My Daughter....

My daughter, Mackenzie, just turned 5 last week.  My husband turns 36 tomorrow!

I'm so blessed to have the family that God gave me.

I look back 5 years ago and it's hard to believe that it's gone by so fast!  She was a complete surprise to both of us.  We were married 5 years, then we find out through order of elimination that we were expecting!!!  I was completely giddy, yet completely scared.  I had fears of screwing her up, not doing what I was supposed to do....and whatever else my feeble mind can conjur up!

Her very first day, she picked her head up off my shoulder and was looking around.  She was already wondering what was going on around her in this great big world.  She did hate the light, though.  It was just too bright for her little bright eyes. 

She screamed her head off for the first 3 months of her life.  Colic is a very strange thing.  Sometimes she would go the entire day screaming, but mostly she would wait until around 5 pm before she started screaming again....just about the time that daddy came home everyday. 

She never liked for us to leave her alone.  She was never interested in taking a nap until her little body just shut down on her and she was forced into an afternoon snooze. 

She loves music.  She used to sit at the piano before she was 1 and would play piano, turn the pages in music books and sing.  Even now, she's constantly singing something....a made-up song, or even a song from the radio.  She loves going to church because she gets to sing in the children's choir and sings along during our praise team rehearsals.

She's CONSTANTLY moving.  She will not/cannot sit still for any length of time!  Sometimes this quality drives us up the wall as she just makes us nervous!  She loves to make noise.....any kind of noise is fine with her.  Whether it's stomping around the house, yelling at Coco (the dog), doing her best impersonation of an opera singer, beating drumsticks on our exercise bike, or just laughing and playing with whatever little toy she has.  She really loves noise.

Some of my favorite sayings:

1. Calling her grandmama "franmama"
2. Saying something about being in "frouble" (trouble)
3. The other day she was talking to her daddy about the crickets chirping.  She said to him, "Those crickets aren't supposed to be making all that noise, they need to stop cricking".
4. Anytime she makes a sentence, she makes sure that she can use the word "Actually" in it...."actually, that is my chocolate milk," "Actually, my teeth are clean," "actually, I pooped in the potty today." 
5. When she prays at church..."Thank you God for my mom, my dad, Princess and Coco, my dog".  She used to say something very similar to that, but would add "Coco, my jumpy dog."
6. At home when she prays, she prays that mom and dad will feel safe.  I often wonder about that statement as if she knows something that we don't.....

Those are just a couple of things that I love about her.  I also love that she is a child of God, that she has a heart of gold for other people, that she has manners, that she loves MATH, and that she knows right from wrong. 

No matter how crappy a mother I can be at times, she will turn out ok with God's help!

My mom

Well, I've given you some insight on my dad and I and now it's time to focus on mom.

It really is a completely different story.  As far as I can remember, mom never really played with me.  Dad would always read me a bed time story, but I can't remember mom ever doing such.  I also remember dad would get up with me when I was sick.....like vomiting sick.  He would carry me to the bathroom and wash me down, clean my bed, redress it and lay me back down.  I don't ever remember my mom doing that.  Now it may be that she would get sick thinking about others get sick.  I know that's part of the reason because she would never be around dad when he was sick either.

I would always want someone to play with me.  I usually played by myself in my room.  I was a loner.  An only child. 

Some positive things that I learned from mom: 

I learned to cook.  Although, to this day, Jon usually cooks supper.  But I do have a thing for baking.  I love to bake desserts, or any other meal that is required to cook in the oven.  She taught me how to bake, cut up vegetables, be ahead of schedule when guests come for dinner, make everything look nice.  I loved having other people over.  I grew up way too soon, so I would stay at the dinner table and listen to all the grown-up conversations. 

I learned to be polite and have good table manners. 

I also learned that church is very important.  We never skipped church unless I was sick or all of us was sick.  It just didn't happen in our family. 

