SIMPLY THANKFUL...

These are the moments that I am simply thankful for.

I just got through reading the blog about Layla Grace and I can't help but savor all the little things now.  I can't imagine going through what her family is going through.  I don't know that I would handle a situation like that with such strength and grace like her family is.  They are literally sitting and waiting for their baby to be taken away from them forever. 

As I sit here and type, the tears are running down my face.  I am so thankful that I have a healthy little two year old.  A little girl to drive me absolutely batty sometimes.  One that just spilled a whole bottle of water on the couch or one that has gotten my camera and now I can't seem to find it anywhere.  I am simply thankful that everytime I go in the bathroom Wilkins says "brush teeth" and everytime I let her.  I don't know what I would do if I had to sit by her bed and just watch her to wither away.  I can't even imagine what it would be like to sit there day after day wishing it was all a nightmare and willing my little girl to live, knowing there is absolutely nothing I can do for her.  I wished I understood why things like this happen but I don't.  I know God has a plan for everyone but I don't know how you can take a baby away from their mother so soon.  We are suppose to go before our children.  We are the ones who have gotten to live our lives.  Layla is just a baby.  I only hope that she is not scared and that there is no pain.  I wished there was something that I could do but I know the only thing I can do is pray. 

And so that is what I will do and what I will ask everyone I know to do. 

 I will also learn from this.  I will learn to not sweat the small stuff.  When Wilkins starts pulling all her clothes out of her drawers or colors all over her little kitchen I will not make as big a deal out of it.  I will be thankful that I have her clothes to fold and put up again.  I will be thankful that I am cleaning the crayon marks off of her kitchen for the 3rd and 4th time because at least the crayon marks are being put on there every single day. 

I know this is a little bit of a sad post but at the same time it is a very eye opening one.  I am simply thankful that I have Wilkins.  I am simply thankful that me and my family have not had to endure something so painful, so scary, something that we do not understand. 

Please continue to pray for Layla Grace and her family. 

Why do we have to work when the sun is shining?

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a law that said when the sun is out you don't have to go to work if you don't want to?!  I sure do wish it were true.  Here I am on the verge of having to hop in the shower to get ready to go to that dreaded place, WORK!  I guess I think that if I just keep putting off the inevitable then it won't happen which we know is not true.  All it means is that I will have to rush to get ready and get to work right on time.  Then that will start my day off on the wrong foot because there is nothing more I hate than feeling rushed.  Which is funny because when you have children you are always rushed. 

Then when I get to work my employees will get on my nerves faster than they already do.  I don't understand why I have to repeat myself over and over throughout the entire shift about the same old little things.  How many people can walk over a piece of paper before stopping and picking it up?  You would be surprised!  EVERYONE!  Did you know that if you leave a towel laying on a counter whether it be wet or dry, it is a health code violation?  Do you know how many times a day I pick up a towel or tell someone else to do it?  I would say probably 100-200 times a day...RIDICULOUS!  Do you know how many of my employees "forget" their belt or "forget" to iron their uniform?  At least 5-7 employees a day...RIDICULOUS!  These are employees who have been working there for years but yet the expectation is and has been the same the entire time.  I know I have one child but when I go to work I feel like I have adopted about 50 misfits!!!  Don't get me wrong they are not all bad and I do enjoy working with some of them.  Some of them are a pain in my butt that's for sure.  And for those few I have to put on that "fake look of concern" and act like I care what they are saying all the while I am thinking PLEASE SHUT UP!  It is those nights when I can look at my MAC card (schedule) and see that there are plenty of cooks, servers, hosts, cashiers, and dishwashers that are capable of handling their jobs without me holding their hands that I take a LONG sigh of relief.  And here's the thing...before I left work last night at 12:30am I looked at my MAC card for today.  There was no sigh of relief.  In fact, I imagined throwing my hands up in the air in frustration!

So adding to that frustration...the sun is shining which makes me not want to go to work even more!!!   Okay, I think that I am done venting for now.  And maybe since I got all of this off my chest I will be able to get a shower and wash all the negative thoughts away.  And just maybe my night will not be as bad as I have envisioned to be!!  Everyone cross your fingers cause here I go...

Can a girl have too many shoes???

This is the five newest pairs of shoes for Wilkins...aren't they cute?  I know this is insane but every little girl needs all colors and kinds of shoes right?  Here's the thing...she has 55 pairs of shoes!  Some she got from my neice (hand me downs) and some bought.  Some she can wear now and some are a little bigger to wear later.  The thing is she loves to wear shoes...in fact, the pink polka dot shoes she wouldn't put down at Target.  She kept calling them her "bickey shoes" (Minnie Mouse) and she actually wore them all afternoon until it was time to go to bed.  And as crazy as it sounds I love shoes, we buy shoes first and then match an outfit to them.  HELLO...my mom sews and my granny smocks so I rarely buy clothes unless it is just too cute to pass up or play clothes.  This is her closet and yes I am a little OCD when it comes to the closet.   

