Dad’s B-day

Well I made it through another one of your dad’s birthdays, how old is he this year? 33 I am sort of used to not seeing him or having much to do with him on his birthday anyway. I remember one year that your dad had a huge party, I think it was his 26th birthday, he invited everyone I mean everyone he knew was there except for me and your grandpa. We stayed home with our hearts hurting. But I have a lot of memories of your dads birthday parties as he grew up, some were better than others, but most are really really good. 

The Ninja turtle birthday party that was the best one ever! Your dad had huge eyes watching the turtle, his dream came true for sure that day, it was his 5th b-day. When your dad was 3 he wanted to go down to the sewer to live with the turtles. It took me a lot of talking to him to get him knowing that the turtles were teenagers and you had to be at least 13 yrs old to go live in the sewer with them.

There were many, many other parties for him a lot of family ones when we would go to the buffet he loved to eat at or the miniature golf course, we even took him to Disney on ice (he hated that one) but we always tried to give the best parties that he would remember forever. I hope he gives you some fun and memorable parties with your family and friends.

Always and Forever

Grandma Jayme

Daycare

When your dad was 3 close to 4 years old I decided to get a job and go back to work. Your dad hadn’t been sick and he wasn’t screaming as much anymore so I thought it was time. Your dad was happy the first day being left at daycare, he had a good time playing with all the kids.

I will never forget the second day I left your dad at daycare. As I was leaving the the daycare your dad literally jumped down three stairs and into the middle of a huge room. You see your dad had spent every day with me and I had held him for his first two years almost all the time because he was so sick. Your dad had many ear infections and then when he was about three he had pneumonia twice back to back. He was a sick little boy for a while.

My heart sank as I had to turn around and walk out the door. I so much wanted to grab your dad hold him in my arms and make him feel better. I had to go to work though. I was a single mom and had to support my kids. I worried about your dad all day long,  being left at daycare was harder on your dad than it was on his sisters. Alyssa was too young to know that I wasn’t there all day and Desi was already 8 yrs old so she was at school most of the day.

He started to fit into the daycare pretty good after a while and even liked it. The reason he started liking it so much is because the daycare got a video game controller. Your dad was an instant pro at playing the games. He could win even the oldest of the kids at the daycare and they got upset about it. No other four year old was able to play the video games except for your dad because he could actually play the game the right way.

That year for Christmas I saved and saved to get him his own video controller with his favorite Mario game. He would have spent the whole day playing that game if I had let him. He hated that he had to share the game with his sister Desi. Your dad could play for ten minutes (just like at daycare) and then Desi could play for ten minutes. Desi was more interested in reading her books though and got tired of the video games so your dad could play it all himself most of the time.

Forever and always

Grandma Jayme

Happy 4th b-day

Oh wow another year has gone by! You must be getting soooo very big. Next year you’ll start kindergarten. The time has gone by fast but also slowly.

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday dear Vash

Happy birthday to you

Thank goodness you can’t hear that. I can’t keep a tune for anything! I want you to know that if I could be there I would. I love you with all my heart and soul. We had a special connection to each other.

When your dad was about 4 yrs old he was jealous of his sister Desi because she had a two wheeled bike. He was always trying to push her off of it. He had a brand new tricycle but he wanted the big bike to ride, he was way too small to ride the bigger bike and he couldn’t even peddle his tricycle.

I made your dad a promise that if he would learn to peddle his bicycle I would buy him a two wheeler. I had found somewhere that sold a two wheeler just his size. I told him he had to learn how to peddle and peddle for a month and then I would buy him the nice little blue two wheeler. 

That promise was all it took to get your dad peddling his tricycle instead of pushing it along with his feet. Within a week he started peddling and then he practiced peddling faster and faster. As promised at the beginning of the next month I bought him his big boy bike. He had to use training wheels to ride it but he was so happy. I can still see the smile on his face as he rode the bike around the circle we lived on. 

About six months after your dad got his bike he wanted to ride it without training wheels, it was more challenging to teach him that then it was to teach him how to peddle. I spent quite a bit of time running behind his bike keeping your dad upright until he could balance enough to ride the bike himself, he got a few scrapes and bruises because he was always telling me to let go, but before he knew it he was riding like he’d been riding a two wheel bike forever. When your dad puts his mind to it he can do anything he wants.

I love you
Always and Forever
Grandma Jayme

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Hi baby boy, its a new year and another that we won’t see each other. But let that not stop me from telling you about your dad and the fun we all had as a family while he was growing up.

In Chinese astrology you are the Monkey. That is funny because I always called your dad my little monkey because he was just always so upbeat and happy and mischievous.

First Christmas. This was never my favorite holiday at all. We woke up the kids got to open presents and look at what Santa brought them for being good, and they were always good kids. Then we had to get the kids ready and go visiting everyone. I would’ve loved just to stay home relax and let the kids play with their toys all day long. The good part was is that I always had the kids on A track so that they had a long winter vacation and had enough time to play with their bikes, computers, game boxes, etc. before they had to go back to school. Grandpa also had the time off of work so it was a fun family time for all of us.

