My Excuse

Lately I never seem to get my shit together enough at a decent hour and blog. I have come up with the reason for my bloglessness, It's Gages fault.( he made me love him) Nevermind that women with several more kids and dogs running under their feet manage to keep up almost daily. Maybe it is that for 3 weeks I have had him most of the time. On Superbowl Sunday (he was with me Saturday) about sunset as Joe and I were grilling a couple of steaks, the phone rang. I could tell by the ring I swear. It was my son Joey( you remember that son right?) I could hear Gage screaming in the background "I want my grandma!". He had opened the door over his toenail and you know how that hurts. Since they recently moved out here to La Luz and live about 3 minutes away I told them to bring him to me. He stayed till 9 or 10 and then went home to bed. Since Joey works a 4 day week I am off on Fridays. Well I used to be. Joey has been remodeling their bathroom and needs Gage to be away. Power tools and all, it is understandable.Even when I don't have him I end up going to get him. 2 weeks ago Heather (oldest daughter) and Sara (middle daughter)Joe ,Cady and I took all the little guys to see a cool dinosaur display at the mall. Gage was terrified at first. He stuck to grandpa. When they were fighting last week I told them to leave Gage with us over night. So even though they are not doing what some of my friends kids do at every chance,"the dumping of the grandkids", he ends up with Joe and I alot. I love him too much and love to be loved so much in return. I never want him to prefer my house to his home. Right now it seems I need a break. I was counting the minutes today until Mommy arrived. My writing skilz are not the best, as I bring up from time to time, but I want to just let that go and get down to some blogging. So please ignore all the missing punctuation or wrongly placed commas. Although it is hard for me to ignore. I cannot get Gage to nap anymore unless I lay down too. That used to be when I could write a bit. If I lay down to get him asleep then I am the one who ends up asleep. So he left an hour ago and Joe and Cady just left for the weekly Fire Dept meeting and I am ALONE. My birthday is this week-end and my daughter Sara is taking me to lunch tomorrow. I am so excited and surprised. Of my kids, it has always been just Heather who goes and does anything special for me. I feel lucky when they don't forget. In the last 3 months I have lost about 35 lbs and I have only just noticed that I can fit into my old clothes that I love. Another 35 and I will be happy. I have alot more energy I can tell you that. I still have never done my list of 100 things. With that in mind I will tell you a couple things that are on the list. When I was 17 I hitch hiked to Calif with a couple of my friends and lived in Riverside for 2 yrs. One of the friends I went out there with ended up being my boyfriend was Jody. We rented the bottom floor of an old victorian home. It was about 5 or 6 of us and whoever came out from New Mexico to stay. I got pregnant and gave birth April 17th 1971. We had a little boy. He was beautiful. When he was 3 weeks old he seemed sick. I ran (for real, we had no car) him to the dr. They sent us to the hospital and it was awful. he was having a hard time getting his breath. They were asking me stupid questions like what yr did I graduate and all that other personal info to check him in. After I freaked out they sent someone to get the baby into the exam room. That was the last time I held him. When I saw him next he was hooked up to machines and his tiny chest rose and fell with the respirator. I was the youngest of all the people living at our house. Most were hippy school teachers and one a chemist. They all were there with Jody and I. As we waited for word we noticed a family seated across from us. After a while it became clear they were waiting for the birth of their first baby and grandchild. At 10 that night they came out and told us our baby was going to die. He had a heart condition that could not be helped. A heart valve was not developing and growing along with the rest of the heart. It was fine until he began to grow and then it could not keep up. At that point is when they put the baby by the nursery window for us to watch. I took one look and never looked again. They told us we could go home and they would call us when he was gone. How awful I thought. We stayed. He passed away just after midnight. My boyfriend and baby daddy was Jody. He never could remember my birthday or much else back then. That was 37 yrs ago and he and I have been like brother and sister for most of the years since. He was found on a street corner in France when he was 18 mo old and adopted by his parents who were military. His folks are both gone now and I am all he has in the way of family going back many years. He is always the first person to call me on my birthday every year. His daughter and Cady are almost exactly the same age. They have decided that they share a brother and that they are real sisters. He and his family come once a year and stay and we all have a great time. Why this story? I was thinking about my birthday and how Jody always remembers. Here are 2 pictures of the old house and some of the people that lived or hung out there. Thats Jody on the bed and on the porch wearing overalls. Even back then I was the one who took all the pictures.