GOD BLESS THE LITTLE CHILDREN

One of the things I love about little children is that it doesn’t take a whole lot of anything to make them happy…

Daddy cutting our watermelon! 

Take Wyatt and William for instance, the first just turned three years old and the latter just turned eighteen months old. I have noticed that there are certain things that Wyatt just has to do when he came to see me.  This child is sure enough a little creature of habit. He has to get my small two step ladder and put it in the living room. You would be amazed at just how many things that child can find to do on that one little ladder! He will climb up it, he will turn around and climb down it. He will sit on the top of it and he will turn around and slide off the back of it. This can go on for hours, as he neglects the very many so called real toys overflowing his and Will’s toy box.

William with a piece of melon as big as he is!

He has to play with his Wee-Dough; which is the name Wyatt gave Play-Dough. I know he can pronounce the correct name very well, because he will each and every time I ask him to. Why he calls it Wee-Dough only he knows.

Wyatt tearing into his piece of melon!

But the very best thing Wyatt loves??? Well, from the time he was born, that child has loved to be on my bed. The thrill of his little life is to go into “Maw-Maw’s bedroom”. Since he was old enough to hold a baby rattle in his little fist, I have kept a very small wicker basket of toys to amuse him in my room and since he was old enough to sit and walk, he has loved getting on my bed and having that basket placed in front of him.

Someone’s been eating the blackberries mama picked!

Some of the toys are the very same ones that have been in that basket since day one; His  Glow Worm that plays tunes, a baby doll that cries unless you give it a bottle, and some small plastic blocks. Yet, to this day, he will take out all the toys and carefully examine and play with each and every one as if it is the very first time . 

After he has done this, he will slide off the side of the bed and climb up on my old storage ottoman that sits by the bedside table. He will then grab the pull chain on my small table lamp and turn it on. Wyatt loves LIGHT…always has. When he goes into any room, he will tell you right quick, “turn the light on”, no matter how light and bright the room may be. 

Wyatt on his little stool

As he pulls the chain on that little lamp, he will turn and smile the biggest smile at me and say, “Maw-Maw (in sing-song voice) the light is COLD!” 

This comes from the time when he was around 18 months old and I told him not to touch the light because it was hot…having forgotten that I had replaced the old bulb with a new florescent one. Well, of course Wyatt just had to touch that light to see if it truly was hot and actually found out to his delight that it was cold.

So, one of my grandson’s  first sentences was,“MAW-MAW, THE LIGHT IS COLD!”  and trust me, he hasn’t forgotten it. He always laughs so hard, as if it is the funniest thing that his Maw-Maw was wrong!!!

Wyatt on top of the couch!

Yesterday, when Amanda brought him and William over to see me, I was busy finishing up with the washing of my living room and kitchen curtains. After pausing to fix Wyatt and William a little breakfast, I began hanging the curtains back up, sharing the little two step ladder with the boys, being careful not to step on them on the way down!  As soon as I was through, sure enough, Wyatt asked to go into my room.

Now days, even little brother knows the drill! William went straight to the bed and held his little arms up to me to be picked up and placed on Maw-Maw’s bed, while big brother climbed up all by himself…where they both carefully took each and every toy out of that old wicker basket and examined them.

William in serious thought!

As Wyatt slid off the bed and headed for the ottoman to pull the light chain on, baby brother Will grabbed the baby doll and tried to stuff  the bottle into it’s mouth. When he couldn’t get the bottle into it’s mouth to shut it up, he picked the baby doll up and put it on his shoulder, patting it’s ( up-side-down) back!!  Sure enough, only moments later, Wyatt pulled the light chain on, and looked at me, laughing his head off saying “Maw-Maw…(in sing-song voice) the light is COLD!”

Nope, it doesn’t take that much to make little children happy…some warm clothes in the winter, cool clothes in the summer, good home cooked food, something cool to drink when they are thirsty and most importantly; plenty of LOVE …

With big bear hugs thrown in for good measure.

Is it possible to look at this picture of these two little angels God blessed us with and NOT cry???