I learned to love music.  My dad played guitar, my mom played banjo and I played piano.  We also made a pretty decent trio of singers.  We would learn 5-6 songs, dad would sing bass, mom, soprano and I would learn the alto part.  We traveled to different churches to sing for their services.  Mom also volunteered once to work with a choir at a dying church.  That went on for quite some time.  She was also a part of a ladies quartet that would sing for other churches as well.

Mom and I have always butted heads, though, on a lot of different topics.  She would have one view and I would consistently go to the other view.  Sometimes just to butt heads with her and be defiant, but other times I truly had a reason. 

Mom was overprotective of me.  I was never allowed to go anywhere.  Even in high school.  My other friends would ask me to go to a football game with them and I was never permitted to go.  They soon stopped asking.  This led to a rebellious stage for me.  One of my friends' mother actually lied for me so that I could go to the movies with her daughter.  We made it a double-date.  If my mom had known that, she would have had a very large cow.  The other mom just felt bad for me.....I was a junior at the time!

When I was a junior in college, I emailed her to let her know of my upcoming junior qualifying recital.  I gave her one month advance notice.  Two days before my concert, she emailed me and told me that they weren't going to come to my first professional concert....that there was something going on at church that they weren't going to miss.  I mentioned that I was from Franklin....well, I was going to school at WCU, only 25 minutes away.  I was heart-broken that they didn't come.  My piano teacher was mad and was insisting that she called them to tell them how disappointed she was in them.  I didn't want her to do that, since that would only make the tensions worse at the time.

As I was planning to leave WCU and transfer to Valdosta State in GA, I had to go to a counselor to talk through my fears of telling my parents that I was leaving.  I was really stressed out during those days.  Once I did tell them, it went much better than I thought it would, but I lay all the facts down in front of them....including that I was serious in my relationship with Jon and that I needed to move to be closer to him.  That move proved to be much better for me than I ever expected it would!

As I was in GA for 1 1/2 years, anytime they would go to FL for a vacation or to see my grandmothers, they would NEVER tell me that they were passing through.  I literally lived 5 minutes off the interstate.  Again, I felt like I was not good enough for them....that they didn't miss me or that they didn't care to have any kind of relationship with me.

Once I moved to New Bern, after Jon and I were married, and I graduated from VSU, they never once came to visit.  It was only when I was expecting Mackenzie that they took any interest.  They didn't visit with me until I had her in the hospital.  Mom stayed one week with me after delivery and "helped" around the house.  Now, dad had jumped in right off the bat and helped with dishes and cleaning and stuff like that.  I think mom might have made one meal for us.  Jon was the one to come home after being at work all day and would fix supper for all of us.  That was the last time she had visited with us in New Bern. 

I still feel like the only reason she comes to visit is to see Mackenzie.  I can understand part of that, but if it weren't for Mackenzie, she would never come visit.  Even on my birthdays, I rarely feel like she's there for me.  She once got upset with me because we didn't come visit her in Franklin....we had been visiting with her since Mackenzie was born.  Anytime we got time off from school, we would travel to Granite Falls and then to Franklin making our holidays non-existant from all the road trips.  Not to mention the dangers of travelling with a baby in the backseat for 6+ hours on the road!  Oh....and if they DID come to visit, it would be on the strangest days/times.  We would finally have Mackenzie in her bed for an afternoon nap and they would "show up" at 2:00 pm when we were able to get some down time.  So they would knock on the door, and all Hell would break loose.  Mac would come running out of her room, no nap, and we were frazzled and annoyed.  No phone calls to warn us, or ask us if that was ok, nothing.  I finally told her about my feelings.  I'm very happy I made that decision.  She started calling from there on out....to make sure that it was ok for a visit.

Yep.....it's a very strange relationship now.  They are very odd to me.  They travel an hour and twenty minutes to go to a church in Asheville.  They have since bought three Harley Davidson motorcylces, which, if you knew my parents at all, it's a very hard concept to follow....them having bikes.  Mom didn't like riding behind dad, so they got her a bike as well.  It's just weird.

Weird is a perfect word to sum up our relationship!!

