The Wilsons

It’s been a few days since the last post and for that I apologize.  We have had some interesting happenings…

I had to show you this picture because it just seems to tell Izzabelle’s story. She is in constant fear for her life around her brother and sister! LOL!  This just makes me laugh every time I look at it.

We took the kids to the bowling alley for my league night last Friday.  They told me that child care was provided for free so Lonni signed up to be a sub and we made it a “family” affair.  The problem was that they had some high school boys and one girl watching Wil and McMac and they didn’t know how to “play” with toddlers.  They wanted to watch TV and text their friends.  So it wasn’t long into the second game that the kids told us they wanted to stay with us.  We couldn’t blame them, they were bored to death.

We thought that Lonni would be able to join one of the teams that was missing a player but now we have confirmed that he will have to stay home with the kids on those nights.  We can’t afford a babysitter and we would feel too guilty having the kids bored all night at the alley.

With all three kids hanging out in the lanes with us we felt like that couple that brings their kid to the movie theater and stays even when the kid starts screaming.  We just felt out of place and very uncomfortable.  We didn’t mean for it to end up like that, but it did.  The kids were great and no one complained about them, but who would do that to our face?  Anyway, we won’t let that happen again.

In other news, Wil and McMac have started a new thing with Izzy.  They like laying in her crib with her. It is so cute. Wil did it first.  He asked me if he could go in with her and since Izzy was just laying there awake, I let him.  He was so gentle with her and held her hand and told her how beautiful she was. I let him know how proud I was that he was such a good big brother.  What a cutie.

Of course McKinley had to do it too since she does everything her big brother does.  The difference is that she wanted to be just like Izzy.  She said, “Momma, I need my bubbas (aka pacifier) too!” Then she proceeded to pretend to cry just like Izzy does until I brought her one.  She laid there next to Izzy, both sucking on pacifiers. It was too cute.  McMac wanted to sleep with Izzy last night but I had to draw the line.  I can’t trust that she won’t roll over on her and crush her in the middle of the night. LOL.

Another funny thing that Wil is up to now is setting himself up for pictures.  Today he was sitting in my chair and asked McKinley if she wanted to sit on his lap.  McKinley at first refused.  She told him he was too little to hold her.  He argued that fact by promptly stating how strong he was and showing her his muscles. (giggle)  Anyway, once McKinley decided she would agree and climbed onto his lap; Wil looks at me and says, “Momma, go get the camera and take our picture!” LOL.  So I did what any mom would do…I took the picture…

The last couple of days, we’ve missed some opportunities to post.  Ah, we just get busy and forget.  But we know that the four (2?-moms) of you who read this are waiting for the latest updates and pics of the kids, etc.

I know Melodia will be posting her version of the updates soon, but I figured I’d kick my version in, too.

Bowling League

On Friday night, another session of the Church Bowling league rolled around.  They have child care, so we thought we’d take the kids. We figured we’d keep Izzabelle with us and let the child care people have Wil and McKinley.  I was going to sub (they seem to always need subs), and Melodia was playing on her normal team.

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men… as the novel line goes.  It turned out I subbed for the team competing against Melodia’s team.  So best possible scenario, right?  We’re on the same 2 lanes, both with eyes on Izzabelle and able to help feed her (because we knew she’d need to eat right in the middle of league!).

So the childcare workers (2 13-15 yr-old boys, and a 13-15 yr-old girl) only had Wil and McKinley to deal with, but alas, they weren’t too good at it. Trying to keep the kids at a table drawing for 3.5 hours just wasn’t going to work.  Lol.  So halfway through the night, we brought the kids out with us at the lanes.  The guy who organizes things came over and asked me about the childcare situation.  He said he wanted honest feedback, so I said that the kids just didn’t seem to prepared to handle a 2 and 3-year-old.  Then he said, “well, did you bring any toys?”

That bugged me the rest of the night.  I’m doing my best not to hulk out in a full-blown rant right now.  Did we bring any toys?  Why try to make this a blame thing?  The kids weren’t experienced enough to do it.  But I wasn’t blaming anyone.  They’re young.  But did I bring any toys?  You know, when you advertise that childcare is provided, it comes with the assumption that we don’t have to cart all of our own toys there.  Do I have to bring my own toys into the church nursery on Sunday. No.

This is the kind of comment that has always made me frustrated with people.  It’s the kind of comment that just begs to set our feet walking toward the door. And there’s a lot of people in the church lingering around the door. I used to often say that the world would be a great place if there were no people in it.  Lol.  But at the same time, it’s all too easy to expect perfection from those in the church. Why do we do that?  We come to Jesus broken after being full of ourselves and full of the vices of the world.  I guess we expect that the Big Guy’s cleansing as white as snow removes all tendency/temptation/habit to do wrong. It just ain’t so.  We’ll continue to make mistakes until we die.  And as much as I was frustrated by the blame being hurled at me, I had to realize that.

