Reunion

Bandit and Poncho. 
These two were tight.   Slept together.  Ate together.  Lived together for many years.
His best friend made the journey a few years ahead of him to scout out the best open fields and cow manure piles to roll in, the best trails to hike, the best tails to sniff,  and the coolest grass to laze about in the sun…..just like the good ol’ days.

This week, Bandit made that same journey.   He has been ours for over 14 years.   He made 4 moves with us, survived 2 cats that hated him, chewed up and lost over 100 Frisbees, and loved our babies like they were his own.  I will never forget the day I brought home Kaelan and how Poncho looked at me with eyes that said, when do we take this back?   But Bandit, he looked at Kaelan with the most loving gaze, and then looked at us with eyes that spoke. 
I love her so much already, he said.  
He did love her, and even though he didn’t have the strength and youth for playing by the time Seth came, he loved him all the same.
  
    
Despite the fact he had the sweetest, most calm demeanor, Bandit could cause some hair pulling moments.   He had a thing for diapers….dirty diapers.  If there was a way to break into those diaper genies or trash cans to score a poopy diaper, he was all over it.   He was also famous for “appearing” in photos.   Anytime I would pull out the camera, he would wonder right into lens range.   Only he wasn’t happy just being in the picture.   Oh no, he would usually have his hind end fill the picture, or he would take that opportunity to stop and lick his…..well, you know.   If I had a dollar for every picture that I had to edit out a Bandit Butt, I would be a rich lady.  Trust me.
 

     

14 years.   A good life, though after the loss of his best friend, he didn’t seem to want to walk as far, or chase down that Frisbee, or lay out in the sun.   The loss added weight to his already aging heart.

 


In a stooper of sleep deprivation, I willed myself to have a visionary dream last night.   I kept asking myself over and over if this was the right time.   Was this really the end?   Was there anything else we could do? I could hear myself repeating the questions aloud in my head.   My head knew the answer, my heart refused to hear it despite the loudness inside.   Then, came that dream.  I was standing at a door or some sort of opening to a great, vast meadow.   The sun was so bright, and I remember reaching, searching around me for my  sunglasses.   As I looked about me, there beside my leg stood my old friend, Poncho.  He stood looking out into the meadow in a focused, unyielding stance.   Suddenly, his body began to twitch and he started the familiar dance of excitement, pawing the floor and softly whimpering.   I knew this dance.  Every time we packed up to go somewhere, Poncho would begin this routine.   Bucking his back legs, shaking his head from side to side, mouth open wide, whimpers of excitement.   He loved to go. But why was he so excited?   Where were we going?   His eyes never left the open door and the field.   Then, his whimpers became louder and more enthusiastic.   His prancing even more energetic.   I looked out to the meadow to see what provoked him so.  I saw it.   Off in the distance, way off, a tiny little dot became clearer as it whizzed towards us.   Poncho couldn’t contain himself, jutting his head further towards the opening.  And then, the spot became a figure and I saw him. 
Bandit.  He was running towards us at full speed.  

He’s coming, I said to Poncho.   Bandit is coming.    Go meet him!  Go on!  And with that, Poncho tore out through the opening at full speed.

In the end, I could not leave the vet’s office until I felt all the warmth leave his body.   He used to lay on my cold feet to heat them and let me thaw my freezing fingers on his hot belly.  
When the warmth left him, I knew he was gone.   With my hand on his cooling body, I whispered through tears.
 

He’s coming, Poncho.   He’s coming.

Remember....Even Mark Wahlberg started off modeling underwear.

The Boy is off to a career in Hollywood, I just know it.  First his acting  career which has landed him a few commercials, then some internet and print stuff that will be coming out soon, and now this.

I just know he is going to make the big bucks and then move off to Los Angeles and then win an Oscar and then pick up some addiction and then divorce his parents over money issues and then marry some Hollywood starlet and then go to rehab and then have a big comeback and then lose it all again to some addiction and then marry Lindsey Lohan and go on Celebrity Rehab and then............

Or, we could just stick to the Etsy modeling for friends and let mama get her 20% off.   Sounds safer.

She Loves Him

I hoped you would like him.

I hoped that the 5 1/2 year age gap was not going to be so wide and distancing that you held not interest in him.

 

I prayed there would not be strong jealousy issues and that you would never feel the urge to pinch him or stick Legos up his nose when I wasn’t looking.  

