The Days Are Dwindling....

In about four weeks, five very important people in my life will be moving to Florida.  Because of a job transfer, Austin and his crew are making the journey to the Sunshine State.  With him he is taking our wonderful DIL, Amanda, and three little moppets who have my heart...Macie, Graeme, and Quinn.  To be honest, I don't know how Mark and I will survive.  They've lived down the street for 3 years now.  So, we have been able to see them whenever we wanted.  There have been so many sleep overs, Grandma and Macie Days, Grandma and Graeme Days and Grandma and Quinn Days, road trips, family dinners, cookouts, pool parties, crafting days, holidays and more.  The days are dwindling and soon there will be fewer of these things.

While I am excited for them all to be together as a family again, it will be hard to say goodbye.  I know it's the best thing for them, and I support it with all of my mind and common sense.  My heart, however, is struggling with it.  As I sit here, I just keep thinking...

The days are dwindling and so are the special moments.  Since the kids don't live in Newark anymore and are with her parents in Columbus, Mark and I have had Amanda and kids here every other weekend.  They were all here for the weekend.  There's only a few more sleepovers left before the move.  So, I've decided to enjoy, embrace and appreciate every moment...good or bad.  Quinn had a bad night last night and screamed from 11:30 until 2:00.  We have no idea why.  But, instead of being short tempered, I chose to soak up every minute of it.  Quinn ended finding some comfort laying on top of me.  At some point my neck hurt and I was on fire from his body heat, but I kept reminding myself to absorb the moment.  To take solace in that fact I was there for him last night when he needed me the most. 

The days are dwindling and so are the number of hugs, kisses and love yous.  I know there will be lots of phone calls, video chats and visits, it won't be as often as I'd like.  The kids were exceptionally loving this weekend.  In fact, Macie even called me Grandma and Grandma Denise.  She calls everyone by their first names...even her parents! So every time I heard "Grandma Denise, I love you" my heart melted and I filed her voice in my memory forever!  I'll pull those memories out when I'm feeling sad or lonely for her. 

The days are dwindling and so are the pancake breakfasts.  Macie and Graeme love to spend the night because they know that I'll let them make pancakes in the morning. They love to be helpers!  They are really becoming more and more independent.  So each morning they each get to make their own batter.  Graeme stands on the stool at the counter and Macie makes hers at the table.  They don't do well side by side!  Then we all sit down and share our bounty together.  There is no chef in this world that can hold a candle to the Alverson pancakes.

The days are dwindling and so are the meltdowns and temper tantrums.  I realized this weekend while Graeme was entralled with an epic meltdown that I'm actually going to miss them.  Don't get me wrong!  As a grandmother you never want any of your grandchildren to be unhappy and in distress.  But the reality of it is that will happen especially toddlers!  All you can do is wait for it to be over and let them know that you love them no matter what!  I'm pretty sure he knows that after this weekend!

The days are dwindling and so are our traditions.  There are a few things that we do with the grandkids every year.  We go to the pumpkin patch every October.  We didn't miss it this year.  We went a little earlier than normal...this evident by the condition of their pumpkins right now!  We always decorate our Christmas tree together.  So, this coming Friday when they get here, they will find the tree up. And I don't care if the darn thing is up on Nov. 1!  We will decorate it together. There will oohs and aahs.  Macie will yell at Graeme for putting an ornament in the wrong place.  We will all sleep in the living room that night with the tree on.  There will be oodles of pictures and videos posted to my Facebook, just so you are warned.  Who knows, I may leave it up all year. 

The days are dwindling and so are the park visits.  These three love the park!  They always ask if we can go.  We are lucky to live in a county that has a plethora of parks to enjoy.  What I love the most about our visits is watching them build their self-confidence.  It seems that with each visit, they try new things that is out of their comfort zones.  Watching Quinn go down the sliding board by himself for the first time and the look of wonderment and then smile on his face totally made my heart swell.  Watching Graeme tackle a few new activities at the Paw Paw's Park (Legacy in Hanover) was so exciting.  He was so apprehensive and backed out several times.  But in the end he prevailed and did it!  And Sweet Macie Aine had her first "playground romance"!  She met a boy a year or two older than her.  He was very kind and asked her her name and how old she was.  The next thing Amanda and I knew, she dusted us and played with the boy.  We, of course ,teased her in the car!  She didn't like that, but it's okay!  Pretty sure we are glad daddy and pawpaw weren't there!

The days are dwindling and so are the adventures.  Mark and I love to take the kids to different places!  We share with them our love for experiencing new things.  Over the years, we have been to playgrounds, theaters, shows, movies, fairs, museums, and more.  They don't know it yet, but Saturday is going to be a big day for them.  You see, we are taking them on another adventure before they leave.  We are going to see Disney on Ice in Dayton.   It's their Christmas present!  We don't buy toys.  We prefer to buy them what I call memories.  They will remember Disney on Ice far longer than a dinosaur or a shopkin.  So will Mark and I.

I could go on all night long about the days dwindling.  But I won't.  One, because I'll start crying.  Oh hell, we all know that I'm crying!  At least it isn't the ugly cry!  Two, I chose to think of the future adventures we will have on visits to Florida and here.  We will make sure it's always an adventure filled with lots of love, hugs, kisses, love yous, laughter and smiles with a few meltdowns and hissy fits thrown in!  Three, I promise to enjoy and treasure each moment we have left before the moving truck shows up and whisks our loves away. 

I urge all of you to treasure the moments with your loved ones and look for the blessings. No mater our situations, all of our days are dwindling away.  You never know what's down the road whether it's I-75 or life. 

