Beneath the Wraps

Before Sunday Mom was laughing, she was walking and dressing herself. She was singing on Thursday as Harold accompanied on guitar. Sometime between four and six on Sunday morning she got out of her chair.   We don’t know why.   She may have been headed toward the bathroom.   Or perhaps she could feel the pain of a mild heart attack. She was checked on at four.   She was sleeping peacefully in her chair.   But when she was checked in on at six, she was found on the floor.   Her clothes were wet with urine and perspiration. She was loaded into an ambulance and rushed to the hospital.   Her legs were badly swollen.   She was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis   .   The infection spread into her legs and kidneys and heart probably. She’d been hooked up to machines and needles and was given cat scans, an MRI, a pick line and ...

          I generally drop Jenna off at school a half hour before she needs to be there.   I also arrive on the lot before all other cars so as to not fight school traffic.   Jenna has always taken her time walking to school or across the field.   When I am the driver who is picking her up, I welcome her dawdling.   In first grade we were always the last car to leave the parking lot. I HATE school traffic.                   Kayla was looking for a sitter for her two and as Jenna’s school is the same distance from their house as it is from my own,   I figured I could watch them at Kayla’s house and then pick up Jenna.   I should have left her house the minute that Kayla came home.           It’s been four years since I had lived in that same neighborhood and wasn’t taking into account that the school in that area lets out...

            When the boys were younger and left cereal boxes on the table, I would say to them, “If you don’t put the cereal away, I will.”             That actually sounded great to them until they realized that I would not be returning all of the cereal boxes to the cupboard.   If there was less than a forth of a box (or bag) left, I wouldn’t allow for it to have it’s own space.   I would combine the cereals into one container.    And I would not purchase more cereal until what ALL of the cereal was gone             The boys came to a fast realization that mixing TRIX, Raisin Bran and Sugar Puffs together was NOT cool.   (There was generally three to five flavors of combined cereals)   They learned rather quickly to put cereal away on their own.     ...

My mom once told me that the first purse that she ever owned was red and had a picture of a cow.  She was five. I don't know if that's actually when she became obsessed with having a purse with her at all times.   But they seemed to be a part of her when I was growing up.   Back then she had several purses – assorted shapes and colors.   I don’t know how often she changed them.   I know she went through many. As a child, I don’t think I paid attention to the weight of mom’s purse, but as an adult, I realized she was often toting around the equivalence of a bowling ball – I kid you not.   And some of the heaviest purses were also the smallest ones that she owned. Okay, maybe as a mom it does seem necessary to lug around an extra case of bandages, a pocket knife, a sewing kit, a comb, 40 pens (only two of them worked) , a fork, and even a hot dog – because you just never know.   Much of the weight was due to the pound and a half o...

We had planned on attending the Walden Family Reunion on Labor Day weekend.   Or at least I was.   Soon it was narrowed down to only Biff, Jenna and I as Roland said he would be working and although Randy had made arrangements to get time off from his previous job, he recently started another job which he would be working sometime during Labor Day weekend (though I think he could have gone to part of the reunion but chose not to I guess) So Friday Jenna gets in the car with this years fundraiser for the school.   $30 for a coupon book – or the idea of a coupon book with an actual card that you will use instead of the coupons?   It looks like a catalog of jumbled ideas thrown together and is actually harder to go through than sorting out the thoughts in my head (and that is saying A LOT!)   Jenna gets upset about every fundraiser – not for the same reasons that I get upset – never mind that no one we know has any money and that every other school is havi...