The Ol' Box of Chocolates

My brother has recently taken to the the famous "box of chocolates" line from "Forest Gump" when describing visits with my dad - because these days, we truly don't know what we're going to get. Over Thanksgiving, he was amiable and good-natured. We even got in some stress-free Black Friday shopping before he headed back up to Mahnomen.
Christmas didn't fare so well - his planned three night stay ended on the 23rd with a three hour showdown in the lobby of Embassy Suites, when he refused to go over to his sister's for the afternoon.

We gave it another cautious go a month later in mid-January, and invited my dad down to our house for an evening. Aside from being ornery about not getting to stay two nights, he was relatively benign. This led the way for my brother to give it a shot the next month, and have my dad down for his daughter's fifth birthday.

All went peachy (relatively peachy - he got stuck in the bathroom for 10 minutes at the Institute of Arts, had a couple accidents at my brothers, etc) from Saturday afternoon up till Sunday evening, when the party began. My dad waited till just before dinner to call my brother and I into a quiet room to let us know he wouldn't be going back up north. With the Christmas episode under our belt, we felt a bit more equipped to handle the situation. There was much less angst yet perhaps a bit more annoyance. Here we were, trying to celebrate a special day for my niece, and my dad decides to monopolize the evening. It ended with him walking out without his suitcase headed in the direction of downtown, us calling the cops on a vulnerable adult, and his program driver convincing him to head back to Mahnomen.

These last two weeks my dad has called wanting to come down and visit. He doesn't seem to see how his previous visits make us more and more wary of having him at our houses. If he could only string together a few uneventful visits, we'd better know what to expect, and be more receptive to his requests. Not the case right now. As much as I like chocolates, I'm ready for a bag of caramels.

Saturday Morning Snapshot

6:32 am: I wake to the quiet whimpers of our eight month old pup, Millie, who's kenneled next to the bed. I wait for a second round of her pleas before leading her downstairs in the dark, where we head outside so she can do her morning business. Glad I threw on a hat and coat - it's a cold one.

6:38 am: Back upstairs, she bounds into bed with Mike and me for some morning cuddling. Aside from Millie's routine licking, I hear more noise coming from our bathroom. Asher's already up and taking a shower. I find out later that PRIOR to showering, he finished filling out sixteen of his class valentines that we picked up from Target the day before.

6:45 am: Asher exits our bathroom in a not so quiet manner, but does take an eagerly awaiting Millie with him. After what seems like a half hour in Asher's room, they eventually make their way downstairs where I hear cereal and dog food being poured.

7:00 am: I hear Mike's Blackberry sound off a couple times in the kitchen - first two emails of the day for him.

7:15 am: Mike decides to get up, and less than a minute or two later Abbie rolls in from her room. I think she's come in to have her cuddle time; instead she has a question for me. Pressing her fingers out and in against one another, she asks me to guess what that is. Since she just was talking about "engineering projects" before going to bed, I assume that this is a science query. Wrong. Her response: "A crab doing push-ups in the mirror." Wow! Now that's an early morning zinger for ya.

8:00 am: Abbie finally gets up (she did actually come into cuddle as well), and I hold off a few minutes longer.

8:15 am: I haven't really been sleeping, but it feels so good to be nestled in the coziness of our down comforter, with no place to go till Abbie's basketball game at 10:30 am. Downstairs in the kitchen, I can hear Asher whistling a medley of 80s rock songs and Christmas carols. Somewhere in the fridge, there's a protein-packed Icelandic yogurt calling my name. I slip on my felt slippers and head down to join my family.

Rolling With It

It took my ten year old son to teach me that not everything I write on here needs to be a thesis - in his two short days of starting his blog, Asher has more entries than I do, and I've had this darn thing up and running for months!

Even now, as I tell myself to just relax and write what comes naturally, I find myself worrying about proper grammar, and whether my thoughts flow, etc.    My goal going forward is going to be to be more "kid-like" in my blog process.  Be spontaneous.  Have fun with it.

So for today, I don't even have anything big to write about, I'm just making a pact with myself that I'm going to follow the lead of my darling son, and when the mood strikes I will take a few minutes to capture a thought or image, sit down at the computer,  and just roll with it.