Happy belated 17th birthday, Jay

 I was in Florida for Jay's birthday.  When I got home I had the family over to celebrate.  I seriously can't believe my 5 lbs baby boy is 17 and even more mind boggling is he will be 18 next year.  Time has gone way too fast.

 We discovered a bakery in Tremont that makes cakes.  One of Nick's teachers owns the bakery.  It is our new favorite bakery.  They made Jay's cake and we loved it.  It was so yummy!

 Luke had to help Jay blow our his candles.  Luke is such a ham.  He will be nine next month.

 My Aunt Karen and Uncle Kerry came and brought their new dog, Heidi.  She was as sweet as she could be.  We all loved her.

 The best picture of the night is of my mom feeding Cole.  This is a HUGE no no in our house but my mom has a big soft spot for Cole.  She secretly gives him food from the table and then blames her stroke for doing it.  Nice try, mom!

Nick playing with Jocelyn.  It's always so nice to have my cousin, Michelle and my aunt and uncle come to our family events.

As for Jay, he is doing quite well these days minus the unfortunate incident in December (which has been dealt with and is behind us....kind of).  What I love about him is he never gets too worked up about things.  He's able to brush things off and move on.  He is proving to be a good judge of character.  I love, love, love the relationship between Jay and his dad.  They are tight, those two. It's fun to see how they tease one another, especially as each of them ages.
Seventeen is such a great year. He's right on the cusp of so many things!  I am excited for what this next year will bring for Jay.

Sanibel Island

 This fall my mom's friend, Kay, asked if mom and us girls wanted to rent her condo for a week in January in Sanibel Island.  We were all hesitant.  Mom had suffered her 2nd stroke on Sept. 26 and October and November were hard months for us.  Mom wrote Kay a check for the condo in November and all of us held our breath and crossed our fingers we would be able to go.  As we approached the big day we all felt good about the trip.  Kim was the perfect pre-travel care giver, making sure mom had all of her diabetic supplies and pills before we left.  On the day we left mom was wearing her same travel suit (see picture above) that she wore in April on our trip to Texas!  Doesn't mom look fantastic?  She had an awesome time in Sanibel and so did Kim and I.  The Lord blessed us immeasurably with this trip.  It was exactly what the three of us needed.  It gave us time to connect with one another, laugh with one another, and relax (boy did we relax!).  We had no agenda and no schedule.  Kim and I joked that as long as the sun was out, we were soaking it up and by noon we usually made our first cocktail.  Needless to say I will be drying out this week, ha!

 On our first Saturday in FL, we stayed with mom's friend, Marcia.  We woke up that morning and it was gorgeous.  Kim and I took a walk together to get coffee.  For two girls who have lived their entire lives in Illinois, to wake up in mid-January to sun and a temperature of 65 is mind blowing especially knowing our families were back home dealing with a huge snow storm.  This trip confirmed how much I hate winter.  I get it, hate is a strong word but this girl is over cold Illinois winters.  I intend to spent the next 10-15 years figuring out how Mike and I can move somewhere warm in retirement - permanently!  Ha!

 Mom and her sweet friend, Marcia!  Marcia and her husband, Jim, were so warm and kind.  They cooked for us, housed us and let us use their pool.  It was a wonderful way to begin our trip.  Notice all the sun in these pictures.  It didn't rain once on our trip.  Everyday it was at least 65 degrees and sunny!  What a blessing!

 We even got in some therapy while in Florida, although not much.  I'm sure it was nice for mom and Kim to not have to think about therapy - the first time in 7 months!

 One morning we got up and went to a farmer's market.  It was a unique farmers market.  Once again the weather was beautiful.  This farmers market had desserts, fruit, veggies, home remedies and even clothing.

 We didn't spend a lot of time at the beach, mostly because it was a pain to drag all our stuff, but the few times we went, we had a great time.

