And I am Off Again...

I have been a little absent lately and I am happy to tell you I am going to be absent again. Not that I like being unable to Blog...but I have been having a wonderful time. After having to attend my cousins funeral I stayed in Florida for another 2 weeks. I had LOTS of turkey, lots of shopping (actually lots of window shopping. What I am thinking taking all those kids to the mall is beyond me), fun nights with friends and family.

And because I am married to the most amazing man, and it is my birthday, and my friends daughter thought I would be a good Conformation sponsor...I am getting to go to Washington DC for 5 days without my sweet noisy little shadows!!!

I am going to wear white shirts, uncomfortable shoes and take a really long time eating every meal. I may even sit down while I am eating...who knows what I am capable of.

Pete is going to be a lone ship. He tells me after a long day of homeschooling Emily and Molly, having fun with the little ones, cooking and cleaning, folding and putting away laundry, he plans on running my Blog. I am not sure what is more exciting to me, the fact that I get to play a real grownup for 5 days or that he is going to make me laugh when I read about his adventures???

I can't wait to write about all the fun I had, am having and will have!!! Thanks for reading and come back and enjoy my guest blogger. I know I will!

Pete's Look-A-Like...just less hair!

I may have mentioned that Pete and I were friends in High School but after he left for the Academy we lost touch for a little while. One day while I was home for the summer I was working in a Mexican Restaurant. I had a family sit in my section and I walked up and looked at my newly sat table and thought, "These people look familiar." After some small talk and a drink order I figured out I knew their son Pete who was at school. But who was this other cutie sitting at the table? I would soon find out this is the "other" Melnick boy.

After falling in love with Pete I promptly fell in love with this guy...Robby!

Pete and I had an interesting start to our marital bliss. After some good old fashion family drama my new brother-in-law looks at me, while standing in his room playing his x-box, and says "So, I guess you are my sister now." That sentence touched my heart and made me fall in love with yet another Melnick. This time with my new brother-in-law, a boy who has grown into a great man, wonderful Uncle and incrediable husband.

It's great to be a Melnick!

My Facebook Confession

I am still visiting my family in Florida. Usually when I visit I do a touch and go, never getting a chance to visit friends or linger on memory lane. This time my stay is much longer and I have had fun taking the kids to climb the tree that I climbed so many years ago.

Friday night I got to hang out with some good friends that I had not seen in awhile. We did what girls do best...ate chips with to much salt, drank to much and laughed more than a 33 yr. old bladder that helped birth 5 kids is able to handle.

We talked about having babies, not having babies and things we did before having babies. Lots of the conversation was them trying to convince me to GET ON FACEBOOK. They were are telling me, "It is so much fun. You get to catch up with all these people you used to know." I confessed my reasons for NOT being on Facebook...what if nobody wants to be my friend? What if I ask someone to be my friend and NOBODY says yes? What if someone removes me from their friend list? What if I want to be someones friend and they don't invite me???? All these questions stressed me out in High School...why would I want to invite that stress into my computer??

So for now I will just melt when I see this baby smile, stress over dinner and ask them to fill me in on all the people that they are friends with on Facebook!

My Favorite Yearbook Page

So, this really cute guy went to my High School. I was not really in his league. He was kind of a big deal. You know the kind of guy that all dads think, "Not a bad catch". He was the whole package, smart, athletic, good looking and fun to be with.

I became "good" friends with him but he ALWAYS had a girlfriend....

I had a crush on him. I like to think that he had a crush on me...but that is not how the story goes.

I do remember the day he signed my yearbook in 1992. He wrote the nicest things to me and I remember thinking I wish a guy like that would have me as his girlfriend. I got lucky 4 years later when he made me his wife.

Girl With A Towel

"Are you and Ms. Rebecca close Mama?" my Emily says to me this morning while we were getting ready to visit my old best friend. I explain, "She is a special type of friend. I could not talk to Rebecca for years and the minute we see each other it is as if not a moment has past." I feel so lucky to have a friend like that. And just as predicted, from the moment we hugged until the moment I left we did not stop for a minute.

One day about 22 years ago my family moved from New York to Florida. On a typical 1986 hot summer night in Florida my brother and I were playing in our new pool, making lots of noise, as I have been known to do. After I whizzed down our new shiny blue pool slide I pop up out of the water and standing in front of me was a little girl in her bathing suit holding a towel. "My name is Rebecca, I live across the street. Do you want to be friends?" From that moment on she has been my best friend.

We went through high school together, including all the fun that accompanies that time of life. You know, great hair cuts, terrific choices in boys, speeding tickets and other late night happenings that I would rather not share (my girls are big fans of Catholic Mommy2Five). After High School I followed her to Gainesville. She fell in love with horses and I fell in love with Pete.

We are both grown up now. She followed the track that we all knew would be her destiny, something that would involve being called Dr. I on the other hand sometimes shock people with the person I turned out to be, myself included!

