Nikki's blog

Last week, he looked like this.

2 comments

I have a child in high school. OMG.

Wha' happened?

This is my comment to Halloween costume designers everywhere, listen up: There are women in the world that do not use Halloween as an excuse to dress up as a prostitute. I'm sorry, I meant a nurse prostitute, cop prostitute, witch prostitute, ghost prostitute, you get the idea. I don't see a bunch of the men's  costumes that look like Chippendale stripper versions of Halloween costumes, so why is it that retailers assume women want to take their kids trick or treating looking like they're out for more that a little candy?

That's it.

Ken and I were unpacking in the house we just moved into, and I checked my e-mail from the laptop that was balanced on the top of a box of dishes. I had received an e-mail from Kaci. Nothing major, how are you, where are you all now, what is going on, that type of thing. I told her all that was going on with us and asked how she and her family were doing. A few hours later, I got an e-mail back from her that said she was sick, that she had cancer.

Kaci is the first friend I made in the military, I think at the first spouse coffee I attended at Ft. Benning, GA. My first son was only a few months old at the time, and she was about five months along with her first. Most of the other ladies there our age didn't have children yet, so we had an immediate common bond and got along great from the start. We spent a lot of time with she and her husband over just the few months we were there, and have never been stationed with them since that time. We keep in touch the same way everyone else in the military does, e-mails and phone calls, but we never seemed to get together in the past ten years even though we were only a day's drive apart for at least five of those years. We always had something else going on, either kids or deployments or school. It always seemed like there was never enough time or the drive was too long. The last time I saw Kaci, her daughter was three. Even though I see pictures of her, in my mind she is perpetually a toddler. When I found out Kaci was sick, I burst into tears. Me, who cries in the bathroom so others don't see it. I was aware that I still viewed her kids as being small, but I what I didn't realize until that moment was that in my mind Kaci didn't age either. Kaci wasn't sick, she is twenty-three and expecting her first child.  She is still hanging out at our apartment in Georgia twelve years ago, helping to wash dinner dishes because we only have four plates and don't have enough to serve dessert. She is making red beans and rice for my vegetarian husband, quietly fishing out the ham and smiling while he raves about how great it is. Kaci has three kids and a husband, she doesn't get sick, it just doesn't work that way. But it did.

Kaci had radiation treatment for her cancer, and a scan a couple weeks later showed that it hadn't spread anywhere else. In six months the scan will be repeated, and if it is still clear then she should be fine. I have thought how I could have received a very differen't e-mail or phone call that day, one that told me she wasn't sick but that she was gone.  All of a sudden that one day drive would have seemed pretty short, and right now I would be wishing I had made the time to go and see her no matter how far it was. So I'm thinking sometime this summer I'll be packing my kids in the car and heading south to Ft. Benning, GA. We are at Ft. Bragg, NC, so it is about a one day drive down there.

Piece of cake.

After a four day trip with my sons which included two eight hour train rides, I was reminded of my youngest son's favorite word. Hog. Anyone with a child under ten knows what I'm talking about. It can be used in a variety of ways:

"Kenny is hogging all the game boy games."

"Kenny is hogging all the space."

"Kenny was a big hog and ate all the ice cream."

"Ken-NEEEEEE! You don't have to HOG it all!"

I had forgotten about this favorite kid word, and then I found myself telling my husband not to be a cover hog. I yelled at another driver to "stop hogging the road". I remembered a sign on the one bathroom at our annual Christmas in July party that instructed everyone to "Not be a bathroom hog!" Now I'm wondering if I got the hog from my kids or they got the hog from me?

How cool is this?

I will have a garden like this someday.

Tommy's belly button face

You will need:

One eight year old kid

One set of markers, hopefully washable, but probably not.

Too much spare time

Directions:

Draw mouth around belly button, add eyes and eyelashes (optional).

Walk up to your Mom, lift shirt, and make belly button say "Helloooooo! C'mere and gimme a big kiss!"

My youngest son asked which butt muscles he had to flex so he would light up like a firefly. Enough said.

The face of joy.

1 comment

Happy Birthday Kenny!

I can't believe my first child is thirteen. One three. Officially a teenager. I think I just threw up a little.

I remember taking him to his first day of kindergarten and thinking that was a big deal, and in September he starts high school. High school! I don't understand where the time went. Here is a little about Kenny:

Kenny is wicked smart. He was sent to room one time at five years old and told not to say another word. Frustrated and determined to make his point, he wrote notes and slid them under the door. "But I was just trying to explain... " About four years ago he proudly announces "Hey I just counted to three thousand!" Great! "By seventeens" he says. Huh? Turns out he can count by any two digit number, as fast as he can say them, up to any amount. 17, 34, 51, 68, 85, 102... Who does that?  I couldn't get past thirty four that fast.

The greatest thing about Kenny, though, is that he is just a good kid. I know, everyone says they have good kids. I was on a trip for a couple days, and while I was gone progress reports came out. One was not so great, and so he put himself on restriction before I got home because he knew that was what was going to happen. HE PUT HIMSELF ON RESTRICTION, even when our friend who was with him offered to keep it quiet until I got home. Kenny is the kid that stops to ask how you are if you hurt yourself, gets up in the morning and asks if you slept okay, and asks you how your day was when you walk in the door at night. He is good natured, genuine, and couldn't tell a straight-faced lie to save his life. He is one of those boys that you can already see what kind of man he will be, and it's a great picture.

The big thirteen Kenny Ray.  Wow, you're old.

Hey, they match my car!

1 comment

These came up in our front yard. I found myself showing Tommy all the flowers and telling him what each one was. I have become my Mother.