Gnawing or biting?

Posted by random olio

I was a biter. I told you all about it in my blog post: “I Was a Biter” almost two years ago. Over the weekend I got to hang out with my almost 3 month old niece, Charlie. In the two days I got to spend with her, she liked to gnaw on my finger. She does not have teeth, so it was more a gummy gnaw. How could I resist the drooling, gnawing cuddle muffin?

My niece has the nickname of Charlie, and since I was a biter, we were talking this weekend about whether Charlie will be a biter. My sister then brought up this video from 2007, and we laughed, and yes we had tears in or eyes, because quite frankly, Charlie in the video has this sort of snarky laugh that we can all relate to. I had forgotten about this video but love it. If you have not seen it, it is of two English boys, Charlie and his brother, Harry. Well, I can relate to Charlie. I was the youngest of three and whenever I could get just a second ahead of my sister or brother I felt like I had caught up, only to then have to run fast again to catch up again. Somehow when I struggled with communicating, and when I got frustrated I would resort to biting.

This video, per Wikipedia: “As of March 24, 2014 it has had 682,138,599 views and remains the most viewed YouTube video that is not a professional music video.” I have added to the views since March, as it is now at: 707,959,985. Crazy. Go Charlie, keep holding your own. Bite away.

Happy Mother’s Day, Sis.

Posted by random olio

For many years after my mom was gone, my sister was like a mother to me. I loved and hated it about her. She is older, so it was natural for her to step in and be the older, wiser sister, and I often resisted it. We fought a lot, which often ended in tears. Yet we also laughed a lot, which also ended in tears. I did not want to be mothered, and yet we both in our own ways, wanted to be mothered. We wanted that connection of family. There were ebbs and flows of times when we yearned to have our own family. We always had different individuals in our lives that were an inspiration to us, maybe not mother types, but individuals (yes I did not say women, because mothering can come from a man too) who gave us the mothering that we needed.

Each year as Mother’s Day comes and goes I have to say it is a strange day for me. It has been 20 years since I saw my mom’s face, held her hand, or gave her a hug. I have lived more years of my life without her than I had with her. Some years are tougher than others. On years when my sister and I lived in the same city, we would often have a sister brunch on Mother’s Day. Other years, I just go about my day as though it is just any other Sunday in May.

This year, my sister became a mother. Sunday will be the first Mother’s Day for her as a mom. While Charlie is too young to dote on her mom, I hope my sister cherishes the day. I hope she remembers that while she has had extremely less sleep, and most likely not much of a life in the past few months, it has all been worth it. I know she will say it has been.

Love the hell out of that precious little baby. Enjoy every moment as a mom. I only wish our mom could be with you on your first Mother’s Day, she would love the crap out of, lil Charlie.

Happy Mother’s Day, Sis.

Missed moments

Posted by random olio

By the mere fact that you are reading this blog it means you are on a smartphone, an iPad, or on your computer. A device that lets you connect to the Internet and go to a webpage. I love all my blog readers and followers, but for today I am going to tell you, read this blog today, watch the video below, and then turn it off for the day, or better yet, pick a day of the week to put your phone away, or a day a month, or if that might be hard for you, start by putting your phone down for an hour a day, and maybe gradually increase that to more and more time.

Some of you might have already seen this video, or it has been displayed on your Facebook or Twitter feed. Regardless I encourage you to watch it again and think about how many opportunities have you lost because you were too busy reading emails, scanning your Facebook feed, sending a tweet, or posting to your Pinterest board? I am just as much to blame. Yesterday I was at a conference and found myself in and out of a distracted mind between work emails, the presentations, and feeling completely out of it. I took ideas away from the day, but what if I had just turned my phone off? How many times are you in meetings and you see the same behavior (yourself or others) throughout the day?

I have written before about Sliding Doors moments, and I wonder if our phone is often that train that means that because our head is down, or our focus is off, that we miss out on important eye contact, fun moments, and maybe worse of all I wonder if our distraction actually makes others not trust us. Do we ever lead people to think that our phone is more important than they are to us? Yikes. There are times when Chris and I will go out to a nice restaurant and have somehow over time built a pact that we are there to be together – aka – no phones.

Watch this poetic way of getting us to realize how many moments we miss each day.

