Family

Dave sez,

I'm the youngest in my family. My sister, Paula, is the oldest. I have two older brothers. Let me share some cool memories with you.

When I was a younger kid, my sister would pull me up on her feet and I would get to pretend I was flying. It was great. We were very close growing up. So close, that when she went away for a weekend with friends, I had a little too much chocolate and blew up like blueberry Violet in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I managed to deflate by the time she got home. She's married to a really great guy. My nephew Sean is literally in Paradise. He served our country a couple years in the Marines in Afghanistan; now he's in Hawaii. I keep telling him to say "Hi!" to Tom Sellick for me! My nephew Kevin and his wife, Erin, live close by their folks with their little sweetheart, Ivy.

It was right around the time that my sister got married that my Mom started working a little bit more on my reading skills. I started reading books. As a reward, she introduced me to comic books.

Not too long afterward, my older brother Tim took me to see Star Wars.

My brothers got me interested in sports. Mostly baseball. My brother Matt, and Tim, loved baseball and taught me how to pitch and run bases. Matt always told me to keep my eye on the ball. The first time I pitched, he kept telling me that. Keep your eye on the ball, baby brother, he said. I did. I kept my eye on it as he hit it back to me. I kept my eye on it the bigger and bigger it got. It got as big as a moon ("That's no moon...")

We all had a good laugh over the black eye I got from the worn league ball. We still laugh over that.

Cathy and I hadn't had a chance to see my sister and the family since Cathy's birthday last year. We hadn't had a chance to introduce them to their new nephew, Justin.

We didn't want him to be nervous about meeting them. So I started telling him that I really wanted him to meet his Uncle John and Aunt Paula. He has a big family, with a lot of aunts and uncles, but these were the real deal. He even wrote on his calendar on the Friday before Memorial Day, "Going to si (sp) Pop's sister". He was a little nervous with the introductions, but he warmed right up to them. It's good that he could tell right away, just how cool we already know they are.

I told my sister that her nephew is the one of the Midwest producers and distributors of sarcasm. "I like him already!" she told me.

We had a bit of a bumpy patch. We went go-carting and Justin was all excited to drive. Until he was measured for height, and he was told that he was too short to drive his own cart. That was a major bummer. Until Mommy got him into one of the fastest carts on the planet. She lapped me, John and Kevin, with Justin waving, yelling "Hi!" and laughing at how slow we were.

The rest of the weekend was fantastic! A little bit of soccer. A pool party. Some Spongebob. Usually, Justin gets a bed and we sleep on the floor on an air mattress. This time, we got a bed, he got an air mattress. We wore him out so that he fell asleep and had sweet dreams! He dreamed that he was the Black Power Ranger fighting Moogers.

So, all in all a pretty awesome weekend!

Playing Ketchup - Or - You Can Tune A Piano, But You Can't Tuna Fish!

Dave sez,

Sorry it's been a couple of weeks since I've shared an update on our adventure...

It was Monday. We had just gotten back from a couple of days with friends in Chicago for our anniversary. Friends we hadn't seen in a year, since the benefit on Cathy's birthday to bring Justin home. We were back to work. Justin was back to school. I was just getting home from work, walking through the front door.

"Hi, Popi!" Just called to me from the living room. He was watching television. Cathy was making dinner in the kitchen. "Um, Friday, come on you go with me to buy Mommy present for to go with the card I buy Mommy." He was talking about Mother's Day, coming up the next Sunday, Friday would be the best day that he and I could go out together and shop for Mommy's Mother's Day gift(s). I love the way he put it. We all knew that I would be taking him to the store to do his Mother's Day shopping. He wasn't so much asking, but he was taking the initiative to invite me to go with him while he did his Mother's Day shopping.