 We spent a lot of time in and at the pool.  Sadly our own condo's pool was closed so we used another condo's pool.  We quickly learned, however, if we wanted "good" sun we had to get there in the morning because by 2pm the tree line prohibited any good sun.  Bo-hoo.  Kim and I would usually head back to our condo and set up lawn chairs in the yard.  Yep, we were "those people."

 Kay, Mom and Kim.  I love this picture because everyone looks so happy and we were!  One of my best memories from the trip was on our first day.  We had left Marcia's and we're on our way to Sanibel.  As I drove over the bridge to Sanibel, the sun was shining, the water was glistening, the sun roof on our rental car was open and there was a comfortable breeze.  Kim was navigating the route for me and my mom was in the back seat with a huge smile on her face as she exclaimed, "I'm just happy!"  And we all were.  

 One of my favorite pictures from our trip!  We all loved the tree in the background.  It had to be at least 200 years old.

 Kay, Mom and Jan.  It was a treat to have mom's friends on this trip.  Kim and I enjoyed getting to know them better and mom enjoyed chatting with them.

 Our last night on the Island we went to the beach to watch the sunset.  We all got a little too much sun our last day.  As Kim and I went to bed that night she said, "I feel a little crispy!"  And crispy we were but so worth it.  Ha.

 One morning (so that it didn't get in the way of our sun time) we rented a quad bike and went bird watching.  Faith Russell went with us as she is the bird expert.  This was probably our one adventure that didn't quite go as planned.  Mom's blood sugar took a nose dive and despite our protests mom pedaled the bike which wore her out quickly and didn't help her blood sugar.  But we did it and we took the picture as evidence that we got it accomplished.  Ha.

 We ate at The Bubble Room!  What a memorable dinner that was.  I'll never forget my sister enjoying her meal and then regretting it but acknowledging it was worth every bite.  She came home that evening and could hardly move and was snoring by 8:00.  Most nights Kim and I would stay up and laugh together but not on this particular night.  One thing Kim and I laughed about all week was how this was our "Shady Pines Vacation."  Shady Pines is a fictional retirement home referenced on "The Golden Girls."  Kim and I might have been some of the youngest people on the Island by like 30 years!  We were surrounded by retirement age people and we loved it.  We said our "Shady Pines Vacation" was our best yet!  We loved the quietness of it all and no one was ever in a rush.  Plus on nights when we crawled into bed at 8:00 (which was most nights) we didn't feel guilty.  We figured half the Island had already been asleep for a good hour already.

Thanks mom for a wonderful vacation!  It was such a lovely time.  I could go on and on but truly this vacation will forever hold a special place in my heart, Kim's heart and Mom's!

The disconnect

I have always been honest in my blog, but this may reveal a little more honesty than what I'm use to because it demonstrates flaws, brokenness in me as a mother and some cracks in my family.  That being said I believe that any parent who is specifically parenting pre-teens or teenagers can relate to what I'm going to write about.  The past few years have been stressful.  2018 was the hardest year of my adult life.  Over the past six to eight months I've noticed my family retreating to different areas of the house.  Most evenings when we are not running around like chickens with our heads cut off you can find Mike in the living room watching T.V.  Jay retreats to his room to watch Netflix.  Nick goes to his room to watch youtube videos.  It's not that I think this is terrible, but as with most things, it requires balance, and I believe our balance with this has been out of sync.  I believe all four of us require and appreciate down time, alone.  In order to cope with the stress I was under this year, most nights you could find me in bed at 8:00 binge watching Netflix.  I can't remember the last time I read a great book.  All four of us are guilty of having our attention devoted to our electronic devices.  I can't tell you how many times a day I check facebook.  We got a basketball hoop two months ago.  Nick often asks me to shoot hoops with him.  I usually find an excuse not to.  It's been too cold (which is actually true, Nick is like an eskimo), I am too tired, blah, blah, blah.  The truth is I've been exhausted by life to put forth much effort into connecting with my kids.  I know we are doing fine as a family but is fine really good enough?  I think not.  I'm afraid much of our conversations have become mundane and watered down in content.  As a family we continue to have once a week family dinners together.  I tell my boys I love them everyday and I ask them how their days are.  I monitor their grades on line.  Isn't that what a good parent does?  Our home is a happy one.  We share many laughs together.  I'm confident Mike, Jay and Nick would all agree with everything I just wrote.  However, I know we can be better and do better, especially me.  As the mother of 2 boys I take a lot of abuse.  My family gets a lot of laughs at my expense.  I am good humored about this, mostly, but this past year it was easier to accept that abuse at face value and retreat farther away from my family, making myself believe that when I'm not spending time with them, that's just the way they like it, and I don't have to listen to them complain about my cooking, my driving, asking too many questions, etc....
My eyes were opened because of a wonderful friend and conversation with my husband.  All of the sudden I realized my family unit is completely disconnected from one another.  When I go back in my memory to the last time I felt truly connected to my family it was the summer of 2015 (before all hell broke lose).  We went to a Christian camp together - a camp that we share laughs about now, but a camp that no one in my family would deny how connected we were that week.  What a pitiful realization, that it's been 3 1/2 years since I was truly connected to my family.  However, during the challenges I've faced over the years I've learned guilt has no place in my heart.  As a human and as a parent all you can do is recognize the problem, dust yourself off, give yourself some grace and move forward in a way that is better than before.

