Happy Birthday, Dad!

My father is a Taurus – and he’s definitely as stubborn as a bull! Of course, I’m Aquarian, and just as stubborn, so perhaps it’s in the genes?

He’s also incredibly intuitive, with a very strong sense of justice (and injustice) both of which I got from him.

He was born in 1946, which makes him sixty-two today. He was named after his father, William Lee Ladd. My middle name comes from his (Sherilee … they couldn’t decide between Dawn and Sheri, and decided to combine them all!)

What I remember my father telling me about his childhood:

He had two older sisters who took up a great deal of his care-taking. He also had a younger brother who stole a lot of his thunder. The boys got into a lot of trouble together—including using their brand new Christmas air rifles to shoot the ornaments off the tree. His father worked in a factory, and died of brain cancer when my father was about twelve. My grandmother was a single mother for the rest of her life—she never remarried. My father had a lot of trouble in school. Nowadays, he’d be easily treatable as a dyslexic, given all sorts of accommodations, etc. But back then, he was just labeled stupid and was given looms and weaving to do. He didn’t finish much past the fifth grade, and still has problems reading and writing to this day.

My grandmother said the girls came to the house for my dad "in droves." He was sorta handsome, huh? He met my mother in his early twenties. She was nine years older, and since he believed he couldn’t have children, and she came with a ready-made family of two girls and a boy, it was a perfect match. I was a surprise – surprise! Their only biological child together. My father wanted a boy, but my mother says she was grateful I was a girl – because 1) he and I probably would have killed each other when I hit my teen years if I was a boy and 2) it gave my father the opportunity to see how the world is for girls and women.

I think both are probably true!

When I think about my father, I remember:

* The time he climbed into my crib when I was about three and told him, “You can’t come in here! You’re too big!”
* Making a snowman with him and using leftover brake light covers for eyes.
* Holding the flashlight when he was working on the car.
* He took my training wheels off and helped me learn to ride a two-wheeler
* He asked me what color I wanted to paint my room when I was five, and when I said, “Red, white and blue” he didn’t even flinch. My room was painted like an American flag, including stripes and stars.
* We joined a father/daughter bowling league – and I won most improved bowler (which wasn’t hard, when I started with a “9”… that’s not a typo. Nine pins, the whole first game.)
* He loved Elvis Presley and played 2001 The Space Odyssey soundtrack over and over. Later, it was Queen’s soundtrack from The Highlander.
* In spite of, or because of, his dyslexia, he valued education and never stopped reinforcing college – it was never a question that I was going to go. Which I did. I’m the first person in my family to attend college, let alone finish, and the only one with a Masters degree.
* When I doubted the existence of Santa Claus, he had his friend, Bob, play Santa for me – the on CB radio.
* He bought me my first car - $400 for a rusty 1968 Signet – and spent the summer repairing it when it broke down. And it broke down a lot.
* He initiated the idea of putting up all of the Christmas decorations on Christmas Eve, while I was sleeping. So I went to bed with nothing Christmas-y around, and woke up to the magic of not only the decoration and the tree, but presents, too!

My father and I - 1978ish.































My mother and father 2007








My Father Christmas 2007
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!

Happy Birthday Mom

My mother is an Aquarian - like me. Sometimes I forget that, but she's just as open-minded and spiritually oriented as I tend to be. She's also just as much of an introvert and a dreamer.


My mother was born in 1937 - which makes her 71 today. She was named Yvonne Cecile, after two of the Dionne Quintuplets.


The following is a picture of three generations. My mother is the baby. That's her mother (my grandmother) on the left and her grandmother (my great-grandmother) on the right.

What I remember my mother telling me about her childhood:

Her younger brother, David, was a pain, but she loved him anyway. He was a redhead (which is probably where I get my red hair) and constantly in trouble. My mother hated the shape of her nose and the shape of her body. My grandmother made dessert every single night of the week.

When my mother was fifteen, she dropped out of school to help her mother take care of my uncle Mike, who was born with a birth defect. His skull bones were fused together - he had no soft spot - and so his brain couldn't grow. Today, there would be an operation to help him. Back then, there was nothing, and so his brain couldn't grow inside of his skull and he ended up at the level of a 10-12 year old. She stayed home to help her mother with the baby and never finished school.

