Lemonade

Did y'all wonder where I was yesterday? I had the best of intentions. I worked yesterday morning and had not slept very well Thursday night because Jeff's been sick with a really, really bad cough. The same one Cam had. Y'all probably remember hearing about it. Yeah, well, now my bed buddy has it and boy, has it been rough sleeping.

My depo finished rather early, so I went to my favorite store, Target. Spent a leisurely hour or so looking around at all their pretties and looking for something to spray on the 10 million new mosquitoes that we have now, thanks to all the recent rain. I bought myself a bag of popcorn and a mango smoothie, which, if you've never tried, I wholeheartedly recommend. They're delish. Possibly full of sugar, and not a smidge of real mango, but that's another story altogether.

I was, as my Washington friend so pointantly said, "pooping rainbows." My rainbow poop was to be short lived however. Since this is Cam's last week of school, after they're done with their exams each day, they've been allowed to check out, if they had signed notes from their parents. He may have lost a very important project, forgotten lunches, and lost or forgot who knows what else, but honey, let me tell you, he made darn sure he got that note signed allowing him to get checked out after these exams. He DID NOT FORGET THAT! After he leaves school, he'll go hang out with friends, go have lunch somewhere or one day he just came home. Yesterday, he didn't really seem to have anything in particular to do. He and his GF have kinda parted ways. Yet again, another story that I don't know too much about and out of respect for his privacy, won't divulge too much info about. Suffice it to say it's kaputsky. I talked to him when I was leaving Target and he was riding around, kinda in the area where all the kids have been hanging out having lunch, etc. He said all the food places were still really crowded, he was waiting for the crowds to die down some, grab a bite, then go home or if a better offer came up, he'd choose the best offer. Apparently nothing better came up right away. He came on home.

I was turning onto my street and he called again. In a panicky voice he told me that he had backed into Ross's truck. Ross had parked his truck in the middle of our driveway so that he could hook the boat up. He was going to the lake with Jeff's brother, P-nut. I said a really, really ugly four-letter word, and hung up. Simultaneously, I was turning in the driveway. What I saw was uglier than the four-letter word I blurted out.

Since it had only happened minutes ago, Ross was inside clueless. To keep Cam from having to tell Ross, I told him. I think he expected to see a little small dent. When he saw the real damage, he went nuts. And I do mean nuts. My boys are big. And they yell. And they yell loud. And they say mean stuff to each other. But they don't cuss. In fact, one day -- even today a little bit -- I'm going to laugh at the stuff they say when they're mad at each other. Cam admitted that he just wasn't paying attention. Ross was brutal though. But then Cam brought out his big guns and started bringing up the two wrecks Ross had in '06 when he totaled out the two cars in three months. It was ugly, girls, So very ugly. I called Jeff at work and broke the bad news and begged him to come on home. Which he did.

I remember the days when these were my boys and these were their means of transportation.

Life for me was so much simpler and so sweet then. Honestly, I knew it was good and I knew it was precious, and I loved every minute of it. I know now that I was a very, very good mother to those two little boys. And it wasn't easy, believe me. There have been many times I've asked God what in the world he could've been thinking giving me -- a prissy, OCD clean freak -- such rough neck, dirty boys instead of ponytail, Mary Jane-wearing little girls.


That was then and this is now. And the reality is that I have almost 21-year-old and almost 17-year-old young men. I love them more than life itself. I'm prouder of them every day. They don't always make me happy. Sometimes I could wring their necks. And they are trying their darndest to break their dad and me with this car stuff. But yesterday, when Ross apologized to Cam for being so upset and saying such mean things, I couldn't have been prouder of him. I wouldn't trade my two grizzly boys for a thousand prissy girls.

The upside is that I still (knock on wood) remain the ONLY ONE IN MY HOUSE WHO HASN'T GOTTEN A TICKET OR HAD AN ACCIDENT IN AT LEAST FIVE YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I'm not bragging or anything, but it's just that my boys tease me that I don't drive very well and they especially tease me because I'm not the best at backing out. Well, I'll bet Cam won't tease me about that anymore.

Jeff and I moped and moped and moped some more. We shed a few tears of pure frustration. It really was an awful, awful afternoon. But true to our personalities, we didn't let it keep us down for long. Life is too short not to make lemonade out your lemons. We didn't go out, but rather made turkey sandwiches and ate by the pool.

Mercifully, the 10 million mosquitoes left us alone.
Till tomorrow, have a great weekend. I pray that I will.