Cathy had been a little disappointed that all I got her for our anniversary was a card. I'd been buy with work and forgotten to pick up her gift. So, Justin had us take him out to a store near where we were staying and he got us anniversary gifts with the money he had on him. He got Cathy flowers and nail polish. He got me a Mountain Dew Amp and Altoids. There were a couple of things that amazed me by this. First, he saw a need and he made a decision. Second, even though he's only been home with us for a little over six months, he knows what we like - probably me more than Cathy - I'm basic that way.

Days went by, and Friday came. What we're finding is that Justin is kinda stubborn. Just like we are sometimes. I can be stubborn with Cathy and she can be stubborn with me. Fridays, Justin spars in karate class. He gives it 100%. When he's done he's ready for a shower. It's the one day of the week that Mommy is adamant that he takes a shower. They debate it every Friday. It's a rough day all around because Justin is out of school from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. And. He. Knows. It. he gets to stay up late Friday night and sleep in on Saturday morning. He's pretty much like a can of soda that's been shaken up and THEN opened.

So, you can probably imagine what Mommy and Justin were like when they picked me up after karate on Friday. Grabbing the door handle on the car was like pulling the tab on the can.

Mommy had decided that she didn't want Mother's Day present to go with the cool card that Justin had picked out. We had been in Target a week or two before and Justin and I had been looking at Mother's Day cards and he had picked an Elmo sound card that said "I love you, Mommy!!!" and then Elmo giggles. It was perfect. I told Justin that Mommy doesn't get to make the rules for Mother's Day. She doesn't get to decide whether or not she gets Mother's Day presents. Her birthday, our anniversary, Mother's Day, Christmas, those are times when he and I decide what to get her, to show how very much we love her.

I kinda fumbled through it, but I told him we show Mommy how much we love her by how we act and treat her. Mommy and I don't ask Justin to do anything we don't think he can do. But, as a family, we all make a promise to each other to love one another and do things for one another because of that love. And, best we can, we stick to our word and keep our promises to one another. One thing about Justin. His word is his bond. Unless he's playing or teasing or kidding, he means what he says. Ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths percent of the time, he's playing.

So, Mommy took us both to the store. She went shopping for peace of mind... in aisle seven up on the shelf, it was labeled "chocolate". Justin went shopping for Mommy Present. He started with four or five bottles of nail polish. different colors of the rainbow. Green, red, blue, purple. "Is this enough? Should I get more?" he asked me. "What we get now?" Well, how 'bout perfume? "What she like?" I NOW know what Mommy's favorite scent is. But for the purposes of this post, and a lesson I wanted Justin to learn, we found a bottle that he could smell, and I asked if that was something he wanted to smell on Mommy. He gave me a big smile and said yeah, that was a good smell and he wanted to smell that on Mommy. "Is this enough?" he asked again. "What we get now?" Well, you said something about ear rings didn't you? From make-up we went over to jewelry. He got her a card of ear rings. "That way she can pick the one's she want to wear, right Popi?" That's right, buddy-boy (Dear God, please let me grow up to be like my son when I get bigger.) "Is this enough?...What we get her NOW?" Justin's eyes got as big as saucers, "I want get Mommy cup to drink soup from!" Ohhh-kaaaaay. Let's go find Mommy a mug as big as her head, then, so she can have soup or hot chocolate or something. Housewares it was. As we were trying to choose between plastic tumblers, tea glasses, coffee mugs, insulated cups, et al, a very nice man with his two boys saw us and pointed us toward a Mother's Day section with mugs that read "Best Mommy in the World". We got her one, a plaque to hang on the wall and a scented candle. "Is this enough? What we get her NOW?" I looked over the booty we had for Mommy, and then pointed out how much he had to spend. Even if we got ONE of everything in the whole world, Justin, it probably would never be enough to show Mommy, just how much we love her - but it's a good start.

It was really hard, because at this point, I wanted Mother's Day to be Friday INSTEAD of Sunday! I managed to contain myself. We took Mommy out to lunch and gave her her present and her Elmo sound card.

We have peaks and we have valleys. The good thing is the valleys are never deep or wide. The peaks are always magnificent.