New Years Eve was what I would’ve liked Christmas to be. We would wake up and have a special breakfast, eat dinner and then break out the games! We played UNO, Monopoly, and Risk and more through the night. We had special snacks to snack on all the with music blaring in the background. We had a very noisy household (noisy all the time extra noisy on NYE). As it got closer to midnight everyone would get a bit grouchy but never the less we pushed on until midnight! We had special glass wine glasses for the chime of midnight. At midnight we broke open a bottle of Martinellie’s apple non alcoholic champagne and toasted to the new year. Your dad loved it and would grace us all with his beautiful smile (I don’t think he smiles as much anymore, he used to smile all the time, it brightened up the whole room).

Then off to do fireworks. Your dad got to light the fireworks, when he got old enough, it was one of his favorite things to do. After he got the wick going good he would run back and watch with anticipation on his face to see what that one would look like. He loved fireworks. One year for New Years, when we lived in Delta we drove 4 hours, 2 hours one way and 2 hours the other, to get fireworks. I wasn’t going to buy fireworks that year but the look on your dads fallen face when I said that made my heart hurt so off we went to go buy some fireworks, his smile was always worth it.

You are in my heart. I love you Vash.
Always and Forever
Grandma Jayme

Thanksgiving

Hi Vash, I missed you last month. Part of the reason is that my internet sucks and most of the time I can’t get online. The other reason is it was just too hard for me with you and your dad out of my life. My thankfulness is that I got to hold you and love you for 5 whole months. I cherish that time that we had together.

We had a good Thanksgiving this year. It was also your aunt Alyssa’s birthday her birthday falls on Thanksgiving once every eight or ten years and its always fun to combine the feast with the presents and celebrating your aunt.

When Alyssa was little your father would prank her all the time doing things like peeing in the coffee pot in Alyssa’s kitchen set or stabbing holes in her water baby. We had to buy Alyssa about 5 water babies. Time out did not deter your dad from putting holes in the water baby.

Your aunt Alyssa is the best person and she loves you so, so much. She misses you so much that she can’t even talk about you, it hurts her too badly, but she remembers you and the love you shared.

When your dad was little up until he was 6 or 7 we always had Thanksgiving at our house so it was a busy day of cooking, I always wanted the food to be fresh that day so I cooked all the food on Thanksgiving for everyone. It was fun to have the whole family over even if it was hectic.

The day after Thanksgiving was always the best for your dad and our family though. We would spend the day eating left overs, always a turkey sandwich, does you dad still do that? In between eating we would have family games and movies. When we had family movies we would all crawl up into mine and grandpa’s bed snuggle and watch the movie, it was great.

I love those memories I can see your dad smiling that bright shiny smile he had it always reached up into his eyes, he was always so happy when he was little, smiling and joking, he was fun to have around.

Well Vash I have to go for now. I owe you one more for this month I will think about some Christmas things we did.

Always and Forever
Grandma Jayme

Halloween

It’s probably getting really cold where you are, we are still running our air conditioner, it’s pretty hot here not as hot as summer though we are in the upper 80 degrees instead of the 115 degrees we were for summer.

Halloween was always a favorite holiday of ours. I took your dad, his sisters, and brother out every year no matter the weather and there were some awful cold Halloween’s that we had. We had some good neighborhoods to go to that gave out big candies, not just those little sample ones.

Our house was always decorated for Halloween with lights, pumpkins, crafts that the kids and I did together, it was always a big event for us. 

All through the month of October we would name our food scary things like bloody worms, witches hair, silly things like that.

Our other thing through the month of October was to watch all the Halloween movies like Halloween Town, Hocus Pocus, Casper and a bunch more and all the Halloween specials of the kids’ favorite tv shows.

On top of that on Halloween we would eat dinner (a dinner that we all made up and named silly things) and go out to trick or treat. Then we would go home and have hot chocolate that I had made for them, listen to Halloween music, and go through the candy to make sure it was ok to eat. 

One of your dad’s favorites about Halloween, not the candy and yes he loved his candy, was the Halloween parade at school. He liked being something different every year when he was your age he was a little bat.

Your dad’s grandma made their Halloween costumes every year. It was hard because and your dad along with his sister’s and brother had to learn that once you choose what you want to be that year you can’t change it. They always had to choose what they wanted to be for Halloween a few months before so that grandma had a chance to sew their costumes for them.

Well Vash that was a pretty long one. This is not my best writing, just little stories for you so that you know how it was for your dad while he was growing up. I hope that you find this blog someday and know that you are loved and so is your dad.

Always and Forever

Grandma Jayme

Autumn

Autumn is one of my favorite times of year. I love the cooler weather, vibrant colors, and the sound of leaves rustling around outside.

Remember I told you that your dad used to collect treasures when he went to visit his grandma? Well when he went to visit his aunt Jodi he loved playing with the snails. He would spend hours collecting snails and building little places for the snails to live and just watching them.

The hardest part of his snail collecting was leaving the snails behind when we left aunt Jodi’s. He never could understand why he couldn’t take them with him. I just told him that like aunt Jodi we leave them behind and they wait for us until we go visit again.

Below is a picture of your dad when he was four years old.