Recent Events

Dear Kim, I'm writing to you, well me actually. I'm writing here just to remind you of some of the recent events, good and bad. Last week Aunt Bernice died. It was a rough experience. Gram walked into her apartment and found her dead in her bed. I couldn't imagine what she was going through and may still be going through now. I was upset because Aunt Barb asked me two weeks prior to her death not to take Aunt Bernice out because her children wouldn't approve. There was a lot of drama with them and not wanting us to "interfere". I felt guilty for not taking her out because that was one of the last conversations I ever had with her. I feel like I should have disregarded Aunt Barb's warnings and done what was right.. treated my Aunt Bernice as someone I loved and cared for. The realization of going to see gram at her building not not seeing Aunt Bernice was difficult to say the least. Seeing Aunt Bernice there with my gram was just common-place. It'll take some adjustments but it'll work out. When I saw Aunt Bernice in the casket, it was difficult. She didn't look like herself. She looked more like herself when I saw her in her bed that day she died. In the casket though, her hair was brushed back rather than curled. They had plucked her moustache hairs and eyebrows. She didn't have any lipstick on. She wasn't my Aunt Bernice then. I couldn't stop looking at her and in turn could not stop crying. The day after the funeral was still hard, but by the end of the work day my mood had improved like something magical overtook me within an hour. It was truly amazing. I loved Aunt Bernice as if she were blood and I will always remember he strength and zest for life. Today I took Jacob to a local festival at St. Thomas Moore. He had been talking all year round about when the festivals were coming to town. Instead of riding all the rides he would normally ride, he freaked out and only went on four of them. I went down the giant slide with him. I'm scared of heights and get motion sick so this probably wasn't the best idea.. but anything for my boy. We started down the slide and I began screaming, oblivious to the little lump of 4-year old on my lap. I was grabbing onto the side of the slide, pressing my feet onto the burlap sack just trying to get it to slow down. My dad was with us and took a picture just before we got to the bottom. I'm screaming and turning sideways on the slide while Jacob is looking terrified. Being that I was the biggest and heaviest of the three slide riders at the time, I built up a little more momentum and plowed down two children at the base of the slide. When we got home later, Jacob and I made snow cones with our new snow cone machine. Then we went outside and I began to teach him a different way to learn to ride his "two-wheeler." A few weeks ago he asked me to take off his training wheels so he could ride a two-wheeler. I agreed, thought it might be a little too soon, but figured we'd try. It didn't go too well. He was more intent on staring at all the wonderous things around him than paying attention to balance and steering. So today, I put one of the training wheels back on. I walked with him as he pedaled. After a few minutes of back and forth on the sidewalk, he picked it up rather quickly. As long as he didn't turn around to talk to me while riding, he stayed upright. Much of the time he rode on the two main wheels only resting on the training wheel occasionally. I really was so very proud of him. It took a lot of encouragement to get him to keep trying: "You're doing so good! I'm so proud of you! Look at you go! Give me a hug! You're getting so big!" He ate that stuff up. So I'm thinking that maybe a couple more sessions of riding like this and I'll be able to take off that last training wheel and see how we do. Well, it's time to get to bed now as it's 12:52 and I'm going to Reunion in the morning. I hope you're doing well and getting more sleep now that you did a year ago. Love, Kim