The other challenge with the whole thing, though, was just that the kids sat with us for the last half of the night.  Both Melodia and I have been in numerous theatres when in walks a couple with an infant, and we look at each asking, “what are they thinking?”  Friday night, we were that couple.  Our bowling group was gracious with us, but I couldn’t help feeling like those people who’d brought their infants into the theatre.  We’d thought the childcare would work for us, but it didn’t.  Looks like I’ll be spending Friday nights at home while Melodia bowls, unless we decide to dish out the $35 for the sitter.

Fall’s Here and Winter’s Coming…

I was outside with the kids the other night.  We have to wear sweatshirts now, or at least have had to this last week. 60s for the most part. The leaves on the trees are changing colors… mostly yellow around here. Wil and McKinley are catching on to the leaf thing.  They asked me the other night why the leaves change colors…

Wil then said that Christmas was coming.  What?  How does he know about that?  Those darn cartoons.  I decided to quiz him to see how “up the creek I am.”  I mean, afterall, I was thinking a 3, a 2, and a 0 year old for kids… I don’t need to put up a tree this year, nor will we really need presents, etc.  So I asked him, what happens at Christmas?  “We get presents, and we put up the christmas tree.”  That little stinker.  Who gets presents?  “Wil and McKinley.”  Is that it?  “Mami and Papi and baby Izzabelle.”  Yep, there goes the wallet.

Of Garages and Garage Sale-ing

Saturday we went garage sale-ing… it was a bust. Nothing but junkers out this weekend.  The season’s winding down and a few people were throwing out their trash essentially. We’ll try again next weekend, as it’s still fun for us.  But it’s a total bummer when there’s nothing.

After getting home, I finished building some shelving in our garage at the apt to help better store our stuff.  Moving out of the house and into an apt, I’d packed the garage full.  Now, these garages are like 12 feet high, so there’s tons of wasted space. Lots of people have taken to building lofts up in them to throw stuff up onto to store in what would otherwise be wasted space.

So I undertook that project last Tuesday.  Then added three shelves below it.  All of this at the far end.  Still plenty of room to pull a vehicle in, just not my monster truck.  We didn’t plan to really use it for anything but storage anyway. Just getting it organized helps me to feel better.  Plus, we’ve still got sorting and donating to do.  You’d think I’d have a picture to tack up here, but no go. If I get a chance, I’ll snap one and edit it into this post.  It’s just nice to be getting organized.  There’s something to be said for an organized life.

Thoughts on Parents and Parenting

Been meaning to jot something down here for a while now about parents (i.e., our parents, the grandparents) and parenting.  The bowling incident just really reminded me of how much it stinks not to be living near Melodia’s parents (Tampa, FL) or my parents (Kingman, AZ/Las Vegas, NV). Having the parents close is a benefit that almost all of our friends have, except us. We dish out more money to our babysitter… I’d say I’m putting her through college, but I work with her dad, so she gets free tuition.   LOL.  Actually, we love Jennie, and so do the kids.  I have no qualms at all about helping her make a buck.

My only real issue is that we don’t have the benefits of the grandparents around.  Most of the time, we’ve been ok, but lately, we’ve had a couple of opportunities that would have amounted to weekly outings together through the winter (on a Wed or Sat night for 3-4 hours), but it’s just not worth it/slash/fiscally responsible to spend $160/month on our weekly outings.  That being said, we miss our families.

We miss them anyway, not just in the times when we want a sitter.  But other times.  Having Melodia’s mom and dad here was wonderful.  Her mom is so gracious in taking the kids so that we can have some time off. It’s wonderful.  But it’s not just about our time off; it’s the love and the sense of extended family that our kids experience when they’re here. That stuff’s priceless.

We both love our families; we probably don’t say it enough. But we do. We miss them often, more often than we tell them.  And we appreciate them a little more with each new day, with each new step our kids take and every new breath they breathe. In all of that, we feel our growing sense of love for our kids, and we begin to finally understand — really understand — the love of our parents for us.  Until we had kids, we only fooled ourselves in thinking we understood our parent’s love.  We didn’t know though, what one can only know, when one finally has his/her own kids.

Cruising

And finally, we’ve (ok, I’ve) just been going nuts daydreaming about cruising lately.  Some of our friends went this last summer.  Both Melodia and I have been before, and we both like to travel.  We haven’t committed to buying the RV and spending summers in it yet, so we’re still looking at our options. Lately, cruising has come up again.

We talked last fall about doing a 7-day cruise over Christmas, but didn’t.  Now we’re talking it again. One of the challenges is working out the logistics of the kids.  Without parents here, that means we’d have to fly the kids somewhere else, then fly to our cruise take-off city. Too much money.  And we’re not opposed to cruising with the kids, but we are looking for a chance to have one for ourselves.