I believe that we come into this world with an inner voice telling us what is important, what will make us happy and what is comforting.

We may lose sight of that as we grow up, but fortunately we tend to revert back to it..

 As we go into our senior years.

Thank goodness.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WYATT!

  

Amanda and Kelvin held a birthday party for Wyatt  this past Sunday. Amanda baked a sheet cake and then she and Kelvin decorated it.  They made it look like a tractor pull! Which was  right up Wyatt's alley! That child loves tractors!

  

      He has a cold, but he still had fun.

Every time someone would come in carrying a gift, Wyatt would excitedly tell me,  “Maw-Maw; my presents are coming!!! ” He was so thrilled and had to wait such a long time before getting to open up those glorious presents!  So he kept trying to sneak a little bitty bit of paper off a present without his mama seeing him! He would pinch a teeny tiny piece off  and wad it up in his little hand, and run throw it in the trash can! And William???

   

Well, he was running around trying to feed their new little kitty cat to their new German Shepherd pup!!!

  

“Finally! I get to open Maw-Maw’s present!!”

It did my heart good to see my grandchildren Sunday, but I had a dark cloud hidden deep in my heart. You see, when I woke up Sunday morning, I did like I always do, I looked on Facebook . The very first post I saw was one of a dear friend… One who was there for me before and after Danny died…

My friend, Lori is the type that takes care of everything and everybody. She works without ceasing for her family. She loves her children and grandchildren and puts them above and beyond anything…including herself.   Her first post literally screamed at me; “Wes not breathing”  And then, “dear God take me, not Weston” and then, “Weston is gone.”

It was then that my heart stopped and my mind absolutely refused to accept what my eyes were seeing. I tell you, the illogical thought of  “Surely this must be some kind of new and cruel hacking/spamming joke.”  kept running through my brain. When  the words of her posts began to finally sink in, the words that came bubbling up like a volcano from my very soul were; “Oh God…Oh God…Oh Heavenly Father…. nooooooooooo…nooooooooo”

   

You see, my friend’s two month old grandson, Weston… a little cherub… a beautiful little baby boy.…One who had been fine Saturday when she posted a video of him cooing …was gone.  Just that fast.  Gone. God be with them. I can not begin to imagine the pain they are feeling …but I do know the pain that I am feeling for them. I pray that God grant them all Shalom.

      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I bought a pork roast yesterday. This morning when I got up, it was calling to me from within the refrigerator. It told me it wanted to be part of the bigger story. It wanted to become a huge pot of Brunswick stew.

Okay…so the pork roast really didn’t call out to me…but I just knew it did want to become part of the Brunswick stew I made today, and it got it’s wish!  Dan had been dropping hints for weeks that he had no more stew in the freezer, sooooo ….

After making a quick trip to Moon’s Grocery to get some more chicken, corn, tomatoes and grab some of their containers…( I don’t like their tops!)  It took me from 7:30 this morning until 3:00 pm to finish cooking  all of it. I let it sit and cool down, while I drove Dan out to the Publix shopping center to get a hair cut! When I came back home, I ladled it up into the containers. I ended up with 10 quarts and 10 pints and two bowls that held a pint and a half each.

      Guess what we had for supper??

  

     Freezing it to put in the big freezer

You know, I try to make Dan some stew about once a year and each time I do, I have even more respect for my bosses than I did before. They do this every week and let me tell you, they make a heck of a lot more than I did today. Just ONE of their aluminum pots hold more stew than I could make in three days!! 

      

Trust me…

My weary body could tell you right now just how long ,hard, and hot work making Brunswick Stew is …

But I  made my young-un happy today…and that makes up for everything.

Until next time…

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

The Last Day of May

             My back yard: 4/19/2011

I have always wished I had a back deck to sit out on in the evenings!

If I am going to keep a journal, then I sure as heck need to be writing more often in it! I am mad at me. So many, many days have gone by ( nearly a month!)  and they are now lost, all because I was just too lazy to write it down.

Back in the old days of AOL JOURNALS, there were so many of us writing that it was hard to keep up with each other. Tonight I went over to check on some of my fellow bloggers and some of them are not even there anymore.