I've been inspired

Reading other friends blogs I have come to an understanding of what I should be writing about from here on out.....me. I know, I know, it seems like an obvious answer, but it's one of the hardest things anyone can ask me to do. I don't like talking about myself. Mainly, I think there are many more interesting people out there, but I also have a hard time opening up and just letting loose about myself.....just ask my husband.

So I guess I'm going to start over and tell you about my childhood and where I am today.

I'm 31 years old, although, if you ask me I will always lie and tell you that I'm 26. I was born in a very small town, Franklin, NC. My parents uprooted their lives from Tarpon Springs, FL and moved to the mountains because Tarpon was really getting busy, big, rampant with crime and they didn't want to start a family in that atmosphere.

My dad was the first father that was able to stay in the delivery room.....my parents insisted that he got to stay. So he did. No problems from that or anything, but I thought that was kinda neat.

My dad. He's everything I want to be. He was born with an eyelid problem. I'm not sure what the diagnosis was called, but he had droopy eyelids. They had to perform surgery when he was little because he couldn't open his eyes. There was too much skin that prevented him from opening his eyes. I also want to say that there weren't muscles in his eyelids either. Not sure. I do know that he got a lot of grief from many people as some people have to make fun of everyone for one reason or another.

Dad and I have always been pretty close. There have been a lot of times where we wanted to kill each other, but we can't stay mad at each other long. The last fight I remember having with him, I told him something....can't remember what, but he told me "go to Hell" and I said "maybe I will". We left that conversation that way. I regret whatever I said to him to cause him to lose his cool.

He's VERY laid back. He's serious when he needs to be, but there's always a calmness around him. Even animals come up to him; animals that NEVER come up to other people....just him. Mom told me once that he went hunting, he had to kill a deer and he cried for that animal. He never did it again. I always felt worse for him as he was the one to bury the family pets and he would always cry over them. I always appreciated that he cried. He showed his human side....showed that he cared.

Even now, when he comes to our house, he will sit on the couch and, Princess, the shy cat, will immediately come out of hiding and sit on his lap for a long while. I hope that Mackenzie sees how gentle her PawPaw is.

There are times when I look back at my life and I wonder how he feels about situations that have happened in my life and wonder how much he blames himself for those things. I know that for months he would cry himself to sleep. I just can't bring myself to blame him for anything that's happened.

He's worked for Radio Shack of Franklin for 28 years, or maybe longer. He's very dedicated even though they work him to the bone. He started as a tv repairman, back when the tvs had tubes in them. Then they had him in delivery and installation.....climbing on steep roofs in Highlands, carrying heavy tvs in, rewiring systems, installing car radios, GPS systems, you name it.

There are a couple of things that I will always laugh at when I think of him:
1. When I went to his work during teacher workdays or after school, he would have me come over to the tv that he was working on and ask me which wire was which color. He was color blind. What irony! I would always laugh and help him out as he soldered the correct wires back together again.
2. During one of Radio Shack's commercials, we watched as dad blew up a tv....that was something to behold as they introduced my father, the tv repairman, you see a very visual blow and smoke coming out of the tv.....they quickly moved to something else. No one else ever knew that.....he just told his family.
3. For my mom's birthday, he made her a chocolate cake. I don't think he cooked it long enough, or let it cool long enough, for when he assembled the 2 layers of the cake, it split in the middle and we had the "earthquake" cake with molten chocolate lava oozing off the cake, plate, counter...you get the picture, right?
4. His smile. He has a beautiful smile....and his eyes are still a little droopy. Almost looks like he's high....and he is, just without the drugs. :)
5. His love for God and others. There were many times when he would take me to neighbors or other communities and deliver taped sermon messages to shut-ins. Some people would scare the poop out of me....their lifestyle, houses, they would really help me appreciate the home that my parents built and kept for me.
6. He never complains. I certainly didn't get this quality from him. But his back would be killing him and he'd never say a word. He would have the flu, and never complain.

I know there are many more, but scared that I may be boring you to tears, so I will leave this alone for now. I guess my next blog will be about mom......a totally different story.