From what I understand, although my grandma is in a coma, she can squeeze people’s hands. One of my cousins sent me a picture of Grandma holding her hand, and I think it’s quite possibly the most beautiful picture I’ve ever seen.

I’m so incredibly sad that her life is drawing to an end. What an amazing woman… strong, determined, witty, and above all, loving and kind to others. She’s never lost her sense of humor. For example, the last time I recently saw her, one of my aunts said jokingly to Grandma, “Hey Mom! Why don’t you get up on the table and dance and we’ll put some dollar bills in your skivvies!” My grandmother was so frail and tiny, and needed help walking, standing, and even eating. But without missing a beat, face completely deadpan, she looked at my aunt and said in her telltale no-nonsense voice, “Well… It’s gonna take me a while to get up there.”

My grandma’s always been quite witty with an awesome, dry sense of humor. She used to always crack me up the way she would say things or tell a joke… always with a straight face, always as if she was serious, yet never attempting to be funny or make someone laugh. She was a total natural.

Because I was unable to make the long trip to see her and say goodbye, I wrote her a letter. Since my mom and dad were able to make the trip, I emailed it to Dad and he read it to her. I’m thankful that I was able to say my final farewell to her, to tell her how much I love her and how much she’s meant to me over the years. I know death is a part of life, and I know it’s to be expected that our grandparents will pass on. But why is it still so damn hard to lose them?

My little guy when he was just seven months old… my how time flies. Well, it doesn’t exactly fly in the moment, but it sure seems like it did in retrospect. I can’t believe Nathan is getting so big now and that he is now done with the toddler years and has morphed into this preschooler. PRESCHOOLER. I love this kid.

I can’t believe my little boy has grown so much… sometimes it seems like such a long, long time ago that he was a little baby. Other times it seems like just yesterday. I wonder how it will feel in ten years. Or twenty. Or thirty. I know I’m really going to miss him being little and all the sweet little things that come with it, especially the things like how a hug can make the world ok, how kisses have the magical ability to instantly heal absolutely anything, and especially the way he wraps his arms around my neck and tells me he loves me “so vewy much.” He’s at a tough age where he is testing every single one of his boundaries and purposefully not minding me just to see what I will do. But the sweet times totally make up for the frustrating ones.

I’m really going to miss these times when he’s all grown up. Even the hard parts. Because when he’s all grown up, I won’t be able to tickle his feet anymore or scoop him up in a giant bear hug and twirl around the room with him… and all the other sweet little things that come with this age. The good and the bad, it’s all part of it.  So every time he throws a temper tantrum or tries to assert his independence, I just tell myself that one day, I will look back at these days with fondness…

So today, I walked past him as he was playing in his room. I heard him say, “Time to clean up!” and as I peeked my head through the door, I saw him picking up his Hot Wheels, one in each hand, and transporting them to their proper place into the basket on the toy shelf. He did this multiple times until all 50+ Hot Wheels were picked up off the floor.

I could not be more proud. I know plenty of adults who are too lazy to clean up after themselves, so seeing my two-year-old do it without any prompting makes me feel like I’m doing something right. I tell him all the time how important it is to clean up after himself because if he doesn’t do it, then that means someone else has to, and that’s not right.

For instance, I used to be a waitress when I was 16 years old. And out of all the different people that I served, guess who I hated waiting on the most? FAMILIES WITH KIDS. I especially hated, HATED waiting on the families with small children. Why, you ask? Well, because the majority of all the parents that came in apparently thought it was perfectly fine and “normal” for their kids to fling food all over the table and floor, spill drinks, be disruptive, and make the most God-awful messes I’ve ever seen. And the kicker? The reason why I hated serving them so much, aside from the irritation of dealing with a child who has no discipline?

SHITTY TIPPERS.

I tell you, parents with messy kids tended to leave the saddest tips I’d ever seen. You see, servers don’t get paid crap. At the time (over a decade ago), the hourly rate was $2.13 an hour, and to this day, it still hasn’t gone up to minimum wage. That’s because servers are expected to make up the difference with tips. So here I am, busting my ass cleaning up after these bratty little booger-crusted hellions and for next to nothing. No matter how great of a server I was… never letting their drinks empty, bringing their orders out in a timely manner, etc… they still only left a dollar or two. Even if that tip was 10-20% of their bill, when they allow their child(ren) to leave such a horrendous mess, they should tip more because the server now has to go above and beyond to take care of something the parents apparently didn’t have the capacity to take care of themselves. And the more time I had to spend cleaning up after a table, the less turnover I had, the less tables I could wait on, and the less money I could make.