You see the yellow shoes?  Well, those are probably going to be her Easter shoes.  My granny is going to smock her a white dress with yellow stiching and butterfly sleeves.  I am so excited and can't wait to see it.  I love yellow especially for spring.  I will definitely post some pictures of the dress. 

So, in conclusion, I am sure that we spend way to much on shoes but we definitely get good use out of them.  I pass them on to my cousin, Amanda, for her little girl to wear.  When I get them back I decide which ones I want to keep (in case I have another little girl or maybe Haley??) and which ones I want to sell.  The bad thing is the shoes are pretty cheap right now ($7-$25) but as she gets older they are only going to get more expensive.  So 10 years from now I will probably be kicking myself in the butt for all this and all of you can remind me when I am blogging about how much money my darling little girl is spending on shoes!!!

JUST PICTURES...bathtime!

Cracker Barrel guest brought me to tears...

So one day last week I was in the dining room talking to guests when I hear a child crying.  As I walk to the front of the dining room I notice at the big round table is a little blonde haired, blue eyed girl screaming bloody murder.  I am talking about a piercing cry that has all of our guests turning in her direction.  The man and woman with her looked to be in their 50s and so I assumed that they were her grandparents.  Much to my dismay they couldn't calm her down at all so I started trying to talk to her.  The man said she is mad because they gave her little brother (also blonde haired and blue eyed) a drink of her milk.  The little boy, whom I later heard him called Jake, was right the opposite of this little girl.  He didn't hear her.  He just kept smiling.  Also sitting at the table was another little girl and boy (both blonde hair and blue eyes too).  They looked to be about 4 and 5.  As the little girl continues to scream with no end in sight, I continue to talk to the lady.  She says that the little girl does this all the time and there is nothing they can do but let her.  They just make sure she is in a safe place to where she can't hurt herself or anyone else.  I am really bothered by this but I can't do anything really.  I go out into the gift shop and find a toy to bring to the little girl but the lady quickly informs me that she should not be rewarded for acting like this.  The man then gets up to go pay the bill so I walk out with him and casually mentions "So you got your hands full, huh?".  He says, "Yeah but they are not ours.  They are foster kids."  So we continue in this little conversation where he lets me know they are all siblings.  He asks me if I have a nice, quite home that needs some children.  I let him know that I have a little girl myself but I do know someone that has been looking into adoption.  He told me that the children were up for adoption or would end up going back to "the home". 
As I went back to the table, the older little girl who had not said a word the entire time, came up to me and got my hand.  I bent down, her sad little blue eyes looked at me and asked "Are we going home with you?"  At that moment my heart broke into a million tiny pieces and all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her in a big hug and say "Yes".  The lady gave me a card and let me know that they have had these children for a year and a half.  She told me that they had been abused and that is why the 2 1/2 little girl cried like she did.  Sometimes she cried for 3 hours at night when they put her to bed.  I told them bye but I could not get that one sentence out of my head..."Are we going home with you?"  I went to the office and literally started to cry.
I am not sure how people can become foster parents.  I really admire people who do because I know that I would get to attached to the children and it would be to hard to let them go.  I can't help think that if this had been a younger, more nurturing couple that the little girl would not have been screaming the entire time they were there.  There was no affection from the man or woman towards the children which I can only imagine is the only way to keep your heart from being broke.  But at the same time, those children that I saw needed love and affection from someone.  I wished there was a way that I could have taken all 4 of those beautiful children home with me.  I only hope and pray that a very nice, loving couple comes along and surrounds them with love and affection.

Where does all the time go??

I feel like it was just yesterday that Wilkins was born but here it is two months and she will be TWO!  On Tuesday I told Wilkins to throw her pacifier in the garbage and she did.  She slept all night without it but of course she is spoiled rotten b/c her mammy and Aunt Haley let her have her paci all day Wednesday.  So we did it again Wednesday night but this time I got smart and hid all of the pacifiers.  I kept them just in case she started sucking her thumb but she did not so now they are really going in the garbage!!  Bye bye paci!!

This has been a really long couple of weeks...I was the lucky one to have the weekend off when the weather was beautiful but guess where I spent it?!  Oh yeah you guessed it...I had 5 whole days off and I literally spent it holding a whiny baby, changing dirty diapers, sucking out a snotty nose, and dishing out some serious cough syrup.  I was on Wilkins schedule...I slept when she slept and I was up when she was up.  I got absolutely nothing accomplished that entire time.  Then it was back to work for EIGHT straight days!!  Yes I was literally scheduled EIGHT 12 hour days...I WAS SCHEDULED 96 HOURS before I had a day off.  Needless to say I scooted out early as many times as I could which ended up not being too many. 

