1500 miles...

David and I spent over two hours on Skype talking to Andy and Kira tonight, and Ethan joined us for a while at the end. We got to do a three-way conference call. It was pretty cool. The unfortunate thing about this is that the conference calling isn't free. I'm not sure yet if we all have to pay for it, or if just one account is needed. I guess I'll have to check this out.
I google mapped the driving directions from Andy's apartment to the Phoenix Zoo and the miles they quoted me was 1570 miles. That is one heck of a long ways apart, but through the miracle of technology, we were all able to see one another. We were even able to take a screen snapshot, and I just may have to use it as our Christmas cards. Both kids took us on a tour of their apartments by walking their laptops around with the webcam capturing their everyday lives.
I really thought I was taking their absence quite well, considering that this is the first that Andy has lived away from home, and Kira and I did tons of things together when she was home. I realized that wasn't true two weeks ago at choir practice. We were singing a Christmas song, 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo' and I got to that line and couldn't sing anymore. I was immediately transported to one of the pews in the front of Parkway UCC, on Christmas Eve, standing with Andy to my right and Kira to my left and we were singing that song, and the lower part of my mouth started to quiver and I got tears in my eyes. Geez, I'm not certain that I will be able to sing any of the Christmas Carols. Thank God I don't have to sing 'O Holy Night', because even though I sang it as a solo several times, the duet that Kira and I sang was very, very special, not to mention, really, really fun to do. This will be a year of change for the Christmas Eve service. We have a new minister, and taking out 'O Holy Night' and maybe the pageant will be something totally different, which I think needs to happen. We'll come up with something quite special and beautiful and meaningful to give people peace and comfort. I'm looking forward to hopefully being able to brainstorm some ideas for a superb service.
Andy's plane arrives Christmas Eve morning and of course I will be at work. I won't get to see him until he walks into church that evening, unless of course, he stops by the hospital to say hi on his way home from the airport.
We plan on Skyping Kira Christmas Eve, if I had an iPhone, I could Skype the church service too, maybe Andy could!!

Truck...

We saw two 1951 trucks this weekend. One of them was a 1951 Chevy 1/2 ton totally reconditioned truck. All new, beautiful smooth, unmarred green paint, wood boards in the bed, so nice. Only a mere $18,500.
The second one we saw was a 1951 Ford 1/2 ton, all rusted, no floor in the cab, doors didn't close all the way. Apparently had a new engine though...it didn't look 'new' to me, maybe new to a 1951 truck, but not new to 2010. It did run though, and it had a title and license, and it was only $2500. I will need to take Ethan along with me when I get around to seriously looking for a truck.

Gone…

Ethan and Dawn left about 3 hours ago to make the 12 hour drive to Cincinnati to visit with Andy and Lauren.

Now, Ethan is gone ALL the time, so it shouldn’t feel strange at all that he isn’t here, but it is strange. It’s strange because I KNOW he isn’t here. I know he’s in a car driving, and they will be driving, all night long until they get to the 4th and Plum apartment.

Lauren will probably already have left for work, and Andy would normally be sleeping, but I bet he’ll be sleeping with one eye and one ear open, waiting for Ethan and Dawn to arrive.

I wish I was going, I miss him.

Work...

I've been so lax at keeping up my blog, that I've negected to mention Ethan's job.
He was let go from his previous job in November 2009, and he and his girlfriend of 3 years broke up. Needless to say, it was a trifle bit tense around here. I kept hounding him about getting out and finding a job. (what a nice mommy I am!) He would just tell me that he was. Ha! Actually, he filled out and dropped off quite a few applications.
There was a job dismantling cars at a place he went to for parts, and he applied for that. Unfortunately, he would have had to have his own tools which would have cost somewhere in the vicinity of $2000. Well, yeah, I don't think so. Anyway, a short time after that, the same company had an opening for a front desk person. This is the person you talk to when you want to find a car part at a place that has a gazillion car pieces. Everything is catalogued, and Ethan looks them up and takes their money. He's working full-time and going to school full-time and seems very grounded. (that might have a little to do with the fact that he is consistantly taking his Adderall) He comes home from work, comes up to my room and proceeds to tell me about his day, what went on in school and all about the crazy people at work. (co-workers and customers) He was sooo excited the day he got to spray paint and top coat his first piece. I think we're going to frame it.
There is one tiny drawback to his working with cars...he is FiLthY. I've got to get him a jumpsuit, god knows he won't do it. That way he can just ruin one thing, not everything.

Pirate ship...