In her late teen years, she was in a very serious accident when she was riding in a pickup truck and the door flew open. She was sitting in the passenger seat and was thrown from the vehicle. As a result, she's worn false teeth her whole life.



She married young, had children young. She was essentially a single mother for a long time, raising four small children. When she got pregnant with a fifth, she decided to give it up for adoption. A year later, her youngest child, Denise, was killed while crossing the street between two parked cars.

Eventually, she was divorced, and married my father. I'm their only child. They're still married.


(I was pouting because I wanted to hold the baby - my niece!)

When I think about my mother, I remember:

*The only job I think she ever had was working in my Uncle David's meat market. For most of my childhood, she was a stay-at-home mother.

*She always took off her shirt and vacuumed in her bra

*She read romance novels like they were candy.

*She took very, very long, steamy hot baths.

*She loved Tootsie Rolls and Better Made potato chips.

*But she hated peas and spinach.

*She always sat with one leg and foot curled underneath her. I do, too.

*Sometimes she put my hair in those pink-snap sponge curlers. They hurt to sleep in and made me look like Shirley Temple.

*After my baths, she would always use a blowdryer on me. Then she would inhale the fresh, clean scent of my hair.

*At night, she always tucked me into bed.

*She made the best barbeque chicken wings ever.

*She listened to lots of Neil Diamond and Jim Croce.

*She made great homemade applesauce.

*She had a hip replacement when I was in middle school - she has debilitating arthritis.

*She smoked those long brown cigarettes that looked like skinny cigars - Mores.

*She taught me how to crochet.

*She let me make tents with blankets and clothespins and sleep in them - in and out of the house.

*She let me keep hampsters, gerbils, rats, and once, a pigeon and a baby sparrow.

*She loved to sing. Especially when she was cleaning.

*She kept practically everything I ever drew or wrote.

*She framed a poem I wrote her for her birthday when I was fourteen. She still has it.

*She liked peppermint schnapps and amaretto but didn't drink very often.

*When I started writing, she listened to me read everything I wrote out loud, a chapter at a time, and always praised and encouraged me.

*She babysat my first daughter for several years during the day while I went to college classes to earn my degree

*She let me sleep in the livingroom in front of the fan when it was hot.

*Whenever I crossed the street when I was little (I wasn't allowed) she panicked and freaked out. Frankly, I thought she was overreacting, and it took me years to realize it was because she'd lost a child that way.

*She made all the food for my first wedding.

*She always lamented that I genetically got her nose.

Top, L-R: My mother, my sister in law Susie, my sister Diana

Bottom, L-R: me, my nephew Ronnie, my niece Jennifer

Very Bottom: our dog, Patches

Me and my mother at my sister, Diana's, wedding

My mother and my daughter, Autumn

My mother - Christmas 2007

Y Happy Birthday, Mom! Y

Thirty-Eight and Counting...

I'm frosting a home made birthday cake.

Zoe: "Happy Birthday, Mommy!"

"Thank you, hon."

Dmitri: "How old are you again?"

Sigh. "Thirty-eight."

Zoe: "I can count to thirty-eight!"

Me: "I know."

Zoe: "Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineteneleventwelvethirteenfourteenfifteen

(DEEPBREATH)

sixteenseventeeneighteennineteentwentytwentyonetwentytwotwentythreetwentyfourtwentyfive

(DEEPBREATH)

twentysixtwentyseventwentyeighttwentyninethirtythirtyonethirtytwothirtythreethirtyfourthirty

(DEEPBREATH)

FIVEthirtySIXthirtySEVENthirtyEIGHT!"

By now, the cake's frosted.

Me: "Good job!"

Zoe: "I'm gonna go lie down."

Me: "What's the matter?"

Zoe: "Counting that high made my head hurt!"

Happy Birthday To Me

I turn thirty-eight tomorrow.

When I was sixteen, thirty-eight seemed ancient.

I know, everyone says that.