“I only want to hang with my wife”

Posted by random olio

You know when you hear something and you think, “Hell yeah, or right on!” We were watching a clip of Ellen with Seth Rogen and he discusses one of his recent tweets:

“I really only want to hang out with my wife. I just want to watch Game of Thrones with my wife.” -Seth Rogen

10:14 PM – 21 Apr 2014

Um, hell yeah. I am not a Game of Thrones fan, but really this could read anything along the lines of, “I really only want to hang out with my wife [or husband]. I just want to watch [Scandal] or [The Good Wife] or [24] or [insert your favorite TV show]. I love thinking about how diligent we are with specific shows. There are plenty of shows that I would never watch that Chris loves and others I cannot watch for the mere fact that I would never, EVER get the story line out of my mind. This is how the scenario would play out:

I would wake up in the middle of the night and shake Chris and say, “I cannot sleep because that episode of 24 was just too real and is something going to happen at 3:00 AM when Jack does [insert whatever mayhem you want here]?”

Chris would then think something like, “I cannot say, “No.” because Tami does not do so well in the middle of the night when she really is not coherent and when I tell her something is not possible and it does not make sense to her well a lot of expletives spew out of her mouth.” He would then say to me something like, “Jack is safe at home with Chloe. All is good.” I would believe him and then go back to sleep.

So instead of watching shows together that I cannot even fathom watching (because of my never-shutting-down brain) we watch Scandal, Parenthood, Modern Family, The Good Wife, Orange is the New Black, and House of Cards, and I can sleep at night and all is well.

The next morning we will wake up and brush our teeth and say, “Can you believe what happened on Scandal last night?” or “I cannot believe we only have one more episode left of House of Cards, how are we ever going to wait a year to see the next season (you know all in one weekend like the rest of the world).” Is it sad to say that while we are watching our favorite television shows together, curled up on the couch together, that we are in some ways connecting? Yes. We are home together. We discuss what happens. We reflect on the storyline in relation to our own lives. Somehow we feel in a better place and, maybe, the world is in a better place.

Although after all that, the gist of Seth Rogen’s quote is really this: “I just want to hang out with my wife [or husband].” At the end of the day it is not about Game of Thrones, or Scandal, or Orange is the New Black. It is the fact that hubby’s want to be with wives, and vice versa. It is about snuggling on the couch or in the bedroom, toes touching, or legs intertwined, for that moment in time where spouses hang together. Life is never the same. We are never the same.

#lovemyhusband

Ten things about my dad

Posted by random olio

My sister and a good friend just had babies in the last two months. It is fun watching (well I guess more through pictures at the moment) and thinking about Chris being a father someday. It has also prompted me to be reflective about my relationship with my own father. It was not really a rock-solid relationship. We had hard times, we had good times, but through it all we had memories. Here are a few remembrances of my dad:

If I knew I would lose him at such a young age, I would have kept all the letters he wrote to me on Christmas Eve (aka Santa who ate my cookies and drank the egg nog). Of course we left out egg nog for Santa, my dad LOVED his egg nog. The letters from Santa though, I guess I got rid of them, and they were the few letters I had from my dad. It would have been fun today to hear his wisdom. Especially during a holiday he loved. I am positive his letters probably shared his best self.
I wish he had been here long enough to meet Chris. He would have inadvertently taught him about construction. Chris would have picked up things quickly and learned to leave the truly professional jobs for the professionals.
He would have fun talking to Chris about cars. His “Automobile Quarterly” was a cherished possession. The two of them would geek out, although he would probably talk Chris’ head off with his endless stories of growing up on his Dad’s car lot.
The only movie I can remember seeing with him is, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” Seriously? What was he thinking? Bad movie, Dad.
His blue pickup truck was, well honestly, a piece of shit, but it was his truck and it contained all of his endless notes, crappy construction items, odd-shaped pencils, tape measures, clipboards, and what I will never forget, the device you could wire to the horn and play my favorite ever – the Dukes of Hazzard theme song. How cool I thought it was to have that blaring from the truck as we drove down the street.
I wish I knew I had a short time with him. I would have gotten over the grudge I held for so long. Not that it would have been easy for him, but I would have made us talk through our differences.
I do not remember it as much as a kid, but as I got older and saw him less and less, he seemed to show his emotion more and more. If only that had started earlier on in my life. If only.
He was a good/big hugger. Maybe that is where I get it from.
He had an addiction to Ritz crackers and peanut butter. I do not share this addiction. It just makes me think of sandpaper and glue. Dry and sticks to your mouth. Lime chips are where it is at! Wish I could spoil him with my addiction.
He would have loved iPhones. Not for the email, or phone, but for the games. If he knew you could play Cribbage, Euchre, Scrabble, Solitaire, I can imagine how unproductive he would have become. I think he would have played me from wherever he would be living.