It was really such a welcome relief when the few families with well-behaved, respectful kids came in. That’s probably why whenever we go out to eat, our server inevitably comments on how well-behaved Nathan is.

Here’s the deal. People who let their kids make these disgusting messes pretty much look like complete Parenting Failures to all who observe them. Typically speaking, the messy kids are also the ones throwing tantrums, screaming, standing up in their seats, flinging food across the room, climbing up on top the tables, being disruptive and disturbing the other patrons, etc etc etc etc. Lazy parenting at it’s best, folks. So what gives me the right to say that?  Well, my two-year-old would LOVE to do those things. I’ve never, NEVER allowed him to drop his food on the floor, take food off his plate or play with it, stand up in his seat, climb on the table, or any of that. Don’t get me wrong, he definitely tries. But I am the PARENT. It’s my job to prepare him for the next stage in life, and letting him do all those things teaches him nothing but how to be self-absorbed, entitled, and bratty. My child will not be allowed to be a brat. I know he is capable of better, therefore I expect more of him. I teach him what I expect of him when we’re at the table. And when he doesn’t comply, there are consequences (like putting him in time out, for example. And there have been many, many times I’ve had to get up from the table, take him outside, and put him in time out for not minding me at the table.)

Time and time again, I see parents “check out” while their kid runs amok at restaurants.

There is no excuse. None. Put on your big girl (or boy) panties and BE A PARENT. Teach your child the right way to behave. It’s not the kids’ fault that their parents suck, and believe me they will pay for your failures as they grow into adults, and that’s not fair to the child.  They usually end up becoming bratty, self-absorbed and entitled adults who won’t be able to get far in life.  What a shame.

I can’t stand to see bad parenting because it’s so selfish on the parents’ part and is nothing but detrimental to the child. Your child deserves better. Your child deserves a parent who is going to at least TRY mold them into becoming a responsible adult. I have friends whom I am embarrassed to go eat with because their own children, who are older than my son, are hellions at the table. When we leave the restaurant, my son’s area is clean. There is no food on the floor, no spilled drinks (I understand it’s inevitable, but some kids spill their drink nearly every single time they eat) and no disruptions such as standing up in his chair or getting up and running around the table.

The world doesn’t revolve around a single one of us. We have to be respectful of others, and we have to understand how our actions affect those around us. It’s our job as parents to teach our children those same principals. Anything less is letting your child down and inadequately preparing him/her for life. That’s not fair to the child.

I can’t believe I never blogged about this.

So anyway, we found one of those indoor playgrounds in a fast food restaurant. From the outside, the play space looked massive. It beckoned to us, looming over us at about two stories tall. So we hauled Nathan out of his carseat and into the restaurant.

As soon as I opened the door to the play space and looked around, my heart sank. Yeah, the play space was two stories tall, but it was NARROW. The room it was in was maybe 12 ft x 12 ft, with the play space taking up a good portion of it… leaving an available space of about 12 ft x 4 ft. And the play space was completely vertical. There were a number of ledges arranged in step-formation for kids to shimmy up, but there is no way an adult could because there was only about a foot of space available to squeeze through in order to climb to the next ledge. Someone like me would get stuck. It was a safety hazard if you ask me.

Of course, the kids all had to take their shoes off to play, so the smell of dirty feet permeated the tiny enclosure. There was no air conditioning or any air flow whatsoever, so it was stuffy and stale, which only exacerbated the dirty feet smell.

I sat on one of the benches and tried not to touch anything. My friend T appeared to be just as uncomfortable as me, but we couldn’t just leave. No, once you take a two-year-old into a play area, you cannot just turn around and leave unless you’re wanting to experience the apocalypse.

I couldn’t let Nathan climb the contraption because he’s so little, if he got hurt, I would have not be able to squeeze my way through the ledges to help him. Nathan, on the other hand, was completely oblivious to the stale air and dirty feet smell. And even though I wouldn’t let him climb the play thingy, he just ran around that tiny little enclosure, clapped his hands, and had a ball.

In fact, he was running so hard and enjoying himself so much that he quit paying attention and ran right smack-dab INTO A WINDOW. Just like how you see in the cartoons, with his little arms and legs splayed out. He kinda bounced off it, rubbed his head, but shook it off like it was nothing.

Another gross thing about the play space is there were a number of kids in there, and at least two of them were sick. One had a nasty, hacking cough and the other had a disgusting, snotty nose. You know, complete with those gross snot bubbles. And she was constantly wiping her mucus faucet with her hand and then she would TOUCH everything.

What made it even worse was her mother came in there once and was all like, Oh look at your poor little nose, my sweet sick little baby, blah blah blah. And I’m thinking to myself, CAN YOU NOT SEE YOUR KID IS SPREADING THE MUCUS PLAGUE ALL OVER THE PLACE??