Thirdborn has a desire to be covered in tattoos and he's got a pretty good start. Most of them are just outlined black, though the ones on his legs are colored. At first his friends would ask "What's your mom gonna say?" and people he met would say "What does your mom think of all that?" His reply?? "My mom is just fine with it, she loves tattoos, she's got three of her own."
He insisted that I go to JonBoy http://blog.saintsabrinas.com/ for my second tattoo, and I think I was a little too picky for Jon's taste, I could tell he was getting a little short with me. I'm an artist also, and I think he thought I was telling him what to do. But I gave him a big tip and went to him for my third, so I think he's ok now. ha! ha!

Thirdborn would like to get the puzzle pieces filled in with the flags of different countries he intends on visiting someday, IN the country he's visiting. He's got room for 8 countries. He's already been to United Kingdom, so if he can just hop on over there, he can get one filled in. Wow! That's an expensive tattoo!

His most recent tattoo is an outline of a pirate ship on his side by JonBoy a couple of weeks ago and in mid September sometime, he will go to a Tattoo Convention with JonBoy and get it filled in. That's a lot of filling in for one day...he's gonna be soooo sore but he got such a deal for being a model/guina pig that it was something he couldn't pass up. I can't wait to see it done, hopefully I will be able to get to the convention and take a look around.

Car wash...

Third born has been up and productive since 10 a.m. (Dad gave him his pill this morning) What's unusual about this is that he normally sleeps until 4 p.m. He's already cleaned the entire inside of his car, put the Honda for sale out on the busy street, went to get some supplies from Target and is now cleaning the inside of mine. He's even going to give them a bath! How exciting, my poor car was grossly filthy.
I'm really hoping for rain, but I'd like to see my car all clean and shiny first.
Thank you, my baby.

Marble Girl...

When Firstborn and I went to MIA a couple of weeks ago, we saw a marble bust that looks just like Thirdborn's girlfriend. I showed it to her and she said, "I don't look like that, that doesn't look like me." Thirdborn said, "Yes you do, it looks just like you." I say, if she pulled her hair back on top of her head, and we took a picture of her profile...well just look.

Police...

In January, Third Born was walking to school after parking his car when he came upon a man attempting to jump off the Washington Ave. bridge. It's not a very high bridge, but the fall would have seriously injured him if not actually kill him. My son started talking to him, asking what was going on, listening to him, getting him to forget about jumping. He succeeded in getting him down, and found out he had just been released from jail, no one came to pick him up, he was broke, depressed and so on. My son got him to walk with him to school then asked him if he wanted some coffee. While my son was in getting coffee, he asked the person behind the counter to call 911, then he took the coffee to the man. He offered him a cigarette and while they were talking, smoking and drinking, the police came. They took statements and took the man in for help. The man thanked my son for taking the time to talk to him and care. Because of this, my son got a MPD Lifesaving Award. Pretty darn cool, I'd say. He's always been a very caring person and I'm very proud of him.

23 years...

First born is house/pet sitting for us this weekend while we take a short anniversary trip. Our two guys are still living at home, but Dreaded Middle Born has to work, like constantly, so he gets up minutes before he has to leave, then is gone the entire day/evening. The poor dog wouldn't be able to hold her legs together for that long, and the cats would probably pee on something for spite. The Baby just doesn't wake up very easily, and the animals would be no better off I'm afraid. First born is used to getting up early, and she has a little more empathy where the animals are concerned, plus she's desperate for money. ha ha ha I'll take lots of pictures (hopefully good ones) for her to see. (She is a photo nut!)

More on jet plane...

I just asked my Baby, and Honey will be gone for 18 days...yeow! He's so sad...I think I can keep him busy though. He'll be soooo happy (for reasons other than the obvious) for her to be back. But...just maybe, we can get a few things done around here, things that take some muscle.

Leavin' on a jet plane...

Third born's honey is leaving in the morning to go to Europe with her sister for...a week? two weeks? I guess I'll have to find that one out, but I think it's two weeks. Her older sister just graduated this weekend, and for a graduation present, she is going to Europe. Parental units didn't want her to go alone, and she probably didn't relish the idea either, so Honey is going along. My baby is none too happy about this. He recently saw the movie "Taken" and is freaking himself out, worrying that her sister is going to get them in trouble of some kind. Honey is pretty practical, and has her head on straight, but I'm not sure about her sister. I get the impression she's a little more of a free spirit, doing before thinking it through. I just hope they have a fabulous time. As long as they use their sixth sense, they'll be fine. My baby bought her a canister of pepper spray to take along. I'm betting he'd like to be able to stuff himself in her suitcase and go along. He'd be wonderful protection. I always feel safe when I'm with him. Even when he was a little kid, he just observed his surroundings without being obvious. He said he always knows what's around him. Some things are just part of your DNA.

