Tag: Melvin

Two birthdays

By Abigail

On April 22, 2012

In Family, pictures

This past Wednesday my nephew turned 1.

Today my dad turned 74.

Seventy. Four.

In celebration of both their birthdays we all met downtown at Lincoln Park Zoo.

We ate lunch, saw animals, acted like animals…

turned into super heroes….

And basked in the glory of the brisk spring weather and each others company.

My dad’s birthdays are always kind of hard on me mentally, especially since he had his stroke last year. I love him so incredibly much and it’s hard for me to accept the fact that he’s getting older. It’s hard for me to not view each birthday as one step closer to losing him.

I hate that those thoughts creep in. Birthdays are supposed to be happy. They are supposed to be a celebration of life. It’s easy to celebrate life when that life is so fresh. My nephew is such a sharp contrast, just turning one. He has so much life ahead of him and it’s exciting to imagine what it will be like.

It’s harder to purely celebrate when you know the life has more years behind it than in front. I don’t want to think like that but it hangs over me like a shadow.

Today, instead of letting those thoughts consume me, I fought to stay in the moment. Because today had so many special moments. Maybe made even more special because of the bitter-sweetness in them.

I will not let the fear of the future spoil the potential happiness I have today. Today I celebrate my dad. My funny, stubborn, loving, outgoing, wonderful dad.

A real boy

By Abigail

On September 19, 2011

In Family, pictures, thoughts

This past weekend I was at my sister’s with Joel babysitting her three kiddos. My nephews are Anthony 4, Jordan 3 and Devin (but we call him Diggy) 5 months and they are seriously the sweetest kids ever.

Here are a couple snippets from the weekend:

—

Jordan– Uncle Joel, you don’t live here.

Joel– Well for the weekend we do.

Jordan– Yeah but you don’t live here regularly. (side note, seriously he used the word regularly. He’s 3! Cracked me up)

Joel– Would you like it if we lived here regularly?

At the same time: Anthony–Yes! Jordan– No!

Anthony– But Jordan, then they’d be here all the time.

Jordan– But that would just be silly.

—-

They were watching a super hero move and one of the previews was for Harry Potter.

Anthony – I like Harry Potter. Is he real?

Me– No he’s a character on TV just like Superman.

He seemed disappointed but got lost in the movie and didn’t say anything else about it. Later my sister Anna (16) was over and she was talking with Anthony. He was obviously being super cute and so she said,

You’re so cute, Anthony. You should be on TV.

Anthony’s eyes got really big and sad. He took a deep breath and said,

But…. I want to be real.
——

I was so pleased with how the day went. I thought it was going to be the whole weekend. My brother-in-law was having some health issues and we thought he would need to be in the hospital all weekend. Thankfully the issues turned out not to be as serious as originally thought and they didn’t even have to stay over night.

It was going to be kind of fun and interesting though. Going from a blissfully child-free couple to two toddlers and an infant? For a whole weekend? Including over night? Bam!

I was shocked at how stress free it was though. Yeah I was tired at the end of the day but those kids are so freaking well behaved. The most annoying part of the day was heating up bottles every time Diggy needed to eat. And that was not that big a deal. At all.

The only thing I’m worried about now is I won’t be able to live up to this high standard of adorableness my sister’s kids have set. I’m just the tiniest bit concerned that I’m going to end up raising a herd of monster children.

Maybe I’ll just convince my sister to move in next door. Between her and their older boy cousins they ought to stay in line. Or at least their cousins will teach them how to be ridiculously adorable and I won’t notice the monstrous behavior as much.

Wordless Wednesdays: Start of Autumn

By Abigail

On September 15, 2010

In pictures

Pizza instead of cake

By Abigail

On August 7, 2010

In events, Family, pictures, thoughts

My sister turned 20 the other day so today we had her over for a mini birthday celebration. We hung out together and cooked (!) while the boys took advantage of the indoor basketball court. I actually had such a great time cooking. Normally it’s pretty boring for me which is why I don’t do it as often as I should. Between all the chatting and laughing we didn’t have time to feel bored at all. Guess I need to work on getting a sister wife to move in with us.

The domesticating was followed by a quicker than planned dip in the pool. We would have stayed longer but it was too cold for us girls to jump in so we were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. I guess that’s what we get for being wussy about the cold, huh? The boy had an absolute blast though.

Anthony didn’t like actually swimming. However, he inched his way along the entire circumference of the pool and thought it was the best thing ever. Silly buddy.

Be still my heart. Seriously, this picture makes me swoon. He’s going to be an amazing daddy someday. For now, he’s the world’s best uncle.

After we tired the boys out and donated at least a pint of blood to the local mosquito population we headed back inside for dessert. A traditional birthday celebration would have cake but my family rarely does anything the normal way. Naomi requested my fruit pizza. Who am I to say no? Especially when it’s to something so delicious.

Beautiful birthday girl and the birthday pizza.

Naomi with her men. I think the boys were kind of cheesed out by this point. They just wanted to nom on the pizza.Who can blame them?

It wasn’t anything fancy but it was full of lots of laugh and love. Being part of a huge family is the best because it never goes too long before there’s another birthday to celebrate. Any excuse to get together and eat yummy food? I’ll take it.