Because it's true!

My mother's youngest child is almost forty. That's me! Two more years. There's a thought. I'm the mother of an almost-eighteen year old and almost-fifteen year old.

I'm not sure how I feel about being thirty-eight. Feels bigger than thirty-seven for some reason.

Yet when I look back...

Dawn - 18 months

Dawn - 2 1/2

Dawn - 4

Dawn - Kindergarten

Dawn - Age 6

Dawn - Age 8

Dawn - Age 10

Dawn - Age 11

Dawn - Age 18

Dawn - Age 20

Dawn - Age 25

Dawn - age 37

Those years feel like a million years ago.

Why is that?

Anyway...

Happy birthday to me - almost!

Lucky Sneetches

Zoe was invited to a birthday party for this past weekend. A little girl in her class handed her an invitation in school. Dmitri, on the other hand, didn't get invited.

Which meant the breakout of WWIII at our house.

*sigh*

It's hard to explain to a five year old why they can't go to something as fun as a birthday party - especially when it's someone they know! And the snarkiness of the six year old didn't help matters.

The sing-song: "I get to go to a birthday party, par-tee, puh-uh-ar-tee!" for the two weeks prior was bad enough. But the day of the party - oh the tragedy.

Zoe was so excited you could practically see her vibrating. Dmitri pouted. "Who cares about some stupid girl birthday party?" Oh, the kindergartner doth protest too much...

So when they were gone - Daddy picked Zoe up, gift bought on the way home from work - Dmitri stood forlornly at the storm door, steaming up the glass and watching them drive away. He stood there a long time. I knew he was crying and didn't want me to see.

So I knelt down behind him and whispered, "Let's you and me go play a game. You pick."

We made labyrinths with Mazabel and watched Dr. Seuss' Sneetches and drank hot chocolate. I even dipped into and shared my super-secret stash of leftover Christmas candy. I thought he'd forgotten about the party. We were laughing and his tears had dried. This, I decided, was what mommies were really for.

"Is the Star-On machine real?" Dmitri asked suddenly, sucking on a Wethers and referring to the story of the Sneetches, the elite half of whom had stars on their bellies and the shunned half who didn't.

"No. It's a cartoon."

He considered this. "But those Sneetches are lucky now that they're all mixed up."

If you know your Dr. Seuss, you'll remember that the Sneetches had gone through the Star-On and Star-Off machine so many times, no one knew who was who anymore - who the original snobby star-bellied or the once-outcast plain-bellieds were.

"Because they're all the same now?" I asked.

"Yeah." He sighed. "And because they all get to go to each other's birthday parties."

So much for forgetting!

Playing Catchup

Funny how when my Internet access disappears for three days, the house suddenly becomes spotless. :x

Shhhhhh!

I'm hoping my husband doesn't make the association.

*crossing fingers*

So let's play catch-up...


1. We picked the kids up from school on Halloween (instead of waiting for them to come home on the bus) to discover that Miss Zoe got a "bus ticket." What's that!? I asked the principal. Apparently, she was "suspended" from the bus for a day because she can't stay in her seat. Kindergarteners unable to stay seated!? Really!? I'm so shocked! It's a forty minute ride, folks. Which I pointed out to the principal. Anyway, she asked us, "What day would you like to pick her up from school?" Michael, thinking fast, said, "How about today?" Ha! So she's back on the bus again. Why don't busses have seatbelts, anyway? Isn't it rather dangerous for them not to, when you think about it??

2. Yesterday was the kids' dental appointment. (Perfect day, right after Halloween, right?) New dentist, since we just moved. No cavities, just a lecture about thumbsucking for both of them. School is actually helping in that department (I was hoping it would!)

3. Today is Blake's fourteenth birthday. Happy Birthday, Blake! He's with his dad and we won't see him until next weekend, but I'll call him tonight. I can't believe it's been fourteen years since he was a little baby...





How time flies!

4. I'm participating in NaBloPoMo or whatever it's called. (Look over in the sidebar --->) It's short for National Blog Posting Month. Which means I'm posting every day in November.

Let's hope my Internet access holds out!