I’m so itching for it, I’m trying to figure out if we can sneak one in during the semester on one of my long weekends or the Thanksgiving Holiday break.  And our friends Adam and Danelle actually volunteered that they’d take Wil and McKinley for a week if we needed to (that would save two $200+ tickets to get them to our parents).

In the long-term vision, we have decided that we would love to do one of those around  the world cruises.  Cost?  Yeah, $30,000 per person (maybe $40k).  Isn’t a crazy ridiculous sum for a 110-day cruise, but we think that would just be the trip of a lifetime, and we could save to do it in 10 years or so, just before the kids become teenagers.  Of course, if we miss that deadline, we’ll do it in 18 (i.e., As soon as the last kid, i.e., Izzabelle, leaves the house for college)… 110-day parent vacation! Woo-hoo!

This sort of thing just begs me to once again ask the question, why am I not rich? I mean, I think I’d be a good rich person.  It’d be fun to spend money. And I tell you right now, I’d be like one of those people who live permanently on the cruise ship.  Sounds good to me!

We had a family first today…we took the kids bowling! Lonni and I had not bowled together since before we were married, so it was definitely a family first.

I had to go to the alley to talk to my buddy Butch.  I don’t think I have written about Butch yet.  We have a bowling alley named, “Wimbledon” practically next door to our apartment complex.  I went there last week to get a new ball.  My old ball was over 10 years old and apparently things have changed some since then. LOL.

Anyway, the pro shop at this bowling alley is owned by this little old man named Butch.  He is a granddad of 8, he was just inducted into the baseball hall of fame (he was a pitcher), and he will be inducted into the bowling hall of fame next year.

Butch is a real lady’s man.

He told me all I ever needed to know about my ball and how to use it.  He drilled it to perfection and put my name on it.

I am now taking bowling lessons from him.  I am still working on the pointers from my first lesson on Monday.  I am having a blast and have become a regular “rink rat” (don’t know the term for a bowling alley). They know me when I walk in and I have even made friends with two senior ladies who practice on Thursdays.

So, I had to go in today to get Butch to re-drill my old ball so I could use it as a “spare” ball.  My new ball is supposedly a “strike” ball (three strikes to date. LOL).  Obviously, if I now use two balls to bowl with I needed a new bowling bag that carries two balls too. (Hehehe) I am definitely going to “look” like a professional even if I don’t bowl like one yet. New ball, new shoes, new bag…I am on a roll.  Now if I could only bowl in the 200’s I would be happy.

I digress…So, we took the kids with us because Lonni wanted to talk to Butch about a new ball and some shoes. We ended up with the shoes, no ball yet for Lonni, next paycheck.  (Lonni and I would like to get into a league together and we found out there is a couples league at this bowling alley every other Saturday night.  We will look into getting in that and finding a baby sitter for those nights.) Ok, back to the kids…We had a great time.

The alley was pretty empty.  There were only 3 other bowlers there.  We had the two lanes furthest away from everyone so the kids were able to run around and enjoy themselves.

They don’t make shoes small enough to fit either of the kids.  On top of that, the lightest ball they make is a 6lb ball.  Wil could manage the ball just fine but it was too heavy for McKinley.  We had to carry it for her and help her push it down the lane.  Wil could pick it up from the ball return, carry it over to the lane, set it down, and send it on its way all on his own. He was truly bowling by himself, which really helped him really enjoy himself.  And with the “bumpers” down, it didn’t matter how straight or crooked he rolled the ball, there were no gutter balls.

McKinley didn’t truly bowl a whole game on her own.  She was content to run around, roll around, climb into the video game car (complete with racing seat and steering wheel), and generally attempt to get into Mami and Papi’s way.  So she probably bowled half a game.

Wil bowled about a game and a half. All we’d have to do was say, “Wil, it’s your turn again” and he’d come running from playing (i.e., chasing McKinley around or sitting in the video game car). Little pro bowler in training. His first game… an 81.  Not bad.

By contrast, my first game was a 72 (that does not help push me closer to my PRO status). I picked it up in the second game, 115, had to try to protect my average.

Lonni hadn’t bowled in 5 years.  In fact, the last time he bowled was when he and I drove to Kansas City (during our dating years? days? minutes? -lol- ok, so we were only dating for 3 weeks before getting engaged, but in those three weeks, we took a trip to KC and on it, we bowled). Hi first game was a 102, and his second, a 143.  He actually had a good run going, no open frames, a few strikes, until the 6th frame.  Still, not too shabby.

And the cost of all this family fun? $9.  The games at this alley only cost $2 (and Lonni and I each bowled 2, so $8 for us).  We think they gave us a break on the kid’s games and only charged us 50 cents for each kid’s game.  A blast for only $9?  You can’t get it much better than that.  In fact, we had so much fun we plan to work this into our weekly schedule–Family Bowling Day (FBD)– Family Bowling Initiative (FBI) — Bowling for Family Fun (BFF) — ok, I’ll stop with the punny acronyms.