Application...

Third born filled out his application to Hennepin Technical School and dropped it off today. He'll find out in a few days if he's accepted or not. If he is, then he takes the entrance exam and signs up for classes. This is a total about change from what he wanted to do before. He was going to IPR (Institute of Production and Recording) and he was going to record bands. Well, that didn't work out too well, so now that he has had some time off to reconsider, he's thinking that Autobody would be a better choice. He love tinkering on cars, wiring sound systems and fixing the engines. With this degree/diploma, he would be fixing the bodies of cars once they have been dinged or crunched. I hope this is a better fit for him.

Being Lazy...

My Third born baby is pretty much a lazy person. He can talk himself out of just about anything, (he can also talk anyone into just about anything) huh...strange how that works. He's not going to school right now because he had a few problems with getting his work done. I told him that when you get in college, they really don't care one bit if you get your work done, or even go to class. They just won't pass you. Imagine that... He gets the picture now. He took a look at a different school that has classes in car repair? detailing? painting? something like that. He says he's going to go there now, but I don't see the registration form filled out, in fact it is still sitting on top of the piano where it has been sitting for a week.
He works part-time, goes out with friends and sleeps. His room looks like a bomb exploded and smells worse. He has money for tattoos, fun, his car, but not for insurance, school loans and all the parking tickets he has. My face is getting dirty from all the shoe wiping (because of my being a doormat). He actually did what I asked him to do today. I'll give him another list for tomorrow. He's going to work off the parking tickets. If my husbands name wasn't on them, I'd ignore them and let him suffer the consequences when he gets stopped by the police and gets thrown in jail for a while. I think he'd get the picture then. I guess that's what it takes for him to finally understand...I have to step back and let him fall on his face. [only took me 19 1/2 years to figure out, what does that say for me?]

Last name to choose...

Third born was much easier to decide on. I'm not positive what we had chosen for a girls name, it may have been Eyelia again, but I know what the only boys name we had chosen was. There was a TV show on back in the late 80's called 'Thirty Something' and one of the couples had a son by the name of Ethan. I remember hearing the mom call out for her son...Ethan...what a great name. The meaning of it is Ethan (Hebrew for strong) and John (Hebrew for God is gracious), and both of those fit him well. He has a strong personality. Very outgoing, but very kind and helpful with loads of empathy.

The baby!

With my first two children, my water broke one and two weeks before my due date, so with my third pregnancy, my Doctor wasn't taking any chances with me getting to the hospital in time. He scheduled me to be induced. I was not happy with this. While I had Pitocin with my second child, I was already having some little contractions. With my third, I wasn't having contractions, and it felt wrong to check in to the hospital, get an IV, and have a drug pumped into me just to make things more convenient. Reluctantly I agreed to schedule the induction. I remember going for an uncomfortable walk the night before I was scheduled. I had been having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions with this last pregnancy and I thought that was what I was having during the walk. I was fully effaced, the head was down, and I had dropped. (I carried all my kids real low, and they were head down through most of the pregnancy. ) The actual length of "hard" labor I had with each of them was about three hours. So In other words, I was all ready to go. In the morning we took off for the hospital, me in denial all the way, and got all settled in my room. As before, I had my music and my focus thought, (swinging with my kids in the blue canvas swing, sunlight peeking through the leaves of the tree we were swinging from). The Doctor came in and checked me out, asking if I had been having contractions. I told him just Braxton Hicks, and he said well they were more than that, because you're already dilated to 4 cm. Whoa! So, without warning, he takes something that looks like a long crochet hook, and breaks my water. Had I known he was going to do this, I would have taken OFF my only pair of socks so they wouldn't get ALL WET. Geez, how disgusting...now I was sitting in a huge wet spot. So they started an IV, hooked up the Pitocin and we waited, and waited, until finally the contractions started. Once more,my focus thought along with my husband telling me when the contractions peaked worked like a charm. Once my contractions actually start, my labors are a breeze. With every contraction, especially at the very end, it seemed like the baby was pushing his feet into my zyphoid process. That hurt worse than the contractions. I didn't hyperventilate this time (at least I don't think I did, I'll have to ask my hubby...though I doubt that he would remember), and when I said I had to push, they did a quick check, pushed the cervix open a titch and then I had to try and relax (NOT push) while they got everything situated. It was like "Come on already!!!" After an agonizing few minutes of panting, I was told to go ahead an push. I added a couple more with this one (probably cuz he was bigger), maybe five total and out he came 8 lbs, 20 in., strawberry blond hair and RED. He looked huge compared to the other two. He's stayed big too. He looked so sweet and soft and perfect.