As I sit here and gripe about this and that, my mind drifts to this little girl, Layla Grace.  This little girl's story absolutely breaks my heart.  She is just a couple of months older than Wilkins and has cancer.  She is literally withering away like a little flower in front of her parents eyes.  I find myself checking her parent's blog all the time to check for updates.  I have now joined the dreaded Twitter just to be her follower so that I can get updates when I am not at home.  Reading about her and how much her mother wishes that she would be up running around getting into everything like 2 year olds do makes me stop and just be grateful that Wilkins is coloring all over her kitchen.  Or that she just spilt my entire cup of grape kool aid all over the floor and that she is constantly pulling all her toys out.  As much as I want to just throw my hands up in the air and say "Calgon, Take me Away", instead I say "Thank you Lord for my healthy little girl".  I can't imagine what these people are going through and I don't ever want to.  I can only imagine how scary it is...I was terrified when Wilkins was in the hospital at 6mths old with RSV hooked up to IVs.  So if you happen to read my blog please check out hers:  http://www.laylagrace.org/.

Where are you Amanda?  This really bothers me.  Amanda Brown was a friend of mine growing up and her grandmother just died on Saturday.  On Sunday, we drove down to Alabama to go to the wake only to hear from her brother, Larry, that no one has heard from her in over three years.  This has really been weighing heavily on me.  I don't understand.  How do you not know where your sister, daughter, neice, grandaughter, or friend is?  She used to be all these things to so many different people.  I know that Amanda would want to know about her grandmother.  Sis Maude raised her since she was 5 years old...we used to run wild at their house.  What if she is in jail or worse...what if she is dead herself?  This is horrible.  I can't imagine not knowing where either one of my sisters are.  Wherever you are Amanda I hope you are ok and I just want to say I met your daughter and she is the spitting image of you.

While at the wake on Sunday I did get to see a little miracle walking...Kensley!!  Yep she was walking and she looked so good.  I ran into lots of people that I grew up with.  It is really sad that you always see old friends and family only when someone dies.  Too bad we don't make time to see each other more...always wait until it is too late.  The real adventure of the night was going to some Mexican restaurant on Sand Mountain!!  The fact that it is in Ider, Al should be the first red flag...the second red flag was that a white man owned it while 3 guys who were speaking spanish in a southern drawl was cooking and serving the not so great food!!  Stay away from this place.  We had fun but the food was horrible!

Off to bed for me...I will try to be better about posting but it is a little hard working full time as a manager, being a single mommy, and getting ready to go back to school.  Until next time...

Another year gone and a new beginning...

Leaving behind 2009 means forgetting the bad and carrying the good memories with us.

At the start of 2009 Wilkins was in the hospital for a week with RSV hooked up to an IV giving her fluids.  That was probably one of the scariest times of this year and my life for that matter.  It was very hard to see my 6mth old baby girl like that but I know that everything happens for a reason. 

Their are 13 of us now and we are very close.  Every new trial or triumph only brings us closer and stronger.  We may argue, disagree, ignore one another at times but we also compliment, defend, and cheer one another on.  I don't think things would have turned out so well if it had not been for such a strong woman leading the way...our mother.  I don't know if there is a stronger individual out there.  Yes she has her moments when the tears come because the burdens she bears get heavy but she seems to always pull through.  Her and I agree and disagree on a number of things but I know how lucky I am to have her in mine and Wilkins' life.  Without her I could not raise my daughter the way I know is right.  Wilkins never has to go to a daycare or rarely stay anywhere other than with me or my mom and for that I am very grateful.  She has so many people who love her and treat her as if she were a part of their family. 

On her first birthday that was very evident...she got to go to Disney World.  Then when she got back she went to church with mom where she held the basket and got over $50.  She then had a birthday party where she got even more.  For her 1st birthday she got over $200 and a lot of love from our extended family and friends.  I feel truly blessed to have such wonderful people love my daughter the way they do. 

So I have wrote about a trial and a triumph from the year of 2009.  There were a lot more ups and downs but none of which make or break us. 

And although 2010 started off with a great day with the Middlebrooks Family Christmas it has already started out with a very sad start to...with the death of a close friend, Sis Faye Black.  Her death has come as such a shock to most of us.  We know that God has a plan and soon the pain will be lifted and replaced with comfort of all the memories we hold dear. 

So let this be a reminder to all you never know what tomorrow holds so make sure the people close to you know how much you love and appreciate them.