Girl Scout Lesson #1

My kids are the next generation of this family. They are the ones who will go on to tell the story that we all started. They will all sit around at our funeral and talk about fun things they remember doing when they were young. With this knowledge I have fun giving them memories worth remembering.

When Emily started Girl Scouts I was lucky to sit in on the first few meetings and one of the first things we learned was "friendships are made through experiences". I immediately recognized the brilliance of that concept. We feel more comfortable with people when we have memories and experiences to share and build on.

Knowing this, I came to Florida with the idea of helping Ben build new experiences with us without his mom. We all need to help this little guy "feel comfortable" through this nightmare. So, I did what any mom of an 8 yr old girl who just recently had a sleepover would do, I planned a FAMILY SCAVENGER HUNT.

I sent the cousins off with a pen and piece of paper. I told them to make a list of things we could find at the mall. We broke into groups and began our picture scavenger hunt. We had 45 minutes to do all the things on the list. The biggest challenge for me was being at the mall and NOT SHOPPING....AHHHH!

The best part for me though...laughing with my mom. I guess we are never to old to enjoy new experiences with the people we love!

Just Getting My Hair Done!

I can't even begin to tell you the joy I feel when I wake up to this site. After an 8 hour drive with 5 little people who would prefer to be anywhere but strapped in a car, waking up to mom's rollers is a site for sore eyes.

My mom's getting ready ritual is the most complicated compilation of hair, body and make-up manipulation that anyone can imagine. After years of her trying to explain the process I am still completely mystified as to what all the steps are. All I know is, there are A LOT of steps and they each take a REALLY long time.

She tells me it all began when she was little girl and her Mama used to wash her hair in the sink. How the rest of her got clean, I am not sure (I will ask tomorrow). This tradition lasted into her teenage years with her doing her own hair washing, still in the sink. She then developed an aversion to wet hair touching her body. Each time I hear her say this I need to hear the rest of the story. She never has washed her hair standing up in the shower while naked....NEVER!!!! What???? She is not sure how people handle the decsion to wash their hair first, or their body?

This is the conversation that follows:

Adorable Mom Says: "Doesn't the soap from the hair then get all over your clean body, and then you have to rinse again and risk getting hair on your now fresh clean body?"

Hysterically Laughing Daughter: "Mom, all parts are now clean...they can touch and still remain clean. How have you never done this?"

I then ask her, "So what step are you on now with you standing here in rollers with your hair perfectly dry and your make-up on hugging Priscilla Mae?" She says to me, "I now get in the shower with my hair covered and the water never touches my face or hair." Hysterically Laughing Daughter's mouth drops to the floor just trying to imagine herself trying this manuaver and realizing her mother is an amazing woman with talent far exceeding her own.  Yes, I can make an OK pie crust, I can make some cute babies...showering without getting my face wet...can't be done!

I am telling you the amount of precise timing and body positioning that this ritual takes is so beautiful executed I am even more appreciative each time I see that smile, with or without her rollers.

Stay tuned for more great laughs when I explain how she makes her 1 hour english muffin breakfast...

p.s here is another thing I LOVE about being at my Mom and Dad's house. When you get your cereal, the bag you pour it from looks like it has been ironed. I am not joking. Who's opened cereal bag looks like this? I saw creases that even the manufacturer could not make. Everything matters to my mom. That's what makes her my mom!!

All Kinds of Help

This is the breakfast Pete made me last Saturday morning. He is our breakfast chef extraordinaire. He also likes a good looking meal. On cozy mornings like this he pulls out all the stops and present me with a breakfast that I can sit and eat . As an extra bonus he always serves me my breakfast using cute dishes that he knows I love.

This is Jack and Lucy "helping" me last Friday do our chores . They love to spray and wipe...ANYTHING!!

This is Lucy helping me bake something that I would rather not mention. I was taking a picture of the unmentionable dough and she thought I wanted a closer picture of her "nunny". Very helpful!

This weekend I get to go visit my family in Florida and try to help. My cousin Catherine died this morning after a long battle with all kinds of cancer. All of my family in Florida has helped Catherine over the past few months, while I have been typically absent. I am going now to help support all those who helped Catherine die with grace. You might be asking yourself how a mom to 5 kids, 3 under the age of 3, no husband present can be helpful???? We can be EXTREMLY distracting. We are loud, busy and generally fun. And with all the heartache ,I know my family will need distraction (until they ask us to leave because sometimes distracting can be disruptive ).

My cousins little10 year old boy who lost his mother today is the one who needs the most help. I am not sure what to do for someone, 10 or not, who just lost his whole life. Amazingly, my brother and sister in law are going to finish raising Catherine's son Ben. My heart is full of gratitude and sadness all at the same time...

Please pray for Catherine and Ben and my brother for being a hero!