My left eye actually twitched a little over the mom’s obtuse complacency. I mean, who can be so oblivious to others that they let their snot-bubble spewing kid sow their noxious germs into the porous plastics where said germs will fester and possibly mutate into an ULTRA MUCUS PLAGUE and other kids will then pick them up and spread the love? Who does that? SATAN??

Can you imagine the self control it took for me to not yank my child out of there?

I just didn’t have the heart to. Nathan loves being around other kids and was having a blast just running around. We stayed for about an hour, and let me tell you, when we finally left, FRESH AIR NEVER FELT SO GOOD.

No, not a good place for a mom like me who is trying really hard to control her OCD tendencies. Needless to say, I sanitized the shit out of Nathan’s hands once we left and fortunately, he didn’t get sick from the episode.  Lesson learned. It will probably be a long, long, LONG time before I take my child back to one of those indoor play spaces. My friend and I were so dismayed… it felt like we were tricked. I mean, from the outside, it was so big and inviting… It was like a bait-and-switch, and we were very disappointed.

Sometimes keeping your balance in snow is harder than you think

Trekking through the yard, exploring everything

Daddy! Can you make it snow more? This is so fun!

How cool! Snow on the car!

What? It can’t already be time to go inside!

Well then, first you gotta catch me! IF YOU CAN!

Ok, I’m pooped. We can go inside now.

And if you can’t tell, the little snowsuit Nathan is wearing is from the late ’70′s… it used to be Paul’s when he was Nathan’s age. There is something really special about Nathan wearing stuff that his daddy used to wear… almost as if the past and the present have been folded together and for one moment, they merge. I am so very glad and thankful that Paul’s mom saved (and then passed down!) her favorite items from Paul’s childhood.

Thinking of Turbo today…. I love this picture of him when he was a little guy. It’s hard to believe that in three days, it will be two months since he passed away.

My dad in 1970, after earning his wings

My dad is the one on the left, asleep on his Cobra while waiting for their next mission

His father, my grandpa, is also retired Army. He started out at the “bottom of the totem pole” as an enlistee, then climbed up the ranks to retire as a Lieutenant Colonel.  He fought in WWII as an infantryman carrying mortars, and he has also accomplished many great things in his lifetime, including publishing a book about his experiences in the war as a mere 18-year-old guy. I’ve read his book, and it was really descriptive and at times, heartbreaking.  In 1945, after the war, Grandpa left the Army but rejoined a couple of years later. He was a Sergeant when he was selected for OCS (Officer Candidate School) and became a 2nd Lieutenant in the late ’40′s, just in time for his deployment to Korea. While he was in Korea, he was responsible for nuclear missiles. You know how in the movies, when a nuclear missile is to be deployed, it takes two officers turning two keys? That’s what my grandpa was responsible for. After Korea, in the early 1950′s, he became a missile instructor. My Grandpa also multilingual. He’s Finnish so he spoke Finnish fluently and in the mid ’50′s, he attended a German language school and was then hand-selected for a special assignment conducting German anti-aircraft artillery school training in Germany. He retired from the Army after over 23 years of amazing service.

From left to right, my uncle M, Grandma, uncle T, Grandpa, and my dad. This was taken before my dad’s two younger sisters were born.

And that’s not all. My dad’s brothers and one of his sisters joined the military. His oldest brother, T, was in the military as well. Sadly, he passed away in the late 1980′s. My dad’s younger brother, M, retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, and was even called back to active duty after his retirement to train Iraqi forces. He is now retired once more. My dad’s younger sister, D, joined the Air Force for a while.

On my mom’s side, my grandfather, known as Papa, was a Marine from 1940 until 1947. He was stationed at Pearl Harbor when the attack began. He was doing guard duty at the Navy Yard where the battleships were tied when out of nowhere, planes started shooting at him from overhead. Taking cover behind a tree, he slapped a round into his rifle and began shooting back. His commander, unaware that they were being attacked, threatened to put him on report. Papa, of course, lived through the attack but never spoke much about what happened. Remember when the movie Pearl Harbor came out? Well, the most Papa ever really described about his experience in Pearl Harbor was to say that the movie acurately depicted the horrors that they all endured. After he left he Marines in 1947, he became a CPA and later started his own accounting business, making a huge name for himself. Sadly, he passed away not too long ago.

Papa in 1941

So you see, Veteran’s Day has very special meaning to me, and I just want to thank everyone out there who has served or is currently serving in the military. You have written a check, payable to the United States of America, for an amount up to (and all too often including) your life. And for that, I will forever be thankful.