Make Every Day Counts
Denise

Because I Don't Say It Enough

Life gets so busy that we forget to take time to look around and notice what is right in front of us.  It's usually the most important person/thing in our lives, but we lose sight of it and take it for granted.  We don't do this purposely.  We are just so focused on what needs to be done that we don't stop and appreciate what we have.  Because I don't say it enough, I"m dedicating this post to the one that goes unappreciated the most.

Mark Alan Mullett, age 60, is the true love of my life.  I first fell in love with him when I was a mere babe at the age of 15, and he was an 18 year old  Ridgewood football player with a monster fro!  I don't know what I loved the most about him.  Maybe it was his green eyes, or his senior swagger, or his bad boy image! Whatever it was then is not what it is now.  He still has his green eyes, but the fro is gone and the bad boy image has been put to rest.  I've been contemplating things lately, and I think I know what it is that makes me love him so much.

1.  We will start with the obvious!  He loves his grandkids fiercely.  Living a life as a construction worker for 40+ years, he is rough around the edges.  It is sometimes hard to deal with!  But when it comes to the ones who call him PawPaw, he becomes mush!  He will do anything for them!  He will sit through 2 hours of a dance recital just to see his granddaughter take the stage for less than 2 minutes.  He will spend time in the bathroom teaching his grandson how to poop in the potty.  He will spend time watching youtube videos of the Floss so he is prepared in case he has to perform it at the daddy/daughter dance with granddaughter.  He will play the dinosaur matching game for an hour because his grandson loves it!  He will follow is granddaughter wherever she leads him by the finger. He will hold and cuddle his grandson even though he is a little afraid of babies!  And he melts my heart and makes me love him even more every time he loves on them.  The sparkle in his green eyes every time he talks about the "little snot nosed creatures" is 1000 watts!

2.  The amount of pride and time he puts into his job and his IBEW brothers and sisters is amazing.  Going from the trenches of the job to the office of the hall was a huge adjustment for him.   One that he found to be challenging, but rewarding.  One of the challenges was to be more politically correct.  This was not easy for him.  He was accustomed to a life of the locker room mentality, if you will, and now he has to be more aware and kinder in how he communicates things.  We have lessons every now and then about what and how to say things.  Another challenge was supporting his brothers and sisters in ways that he had no experience dealing with.  But like any task before him, he educates himself on how best to assist them.  He loves his union with the same passion he has for his grandchildren.  It is that dedication and passion that makes me love him even more.  His commitment to the IBEW and his job a business agent truly amazes me everyday.  Any one who is willing to completely shift the paradigm box for others is an amazing person.

3.  His is a great 60/40 kind of guy!  I'll be honest!  He is more of a housewife than I am.  But he never complains that the amount of home responsibilities are not always even.  By decades of experience, it is safe to call me a woman with a gasoline ass.  I'm always on the go whether for school, grandkids or friends.  I get it honestly from my momma!  But Mark never complains about it.  He pitches in does a majority of the day-to-day operations at home.  He does the dishes and trash every night, the laundry and essential item shopping every week, and maintenance honey-do-list when he has time.  He does it all without complaining.  And I know there are times when he is so tired that he really doesn't want to do these things, but he still does.  Most often it goes unnoticed by me because I'm either running in or out the door.  It is often a thankless job for him.  But it's for that reason that I love him even more!

4.  His commitment to helping others really tugs at my heartstrings.  He volunteers his time with charity work and never asks for any recognition.  Actually, he gets a little annoyed with me when I point it out, but I really don't care.  What he is doing to improve the lives of others is admirable and heartwarming.  Over the last year or so he has been putting in an incredible amount of hours helping to build the Legacy Park in Hanover, Ohio.  He is volunteering his time to wire the concession stand.  This isn't an easy 2 week job and you walk away feeling good about yourself.  This is a 2 year project that he's had dedicated 100s of hours to working on.  What started as an union hall project has now turned into a one-person job.  Due to the amount work and overtime, many people aren't available right now.  Mark has taken it all in stride.  He dedicates time each weekend working on the park whether it's there on site or at home reviewing plans and ordering materials.  He's getting close to finishing the project.  According to him, he's about 70% done.  When it's over, I know he will be relieved.  But I"m pretty sure he will be looking for another project to take on.  Maybe not on such a grand scale, but it will be for a great cause.  How does he know that all of this work has been worth it? Well, the grandkids call it PawPaw's Park because they know that he can't play with them some weekends because he's working at the park.  When the weather is nice, they often ask if we can go to PawPaw's park.  They love it there because it's fun.  I love it because they get to visit him there and see him paying it forward.  He is leading by example, and that makes my heart happy.

5.  Lastly, his love for me is fierce and unconditional.  When he asked me to marry him, I'm not sure he really understood how hard I can be to love.  I am a lot of things:  opinionated, hard to please, emotional, brutally honest, giving to a fault, and a  loud, hardworking unicorn who is just trying to survive in a lion's world.  To love me is exhausting work.  But Mark has taken it all on with such amazing strength and undying love.  He is willing to do so many things out of his comfort zone to understand me and to support me. He has really had to make changes to his life to fit into mine.   Whether it is meditating with me each night, or volunteering his time for my various charities, or giving up football time to spend it with family, or learning to be kinder with his words, or traveling the world with me or praising me when I don't want to hear it,  he has done most of it without complaint or pushing back.  When I take the time to really think about it, I am in amazement that he has stuck around as he has.   He's been asked to give up a lot and look at life differently, and I don't know if I can ever thank him enough  for loving me the way he does.  I can honestly say he is the first man in my life who I know loves with me for me, and he accepts me for who I am.  That is rare, my friends. I am blessed.

So here is to you Mark Alan Mullett!  In preparation for Valentine's Day which we will spend apart because you support me in all that I do and know I'll be out of the state, I say I love you!  Thank you for being the man that I need even when I don't realize it!  You rock baby!  HMSB

Make Every Day Count
Denise