A night in the life of Gracie Bonham

Do you ever have moments when your kids do something that make you go "Wow, I am incredibly lucky to be your mom." Last night was one of those for me. Grace had to do an overnight sleep study at Primary Children's Medical Center. She's always been a terrible snorer and extremely restless in her sleep so her ENT wanted to do the study before he would remove her tonsils. He wanted to make sure there isn't anything else going on that we should know about. It took almost an hour and two grown men to get her all glued, taped and wrapped up for the study...Then she was supposed to go to sleep with all that junk on her! After finishing up with all the probes the guys verbally awarded Gracie with the "Bravest patient of the night award." She just giggled.

Throughout the night I could hear kids down the hall screaming "take it off" and didn't doubt that I might be screaming the same thing if I was in their place. I laid awake staring at the ceiling and thinking about that little girl in the bed next to me. She hasn't always taken these things well. There was a time when every doctor's visit included her kicking and screaming and me crying but slowly over the years she's become accustomed to it all; the poking, sticking and taping. She is learning to take it all with grace....I think we picked the right name for her after all.

Work in progress

My posts are growing fewer and farther between. I think its because of a combination of things: I am hearting the weather lately, spring cleaning is calling my name, and I've begun writing a column 3-4 times a week for examiner.com I love it! I've always loved to write and now I get the chance to do it more often and exercise that part of my brain that has been dormant for too long! I hope you will all check out my site and come back often. I just started so remember that it is a work in progress.

Girl's night out!

Pillow Talk

Craig finally returned from his mountain lion hunt a few days ago. I hate it when he's gone. It feels so wrong to go to bed without him. Almost eerie. I try to wear myself out completely so that when I finally do hit the sack I fall asleep quickly. Sometimes it works, others it doesn't. I just miss my chatty man. We always have great plans to go to bed early but as soon as the lights go out... the verbiage begins. "Wasn't it cute when Hallie ...?" "I wish I could turn back time to when..." There is never a shortage of conversation until either he or I start having slurred speech and half-sentences. It's all over from there until the next night. But when he's gone it surprises me how much I REALLY miss it. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes we drive each other crazy. But isn't it nice to know that at the end of the day all you want is to be beside the one you love. Happy Valentine's my love.

"Real Person?"

I love being a mother; wouldn't trade it for a million dollars but some days it would feel nice to be a "real person" for the day... A woman without snot smeared across her shirt or a gummy bear stuck to the bottom of her sock. How would it feel to wake up, get straight to work doing whatever task I set my mind to achieve that day and do it without 20 interruptions per minute? Not to mention trying to have a shower without someone opening the door every 30 seconds to tell me what someone else took from them, spilled on the floor or wrote on the wall. By now everyone reading this is thinking what a horrible mom. That's okay...I'm just saying what we are all thinking sometimes. Parenting is hard! Is this REALLY what we signed up for?

In light of the recent economy slump, I've begun looking for a job. At first the search was exciting. The prospect of someone paying me money for whatever talent I may have sounded very appealing. I could get up in the morning, be that "real person" for a few hours then come home again. Like a split-identity or something, right? So it seemed until the actual applying, interviewing and phone-calls began...

Suddenly I was overwhelmed with what I will have to sacrifice if I go to work. All the walks on sunny afternoons. Staying in bed till 10 am watching cartoons with kids piled all over me. Sticky kisses and scraped knees. This is what I dreamed of doing my entire life and when I think of leaving it behind everyday it absolutely breaks my heart. With every one of these messy little stinkers in my house I have given up another little piece of myself but in doing so have gained so much more. I have learned to love, to feel and to dream what someday might hold for each of them.

So while I may be out in the work force shortly, I've learned an important lesson for now: Cherish it...Every second of it! Cherish untangling Barbie's hair from the Matchbox car wheels. Cherish untying the socks wrapped around the big dinosaurs to hold on the baby dinos. Cherish the laughs and the tears and the fact that I can be here for ALL of it today....because we never know what tomorrow brings.

This IS what I signed up for. The hardest, most exhausting, messiest, most emotionally draining position in the world! And the most priceless...Motherhood.

APRONS

How many of you remember your Grandma's aprons? The following story was sent to me and brought back a flood of memories of my Grandma Mitchell who lived on the mountain in Alabama. On any given day at her home she could be seen wearing her apron as she ironed, washed, cooked, cleaned, sewed, or anything else for that matter. Boy, I miss her...

What do you remember about aprons as a child?

The History of APRONS
I don't think our kids know what an apron truly is. The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath. Because she only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears. From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner. It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
REMEMBER: Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw. They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron. I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron ... but Love !!

Post-Holiday Blues

Has anyone else got 'em??? For the last month one of the first things I've done each morning is plug in the Christmas tree. The thought of not having that cozy tree-light feeling in our home everyday makes me so sad. Apparently it makes CJ sad, too. This afternoon while the girls were at school I went upstairs to the toy room to take down the little "tacky tree," I like to call it. It has been decorated in neon lights, bulbs and stars the past 3 Christmas Seasons. The kids love it. Anyway, I first took off the ornaments, then the lights and last began to disassemble the tree. CJ came running from across the room just sobbing. At first I thought "What happened? Is he hurt?" Then he laid down on top of the tree and hugged it. He kept trying to pick it up and pull the limbs back down on it. It absolutely broke my heart. I feel your pain, CJ.