Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for November, 2009
Sycamore or bust
We made a quick trip to Sycamore…went up yesterday, and came back this afternoon. It was so good to visit Grandma and Grandpa…The kids had been there earlier in the fall, but I hadn’t been up there in forever!
The kids and I got there about 11:00, just in time for me to hop in with Rod and Ryan to go to DeKalb for one of Curtis’s basketball games. C plays on the Freshman team, and they had a tournament all weekend. I was glad that I got to go to the game. It’s one of those things that I used to do all the time in my old Sycamore life, so it was nice to be able to be at one of the boys’ events again. Curtis got some playing time, and they even won the game!
While the grownups were at the game, Grandma, Brett, Ben & Emma all decorated Grandma and Grandpa’s tree. Since they’re leaving for Florida on the 10th, it is a very small tree, but at least they have one. Grandpa told Grandma earlier this week, “We’ve had a real tree for 49 years…we’re not going to miss a year now!” So he went and got a little tree and set it up so they would not miss out on having some Christmas spirit in their house.
After the game, everyone went to Grandma & Grandpa’s house and we ordered pizza and had birthday cake for Grandpa. Of course my kids were very into that. They’re suckers for a rousing version of “Happy Birthday”. Most of all, though, they had so much fun playing with their cousins. It’s getting more and more fun being with the entire family now that the kids are getting older. Even Emma joined in with some of the games we were playing. Of course, “Little Miss Me Too” couldn’t do a lot of the things Ben could, and that was frustrating to her. But it’s definitely getting easier to keep them both entertained.
It was a fun trip, although short trip. When we left today, Ben said, “I wish we could stay at Grandma Judy’s longer, because there’s a lot of stuff we didn’t do yet!” I had to smile at that one. I’m pretty sure he’d feel that way even if we had been there a week. There’s always fun stuff to do at Grandma Judy’s.
I didn’t really think about it when we left this afternoon, but today may have been the last time we’re at Grandma & Grandpa’s house until next spring. Each year I think it will get easier to have them gone for the entire winter, but so far it hasn’t. I’m pretty sure it never will.
Ahh…I love me some Thanksgiving
Last Thanksgiving I wrote about how thankful I am for all of the blessings in my life…and at the top of that list of blessings sit my loving husband and wonderful kids. So this year I thought I should probably change it up a little bit for my Thanksgiving post. Unfortunately, I can’t even pretend that I am thankful for anything more than Dave, Emma & Ben. They truly make my heart full and my life complete.
I hope that anyone who reads this blog has the same kind of happiness I feel on a daily basis. Sure, the kids make me crazy sometimes, and Dave and I bicker more than I’d like, but my life is truly filled with three monumental blessings.
I hope that I can always remember how lucky I am when the little stuff gets in the way.
I truly am thankful, but not just on this Thanksgiving night.
- I am thankful when I have to get up in the middle of the night to someone yelling, “MOMMY!”
- I am thankful when I and trying to get dinner on the table and someone’s at my side begging for attention.
- I am thankful when I’m the only one who can stop the fights, the fits, or the tears.
- I am thankful for the arms thrown around me every day for giant hugs.
- I am thankful for the millions of smiles and giggles that fill up this house.
- I am thankful that I get to hear, “I love you” absolutely every day of the year.
I’ll say it again…Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. I hope you stay thankful all year, too.
Happy birthday, Grandpa!
Even though we didn’t get to spend Thanksgiving with you this year, we all wish you a very happy birthday today and we really can’t wait to see you tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll have some birthday cake then so we can sing “Happy Birthday” to you. Emma was very sad that we didn’t get to today.
You’re the best…hope your birthday was, too. 71 never looked so good! 
Fun times at NCHS
The NCHS Family, Career and Consumer Leaders of America (FCCLA…what used to be called FHA) sponsors a babysitting night at the high school once per month as a fundraiser. We’ve debated taking the kids before, but to be honest, we get most of our babysitting for free, so it’s sometimes hard to shell out the cash for it. But tonight I decided that it was finally the right time. I thought the kids would have fun there, I knew Dave and I could use the time for more Christmas shopping, and of course it’s a great cause. So off to the high school we went tonight at 5:00 p.m.
It’s always so funny to take the kids somewhere in the evening. Of course it’s already dark at 5:00, and they think that means it’s late. Emma said, “Ooo…it’s VEWY wate!” as soon as we pulled out of the garage, even though we hadn’t had dinner yet. Cracks me up. Ben was so thrilled that we were going to his ”old preschool”, and as soon as we got inside the room they both bee-lined it to the toys and forgot all about us. I was a little concerned about Emma being happy the whole time we were gone. Lately she’s been a bit of a mama’s girl, and I wasn’t sure that she’d make it through the whole night.
