Be Careful, We're Making Memories

So, we put up the Christmas tree. Isaac has been asking to do this for days. We finally made plans. We put it off as long as we could. The time is here. We're making memories. We start by pulling out the ornaments. I should preface this by informing you that our ornaments are all blown glass and pretty fra-gee-lay. And by fragile, I mean they don't mix well with an eager five year old who thinks he's grown. We're still making memories. While I'm distracted by talking on the phone, Isaac succeeds in dumping one of the boxes of ornaments out making a crashing sound. Nothing broke...this time, but there was yelling and tears involved. Isaac thought he wasn't going to get presents. Ah, just the memories I want Isaac to have. We're trucking along, and Isaac has deaf ears to us. At this point if I didn't know better I would've thought he was on crack. Still making memories?? We pull out our new ornament we got last year and I ask Isaac to bring me scissors so I can cut the tag off. My mistake was not telling Isaac to leave the ornament with me. He comes rushing back and drops the ornament. It shatters and glass goes everywhere. I had to walk away so I wouldn't yell. I had to keep reminding myself that "we are making memories here" so I kept it together. Barely. What wonderful memories Isaac is going to have. Nothing says Merry Christmas like barking orders, yelling, broken ornaments, tears, and the fear of no presents. Right?? What wonderful memories Isaac will have of decorating the Christmas tree with his parents. I just love making memories. Please tell me we aren't the only family with these types of warm fuzzy memories????

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving came and went. It's my favorite holiday. I come from an amazing family and Thanksgiving is really the only time besides weddings and funerals that we are all together. We had 24 people at our table for Thanksgiving and I am so thankful for each of them. I love being able to reconnect with my grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, their spouses, ect. We also enjoyed a second Thanksgiving with my husband's side of the family where we had 24 people at that table as well. I'm equally thankful for each of them. I have the most blessed life.
I am so thankful for my extraordinary son Isaac. I'm thankful for our little blessing Liam. I'm thankful for my faith that tells me I will be with Liam again one day. I'm thankful for my amazing husband who is my perfect match. Isaac and Nick's love is the fuel that keeps me going. I'm thankful for my health that continues to improve. A lot of people aren't as lucky. I'm thankful that God loves me even though I'm not perfect. I'm thankful for my mom and mother-in-law who are always there for us at the drop of a hat. Even though their children are grown, they continue to be amazing role models for us by showing their constant unconditional love and support. They both work so hard so their families will have happy and memorable holiday celebrations.
Even though Thanksgiving is over for this year, I hope that everyone who posted what they were thankful for remembers to be thankful for all the blessings in their lives throughout the year, not just on this one special day.

All Aboard Take Two

Polar Express is a popular movie in our house year round. Imagine our excitement when we learned we could experience the Polar Express for ourselves. We took our first trip last year around this time and it was magical. You may even remember me blogging about it as it was our first trip since our tragedy. We decided to go again this year and thankfully, my sister and her crew were up for another trip as well.

Last year we splurged and bought first class tickets. We didn't know any better. We had a great time. This year we just bought the regular price tickets and no lie, it was WAY more fun. The experience was just as magical and A LOT cheaper. The conductor was super nice and took a lot of time punching each of our kids' tickets just like the movie. Actually, all the character's interacted with the kids more this time around than they did in snooty first class. Santa was a big hit again as well, although my niece was pretty disappointed that he didn't ask what she wanted for Christmas. I told her to send him a text.

The hot chocolate and cookies were a hit again as well. Just like the movie. You can't even tell that Isaac was super duper sick.

Isaac and Brady are BFF's. I'm so grateful that Isaac has cousins his age that can be his pseudo siblings since his sibling bailed on us. I LOVE watching Isaac's face as he experiences something so magical. I'm sure the joy I feel watching him is exponentially greater than his joy.

Got Milk?

Got milk? Isaac finally does. I thought I'd give an update to Isaac's milk situation since I blogged about it so much at the beginning of the school year. You may remember that I was a nervous Nelly because I thought he was going to die at school if he didn't have me there to help him. Every mom feels that way, right? No? Oh, don't judge me. Anyway, just recently (as in late October/November) I have noticed that Isaac is getting milk nearly every day at lunch. I am so grateful for technology that allows me to spy on him and follow his account activity. What a relief for this momma. He still doesn't eat at school. Actually, he doesn't even eat the lunch he takes from home. I still think he's struggling with the "time limit" thing, but at least I know he's getting calcium and protein during the day. My cute little kindergartner is growing up and figuring things out without me. That little punk. Where does the time go? Sigh.

RIP Customer Service

It is my firm belief and recent experience that customer service is dead. Gone. Non-existent. I have experienced the death of customer service several times just today. I'll explain.

First, I'm on Coumadin due to my stroke. It's a pretty dangerous drug to be on and has to be closely monitored. I used to have an excellent doctor and nurse that took great pride in monitoring this for me. Then the doctor moved. Hence, I got a new doctor with the flightiest nurse I've ever experienced. She NEVER calls me back after I've had my PT/INR test done, which I pretty much do weekly. This week it got pretty dangerous. I had a headache for three days straight. I even stayed home sick on Wednesday. I found out today, several days after my test, that my PT/INR was nearly 4 which is pretty high. No wonder my head hurt. Thanks, nurse. Because of your irresponsibility and lack of customer service I could have nearly died. Again.

Next, I rented some movies tonight from Family Video since Isaac is sick. I put his first movie in the computer for him to watch while I watched one of my movies. My movie didn't work. Irritating. I tried to get it to work, then Isaac's movie was over so I decided to give up and put his next movie in. This must be my night, because lucky me, it didn't work either. Awesome. So, I drag my poor sick kid out to the movie store with both defective movies to swap them out. The super helpful teenager working simply polished and cleaned both my discs and sent me on my way. And by super helpful, I actually mean not helpful at all. Awesome. I get the movies home and put Isaac's back in to play and guess what? It still didn't work. Now, why didn't that super helpful teenager just give me a new movie. It's not like Gnomeo and Juliet is in high demand tonight. Right? And don't offer to compensate me for my trouble or anything. I love dragging my sick kid out to the movie store at night. I guarantee you, I will be compensated tomorrow when I take it back for the 3rd time. GRRRR!

But that's not all. After the movie store, I decided to compensate Isaac with ice cream since I made him go out at night while he was sick. Since I hadn't eaten dinner yet I decided to get something to eat for myself. I'm not a big fan of fast food so this was probably a bad idea from the beginning. I brought home Isaac's ice cream and my dinner and after about 20 more minutes of trying to get the stupid movie to work I finally get to eat. I open the bag ready to eat my chicken strips and guess what I find. Not chicken strips. Awesome! Can this day get any better?

I am convinced that people don't care about each other any more. I pride myself on customer service at my job and frequently my customers are criminals. So what's the super helpful teenager's excuse? So RIP customer service. I will still use you in my daily work, but I won't expect to experience you for myself anymore.