply the sentence, instead of giving her a slap on the wrist. There have been two similar cases in Ohio recently where the judges have cracked down on this kind of behavior and given the maximum sentence. I know that no amount of time in jail will bring our Lauren back, but maybe it will prevent someone else from being killed. Maybe our state legislature will pull their heads out of their collective ass and get a bill passed that prohibits texting while driving; indeed, prohibits all cell phone use while driving. It's not that hard to do. I've given it up, and so has my entire family. I was never a texter while I was driving, but I did do a lot of catch-up phoning to family and friends. I don't even miss it. It is actually rather freeing.

Our winter has been fairly mild so far. Kind of a crazy December and January with lots of rain. In fact, Ohio's all-time precipitation record was broken in 2011. I wish we could have sent some of that rain to the drought-stricken states. Of course, we still have two months of winter to look forward to, and our February is usually much worse than January, so I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities to scrape the driveway and shovel the sidewalks. We had a wood-burning fireplace insert installed in October, and we've been enjoying the wonderful heat, which is sometimes a little too wonderful. Thanksgiving Day I spent cooking in shorts and a t-shirt with the kitchen window wide open, while my  in-laws huddled around the wood-burner with three layers of clothes. And it was 65 degrees outside. Lordy!

David retired in September after 37 years with the same company. They gave him a wonderful send-off. He loves being home, and I love having him at home. The only bad thing is that he started falling apart nearly as soon as the ink dried on his severance papers. He has been having severe pain in his right hip and pain in his back. After trying his primary doctor, and then an osteopath, who weren't able to help him, he finally saw an orthopedic specialist last week. The cartilage in his right hip joint is completely gone. He will be having a total hip replacement this spring. He's also seeing a neurologist/spine specialist tomorrow to rule out any spinal problems. He's very upbeat about the hip surgery. Everyone we've talked to who has had it done or knows someone who has, says it improves their lives about 99%. David has been so used to being active and doing whatever he wants, that this has been a real setback for him, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to get back to his normal self. He has been looking forward to his retirement for several years, and we have a lot of travel plans, and he wants to be able to do all those things and enjoy life. I guess I will get to polish up my nursing skills.  It will make up for the times when I rolled my eyes behind his back after listening to him go on and on about it. No, really. Endlessly. All. Day. Long.  I feel bad about it. Don't tell him.

I feel terrible that I haven't visited my wonderful bloggy friends nearly as much as I wanted. I've popped in on a few of you, and I've read more than I've commented. I'm hoping to return full-force to blogging after the dust settles around here. It's a little hard for the elderly to concentrate with three kids in the house, and then there's the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning, etc. It feels good to write this though, so I know I'm not finished with my story. Not yet.


ADDENDUM:  I found out yesterday that the county prosecutor will NOT be adding an aggravated vehicular homicide charge. Quoting from an email from my daughter-in-law to the texting ban bill advocate with whom I've been working.

"The county prosecutor's office believes that the text being the
same minute as the crash leaves it open for the assailant to say she
made the text after the crash. This would not be believable given her
statement there were no texts made before of after the crash. Also the
1st 911 call was at 1:48 and 37 seconds by a passerby on a bicycle. He
could dispute this as well.

"Also we see that H.B. 99 has opponents claiming that our
current "reckless laws" cover it and there is no need for another law.
Our case reflects that this simply is not the case. I don't think you
could get any closer than a 1:47 text with a 1:47 crash and for county
prosecutors to refuse it as a "recklessness" case based on "evidentiary
issues" is a disgrace."

 

 

Warning! Meltdown!

I picked up Gaige from school yesterday and was met in the carpool line by one of the teachers explaining why Gaige was crying. She said he had felt a little ill earlier, but that he wasn't running a fever. As Gaige entered the van, the trickle of tears turned into a torrent with dramatic sobbing following closely. Trying to deduce the cause of the meltdown while maneuvering out of the school parking lot was a little tricky. Between sobs and moans, I finally managed to glean the following information: everyone disrespected him, his leg bone was "twisted", and he was "really, really tired".

The total disrespect by his classmates was the result of them not wanting to play what Gaige suggested, so they went off and did their own thing while he stubbornly refused to change his position, as he is wont to do. The twisting of the leg bone (the opposite one was twisted the day before) I attributed to growing pains and was relieved after an hour's rest on the sofa and a dose of ibuprofen. So relieved, in fact, that he was able to chase his brother around the house and drive me crazy.

I'm pretty sure that exhaustion was the biggest factor in the meltdown. Adjusting to first grade takes a toll on a six-year-old boy. That, combined with not getting to sleep until 9:30 p.m. on the average night and waking up by 6:30 or 7:00, equates to not enough rest. Having homework every night for the first time has been a big adjustment as well. I'm hoping that in a few weeks all these new developments will be old hat to him and will make for smoother sailing.

I didn't have the camera with me to record the meltdown, but I found a picture of a similar one when Gaige was four.



When Jaye, Kelly and the kids were here last weekend, they went to the zoo. Lauren and Kelly are exploring the Habitat House.



Matthew was doing a little computer work with his dad, but then he got sleepy.

Hurricane Ike refugees

Since Tuesday, we've been harboring refugees from the remnants of Hurricane Ike. Jaye, Kelly, Lauren and Matthew have been staying with us because their power has been off since Sunday afternoon when the hurricane-force winds moved through Ohio and on to their final destination in Canada. The wind velocity measured at 75-90 mph. That is more than we experienced in Baton Rouge during Hurricane Andrew in 1992! I thought moving to the midwest would keep me safe from those kinds of storms, but apparently not. At least we didn't have to worry about storm surge as we are landlocked. And we didn't get a drop of rain out of it, although we could really use some.

Thank goodness, we didn't sustain any real damage to property or persons. Just a lot of tree limbs and branches in the yard, and about a gazillion hickory nuts. The squirrels will have a lot less work to do to store up for the winter.

The chickens aren't doing a lot of egg laying yet. I'm not sure what the problem is. Ruby is laying one egg a day since she started two weeks ago. Henrietta laid one egg a week ago and hasn't laid another one since. I've been keeping them penned up until at least noon so they will lay in the coop. Goldie, who I thought would be the first, hasn't laid a single egg yet. She sits on the nest often, but so far, nada. I hope she isn't eggbound. Several of the others are squatting for me, so maybe it's only a matter of days until I start getting more than one a day.

Ruby gave me one double-yolker last week! That was really exciting! Gaige got to eat that one.

Anyway, here are a bunch of photos to catch up the family on the grandkids.