I know I have mentioned it before, but the deep bond there often floors me.   I love you two so deeply and profoundly that it often makes my heart hurt just to look at you.   I see that same love for each other in you. 

There were hours that passed as this little girl sat and stared lovingly at this little guy.   He was a personal gift from God, one she had prayed for.   He couldn’t talk or play, and she wasn’t even allowed to hold him much yet, but oh how precious he was already to her.

In the mornings, she would beg me to bring him to her first.  Before breakfast.  Before I changed him.  First.   Please let me see him before he does anything else, she would beg me. Come wake me up with him being the first thing I see.  I will have missed him the whole night.  

And so it became a ritual, and each morning she gives him her first smiles and kisses.  He never seems to mind the morning breath.

I never have to ask her to play with him.   She is already there.  Willingly.

There is a sweet murmured language that is spoken.  Only these two understand it.  I see her leaning in to his ears all the time, but I never hear the words.  They are his words, not meant for anyone else.   The calm him, they soothe him,   they center him.  They are his words. A gift from her lips.

There is even an unspoken language.   One with the eyes.  I pay witness to it as well.  It speaks volumes.

 

She loves him.

She loves him.

 

 

She LOVES him.

Mama,The Boy, and Ty Hang Out

 

So, have you figured out my New Year’s Resolution?    No, it is not to blog more, rather it is to get my document and organize important life relics like pictures and journals.  

I guess maybe that could be blogging more.

Actually, I am trying to write more.  Whether it is journaling or blogging, I am trying to set aside time to do a little each day.  I also have a goal to have my pictures printed, scrapbooked, framed, posted, canvased, passed out to family, put on billboards….you name it, I want it done.    I hate that I have so many photos that just rot on the computer.   This year they will become real.  Real.  REAL.   It’s like a Disney movie around here!

In November, my sweet mama Miss Ella had a pretty big surgery.    Even though I have siblings out the wazu within walking distance of her, I wanted to be there for this surgery to make sure she was okay and to know that my little brother was okay.  Ty can be a little Rain Man like in his details.   Changing the color of his toothpaste can turn his life upside down, so I knew a big shift like this in the household would create chaos in his life.   I wanted to be one constant.

Doug really could not take off work that week, and Kaelan needed to stay in school, so we decided the best route would be for me and The Boy to fly out to El Paso and make the 2 hour trek to the mountains via car.  What I did not plan for was the worst flight in aviation history…..TURBULANCE ANYONE????…..and rude people at every turn.   Traveling alone with a baby and 4 tons of luggage sucks.   Really sucks. But add crappy people into the mix and you have a cocktail of wretchedness.   Everyone from the people on the flight who leaned their seats  back so hard and with such force into the lap of my baby they bruised him, to the people at the car rental place who gave me the “sucks to be you” look as I made 15 trips back and forth to load my car after the luggage cart rack stole my money and jammed up.  

I may or may not have used the only real Spanish words I retained from high school as I drove through the border town.   Let’s just say they were not words from the books, but rather words my Spanish speaking friends told me not to say in front of any teachers.  Or parents.  Or children.  Nor to tell anyone they taught me those words. 

Once we did get to the mountains, I was so happy the snow held off and I did not have to drive my little 2 wheel drive rental through snow drifts.   That would  have been the end of my rope.

Mama’s surgery went well, and she returned home from Albuquerque after a few days.   My buddy Ty did very well with all the changes.   He schooled me on the correct way to cut up his food and to fluff his pillow like mom does more than once, but overall, I think he handled the whole ordeal very well.   My little man had a great time visiting family and playing with cousins.  He missed his sister something awful, but Ty introduced him to the magic of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and he soon forgot his sadness. 

                   

Here is my boy soaking up some late fall sunshine.

Bath time in the kitchen sink!   This was a first for him.  He was a little unsure at first, but then the party was on.  

Wash your dinner plates and your kid all in one swoop???   How can this be wrong?

Wanna make this boy happy?   Put him around anything that is motorized.  

Wanna make him insanely happy?   Put him behind the wheel of something motorized!  

We hit the tracks over the weekend to watch the cousins during a motocross race.   This kid loved it.   Aunt Lilly took him for a spin in the Polaris, and he nearly fainted  with joy.  Watching my nephews jumping those bikes makes my heart flitter.  Thinking about the fact that will probably be my boy in  few years makes me want to pass out.

Hanging out with Maw.   Seth just loves her and all her fancy jewelry.  Yum!