There was one lady who’s journal was about her sister having Alzheimer's ; “WATCHING MY SISTER DISAPPEAR” …The last post she wrote was around two years ago and it was titled; “John’s Turn Now”. It was about how her husband now had the same disease! I sure wish I knew how she was..but there is no email…nothing I can follow up on to find her.

Now most of us have went over to Facebook and we tend to forget our journals. Some of my old AOL JOURNAL friends are now on my Facebook friends list, so at least I can keep up with them. One of the best things Danny ever gave me was the computer for my Christmas present a few years before he passed away. I don’t know what I would have done all those hundreds of nights I couldn’t sleep after he died, if it had not been for my online friends. They were there and they kept me going.

     Wyatt in his rocker: 5/08/2011

  Will on my front porch : 4/29/2011

Wyatt and William are growing so fast…too fast. I often  tell Amanda she needs to enjoy every minute of them being small because before she knows it,  they will be grown and leaving home…  But no one can prepare a mother for that empty nest feeling, it is something one has to learn themselves. Now I know how my mama felt when we all left.

Mama : on Mother’s day, 2011

My mama is doing as okay as possible, but Alzheimer’s is taking her farther and farther away from me…Most times she doesn’t recognize me as her daughter, but will recognize my name and think I am an aid at the nursing home. On days that he goes with me , she seems to  think that Dan (my son) is my husband…It is only when I point at the picture on her wall of Danny that she remembers “Danny Noggle” …and that only lasts for a few moments. This breaks my heart every time…She loved Danny so much.

Dan cut the grass for me last week and I didn’t even have to help!  Wyatt, William and Amanda was here, so we sat outside and watched him. When Dan would get close to my roses and such, Wyatt would start yelling, “STAY AWAY FROM MAW-MAW’S BUSHES!!”  and no…he didn’t hear me saying that either! Pretty smart for a two year old, ( soon to be three) huh??

It was really hot today and is suppose to get hotter. I dread next month’s electric bill because I have had the air on for a while now. Our water/sewage bill doubled this month because of new City Hall rates. Mine was right at $140.00. I don’t know how we low income folks can keep making it what with EVERYTHING going up…groceries, utilities, cable..not to even mention GAS…  But God has still been so good to us here in Greene County. Though we have had storm damage, we have not had the devastation that Missouri has had by the killer tornadoes…

I pray that we never ever have to experience that.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

PATHS OF DESTRUCTION

With my television on yesterday evening and all through the night, I watched in horror as tornado after tornado ripped through Georgia’s sister state, ALABAMA.

It was almost like an evilness had decided that it was going to destroy and kill everything in it’s path. Then, once it started, it couldn’t get enough of the devastation it was causing…

So it kept right on going.

I watched for hours as the tornadoes tore and ripped up Alabama. In the end, it still wouldn’t be satisfied, even with all the destruction it had caused.

So, in the darkness of night, the evilness began it’s deadly trek into the state of Georgia. 

Just like General Sherman, who told Grant that he would,  “make Georgia howl”,  so too did the evilness, as it cut it’s path of destruction from the northern tip to the southern part of our state.

Around 12:30 am, Greene County, Georgia came under a tornado WARNING. Not a watch..but a true WARNING. Which meant that there was rotation on the ground.

AND IT WAS HEADED TOWARD US. 

I prayed and prayed …and prayed some more. Not only for myself and my family…but also for my friends and their families.

For over an hour, we were in the middle of hail, lightning, wild roaring wind and torrential rain…

But no tornado.

I ended up going to bed at 5:15 am this morning and got right back up at 7:00am.

While cooking Dan’s breakfast, I again turned the TV on and my heart ached as I looked at the devastation that lay in Alabama and Georgia. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said his state had confirmed 194 deaths. At least 280 people were killed across six states — more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind.There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 14 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured — 600 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama alone.

All day at work, for over ten hours, I worried about those I had not heard from since the tornadoes.

This evening I came home and found that one of my  friends from Alabama had commented on Facebook and finally…blessedly,  knew that at least she and her husband were safe.

