The great Lego takeover

Lego building has provided all four of us with hours and hours of entertainment.  The little bricks are mostly contained every night, thanks to the Lego storage organizer, in the shape of a minifigure head.  Naturally.  Drake will sit with the instructions for a kit and build it solo.  He rarely needs our assistance.  He builds lots form his own imagination: food replicators, machines, the Death Star, Mos Eisley Cantina.  I have yet to step on one (knock on wood).

Photo credits: Flynn

Photo credits: Drake

Photo credits: Me

Turns out, Duplos and Legos can mix

Over the shoulder

I am a notorious eavesdropper.  I can't help it.  I also have a nasty habit of reading over the shoulders of other people.  I glance at the words on the pages of people sitting next to me.  Again, I can't help it.  I don't know why I have this compulsion.

I was sitting at the high counter at Starbucks the other day.  I was reading and minding my own business, when a young man sat at the table outside (directly in front of me).  Because I was sitting much higher than he, I could see what he was doing.  Because the glass was tinted, he couldn't see that I was watching him write a letter.

"Dear Mom,
First, I want to tell you that I love you, and I have been trying for weeks to find the right words to tell you..."

Water dripped onto the paper; I don't know if it was the rain dripping from his hair or tears from his eyes.  He had scratched out a few words.  His penmanship was shaky.

I'll never know what the rest of the letter entailed.  I stopped reading, packed up my things, and left.  He deserved his privacy.

Artsy-Fartsy

Instagram finally created an app for the Andriod.  Yippie!  Now, I can pretend to be artistic, visually.  Mostly, I am taking pretty pictures of the flowers in my yard.

Flynn, letting me know
which finger is still bleeding

My muse

Why?

Didn't I wear these in junior high?  I know fashion trends cycle, but this is one that should have stayed in the '80s.

The rules of the Y (according to Flynn)

1. No wearing jammies at the Y.
2. No coats or shoes at open family gym.
3. No going naked to the Y.

Dealing with today

Today would have been Grandma Maria's 85th birthday.  I miss her ever so much.  The grief continues to sneak up on me.  I spent quite a bit of time in the morning in tears, either fully flowing or stifled.  I managed to compose myself by the time I took the boys to church.

During the Peace portion of the mass, the woman sitting next to me went over to members of the choir.  Lots of hugging and sad faces.  When she returned to the pew, I noticed she was crying.  I put my arm around her and asked if she was OK.  Her response: no.  A friend of hers, a long-standing member of the choir, woke up Friday morning with a headache, had brain surgery by 3 pm that day, and passed away this very morning.  She also told me that her own mother has passed away recently.  There's not much to say, so I just rubbed her back.  After mass, she thanked me for being so kind and hoped she didn't scare Drake.  "Sometimes, kids are scared when they see adults crying."  I wanted to tell her that Drake had been watching me cry all morning, but it seemed wrong to make it about me.

Both boys accompanied me to the cemetery with flowers in hand.  Flynn was more interested in climbing rocks, but Drake was curious about the whole situation.  He remembers Maria, and wanted to visit where she was "in the ground."  I have spent much of the day answering Drake's questions about life, death, God and heaven.  I hope I explained things in a satisfactory manner.  It was almost easier when he didn't fully understand and didn't ask so many complex questions.  "If heaven's higher than the clouds, then wouldn't it be in outer space?"  Um... good point.

We all are dealing with some sort of loss.  Some losses are long in the past.  Some are fresh.  But, we are all dealing with one.  Maybe we should all be a little nicer to each other, knowing that everyone carries some sort of pain.