I realized the person I feel most disconnected to in my family is Jay.  He will be 17 next week.  He's in our home for another 18 months, and after that, it's fair game.  I can feel time slipping through my fingers, in a race to get things right with him.  With all the stress this year, it has been easy for me to take a back seat with Jay.  He recoils when I touch him and he grunts when I talk to him.  I have been too tired to dig deeper with him.  I'm confident there is more there with Jay, but it requires a connection with him.  I've committed to spending time with Jay once a month under a no phone zone policy.  When I proposed this to Jay, he was miffed.  I was taking time out of his schedule, time that he didn't have (or so he thought).  Yes, I used force.  I told him he had no choice in the matter.  His only choice was whether we went out for ice cream or dinner.  He opted for ice cream, probably less painful in his mind but it turned out to be a nice start, an opening we needed to make this commitment work.  We left our phones in the car and had to talk to each other without checking our phones every 5 minutes and glory be, who knew, we conversated, and dare I say it was enjoyable for both of us, and since that day I have witnessed Jay ever so slowly warming.  I asked Jay things he wished I would change.  His answer was simple, I try too hard.  I figured there were worse things he could have pointed out.  My goal is simple.  I want to connect with Jay.  I want him to know that he is my priority, even though I have not done a great job of demonstrating that this year.  It's funny how what is easy can become habitual, clouding priorities that were once so important.

As for Nick I intend on shooting hoops with him and playing ping pong with him as often as possible.  While it's true the weather needs to warm up a bit for this momma to be out shooting hoops, I'll think twice the next time I'm faced with an option of watching Netflix over a good match of ping pong.

2019 Priorities

I saw this the other day on social media and I loved it.  I resolved not to set any resolutions this year.  I wasn't kidding when I said I simply needed to breathe, rest and laugh this year, but when I saw this I just knew I had to blog about it and then try to act on it.  It took a word and applied it to every letter in the alphabet.  I find that during the course of an entire year I can apply most of these words to many things in my daily life.  I am making a list of them and as the year goes on I will come back to them and blog about how I was able to apply them.
A - Appreciate
B - Build something
C-Connect
D-Do what is difficult
E - Explore
F-Forgive
G- Gather
H - Honor
I - Ignore the skeptics
J - Just be
K - Know you are loved
L - Listen
M - Make
N - Nourish body and soul
O- Observe
P - Plant a seed
Q - Question
R - Read
S - Stretch
T - Try something new
U - Unplug
V - Vote
W - Wonder
X - Express your gratitude
Y - Say yes to adventure
Z - Get some Zzzz's

NYE 2018

 On Saturday, Dec. 29 my family got to the airport bright and early.  We boarded our plane, got comfortable and then learned the flight was cancelled due to a maintenance issue with the plane.  I get that it's better to be safe than sorry but we were scrambling to find another flight out that would still get us to Texas well before New Years Eve.  Thankfully we got a flight out the morning of Dec. 30.  We lost a day but we were all just happy to be together to ring in another year together, as we've always done.