It was like a dam had burst…I sat there and cried like a baby.

It could be that I am just getting soft in my old age, or it could be the hormone pills I now take, or it could be the fact that I only had one and a half hours sleep this morning before I had to get up and go on in to work.

But what I’d like to think it is…

That, as I have aged, I have finally learned what is most important in life.

Loved ones…. family ….. friends.

And the fact that they are SAFE and still with us.

WE ARE  SO BLESSED.

Thank You God.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

THAT COULD HAVE BEEN US.

Last weekend, after work, I was sitting at the drive through window at Zaxby’s waiting on my order, when out of the side door, a little boy and girl came running out. Right behind them were (what I took to be) their parents. They all were laughing and chattering away as they strode toward their jeep, which also had a boat in tow. The dad popped open the rear jeep hatch and the children climbed in eagerly as their parents, laughing and talking amongst themselves, went on around to the front. As I sat there watching them, it hit me;

This use to be us.

One summer when we went to Myrtle Beach, just as we finally pulled up to our motel, our car battery died! A nice couple saw us having trouble and jumped us off, so we could go get a new one. I remembered how that dead battery didn’t spoil our time, and how we laughed all the way to the store. The rest of the vacation has faded into all the other times we went to Myrtle Beach, disappearing like the little wisps of steam that come up from a hot cup of coffee and quickly fade away.

But our laughter still plays on.

I miss those times. When you have children, you are so busy raising them that you don’t notice how fast the time is moving, do you? One minute, it seems we are bringing them home from the hospital,  the next we are sending them off to school and before we even know it…they are gone from our homes.

Oh, if I could go back and know then what I know now… I would try to hold on to every minute of every single day. I wouldn’t be so worried about what I needed to get done around the house. 

I would take more time to hug my kids and hold them close.

Time goes forward .. it doesn’t come back.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

ONE OF THOSE DAYS

Today I got up early; well, earlier than usual for a work day. As I  walked the pups, I noticed how foggy it was outside and wondered if it would rain.

       

                          DANNY AT EMORY 2005

Later, I came inside, cooked breakfast and afterwards, took a shower. I put my clothes on, and went to my bedroom to get my purse and keys.

I keep most of the sweet stuff and drinks in my bedroom, because my son Dan is a diabetic. When he started raiding the sweets while I was at work and his sugar begin to spike, I had the old doorknob taken off and a new one with a lock put on!

So, this morning, I got my purse, shut and locked my bedroom door,and went into the kitchen. I was going to get my R.C. Cola out of the refrigerator to take to work with me!  Before I got to the refrigerator though, it dawned on me that I didn’t have my keys. I looked everywhere and couldn't find them, Then it hit me...I had left my keys in my bedroom! 

IN MY LOCKED BEDROOM!

I tired using a screwdriver, a butter knife, and even some old keys to no avail! I was just fixing to take the screwdriver and get my hammer and knock the pins out of the hinges, when I thought to go outside and  try to go through the window. I got the old plastic lawn chair and pulled it up to the window. I stepped up on it and was just too short to get to the window. So I got the little plastic table and sat it on the chair. I stepped up on it…and it sank to the bottom of the chair…but I was high enough to at least get the screen to unlock and come off the window and then raise the wooden window up. The only trouble was, I couldn’t get my leg up high enough, nor push myself up high enough to get in the window!

So I called Dan…who was laughing at me! He kept saying, Mama if you hadn’t put that lock on the door, you wouldn’t be having to do this!!! Oh, I wanted to pinch his head off!

Did I mention that by this time it was ALSO RAINING???

Dan finally got through the window and went straight to my desk where I keep my keys and they WERE NOT THERE. So, after I finally go the window put back together and went inside, I set about looking for my keys AGAIN.  

Would you believe they were sitting right up under my purse???? Dan thought it was hilarious, but not me…

I have always said that  my legs are way too short, and today it proved true, because I sure wanted to kick my own butt!

Because, after all that…..

I left my dang R.C. Cola at home.

GOD BELSS YOU ALL.