My poor boy.  I kept him in baby jail a great deal of the time. 

The wood and tile floors + a heavy baby head were not a good recipe.   His first few attempts to cruise or crawl did not end well.   He was so happy to get back home and roam free. 

Okay, you gotta check this out.   There were some really cool looking birds making a nest in the tree right in front of the cabin.   Ty would not walk over to look at them with me, so I wondered over and quietly stood back to watch them for a few minutes.  There was something about me being over there that made Ty very nervous.  Whether it was the rock wall or maybe he saw a critter I did not see, I don’t know. The whole time I tried to stand there quietly as not to disturb the birds, he ranted and carried on for me to come back.  I had laid all my stuff on the hood of the car because we had just pulled in, and Ty grabbed my stuff, headed to the house  and demanded I hurry up and come on.   I think he was kind of taking my stuff hostage.   I knew my camera was in the bundle Ty was carrying, and I did not want him to drop it, so I quickly gave into his demands and went inside.  It was not until I got home later the next week that I came across this photo taken at that moment. 

Only Ty, myself, and Seth were present.   In order to get my camera to shoot a timed picture, you have a series of steps to do first, so that was not what happened here. 

Hmmmmm…….I can’t help but think Ty took this. 

He has  full spectrum autism, functions on a about a 3 year old’s level, has a severe seizure disorder, and has faced down every medical obstacle around….and I’ll be darned. 

He is a pretty good photographer, too.

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And in case you were wondering what Miss Kaelan was doing on the homefront,   I got a text a from dad a few days into my trip telling me all was well and that he and Kaelan were having a splendid time.   They had decided to make a day trip to Six Flags.   I was so happy to hear all was well at home, and then later that day, I got this picture:

Halloween O’ 2011

Our Halloween seemed so mellow this year.   In year’s past, the weeks leading up to the big day were always packed full of festivals and fairs.   With Kaelan in school, and Halloween falling on a school night, we had to cut back a little on the festivities this year. 

Don’t worry, mama still got a good stock of peanut butter cups. 

A few nights  before Halloween, we held true to our tradition of cooking something fallish or pumpkin like and watching “The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”.   This year we made some delicious pumpkin cookies and apple cider.   We set up our carving station and set to work making magical pumpkins.   Really, for dad this means whipping out the drill and making his pumpkin look like a piece of swiss cheese.   Kaelan thoroughly enjoyed this type of carving, so she also made her own pumpkin like this.   She also did the traditional jack-o-lantern.   In years past, Kaelan has taken the seeds from the pumpkins and planted them in our yard.   If you recall, we have actually had our own pumpkin patches because of this little gardening adventure.   However, our trees are suffering a bit from the harvest of year’s past sucking all the nutrients from their soil, so on the advice of our lawn guy, we asked Kaelan to stifle planting her crop this year.   I am pretty certain she snuck a few seeds into the front bush area……time will tell.

The “Heart  Pumpkin” and Kaelan shows off her “holey” work.

I said we did not attend as many of the usual festivities, but we did go to our fair share.   We had the Fall Festival and Kaelan’s school and a fair at church.   We also attended the Trunk or Treat at Brentwood, and since Kaelan did not want to wear her actual costume until Halloween, I had to keep dipping into the dress-up box to prepare us for all these events.

Here we are headed to the trunk or treat.

Oh, golly.   And here are my two little cuties on Halloween. 

Kaelan desperately wanted the two of them to be Angry Birds.   The costume I ordered for her came in a few weeks before Halloween, but sadly, it was the wrong size.  When we tried to fix the order, we were informed that half the world’s population also had the same bright idea to be Angry Birds for Halloween, so her size was not to be found.   She immediately set to work finding a new coordinating costume theme.   There were several fails: 

Kaelan=Michael Jackson/ Seth =The White Glove

Kaelan=Hermione/Seth=Harry Potter

Kaelan=Princess Leia/Seth=Yoda or Luke

Kaelan=Snooki/Seth=The Situation  (okay, I made that one up)

Kaelan finally settled on The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Butterfly. 

She loves Eric Carle, so this was very fitting.  

If you haven’t heard of these two characters, you live in a cave, and that whole Snooki/Situation joke meant nothing to you.

   Here we are with some of the crew for our traditional trick or treat convoy.  I just love how Kaelan is taking flight in this next picture, and just check out Seth taking this whole wild ride in, or he might have that look on his face because he is secretly eating a leaf or something.