 On Dec. 31 the three older kids went to Six Flags.  The weather was beautiful but sadly the park was packed.  So packed that they only rode one or two rides and came home.

 It was 60 on Dec. 31.  Nick went bare chested, of course.  I love this picture of Sieb and Nick.

 On NYE Sieb started doing what he does best - cooking!  He made twice baked potatoes, Italian stuffed flank steak and meatloaf packed in an onion (Curt's pick).  The food was delicious and the company was even better!  We sure shared a lot of laughs around that island on NYE.

 I'm not sure what Mike and Nick are laughing about in this picture but they were cracking up.

 About 9pm on NYE these ya-hoos took the "polar plunge."  It was freezing, but they did it.

 Faith and Curt are home in IL for the week.  They are spending some much needed time with friends.

Until next time Ausili's!  We sure loved our super quick trip.  As always, it felt just like old times.

Reflections

I'm late in posting about our NYE because we just got home from Texas.  I'll post pictures in a separate blog.  Due to my poor choice in picking a good book, I had time on our flight to TX to reflect on 2018.  As I gazed about the plane cabin I saw my family scattered about in the plane, as I have learned that booking economy is the best bang for our buck, but more than that I am once again reminded of how life can change in an instant.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I'd be putting someone in my family on a plane every 3 to 4 months to visit our dearest friends, who moved 12 hours away.  Although Ausili's and our family miss each other dearly I am confident this is just another story for our memory books.  The boys will remember camp fires in IL and plane rides (and lots of them to TX) where Jenny made sausage bread for breakfast and the late night dips in the pool.  I am beyond grateful all eight of us could ring in 2019 together.
As I enter 2019 I am still grieving the loss of my dad, but I was truly joyful this Christmas knowing he was in heaven.  It gave me great comfort knowing he didn't have to spend another Christmas in the nursing home.  Praise be to God for that!
I never could have foreseen my mother having not one but two strokes and I never would have imagined it would have happened four months after my dads death.  Every time I am with my mom I am grateful.  Every time I hear her voice over the phone I am thankful.  With every step she has taken in her recovery I am delighted.  It is true that this summer, Sept. and October were challenging but by November mom had gotten her groove back and was slowly starting to do things that she did before.
During every hard climb this year it might have been hard to see the blessings through all the blood, sweat and tears (many, many tears) but at years end when I had caught my breath I could easily see the blessings.  My mom is alive, biggest blessing of all.  My mom, sister and I are closer than we've ever been and without my mom's stroke, our relationship between the three of us would still be what I would like to call as "medicore."  God clearly had bigger and better plans for us.  Doesn't He always?  Kim, mom and I are very close to my Aunt Karen.  Kim and I were always close to Karen but it's been a joy to witness the beautiful relationship form between my aunt and her brother's (X) wife.  I'm thankful God provided financially for Kim and I.  Kim was able to take the year off to help care for mom and I was able to finish home projects that had been lingering for 15 years.  Clearly the financial piece for Kim is way more meaningful than mine but trust me, when you live in a house that is half finished for 15 years, it starts to grate on you a bit.  After experiencing the year I have my home brought me some joy during times of deep sorrow.  It's given me pleasure to see things finally come to fruition.  I am also thankful for the financial resources to visit Ausili's.  I don't know how often we will see them in the years to come but I knew the first year they were gone I'd have to allow myself the time and finances to see them.  It was and has been good for my mental health to visit them on a regular basis.
I do not intend on setting any new years resolution.  My only goal for this year is to simply breath, relax and laugh.