Jason's Untimely Thoughts

Went to the pool with Adelaide and Jack on Sunday.  A friend of Adelaide’s showed up, they were excited to see each other.  She swims over to Adelaide and says “Hi Adelaide, I’m sorry your mom died.”  Adelaide handled it very well, but it almost sunk me.  The friend was very very sweet about it, just wasn’t at all what I was expecting to hear.  And then I was nervous about how Adelaide would react (she didn’t, basically).

Like most of my ‘thoughts’ posted here, including the “How Are You?” bit below, I don’t write it hoping or wanting to change anyone’s behavior, just glimpses of what’s going on that strike me as interesting, noteworthy, or that I need to type about so I can move on.  Somehow it had never dawned on me that everyone else we know and are close to that has children will have had many conversations about all this too.

Yesterday Jack told Christa that mommy wasn’t here, she was “at the doctor’s”.  He told me the same thing this morning, “She’s at the doctor’s.  Her belly hurt and they’re fixing her belly.”  Tears from me, while I ask him if he remembers that there were problems and she’s not coming back, that mommy had died.  “Do you remember the party we had for her?”

“Yes,” he says.  “Mommy’s not going to dance on that stage.  She’s not going to wake up either.”  Then he went back to telling me about his toy from Kung Fu Panda.  I sure wish she would dance on that stage.

I started e-mailing the mass updates because I couldn’t remember what I had told to whom.  A little bit of the same thing going on now, it seems.

So anyone that’s interested has a chance to read it, the kids’ schedule appears to be all set.  I’ve hired a girl (lady, kid, whatever) to stay at the house when the kids aren’t in school.  I chose to do that to provide some stability and a chance to just chill at the house for the kids whenever needed.  I’m still hopeful (and assuming) that people will steal the kids from time to time.

Sarah’s (our) friend Christa and her daughter Eve have been in town for about a week, staying a while longer.  They have been a huge help in entertaining the kiddos and keeping me sane.

The kids are going to visit Malden again this weekend.  I was looking at the calendar trying to find a weekend later on for that to happen, so they could see family down there again (and family could see them) and one more dip in the pool before it closed, only to discover that this weekend was pretty much the last chance.  Birthday parties, football, school, football, and birthday parties take up the majority of the remaining weekends between now and Christmas.

Speaking of football, the Tigers are ranked #7 in the USA Today Coaches poll, #4 by Sports Illustrated, and are #1 in our hearts.  Here’s visual proof of one of those.

Mizzou SI Cover -- 8-11-2008