Three hours later we returned to the high school to pick them up, and of course neither of them wanted to go home. They had such a great time playing with new toys and with other kids. Ben’s face was beet red from running around with two other 4 year-old boys. I should have known that we’d have nothing to worry about…except getting them out the door to go home. That wasn’t an easy task. It was a great night for all of us. Dave and I got almost finished Christmas shopping for the kids, the kids had way more fun than they would have at home with us, and the FCCLA got a donation to help fund their trip to the state convention. Well worth the $20 it cost us.
Early shopping
I have never been an early Christmas shopper. I like shopping when I’m in the Christmas spirit. And it super annoys me when people skip over Thanksgiving…my favorite holiday of the year. But this year, since we’re leaving for Florida on the 18th, I feel more urgency and stress surrounding our holidays. So this afternoon Dave and I started shopping for the kids. We went to Farm & Fleet with the intention of simply browsing and getting ideas, but we ended up getting several gifts for the kids that we think they will love. We also got a few gifts for some friends, and more importantly, we got organized. That helped me calm down a lot. Later, while grocery shopping, I even picked up some stocking stuffers! Me…buying stocking stuffers in November…when it’s still fall outside and our Christmas lights, while already hung due to nice weather, will not be turned on until the day after Thanksgiving. Unheard of!
I still hate shopping early, and I did miss shopping while being caught up in the spirit of the holidays. But you gotta do what you gotta do, and if being ready to leave on December 18th means I have to shop early, I’ll gladly do it.
Girl time
Tonight I got to have some serious girl time. My friend Amy, who used to teach with at NCHS with us but has since moved with her family to Fargo, ND, came back to Normal for a visit. A bunch of women from work got together at another friend’s house, and as always we had a very fun time.
Since I don’t get girl time very often anymore, I think I cherish it even more than ever. It was so nice to have Amy in town, and I know that some of her older friends were so estatic to see her. As much as I enjoyed the time together, though, it really made me miss my old girlfriends even more. While I have definitely made some great friends here, I still don’t have that close-knit group of friends like I used to. Don’t get me wrong, I really do love my life here. I just long for some of the girl time I used to get.
Gloomy, dreary, rainy, and blah
Today was truly the most gray and depressing day I can remember in a very long time. It was either pouring rain or misty and foggy the entire day and I swear it looked like it was 4:30 in the afternoon at 8:00 am.
On the way home from Danielle’s this afternoon I said to Ben, “Boy, it sure is gloomy outside today.”
“What does gloomy mean?” Ben asked.
I said, “Buddy, look out your window right now…you see how gray and rainy and sad it looks outside?”
“Yeah,” he said, “And it looks really WET.”
“Right,” I said. “THAT’s what gloomy means.”
“Mama,” he said (lately he often refers to me as Mama for some unknown reason), “I think I like sunny days more than gloomy days.”
“Me too,” I said.
Truer words have never been spoken. I usually suffer from some seasonal depression in February and/or March, but it’s never started this early before. I hope we see some more sun very soon because this grayness is really starting to get to me. I love working in a room that has a wall full of windows, but with weather like this, it can also be tough to handle watching it all day!
Scariest conference ever
This afternoon my co-worker Caroline and I attended a professional workshop about Internet safety. Truly, this could have been one of the most worrisome workshops I’ve ever attended. The woman who presented to us was from the state’s attorney’s office in Springfield. Her job is to work on Internet safety prevention in school and with young people. The information she had for us, and even more so the statistics she had to share, were staggering. Cyberbullying is growing at such an astonishing rate that it’s now reported that 1 in 4 teens have been harassed, embarrassed, teased, and/or bullied in some digital format, and only 20% of these teens report the abuse. Cyberbullying has grown so much because it can all be anonymously, and the bully never has to see the actual reaction of the victim, which is often the only thing that makes bullies stop.
It’s so hard to be a teenager these days. One of the points our speaker made really hit home with me. When we were teenagers, there was a built-in filter for many forms of communication that just don’t exist today. For example, we had to get to know our friends’ parents, because when we called their house, the parents answered. Also, we wouldn’t ever take pictures of anything really incriminating, because we knew that those pictures had to be developed in a store, and strangers would see them. Currently, kids have complete peer-to-peer contact at all times. The natural filters are just gone.
Hearing the information presented in this workshop was important, but kind of depressing for me. I hope that we can pass the information along to our staff in a way that will convey the true danger of all of this instant communication. It’s really an important issue in education today.
Another warm Saturday=neighborhood fun
It was gorgeous outside again today, which is crazy considering it’s November. But we certainly took advantage of it, and we spent almost the entire afternoon outside playing. In the summer, we play outside almost every night with our neighborhood friends. But those days are becoming fewer and far between, so it was great to spend so much time with them again.
The biggest attraction today was sidewalk chalk. All of the kids were totally into it. They drew words, they scribbled big sections of colors, and they drew pictures. I even joined in, because let’s face it…there’s not much better than drawing with sidewalk chalk on a warm fall afternoon. The kids were all covered with chalk, and it was a really awesome afternoon. Hopefully this warm weather will hold on so we can stretch fall out a little bit longer.
